Murder in the Heartland (26 page)

T
he first public photograph of Victoria Jo Stinnett was released a few days before Christmas. MSNBC was airing a shot of Victoria Jo that it had sliced from a video clip it captured of Zeb Stinnett holding her. The child appeared to be healthy, and had no visible signs of her violent delivery. The scratches on her face, clear in the photographs taken by Lisa’s children, along with the bruises on her chin and right eyelid, had healed. Victoria Jo looked happy, peaceful, and quite spirited. Her cheeks were a rosy red, the color you’d expect to see on any healthy newborn. In another photograph, published later by the
New York Post
, Zeb was smiling, if only slightly. Given the circumstances surrounding the child’s birth, it was a lovely snapshot of a newborn and her proud father: two people ready to take on the world together. Here was Zeb, cradling his little bundle, taking delight in her.

Zeb told
Post
reporters, “It’s been rough. But I just look at Victoria Jo, pick her up, and that usually does it.”

Zeb said he was changing diapers, filling bottles with formula, getting up at all hours of the night, feeding and caring for “Tori Jo,” while on paternity leave from Kawasaki Motors. It was clear he was determined to give the child as much care as Bobbie Jo would have.

W
hen Lisa returned from the recruiting office and told Carl she was pregnant, Carl figured out the next juncture of his life rather easily.

“Let’s get married,” he said. He was overjoyed at the prospect of becoming a father.

Lisa smiled. “I’m so happy, Carl,” she said, running up and hugging him.

The wedding wasn’t elaborate, but it was a celebration with family and friends of the love Carl and Lisa shared and the triumph of bringing a new life into the world. Lisa wore white and made a beautiful bride, while Carl donned the traditional black tuxedo.

Next, with the apartment closing in on them, Carl began looking for a a bigger home. Within a few months, they moved to Hominy, Oklahoma, into a house Carl purchased from a colleague. Hominy was even closer to the prison. The house had three bedrooms. It seemed like the ideal situation.

“Lisa was elated at being pregnant and wore the weight well,” remembered Carl. She had no morning sickness. No back pain. No complications whatsoever.

More significantly, there was no doubt in anyone’s mind, as Lisa began gaining weight and showing, that she was pregnant. Her appearance during pregnancy would become a major issue later—after she married Kevin Montgomery and claimed to be pregnant several times.

“Like every pregnant woman, Lisa always had a glow,” said Carl. “There was never any doubt. It was always obvious.” (This comment contradicted a photograph taken of Lisa about four weeks before the government claimed she murdered Bobbie Jo Stinnett and kidnapped her child, when Lisa was telling people in Melvern she was eight months pregnant. In that photograph, taken by one of her children, Lisa wore a sweatshirt, had her hair pulled back and tied in a ponytail, but showed no obvious signs of being pregnant. One would expect a woman eight months pregnant to have a large bulge in her midsection, but it wasn’t there. Moreover, any “glow” Lisa displayed during every other actual pregnancy was missing. Her face was oval and emaciated.)

As the months moved forward in 1986, Lisa’s impatience about her due date wore on Carl. She mentioned she was interested in drinking castor oil, which, according to an old wives’ tale, would hasten the birthing process.

“You’re not doing that, Lisa,” Carl told her.

“I will, Carl Boman,” she said, smiling coyly, raising her eyebrows, “if I want to.”

Rebecca, an energetic, healthy baby, quite small, was born on January 11, 1987. Carl and Lisa were beside themselves with pride (“She’s gorgeous…look at her…”). It was as if Lisa had been put on the earth, just as she’d said, to be a mother. She did everything by the book: cleaned the house, kept up with the laundry, made dinner, and always made sure Rebecca was fed properly and had clean diapers. Carl was working nights and days at the prison then, so he depended on Lisa to take care of the home.

“I couldn’t have asked for a better wife or caretaker for my daughter.”

Perhaps even more important to Lisa’s life later on, during those early pregnancies, Lisa was adamant about going to the doctor, taking prenatal vitamins, encouraging Carl to touch her stomach when the baby moved, and allowing him to be involved in every aspect of the nine months she spent carrying the child.

About nine months after Rebecca was born, Lisa went to Carl and told him to sit down at the kitchen table.

“What is it?”

She smiled.

“Spit it out.”

“I’m pregnant, honey.” She put Carl’s hand on her stomach. “We’re going to have another baby.”

Lisa had never been more attractive. She had freckles and long brown hair that held a shine. She rarely wore glasses and had no trouble dropping the extra weight she put on while pregnant. On some days, Carl would arrive home and she would be waiting for him, all dolled up.

“Dinner is served,” she’d say, kissing him on the cheek.

Rebecca would be in her crib, happy, playing.

On the face of it, the perfect life Carl believed he was building with Lisa just kept getting better.

A
s the U.S. Attorney’s Office spoke with witnesses, studied “the mountain” of forensic evidence it had collected, and contemplated how it would go about prosecuting Lisa Montgomery, many close to Lisa questioned her behavior leading up to the day Bobbie Jo Stinnett was murdered. Most believed Lisa was smarter than the crime she was being accused of implied. The fact that she reportedly had left behind so much evidence at the crime scene was astonishing to some in her immediate circle of friends and family. In addition, she seemed to have made several overt mistakes leading up to the crime, which seemed entirely out of character. How could someone spend months planning a crime and ignore such obvious evidence left behind: strands of her hair, DNA, a litany of cyber evidence on her personal computer, and the simple, yet inculpating fact of having Bobbie Jo’s child in her arms when authorities knocked on her door?

One relative believed that to Lisa, the risk of getting caught was less important than the chance at proving everyone else wrong. “I think Lisa sincerely thought, before embarking on such a terrible crime, it was far better to get caught—if she did—than be labeled a confirmed liar and, essentially, ‘found out.’ So taking the chances she took and leaving behind so much evidence really made little difference to her. She never looked at it that way.”

In 1941, Dr. Hervey Cleckley published an important book,
The Mask of Sanity
, which became a pioneering study of the science of psychopathy as it applied to the criminal mind. Years later, Dr. Robert Hare wrote
Without Conscience,
a book, for the most part, looking at the “psychopath next door.” These experts theorized that any mind holds the potential capacity for psychopathic behavior, although not every human being is capable of flipping on those dark switches. In his book, Hare spoke with respect and admiration of Cleckley. Cleckley’s work was groundbreaking on several fronts; most notably, for the first time an expert had come forth and talked about insanity as a social problem affecting, perhaps, thousands of Americans who didn’t yet know it.

Through these books, antisocial disorder, a mental diagnosis that is often associated with high-profile criminals today, became part of mainstream American thought. Cleckley used case histories of patients to show, by example, how the mind of a mentally ill person worked in everyday situations; and his book has become a textbook for identifying the antisocial psychopath. Based on the work of both men, a checklist of sixteen characteristics of the sociopath emerged. Speaking of Cleckley’s work, in
Without Conscience
, Hare wrote, “Half a century ago Cleckley…warned us that our failure to acknowledge the psychopaths among us had already triggered a social crisis….”

The Hare-Cleckley sociopath checklist includes manipulation, superficial charm, pathological lying, shallow emotions, impulsive nature, as well as “glibness, grandiose sense of self, lack of remorse, shame or guilt, lack of empathy, early behavioral problems, and irresponsibility.” Although only a trained professional is qualified to make a proper diagnosis of Lisa Montgomery, clearly, she exhibited several characteristics on the Cleckley-Hare checklist, throughout her life—most notably, an “incapacity for love, promiscuous sexual behavior, lack of realistic life plan,” and an appearance of being charming, “yet [is] covertly hostile and domineering, seeing their victim as merely an instrument to be used.”

“Murder became her only option,” stated one relative, “and it was well within any boundaries she put up for her to go through with the crime to get what she wanted.”

The alias Lisa chose—Darlene Fischer—was an indication of how little thought went into the actual planning of the fictional person she created online. Darlene was the name of Lisa’s favorite aunt, the only member of her extended family who was speaking to her at the time she was arrested; and at one time, she worked with a woman whose last name was Fischer. What’s more, the message behind Fischer4kids was perhaps a subconscious desire on Lisa’s part to fish for and find a baby: fisher for kids.

There were other warnings. Word was, during the months leading up to Lisa’s arrest, she was looking to buy a child. Carl Boman and Lisa’s sisters heard from different sources Lisa was asking certain people where she could get a baby on the black market. That was why, Carl insisted, Lisa so desperately wanted his wife Vanessa’s $45,000 “inheritance.”

After Bobbie Jo’s murder, a woman posted a frightening note on an Internet message board Lisa frequented. She related that when she was eight months pregnant, Lisa communicated with her about her child and was still sending her e-mails right up until the time of Bobbie Jo’s murder. The woman had been terrified to learn of Bobbie Jo’s death, sensing Lisa had sought her out for the same purpose, but Lisa had abandoned the idea after meeting Bobbie Jo.

“Lisa would make friends with people she could get information from and/or use them,” Judy recalled. “How do you think she got her second divorce from Carl? She was in New Mexico and had an affair with the lawyer [involved in the divorce]. He faxed her the papers here, and I saw them, and she sent them back. She made it appear as if she wasn’t in Kansas. I am telling you, Lisa was
good
. I tried to tell her that wasn’t right, nor did I think it was legal. But she didn’t care.”

Everything had now changed, however. Lisa was in jail facing murder and kidnapping charges. She could claim to have no memory of the crime, but the evidence would condemn or exonerate her, not her own retelling of what had happened. She could say someone else was at the scene of the crime with her, or that a second person had even committed the crime. But if the evidence didn’t back up her story, even if she dropped a name, her attorneys would have a tough time convincing a jury she was innocent.

“The forensic evidence against Lisa Montgomery is overwhelming,” a law enforcement official who was deeply engrossed in the case said. “Beyond belief. There is no way she wasn’t at the scene.”

U
nder federal guidelines, for the government to proceed with a felony case of murder against a suspect, a grand jury must first hand down an indictment. An indictment may contain allegations the defendant committed more than one crime, as in Lisa’s case. “The separate allegations,” says the law, “are referred to as the counts of the indictment.”

Todd Graves would have to conduct a grand jury investigation and indict Lisa on charges of kidnapping resulting in death before he could proceed to trial.

On January 12, 2005, Graves called a press conference to confirm he had indicted Lisa Montgomery on charges of kidnapping resulting in death.

The indictment offered little new evidence; however, for the first time, it publicly explained, in graphic detail, what went on inside Bobbie Jo’s house back on December 16: “…[Lisa] Montgomery strangled Bobbie Jo Stinnett with a rope and then used a kitchen knife to cut her infant daughter from her womb.”

Frightening words. People of the heartland now had an image of what Bobbie Jo had gone through as she was being murdered. To think that Bobbie Jo spent her last moments watching a mad-woman cut her open and take her child was too terrifying and heartbreaking for some to consider. According to the indictment, not only did Bobbie Jo know she was being killed, but her last thought could well have been the realization that her attacker wanted to take her child.

The indictment replaced a federal complaint, Graves added, his office had filed back on December 17.

Ending the one-page news release accompanying the indictment, the government announced that Graves, “First Assistant U.S. Attorney Roseann Ketchmark, Deputy U.S. Attorney Matt J. Whitworth, Assistant U.S. Attorney Cynthia Phillips, and Nodaway County, Missouri, Prosecuting Attorney David Baird, serving as a Special Assistant U.S. Attorney,” would all be on board to prosecute the case. The government was compiling its version of a “dream team” of prosecutors, which had, by themselves, tried some of the most high-profile murder cases the state of Missouri had ever seen.

As Graves stood at the podium, flanked by Kevin Stafford, SA in charge of the FBI’s regional Missouri office, and FBI SA Mike Saunders, and read from the four-page indictment, it was clear that this was one of the most serious cases the U.S. Attorney’s Office had on its docket. Every resource was going to be used to investigate and prosecute Lisa Montgomery. A list of eight law enforcement investigating agencies was attached to the news release, further proof that an all-out legal effort was being launched.

Every major news outlet broadcast the press conference live, some breaking from regularly scheduled programming to bring the event into outlets around the world. Graves spoke with a calm cadence, a deep baritone, scratchy and sincere, detailing the government’s case.

“We’re here today to give you limited information—albeit important information—regarding the Montgomery case. Moments ago, a grand jury in Kansas City issued an indictment charging her with one count Title 18, USC, section 1201, which is the same as the previous complaint she had been charged with.” He let that statement hang for a moment before adding, “That is a
capital
offense.”

He explained that the government had only thirty days to indict a suspect once a federal complaint was issued.

“We are,” Graves said, stopping to look up and around the room, “fulfilling that obligation.”

Also of importance, Graves wanted to be clear, was that the indictment contained several “special findings,” and was in no way to be considered
evidence
against Lisa.

Those special findings, as the indictment read, included that Lisa was “more than eighteen years of age at the time of the offense” that she “intentionally killed Bobbie Jo; intentionally inflicted serious bodily injury, which resulted in the death of Bobbie Jo; intentionally participated in the act,” and so on.

The indictment said Lisa had “committed the offense after substantial planning and premeditation to cause the death of a person, that is, Bobbie Jo Stinnett,” that Victoria Jo, “the kidnapping victim, was particularly vulnerable due to her young age,” and, surprisingly, “Bobbie Jo, the murder victim, was particularly vulnerable due to her infirmity, that is, at the time of her death [she] was eight months pregnant.”

In essence, the indictment was saying the evidence against Lisa was insurmountable; and any plan Lisa’s lawyers might have to mount an insanity defense—which, some experts claim, is only successful about 1 percent of the time—was going to be met with a strident, determined clash of legal wits. That is, one cannot plan and premeditatively carry out such a complex act of murder without some sort of knowledge of what one is doing. Lisa, the indictment seemed to insinuate, had acted on her own free will and had gone to great lengths to sketch out and commit the crimes alleged in the indictment.

After reading through each aggravating factor included, Graves said, “That is all the information we have to share today. An arraignment date has not been scheduled yet. But the arraignment will be the first time the defendant has to plead guilty or not guilty.”

After a moment, “I’ll take a few questions.”

Most reporters knew Graves well enough to understand he wasn’t going to budge on any part of his case. Still, after a bit of prodding, he admitted Lisa would “be arraigned sometime during the next week.”

When asked about the death penalty, Graves said he would “make a recommendation to a Department of Justice committee about whether to pursue the death penalty,” which would then “make its own recommendation to the U.S. Attorney General’s Office.”

“How long will that take?” someone asked.

“That process usually takes several months.”

“Will there be any more charges filed against Lisa Montgomery?”

“I don’t expect to file any more charges…but I won’t rule out charges against other people involved in the case.”

With that, reporters scribbled in their notebooks. Whispers in the room picked up. It had been on everyone’s mind, of course: would Kevin Montgomery be taken in handcuffs any time soon?

Graves wouldn’t comment further.

“Do you think, Mr. Graves, that she’ll try to use an insanity defense?”

“I can’t discuss or speculate about what her defense will do at trial.”

After a few more questions, Graves said his good-byes and walked away.

The case of the
United States of America
v.
Lisa Montgomery
was officially set in motion. Lisa was going to get her chance, inside the next eight days, to walk into a federal court and plead her case.