Murder in the Heartland (5 page)

B
y approximately 3:18
P.M
., Becky Harper was getting worried about her daughter. She hadn’t heard back from Bobbie Jo after their last conversation, which Harper believed was interrupted by a customer who wanted to purchase one of Bobbie Jo’s rat terriers. A law enforcement official later said Bobbie Jo had even told Harper the person’s name.

“Darlene Fischer.”

Harper needed a ride to the garage to pick up her truck. But where was Bobbie Jo? What was taking her so long? Why wasn’t she answering her phone?

Something was wrong.

According to law enforcement, at around the same time, Lisa Montgomery, posing as Darlene Fischer, was inside the house with Bobbie Jo. They were in the den, a room off to the left after you walked in, talking about several rat terriers Bobbie Jo had for sale. What wasn’t clear later would be how Bobbie Jo reacted to meeting up with Lisa on that day, rather than with a woman named Darlene Fischer, whom she thought she had never met.

“It seems clear to me, but we don’t know for certain,” that same law enforcement official said, “that Lisa Montgomery likely knocked on the door and just introduced herself as herself, maybe playing like she was ‘in the neighborhood.’”

If that were the case, Bobbie Jo would not have felt threatened in any way. She and Lisa had met and talked fairly regularly online. Bobbie Jo was under the impression Lisa was pregnant, too; and Lisa knew, of course, Bobbie Jo was expecting in a matter of weeks. Perhaps Lisa told Bobbie Jo she was just stopping by to say hello and wanted to swap stories as expectant mothers often do.

She was born Bobbie Jo Potter on December 4, 1981. That same year, Skidmore was on the verge of moral collapse. Not because the town’s soybean or corn crop had dried up from the little bit of rain the region somehow endured, or the pig farmers had lost herds to disease. No. If that were the case, those problems could be dealt with agriculturally, or even governmentally, with funding and grants.

Instead, Skidmore’s biggest problem was an event that would set an eerie precedent for some twenty years to come.

In 1981, a man had been running through Skidmore causing chaos and havoc. Ken Rex McElroy, a bull of a man with a beefy chest, tough jawline, and “I-don’t-care-about-anybody-but-myself” attitude, had bullied his way through life in the same fashion an obnoxious senior in high school might torment a few chosen freshmen. The only difference was, McElroy beleaguered an entire town.

In fact, McElroy had terrorized not only Skidmore, but much of western Missouri for years. Locals had complained about his taking what he wanted, abusing the women in his life, drinking, fighting, shooting people, burning down houses, intimidating witnesses called to testify against him, and seemingly always finding a way to escape the mighty sword of the law, simply because people—judges and prosecutors included—feared his fury.

No one, it seemed, could catch McElroy committing a crime; thus he continually found a way to evade prosecution, having been arrested seventeen times without spending a night in jail.

On July 10, 1981, McElroy’s violent run finally ended. Several townspeople, in an act of congregated and choreographed vigilantism, unloaded round after round of ammunition into his head and chest, killing him almost instantly, as he sat in his pickup truck alongside his wife, Trena, in downtown.

The brutal crime, immortalized in the bestselling book and movie
In Broad Daylight
, gave Skidmore a bit of unfortunate, violent notoriety that contradicted the true soul of the town.

McElroy pushed his luck. The breaking point for townsfolk came after he beat a reported twenty-two criminal counts in court, but was convicted of an assault for shooting a helpless, seventy-one-year-old town grocer whom he had intimidated and threatened for months.

Law enforcement had seen enough; the judge ultimately sentenced McElroy to two years in prison.

Shortly before he was murdered, Skidmore residents were astonished to learn that instead of going directly to prison, McElroy showed up in town hours after he was convicted. Apparently, he had been “freed on bail during a twenty-one-day appeal” process.

People were dazed. They couldn’t believe it. After all he had done, everyone he had hurt, here was Ken McElroy, at last being sentenced, yet escaping justice
one more time
.

On the afternoon he was murdered, McElroy walked into the D&G Tavern downtown, as he had many times before, proudly displaying what was said to be “an assault weapon.” After purchasing “a six-pack of beer, cigarettes” and a package of acid relievers, McElroy and his wife walked out the door and sat in his Silverado truck.

McElroy seemed to be patronizing an entire town by showing up after being sentenced. He was gloating, once again intimidating the people who had wanted him to pay for his crimes.

Locals who had heard McElroy was back in town gathered at the local Legion Hall a few blocks from the D&G.

Dan Estes, the local Nodaway County sheriff, was at the meeting, too, he later said on a radio program, trying to get a handle on what had become a mob mentality. But when he left, reports claimed, thirty or more angry residents, all armed, walked down to the D&G.

As the mob came around the back of the storefront, McElroy’s wife, just getting into his truck, asked, “What are
they
doing?”

McElroy was at a loss for words.

“They got some guns,” Trena screamed, looking around.

“Get in the truck,” McElroy said, starting the vehicle and lighting a cigarette.

One shot rang out, hitting McElroy in the head. After that, another…this time hitting him in the chest…then another…and another.

As McElroy bled to death, his foot hit the accelerator of his truck and raced the engine.

Thirty-five to forty-five townspeople reportedly watched the murder take place and later refused to talk about it to anyone, including law enforcement. McElroy’s wife, who was sitting next to him in the truck as he was shot to death, came out of it untouched.

One resident later called McElroy’s killers heroes, comparing them to the inventors of penicillin.

The McElroy slaying was the first of a set of bizarre and unusually rare murders in Skidmore. In 2000, a local woman, Mary Gillenwater, was reportedly stomped to death by her boyfriend. Months later, a twenty-year-old, Branson Perry, vanished after leaving his house one afternoon. Law enforcement speculated Perry had been abducted by a local convicted child pornographer, but to date, the case remains unsolved.

Sixty-four-year-old Jo Ann Stinnett, Zeb and Bobbie Jo Stinnett’s aunt, was Mary Gillenwater’s grandmother. Branson Perry was her grandson. Such is life in small-town Skidmore.

“People will ask,” Jo Ann told a reporter later, “‘What’s wrong with Skidmore?’ But it’s not Skidmore’s fault. I love Skidmore.”

T
wo key factors would emerge later regarding Lisa Montgomery’s visit to Bobbie Jo’s home under the subterfuge of buying one of her rat terrier puppies: one, Lisa had made a promise to herself she wasn’t leaving Bobbie Jo’s house without her baby; two, that Bobbie Jo wasn’t going to stop her.

The blood–soaked wood-grain floors left behind in the den of Bobbie Jo and Zeb’s house were an indication of the horror that took place in Skidmore that afternoon. The house Bobbie Jo and Zeb rented had a tiny living room off to the right side as soon as you walked in, which was directly across from their bedroom. If you walked toward the back of the house, there was a kitchen with a small dining room attached to it, which led into the den on the left. Bobbie Jo had fixed up this room—where, law enforcement later said, she and Lisa ended up—for her dogs. It had two black metal dog cages on the floor and an old dresser in the corner, where Bobbie groomed the dogs.

Bobbie Jo and Lisa must have talked for a time about rat terriers. They’d had several discussions online about the canines and here they were now face-to-face, brought together—albeit by a lie—because of the dogs.

Being eight months pregnant, Bobbie Jo was, of course, clearly showing. Photographs from the time prove she wore her extra weight well and had a lovely expectant-mother glow.

Bobbie Jo was under the impression that Lisa, too, was in the final stages of pregnancy. Lisa had told Bobbie Jo via e-mail and instant messages that she was carrying twins. Still, why wasn’t Lisa showing? She wasn’t overweight, nor was she trying to hide the fact that she wasn’t pregnant. Wasn’t she worried about what Bobbie Jo might say when they met in person?

Crime-scene photographs give clues as to what happened. In those photographs, blood is spread from one end of the room to the other; heel marks and palm prints were fused with several units of blood and smudged all over, as if a child had gone wild on the floor with red finger paint, proving there was movement in the room
after
Bobbie Jo had been cut open. Moreover, authorities would later discover evidence on Lisa Montgomery’s personal computer proving she had downloaded an Internet video of how to perform a Caesarean section.

“They struggled,” said one official. “You can see, from the photographs, that Bobbie Jo didn’t die immediately. Or you wouldn’t have blood or blood clots spread all over the room like it was.”

Because of the blood spread all over the floor, law enforcement believed there had been a violent struggle for life
and
death. Bobbie Jo fought for her child. That much was clear.

“What [happened] was that she [Lisa] took a quarter-inch rope and choked Bobbie Jo out with it.”

The theory was that Lisa talked Bobbie Jo into bending down to open one of the dog cages on the floor, so she could pick up a terrier to show it to Lisa. The position made her vulnerable because she had to turn her back to Lisa while she was doing it.

“When Bobbie Jo bent over, Lisa came up from behind and choked her out. So she [Bobbie Jo] passes out, and Lisa starts cutting her open with a four-inch serrated paring knife she brought from her home.”

Unlike the way it plays out in movies, choking a human being to death is not easy. It takes several minutes to cut off someone’s oxygen enough to cause death. Yet, within a matter of seconds, the person being choked loses consciousness—as Bobbie Jo did. If the person doing the choking doesn’t continue, the victim will regain consciousness at some point.

“After Bobbie Jo passed out, Lisa started cutting her open and…that’s when Bobbie Jo came back to life.”

Blood clots scattered around the floor in different areas of the room provide clues to a struggle that resulted
after
Bobbie Jo regained consciousness. While bleeding profusely from her abdomen, she fought for her and her child’s lives.

“Well, the struggle was then back on…. Then Lisa managed to get Bobbie Jo choked out for a second time. By then, she had lost enough blood and was being choked to where she…well…she died.”

During the fight for life and death, Bobbie Jo grabbed her assailant’s hair and ended up with strands of it in both her hands. DNA testing later proved the hair to be Lisa Montgomery’s.

Graphic doesn’t even begin to describe the scene in Bobbie Jo’s den when Becky Harper decided to walk over to the house and find out why Bobbie Jo wasn’t answering her telephone.

T
wenty-three-year-old Chris Law had lived a few houses away from the Stinnetts ever since they moved into the neighborhood. Law, though, had known Zeb, he told reporters later, “since we were in Head Start together.”

On occasion, Zeb would pop over to the Laws’, and the two men would work on cars together. Bobbie Jo would wander over sometimes, most likely just to be near Zeb, but Law said she rarely spoke and, at times, “hardly said a word at all.”

On December 16, Law planned on visiting Bobbie Jo. Not to have coffee or chat about the latest gossip in town, but mainly to be a “good neighbor” and check up on his friend’s pregnant wife.

“They were good-natured people,” said Chris Law.

So, Chris Law was going to do what anybody else in town might have done under the same circumstances. Bobbie Jo had been to the hospital recently for several prenatal tests. As far as Law knew, she faced no major complications, but it wouldn’t hurt to stop in and say hello on his way into Maryville to run a few errands.

“I observed a pinkish red two-door vehicle,” Law told the FBI later, “in front of the Stinnett residence…possibly a Mazda, a Toyota, or a Hyundai.”

Law was referring to Lisa Montgomery’s car; she had been inside the house with Bobbie Jo at the time Law was considering stopping by.

When Law turned onto the corner of West Elm from North Orchard, he spied a “dirty” vehicle sitting in the Stinnett driveway and drove around the block in his truck, he said, “rethinking his decision” to pop in.

Well, she’s got company,
Law told himself,
and I won’t bother her.

“I never considered the idea that [Bobbie Jo] was in danger,” Law said later on television. “Stuff like that just doesn’t happen ’round here.”

Moreover, the front door to the Stinnett house was wide open the entire time Law observed the red car in the driveway. It was winter. Although it was an unseasonably warm day, leaving the door open wasn’t something Bobbie Jo likely would have done.

Then again, as Law explained it later, “If it had been a stranger, [Bobbie Jo] never would have let them in the house.”

To some, Law appeared rough around the edges, with his gold earring, five o’clock shadow, grease under his fingernails, and mechanic hands as rough as sandpaper. He spoke with a Western drawl, like most in the neighborhood.

“[Lisa] was pretty much a part of Bobbie Jo’s life, anyway,” Law told a British television producer. “They went to dog shows together, swapped dog secrets, you know. I thought she was a friend.”

Indeed, the visitor had to be someone Bobbie Jo knew and, perhaps, trusted. This led some to later speculate when Lisa showed up at the door, Bobbie Jo must have recognized her as Lisa Montgomery. The question became then: with her cover blown, did Lisa charge at Bobbie Jo and push the door open, forcing her way into the house? (Law reported the door being wide open when he drove by.)

Or did Bobbie Jo, recognizing her, invite her in?