Bobbie Jo Stinnett

Case background and investigation

Bobbie Jo Stinnett was a 23-year-old dog breeder who lived in the small town of Skidmore, Missouri, with her husband, Zeb. Eight months pregnant with her first child, she raised and sold rat terriers and was active in online dog-breeding communities. It was through one of those forums that she came into contact with Lisa Marie Montgomery, a Kansas woman who used the screen name 'Darlene Fischer.' Montgomery, who had been falsely telling those around her that she was pregnant, contacted Stinnett in December 2004 expressing interest in buying a puppy. The two women, who had also crossed paths through dog-show circles, arranged for Montgomery to visit Stinnett's home on December 16 to see the dogs in person.

When Montgomery arrived that day, she attacked Stinnett, strangling her with a cord. Stinnett briefly regained consciousness during the struggle before Montgomery strangled her again, killing her. Montgomery then used a kitchen knife to perform a crude cesarean incision, cutting the near-term baby girl from Stinnett's womb, and fled with the infant back to Kansas, intending to pass the child off as her own newborn. Stinnett's mother discovered her daughter lying in a pool of blood a short time later and called for help. The horrifying nature of the crime — a brutal homicide combined with the abduction of a baby cut from the victim's body — immediately drew national attention and set off a frantic, race-against-time search for the missing infant.

Investigators moved quickly, using Stinnett's computer records to trace the 'Darlene Fischer' communications and online activity back to Montgomery. Within about a day, on December 17, 2004, authorities located Montgomery at her home in Melvern, Kansas, where she was showing off the newborn as her own child. The baby girl, later named Victoria Jo, had survived the violent delivery and was recovered safely and reunited with her father. Montgomery was arrested and confessed within hours of questioning. Because the crime crossed state lines, she was prosecuted in federal court on a charge of kidnapping resulting in death, and her defense centered heavily on a documented history of severe childhood abuse and serious mental illness.

In 2007, a federal jury convicted Montgomery, and in 2008 she was sentenced to death. Her case became a focal point in debates over capital punishment and the treatment of mentally ill defendants, and her attorneys mounted extensive appeals and clemency efforts, arguing she suffered from trauma-induced psychosis. Those efforts ultimately failed. After a series of last-minute legal battles over her mental competency, Lisa Montgomery was executed by lethal injection at the federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana, in the early hours of January 13, 2021, becoming the first woman executed by the U.S. federal government since 1953. Bobbie Jo Stinnett's daughter survived the ordeal and was raised by her father's family in the years that followed.