The Hand That Rocks the Cradle: The Murder of Bobbie Jo Stinnett
Twenty-three-year-old Bobbie Jo Stinnett had a long day ahead of her on Thursday, December 16, 2004. Eight months pregnant with her first child, she was busy tying up loose ends in anticipation of the big event. A go-getter who didn’t let the grass grow under her feet, in addition to working full-time at the Kawasaki Motors Manufacturing Corporation in Maryville, Missouri, she bred and sold rat terriers in her spare time. With a new litter available for adoption, she was expecting a potential buyer later that afternoon. Wary of inviting strangers into her home, she had told several people about the meeting, including her husband and mother.
Bobbie Jo and her fellow dog enthusiast, who had introduced herself as Darlene Fischer, had connected through Ratter Chatter, an online group dedicated to rat terriers and the people who loved them. The pair had quickly learned that they had something in common besides their mutual admiration for the breed: both were in the later stages of pregnancy.
After getting to know each other in the Ratter Chatter forum, Darlene had showed an interest in driving from her home in Fairfax, Missouri, to Bobbie Jo’s place in Skidmore to pick out a puppy. The meeting was set for 12:30 p.m. on December 16.
After arriving right on schedule, Darlene had spent two hours playing with the puppies and enjoying an easy conversation with her hostess. At 2:30 p.m., Bobbie Jo’s mother Becky had phoned saying she needed a ride home from work in an hour. She would later recall that her daughter had seemed calm and had shown no signs of distress.
When Bobbie Jo failed to pick her mother up as promised, she had called the house, but no one answered. Her intuition kicking in, she had walked to her daughter’s place to make sure everything was alright.
When Becky entered the house, she found her daughter lying prone on the floor in a pool of blood. In a panic, she called 911 and told the dispatcher that it looked as though Bobbie Jo’s abdomen had “exploded.”
Paramedics arrived a short time later, but it was too late to save Bobbie Jo. The coroner would determine that she had been strangled and stabbed multiple times. Her killer had then removed the fetus as the mother lay dying.
At 5:15 p.m., as police in Skidmore, Missouri, were launching an investigation into the murder of Bobbie Jo Stinnett and the presumed kidnapping of her prematurely delivered baby, Kansas resident Lisa Montgomery, aka Darlene Fischer, called her husband Kevin to give him the joyous news that he was a dad. She had gone on to say that she had given birth to a healthy baby girl at a clinic in Topeka earlier that afternoon. Thrilled with the news, he hadn’t questioned why his thirty-six-year-old wife was in a car on her way home instead of recuperating in the hospital. As was his habit, he had taken everything she said at face value.
On December 17, the day after the murder, a surprisingly healthy Lisa Montgomery was showing her newborn daughter Abigail off all around her hometown of Melvern, Kansas. As she breezed in and out of shops without a care in the world, she didn’t realize that the fantasy she was living was about to come to an abrupt end.
After scouring Bobbie Jo’s emails, detectives noticed that the name Darlene Fischer monopolized most of the recent correspondence. Their interest was further piqued when they saw that pregnancy seemed to be the focus of most of the exchanges. When the IP address was traced, it led them to the home of Kevin and Lisa Montgomery.
When investigators showed up at the address in Melvern, a clueless Kevin had invited them in. He had then led them to the living room, where his wife was watching television with their newborn daughter.
Rather than being rattled by the intrusion, Lisa had been as cool as a cucumber. When asked to lead detectives through the events of the previous day, she recounted going into labor while out Christmas shopping. Driving herself to the nearest birthing clinic, she had delivered Abigail and checked herself out. Determined to hold onto the lie, she had ordered Kevin to go out to the truck and fetch the discharge papers. After searching high and low and finding no such documents, he returned emptyhanded.
After taking possession of the baby, detectives led Lisa outside. When she was out of earshot of her husband, she admitted that she had actually given birth at home. She had made up the story about the birthing center so Kevin wouldn’t worry. Seemingly incapable of quitting while she was ahead, she added that she hadn’t been alone; two of her best friends had been by her side, walking her through the process.
When detectives asked for the names of the friends, Lisa had backtracked. She explained that they hadn’t been present for the birth per se, but had made themselves available by phone in case she ran into trouble. Though they had lent moral support, she couldn’t for the life of her recall their names.
According to Lisa, she had delivered Abigail on the kitchen floor. Later on, she had taken the afterbirth and thrown it in a nearby creek. This was yet another detail that had done nothing to lend credence to her claims, and yet she couldn’t seem to stop herself from adding blatant falsehoods to bolster her account.
In an effort to leave no stone unturned, officers had contacted the Birth and Woman’s Center in Topeka. No records of Lisa Montgomery or Darlene Fischer could be found.
Convinced that Lisa Montgomery had killed Bobbie Jo Stinnett and stolen her baby, detectives took her to the sheriff’s office for further questioning. Abigail was placed in protective custody until DNA tests could confirm her identity.
By the time December 17 came to a close, Lisa Montgomery had confessed to using the ruse of wanting to adopt a puppy to gain the trust of Bobbie Jo Stinnett. What she really wanted was a baby and time was running out.
The story Lisa told was as convoluted as they get. Born with fetal alcohol syndrome, she had a troubled childhood plagued with physical and sexual abuse. At the age of eighteen, she had married her stepbrother. The pair would go on to have four children together in the span of three years. Following the birth of their fourth child, her husband had insisted that she have her tubes tied. She enjoyed being pregnant and didn’t want the procedure but, according to her, had been given no choice in the matter.
In the coming years, Lisa would experience several false pregnancies in which her belly would swell up and she would go through the motions of an impending birth. Tiring of her histrionics, her husband had filed for divorce in 1998.
When Lisa and Kevin wed in 2000, she had neglected to inform him about the tubal ligation. From early on in their relationship, she would tell him she was pregnant, even insisting at one point that he pay for an abortion, which he did. Throughout her steady stream of pregnancies, Lisa forbade Kevin from accompanying her to doctor’s appointments or being involved in any way. His job was to provide financial support and that was all.
Despite her many pregnancies, no babies were forthcoming. When her due dates came and went, she would tell Kevin that the babies were stillborn, and that she had chosen to donate the bodies to science.
In 2004, Lisa told Kevin she was pregnant yet again. This time, however, she was determined to see it through to the end. Formulating a plan that she believed was foolproof, she had befriended Bobbie Jo, who was only weeks away from giving birth. Since Lisa had told everyone that she was having a Christmas baby, which was when her victim’s baby was due, the scheme was hellishly perfect.
Having never been in the presence of pure evil, Bobbie Jo had no reason to suspect that Lisa, whom she knew as Darlene, was lying to her about everything. She didn’t live in Missouri and never had. She had driven eighty miles from her home in Kansas on the day of the murder. With her ‘due date’ fast approaching, she needed a baby, and December 16 was the day she was going to make it happen.
Lisa recalled that she had brought rope and a knife with her in preparation for what was to come. When an unsuspecting Bobbie Jo turned her back for a moment, she had pounced, wrapping the rope around her neck and pulling it tight.
After Bobbie Jo passed out, Lisa pulled out the knife and sliced into her abdomen. Jolted awake by the sharp pain, Bobbie Jo had fought for her life. Unfortunately, Lisa had quickly gotten the upper hand. In the moments that followed, she had stabbed the young mother-to-be until she stopped moving. Knowing that time was of the essence, she had then excised the baby from her mother’s womb, wrapped her in a towel and fled the scene.
Though Lisa would never admit it, her ex-husband and his new wife suspected that she had other motives besides wanting to give Kevin a child. Concerned for the well-being of his minor children, he was in the process of suing her for custody at the time of the murder. Unlike her current husband, he knew that she could no longer get pregnant and had threatened to expose her lies. Rather than conceding, she had sworn to him that there would be a baby, he just needed to wait and see. Confident that showing up at the hearing with an infant in her arms would win her favor with the family court judge, she had viewed Bobbie Jo’s baby as her ace in the hole.
Once DNA tests confirmed that the baby was the biological offspring of Bobby Jo Sinnett and her husband, Lisa was formally charged with kidnapping resulting in death. Since she had moved the baby across state lines, this was a federal offense, making her eligible for the death penalty.
At trial, Lisa’s defense team painted her as a mentally damaged woman whose obsession with pregnancy had driven her over the edge. When their tactics weren’t swaying the jury, they tried to place the blame on one of her brothers. When he was able to provide an ironclad alibi, that desperate bit of legal maneuvering fell through.
On October 22, 2007, the jury found Lisa Montgomery guilty as charged. Four days later, they recommended that she be put to death for her crimes. A judge agreed, imposing the death sentence on April 4, 2008.
During the appeals process, Lisa’s defense team argued that she shouldn’t have been charged with kidnapping resulting in death, since the baby wasn’t technically born when her mother died. They believed that the offense was actually death resulting in kidnapping. In the end, the appellate court ruled that the word salad amounted to the same thing. Lisa Montgomery killed Bobbie Jo Stinnett to gain possession of her fetus. It was a kidnapping born of murder and that was final.
On January 13, 2021, fifty-two-year-old Lisa Montgomery was executed by lethal injection at the United States Penitentiary in Indiana. When asked if she had any last words, she chose to remain silent. She offered no apologies to the family of Bobbie Jo Stinnett.
Bobbie Jo’s baby, Victoria, was raised by her father at an undisclosed location. Understandably, neither he nor his daughter ever spent another day in the house in Skidmore where the murder occurred. The structure has been vacant for decades, a sad reminder of a time long ago when a young family’s hopes and dreams were shattered in a horrific act of violence.
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Resources:
·bbc.com
·news-leader.com
·kshb.com
·wiki.com
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