The case was ruled a homicide and remains unsolved. Mattingly says looking back to the moment life changed for her as an eight-year-old, she feels guilty that when the social workers came for her, she didn't tell them what was going on in that house. These days, she requires a regimen of psychotropic drugs to function. ", "I live with regret for not speaking up about what happened to Lisa," Kidwell said, adding that he just didnt know what to do.. That could change in Terre Haute. The historic reports of her at the time are consistent with the idea that she was a completely impaired mentally ill nonfunctional person who was operating within the symptoms of her mental illness, Porterfield said. Montgomery gave birth to three daughters and a son from1987 to1990, court records say. Lawyer Kelley Henry says one of the things that disturbs her most is that adults in positions of authority were told about what was going on but did nothing. Some nights, she said, Shaughnessy would leave them in the house with a male babysitter. Around this time, she repeatedly claimed to be pregnant again, although she had undergone sterilisation after her fourth baby was born. Since receiving her execution date, she's been placed on suicide watch in an isolated cell. She would be the first woman executed by the federal government in 67. And, in fact, blaming her for it.. She has exhausted all legal options except a last-ditch appeal for clemency from President Donald Trump, which was filed Christmas Eve. We lived in a house of horrors. Even at the age of 8, Mattingly recalled being worried about what would happen to Montgomery without her there. Her lawyers had argued she was a mentally ill victim of abuse who deserved mercy. Lisa Montgomery - the only female inmate on federal death row in the US - has been executed for murder in the state of Indiana. I didn't know what to do or how to talk to my sister about it.". She would tell me I had to leave and I couldnt take anything with me because she bought everything, she recalled. . As an adult, Montgomerys dysfunctional life mimicked that of her childhood. I couldn't believe how good it felt to be part of a loving family. President-elect Joe Biden has already pledged to end death penalty proceedings, although he hasn't said when. Her lawyers say that as she lost touch with reality, she fantasised about being pregnant. According to her lawyers and witnesses, Montgomery suffered years of childhood abuse so severe it was akin to torture. Skidmore has suffered lasting effects as a result of Stinnett's murder, said Strong, the investigator who helped prodMontgomery to confess. 2023 BBC. After their biological father left the home, Mattingly says they were left alone with Shaughnessy's boyfriends, at least one of whom started raping Mattingly. On her way out the door, Mattingly said, Shaughnessy leaned over and told her it was all her fault she was being taken away. When she was 18, Montgomery married her stepbrother. "It was pretty awful.". Montgomery strangled Stinnett into unconsciousness, then sliced into her stomach with the steak knife, Strong said. At least five times after she was sterilized, she told people that she was pregnant. And then there is the life that Montgomery and her siblings inhabited, one of domestic violence, dysfunction, humiliation, fear and pain. The infant found later that day to weigh 5 pounds, 11 ounces was "very still" and didn't cry, which concerned Strong. Sheriff Strong insists that the crime was meticulously planned and that the woman he arrested continued to lie until backed into a corner. "They made this a priority at the risk of the health and lives of corrections officials, of the prisoners on death row, and the communities that all of those Bureau of Prisons officials who flew in from across the country were returning to," says Ngozi Ndulue, senior director of research and special projects at the Death Penalty Information Center. In what Mattingly described as the most lucky thing to ever happen to her, she was placed with a loving foster family who showered her with affection. It makes him even angrier that it was Stinnett's mother who discovered her that way. "I think that in a lot of the opinion pieces that are being posted, in a lot of things that people are sharing, Bobbie Jo and her daughter, and her mother and her husband and other friends and family, are kind of being forgotten," says Tiffany Kirkland, another member of the class of 2000. She didnt have nobody there to protect her once I was out of the home.. - Sandra Babcock, faculty director of the Cornell Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide, Montgomery, who confessed, was later sentenced to death for the , The Trump administration announced it was. Because of Stinnett's easy-going reputation, Morrow remembers instantly dismissing the initial reports of her murder. Lisa was anally, orally, and vaginally raped by several men, one after the other for several hours at a time. "I would say, 'President Trump, I want you to look at the life that Lisa had led, I want to look at all the people that have failed her, I want you to look at the rape, the torture, the mental abuse, the physical abuse that this woman had endured,'" she says. One of those men started coming into their bedroom and raping Mattingly regularly, Mattingly said. Montgomery was represented briefly after her arrest by Ron Wurtz, a now-retired attorney who has represented dozens of capital case defendants. Bobbie Jo's mother and husband have have not spoken publicly in many years. He stressed that the juryheard testimony about her mental illness and her history of being abused, yet still unanimously recommended her execution. She describes Montgomery's ex-husband as cruel and harassing. As Strong crossed the threshold, hesaw a TV set airing an Amber Alert about the abduction of Stinnett's baby. After five hours of deliberation, the jury found Montgomery guilty. Shaughnessy in 1974 married her third husband, Jack Kleiner, a divorced father of five. Montgomery also talked about the abuseshe had endured from her stepfather, Jack Kleiner, and the first of her two husbands, Carl Boman, Dorr said. "This was the act of a monster," he said. Shaughnessy was cruel and violent to both girls, according to a sworn statement from Patterson, who reported feeling ashamed that he did not step in to stop the abuse. According to sworn statements from her family, her mental health declined rapidly after that. Montgomery's lawyers want her sentence commuted to a life sentence, which would allow her to remain under psychiatric care in prison for the rest of her days. He also noted that after she confessed to killing Stinnett, she changed her story to contend the murder was committed by her half-brotherTommy Kleiner. Stitched together, they form a tapestry of family dysfunction, abuse, neglect, professional negligence, substance abuse and untreated mental illness. The murder 16 years ago is never far from the minds of the town's residents. Harper told a dispatcher her daughter's womb appeared to have "exploded" and that blood was "everywhere." And nowhere is that support more palpably felt in this case than in Skidmore. She was beaten, repeatedly raped by her stepfather and his friends and sexually trafficked by her mother. The tiny farming town of Skidmore sits in the far northwest corner of Missouri. Henry says this was an early sign of her mental illnesses, which include bipolar disorder, complex post-traumatic stress disorder, dissociative disorder and traumatic brain injury. A survivor of incest and sex trafficking, she is diagnosed with bipolar disorder with psychotic features, complex post-traumatic stress disorder, temporal lobe epilepsy, and cerebellar dysfunction, said Amy Harwell, a federal public defender in Tennessee who is working on Montgomerys case. Montgomery lamented that she couldn't be present to console them because she was in solitary confinement, said Dorr, Montgomery's friend since they met in a federal prison in 2006. She has exhausted all legal options. Montgomery has pleaded not guilty to kidnapping resulting in death. Two days before the crime, her former husband (and stepbrother) sought custody of two of her children. "She was completely detached from reality.". The population hovers around just 250, and everyone knew Bobbie Jo Stinnett and her family. "When I squeezed her hand, she looked at me and smiled," she said. Judy Shaughnessy and her boyfriend physical, psychological and sexual abuse Lisa. Every time she has a birthday, it will also be the anniversary of the slaughter of her mother, Whitworth said. Stinnett's husband was at work, andStinnett was on the phone with her mother, Becky Harper, when Montgomery's dirty red Toyota pulled upon the afternoon of Dec. 16. When Lisa was a small child, Judy allowed men to rape her for money, including allowing her to be gang raped on multiple occasions. If you or someone you know needs support for issues about emotional distress, these organisations may be able to help. A newspaper article quoted him as saying he had been convinced his wife was pregnant and had given birth. If her execution goes forward, she will be the first federal female inmate to be executed in almost 70 years. She was quiet and kind, they say. In her opinion, Montgomerys extreme childhood trauma created the conditions for her to grow into an adult with a disconnected sense of her emotions, a tenuous hold on reality, a completely warped view of human relationships, and a split and damaged sense of herself and of her body, according to expert testimony she provided for the defense. Montgomery is scheduled to be put to death by a lethal injection of pentobarbital at Terre Haute prison in Indiana. Strong said he and Fritz questioned Montgomery using a"good cop/bad cop" approach. Friends recall her as a good student with a love of horses and dogs. Just the details: What you need to know about Montgomery and her victim, Bobbie Jo Stinnett. Montgomery lived during her childhood in Washington, Kansas, Colorado, Oklahoma, California and Texas. Weddle said she moved to Melvern when she retired nine years ago because she wanted peace and quiet after more than 30 years as a Topeka police officer. Dorr met Montgomery after being imprisoned for helping an inmate escape in 2006 as Dorrran a dog training program for inmates at Lansing Correctional Facility in northeast Kansas. "And then go, 'Look at this body'. The baby girl survived, andMontgomery took her home and briefly passed her off as her own until investigators arrested her the next day. Montgomery has exhausted all attempts to appeal her conviction and death sentence although her attorneys are exploring possible litigation. "She was really the first one to have a decent marriage, you know, and I guess looking at Bobbie Jo was like, what your dreams were when you were younger.". Kleiner told a reporter in 2005 that Shaughnessy's allegation was made up to support her divorce case and he was never found guilty of anything. As Strongand other investigators were about to pull into the driveway of Montgomery's house, he said, he learned via a phone callthat the last email Stinnett received had come from that home. "That's how evil this woman is," Strong said. Other times, her behavior could be erratic and inappropriate. Nodaway County Sheriff Randy Strong says that the scene that he and his four colleagues found that day was so bloody, they are still traumatised by it. Montgomerys father, John Patterson, a 25-year-old in the military, was also an alcoholic. Shaughnessy knew that Mattingly was sensitive about abandonment due to her severed relationship with her birth mother, and so she would strip Mattingly naked and push her outside the front door, pretending that she was kicked out. Shaughnessy sat so unmoved during her daughter's testimony that the judge reprimanded her for lacking empathy. Dorr's marriage was failing when she fell in love with John Manard, a convicted murderer 21 years her junior. He thanked the sheriff for recovering his daughter and allowing him to be the parent that his wife couldn't be. More: Why the fate of the only woman on federal death row hinges on these Tennessee attorneys and their health, "Lisas trauma was so severe that it compromised her neurological functioning and development," they said in a written statement. The clemency process enables convicted criminals to request mercy and ask the nation's executive branch to step in, Henry said. She struggles to maintain her own hygiene, loses focus during conversations with others and has trouble planning simple tasks.". A former paramedic who had watched the births of all three of his children, Strong also considered the baby's head to be unusually round. In a letterin late November written with a black crayon, Montgomery told Dorr that other inmates at Carswell took it "really hard" when her execution date was set. When Montgomery was 15, Shaughnessy and Kleiner separated. She strangled Stinnett to death and cut the baby from her stomach. I never molested her in any way, shape or form, said Kleiner, who died in 2009. She had four children in less than four years before being sterilized. Is it ethical to execute a woman for actions that cannot be meaningfully separated from her mental illness and ugly history of abuse? The family moved from place to place dozens of times, but it was in a trailer in Sperry, Oklahoma, where her lawyers say the abuse turned into something more akin to torture. In addition to her brain damage, Lisa developed multiple mental disorders, including bipolar disorder, temporal lobe epilepsy, dissociative disorder, and Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Judy later married a man named Jack who punched, kicked and choked his children, including Lisa. Montgomery wasn't allowed eyeglasses, though she is far-sighted and near-sighted, or a CPAP machine, which has been prescribed since 2015 for her sleep apnea, Henry said. When Judy, Lisa's mother and my stepmother, came to beat us, I stood between her and the younger girls and took the beating, whether it was belts, cords or hangers. In recommending execution, the jury spelled out six aggravating factors supporting capital punishment. Henry stressed that no one faces a death sentence linked to the 16 other U.S. cases from 1987 to2015 in which a woman has attacked a pregnant woman and her unborn child in an effort to take the childand ended up killing one or both. Mattingly and Montgomery were best friends. Court records describe her as a quiet loner who spent a lot of time reading books. It has been the subject of two books, multiple true crime television shows, documentaries and countless podcast episodes. Nobody has said that Lisa should never have been punished. Montgomery's mother, Judy Shaughnessy, who was 20 at the time of her birth in 1968, drank heavily while pregnant with her daughter. "I fell in love immediately.". In Montgomerys early teen years, Kleiner moved the family to an isolated trailer at the end of a dead-end road outside of Sperry, Oklahoma, a severely impoverished area north of Tulsa. However, calls for Trump to be merciful are hardly unanimous. Lisa Montgomery - the only female inmate on federal death row in the US - has been executed for murder in the state of Indiana. Lisa Montgomery's current legal team has conducted some 450 interviews with family members, friends, case workers, doctors and social workers. Love with John Manard, a divorced father of five murder 16 years ago is far... 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