Kidnapping Suspect Showed Infant Around Before Arrest

A woman charged with killing an expectant mother and cutting the fetus from her womb was showing the baby off to people at a cafe and to her pastor hours before she was arrested, residents said Saturday.

Lisa Montgomery, 36, was charged with kidnapping resulting in murder and was expected to appear in federal court Monday. The infant, whose mother had been eight months pregnant, was in good condition.

Hours before her arrest, Montgomery and her husband, Kevin, showed off a newborn girl at a restaurant, said Kathy Sage, owner of the Whistle Stop Cafe.

Many customers were surprised to hear the infant was only a day old, Sage said. She knew an Amber Alert had been issued for a baby missing from Missouri but did not think the infant with the Montgomerys was connected until Friday.

Lisa Montgomery was arrested later in the death of Bobbie Jo Stinnett, who was found Thursday inside her home in the northwest Missouri town of Skidmore.

Authorities said Montgomery contacted Stinnett through an online message board, and investigators zeroed in on her using computer forensics. Montgomery was supposedly seeking to buy a dog from Stinnett, who raised rat terriers.

On Friday, while the Montgomerys ate breakfast, another customer showed the baby off around the cafe. After eating, they took the girl to visit their pastor. “It was a beautiful baby,” Mike Wheatly said. “Absolutely beautiful.”

The pastor had not seen the couple since October, and everyone in the congregation was expecting her to give birth around Dec. 12.

Jeff Lanza, an FBI spokesman in Kansas City, Mo., declined to discuss motives and said the investigation was ongoing.

He would say only that Montgomery was being held in Kansas and was expected to make her first appearance in federal court Monday, though authorities did not know whether it would be in Missouri or Kansas.

The baby’s father and several other family members saw the infant, named Victoria Jo, for the first time Friday night at Stormont-Vail Regional Health Center in Topeka.

The infant was in an intensive care unit. Hospital officials said she was responding normally for a baby taken from the womb one month prematurely. “She’s doing well,” hospital spokeswoman Carol Wheeler said.

The family did not speak to reporters, but the baby’s father, Zeb Stinnett, issued a brief statement calling her “a miracle.”

“I want to thank family, friends, Amber Alert and law enforcement officials for their support during this time,” he said.

U.S. Atty. Todd Graves said Montgomery contacted Stinnett through an online message board after seeing a website about dogs that Stinnett bred and raised. The site included a picture of Stinnett, showing she was pregnant.

Montgomery is the mother of two high-school-age children. Nodaway County Sheriff Ben Espey said Saturday that Montgomery had told people she was pregnant with twins, though investigators were still trying to determine whether that was true.

“She told people she was pregnant and had a miscarriage and lost one of the twins,” Espey said

According to court documents, Montgomery traveled to Topeka on Thursday to go shopping. She called her husband from there, saying she had gone into labor and given birth.

Kevin Montgomery and the couple’s two children met Lisa Montgomery and the infant in the parking lot of a fast-food restaurant in Topeka and drove home, according to an affidavit.