Lisa Montgomery, the only female on federal death row, was pronounced dead at 1:31 a.m. Wednesday morning, following her execution for murdering a pregnant woman and slicing the infant from her stomach.
The New York Times reports that Montgomery was transferred to the all-male prison in Terre Haute on Monday night, where spent her final days. Shortly before her lethal injection execution, a female prison staff member removed Montgomery’s face mask and asked her if she had any final words before her death.
“No,” was Montgomery’s only reply.
After a series of halts on the execution, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a final effort to spare Montgomery’s life late Tuesday night, after her defense team pleaded to allow Montgomery time to get a competency hearing.
“The government stopped at nothing in its zeal to kill this damaged and delusional woman,” Montgomery’s attorney, Kelley Henry, said, according to CNN. “Lisa Montgomery’s execution was far from justice.”
Pleas to President Trump fell on dear ears after family and supporters asked him to commute Montgomery’s sentence to life behind bars. Had Montgomery’s death sentence been scheduled to take place after President-elect Joe Biden took office, she may have had a chance of serving out a life sentence since Biden has made it clear that he opposes the death penalty.
“The craven bloodlust of a failed administration was on full display tonight,” Henry added. “Everyone who participated in the execution of Lisa Montgomery should feel shame.”
Henry also called the execution a “superspreader event” that put people at risk of developing COVID-19.
“Because this administration was so afraid that the next one might choose life over death, they put the lives and health of U.S. citizens in grave danger. We should recognize Lisa Montgomery’s execution for what it was: the vicious, unlawful and unnecessary exercise of authoritarian power. We cannot let this happen again.”
NBC 2 reports that shortly before Montgomery’s execution, a prison official read aloud the charges she was convicted of. Then, someone from the U.S. Marshals Office called the Justice Command Center to be certain that there wasn’t a final stay or a pardon.
During the execution, Montgomery’s left hand jerked slightly and her chest heaved several times. Within 15 minutes, the execution process was over.
As CrimeOnline previously reported, Montgomery was sentenced to die for the 2004 murder of pregnant 23-year-old Bobbie Jo Stinnett, whose baby Montgomery cut out of her with a carving knife, at Stinnett’s home in Skidmore, Missouri.
Montgomery, who was faking her own pregnancy, met Stinnett online while feigning interest in purchasing a dog. The two women arranged to meet on December 16, 2004, at Stinnett’s home in regards to buying a rat terrier.
Investigators believe that once Montgomery was inside the home, she cut Stinnett’s baby from her womb and strangled Stinnett with a rope.
Prosecutors previously stressed that they believe that Stinnett was conscious and fighting to defend herself while Montgomery used a kitchen knife to cut the baby out of Stinnett’s stomach, according to a report by the Daily Mail.
Stinnett’s own mother found her bleeding in her living room hours after the attack and contacted 911.
“She is laying on the floor with blood everywhere,” mother Becky Harper told a 911 dispatcher. “She was pregnant. … It’s like her guts have exploded or something.”
The baby, a girl, survived but Montgomery tried to pretend she was hers.
Police arrested Montgomery the following day at her home in Melvern, Kansas. They found Stinnett’s baby inside Montgomery’s home, with Montgomery holding the baby in her arms while watching the news about the missing baby flash across a television screen.
The baby, now a 16-year-old old, was returned to her father.
During the trial, prosecutors presented evidence that Montgomery devised a story of how she had gone into labor while on a shopping trip, even though she had undergone tubal ligation in 1990.
Nodaway County Sheriff Randy Strong, who worked the case since the beginning, said that the brutal murder and kidnapping had been “meticulously planned,” News-Press Now reports.
Montgomery’s lawyers, however, say that previous childhood sexual abuse and trauma are partly to blame for the incident.
According to ACLU, Montgomery’s issues started at birth, when she was born with permanent brain damage due to her mother’s excessive alcohol drinking during pregnancy.
The ACLU argued that Montgomery was tortured and abused as a child. She was often made to take cold showers and beaten with numerous items. Her mother allegedly taped her mouth shut so Montgomery couldn’t talk.
Montgomery was later raped, according to ACLU, and warned not to say anything unless she wanted it to happen to her younger sister. At age 15, Montgomery was forced into sex trafficking by her mother.
Montgomery began mentally disassociating to help her survive. When her mother remarried while Montgomery was in high school, the man allegedly beat and raped Montgomery.
The government said that Montgomery is “not entitled to micromanage the conditions of her confinement for her own comfort and convenience.”
[Feature Photo: Lisa Montgomery & Bobbie Jo Stinnett/Police Handout; Handout]
