Baby Be Mine (16 page)

At the same time as she played at pregnancy, she also worked to achieve custody of Teddy's son. When that plot fell apart, she tried to extort money from her ex-husband to buy a baby. From her point of view, he pressured her into a tubal ligation and now he would pay. Carl, however, did not have the money she needed even if he'd been willing to give it to her.

Lisa, though, was still determined to get what she wanted. She met a woman online who was pregnant with twins. Now Lisa claimed to be pregnant with twins. She tried to build a relationship with her by sharing pregnancy experiences and sending a handmade gift.

When that woman lost her twins, Lisa purported to have lost one of hers. She set her sights on another woman—Bobbie Jo Stinnett. Bobbie Jo was expecting a single child. Now, Lisa ostensibly carried one baby, too.

S
omehow, Lisa Montgomery thought she could get away with her charade. She was content in her deceptive fantasy—but law enforcement was not.

The investigation gathered strength with every passing moment. Local, state and federal officials worked in unison to shatter the illusions of a woman whose identity was still unknown.

While computer forensic specialists tracked down Darlene Fischer, the FBI sent agents to question the third person in the online discussion, Jason Dawson of Rat Time Kennels in Kansas City, Missouri. He told them, “I don't think that Darlene Fischer had anything to do with this—she just wanted to look at puppies.”

In the coming hours, those words reverberated in Jason's head. He was sickened by the truth and felt more stupid and foolish than he ever had in his life. This betrayal of his trust
destroyed any belief he had in the decency of his fellow man, and marked him for life.

With the secrets of Bobbie Jo's computer revealed, law enforcement rolled into Kansas south of Topeka. They stopped at the white farmhouse. The home looked so innocent—so all-American. The original dwelling featured a deep porch running across the length of the front. It was topped by a graceful gabled roof. Attached to one side was a plain, two-story addition built with practicality—not aesthetics—in mind.

Investigators closed in on this modest home with a torrent of questions. Lisa denied any wrongdoing at first. But the questions did not cease. They pounded down with greater intensity until the dam burst and Lisa spewed out the awful truth.

At 2:30, the Amber Alert was lifted. At that same time, the telephone rang at the Siktar home. Special Agent Kurt Lipanovich said, “Dyanne, you are a hero.”

“Did you find the baby?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Is she okay?”

“Yes, she's fine. But there's so much going on here, I can't talk right now.”

A little after 3, Sheriff Espey stepped outside to face a battery of forty or fifty microphones and news cameras. He knew this case was important to him, to his county and to the people of Skidmore, but he was amazed at the national spotlight—Larry King even called him at home.

He approached the bank of microphones and a hush spread through the gathered media horde. “We're going to be really brief. Is everybody ready? This conference won't last long. We've been into this investigation for twenty-three and a half hours and we have some really good breaking news. They have located a baby girl. We're waiting testing—medical testing—to see if it's going to be our child that's missing. We feel really good about it. I think with the highway patrol and
the FBI here, there was a lot of manpower put into this, a lot of hard investigative work. Right now, there are investigators doing questioning.”

Excitement and elation rippled through the crowd. To Espey, it seemed the reporters were reacting to more than a development in a great story. The media before him appeared overjoyed at the news on a more personal level.

“What we can tell you is—this baby crossed state lines into Kansas. We're not going to give you any locations on that, because we really don't want press charging that angle,” Espey continued. “There's still investigation that needs to be done on this.”

In response to a question about the baby, Espey said, “The child appears to be healthy and in good shape. The child is at a hospital right now, being checked out by a pediatrician and we have no indications that the child was hurt in any way. And the child is probably going to be okay. That's the information we are getting.”

A voice shouted out, “You're not ready to confirm anything?”

“We're not going to confirm this one hundred percent. But, it's about as good as it can get.”

Isabel Phelon spent the morning in Lyndon getting her hair done. When she drove past the home she rented to Lisa and Kevin in Melvern, she didn't notice anything out of the ordinary. That afternoon, she went down to the well to check on the water pump. From there she had a clear view of the Montgomery home. Cars marked with law enforcement logos as well as unmarked—but official-looking—vehicles crowded in the yard and out on the street. Her first thought was: I wonder if Lisa lost her baby?

She hopped in her car, and traveled past the house at regular speed, but didn't see anyone she knew in the yard, and couldn't figure out what was happening. She turned around a little ways up the street and drove past the Montgomery home again—this time she crawled down the road.

Her slow speed caught the attention of officers, who approached her car. “What's going on?” she asked them. “I am the landlord.”

“This is a crime scene,” they told her before asking her to move on. They were clearly not in the mood to talk in more detail, so Isabel drove home with more questions in her mind than she had when she left the house a few moments before.

At 3:30, the five-pound, eleven-ounce infant entered the Stormont-Vail Regional Health Care Center emergency room in Topeka. Personnel transferred her at once to the neonatal intensive care unit. Doctors reported that she was responding normally for a baby born one month premature.

Blood was drawn for DNA testing. They all believed this was the baby of Bobbie Jo Stinnett, but they wanted proof.

After a couple of hours of questioning, Lisa Montgomery was arrested and taken to the Wynadotte County Jail in Kansas City, Kansas. A stunned Kevin Montgomery was not charged with a crime. He was brought in, however, for intensive interrogation.

Authorities performed a search of Lisa Montgomery. They photographed the cuts on her hands. They scraped underneath her fingernails. Tests of that material showed that it was a genetic commingling of the DNA of Bobbie Jo Stinnett and Lisa Montgomery.

With the residents removed from their home on South Adams Road, a search of the house and vehicles began in earnest. Hundreds of documents, papers, receipts and other items were seized. In the end, most of these articles proved to have no evidentiary value, but investigators exercised abundant caution to ensure that nothing was overlooked.

Amid the pile of irrelevant material, the forensic technicians found a treasure trove of items of significant forensic importance. From the trunk of Lisa's car, they removed a rope—covered with blood and hair. Genetic testing revealed
the DNA of Bobbie Jo Stinnett. A kitchen knife that Lisa identified as the one she used to cut open her victim held more evidence. They tested the blood on the blade of the knife. It was a mixture of the DNA of Bobbie Jo and Victoria Jo. On the handle, analysis revealed a blend of the genetic material of three individuals: the baby, the mother and Lisa Montgomery.

At 4 P.M., Lisa's mother Judy received a phone call from her niece in Texas. “Is it true Lisa has a baby?” she asked.

“Yes,” Judy said.

“Is it a girl?”

“Yes,” Judy said and then listened with dread as her niece shared what she knew about the tragic story of Bobbie Jo Stinnett and her baby girl.

J
udy Shaughnessy was hungry for more details. She wanted information that would erase her suspicions about her daughter Lisa and ease her heart. She didn't want to run into town to pick up a newspaper. She'd be sure to run into someone she knew and that was the last thing she wanted right now. She also wanted news that was fresher than that morning's headlines. She didn't have cable TV and she didn't use a computer.

She called her daughter Jerri and shared her fears. “Would you get online and find everything you can find about the murder in Skidmore and read it to me?”

Jerri had no problem locating articles: the Internet—like the media—was drowning in coverage. Jerri opened one story after another and read them on the phone to her mother. With each word, Judy's horror escalated. The more she heard, the more the possibility that Lisa was responsible for Bobbie Jo's death grew. By the time Jerri finished reading, it was an
undeniable probability. Judy had known miserable times over the years, but today was shaping into the worst day of her life.

Jerri and her sister Patty dropped everything and rushed to be by their mother's side at her farm in Lyndon. Outside, nothing ruffled the feathers of the geese or the chickens. Placid cows chewed their cud. The pigs snuffled about and the goats grazed. All were oblivious to the turmoil brewing inside the home. The family sat in front of Judy's television. Their collective dread sucked the air out of the room and the hope out of their hearts as they watched the news reports of Lisa's arrest. They could doubt the reality of Lisa's culpability no longer.

They had known Lisa was deceptive and manipulative. They thought she was capable of doing or saying almost anything to get what she wanted. But this? This was too much. They never once imagined she was willing to kill for what she wanted. They never suspected she would go this far.

About ten minutes before the evening news came on the air, Melvern resident Darrell Schultze called Reverend Mike Wheatley. “Are you in the middle of all of this?”

“In the middle of what?” the minister asked.

As Darrell explained the breaking news about Lisa's arrest and Bobbie Jo's death, Wheatley's spirits sagged. The baby he cradled in his arms that morning was stolen from another woman? Her mother was murdered? And the person responsible stood right here in his home? Just steps away from his church? A member of his own congregation? It was overwhelming and it made no sense. But then, the visit from Kevin and Lisa that morning didn't make a lot of sense either. The questions he and his wife tossed around after the Montgomerys left now had clear but dreadful answers.

The news spread over Melvern faster than locust through a field of wheat. Whether they knew Lisa Montgomery or not, the shock was intense. Interest in the story was not confined to southeast Kansas and northwest Missouri. It flooded
living rooms with horror from coast-to-coast. Many had never heard of such a crime.

After the homicide of Laci Peterson and others, the public will understood the vulnerability of a pregnant woman to an act of violence committed by spouse or boyfriend. Now they were awakened to a new macabre twist.

Although rare, kidnapping by caesarean section was common enough to merit serious study by forensic specialists. Between 1983 and 2000, there were 199 reported cases of infant abduction—thirty of these involved acts of violence. Six of these violent kidnappings involved the caesarean section, according to an article published in the
Journal of Forensic Sciences
¹
in July 2002.

In 1987, 19-year-old Darci Pierce was tormented by the fact that she was adopted. “She wanted to have a child to prove that she was a better mother than her adoptive or biological mother,” forensic psychiatrist Dr. Michael Stone told
The New York Times
.

She lied to her husband and convinced him that she was pregnant. She stashed surgical instruments and medical books in her home. When her husband left for work one day, she told him she was going to the hospital, where she was scheduled to have labor induced. Then she drove over to the Kirkland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and parked outside of the prenatal clinic.

Darci wasn't preparing to enter the clinic, though. She didn't have an appointment with a doctor there—or anywhere. She was lying in wait, looking for the right pregnant woman to walk out of the building and into her trap.

She didn't have to wait long. There she was. She was young—just 24 years old. She was obviously far along in her term—eight months pregnant, in fact. Her name was Cindy Ray.

Darci forced her into her car at gunpoint. She used her left hand to steer. With her right, she aimed the muzzle of the gun straight at the stomach of the trembling, tearful expectant woman. Darci's plan was to take Cindy to the home Darci shared with her husband. At her own house, Darci had the equipment and reference books she needed to perform a cesarean section.

Darci was forced to change her plan. She couldn't go home—she realized as she approached the residence that her husband's car was in the driveway. He wasn't supposed to be at home, but there he was. Darci drove past her house with one hand still aiming the gun at her captive. Could she take the baby without her books and tools? she wondered. As bizarre as it sounded, Darci simply did not believe she had a choice any longer. Her mind raced as she tried to decide on an alternative location.

She drove out to an isolated area of the high desert in the East Mountains. She strangled Cindy until she lost consciousness. She dragged the limp form out of the car. Without the surgical instruments she'd planned to use, she had to improvise. She rummaged through her car, but could not find a knife or a pair of scissors. The only sharp objects she could find were the car and house keys hanging from a ring.

That was what she used. She had to push down hard to get the keys to cut through the skin—even harder to sever the muscles. It was difficult. It was ugly. But Darci managed to cut Cindy open enough to remove a live baby girl. Darci abandoned Cindy on the side of the road—leaving her to bleed to death on the hard ground.