WARNING DIRTRESSING CONTENT Lisa Montgomery was sentenced to death after abducting and killing a pregnant woman and stealing her baby. Her family and lawyer said the execution was shameful
A woman who strangled a pregnant mother before cutting out and kidnapping her baby uttered one eerie word before the lethal injection.
Lisa Montgomery, 52, chillingly nicknamed the ‘womb raider’, was the only female inmate on federal death row before she was executed for her disturbing crimes. Her sentence sparked debate as her lawyers argued she was mentally ill and suffered serious abuse as a child.
In 2007, the killer was found guilty of abducting and strangling Bobbie Jo Stinnett, who was eight months pregnant. Montgomery snatched the unborn baby from the victim’s womb. The child survived and was christened Victoria Jo by her father Zeb.
Montgomery initially tried to pass the baby off as her own but her lies soon unravelled. Police caught her cradling the newborn girl she claimed to have given birth to the day before and quickly realised her facts didn’t add up. After her story fell apart, she confessed to the killing and was sentenced to death.
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Her execution was postponed twice, first by Covid, then by a judge – until a Supreme Court ruling cleared the way for it to take place. The killler died by lethal injection in the early hours of January 12, 2021.
Witnesses said that a woman standing next to the murderer during the execution process removed the lag’s face mask and asked if she had any last works. She simply replied “no” and said nothing more.
Montgomery had been held in a federal prison in Texas for female inmates with special needs, where she has been receiving psychiatric care. After receiving her execution date, she’d been placed on suicide watch in an isolated cell.
Lisa’s family begged president Donald Trump to spare her before her death. They claim the jury were told little of her vast mental health problems, – caused by years of rape, trafficking and torture.
Her sister Diane Mattingly said: “My heart goes out to the family of Bobbie Jo Stinnett and the loss that they have felt. But my hope is President Trump will stop Lisa’s execution and commute her sentence to life in prison.
“My sister does not deserve to die. She is not the worst of the worst for whom the death penalty was intended. She is the most broken of the broken.”
Her lawyer Kelley Henry said her mental health worsened while having to live with the “overwhelming pain” of what she did to Bobbie Jo.
She said before her client’s death: “Lisa is incredibly remorseful. She was spiralling out of control when it happened. She was tortured from birth and repeatedly gang-raped. That causes your mind to detach from reality.”
After the execution, Henry said that everyone who had participated “should feel shame”. She added in a statement: “The government stopped at nothing in its zeal to kill this damaged and delusional woman. Lisa Montgomery’s execution was far from justice.”
The last woman to be executed in the US before Montgomery was Bonnie Headie, who died in a gas chamber in Missouri in 1954, the Death Penalty Information Center states.
