Murder In The Heartland Part 17

The plan was for Carl to pick the kids up at the Montgomerys' and bring them to where Judy lived in nearby Lyndon. Carl would stay the night at Judy's and return to Oklahoma the following morning with the kids.

Not long after Carl left Campbell's office, the attorney called with good news.

"The judge is going to sign the ex parte custody order on Monday," said Campbell. "Legally, you can bring the kids home with you."

The long drive to Melvern was c.u.mbersome. Carl and his brother hardly said a word to each other.

"I mean, I had been married to this woman twice and had known her for over twenty years," explained Carl. "She was the mother of my children. When people say, 'These things happen to other people,' we generally take that with a grain of salt. But I know now what that means."

Carl was nervous about seeing the kids. He fretted over what he was going to say. He realized he couldn't gloat about being right-having told every one of the Montgomerys over the course of the past year Lisa was not pregnant. Nor could he put a bow on it and tell the children he'd fix it. It wouldn't be fair to them.

"I was at a loss for what to say and how to handle the situation," Carl remembered thinking while his brother drove. "My brother, whom I love dearly, wasn't much help. He did listen to my rantings along the way, but had no answers."

Carl called Kayla in Georgia. She was a daddy's girl. They had bonded from day one more than any of the other children, according to both. With Kayla being the youngest, Carl knew it was up to him to try to talk her through the situation.

"You okay?"

"I really don't want to talk, Dad."

"Okay, honey. I'm here, though. Let me speak to Auntie M."

Carl told Mary to watch Kayla closely. Kayla was close to Lisa. As soon as what had taken place truly hit her, she was going to implode emotionally.

Mary agreed. "No problem, Carl. Anything you need."

65.

While Kayla was in school on Sat.u.r.day morning, finishing up finals, she made a decision that, as bad as she wanted to leave, she was going to stay in Georgia. She saw no sense in going back home and getting involved in a media frenzy. Still, the brutality of what her mother purportedly had done ate at Kayla as she went about her day.

"By the time I was at school," she said, "I knew my mom had done 'it.'" Kayla had a hard time speaking about the specifics of what "it" was; the reality of the crime was too hard for her to put into words. "I'd had doubts about whether she was pregnant. I mean, it was just a feeling that kept bugging me. But, when Mary told me that day when I returned home from school...I knew. I didn't have doubts. I wondered how the person who gave birth to me could do such a thing. You see, sometimes things seem impossible, but they aren't, really."

What about Kevin?

"Did I think Kevin was involved? Not for a second! I know my mom could do something like that. But not Kevin. I didn't think he was involved then, and I still don't.... He was (and is) devastated. He loved (and still does) my mom...and was really shocked when he found out my mom did it. He really believed Tori Jo was his daughter. I feel bad for him."

Part of what hurt the most, Kayla said, was that her mother allegedly had murdered someone she had been close to and was just getting to know. Bobbie Jo and Kayla had corresponded via e-mail, in person, and through instant messages more times than she could count.

"She murdered my friend. She left an innocent baby without a mother, a husband without his wife, a mother without her daughter, a little boy without his protective big sister, and a community without a wonderful person. I am still so mad about it all.

"I miss talking to Bobbie Jo."

As cla.s.s came to a close, Kayla began thinking about past events.

"I have always wondered what would have happened if I hadn't gone to live in Georgia. Would my mom still have done what she did? I know that what-ifs aren't good to focus on. But I can't help but wonder what would have happened. I know I can't go back and change things. But I really wish I could."

66.

A crowd of well over three thousand people gathered to witness the first federal execution in America. It was June 25, 1790, somewhere near Portland, Maine. Thomas Bird, a tall fellow with large muttonchop sideburns and rotten teeth, stood at the gallows, his large hands, rough as rawhide, tied behind his back. Bird was pleading for his life with executioner Henry Dearborn, a U.S. Marshal.

Bird had pet.i.tioned the court, asking George Washington, the great general and president himself, for a pardon. His request was denied.

The crowd stood staring at Bird, clamoring for his neck. Bird was, essentially, a pirate, a nuisance to the community, which viewed him as nothing more than a ruffian who took what he wanted without much care for what people thought. He had murdered the captain of the ship he worked on. A man had to pay a price for such violence.

At the time of Bird's landmark execution, maritime law was a major concern for federal courts in America. Bird had violated one of the most cherished laws of the colonies.

Within minutes after he stood at the gallows, the doors below Thomas Bird opened and his feet fell out from underneath him. The fall snapped his neck like a dry twig. In seconds, it was over. History was made: the first federal execution.

Approximately forty crimes recognized by the federal government are punishable by the sentence of death. Most involve murder while in the process of committing a second crime. For example, in Lisa Montgomery's case, the government was alleging Lisa murdered Bobbie Jo Stinnett with the intention (and in the process) of kidnapping her unborn child.

Since the first federal execution, according to studies conducted by the Capital Punishment Research Project, "336 men and 4 women" have been executed under federal guidelines. Thirty-nine percent-134-were carried out on whites, and 118-35 percent-on African Americans; along with 63 Native Americans and 25 Hispanics (or persons of an unknown race).

Nearly every execution since Thomas Bird's in 1790 has been carried out by hanging, electrocution, gas, or lethal injection. A majority of executed inmates were convicted for murder or crimes resulting in murder. Other executions have been carried out for piracy, rape, rioting, kidnapping, and, naturally, espionage.

During the twentieth century, 61 percent of federal executions included minority defendants.

In a sense, these statistics boded well for Lisa Montgomery-if, in fact, the government chose to seek the death penalty against her. Several factors, experts claim, weigh on the side of females facing the death penalty. Number one is that juries sitting on federal cases feel the female murderer is less vicious and more likely to commit a criminal act under extenuating circ.u.mstances that ultimately led her to the point where she felt murder was her only option. Another important factor is that most women who face the death penalty are mothers.

"In Missouri," said one local official, "you get a lotta leg outta that-she would only need one vote."

The murder of Bobbie Jo Stinnett, however, was unusual in many ways. Lisa Montgomery was a woman who had confessed to killing another female exclusively for the purpose of kidnapping her child; a child, who, the jury in Lisa's case would no doubt learn, hadn't even been born. If a woman could cut a baby from another woman's womb and present the child to the public, her kids, and her husband as her own, what other crimes was she capable of?

Approximately thirty prisoners were on death row the day Lisa was arrested. Would she be number thirty-one?

As Lisa sat in prison, Todd Graves started laying the groundwork for the government's case.

"There are numerous statutes," Graves said, reflecting on how the government was faring in its decision to pursue the death penalty against Lisa. "We have to have a very specific statute. We have specific jurisdiction, not general jurisdiction. And so there are a number of crimes, but it has to fit within one of those categories."

Speaking a day after her arrest, Graves was specific in the way he viewed what Lisa had reportedly admitted. "I'm not sure any act of violence that results in a death would be considered a normal act."

Graves had grown up in Northwest Missouri and lived there most of his life. He knew a lot of the people in the region where Bobbie Jo was murdered. It was, in every meaningful sense, an indescribable crime, unspeakable. Those images people now had as the affidavit was made public were horrifying. The one person people were talking about most was Becky Harper, Bobbie Jo's mother, who had found her daughter and believed her "stomach had exploded." The words Harper used were, by themselves, appalling. To think a mother would come upon her daughter bleeding to death on the floor of her home and her only grandchild missing-it was inconceivable.

"Well," Graves said after being asked how he personally felt, "it's certainly among the most heartrending, and it is a very unusual case."

Graves had been a state prosecutor before being appointed U.S. attorney.

"And there-believe it or not-there are other unusual cases [I have seen]. But this one definitely kicks you in the gut.... This is the heart of America. We are at the geographic and population center of the country. And to have something happen here that gets this kind of attention certainly is something that we don't look forward to."

Representative Sam Graves, who had helped in Ben Espey's fight to get the Amber Alert issued the night Victoria Jo went missing, released a statement on Sat.u.r.day detailing his plan to introduce legislation that would make it a bit easier to get future Amber Alerts issued for abductions. It wouldn't matter if the child was a newborn, infant, or fetus; this case proved any abduction warranted an Amber Alert, even if issued with a vague description of the child.

Representative Graves was proud to be able to submit legislation in honor of Victoria Jo, who had become a symbol of hope to the entire Skidmore community, if not all of western Missouri. Lisa Montgomery, on the other hand, at least in the eyes of the judicial system from here on out, would be known simply as Case Number 04-00210-01-JTM.

One more number on a court docket.

67.

As the town of Skidmore rallied around Zeb, his family, and Becky Harper, comforting them, Pastor Mike Wheatley and the First Church of G.o.d became the self-appointed foundation of support for the Montgomery family.

Wheatley told reporters he was "stunned," like the rest of the community, by the events of the past few days. He was "pulling together to...surround the Montgomery family with love." He then added, "I've known evil people in my life and you can feel it standing six feet away from them-and Lisa was not that kind of person. It was a horrendous act, but that doesn't make her a bad person."

A few days after Lisa's arrest, Wheatley used harsher words, saying, "If she actually did this crime-it's still alleged-if she doesn't repent of it, yes, she's going to h.e.l.l."

Carl Boman arrived in Melvern at about 10:00 A.M. and went to the Montgomerys' house. The media were camped at the end of the driveway, waiting for a statement from Kevin.

As Carl and his brother drove past the satellite trucks and local-news vans, kicking up mud behind them, Carl couldn't help but think how far he had come in his life with the woman who was now the center of all this attention.

"When I first met Lisa," he said, "she was a lost teenager. We'd talk for hours about the future, about kids, and normal things two people talk about. Who in their wildest dreams would have thought some day all this interest would be centered on Lisa and such a horrible event, not to mention a young, beautiful woman would be murdered and Lisa responsible?"

Looking at everyone gathered around the end of the driveway, Carl felt overwhelmed.

"My kids, the people I love most in the world-here was their mother being held for this act. She was a woman I had loved at one time and, at the same time, had also lived in h.e.l.l with."

Although the day was sunny and rather warm for that time of the year, a "heartbroken" Carl felt the "sad and gloomy" sense that the town had taken on. It was as if a pall had been cast over everything, some melancholy blanket of despair.

Having learned in the U.S. Navy the hard way that showing emotion was a sign of weakness, Carl collected himself before he and his brother stepped out of the truck and walked up to the Montgomerys' porch.

Carl knocked on the door. Kevin, disheveled and obviously distraught, answered. Without even thinking about it, the two men, having been foes for a period, hugged as if they were long-lost friends reuniting at an airport.

Rebecca, Alicia, and Ryan were sitting on the living-room floor in shock, Carl remembered, and halfheartedly acknowledged him when he entered the house. Their behavior was odd, he thought, but understandable. They had been sucker punched.

They all sat together in the living room.

"Nice out there today," mentioned Kevin.

"It's warm," said Carl. "Sunny too."

"Not usually this warm, huh," added Kevin.

"No. It's weird."

"How 'bout those Sooners?" They had just put a beating on Colorado and were preparing to take what was an undefeated season to USC. Kevin, however, was more or less just trying to make idle chitchat to pa.s.s the time.

"Yeah," said Carl.

Alicia was sitting next to Carl. He had his arm around her. She was quiet while he and Kevin continued talking about the house, the landscaping the Montgomerys had recently done, and more football.

Then, "Why, Dad?" Alicia blurted out.

That one comment changed everything.

Kevin dropped his head and shook it back and forth, fighting tears. "She didn't have to have a baby to keep me," he said. "We could have been happy without a child."

Carl decided to explain he was taking the kids back home to Oklahoma the following morning. The Montgomerys wanted the children to stay until Christmas, so they could say their good-byes to school friends and enjoy whatever pleasure the holiday was to bring.

Carl ultimately agreed.

"The Montgomerys' house," Carl said later, "was so depressing. I understood why, but it was all I could stand at the time."

When community members showed up with food, Carl felt like an outsider. "I was definitely out of my element."

Among those who arrived was Pastor Mike Wheatley. As if at a funeral, Wheatley and fellow parishioners handed out sandwiches while trying to console everyone. Later that night and the following few days, Wheatley would show up on television speaking on behalf of Kevin, Lisa, and Carl's children.

"No one really asked him," said Carl, "but he just kind of took the reins and started calling himself the family spokesperson."

That creepy sense of numbness Carl felt as he and his brother pulled into town was there again when they left. People appeared traumatized, walking around in some sort of daze.

"I will never understand," said one man in Melvern later. "There are kids in this world n.o.body wants. Do I hate her? If it happened anywhere else in the country, I'd hate her. But she's from here. I just feel nothing."

Kevin came out of the house Sat.u.r.day afternoon and released a formal statement to the reporters and television crews. He stood at the end of the driveway with cameras and tape recorders pointed at him. It was clear Kevin had been crying. His eyes were puffy. He looked tired. Worn. He was wearing a baseball cap he kept fidgeting with as he tried to find the right words.

"This has to be as hard, or harder, on them (the Stinnett family) as it is on me," Kevin said through tears a few days later. The sincerity in his voice was evident. What he had to say was, indeed, coming from his heart. "I sure hope they get as much support from their church and community as I have, because we're all going to need it."

Then, he added, "My heart ain't broke just for me and Lisa and her kids. It's them, too. That was a precious baby," he paused, sniffling. "I know. I know."

68.

Judy Shaughnessy was at home late Sat.u.r.day night when the crime her daughter was being accused of settled on her like a death in the family. She felt a sensation of dread. Lisa was being called everything from a sociopath to one of the most vicious killers in American history, sending Internet bloggers into a vengeance-based frenzy, causing Judy to go out of her mind with mixed emotions. She loved Lisa, of course, but she also viewed her as someone who needed professional help.