Guilty verdict in kidnapping, slaying

The woman killed a
pregnant woman and cut the baby from her womb.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — A woman whose attorneys had argued that she was delusional when she killed an expectant mother, cut the baby from her womb and took the infant home was found guilty Monday.

Jurors convicted Lisa Montgomery, 39, of kidnapping resulting in death in the 2004 attack on 23-year-old Bobbie Jo Stinnett in the northwest Missouri town of Skidmore.

The jury deliberated for about four hours before rejecting Montgomery’s insanity defense. Jurors could have acquitted her outright or found her not guilty by reason of insanity. Prosecutors said they plan to seek the death penalty.

After the verdict was read, Montgomery dried her eyes and one of her attorneys patted her back. Her husband, Kevin, and Stinnett’s husband, Zeb, showed no emotion.

Defense attorneys claimed Montgomery was suffering from pseudocyesis, which causes a woman to falsely believe she is pregnant and exhibit outward signs of pregnancy. They portrayed her as a victim of severe mental illness whose delusion of being pregnant was being threatened, causing her to enter a dreamlike state when the killing took place.

They also argued that she had post-traumatic stress disorder brought on by mental, physical and sexual abuse in her childhood.

Federal prosecutor Roseann Ketchmark called the pseudocyesis claim “voodoo science” during closing arguments.

“It’s not pseudocyesis or post-traumatic stress disorder,” Ketchmark said. “And even if you wrap them up and put delusions around them, it’s not insanity.”

Ketchmark said Montgomery plotted the slaying and abduction and took pains to cover up that planning after she was caught.

“She knows she’s not pregnant,” the prosecutor said. “It’s no delusion. It’s deceit and manipulation.”

Montgomery had undergone a tubal ligation in 1990 after the birth of her fourth child. But soon after, she began falsely reporting a series of pregnancies.