Murder in the Heartland (19 page)

S
leep was hard to find for Carl Boman. When he finally wrestled his thoughts together, he had one objective in mind: seeing his children.

Because he couldn’t get hold of his lawyer, James Campbell, the night before, Carl called him first thing in the morning, hoping he would have some advice regarding what to do next.

Campbell, though, still hadn’t returned to his office.

“I’m leaving for Melvern,” Carl told Vanessa.

Carl’s brother drove from Tulsa, where he lived, to Bartlesville, to pick up Carl. Carl wanted his support and company for the long trip to Melvern. As his brother drove, Carl used his cell phone and called James Campbell again.

“Yeah, Carl? What’s happening?”

“I need to have my children here with me,” said Carl, “at home, where they belong.”

“Well, Carl, I heard about everything last night, and actually tried calling you. I’m on my way back to town now,” said Campbell.

Richard Boman, Carl’s father, who had been married to Lisa’s mother at one time, drove up from Tennessee to meet Carl and his brother as they got closer to Melvern. Richard was well aware of the tenuous situation Carl had been in lately with Lisa and the kids. He knew about the pending child custody court case. The hearing, however, was likely to be postponed now, in anticipation of any legal action against Lisa.

“You’re going to get the kids,” his brother and father told him. “Relax.”

James Campbell said he was going to file a temporary custody order as soon as Carl and his brother made it to his office in Burlington, Kansas.

“Let me take care of the paperwork while you’re on your way,” Campbell offered.

“Thanks, Jim.”

Campbell, a burly man in his early forties, was an experienced lawyer in probate matters. He was certain the court would grant Carl temporary custody, based solely on the events over the past twenty-four hours—which had proved, at least on the surface, Lisa wasn’t capable of taking care of the children at this point in her life.

“Drop by my office on your way into Melvern,” said Campbell.

“Will do.”

Carl and his brother had left Bartlesville about 7:30
A.M
. By the time they got to Campbell’s office two hours later, the paperwork was waiting for Carl to sign.

Campbell’s urgent action was comforting to Carl. “This, of course, I appreciated,” said Carl, “even though I knew the case was now going to make a name for him in town and would help him immensely. He’s been, gosh, whew—James has been great.”

By then, Carl’s name had become synonymous with the case.
Good Morning America
, the
Montel Williams Show
,
Larry King Live
, and many other major media organizations were calling, asking Carl to appear with his children on air. Carl, at present, was not about to speak to the world about his relationship with Lisa; he wanted to make sure his kids were taken care of and the press left them alone.

The previous night had been a blur to Carl. Vanessa didn’t make the trip to Melvern simply because of “all the emotion involved,” recalled Carl. It was too much for her. All the time Carl spent on custody issues and dealing with Lisa and her family had impacted his relationship with Vanessa negatively.

After news of what happened broke, friends stopped by Carl and Vanessa’s and called to see if they could do anything for the family. Carl appreciated the support. But now, with the severity of the crime itself beginning to settle on him as he made his way from Bartlesville to Melvern, the entire situation had taken on a new dimension. It was, he said, as if he were leading someone else’s life, running on pure adrenaline, not thinking about things thoroughly, just trudging along on autopilot.

“It felt like walking through a cloud. I hate to sound clichéd, but it was like a dream. That’s the only way I can describe it.”

The plan was for Carl to pick the kids up at the Montgomerys’ and bring them to where Judy lived in nearby Lyndon. Carl would stay the night at Judy’s and return to Oklahoma the following morning with the kids.

Not long after Carl left Campbell’s office, the attorney called with good news.

“The judge is going to sign the ex parte custody order on Monday,” said Campbell. “Legally, you can bring the kids home with you.”

The long drive to Melvern was cumbersome. Carl and his brother hardly said a word to each other.

“I mean, I had been married to this woman twice and had known her for over twenty years,” explained Carl. “She was the mother of my children. When people say, ‘These things happen to other people,’ we generally take that with a grain of salt. But I know now what that means.”

Carl was nervous about seeing the kids. He fretted over what he was going to say. He realized he couldn’t gloat about being right—having told every one of the Montgomerys over the course of the past year Lisa was not pregnant. Nor could he put a bow on it and tell the children he’d fix it. It wouldn’t be fair to them.

“I was at a loss for what to say and how to handle the situation,” Carl remembered thinking while his brother drove. “My brother, whom I love dearly, wasn’t much help. He did listen to my rantings along the way, but had no answers.”

Carl called Kayla in Georgia. She was a daddy’s girl. They had bonded from day one more than any of the other children, according to both. With Kayla being the youngest, Carl knew it was up to him to try to talk her through the situation.

“You okay?”

“I really don’t want to talk, Dad.”

“Okay, honey. I’m here, though. Let me speak to Auntie M.”

Carl told Mary to watch Kayla closely. Kayla was close to Lisa. As soon as what had taken place truly hit her, she was going to implode emotionally.

Mary agreed. “No problem, Carl. Anything you need.”

W
hile Kayla was in school on Saturday morning, finishing up finals, she made a decision that, as bad as she wanted to leave, she was going to stay in Georgia. She saw no sense in going back home and getting involved in a media frenzy. Still, the brutality of what her mother purportedly had done ate at Kayla as she went about her day.

“By the time I was at school,” she said, “I knew my mom had done ‘it.’” Kayla had a hard time speaking about the specifics of what “it” was; the reality of the crime was too hard for her to put into words. “I’d had doubts about whether she was pregnant. I mean, it was just a feeling that kept bugging me. But, when Mary told me that day when I returned home from school…I knew. I didn’t have doubts. I wondered how the person who gave birth to me could do such a thing. You see, sometimes things seem impossible, but they aren’t, really.”

What about Kevin?

“Did I think Kevin was involved? Not for a second! I know my mom could do something like that. But not Kevin. I didn’t think he was involved then, and I still don’t…. He was (and is) devastated. He loved (and still does) my mom…and was really shocked when he found out my mom did it. He really believed Tori Jo was
his
daughter. I feel bad for him.”

Part of what hurt the most, Kayla said, was that her mother allegedly had murdered someone she had been close to and was just getting to know. Bobbie Jo and Kayla had corresponded via e-mail, in person, and through instant messages more times than she could count.

“She
murdered
my friend. She left an innocent baby without a mother, a husband without his wife, a mother without her daughter, a little boy without his protective big sister, and a community without a
wonderful
person. I am still so mad about it all.

“I miss talking to Bobbie Jo.”

As class came to a close, Kayla began thinking about past events.

“I have always wondered what would have happened if I hadn’t gone to live in Georgia. Would my mom still have done what she did? I know that what-ifs aren’t good to focus on. But I can’t help but wonder what would have happened. I know I can’t go back and change things. But I
really
wish I could.”

A
crowd of well over three thousand people gathered to witness the first federal execution in America. It was June 25, 1790, somewhere near Portland, Maine. Thomas Bird, a tall fellow with large muttonchop sideburns and rotten teeth, stood at the gallows, his large hands, rough as rawhide, tied behind his back. Bird was pleading for his life with executioner Henry Dearborn, a U.S. Marshal.

Bird had petitioned the court, asking George Washington, the great general and president himself, for a pardon. His request was denied.

The crowd stood staring at Bird, clamoring for his neck. Bird was, essentially, a pirate, a nuisance to the community, which viewed him as nothing more than a ruffian who took what he wanted without much care for what people thought. He had murdered the captain of the ship he worked on. A man had to pay a price for such violence.

At the time of Bird’s landmark execution, maritime law was a major concern for federal courts in America. Bird had violated one of the most cherished laws of the colonies.

Within minutes after he stood at the gallows, the doors below Thomas Bird opened and his feet fell out from underneath him. The fall snapped his neck like a dry twig. In seconds, it was over. History was made: the first federal execution.

Approximately forty crimes recognized by the federal government are punishable by the sentence of death. Most involve murder while in the process of committing a second crime. For example, in Lisa Montgomery’s case, the government was alleging Lisa murdered Bobbie Jo Stinnett with the intention (and in the process) of kidnapping her unborn child.

Since the first federal execution, according to studies conducted by the Capital Punishment Research Project, “336 men and 4 women” have been executed under federal guidelines. Thirty-nine percent—134—were carried out on whites, and 118—35 percent—on African Americans; along with 63 Native Americans and 25 Hispanics (or persons of an unknown race).

Nearly every execution since Thomas Bird’s in 1790 has been carried out by hanging, electrocution, gas, or lethal injection. A majority of executed inmates were convicted for murder or crimes resulting in murder. Other executions have been carried out for piracy, rape, rioting, kidnapping, and, naturally, espionage.

During the twentieth century, 61 percent of federal executions included minority defendants.

In a sense, these statistics boded well for Lisa Montgomery—if, in fact, the government chose to seek the death penalty against her. Several factors, experts claim, weigh on the side of females facing the death penalty. Number one is that juries sitting on federal cases feel the female murderer is less vicious and more likely to commit a criminal act under extenuating circumstances that ultimately led her to the point where she felt murder was her only option. Another important factor is that most women who face the death penalty are mothers.

“In Missouri,” said one local official, “you get a lotta leg outta that—she would only need one vote.”

The murder of Bobbie Jo Stinnett, however, was unusual in many ways. Lisa Montgomery was a woman who had confessed to killing another female exclusively for the purpose of kidnapping her child; a child, who, the jury in Lisa’s case would no doubt learn, hadn’t even been born. If a woman could cut a baby from another woman’s womb and present the child to the public, her kids, and her husband as her own, what other crimes was she capable of?

Approximately thirty prisoners were on death row the day Lisa was arrested. Would she be number thirty-one?

As Lisa sat in prison, Todd Graves started laying the groundwork for the government’s case.

“There are numerous statutes,” Graves said, reflecting on how the government was faring in its decision to pursue the death penalty against Lisa. “We have to have a very specific statute. We have specific jurisdiction, not general jurisdiction. And so there are a number of crimes, but it has to fit within one of those categories.”

Speaking a day after her arrest, Graves was specific in the way he viewed what Lisa had reportedly admitted. “I’m not sure any act of violence that results in a death would be considered a normal act.”

Graves had grown up in Northwest Missouri and lived there most of his life. He knew a lot of the people in the region where Bobbie Jo was murdered. It was, in every meaningful sense, an indescribable crime, unspeakable. Those images people now had as the affidavit was made public were horrifying. The one person people were talking about most was Becky Harper, Bobbie Jo’s mother, who had found her daughter and believed her “stomach had exploded.” The words Harper used were, by themselves, appalling. To think a mother would come upon her daughter bleeding to death on the floor of her home and her only grandchild missing—it was inconceivable.

“Well,” Graves said after being asked how he personally felt, “it’s certainly among the most heartrending, and it is a very unusual case.”

Graves had been a state prosecutor before being appointed U.S. attorney.

“And there—believe it or not—there are other unusual cases [I have seen]. But this one definitely kicks you in the gut…. This is the heart of America. We are at the geographic and population center of the country. And to have something happen here that gets this kind of attention certainly is something that we don’t look forward to.”

Representative Sam Graves, who had helped in Ben Espey’s fight to get the Amber Alert issued the night Victoria Jo went missing, released a statement on Saturday detailing his plan to introduce legislation that would make it a bit easier to get future Amber Alerts issued for abductions. It wouldn’t matter if the child was a newborn, infant, or fetus; this case proved any abduction warranted an Amber Alert, even if issued with a vague description of the child.

Representative Graves was proud to be able to submit legislation in honor of Victoria Jo, who had become a symbol of hope to the entire Skidmore community, if not all of western Missouri. Lisa Montgomery, on the other hand, at least in the eyes of the judicial system from here on out, would be known simply as Case Number 04-00210-01-JTM.

One more number on a court docket.