Murder in the Heartland (27 page)

S
ome months after Lisa gave birth to Rebecca, Carl Boman sensed a gradual change in his young bride. It started with subtle things, like breast-feeding. To Lisa, the act became a chore. From there, the normal everyday things most mothers adore doing for their children began to bother Lisa. It was true she loved to dress the kids up and take them out when they were infants, but the older they got, the more she lost interest. In what would soon become a common theme throughout the Boman household—and, later, the Montgomery house in Melvern after Lisa and the kids moved in with Kevin—odd bits of Lisa’s character would surface.

Later, Kayla Boman explained: “Something that always bothered me was, at least when my mom would get mad at me, I knew she was paying attention to me. When she would be upstairs on the computer, I would try and talk to her just about anything in general: school, dogs, our animals. Stuff like that. And she wouldn’t even look over at me. So I would ask her a question to see if she would respond. Most of the time, I would have to ask the same question about three times before she would finally answer. The only time I can think she would pay attention to me was when she wanted to know something about a dog, if I got a B or C on my report card, or when she wanted something.”

Lisa rarely applauded the children for their accomplishments, as if they were expected to do well. Kayla said she first became interested in rat terriers and the dog show circuit because she knew it was “something I could share with my mom, and she would actually pay attention to me. I was always trying to get her attention. Good grades didn’t work. Sports didn’t work. Spelling bee didn’t work. Band didn’t work. So ratties it was.”

On July 7, 1988, Lisa gave birth to her second child, Alicia. Carl and Lisa were still living in Hominy. The only change in their lives—besides another mouth to feed—was that Carl had been promoted to sergeant at Dick Conner Correctional Center, where he had been working with his dad, who had since quit.

The promotion meant more responsibility—but also more money.

Throughout both pregnancies, Carl went to every prenatal appointment with Lisa. He and Lisa were again elated they’d had another child. The love they had showered on Rebecca was a sign of how much children were a part of the life they had both wanted. Carl had grown from a raucous, unruly punk coming out of the navy, bouncing through life without any direction, to a responsible father of two healthy baby girls. Lisa was by his side at every work function and party, every outing and family picnic. They were a happily married couple talking about having more children. Rebecca, at age two, had become, Carl proudly said, “a daddy’s girl.”

Other than a few changes in Lisa’s behavior that Carl attributed to the hormonal imbalances most new mothers go through, their life together could not have been any better.

I
n the middle of January 2005, Carl and two of the children appeared on a major syndicated talk show. It hadn’t turned out the way Carl had hoped; he felt the show’s producers made promises they failed to keep, and, in retrospect, going on the show was a mistake. He had not spoken to many reporters by that point, avoiding the media because he was “too emotional.” His lawyer, James Campbell, was fielding calls from several major media producers and personalities: Bill O’Reilly, Paula Zahn, Larry King, Montel Williams, Hannity & Colmes, Greta Van Susteren, CBS, NBC, ABC. But Carl kept turning them down. He only ended up on that one syndicated show and a network morning news show, he insisted, because the producers made it sound as though he would be able to tell his side of the story.

Do the shows,
he thought,
and maybe the others will go away.

Carl wasn’t paid for his appearance. Only travel and hotel accommodations, along with a small allowance for food, were provided. But the lack of monetary compensation didn’t bother him. It wasn’t about “the money,” he claimed; it was about getting the truth out at a time when rumor and speculation were beginning to smother facts.

Lisa must have seen the show from prison, or been told about it by someone who had, because she was livid. She expressed her anger in a letter written on January 18.

“Are you making enough money…?” she taunted. After that, she accused him of ignoring the children “for years.” Interestingly to Carl, the next sentence seemed to, in his mind, imply Lisa was to admit her involvement in Bobbie Jo’s murder: “…
YOU ARE NO BETTER!
” she wrote in capital letters, underlining the sentence. Carl believed it was a reference to a rumor she had spread about him years ago—that he had murdered someone while in the navy. The way Carl read it, Lisa was saying since they had both murdered someone, they were playing now on an equal field.

“‘You are no better,’” Carl said, “to me, at least, meant she was comparing herself to the rumor she had spread about me killing someone. It’s strange, because she knows the FBI and prison officials read her mail…. In looking back, nothing had changed with Lisa. It was the same old thing. Classic Lisa.”

Farther along in the one-paragraph letter, written on the type of paper a child in kindergarten might use, with dark upper and lower lines and one lightly dotted line in the center, Lisa threatened to expose Carl by putting the old rumor back out there for the public to digest. It might carry new weight, she intimated, taking into account the events of the past month.

Carl sat and looked at the letter. Headlines ran through his mind:
COULD HUSBAND OF WOMB RAIDER BE MURDERER
,
TOO
?

Who would believe such nonsense?

Lisa went on to say she had “refused” to grant interviews to the press “to save my kids,” and she was disturbed he had dragged them into it all, “missing school…for money?”

She then talked about what she viewed as Carl’s lack of Christian values, before ending the letter: “You make me sick.”

How does one answer a letter with such disregard for reality?
Carl wondered. He was beside himself with anger and confusion. To him the letter proved what he had been saying all along: Lisa was more interested in twisting truth than facing it. Here she was, in a prison, still trying to control Carl’s life.

Lisa had a hold on Kevin, Carl knew. Carl liked Kevin. He wasn’t ready to consider him a friend, but he knew Kevin had been duped by Lisa, and in some way, he felt sorry for him.

When Kevin found out Carl had gone to New York with the kids to appear on television, he started in with the same tone Lisa had used in her letter.

“What’d you do that for, Carl?”

“It’s none of your dang business what I do with my kids, Kevin. You got that?”

“The kids, Carl. It’s about the kids.”

Part of Carl’s reason for making the trip was getting the kids out of Kansas for a few days and giving them a break from all the disarray in their lives. Carl didn’t have the money to take them to New York himself, and he felt it might be their only chance to see the city.

“Don’t tell me about my kids,” Carl shot back. Carl was much bigger. He felt Kevin knew he was pushing things too far.

Backing down, Kevin said, “Well, I had always wanted to take them to New York. I’m glad they got a chance to go.”

A
series of e-mails and message board posts written by Lisa had popped up on the Internet during the first few weeks of January, seeming to display a premeditated plan on Lisa’s part to meet Bobbie Jo. “Keyboard sleuths,” as bloggers are sometimes called, discovered several posts written by Lisa on an unnamed message board, and they were discussing the validity of each message. In one, dated April 19, 2003, Lisa talked about the Melvern house she lived in with Kevin, and listed the ages of all their children. It was an invitation into her life, a way to say hello to everyone on the board. Homey and rustic in tone, the message would have seemed like any other, except Lisa ended the post: “We are also expecting new baby any day.”

A week later, she posted again, saying, “Thanks…for the warm welcome!” before once again talking about her house.

Lisa appreciated nostalgia and anything having to do with history. She loved visiting historic sites around Kansas and Missouri. In that second message, she rambled on about the house she shared with Kevin, expressing her love for its historic value and significance.

“We started out a couple of years ago,” she wrote, noting it was a “second marriage” for both, “with the idea of learning how to do things ourselves….” Then she mentioned that “instead of buying everything,” she and Kevin wanted to teach the children how to live like pioneers and depend on the land more than modern conveniences. But, she said, they still had “…a lot to learn!”

But the image of her living some sort of
Little House on the Prairie
fantasy was mere propaganda, according to those who knew Lisa best. Kevin’s children despised her and refused to go near the house, one of Lisa’s children later said. On top of that, her own kids were the first to say Lisa and Kevin hardly ever saw each other because they worked different shifts. During the last year Lisa was a free woman, she worked three jobs. She and Kevin must have passed each other on the way in and out the door.

Yet, the last line of the post was probably what scared people the most when they read it later: Lisa said she and Kevin’s “next project” was to “butcher” a “pig.”

Lisa and Kevin had a lot of animals at the house in Melvern—except pigs.

Later, after she was arrested and every single word she had written was examined, the second to the last line of the post carried connotations Lisa forever would be known for: “Any suggestions [regarding butchering a pig] would be helpful.”

Public discourse surrounding Lisa’s case became a cacophony of armchair detectives, cyber sleuths, and psychobabble-spouting Internet serial posters, who were basing much of their opinions on what the newspapers were reporting. No one knew what Lisa was thinking, nor did anyone know if there was a second suspect. Speculation turned to rumor, which became a feeding frenzy for television pundits discussing every statute and mental-capacity law in front of television cameras.

Todd Graves kept a tight lid on his case, and save for the last press conference to announce Lisa’s indictment, he had been quiet. Nevertheless, the legal case against Lisa was moving forward. On January 20, 2005, she was once again brought into court to make her plea.

“Not guilty,” her lawyers entered into the record.

Lisa never spoke.

After the hearing, the U.S. Attorney’s Office indicated it was now leaning toward seeking the death penalty.

“That is the direction we are going,” said Todd Graves.

The news of Lisa’s not guilty plea inspired a resurgence of media interest in the case. Fox News Channel ran with the headline
FETUS
-
SNATCH SUSPECT PLEADS NOT GUILTY
. CNN kept it simple:
WOMAN PLEADS NOT GUILTY IN FETUS KIDNAP
-
PING
.

After the most recent news, Carl received an e-mail from Judy, which outlined just how confused and conflicted Judy was about the way things had transpired.

The stress factor between the two families was only elevated by Lisa’s arrest and the media coverage of the case. Carl was beginning to feel as though it might not be such a good idea for the kids to see Lisa’s family for a while. They had too much to deal with already. Carl believed Lisa had not turned out the way she did without help from someone. The last thing he needed was her family confusing the children, as Lisa was trying to do, telling them things they didn’t need to know.

In one e-mail, Judy indicated she knew “how hard” it was on Carl, and said she didn’t want to “add to the stress.”

Without realizing it, Judy seemed to back up what Carl had been saying all along: Lisa had repeatedly abandoned the children, leaving him to pick up the pieces. “I remember how many times Lisa didn’t want them….” More pointedly, she also said she felt Lisa had “mentally abused them with all the things she did in the past and now.”

According to Carl, Judy never showed any affection toward Lisa or her siblings. Now she was admitting she didn’t have any feelings for Lisa as a daughter. “I have no sympathy for her,” Judy wrote, adding, “I feel so sad for her for everything she lost,” while saying she loved Lisa, “but it’s not the love I should have and I feel bad about that.”

It was obvious from the e-mail that Judy was having a hard time “forgiving” Lisa. She “struggled with it every day,” and didn’t want to “see her or talk to her” at this point, “but I know someday I will face her, and I dread it.”

Next, Judy said, “I haven’t said anything to anyone about the conversation we had about what Ryan told you about Kevin knowing.”

Although her syntax was a bit confusing, Carl understood exactly what she meant. Ryan had gone to Carl shortly after Lisa was arrested with some rather disturbing news: he and Kevin discovered that the sonogram Lisa was showing to people was actually downloaded from the Internet. It was not hers.

Lisa’s children were talking about their lives with her. The stories they told made their way back to Carl and Judy. Judy was conflicted: she didn’t know how much to tell the kids about Lisa’s early life and what to leave out. She was seeking some sort of advice from Carl.

“It’s hard,” she wrote, “because I can’t lie to them, and when they ask me, I feel like I have to tell them. I did tell them I don’t think she is insane. They asked about my belief about justice and I told them, but I said when it comes to family, am I supposed to change?”

T
he U.S. Attorney’s Office made an announcement near the end of January. It was going to focus “officially” on pursuing the death penalty against Lisa. All the talk and speculation regarding “weighing their options” was set aside as a formal statement declared the ultimate result of the decision was now in the federal hands of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

More important, the judge in the case had set a trial date of March 14, 2005, a little over two months away.

To most, it seemed too soon. Yet, the Speedy Trial Act of 1974 “mandates the commencement of the trial of a defendant within seventy days from the defendant’s first appearance before a judicial officer of the court in which the charge is pending.” There could be a delay, but the defendant’s lawyers had to prove the “court finds the ends of justice served by the taking of such action outweighed the best interest of the public and the defendant in a speedy trial, provided the court sets forth the reason for such finding.”

Although most agreed that the sooner Lisa’s case was presented in a court of law, the better off everyone would be, Lisa’s lawyers undoubtedly faced long nights in the office if they wanted to delay the trial. Would two months be enough to prepare for what was sure to be one of the most high-profile murder trials the heartland had seen in decades?

Many believed it would take sixty weeks, not sixty days.