The Murderer Who Strangled A Woman To Death And Cut Her Baby From Her Womb Will Be Put To Death On January 12

By Abdul Rafay in News On 4th January 2021
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Since carving and stealing her infant in 2004, Lisa Montgomery strangled heavily-pregnant Bobbie Jo Stinnett in Missouri.


For the 53-year-old - the only female on the federal death row - to be hanged before Joe Biden took office on January 20, a court has now paved the way. She is also set to become the first female federal prisoner in almost 70 years to be put to death.

The execution of Montgomery in December was previously postponed after Covid-19 was caught by her attorneys.


It was then rescheduled for January 12, but the legal team from Montgomery successfully protested that although a stay was in place, the date could not be fixed. A recent court decision, however, has concluded that when he first vacated Montgomery's execution date, a lower court judge had it wrong.

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The suspected murderer is now locked up in Fort Worth, Texas, in an all-female jail. At the Federal Correctional Facility in Terre Haute, Indiana, the mother-of-four was set to be put to death. However, after her virus-stricken lawyers begged him to prolong the time to file a clemency appeal, a judge postponed the execution.

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Meaghan VerGow, Montgomery's counsel, said her defence staff would now compel the entire appeals court to review the case and insisted that on January 12, Montgomery could not be executed.


Montgomery was accused in December 2004 of murdering 23-year-old Bobbie Jo in the town of Skidmore in northwest Missouri. She used a rope to strangle Stinnett, who was eight months pregnant, and then, with a kitchen knife, removed the baby girl from the womb, police said.

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Montgomery had met Stinnett online at the time, who was 36 and claimed to be a pregnant woman named "Darlene Fischer" to bond with her.


Before the incident, she had studied home births and how to carry out cesarean sections online. "There was blood everywhere. She was laying on the floor," Stinnett's mom, Becky Harper, tearfully said at Montgomery's trial.

"It looked like she exploded all over the place."


At her sentencing, jurors revealed that Montgomery took the child with her and tried to pawn the baby off as her own.


Montgomery's attorneys had also reported that their client had mental health problems and had "suffered repeated sexual and physical abuse"


The death penalty is criticized by Biden and his spokesman, TJ Ducklo, has said that he will seek to end its use.

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The President-Elect, though, has not said when, once he assumes office, he will suspend federal executions. After a 17-year pause last year, the Justice Department resumed federal executions and has put more prisoners to death than in the last 50 years. Bonnie Heady, who died in a gas chamber in Missouri in 1953, was the last woman to be executed by the US government.

Credit: Associated Press