Montgomery was represented briefly after her arrest by Ron Wurtz, a now-retired attorney who has represented dozens of capital case defendants. As the car drove further and further away, Mattingly began to vomit. Her children were disturbed by it. He married Judy Shaughnessy, who would become Montgomery's mother, in 1967 in . Montgomery and Stinnett participated inthe "Ratter Chatter" online message board for rat terrier dog enthusiasts. Montgomerys entire life was marked by people who failed to protect her, Babcock said. Mattingly said her heart sank when she realized Montgomery wasn't coming with her. 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. When Judy, Lisa's mother and my stepmother, came to beat us, I stood between her and the younger girls and took the beating, whether it was belts, cords or hangers. 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.. "I have seen a lot of horrible things happen to women and children in my more than 40 years in law enforcement," Strongsaid. Lisa Montgomery be di 11th prisoner to receive di lethal injection since July when President Donald Trump, resume federal executions. But my hope is President Trump will stop Lisa's execution and commute her sentence to life in prison. Only 18 death sentences were handed down in 2020 and the number of executions carried out hit a 30-year low. Judy later married a man named Jack who punched, kicked and choked his children, including Lisa. 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. 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. Though capital case defendants tend to be confused and stunned, those emotions were heightened with Montgomery, who had trouble responding to questions, Wurtz said. But it is something that she carries with her and that she mourns not only for the effect on her life and that of her family, but for the terrible effect on Mrs. Stinnett, who was killed, and also her family who was left behind.. 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. Stinnett came to, grabbing at Montgomery's knife and pulling out somehair before Montgomery strangledher to death. 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. Mattingly said she was fortunate to have been moved to a lovinghome of high school history teacher and coach Floyd Gwin;his wife, Zella Gwin;and their three biological children. Montgomery, her sister said, was repeatedly failed: by the deputy sheriff who was told of her abuse; by the judge who was aware she was being molested; by her trial. The girls father was often away from the house for long periods, and Shaughnessy would have other men over. Dorr said she and Montgomery were in the same pod,in which inmates may gather outside their cells,in 2006 and 2007 at Leavenworth Detention Center, a for-profit federal facility in northeast Kansas. Judy Shaughnessy, drank during pregnancy. She also told one of her stepbrothers about the sexual abuse around that time. As her attorneys fight for her life, Montgomery has at times seemed out of touch with reality,Henry said:Hermental illness causesher to disconnectwhen life becomes too terrible to endure. As her big sister, Diane feels immense guilt about leaving Montgomery behind in that broken home, so many years ago. At 18, Judy pressured Lisa to marry her stepbrother. "She always wanted to be a mom," says Baumli. Her mother, Judy Shaughnessy, beat and tormented all of her children, proudly telling an investigator that her daughter's first sentence was "Don't spank me, it hurts." Montgomery's first stepfather . A lifetime of sexual torture causes her to lose touch with reality. Nodaway County Sheriff Randy Strong says that the scene that he and his four colleagues found that day was so bloody, they are still traumatised by it. . Dr Katherine Porterfield, a clinical psychologist who evaluated Montgomery and spent about 18 hours with her, says that psychosis does not always look the way people expect it to. The only woman on federal death row, Montgomery is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on Dec. 8 at the federal penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana. Investigators quickly realised that "Darlene Fischer" did not exist, and tracked Montgomery down the next day using her emails and computer IP address. Being loved unconditionally helped me heal, find a caring husband, and raise two children who have hearts of gold. As Strong crossed the threshold, hesaw a TV set airing an Amber Alert about the abduction of Stinnett's baby. Judy Shaughnessy and her boyfriend physical, psychological . A home videoshowsCarl Boman raping and beating Montgomery, said her half-brother, Teddy Kleiner, who gave a sworn statementsaying he had seen it. It turns out that it only takes a few people to save a child's life: being loved by my foster parents saved mine. But they were what we come to understand as neuro-physiological adaptations to survive being constantly under assault.. After Mattingly was removed from the home by social services, Montgomery fell prey to her mother's new husband, who according to statements from his other children, was a violent alcoholic who began sexually abusing Montgomery when she was a pre-teen. Another case with Missouri ties. In 1986, when Montgomery was 18, she married her stepbrother, Carl Boman. Henry says this was an early sign of her mental illnesses, which include bipolar disorder, complex post-traumatic stress disorder, dissociative disorder and traumatic brain injury. 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. Although the alumni have scattered somewhat, in recent years, the Nodaway-Holt R-VII High School graduating class of 2000 - which had only 22 members - has a tradition to mark the anniversary of the death of their classmate Bobbie Jo Stinnett. She went home with a newborn, one she acquired by murdering the babys pregnant mother. Some nights, she said, Shaughnessy would leave them in the house with a male babysitter. "I was like, 'Oh, she was not.' It was a terrifying household, she says, where physical, psychological and sexual abuse at the hands of Judy Shaughnessy, Montgomery's mother, and her boyfriends was routine. This is the stuff of nightmares.". Montgomery achieved considerable emotional growth once she was put in a stable environment where she felt safe and was receiving psychiatric medications for the first time, Dorrsaid. A generation ago, it was the kind of place where you could "get your hair cut, see a show, buy rabbit feed and eat dinner" - but those days are long gone. Maybe you should focus your efforts on the fact that Lisa's mother, Judy Shaughnessy, was granted custody of a grandson the year prior to Lisa's crime. At state level, the number of sentences and executions continues a historic decline. The population hovers around just 250, and everyone knew Bobbie Jo Stinnett and her family. The nature and circumstances of Montgomerys crime show she had lost touch with reality, says her half-sister, Diane Mattingly. At least five times after she was sterilized, she told people that she was pregnant. Patterson and Shaughnessy divorced in 1971, and Shaughnessy took custody of the girls. They found her cradling a new-born girl she claimed to have given birth to the previous day. She pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. Montgomery, 39, is accused of killing Bobbie Joe Stinnett, 23, and cutting the baby from her womb on Dec. 16, 2004, at Stinnett's home in Skidmore. Mattingly believes that by living with loving adults who nurtured her, she was able to process the trauma of her childhood and become a well-adjusted adult. And then there is the life that Montgomery and her siblings inhabited, one of domestic violence, dysfunction, humiliation, fear and pain. Mattingly has enjoyed a "blessed life," she said. The divorce left Shaughnessy no longer entitled to be Mattingly's legal guardian. He was pumping her, Shaughnessy testified. In the other cases, she said, prosecutors opted not to seek the death penalty or juries did not impose it because it was obvious the women were suffering from profound mental illnesses. But Fischer was a name that Montgomery had been using when she separately began messaging Stinnett from a different email address inquiring about buying one of her puppies. Montgomery then said she had given birth at home with help from two female friends and, later, that she had given birth alone. I was thinking, shes still back there. Montgomery graduated in 1986 from high school at Cleveland, Okla., with hopes of joining the Air Force to earn money for college. "Let's say I didn't stay clean very long," she says. She liked to take her finger and poke it hard into her chest, over and over in the same spot. Defense attorney Fred Duchardt told jurors that sexual abuse during her childhood had caused Montgomeryto become mentally ill and killed her soul. Until July 2020, there had been no federal executions for 17 years. "She was hyperventilating," Henry said. Montgomery was put on suicide watch as soon as her execution date was set, Henry said, adding thatMontgomery had previously attempted suicide but not since 2012. Lisa told me that when these men raped her, she would go away in her mind and try not to be present, the brother said in a court declaration. She lapsed increasingly into mental illness and repeatedly faked pregnancy. When Lisa Montgomery murdered pregnant Bobbie Jo Stinnett and ripped her unborn baby from her womb, the whole world reeled in horror. It is the only federal prison with an active death chamber. She lived at 61 addresses in the 36 years before she went to prison, court documents show. In the end, it was in prisonwhere she spent years on death row after committing a horrific crimethat she began to recover from a lifetime of nightmarish abuse. As the oldest, I was the protector of Lisa and our baby sister. Please, honey.". Henry says Montgomery's original legal defence after she was arrested and charged with murder was woefully inadequate, and presented few of the details about her abuse, trauma and mental illness. She needs someone for once in her life to be on her side., Provided by attorneys for Lisa Montgomery, "Biopsychosocial History of Lisa Marie Montgomery," by Jan Vogelsang. During divorce proceedings, Shaughnessy admitted to the court that she had walked in on her husband raping Montgomery. His physical abuse of the children had sexual undercurrents: He would make the girls strip naked before whipping them. 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 was psychotic at the time of the crime, Harwell said. While the court admonished her for not reporting it to authorities, they did not report it either. He testified that Montgomery had been in a dissociative state, or "mental fog," at the time. Shaughnessy sat so unmoved during her daughter's testimony that the judge reprimanded her for lacking empathy. Randy Strong, who investigated the case,is unhappy that some people are asking thatMontgomerys life be spared. And then at the end, she was broken.". Montgomery wasn't allowed eyeglasses, though she is far-sighted and near-sighted, or a CPAP machine, which has been prescribed since 2015 for her sleep apnea, Henry said. After five hours of deliberation, the jury found Montgomery guilty. I thought they knew what was going on, she said. Her lawyers say that as she lost touch with reality, she fantasised about being pregnant. View the profiles of people named Judy Shaughnessy. 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. - 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. The six-man, six-woman jury in October 2007 found Montgomery guilty and recommended she be executed. Patterson was transferred after Montgomerys birth to Fort Riley inKansas, where their family lived when another daughter was born in 1970. Jack also raped Lisa for years. Montgomery was left behind with her mother. If her execution goes forward, she will be the first federal female inmate to be executed in almost 70 years. When children grow up in a chronic state of fear and terror, their brains adapt to survive, explained Katherine Porterfield, a clinical psychologist at the Bellevue/New York University Program for Survivors of Torture, who has evaluated Montgomery in prison. In the cases where women are sentenced to death, prosecutors often use gender stereotypes against the defendants, she said, characterizing them as transgressive or not normal in some way. "There was so much pressure on her at that point," says Henry. Montgomerys case is not about whether she is responsible for the crime; she is. But what happened at the modest clapboard house where Stinnett lived with her husband still haunts some of those involved in the investigation. At least five of the 12 jurors and three alternate jurorswiped away tears. The couple had three children in rapid succession. 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.. It would be 34 years before the half-sisters would see each other again. She does not deserve to die. 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.. She has always accepted responsibility. "I'm sick of hearing about Lisa Montgomery and what she went through. U.S. District Judge Gary A. Fenner upheld the jury's recommendation the following April. She is not the "worst of the worst" for whom the death penalty was intended. Even at the age of 8, Mattingly recalled being worried about what would happen to Montgomery without her there. Sheriff Strong insists that the crime was meticulously planned and that the woman he arrested continued to lie until backed into a corner. Two other inmates are scheduled to die at Terre Haute prison before Mr Trump's presidency ends. . "The whole story is tragic," says Kelley Henry, one of Montgomery's federal defence lawyers. Ms. Montgomery has bipolar disorder, temporal lobe epilepsy, complex post-traumatic stress disorder, dissociative disorder, psychosis, traumatic brain injury and most likely fetal alcohol syndrome. It is hard to know if Montgomery understands that she is close to being executed; her mental state does not allow for much lucidity. I'm bruised, but I'm not broken. That was ultimately dropped in favour of an insanity defence, but Henry believes the damage to Montgomery's credibility was already done. 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