Montgomery's cousin told her legal team that he lived with "regret for not speaking up about what happened to Lisa". Judy later married a man named Jack who punched, kicked and choked his children, including Lisa. Ms. Court records say Kleiner drank heavily, beat his wife and children, and made his daughters take off their clothes before he spanked them. Shaughnessy drank excessively during her pregnancy, causing brain damage to Montgomery, according to court records. There was plenty of food, our clothes were clean, and the kids did our homework together. Montgomery then said she had given birth at home with help from two female friends and, later, that she had given birth alone. My sister is on death row, Kleiner wrote in the lawsuit petition. 2023 BBC. One was the presence of substantial planning and premeditation. Two other inmates are scheduled to die at Terre Haute prison before Mr Trump's presidency ends. And then go, 'Stand there and listen to the 911 call of [Stinnett's mother]. Judy Shaughnessy, Montgomery ' s mother, raised Lisa in poverty and chaos, with multiple stepfathers and in dozens of different homes, according to scores of interviews and documents cited. They believe that at the time of the crime, Montgomery was psychotic and out of touch with reality. Multiple medical experts have given statements agreeing with that diagnosis. Every year. "This was the act of a monster," he said. Zella Gwin survives. Nationwide, only 54 women have been executed since 1900. As her big sister, Diane feels immense guilt about leaving Montgomery behind in that broken home, so many years ago. "I get these images in my head of [Bobbie Jo's mother] finding her daughter that way.". President-elect Joe Biden has already pledged to end death penalty proceedings, although he hasn't said when. But they were what we come to understand as neuro-physiological adaptations to survive being constantly under assault.. But my hope is President Trump will stop Lisa's execution and commute her sentence to life in prison. Judy Shaughnessy, drank during pregnancy. But what happened at the modest clapboard house where Stinnett lived with her husband still haunts some of those involved in the investigation. View the profiles of people named Judy Shaughnessy. Read about our approach to external linking. Stinnett wasn't breathing and was cold. One theory her lawyers put forward regarding the chain of events that led to the murder, is that Montgomery feared her ex-husband would expose her lies about being pregnant and use it against her as he sought custody of their children. This story was first published on 11 January - before Lisa Montgomery's execution on 13 January. Montgomery was repeatedly molested by her stepdad Jack Kleiner, starting at . At 18, Judy pressured Lisa to marry her stepbrother. What you need to know about Montgomery and her victim, Bobbie Jo Stinnett. Judy Shaughnessy and her boyfriend physical, psychological . The following day, the police arrested Montgomery at her home. She lapsed increasingly into mental illness and repeatedly faked pregnancy. She has writtenopinion piecespublished in Elle and Newsweek. On the trip home, she stopped in Topeka and called her husband to say she had gone into labor while Christmas shopping and had given birth at a Topeka birthing center. The judge reached no conclusion aboutwhether sexual activity occurred but said he considered it "inexcusable" that Shaughnessy didn't report the situation to authorities and get counseling for Montgomery. In addition to Strong and Fritz, those investigators were FBI Special Agents Mike Miller and Scott Gentine and Topeka police officer Tom Glor. In December 2004, Boman filed a court action seeking custody of two of their children who still lived with Montgomery while arguing that the pregnancy Montgomery was fakingillustrated she was an unfit mother, according to newspaper accounts. In an interview with HuffPost her first ever Diane Mattingly, now 57 and a longtime state government employee living in Kentucky, described what it was like growing up in a home without love or affection. At 18, she married her stepbrother, who also beat and raped her. Montgomery told investigators she was surprised at how nicely they had treated her, considering what she had done. The Trump administration announced it was reinstating executions last summer after an almost 20-year hiatus. Theyre saying that a sentence of life without the possibility of parole is more than sufficient punishment for someone who has endured what she did.. Her terror was well-founded, said Montgomery's attorneys, Kelley Henry and Amy Harwell. And it's never about what my friend went through," she adds. Recently, there has been a virus outbreak on death row at the institution, and previous executions have been linked to outbreaks among the execution team and prison staff. He had a daughter from a previous relationship, Diane, who was four years older than Montgomery. "That's how evil this woman is," Strong said. "She was completely detached from reality.". Her lawyers are pursuing an insanity defense. She is permitted Sudoku puzzles and coloring pages andone book at a time. "Being psychotic, it does not mean you are not intelligent, nor that you cannot act in a planful way," she says. I am begging that somebody will finally stand up for her and say, shes been punished enough.. And nowhere is that support more palpably felt in this case than in Skidmore. Lisa Montgomery, a Kansas native scheduled within days to become the first woman executed by the federal government in 67 years, lived a childhood so abusive her attorneys call it akin to torture. I support my wife and her request for clemency, but because I am sick with COVID and am caring for my parents who are also sick with COVID, I ask the media to respect our need for rest and privacy," he said. The divorce left Shaughnessy no longer entitled to be Mattingly's legal guardian. Her lawyers had argued she was a mentally ill victim of abuse who. Mattingly said she shielded her half-sister from random baby-sitters, often older men, whom their mother left with them during her near-nightly outings to a local bar. Victims of severe childhood sexual abuse can overcome their trauma with certain factors, Porterfield said, such as the presence of a nurturing adult who provides love and connects them to resources to promote healing. She gives herself as an example - when Stinnett was murdered, Baumli was in rehab for a drug addiction. It is extremely rare for women to be sentenced to death, said Sandra Babcock, faculty director of the Cornell Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide and an expert on women and the death penalty. Lawyer Kelley Henry says one of the things that disturbs her most is that adults in positions of authority were told about what was going on but did nothing. Only around 2% of inmates on death row are women. Another case with Missouri ties. "It was violent and like a scene out of a horror movie," he said. The baby girl survived, andMontgomery took her home and briefly passed her off as her own until investigators arrested her the next day. My heart goes out to the family of Bobbie Jo Stinnett and the loss that they have felt and are still feeling. Montgomery suffers from severe mental illness. While my path to healing was very hard, the difference between Lisa and me is that no one ever intervened to rescue Lisa from a lifetime of abuse. When she was 18, Montgomery married her stepbrother. Her story quickly fell apart and she confessed to the killing. "She was really the first one to have a decent marriage, you know, and I guess looking at Bobbie Jo was like, what your dreams were when you were younger.". - Sandra Babcock, faculty director of the Cornell Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide, Montgomery, who confessed, was later sentenced to death for the , The Trump administration announced it was. Shaughnessy has since died. At 1:31 AM on Wednesday, Lisa Montgomery was pronounced dead. That could change in Terre Haute. Lisa Montgomery, who endured years of sexual and physical abuse, murdered an expectant mother and took the baby. Kleiner, the son of Shaughnessy and Jack Kleiner, was meeting witha parole officerat the time of the killing, Strong said. Back home, the couple announced the birth of their daughter to their friends and relatives. Montgomery's alcoholic mother, Judy Shaughnessy, knew about the assaults but blamed Montgomery for bringing them upon herself. In the haze of her mental illness, she went to the home of a pregnant woman, killed her, and removed the baby. "The other sister stayed in that situation, and it got worse and worse and worse. "She was hyperventilating," Henry said. She would tell me I had to leave and I couldnt take anything with me because she bought everything, she recalled. She is the only woman on federal death row. Montgomery, 52, the only woman on federal death row, is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection Jan. 12 in the U.S. Penitentiary at Terre Haute, Ind. Montgomery's mother, Judy Shaughnessy, who was 20 at the time of her birth in 1968, drank heavily while pregnant with her daughter. Today, residents are tired of Melvernbeing connected with Lisa Montgomery, said current Mayor Lyndon Weddle, who describesMelvern asafriendlyrural community where people wave when they pass each other. The crime itself shows that Lisa had lost all touch with reality. Lisa Montgomery and her half-sister Diane Mattingly as children, Judy Shaughnessy, Lisa Montgomery's mother, Bobbie Jo Stinnett's home lies empty today, Protest against federal executions of death row inmates - outside the US Justice Department, Washington DC, December 2020. Montgomerys mother, Judy Shaughnessy, who was 20 at the time of her birth in 1968, drank heavily while pregnant with her daughter. Her mother and father, teachers at school who suspected abuse, and the courts who learned of her victimization when she was a teen and did nothing. The couple returned to their home near Melvern, which was being watched by investigators working to identify the woman who had told Stinnett she was Darlene Fischer. "We've seen crime for years and years in our country in which people enact terrible violence coming out of a psychotic set of beliefs or thought process. Facebook gives people the. Montgomery lamented that she couldn't be present to console them because she was in solitary confinement, said Dorr, Montgomery's friend since they met in a federal prison in 2006. He testified that Montgomery had been in a dissociative state, or "mental fog," at the time. Jurors heard an audiotape of Harper, Stinnett's mother, calling 911 after finding her body. The views expressed in this article are the author's own. Montgomery contacted Stinnett, 23, after meeting her at a dog show earlier that year at Abilene, in north-central Kansas, where they posed with others in a photo. She would be the first woman executed by the federal government in 67. By multiple accounts, Kleiner was an erratic, violent man who beat the kids and his wife regularly. As Fritz patted Montgomery on the back of her hand, Strong said he noticed dried blood and tissue embedded beneath her fingernails. Montgomery suffered from pseudocyesis, the false belief she was pregnant, jurors heard from Vilayanur S. Ramachandran, director of the Center of Brain and Cognition at the University of California in San Diego. Lisa Montgomery had little if any chance in life. But it was not a pet that she was to retrieve that day. So my letters are important.. These days, she requires a regimen of psychotropic drugs to function. she says. If her execution goes forward, she will be the first federal female inmate to be executed in almost 70 years. The U.S. has not executed a woman in 67 years. "Maybe she could have been saved, too. As a teenager, Montgomery confided in a cousin, telling him the men would tie her up, beat her and even urinate on her afterwards. Montgomery, 52, the only woman on federal death row,is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection Jan. 12 in the U.S. Penitentiary at TerreHaute, Ind. Montgomery was left behind with her mother. For Diane Mattingly, there is one moment from her childhood for which she feels both enormous gratitude and guilt. Her death is scheduled a little over a month before the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden, who has pledged to end the federal death penalty. Stinnett bled to death. Its not just the childhood maltreatment and psychological abuse and neglect, or the incredible sexual abuse by her stepfather, or the sex trafficking, Porterfield said. Lisa Montgomery has been charged in the December 16 death of Bobbie Jo Stinnett, who was eight months pregnant at the time. Because of Stinnett's easy-going reputation, Morrow remembers instantly dismissing the initial reports of her murder. "Last year, we got flowers, and gave her a $100-plus gift card and then paid her water bill," says Jena Baumli. While the court admonished her for not reporting it to authorities, they did not report it either. This is the stuff of nightmares.". We cant travel to talk to witnesses or to prepare experts at this point, Harwell, Montgomerys lawyer, said. This is someone who was deeply remorseful, once she became appropriately medicated and had full contact with reality, although that is a situation that waxes and wanes.. Montgomery also suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, bipolar disorder and major depression, jurors were told. Her victim's community said otherwise. Warnersaid the killinghad left Melvern residents stunned.. When I was around eight years old, and Lisa was about four, one of Judy's male friends began coming into our room at night and regularly raping me, with Lisa in the next bedclose enough we could reach for each other and touch fingers. Montgomery eventually divorced her first husband and married Kevin Montgomery. The girls' biological father left the home, and after a while, Mattingly was whisked away to foster care. Ive always said that I am bruised, but not broken, Mattingly said, her voice choked with tears. Since 2008, Montgomery has been held in a federal prison in Texas for female inmates with special medical and psychological needs, where she has been receiving psychiatric care. 2023 BuzzFeed, Inc. All rights reserved. Her attorneys say that while Montgomery feels deep remorse for her crimes, her understanding of her situation waxes and wanes. Authorities also questioned Kevin Montgomery but concluded he wasn't involved. I felt sick watching the video. She was born into a family rife with mental illness, including schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and depression. She said it was over and over, one man right after the other, and went on for hours, her cousin said in a sworn statement. Who was the last woman executed by the US government? She lived at 61 addresses in the 36 years before she went to prison, court documents show. In Trumps final days in office, Lisa Montgomery a mentally ill victim of sex trafficking is set to be the first woman the U.S. executes in 70 years. The question is, should she be put to death for it? However, calls for Trump to be merciful are hardly unanimous. As long as she was given cigarettes, Montgomery continued to talk, Strong said. Friends recall her as a good student with a love of horses and dogs. About a week before Christmas in 2004, Lisa Montgomery, a 36-year-old mother of four, drove from her home in Kansas to Missouri, ostensibly to buy a rat terrier puppy from a woman shed met at a dog show earlier that year. Diane Mattingly is the sister of Lisa Montgomery, who is scheduled for execution by the federal government on December 8, 2020. Her mouth was covered with duct tape so frequently that she learned not to cry. Kleiner and Shaughnessy divorced in 1985, with Shaughnessy contending she once walked in on Kleiner and Montgomery having sex. Kleiner was never charged. The family moved often. Stitched together, they form a tapestry of family dysfunction, abuse, neglect, professional negligence, substance abuse and untreated mental illness. Patterson was transferred after Montgomerys birth to Fort Riley inKansas, where their family lived when another daughter was born in 1970. The girls father was often away from the house for long periods, and Shaughnessy would have other men over. "As a result, Lisa has trouble processing information and navigating social relationships. Montgomery's family moved from place to place during her adult years, continuing the pattern she hadknown as a child. Other inmates tended to keep Montgomery at arm's length because of the brutality of what she had done, Dorr said, but she liked Montgomery's quiet nature. 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