"My sister was crying and in pain. More: Who was the last woman executed by the US government? So my letters are important.. More: Why the fate of the only woman on federal death row hinges on these Tennessee attorneys and their health, "Lisas trauma was so severe that it compromised her neurological functioning and development," they said in a written statement. In December 2004, Montgomery drove 281.5 km (175 miles) from her home in Kansas to Skidmore, where she had an appointment to look at some puppies owned by Stinnett. Montgomery told Stinnett that she was also expecting, and the pair shared pregnancy stories. Part of HuffPost Crime. My sister is on death row, Kleiner wrote in the lawsuit petition. They recommended a sentence of death. Montgomery is worried that her fellow inmates will have trouble coping with her upcoming execution, said her friendToby Dorr. That was ultimately dropped in favour of an insanity defence, but Henry believes the damage to Montgomery's credibility was already done. If you were to meet her, it would be inconceivable to you that she committed this crime, Harwell said. Lisa Montgomery has been held at theCarswell Federal Medical Center in Fort Worth, Texas, for 12 years. She enacted this in the grip of a very broken mind.". Its also people hearing it, knowing it and doing nothing about it. When Mattingly attendedMontgomery's sentencing hearing in 2007, which was the first time she had seen her sister in about 35 years, she said Montgomery's face bore the same look of fear it had when they were separated. Victims of severe childhood sexual abuse can overcome their trauma with certain factors, Porterfield said, such as the presence of a nurturing adult who provides love and connects them to resources to promote healing. Many of the residents of Skidmore cite the details of the crime, and the amount of planning that went into it, as evidence that Montgomery was a calculating killer. . Henry stressed that no one faces a death sentence linked to the 16 other U.S. cases from 1987 to2015 in which a woman has attacked a pregnant woman and her unborn child in an effort to take the childand ended up killing one or both. Randy Strong, who investigated the case,is unhappy that some people are asking thatMontgomerys life be spared. The Trump administration announced it was reinstating executions last summer after an almost 20-year hiatus. "They made this a priority at the risk of the health and lives of corrections officials, of the prisoners on death row, and the communities that all of those Bureau of Prisons officials who flew in from across the country were returning to," says Ngozi Ndulue, senior director of research and special projects at the Death Penalty Information Center. She missed the funeral because of it. "While my path to healing was very hard, the difference between Lisa and me is that no one ever intervened to rescue Lisa from a lifetime of abuse.". . She needs someone for once in her life to be on her side., Provided by attorneys for Lisa Montgomery, "Biopsychosocial History of Lisa Marie Montgomery," by Jan Vogelsang. Jack also raped Lisa for years. She struggles to maintain her own hygiene, loses focus during conversations with others and has trouble planning simple tasks.". When they came to take me, I thought they were coming to take all of us. Court records describe her as a quiet loner who spent a lot of time reading books. Montgomery's older half-sister, Diane Mattingly, told reporters last week that Shaughnessy repeatedly beat Montgomery and Mattingly. In 1986, when Montgomery was 18, she married her stepbrother, Carl Boman. Montgomery was also prone to delusional thinking. She testified as. Lisa Montgomery and her half-sister Diane Mattingly as children, Judy Shaughnessy, Lisa Montgomery's mother, Bobbie Jo Stinnett's home lies empty today, Protest against federal executions of death row inmates - outside the US Justice Department, Washington DC, December 2020. Stinnett wasn't breathing and was cold. Montgomery claimed to live in northwest Missouri. Recently, there has been a virus outbreak on death row at the institution, and previous executions have been linked to outbreaks among the execution team and prison staff. Her children were disturbed by it. That could change in Terre Haute. Shaughnessy would beat Mattingly with whatever was in her hand, be it a belt or a broom, she said. "That sent a chill up my spine," Strong said. He threatened to expose the imagined pregnancy and use it against her in the custody battle. Every time she has a birthday, it will also be the anniversary of the slaughter of her mother, Whitworth said. On the ride home, she clamped the umbilical cord and cleaned the baby girl with wipes. But it is something that she carries with her and that she mourns not only for the effect on her life and that of her family, but for the terrible effect on Mrs. Stinnett, who was killed, and also her family who was left behind.. Montgomery also talked about the abuseshe had endured from her stepfather, Jack Kleiner, and the first of her two husbands, Carl Boman, Dorr said. The following day, the police arrested Montgomery at her home. Judy Shaughnessy had already raised two convicted felons at the time. Lisa Montgomery tried to get counseling the year before she killed Stinnettbut wasn'tconnected to a quality provider, her attorneys said. Residents of Melvern, where Montgomery lived, have beendivided about whether she shouldpay for her crimes with her life, said Joe Warner, who was mayor of Melvern at the time of the murder. When Lisa was a small child, Judy allowed men to rape her for money, including allowing her to be gang raped on multiple occasions. Montgomery's family moved from place to place during her adult years, continuing the pattern she hadknown as a child. "There's so many people that failed her throughout her whole life. One was the presence of substantial planning and premeditation. Babcock said the constant in every case she has seen is an overwhelming history of trauma. Her mother, Judy Shaughnessy, beat and tormented all of her children, proudly telling an investigator that her daughter's first sentence was "Don't spank me, it hurts." Montgomery's first stepfather . "She tried to throw her own brother under the bus for a crime that she committed.". Montgomery often read her Bible or did things with her hands, including writing, quilting, and making placemats and bookmarks, Dorr said. She went home with a newborn, one she acquired by murdering the babys pregnant mother. Recibi una inyeccin letal en una prisin de Terre Haute,. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. School friend Baumli says she's read the descriptions of Montgomery's abuse, but it mostly just makes her angry. Lisa Montgomery has been charged in the December 16 death of Bobbie Jo Stinnett, who was eight months pregnant at the time. Investigators quickly realised that "Darlene Fischer" did not exist, and tracked Montgomery down the next day using her emails and computer IP address. Mattingly said she was fortunate to have been moved to a lovinghome of high school history teacher and coach Floyd Gwin;his wife, Zella Gwin;and their three biological children. About a week before Christmas in 2004, Lisa Montgomery, a 36-year-old mother of four, drove from her home in Kansas to Missouri, ostensibly to buy a rat terrier puppy from a woman shed met at a dog show earlier that year. Harper told a dispatcher her daughter's womb appeared to have "exploded" and that blood was "everywhere." The case was ruled a homicide and remains unsolved. Montgomery's second husband Kevin Montgomery, who lives near Melvern and remains married to her voiced support for her bid for clemency in a statement releasedthrough his wife's attorneys. He married Judy Shaughnessy, who would become Montgomery's mother, in 1967 in Miami, Okla. Patterson was the second of six husbands Shaughnessy . The baby girl survived, andMontgomery took her home and briefly passed her off as her own until investigators arrested her the next day. The judge in the case scolded Shaughnessy for not reporting the abuse - but did not report the abuse himself. Montgomery wasn't allowed eyeglasses, though she is far-sighted and near-sighted, or a CPAP machine, which has been prescribed since 2015 for her sleep apnea, Henry said. She is the most broken of the broken. Lisa Montgomery - the only female inmate on federal death row in the US - has been executed for murder in the state of Indiana. She would tell me I had to leave and I couldnt take anything with me because she bought everything, she recalled. And theyre taking me away from her.. It has been the subject of two books, multiple true crime television shows, documentaries and countless podcast episodes. Zella Gwin survives. Montgomery's mother, Judy Shaughnessy, who was 20 at the time of her birth in 1968, drank heavily while pregnant with her daughter. When Mattingly and Montgomery were young, Shaughnessy beat them and doled out cruel forms of punishment, like taping Montgomery's mouth shut, or pushing Mattingly out into the snow, naked. She would be the first woman executed by the federal government in 67. When I was around eight years old, and Lisa was about four, one of Judy's male friends began coming into our room at night and regularly raping me, with Lisa in the next bedclose enough we could reach for each other and touch fingers. As the oldest, I was the protector of Lisa and our baby sister. Judy Shaughnessy, drank during pregnancy. The historic reports of her at the time are consistent with the idea that she was a completely impaired mentally ill nonfunctional person who was operating within the symptoms of her mental illness, Porterfield said. His physical abuse of the children had sexual undercurrents: He would make the girls strip naked before whipping them. According to an interview with her father, Montgomery's mother Judy Shaughnessy drank heavily throughout her pregnancy, and their daughter was born with foetal alcohol syndrome. Skidmore has suffered lasting effects as a result of Stinnett's murder, said Strong, the investigator who helped prodMontgomery to confess. The counselor noted that her mother appeared to have a lack of empathy for Montgomery, who was left with the distinct impression that the sexual abuse was her fault. Lisa Montgomery strangle one pregnant woman for Missouri before cutting and kidnapping her baby in 2004. . Mattingly has enjoyed a "blessed life," she said. Kleiner and Shaughnessy divorced in 1985, with Shaughnessy contending she once walked in on Kleiner and Montgomery having sex. Lisa Montgomery is no different. Shaughnessy was cruel and violent to both girls, according to a sworn statement from Patterson, who reported feeling ashamed that he did not step in to stop the abuse. Mental health experts who examined her believe that her history of childhood trauma exacerbated a genetic predisposition to mental illness that ran in her family. Montgomery has exhausted all attempts to appeal her conviction and death sentence although her attorneys are exploring possible litigation. And it's never about what my friend went through," she adds. Lisa Montgomery's friend, Toby Dorr, provided this photo she took of a letter Montgomery wrote to her in November using black crayon. Montgomery achieved considerable emotional growth once she was put in a stable environment where she felt safe and was receiving psychiatric medications for the first time, Dorrsaid. Montgomery's father, John Patterson, a 25-year-old in the military, was also an alcoholic. Tommy Kleiner and Montgomery have stayed in touch. When she was 18, Montgomery married her stepbrother. When children grow up in a chronic state of fear and terror, their brains adapt to survive, explained Katherine Porterfield, a clinical psychologist at the Bellevue/New York University Program for Survivors of Torture, who has evaluated Montgomery in prison. On her way out the door, Mattingly said, Shaughnessy leaned over and told her it was all her fault she was being taken away. Jurors heard an audiotape of Harper, Stinnett's mother, calling 911 after finding her body. She told Lisa she had to "earn her keep." Judy later. A lifetime of sexual torture causes her to lose touch with reality. In late December, Montgomery's legal team submitted a petition to President Donald Trump that makes the case that after a lifetime of abuse - which they characterise as torture - she is too mentally ill to be executed and deserves mercy. Three federal inmates - Orlando Hall, Alfred Bourgeois and Brandon Bernard - have been put to death since the 3 November presidential election. "I looked to my right and there was Lisa Montgomery on the sofa, holding the baby," he said. The U.S. has not executed a woman in 67 years. I was put in foster care with a wonderful family. In the end, it was in prisonwhere she spent years on death row after committing a horrific crimethat she began to recover from a lifetime of nightmarish abuse. She was broken by people who were supposed to be her caregivers. As Fritz patted Montgomery on the back of her hand, Strong said he noticed dried blood and tissue embedded beneath her fingernails. Since receiving her execution date, she's been placed on suicide watch in an isolated cell. According to interviews with her half-siblings and others who spent time with the family, Montgomery's stepfather built a shed onto the trailer where he, and eventually his friends, raped and beat her. While all five are haunted by Stinnett's murder, they are also "bonded for life," Strong said. "She was completely detached from reality.". Henry said Montgomery was expected to be transferred by Jan. 10 to the penitentiary at TerreHaute, Ind., her designated place of execution. Stinnett's husband was at work, andStinnett was on the phone with her mother, Becky Harper, when Montgomery's dirty red Toyota pulled upon the afternoon of Dec. 16. Those were disconnections that were tragic in their consequences. Kleiner told a reporter in 2005 that Shaughnessy's allegation was made up to support her divorce case and he was never found guilty of anything. For Diane Mattingly, there is one moment from her childhood for which she feels both enormous gratitude and guilt. Residents there tend to think her execution would bring an appropriate end to a painful chapter in their city's history, he said. But the cousin, a sheriff's deputy, confessed to Montgomery's current legal team that he did nothing. U.S. District Judge Gary A. Fenner upheld the jury's recommendation the following April. "There were so many opportunities where people could have intervened and prevented this," says Henry. What you need to know about Montgomery and her victim, Bobbie Jo Stinnett. In December 2004, Montgomery, who was 36 at the time, strangled Bobbie Jo Stinnett before cutting the baby out of her womb and kidnapping it. Why the fate of the only woman on federal death row hinges on these Tennessee attorneys and their health, Lisa Montgomery's execution, delayed by attorneys' COVID-19 cases, rescheduled for Jan. 12, Only woman on federal death row asks President Trump to be a 'hero,' commute her sentence, Your California Privacy Rights/Privacy Policy. Montgomerys father, John Patterson, a 25-year-old in the military, was also an alcoholic. At 18, Judy pressured Lisa to marry her stepbrother. As Strongand other investigators were about to pull into the driveway of Montgomery's house, he said, he learned via a phone callthat the last email Stinnett received had come from that home. Her case is one of the most extreme of all the cases that Ive looked at, in terms of the severity and repetition of the violence that she experienced, she said. We cant travel to talk to witnesses or to prepare experts at this point, Harwell, Montgomerys lawyer, said. Her lawyers had argued she was a mentally ill victim of abuse who. "They put her on suicide watch to keep her from killing herself, so that they can execute her," she said. She married her stepbrother at 18 and gave birth to four children in less than five years, before having a sterilization procedure. Her death is scheduled a little over a month before the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden, who has pledged to end the federal death penalty. Montgomery lamented that she couldn't be present to console them because she was in solitary confinement, said Dorr, Montgomery's friend since they met in a federal prison in 2006. Mattingly said she saw terror in her half-sister's bright green eyes. Montgomery's execution date was subsequently bumped back to Jan. 12. And, in fact, blaming her for it.. The father was a teacher. Montgomery's number of crayons and pieces of paper hassince been increased to 10 each. She liked going down to the Nodaway River to swim, and playing Nintendo games at slumber parties. When I was eight and Lisa was four, social services came and rescued me from Judy, leaving Lisa and our other sister behind. She became involved with Kevin Montgomery, a divorced electrician with children of his own, and theymarried the following year. 2023 BBC. "The whole community over there's traumatised by this.". At the time of her murder, she was newly married and pregnant with her first child. She was forced to sit in a high chair for hours if she did not finish her food. A clemency petition asking Trump to reduce Montgomerys sentence to life without parole is expected to be filed in the coming weeks. "Oh, they're here, I've got to go," she said. Henry says Montgomery's original legal defence after she was arrested and charged with murder was woefully inadequate, and presented few of the details about her abuse, trauma and mental illness. Montgomery lived during her childhood in Washington, Kansas, Colorado, Oklahoma, California and Texas. The family treated Mattingly as one of their own, and gave her a sense of belonging and self-worth, she said. Lisa Montgomery, who endured years of sexual and physical abuse, murdered an expectant mother and took the baby. "She needs to be put to death.". I didn't know what to do or how to talk to my sister about it.". Henry said there is no question that Montgomery has severe mental illness, noting that federal authorities have administered her antipsychotic medications since her arrest in 2004. You know, like, that doesn't happen to Bobbie," Morrow says. Other inmates tended to keep Montgomery at arm's length because of the brutality of what she had done, Dorr said, but she liked Montgomery's quiet nature. Just the details: What you need to know about Montgomery and her victim, Bobbie Jo Stinnett. Montgomery suffered from pseudocyesis, the false belief she was pregnant, jurors heard from Vilayanur S. Ramachandran, director of the Center of Brain and Cognition at the University of California in San Diego. "The Lisa I knew was a good person who cared about the other women in the pod and was quiet and generous and kind," Dorr said. Newspaper accounts show Montgomery had upset other users of that board by making false statements, including claiming to be pregnant. Nobody has said that Lisa should never have been punished. People confuse punishment with culpability, she went on. Lawyer Kelley Henry says one of the things that disturbs her most is that adults in positions of authority were told about what was going on but did nothing. As a teenager, Montgomery confided in her cousin, a deputy sheriff, that she was being raped by Kleiner and other men orally, vaginally and anally. Dorr has since been released from prison and remarried. Stinnett bled to death. "She got joy out of it.". She moved in 1999 to Melvern, a town about 40 miles south of Topeka with 375 people today. Judy Shaughnessy and her boyfriend physical, psychological . In closing arguments, assistant U.S. Attorney Matt Whitworth asked the jury to think about Stinnett's daughter, Victoria Jo Stinnett. The threat of losing her children, combined with the years of untreated trauma and severe mental illness, pushed Lisa over the edge. By multiple accounts, Kleiner was an erratic, violent man who beat the kids and his wife regularly. He was in her. "I don't think people understand how bad this was," Strong said. She faked pregnancies several times during her marriages to Carl Boman and Kevin Montgomery, court records say. Read about our approach to external linking. "I have seen a lot of horrible things happen to women and children in my more than 40 years in law enforcement," Strongsaid. Lisa Montgomery, a divorced electrician with children of his own, playing... 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