She walked into a small-town café on a cold December morning, cradling a newborn wrapped in pink blankets. The baby couldn’t have been more than a day old—tiny fists, eyes barely open, that newborn fragility everyone recognized. The woman was beaming, exhausted in that familiar way new mothers are, showing off her daughter to anyone who glanced their way.
Her husband stood beside her, proud and protective. Her teenage sons peered at their new baby sister with a mix of curiosity and wonder. To everyone in that Whistle Stop Café in Melvern, Kansas, it looked like an ordinary scene—a family celebrating new life, the kind of moment that happens in small towns every day.
But this wasn’t an ordinary morning. And that baby, despite what the woman claimed, wasn’t hers.
Less than twenty-four hours earlier, in a quiet town just across the Missouri state line, a young woman named Bobbie Jo Stinnett had been eight months pregnant with that same child. She’d been counting down the days until she could hold her daughter—a baby girl she and her husband had already named Victoria. They’d prepared a nursery, bought tiny clothes, imagined what their lives would be like as parents.
Now Bobbie Jo was gone. And the woman in that Kansas café, a thirty-six-year-old named Lisa Montgomery, was pretending the stolen baby was her own.
This is the story of how an online friendship turned into one of the most horrifying crimes in American history—and how a desperate lie, told over and over, led to the first federal execution of a woman in nearly seventy years.
A Young Mother’s Dream
Bobbie Jo Stinnett was twenty-three years old in the winter of 2004. She lived with her husband, Zeb, in Skidmore, Missouri—a town so small that everyone knew everyone, where doors were often left unlocked and strangers were greeted with friendly waves.
The couple had been married for just over a year, still newlyweds in many ways, still learning each other’s rhythms. But they’d already built a life they were proud of. Bobbie Jo worked at a manufacturing plant in nearby Maryville, steady work that paid the bills. But her real passion was dogs.
She’d grown up around animals, learned breeding from older family members, understood the patience it took to match the right dogs, care for the mothers, socialize the puppies. By her early twenties, she’d built a small but respected business—Happy Haven Rat Terriers. The name suited her personality: warm, welcoming, generous with advice for anyone who shared her love of the breed.
Rat terriers are scrappy little dogs, loyal and energetic, bred originally as farm dogs to hunt vermin. In the rural Midwest, they were common, practical—but to enthusiasts like Bobbie Jo, they were so much more. She knew bloodlines, could spot good conformation, understood temperament. People drove hours to buy puppies from her because they trusted her judgment.
When she wasn’t at the plant or caring for the dogs, Bobbie Jo spent time online. The internet was still relatively new in small-town America in 2004—dial-up connections, early chat forums, the novelty of connecting with people across state lines. For niche communities like dog breeders, these online spaces were revolutionary. Suddenly you could talk to people who understood your passion, who spoke your language.
Bobbie Jo frequented a message board called Ratter Chatter, a forum dedicated to rat terrier enthusiasts. She posted photos of her dogs, answered questions from novice breeders, celebrated when her puppies found good homes. The community was tight-knit, supportive. People formed genuine friendships there, despite never meeting face-to-face.
By December 2004, Bobbie Jo was eight months pregnant. The pregnancy had been relatively easy, though the final stretch was beginning to wear on her. She was tired more easily, her back ached, sleep became elusive. But she radiated joy. Friends remember her talking endlessly about the baby, about becoming a mother, about how Zeb would be as a father.
They’d decided to name their daughter Victoria Jo—Victoria for the victory of finally starting their family, Jo to honor Bobbie’s own name. The nursery was ready. Tiny clothes hung in the closet. A car seat waited by the door.
December 17th was supposed to be an ordinary day. Bobbie Jo had the day off from the plant. Zeb was working. She’d planned to take care of some business with the dogs, maybe rest a bit, wait for Zeb to come home. She’d promised to pick up a coworker, Becky Harper, from work at 3:30 that afternoon—a small favor for a friend.
She had no reason to suspect that this would be the last ordinary day of her life.
The Woman Who Wasn’t Pregnant
Three hours away in Melvern, Kansas, Lisa Montgomery was preparing for a different kind of day.
Lisa was thirty-six, married to a man named Kevin Montgomery, mother to four children from a previous marriage. To her neighbors, she seemed ordinary—quiet, kept to herself mostly, nothing particularly remarkable. But beneath that surface, Lisa was drowning in a lie she’d been telling for months.
She’d told everyone she was pregnant. Her husband, her friends, people at church—everyone believed she was expecting a baby in December. She’d even shown people an ultrasound photo she’d printed from the internet, claiming it as her own.
The problem was simple and devastating: Lisa Montgomery wasn’t pregnant. She couldn’t be. Years earlier, she’d undergone tubal ligation, a permanent form of sterilization. There would be no baby. There couldn’t be.
But Lisa had painted herself into a corner. She’d told the lie so many times, built it up so elaborately, that backing out seemed impossible. Kevin believed her. He was excited about having his first biological child—Lisa’s other four children were from her previous marriage. The due date she’d given was approaching. People were asking questions, expecting updates.
Lisa’s life had been marked by trauma that most people couldn’t fathom. Court records would later reveal a childhood of almost unimaginable abuse—beatings, sexual assault, a mother who’d allegedly trafficked her own daughter, a stepfather whose crimes left scars that never healed. By adulthood, Lisa suffered from severe mental illness, dissociative episodes, an inability to distinguish reality from desperate fantasy.
This wasn’t her first fake pregnancy. She’d done it before, claimed to be expecting when she wasn’t, let the lie collapse when it became unsustainable. But this time felt different. This time, the stakes were higher. She was in the middle of a custody dispute over two of her children from her previous marriage. A motion had been filed just days earlier challenging her custody. She believed—whether rationally or not—that producing a baby would somehow prove she was stable, capable, worthy of keeping her children.
So Lisa made a plan. If she couldn’t give birth to a baby, she would simply take one.
She’d been researching online, searching for cesarean section procedures, looking at images of emergency deliveries. She’d found a target—someone who was pregnant, due around the same time Lisa had claimed to be due, someone accessible and trusting.
That someone was Bobbie Jo Stinnett.
The Online Connection
Lisa and Bobbie Jo had met in person once, briefly, at a dog show in Abilene, Kansas, earlier in 2004. Bobbie Jo had sold Lisa a dog—a simple transaction between two people who shared a passion for rat terriers.
But their real relationship developed online, through the Ratter Chatter message board. They messaged back and forth, talked about breeding techniques, shared photos of their dogs. To Bobbie Jo, Lisa was just another member of the community—someone who loved the breed, understood the work involved, seemed friendly enough.
Lisa, however, was studying Bobbie Jo. She knew Bobbie Jo was pregnant. She knew roughly when the baby was due. She knew where Bobbie Jo lived, had visited her home once before to pick up the dog.
In early December, Lisa created a new identity online—a fake name, “Darlene Fischer,” using an email account she’d set up specifically for this purpose. She contacted Bobbie Jo, expressed interest in buying a puppy, asked if she could come visit to see the available dogs.
Bobbie Jo, always eager to find good homes for her puppies, readily agreed. They scheduled a meeting for December 16th.
Lisa told Kevin she was going Christmas shopping in Topeka, a reasonable cover story that wouldn’t raise suspicion. She packed a bag—inside it, she placed a kitchen knife and a white cord.
Then she drove from Melvern, Kansas, across the state line into Missouri, toward the small town of Skidmore, toward the home of a young woman who had no idea what was coming.
December 16, 2004
Bobbie Jo was home alone when Lisa arrived around 12:30 that afternoon. Zeb was at work. The house was quiet except for the dogs.
Bobbie Jo opened the door with a smile. She was eight months pregnant, her belly prominent, moving more slowly than usual but still energetic when it came to her dogs. She welcomed Lisa inside, showed her to the area where the puppies were kept.
The two women spent time with the dogs, brought them outside, played with them in the yard. To any observer, it would have looked perfectly normal—two dog enthusiasts sharing their mutual passion. At 2:30 p.m., Bobbie Jo received a phone call from Becky Harper, the coworker she’d promised to pick up later. She confirmed she’d be there at 3:30.
Bobbie Jo had no reason to be afraid. No reason to suspect the woman standing beside her was carrying a knife and a cord. No reason to believe that in less than an hour, her life would end.
At some point after the phone call, Lisa made her move. When Bobbie Jo turned her back, focused on the dogs, Lisa pulled out the white cord and wrapped it around Bobbie Jo’s neck.
Bobbie Jo fought. Of course she fought. She was young, strong despite the pregnancy, desperate to survive, to protect her unborn daughter. But Lisa had the advantage of surprise, of positioning, of singular, desperate focus. She strangled Bobbie Jo until the young woman lost consciousness.
Then Lisa took out the knife.
What happened next was an act so incomprehensible that even hardened investigators would later struggle to describe it. Lisa cut into Bobbie Jo’s abdomen, attempting to remove the baby in a crude approximation of a cesarean section. The attack was brutal, clumsy, driven by desperation rather than any medical knowledge.
At some point during the assault, Bobbie Jo regained consciousness. She tried to fight back, tried to stop what was happening. The struggle was brief but frantic. Lisa strangled her again, this time until Bobbie Jo stopped breathing, until there was no more resistance.
Lisa continued cutting, extracting the baby from Bobbie Jo’s womb. Miraculously—impossibly—the baby was alive. Premature by a few weeks but breathing, tiny but fighting.
Lisa cut the umbilical cord, wrapped the newborn in whatever fabric she could find, and walked out of the house. She left Bobbie Jo lying in a pool of blood, the scene so violent that first responders would later describe it as one of the worst they’d ever encountered.
Lisa got into her car, holding the baby carefully, pinching the umbilical cord to control bleeding. Then she drove away from Skidmore, back across the state line into Kansas, toward her home in Melvern.
She drove with a stolen baby—a baby she would soon claim as her own.
The Discovery
Becky Harper waited at work for her ride. By 3:45, Bobbie Jo still hadn’t arrived. That wasn’t like her. Bobbie Jo was reliable, always on time, always called if something came up.
Becky tried calling. No answer. She called again. Still nothing.
Concerned, Becky contacted Bobbie Jo’s mother, Becky Stinnett. Something felt wrong. Bobbie Jo wouldn’t just not show up. Not without calling. Not eight months pregnant.
Becky Stinnett drove to her daughter’s house. She knocked. No answer. She tried the door—it was unlocked. She walked inside, calling Bobbie Jo’s name.
What she found in that house would haunt her for the rest of her life.
Bobbie Jo was lying on the floor, clearly deceased, surrounded by blood. The scene was horrific—evidence of violence, of struggle, of something too terrible to immediately comprehend. But the worst part, the detail that sent ice through Becky Stinnett’s veins, was obvious even through the shock.
Bobbie Jo’s abdomen had been cut open. And the baby—Victoria Jo, the granddaughter Becky had been so excited to meet—was gone.
Somehow, through the shock and horror, Becky managed to call 911. Within minutes, police and emergency responders descended on the small house in Skidmore. What they encountered was a crime scene unlike anything they’d seen—one victim confirmed deceased, another victim missing and in desperate danger.
An Amber Alert was issued immediately. A newborn baby, only hours old, premature, in critical need of medical attention, had been abducted. Somewhere out there, a kidnapper had a baby who might not survive without proper care.
The FBI was contacted. Because the crime likely involved crossing state lines—Skidmore, Missouri, was close to the Kansas border—federal jurisdiction applied. Kidnapping resulting in death was a federal crime. The full resources of the Bureau would be brought to bear.
But they had to move fast. The baby’s life hung in the balance. Every hour that passed decreased the chances of recovery.
Investigators searched the house, looking for any clue about who might have done this. They found Bobbie Jo’s computer, still on, the Ratter Chatter message board visible on the screen.
The Twenty-Four Hour Hunt
The FBI brought in specialists immediately—cyber investigators who could trace online communications, behavioral analysts who could build a profile, agents experienced in kidnapping cases.
They started with what they knew. Bobbie Jo had been expecting someone that afternoon—someone coming to look at puppies. Her mother confirmed that Bobbie Jo sold dogs, that people came to the house regularly, that Bobbie Jo frequently arranged meetings through her online connections.
Investigators dove into Bobbie Jo’s email, her message board history, her recent conversations. They found messages from “Darlene Fischer,” someone arranging to visit that day to look at puppies.
The cyber team went to work tracing the email account, following digital breadcrumbs. The Ratter Chatter message board administrators cooperated fully, providing IP addresses, connection logs, any information that might help.
Within hours, they had a lead. The IP address connected to “Darlene Fischer” traced back to a location in Kansas—a small town called Melvern.
Further investigation revealed a phone number, then a name: Lisa Montgomery.
Agents began building a profile. Lisa Montgomery, age thirty-six, married, mother of four. And crucially—she’d been telling people she was pregnant, due around the same time Bobbie Jo had been due.
The pieces fell into place with sickening clarity. A fake pregnancy. A woman desperate to produce a baby. Access to a pregnant victim through online connections.
By the morning of December 17th—less than twenty-four hours after Bobbie Jo’s murder—FBI agents were converging on a farmhouse outside Melvern, Kansas.
The Arrest
Lisa Montgomery woke up on December 17th playing the role she’d rehearsed in her mind. She was a new mother, exhausted but glowing, ready to show off her newborn daughter to the world.
She’d already taken the baby to the Whistle Stop Café for breakfast, her husband and teenage sons in tow. She’d held the infant proudly, showed her off to the restaurant owner, Kathy Sage, who would later remember thinking the baby looked remarkably small, remarkably new.
Lisa had even named the baby—Abigail, she said, a biblical name. She told Kevin a story about going into labor unexpectedly while out shopping in Topeka, giving birth so quickly there hadn’t been time to get to a hospital.
Kevin believed her. Why wouldn’t he? His wife had been pregnant for months. Now here was a baby. The timeline was a bit odd, but babies came when they came. He was holding his daughter. He was a father.
Lisa took the baby to church, continuing the performance, cementing the lie.
But by midmorning, the lie was collapsing. FBI agents knocked on her door.
At first, Lisa tried to maintain the story. The baby was hers. She’d given birth the day before. Everything was fine.
But the agents weren’t there to listen to stories. They had evidence—the email trail, the IP address, the timing too perfect to be coincidence. They had a dead woman in Missouri and a missing baby. And here was Lisa Montgomery, suddenly appearing with a newborn she claimed was hers.
Under questioning—first at the house, then at the sheriff’s office—Lisa’s story fell apart. She changed details, contradicted herself, finally, within an hour, confessed.
She’d driven to Missouri. She’d strangled Bobbie Jo. She’d cut the baby from her womb. She’d brought the infant back to Kansas and claimed her as her own.
The baby—Victoria Jo Stinnett, not Abigail Montgomery—was taken into protective custody immediately. She was examined, treated, and within hours, reunited with her father, Zeb Stinnett, at the hospital.
Against all odds, against all logic, Victoria Jo had survived.
But her mother was gone. And the woman who’d taken her was now in federal custody, facing charges that carried the death penalty.
The Woman Behind The Crime
To understand how Lisa Montgomery could commit such an unthinkable act, you have to go back decades—to a childhood that court-appointed psychologists would later describe as “torture”.
Lisa was born in 1968 in Kansas, the product of a troubled marriage that quickly deteriorated. Her mother, Judy Shaughnessy, married multiple times, each relationship more volatile than the last. When Lisa was young, Judy married Jack Kleiner, a man whose presence would cast a shadow over Lisa’s entire life.
From the time Lisa was around eleven years old, Kleiner began sexually abusing her. The abuse was systematic, brutal, ongoing. It happened in the family home, sometimes while Lisa’s mother was present in another room. Kleiner would build a special room, soundproofed, where he would take Lisa. The assaults continued for years.
But perhaps even more devastating was Judy’s response when she learned what was happening. Instead of protecting her daughter, Judy allegedly facilitated the abuse. Court documents would later reveal testimony that Judy allowed men to rape Lisa in exchange for money or services—plumbing work, electrical repairs, whatever the family needed. Lisa’s childhood home became a place of unspeakable horror.
When Lisa finally tried to tell someone—tried to escape, tried to get help—Judy threatened her with a gun. The message was clear: this was Lisa’s reality, and there was no way out.
Lisa turned to alcohol as a teenager, anything to numb the pain, to escape the memories that haunted her waking hours. She developed severe mental health issues—dissociative disorder, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder that would never fully resolve. By the time she was an adult, Lisa’s grip on reality was tenuous at best.
At eighteen, desperate to escape her mother’s house, Lisa married. But she’d never learned what a healthy relationship looked like. Her first husband was violent, abusive in different ways but abusive nonetheless. She had four children during this marriage, tried to build some semblance of a normal life, but the trauma of her childhood followed her everywhere.
After her first marriage ended, Lisa married Kevin Montgomery. Kevin was different—gentler, not violent. He seemed to genuinely care for her. But Lisa carried damage too deep for any relationship to fully heal. She lied compulsively, created elaborate fantasies, struggled to separate what was real from what she desperately wished was real.
The fake pregnancy wasn’t her first. She’d done it before, told people she was expecting when she wasn’t, let the lie unravel when she couldn’t maintain it. But this time, with a custody hearing looming, with her mental state deteriorating further, the lie took on a life of its own.
Mental health experts would later testify that Lisa experienced psychotic breaks, periods where she genuinely couldn’t distinguish reality from delusion. During these episodes, she believed her own lies. She believed she was pregnant. She believed she needed to produce a baby or lose everything.
But believing a delusion doesn’t excuse acting on it. And on December 16, 2004, Lisa Montgomery crossed a line from which there could be no return.
The Federal Case
Lisa Montgomery’s crime fell under federal jurisdiction for two reasons: she’d crossed state lines from Kansas to Missouri to commit the kidnapping, and the kidnapping had resulted in death. These were capital offenses, crimes for which the federal government could seek the death penalty.
The case was assigned to the United States District Court for the Western District of Missouri. The prosecution was led by federal attorneys who’d handled complex capital cases before. They knew the evidence was overwhelming—Lisa’s confession, the physical evidence, the digital trail, witness testimony. But they also knew the defense would argue mental illness.
Lisa’s defense team was appointed by the court, experienced attorneys who specialized in capital cases. Their strategy was clear from the beginning: they wouldn’t dispute that Lisa had killed Bobbie Jo Stinnett. The evidence was irrefutable. Instead, they would argue that Lisa was mentally ill, that she’d been acting under a psychotic delusion, that she lacked the mental capacity to fully understand or control her actions.
Over the course of the pre-trial proceedings, both sides brought in mental health experts. The defense presented psychologists who’d evaluated Lisa, reviewed her traumatic history, documented her dissociative episodes and psychotic breaks. They painted a picture of a woman so damaged by childhood abuse that her grip on reality had shattered.
These experts testified about the years of sexual abuse, the trafficking, the violence Lisa had endured. They described how severe trauma in childhood rewires the developing brain, creates lasting damage that no amount of therapy can fully repair. They argued that on December 16, 2004, Lisa had been in the grip of a delusion so powerful she genuinely believed she needed to obtain a baby or lose her children.
The prosecution didn’t dispute Lisa’s traumatic history—the evidence was too well-documented. But they argued that trauma, however severe, didn’t excuse murder. They pointed to the planning Lisa had done: creating the fake email account, researching cesarean procedures online, driving to Missouri with a knife and cord. This wasn’t the act of someone completely divorced from reality. This was premeditated kidnapping and murder.
The trial began in 2007, three years after Bobbie Jo’s death. The courtroom in Kansas City was packed with media, with Bobbie Jo’s family, with people who wanted to witness justice for the young mother who’d been killed in such a horrific way.
Testimony was emotional, difficult. Bobbie Jo’s mother, Becky Stinnett, described finding her daughter’s body, the scene that had haunted her every day since. Zeb Stinnett testified about his life with Bobbie Jo, about the future they’d planned, about raising Victoria Jo alone, a single father to a daughter who would never know her mother.
Lisa’s family testified too—sisters who described the abuse they’d witnessed, the dysfunction of their childhood, the ways Lisa had tried to protect herself and failed. Mental health experts presented their evaluations, described Lisa’s diagnoses, explained the impact of severe childhood trauma on adult functioning.
The jury heard all of it—the horror of the crime, the tragedy of Lisa’s childhood, the competing narratives of accountability versus mental illness. They deliberated for hours, weighing whether Lisa deserved life in prison or death.
In October 2007, the jury reached a verdict. Lisa Montgomery was found guilty of kidnapping resulting in death. And the sentence was death.
Lisa became one of only a handful of women on federal death row. She was transferred to FMC Carswell, a federal medical center in Fort Worth, Texas, where female death row inmates were housed. She would spend the next thirteen years there, filing appeals, fighting the sentence, waiting.
Years of Appeals
Lisa’s legal team didn’t stop fighting after the conviction. They filed appeal after appeal, arguing that the jury hadn’t been presented with enough evidence about Lisa’s mental illness, that her trial attorneys had been ineffective, that executing someone with such severe trauma and mental health issues violated constitutional protections against cruel and unusual punishment.
The appeals process in capital cases is deliberately lengthy, designed to ensure that no one is executed without exhaustive review. Lisa’s case wound through the federal court system—district court, appeals court, petitions to the Supreme Court. Each time, the courts reviewed the evidence, the trial record, the legal arguments.
Some appeals were successful in delaying execution. Courts granted stays, ordered additional reviews, sent issues back for reconsideration. But ultimately, every court that reviewed Lisa’s case reached the same conclusion: the jury had heard the evidence about her mental illness and had still found her guilty. The sentence would stand.
Mental health advocates became involved, arguing that Lisa’s case represented everything wrong with how the justice system treats people with severe mental illness. They pointed to her documented history of abuse, her diagnoses, the expert testimony about her impaired functioning. They argued that executing someone so clearly damaged by childhood trauma wasn’t justice—it was vengeance.
But victims’ rights advocates pushed back. They pointed to Bobbie Jo, a young woman with her whole life ahead of her, brutally murdered in her own home. They pointed to Victoria Jo, who would grow up without her mother. They argued that mental illness, however tragic, couldn’t excuse such a horrific crime.
The debate played out in courtrooms, in media coverage, in advocacy groups on both sides. It touched on fundamental questions about justice, mercy, accountability, and whether anyone is beyond redemption—or beyond punishment.
Through it all, Lisa remained at FMC Carswell, in a cell away from the general population, under constant supervision. She received mental health treatment, medication, therapy. Some reports suggested she was more stable than she’d been in years, more connected to reality. Others argued she was still profoundly mentally ill, that the underlying damage could never be fully repaired.
Victoria Jo was growing up in Missouri, raised by her father Zeb. He’d remarried, built a new family, but never forgot the mother his daughter had lost. He attended court hearings, made victim impact statements, advocated for the sentence to be carried out. For him, this wasn’t abstract legal theory. This was about his wife, murdered in their home, her body violated in death.
The Execution Decision
By 2020, Lisa had been on death row for thirteen years. Multiple appeals had been exhausted. The legal avenues were narrowing. And the Trump administration, in its final months, made a controversial decision: to resume federal executions after a seventeen-year hiatus.
Between July 2020 and January 2021, the federal government executed thirteen people, more federal executions in six months than had occurred in the previous six decades combined. It was a rapid, unprecedented push to carry out death sentences before the administration changed.
In October 2020, the Justice Department announced that Lisa Montgomery’s execution was scheduled for December 8, 2020. She would be the first woman executed by the federal government since 1953—sixty-seven years.
The announcement triggered immediate legal action. Lisa’s attorneys filed emergency motions, arguing that the execution should be delayed, that Lisa’s mental condition had deteriorated, that she wasn’t competent to be executed. Mental health experts filed declarations describing Lisa’s current state—dissociative episodes, limited understanding of why she was being executed, periods where she believed her lawyers were conspiring against her.
Courts issued stays, then lifted them. The execution was rescheduled multiple times. In December 2020, Lisa’s attorneys contracted COVID-19, making it impossible for them to properly represent her. A court granted another stay.
But in early January 2021, with only days left in the Trump administration, the Justice Department pushed forward. The execution was rescheduled for January 12, 2021.
Lisa’s legal team filed final appeals to the Supreme Court, arguing that executing someone with Lisa’s mental health history violated the Eighth Amendment. They presented evidence of her childhood abuse, her current mental state, expert opinions that she didn’t have a rational understanding of her punishment.
Mental health organizations, religious leaders, advocates for abuse survivors, and even some prosecutors who’d worked on death penalty cases filed amicus briefs supporting Lisa, arguing that her execution would be a miscarriage of justice.
On the other side, the Justice Department argued that Lisa had received due process, that courts had reviewed her case multiple times over thirteen years, that the sentence was legal and should be carried out. They pointed out that Lisa had been competent enough to plan and execute a brutal murder. Trauma didn’t excuse that.
The Supreme Court declined to intervene. The execution would proceed.
January 12, 2021
Lisa Montgomery was transported from FMC Carswell to the federal penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana, where federal executions took place. She spent her final days in a cell near the execution chamber, visited by her attorneys and a spiritual advisor.
Reports from those who saw her in those final days varied. Some said she seemed calm, resigned to her fate. Others said she appeared confused, dissociated, not fully grasping what was about to happen.
In the early morning hours of January 13, 2021—just after midnight—Lisa was led into the execution chamber. The method was lethal injection, a series of drugs designed to first sedate, then stop the heart.
Witnesses were present—required observers, media representatives, victims’ family members who’d chosen to attend. Lisa was strapped to a gurney, IVs inserted. She was given the opportunity to make a final statement. According to witnesses, she said nothing.
The drugs were administered. Within minutes, Lisa Montgomery was pronounced dead. She was fifty-two years old.
She became the first woman executed by the federal government in nearly seventy years, and the eleventh person executed in that six-month span between July 2020 and January 2021.
The execution was controversial to the end. Critics argued it was rushed, that Lisa’s mental illness should have precluded execution, that her traumatic history warranted mercy. Supporters argued that justice had finally been served for Bobbie Jo, that a horrific crime had received appropriate punishment.
Victoria Jo Today
Victoria Jo Stinnett would be twenty-one years old now, a young woman who never knew her mother, who was born into violence and tragedy but survived against impossible odds.
Zeb Stinnett raised her, remarried, gave Victoria siblings and a stable home. He made the conscious decision to shield her as much as possible from the details of her birth, to let her have a normal childhood despite the extraordinary circumstances of her arrival into the world.
In interviews over the years, Zeb has spoken about the balancing act of honoring Bobbie Jo’s memory while not burdening Victoria with trauma she was too young to understand. He’s described showing Victoria photos of her mother, telling her stories about Bobbie Jo’s love of dogs, her excitement about becoming a mother, the nursery she’d prepared.
Victoria grew up knowing her story—that her mother had been killed, that she’d been taken, that her birth was unusual. But Zeb worked to ensure that wasn’t the defining fact of her life. She was a daughter, a sister, a kid who went to school and had friends and played sports and lived as normal a life as possible.
The community of Skidmore rallied around the family. In small towns, tragedy either tears people apart or brings them together. In this case, neighbors, friends, and even strangers made sure Zeb and Victoria had support. They organized fundraisers, provided childcare, showed up when needed.
On the day Lisa Montgomery was executed, Zeb released a statement. He didn’t celebrate. He simply acknowledged that justice had been carried out, that the sentence handed down by the jury had been fulfilled, and that he hoped it would bring some measure of closure to a chapter that had defined his life for sixteen years.
The Legacy of a Crime
The Bobbie Jo Stinnett case left ripples that extended far beyond one family, one crime, one execution.
It raised questions about online safety long before cybersecurity became a mainstream concern. In 2004, the internet was still relatively new territory for many people. The idea that someone could use an online chat room to stalk and target a victim was shocking. The case prompted discussions about digital footprints, about being careful sharing personal information online, about the risks of meeting people from the internet in person.
It highlighted the intersection of mental illness and violent crime in ways that made people uncomfortable. Lisa’s case forced a reckoning with difficult questions: How much does childhood trauma excuse adult behavior? At what point does severe mental illness make someone not responsible for their actions? Is execution appropriate for someone whose entire life was shaped by abuse they never chose and couldn’t escape?
There were no easy answers. People on both sides of the death penalty debate used Lisa’s case to argue their positions. Those opposed to capital punishment pointed to her as evidence that the system executes people who are too mentally ill to be held fully accountable. Those in favor argued that allowing severe mental illness to excuse any crime, no matter how brutal, would undermine justice entirely.
The case also brought attention to the reality of fetal abduction—a rare but devastating crime. Prior to Bobbie Jo’s murder, most people had never heard of such a thing. The idea that someone would kill a pregnant woman to steal her baby seemed too horrible to be real. But it had happened before, and it would happen again. Law enforcement agencies studied the case, developed protocols for investigating these crimes, trained officers to recognize warning signs.
For the true crime community, the case became one of the most discussed, analyzed, and debated. It had every element that makes a case compelling: an innocent victim, a shocking method, a desperate perpetrator with a tragic background, a baby who survived, and ultimately, a controversial execution. Books were written, documentaries produced, podcasts recorded. Bobbie Jo’s story was told and retold, each time prompting new discussions about justice, mercy, and accountability.
Reflections on Justice and Mercy
Seventeen years separated the crime from the punishment. Seventeen years during which Lisa Montgomery lived on death row, received mental health treatment, filed appeals, and waited. Seventeen years during which Victoria Jo grew from a newborn fighting for life to a young adult building her future. Seventeen years during which Bobbie Jo’s family tried to find meaning in loss that could never be fully reconciled.
The question at the heart of Lisa’s case was never whether she committed the crime—she confessed immediately, the evidence was overwhelming. The question was whether executing her was justice or simply more tragedy piled atop tragedy.
Those who supported the execution pointed to the brutality of the crime, the premeditation, the innocence of the victim. Bobbie Jo Stinnett was a young woman who’d opened her door to someone she thought was a fellow dog lover. She was murdered in her own home, her body violated in death, her baby torn from her womb. No amount of childhood trauma suffered by Lisa Montgomery could erase that or make it less horrific. Justice, they argued, required that Lisa pay with her life.
Those who opposed the execution pointed to the cascade of abuse that had shaped Lisa from childhood, the documented mental illness, the experts who testified she’d been operating under a psychotic delusion. They argued that executing someone so profoundly damaged by circumstances beyond her control wasn’t justice—it was vengeance. That a truly just society would recognize when someone is too mentally ill to be held fully accountable, would choose treatment and permanent incarceration over death.
Both sides had valid points. Both sides came from places of genuine conviction about what justice means, what society owes to victims and what limits should exist on punishment.
In the end, the courts sided with punishment. The sentence was carried out. Lisa Montgomery died by lethal injection in the early hours of January 13, 2021, and with her death, the legal chapter of the case closed.
But the moral questions remain open. We’re still grappling with how to balance accountability with mercy, how to handle crimes committed by people with severe mental illness, how to honor victims while recognizing that perpetrators are often victims themselves of different crimes.
A Story Without Simple Answers
The story of Bobbie Jo Stinnett and Lisa Montgomery defies easy categorization. It’s not simply a tale of good versus evil, victim versus monster. It’s more complicated, more human, more tragic than that.
Bobbie Jo was a young woman building a life, excited about becoming a mother, generous with her time and knowledge about something she loved. She didn’t deserve what happened to her. No one could.
Lisa was a woman whose childhood was marked by abuse so severe that mental health experts struggled to find adequate language to describe it. She was damaged in ways that never healed, that manifested in delusions and breaks from reality. That doesn’t excuse what she did, but it explains why she was capable of it.
Victoria Jo survived an ordeal that should have killed her, was raised by a father who lost his wife but found the strength to give his daughter a stable, loving home. She carries a story she didn’t choose, a beginning marked by violence, but a life that’s hers to define.
The justice system did what it was designed to do—investigated, prosecuted, convicted, sentenced, and ultimately executed. But whether that execution served justice or merely added another death to the tally is a question each person must answer for themselves.
What we’re left with is this: a young mother is gone. A baby survived. A damaged woman paid with her life. And a small community in Missouri continues to remember, continues to grapple with, continues to be shaped by what happened in a house in Skidmore on December 16, 2004.
The case reminds us that true crime isn’t entertainment—it’s real people’s lives destroyed, real families shattered, real communities changed forever. Behind every headline, every podcast episode, every documentary is someone like Bobbie Jo, who deserved to live. Someone like Victoria, who deserves peace. Someone like Zeb, who deserves to move forward without his grief being constantly revisited.
And it reminds us that our criminal justice system, for all its procedures and precedents, still struggles with the hardest questions: When is punishment enough? When does mercy become more just than retribution? How do we honor victims without dehumanizing perpetrators? How do we acknowledge that someone can be both a victim and a victimizer?
These questions outlive any single case. They’ll still be with us long after the details of this one fade from public memory. Because they’re not really questions about Lisa Montgomery or Bobbie Jo Stinnett. They’re questions about who we are as a society, what we value, how we define justice.
On December 17, 2004, a woman walked into a café in Kansas holding a newborn baby she claimed was hers. Within hours, the truth emerged—a truth that shocked America, that raised uncomfortable questions, that divided people over what justice requires.
More than twenty years later, we’re still wrestling with those questions. Still trying to make sense of a crime that seems to defy sense. Still searching for meaning in tragedy that offers no easy lessons.
All we can do is remember Bobbie Jo Stinnett—not just as a victim, but as a person. A young woman who loved dogs, who was excited about becoming a mother, who opened her door to a stranger because she saw the good in people. Her life mattered. Her death mattered. And the daughter she never got to hold has grown into a young woman who carries her mother’s name and, hopefully, her mother’s capacity for love.
That’s the story. Not simple. Not satisfying. But true.
