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WASHINGTON (AP) – A woman convicted of fatally strangling a pregnant woman, severing her body and abducting her baby is set to be the first inmate executed by the U.S. government in nearly 70 years, the Justice Department said Friday. (October 16).
Lisa Montgomery is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on December 8 at the Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute, Indiana. It will be the ninth federal inmate to be executed since the Justice Department resumed executions in July after a hiatus of nearly 20 years.
Montgomery was convicted of killing 23-year-old Bobbie Jo Stinnett in the northwestern Missouri town of Skidmore in December 2004.
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Montgomery drove from his home in Kansas to Stinnett’s home in Skidmore under the pretense of adopting a rat terrier puppy, prosecutors said.
When she got to the home, Montgomery used a rope to strangle Stinnett, who was eight months pregnant, but Stinnett was conscious and trying to defend herself while Montgomery used a kitchen knife to cut the girl out of the womb, authorities said.
Prosecutors said Montgomery removed the baby from Stinnett’s body, took the boy with her, and attempted to pass the girl off as his own.
Montgomery’s attorneys argued that she had been suffering from delusions when she killed Stinnett, but a jury rejected her defense. Her lawyers had also argued that she suffered from pseudocisis, causing a woman to falsely believe that she is pregnant and show outward signs of pregnancy.
In 2007, a United States district court for the Western District of Missouri sentenced Montgomery to death after finding her guilty of a federal kidnapping that resulted in death.
His attorney, Kelley Henry, said Montgomery deserves to live because he suffers from mental illness and suffered from child abuse.
“Lisa Montgomery has long accepted full responsibility for her crime and will never get out of jail,” Henry said in a statement. “But her severe mental illness and the devastating effects of her childhood trauma make executing her a profound injustice.”
The last woman to be executed by the United States government was Bonnie Heady, who was executed in a gas chamber in Missouri in 1953, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
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The Justice Department also scheduled the execution of a man convicted of the 1999 murder of two Texas youth ministers. Brandon Bernard, 40, is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on December 10.
Bernard and his co-defendant, Christopher Vialva, were convicted of the 1999 kidnapping and murder of Todd and Stacie Bagley, an Iowa couple who had stopped using a pay phone in Killeen, Texas.
The couple agreed to take Vialva and two other people, authorities said. Vialva pulled out a gun, forced the couple into the trunk and drove for several hours, stopping at ATMs to withdraw cash and attempting to pawn the woman’s wedding ring, according to prosecutors. Both victims were shot in the head and placed in the trunk of their car, which was later set on fire.
Vialva was executed last month at the Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute.
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The resumption of federal executions began on July 14 with the execution of former white supremacist Daniel Lewis Lee. Since then, six more have been executed and another man, Orlando Hall, is scheduled to be executed next month.
Anti-death penalty groups say President Donald Trump is pushing for executions during the campaign season in a bid to polish his reputation as a leader of law and order.
Before the resumption of executions this summer, federal authorities had executed just three prisoners in the last 56 years.
