Murder in the Heartland (17 page)

A
nnie’s rat terrier message board, Ratter Chatter, was brimming with emotion on the night of December 17. Rat terrier breeders and fellow terrier owners were saddened at the thought that one of their own had been brutally murdered. Even more affecting was the government’s allegation that Bobbie Jo had been murdered by a fellow breeder.

After hearing Lisa had been taken into custody, one woman wrote, “I cannot believe how sorrowful I am…. I don’t know what’s worse: the horrible crime, or the possibility that it might be Lisa.”

Another member said, “I am sitting here in shock…. I am absolutely horrified.”

In Topeka, at the hospital, Zeb Stinnett, still in mourning over the loss of his wife, had pulled himself together enough to release a statement after he and members of his immediate family had seen Victoria Jo for the first time.

“She is a miracle,” Zeb said through the statement. “I want to thank my family, friends, Amber Alert, and law enforcement officials for their support during this time.”

On Bobbie Jo’s Web site, someone summed up the day’s events poignantly: “Thank God the precious baby girl was found alive and well. Bobbie Jo will live on through her daughter.”

The clergyman who had married Bobbie Jo and Zeb, Reverend Harold Hamon, who was said to be preparing to officiate Bobbie Jo’s funeral service after her body was released from the coroner’s office, put it all into simple terms by saying the town of Skidmore was “stunned by everything” and would never be the same. “The only one who can figure this out is God,” Hamon continued when reporters caught up with him. “You can’t explain it. You can’t understand it. The funeral is going to be a tough one.”

The focus for most reporters soon shifted to the Stormont-Vail Regional Health Center in Topeka, specifically its neonatal care unit, one of the few facilities of its kind in West Missouri. Every newspaper editor and television producer wanted the first photograph of Victoria Jo. Just a simple shot of the little “miracle child” with her father was headline news.

That first photograph wasn’t going to appear any time soon, however. Security around the hospital was tight, especially near the neonatal unit, with extra security personnel visible immediately upon entering the parking lot. The hospital put Carol Wheeler, its acting spokesperson, in charge of juggling hundreds of requests from the media.

Every major American television network and newspaper, Wheeler said, called the hospital for an update on the child’s condition. The BBC and several British newspapers were also making inquiries. By late evening, Wheeler said, the hospital had fielded some “three hundred media phone calls and other requests.” Producers from the
Today Show
, the
Early Show
and
Good Morning America
were calling, as were dozens of local television and radio stations.

“Everyone except Oprah,” Wheeler added, “called at some point.”

Doctors were “somewhat surprised” at Victoria Jo’s condition. “She really is a miracle,” Wheeler reiterated. The hospital’s early assessment found no sign Victoria Jo had suffered any long-term injuries or was in any immediate medical harm. In fact, despite her traumatic delivery and being born one month premature, not to mention the extraordinary life she apparently had led over the past twenty-four hours, the child was in superb physical health. She would have to stay in the neonatal unit for an undetermined number of days, but with any luck, Zeb would be able to take her home by the middle of the following week.

Lisa Montgomery was being held in Kansas at the Wyandotte County Jail and was expected to make her first appearance in federal court on Monday, December 20, 2004.

There was still some question regarding whether authorities would be pressing charges against Lisa in Missouri or in Kansas, but since Todd Graves had made it a point to involve his U.S. Attorney’s Office, most believed Lisa would be extradited soon to Missouri.

Late that night, Ben Espey told reporters he and other law enforcement officials were having serious reservations about Lisa’s story of being pregnant.

“She told people she was pregnant and had a miscarriage and lost one of the twins,” Espey said, “[but] we’re thinking she never was pregnant.” He raised his eyebrows as he spoke, hinting that he knew more. Then he said he couldn’t take any additional questions but would have more information the following morning.

A
s the night progressed, the story of Bobbie Jo Stinnett’s murder and the recovery of her stolen child took on gargantuan proportions as talking heads hosted experts in every crime field imaginable on air, trying to understand the nature of the murder, how it could have happened in the heartland of America, and who was this woman who allegedly had committed such an unthinkable crime. Not even an undersea earthquake of biblical proportions, which would occurr in the coming days, was enough to reduce coverage of the Lisa Montgomery story. Because of the size of the quake, reverberations on the surface of the water generated a tsunami that killed a reported 150,000 people, making it one of the deadliest disasters in history.

As reporters and television talk-show hosts looked for any background information they could dredge up on Lisa Montgomery, other similar stories, which hadn’t generated the same amount of attention or press coverage, surfaced.

Bobbie Jo’s murder was not the first case of maternal homicide in the Midwest. Moreover, a yearlong study by the
Washington Post
concluded that over the past fourteen years—1990 to 2004—some “1,367 pregnant women and new mothers” had been killed. Although the “phenomenon…is as consequential as it is poorly understood,” wrote
Post
staff reporter Donna St. George, it is also “largely invisible.”

The most noticeable difference between the victims in other maternal homicide cases and Bobbie Jo Stinnett was that most of the other women hardly fit the “girl next door” image that Bobbie Jo had. In many of the stories published about the other cases—stories few and far between—the victims were rarely mentioned. The general buzz of the reports centered on the alleged murderers. In contrast, with Bobbie Jo’s story, the focus always had been on her young life being cut short, her unborn child, the small town she grew up in, and the people in town who spoke of her as the crown jewel of the community.

Cable television talk-show hosts and journalists—Anderson Cooper, Dan Abrams, Larry King, Greta Van Susteren, Rita Cosby, Catherine Crier—were running daily coverage of Bobbie Jo’s story, reporting every development as it became known. The print media were even more varied, running the gamut from tabloid magazines to every major newspaper in the country and all over the world. Reporters were flying into Kansas City and heading northwest toward Skidmore and south toward Melvern, looking to answer the question everyone seemed to be scratching their heads over: why would a woman—a mother herself—allegedly commit such an inconceivable act of violence against another woman? Lisa Montgomery had not one criminal count against her before December 17, 2004. What was it in her background, in her life, that led her down such a path? How did she turn out the way she did? What truly motivated her?

The answers, of course, were in Lisa’s past, leading right up until the day Bobbie Jo was murdered. Although the press hadn’t caught up to him yet, there was one man who knew Lisa better than anyone, someone who, indeed, held all of her secrets.

C
arl Boman was at his sister’s house in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, a four-hour drive south on Route 75 from Melvern, when he heard his ex-wife had been arrested and was likely going to be charged with murdering a woman and kidnapping her unborn child. Carl’s current wife, Vanessa, called him with the news.

“Hurry up and get home,” said Vanessa in a rush of words.

A heavyset woman, with curly brown hair and a pronounced British accent, Vanessa grew up in England and, she said, “had always wanted to live in the United States. I was offered the chance by a Mennonite Church [in the states] to come over and work as a teacher’s aide for some kids who were out of control.” After arriving in the States around 2000, and meeting Carl Boman under “rather bad circumstances, in the middle of the night, on my way home from the airport in Phoenix, Arizona,” Vanessa said she has “lived to regret the choice to be with Carl, as it has been so very painful for me….”

In the fairy tale of her life with Carl’s children, Vanessa quickly became the Wicked Witch. She was at odds, it seemed, with Lisa and the kids all the time.

When she called Carl and told him what Lisa allegedly had done, she was frantic and “very upset,” recalled Carl.

“Are you kidding?” said Carl.

“Tonya called me,” said Vanessa. “I cannot believe this, Carl.” Tonya had been watching television and saw a live feed from a local station, which showed helicopters flying over Lisa and Kevin’s house in Melvern. She recognized it right away and put it all together.

According to Vanessa, she collapsed on the floor after seeing Lisa’s picture “on the computer” and again when they started showing photographs of Bobbie Jo on television. She had a daughter from a previous marriage around the same age as Bobbie Jo and was “sick” over how Carl’s kids were going to be affected by what was being reported.

“Pull yourself together,” said Carl when Vanessa broke down on the phone.

“I can’t help it….”

Later, Vanessa said: “He was mad at me. I was so hurt by this and was very shocked that he was uncaring to me. I cried all the time…and couldn’t imagine how [Bobbie Jo’s] mother must have felt to have found her dying that way and with no baby there, either…Carl had told me that he hoped he would push Lisa over the edge, to get the kids, but neither of us thought anything like this would happen.”

At first, Carl had mixed feelings. “It seemed so damn surreal,” he recalled. “I just hopped in my truck and fled home.”

Over the years, Carl had metamorphosed from a lanky U.S. Navy brat into a solid, outdoorsy, blue-collar man’s man, who had his mind set on fighting his ex-wife in court for custody of two of their children. Before he even knew what Lisa had been accused of, Carl had made plans to drag her into family court and, among other things, prove Lisa had been lying about being pregnant all those times over the past four years. Although he hadn’t been treating the children as a father should during the past four years, Carl could make up for his shortcomings now by doing the right thing. Yet, no matter what he did, Lisa made the situation unbearable, he claimed, causing a negative impact on his relationship with the kids.

Carl was remarried now. He was building a life in Oklahoma, and wanted the children to be part of it. He wasn’t afraid to defend himself against anything Lisa threw at him. The children, he urged, suffered the most from her lies. Lisa never cared that when she hurt him by spreading lies, she was placing a burden on the children, too; or when she talked about the children’s father, her criticism was a reflection on them.

“Lisa cared about herself,” said Carl. “And nobody else. I haven’t done everything I should by my children, but I was willing to accept my faults, look ahead, and rebuild their lives for them. Lisa could never do that.”

Carl later remembered little of the ride home from his sister’s house, which took about fifteen minutes. Vanessa had the television on when Carl walked in. CNN, MSNBC, and all the local affiliates were running moment-by-moment coverage.

It was just after 6:00
P.M
.

Throwing his keys on the kitchen counter, Carl sat down on the couch and stared at the television. The first thing he saw was Lisa’s booking photo.

At one time, I loved this woman. She’s the mother of my four kids.

Carl had no idea then how involved the children were—that three of them had held the stolen child in their arms and played with her as if she were, as Lisa had told them, their new sister.

“Where are my kids?” Carl said, standing up, nervously running a hand through his hair, massaging the back of his neck.

Had Lisa taken one of the kids with her when she committed the murder? Were they in custody, too?

After watching the television coverage, allowing the news to settle on him, Carl got on the phone and called the Nodaway County Sheriff’s Department and local FBI.

Neither would tell him anything.

He put in a call to Kevin’s parents. Perhaps they knew what was going on. Or at least where the kids were.

No one answered the phone. One would have to assume the Montgomerys were still being bombarded by media requests.

When he realized he wasn’t going to get much information from anyone else, Carl called Rebecca on her cell phone, hoping she would pick it up when she saw his number appear on caller ID.

“Rebecca,” Carl asked when she answered, “where are you guys? Is everything okay?”

“We’re at the Montgomerys’, Dad.”

“Are you
okay
?”

“Dad,” Rebecca said, fighting back an overflow of emotion, “I can’t believe it.”

“It’s going to be okay, honey.”

“I can’t believe it,” she said again. (“Probably four or five more times,” recalled Carl.)

“Where is everyone else?”

“We’re all here, Dad.”

Carl had filed for custody of Alicia and Ryan days before. He had a court date with Lisa scheduled for the first part of January. Rebecca was turning eighteen on January 11. Because of her age, Carl left it up to Rebecca where she wanted to live. With Kayla in Georgia, he had the sense “she didn’t want to hurt her mom by moving in with me. Her mom was, at one time long before all this happened, her best friend.” Kayla, who had turned fourteen over the summer, was going to be able to decide for herself whom she wanted to live with. Alicia, who had turned sixteen on July 7, and Ryan, who turned fifteen in October, had declared their loyalty to Carl and told Lisa they wanted to live with him.

Pacing in the kitchen, shaking his head, trying to figure out his next move, Carl wondered if calling his lawyer was the next logical step. “Should I call James?” he asked Vanessa.

“It won’t hurt.”

After several tries, Carl heard back from his lawyer’s receptionist. “He’s out of town. He won’t be available until tomorrow morning.”

“Great! Just great….”

Carl wanted his children back. Right now. He couldn’t wait until tomorrow.

Still, he didn’t want to ride into Melvern like a cowboy and demand the children leave with him; he wanted to take action legally. The kids were safe at the Montgomerys’. Carl knew the family well. He trusted and respected them. It was late. Melvern was four hours away.

“Should I go?” he asked Vanessa.