Murder in the Heartland (35 page)

A
journalist seeks to uncover the truth as thoroughly as he or she can. We develop sources, throw countless questions at them, and then go out and try to back up what is said with additional sources. In doing this, an author can truly uncover the hard facts. Just one little example proves how tedious a task this can be, and how the most basic information can get lost in the shuffle: the FBI’s affidavit claims Becky Harper made a 911 call at 3:38
P.M
. on the afternoon of December 16, 2004. Sheriff Ben Espey’s notes and report have this fact as 3:28
P.M
.

For this book, I reached out to every pivotal person involved in the story and offered each the opportunity to speak.

Some did. Others didn’t.

Lisa’s oldest child, whom I called “Rebecca” in the book, had reservations about talking to me. Mainly, she was concerned about breaking a promise to her mother: Lisa had told her several times not to talk to me. It took a while for Rebecca to be convinced I wasn’t out to add more lies to a growing list and wanted everyone’s version of the truth. Even so, when she did finally agree to talk, Rebecca was careful about what she said. It was clear she’s one of Lisa’s dedicated allies. Quite admirably, Rebecca didn’t ever seem to judge her mother. Instead, she explained that she wanted to be there for her no matter what happened.

Out of nowhere one day, I received an e-mail from Lisa’s only son, whom I have referred to in the book as “Ryan.” I had requested an interview with him, but he was apprehensive and rather terse; he said a few things and left it at that. Without being asked, he did send me a concluding remark one afternoon that shows, at least to me, how devoted he is to his mother: “For as long as I have lived with her, she was loving and always tried to push us to better ourselves. She was not always gentle, but she never hurt anyone…. Also, she could talk and I loved talking to her about a lot of stuff.”

There was always an element of Carl Boman’s character I felt was missing from our conversations. Although the slice of his life I am referring to was well before he met Lisa, and really didn’t have a role in the story I was telling, I felt it was important to explore it anyway, if not to write about it, to at least know he was being completely honest with me. Carl was extremely guarded where certain portions of his life were concerned, even secretive in some respects. This worried me at first—but then I asked him to explain it to me in a more detailed way. As we were finishing up what turned out to be about four months of nearly daily interviews, I asked Carl for a closing comment.

“There is a part of my life I don’t speak about,” said Carl. “I was young and not very mature. It is my business and is very painful. I have not had a blessed life. I have hurt others in my selfishness and immaturity, and have paid for those mistakes over and again. I have been blamed by Lisa and others, but we will continue to work to rebuild my life in the midst of this family crisis. If the people involved don’t wish to offer love and understanding and wish to only cause strife, then I will turn away. This situation isn’t the easiest; it is hard for all involved. There is no book you read to prepare. You wake up one morning and it is thrust upon you. I have made decisions. Right or wrong, I made them. I am far from perfect.”

In the end, this story, for the most part, is about Lisa Montgomery, her life, and the road that led her to Bobbie Jo Stinnett. I started out wanting to include all I could about Bobbie Jo’s short life. But Bobbie Jo’s family and some of her close friends, understandably, did not want to talk to me, nor did Zeb. Therefore, I was left to sift through the little bit of information I could find and report it. I greatly regret not giving a more detailed portrait of Bobbie Jo’s life that would serve as a legacy to her memory.

In many ways, this story forced me to put all of my journalistic skills to the test. Because I couldn’t rely on the comfort of police reports and certain court documents, and there wasn’t a trial to cull a lot of those documents from, I had to knock on doors, make calls, and try to find all the pieces of the story I could on my own. So many times throughout my career I have been faced with varying versions of the same scenes involved in the lives of those I write about. That collection of stories allowed me to track people down and ask them questions based on what a police report or piece of trial testimony had said. I couldn’t do that here. In a sense, I had to act as a prosecutor and defense attorney, even a cop, and develop my own questions based on what I had learned. This, I believe, forced me to dig deeper than perhaps I would have if given those documents.

In those instances where several people told me varying versions of what happened, I went back and spoke to everyone I could. Some of those people simply would not talk to me, although I did give them the opportunity—and in some instances, multiple opportunities—to do so.

A vast array of sources was used to create this work of nonfiction. The basic structure of the book was based on my extensive interviews with Carl Boman, many members of his family, and several other people closely connected to the story, some of whom have chosen to remain anonymous. I also obtained scores of documents associated with the case, which I used as primary source material. Throughout my research, I also had exclusive access to several additional items, which added an additional layer of truth and quality to the narrative: letters, cards, e-mails, interviews conducted by people close to several of the players and related back to me.

I want to also acknowledge that I relied on previously published accounts—newspaper articles, magazine articles, Internet news articles, videotapes of press conferences, and cable-news network interviews with some of those involved in the story—in some sections of the book to make up for those portions of the story where participants would not speak to me. Most of those sources are clearly identified in the narrative. All of Pastor Mike Wheatley’s comments, for example, were taken from interviews he gave to cable-television crime shows and a few of the newspaper articles he participated in. For the most part, I chose these sources carefully, and only used information from what I deemed to be valuable, trustworthy, reputable news organizations: CNN, FOX News Channel, MSNBC, the
New York Times
, the
Kansas City Star
, Associated Press, CBS News, and a few local-news organizations in Missouri, many of which helped to contribute over three thousand news stories about the case.

Some of the quotes were taken directly from television interviews. Several press conferences given by Nodaway County sheriff Ben Espey, U.S. attorney Todd Graves, and several members of the FBI were also used as direct quotes in the narrative, although not always attributed in the narrative itself. Those quotes appear, mostly, in the investigation portion of the book and reflect public statements made at what was a crucial period during the search for Victoria Jo and arrest of Lisa Montgomery. In order to keep the pace of the book moving swiftly, at certain times throughout the text I simply sourced some quotes—not all—with the tag “he (or she) said.” A lot of these quotes were repeated by several different news organizations in dozens of newspapers and on television news shows.

I want to be perfectly clear, however: in
no
way is this book written from newspaper accounts of the crime. Eighty-five percent of this book is written from exclusive information, interviews, and research I gathered during a one-year process of full-time investigative journalism. With so many true-crime books today tagged as being “ripped from the headlines” and rushed into print, I want readers to understand that although I used
some
newspaper accounts of the story to lead me along the way of a truthful narrative, I spent a considerable amount of time in Kansas and Missouri, along with other regions where the story took me, and conducted well over one hundred interviews with people from all over the country in order to report the most complete and accurate story I could.

Primarily, the dialogue in the book was reconstructed after carefully piecing together different versions of events and juxtaposing those events with the multitude of interviews I conducted. In some instances, I took it upon myself to speak to as many people involved in a certain scene so as to reconstruct what was said accurately, which was then weighed against published accounts, legal documents, and anonymous sources. Some of the dialogue in the book is based on the memory and recollection of one or more of those involved in the scene.

After the initial hardcover publication of
Murder in the Heartland
, I received a lot of mail. Most of it was positive; many readers wanted to express their gratitude for the book and their enjoyment of it. Some of the most gratifying comments I received were from sources who said the FBI had contacted them after reading the book. “We didn’t know this,” the FBI agents said, citing certain details, “until we read about it in
Murder in the Heartland
. Can you explain?” I took such comments as a great compliment to my research.

Other readers, however, questioned my decision to write and publish the book before Lisa Montgomery’s trial. To them, and to others who share their skepticism, I’d like to explain that I never felt my book was dependent on Lisa Montgomery’s trial. I did not set out to write a standard type of murder-investigation-arrest-trial-conviction true crime account of the murder of Bobbie Jo Stinnett. From the beginning I sought to conduct a literary investigation into a gruesome, incomprehensible murder of a young woman, the brutal extraction of her unborn child, how the crime affected two small Midwestern communities, and the heartbreak and healing left in the wake of such madness. Since the book’s publication, three similar crimes have occurred. The public wants and deserves to know why such crimes happen and why some women, overwhelmed by the need for a child, see the only answer to their need in murder.

A few people who wrote to me accused Carl Boman of being a backstabbing, egregious liar whose primary motivation was to make himself look good and those around him—including Lisa Montgomery—look bad. “Carl Boman lied to you about some things, Mr. Phelps,” was a common complaint. “How could you believe what he said without backing any of it up?” I was also asked, “Have you ever questioned why other family members didn’t want to contribute information…?”

I backed up every anecdote Carl Boman and I discussed to the utmost extent possible. If I couldn’t find backup, I allowed Mr. Boman to describe those portions of his life in quotations, which are
his
words, not mine. I made no attempt to present him in heroic or unduly sympathetic terms. In fact, he was rather upset with me regarding sections of the book that seemed to portray him as a deadbeat dad and borderline codependent husband.

As for the second question: Why didn’t other family members want to talk to me? I will say this: I spoke to no fewer than six of Lisa Montgomery’s immediate family members. To those who didn’t talk (and wanted to later), I have to ask, why didn’t you come forward when I invited you to? I reached out to every one of Lisa’s siblings, either directly or indirectly. I was told none wanted to speak to me.

Whenever someone writes to me, criticizing something in one of my books, I offer the writer the opportunity to “correct the record” if I have,
unintentionally
, missed something. To do this, I require that person to show me proof, explain to me how someone lied, offer an alternative version of events for the reader, or go on record with an interview.

Once I put that offer into writing and e-mailed it to those who complained about my presentation of the Lisa Montgomery story, I never heard from them again. They disappeared into cyberspace.

I had several conversations with Boman about this. I told him, “Look, it’s not one or two people calling you a liar—it’s four. I have to take that into consideration and offer my readers an explanation.”

“What are they calling me on?” Boman asked.

“They won’t say specifically.”

“Well, then, how can I defend myself?” he asked, logically enough.

I asked Boman for his reaction to all of the unspecified but alleged “errors” in the book. Here is his response:

“The people who have talked about me are a few, and I know who they are,” said Boman. “Their words do not affect me at all. I have not talked trash about anyone. I choose not to. We are moving on as a family. Many pains and past hurts are gone. Not one single day has gone by since this horrible crime that it has not at least crossed my mind—it affects us all. No one lives my life or has walked in my shoes. They have no idea what my kids have gone through. We are very close and they choose who they wish to associate with in their family. Judy [Shaughnessy] is really on a campaign against me; it is really kind of funny. She tells everyone I trashed her in your book. You wouldn’t believe the trash she is spreading, mostly to Lisa’s lawyers.”

(I did not contact Judy Shaughnessy for this update.)

Family conflicts of the he said-she said variety are inherently hard for a journalist to dissect. They come down to one person’s word against another’s. For me, the truth is in the details: people not wanting to go on the record and speak up for the “lies” they claim others have told. I find it telling that Carl and Lisa’s children are all living with Carl at this point, hundreds of miles away from Melvern, Kansas (and the rest of the family). I’ve been told that Lisa’s oldest daughter, Rebecca (who, at the end of
Murder in the Heartland,
was visiting her mother in prison once a week), hasn’t seen Lisa in months and is beginning a new life with her father and her siblings, while focusing on going to college.

In writing this book I was determined to tell a side of the Lisa Montgomery story that would never be told: the ripple effect of one murder, and how it wreaks havoc on so many different people, including the family of the alleged perpetrator. This story will not be part of Lisa Montgomery’s trial. As I was compiling information for this update, I received an e-mail from a family member of one of the law enforcement investigators involved in the case, someone who wouldn’t talk to me while I was researching the hardcover. In part, this person wrote, “To say that I am disappointed would be putting it mildly.” The writer went on to say that he or she was not “currently”…“an author,” but had “started working on a few things….” He/she was disappointed that I hadn’t waited until the trial of Lisa Montgomery concluded. “The law enforcement officers involved could have then talked freely…[a]s it is, this book is full of mistruths and exaggerations.” He/she said I had “omitted” the work of “many fine officers…that put in many hours to help solve this murder.”

Sheriff Ben Espey spoke to me at length for the hardcover. He gave his complete version of events. I went through each paragraph, each sentence, each word and quote with him before I sent the manuscript to my editors. We spent a lot of time getting the investigation portion of my book correct. Because the person who wrote me that e-mail was a relative of one of the officers involved in the case, he/she must have had an obvious bias, and probably felt jealous that Ben Espey, in my book, got most of the credit—which he wholly deserved—for solving the case. Sheriff Espey went far beyond the call of his duty to see that Bobbie Jo Stinnett’s baby was brought back safely to her father. If other officers who worked the case felt they deserved more credit from me, I am sorry they didn’t speak to me. I reported the story I was told by the one man who stayed with the case from the moment he discovered Bobbie Jo’s body until the baby was back in her father’s arms.

During my book tour of the midwest, I had the opportunity to meet and speak with several people who were involved in the case. Some were relatives of law enforcement; some were friends and coworkers of others involved in the case. All of them said they had read the book and agreed it was accurate. “You did a great job,” one man, who is related to one of Ben Espey’s investigators, said. “There is more evidence in this case than you reported, but you did a great job in getting things right.”

A lot of forensic and circumstantial evidence will come out during Lisa Montgomery’s trial. I chose not to include that evidence in the book because its disclosure might have caused problems for the prosecution.

On my Website, www.crimerant.com, a true crime blog I run with fellow true crime author Gregg Olsen, I wrote an article about my experience with a particular book signing attendee. Years ago, it was difficult for readers to reach out to authors. One had to write to the author’s publisher with the hope the letter would be forwarded. The Internet has changed that. For better or worse, the Web allows nearly unfettered access to authors. But more than that: our books are subject to global debate and criticism by anyone with a mouse, keyboard and connection to cyberspace. Unfortunately, anonymous, blind criticism can get out of hand quickly. Some people who hide behind the comfort of a computer screen will write nonsense, knowing they will suffer no consequences.

In Kansas City, I was confronted at a book signing by a person I believe to be “Nodaway Girl,” a disgruntled reader who had posted a highly critical (and, I must say, unfair) review of my book on Amazon.com.

Generally, when confronted during an event, I listen to what the person has to say and try to avoid a showdown. I believe everyone deserves to be heard. When Nodaway Girl (who wouldn’t admit who she was) approached, she asked, “Did you visit Skidmore at all during your research?”

“Of course I was in Skidmore,” I answered. “And yes, all of those observations about the town in my book are from my own reporting.”

On Amazon, Nodaway Girl had written that my book was a “patronizing and condescending view of America’s heartland….” The women I witnessed (and wrote about in the opening pages of the book) wearing “red and white aprons,” beating their rugs with brooms, had upset Nodaway Girl. She had grown up near Skidmore, she said, and hadn’t “…seen a woman wearing an apron since [her] great-grandmother died in 1974.”

I was indeed in Skidmore, Graham, Maitlin, and Maryville, and spoke to several women about the day Bobbie Jo Stinnett was murdered. Some of them were, in fact, wearing aprons and cleaning rugs as I approached.

Nodaway Girl had taken a jab at my research skills, saying that “equally disturbing” were the number “of mistakes [she] found…just about Nodaway County, Skidmore, and Maryville.” But she failed to point any of them out, or offer any advice as to how I could fix whatever errors I had made.

At the book signing, Nodaway Girl admitted the “mistakes” she “found” were minimal. If you aren’t from the region, she said, you’d never know they were there.

Of course, I always make every effort to avoid making errors. But every author will make one from time to time. I feel sick when someone writes to tell me that I have missed something. I have to live by my words. I do my best to correct all mistakes in future printings. Most people understand this.

Nodaway Girl’s Amazon review stated she was “related to Bobbie Jo Stinnett distantly,” and, like others, wondered why I had written the book before Lisa Montgomery’s trial.

I am not the first author to write a book before a trial. Far from it—just think, for example, of the many books published about the JonBenet Ramsey, O.J. Simpson, and Scott Peterson cases before they went to trial (and the Ramsey case, sadly, may never go to trial). Such books are common in the true-crime field. The reasons why I wrote this book before the trial are outlined clearly in its preface and epilogue.

Nodaway Girl claimed that “most of [my] information” was provided by Carl Boman. “How can an ex-husband be a reliable source?” she asked.

I developed dozens of sources for my book. Carl Boman was just one of them. Everyone had the opportunity to speak. As I have said at all of my events, most of my book is exclusive—and most of it is about how the Boman family (including Lisa’s four children) dealt with this tragedy, which is a unique perspective for a true crime book.

At my Kansas City book signing, I went through the book section by section as Nodaway Girl sat and listened. At the end of my lecture, I had a Q&A session. Nodaway Girl asked several questions. By the end of the afternoon, she agreed the review was written out of anger and haste.

After the Q&A concluded, she asked me to sign her book and even shook my hand. I was happy to accept her hard-won support at last.

Since the publication of this book in June 2006, U.S. attorney Todd Graves has stepped down, replaced by U.S. attorney Bradley J. Schlozman (although I’m told First Assistant U.S. Attorney Matt Whitworth will head the team prosecuting Lisa Montgomery). Thirty-five-year-old Schlozman was appointed to serve as the United States Attorney for the Western District of Missouri under an Attorney General appointment on March 23, 2006. According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office Web site, “Prior to assuming his current post, Mr. Schlozman served as the Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division at the United States Department of Justice. In this capacity, Mr. Schlozman supervised all activities of the Civil Rights Division, which is comprised of over 700 employees, including 356 attorneys. The Civil Rights Division is responsible for enforcing federal civil rights statutes, including those statutes that prohibit discrimination on the basis of race, sex, disability, religion, and national origin in education, employment, credit, housing, public accommodations and facilities, voting, and certain federally funded and conducted programs….”

As of this writing, the U.S. Attorney’s Office reportedly anticipates a one-month-long trial. “There is so much overwhelming evidence against Lisa Montgomery, that this is as open and shut as a murder case could be,” one source involved in the prosecution told me. Sources also claim that Judy Clarke is no longer part of Lisa’s defense team.

Lisa Montgomery’s trial was scheduled to begin on October 24, 2006, but was postponed for no stated reason. A new trial date has been set for April 30, 2007. Because this update is being written months before that date, it will not include the outcome of the trial. If you wish to know the details of the verdict and sentence, do a simple Internet search for Lisa Montgomery and you should find all the information you need. In the Internet age, readers expect books to deliver a more meaningful account of current events than the simple facts that are reported daily in the news, and that is the kind of book I always strive to write.

What does the changing of the guard at the U.S. attorney’s office mean for Lisa Montgomery? Several things, perhaps. For one, Todd Graves was strongly against any type of “deal” for Lisa Montgomery. In contrast, I’ve been told, the new U.S. attorney, although he has never said so, might entertain a “sit down” and discuss a deal. But that deal, I was told by a source close to the prosecution, would have to involve a plea of guilty on Lisa’s part and a trial for sentencing.