Posted on 12/17/2004 7:47:54 PM PST by BushFaninATL
MARYVILLE, Mo. - Authorities Friday arrested a woman they allege came to the home of an eight-months-pregnant woman — purportedly to buy a dog — then strangled her and cut the baby from her womb. Authorities found the abducted infant in good health, ending a day of frantic searching.
AP Photo
AP Photo Slideshow: Baby Taken from Slain Mother's Body
Police Find Baby That May be Child of Slain Mom (AP Video)
According to a criminal complaint, Lisa M. Montgomery admitted she strangled Bobbie Jo Stinnett and took her baby. The complaint also said Montgomery lied to her husband about giving birth, although U.S. Attorney Todd Graves declined to give a motive for the crime.
Stinnett's mother found the 23-year-old nearly dead Thursday in her home in the northwest Missouri town of Skidmore. Paramedics tried to revive her, but she was pronounced dead at a hospital.
The baby was found Friday in an eastern Kansas home; a red Honda hatchback matching a description offered earlier by police was in the driveway.
Although DNA tests were pending to confirm the baby's identity, authorities called off the Amber Alert issued for the child.
"We're confident we have the little girl that was taken from Skidmore," Nodaway County Sheriff Ben Espey said during a news conference in Maryville. An FBI (news - web sites) agent had said the father had already been reunited with the baby, but officials with the bureau and the Topeka, Kan., hospital where the baby was taken later said that was not the case.
Montgomery, 36, of Melvern, Kan., was charged with kidnapping resulting in death, Graves said. Montgomery, a mother of two, had been pregnant but lost a child, Graves said, though it was unclear when or under what circumstances.
Missouri State Highway Patrol Sgt. Sheldon Lyon said earlier in the day that authorities were questioning a man and a woman who were in the place where the baby was found. Graves said the investigation was ongoing but would not say if additional charges might be filed or if there was another suspect.
Graves said Montgomery contacted Stinnett through an online message board, and authorities zeroed in on her using computer forensics. Montgomery was seeking to buy a dog from Stinnett, who raised rat terriers, he said.
According to the criminal complaint, Montgomery's husband, Kevin, told officers he received a call Thursday from his wife, who said she was in Topeka, Kan., about 40 miles from Melvern, and had gone into labor and given birth.
Kevin Montgomery and the couple's two children met Lisa and the newborn at a parking lot in Topeka and drove home, according to the affidavit.
The victim's mother, Becky Harper, said her daughter called her about an hour before she found her, authorities said. She apparently hung up when someone showed up for an appointment to look at her dogs.
"Oh, they're here," Stinnett told her mother, according to the affidavit. "I've got to go."
Espey said there was no indication of forced entry into Stinnett's small white home in Skidmore, a community of about 500.
Espey said he believes Stinnett was strangled and resisted the attack.
"The autopsy is going to show us there was some blond hair probably found in her hands," the sheriff said.
A neighbor, Bill Dragoo, said Stinnett and her husband "didn't bother anybody. It blows my mind that this happened. She was such a shy person. They didn't deserve this."
Espey was frustrated that it took hours for a statewide Amber Alert to be issued. The mother was found around 3:30 p.m, and the Amber Alert didn't appear until nine hours later.
"We had a live baby, and I thought that should qualify as an Amber Alert," he said. "The information I was getting was that we didn't have enough information such as hair color, eye color, skin complexion, size and weight."
Stinnett, married for little more than a year and expecting her first child, worked at an engine factory in nearby Maryville. Her husband was at work at the time she was killed, authorities said.
Several pregnant women have been killed in recent years by attackers who then removed their fetuses, in some cases to pass the children off as their own.
In the most recent case, a 21-year-old woman was shot to death in Oklahoma in December 2003, allegedly by another woman who pretended the 6-month-old fetus was her child. The fetus died and prosecutors are seeking the death penalty
Since they oppose Connor's Law - which protects fetus from violent attacks - I assume that they will also be upset the Amber Alert was used on this "fetus".
"Gals"? Androgenous nazis do not fit the term.
One Charged With Killing Mom, Taking Baby
The news reports all used the phrase "fetus", police are looking for an eight month old fetus. AAAARRRGH!!! I hate that term.
An ABC radio newscast today referred to the baby as a fetus. These people are incredible.
In our dumbed-down, NEA public school 'culture', fetus sounds like a blob of some sort that magically turns into a baby right after his or her birth, if he or she is lucky enough to get that far.
The feminists would be very angry about this baby surviving the abortion. As far as the mother --- they're never very upset about women dying in abortions.
Actually, the sheriff was wrong. Once it is outside its mother, it has been born and is a child.
NOW Gals will have a lot of explanation to do on this one
1) If you consider it a "fetus", then do you believe the poice should not have tried to save it
2) If you believe it was a baby outside the womb, why wasn't it a baby INSIDE the womb?
3) Would you defend the accused since they did not kidnap a "baby" (in your definition)
This is such an upsetting story.
In the mouth of Christmas.
I can only rationalise this for myself by believing that the person who did it was insane.
Heartbreaking.
Look up the definition of fetus. Until it was removed from the body, it was technically a fetus. If the mom wanted to refer to it as a baby, fine. I agree with her. It was a baby, But it was also a fetus. Get it?
No one would have read the thread if they used the headline.
I like the headline that was used in the thread but of course your point is correct. Best format would be to use the actual headline as you suggest and then add comments in parentheses.
One Charged With Killing Mom, Taking Baby (Amber Alert on "fetus"?)
There's more anger over the wording than the actual crime. Unreal.
Yes. Unreal.
According to NOW this was nothing more than robbery. You can tell by the deafening silence.
Isn' "NOW Gals" an oxymoron? No pics, PLEASE!
I SURRRRRRE hope nobody tonight goes and posts the pic of those two GALS on Capitol Hill shouting their lungs out and exposing their underarm hair emanating from their fetid, dank armpits.
If this crime had to happen at all, it is better it happened in MO, where I think they still have a death penalty. Unlike Kansas where now the most savage vicious killers get their lives spared. Too bad their victims didn't get such appeals.
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