Kansan who killed expectant mother would be first woman executed by feds in 67 years
A Kansas woman scheduled to die by lethal injection Dec. 8 would be the first woman executed by the federal government in 67 years.
Federal officials on Friday announced the execution date for Lisa Montgomery, 52, who was convicted in 2007 of killing a pregnant woman in northwest Missouri, cutting her open and kidnapping her unborn baby.
Montgomery, from Melvern, Kansas, is the only woman among the 55 prisoners on federal death row. In 2004, she strangled Bobbie Jo Stinnett, 23, of Skidmore, Missouri, and cut her unborn baby from her womb. Montgomery returned home and tried to pass the girl off as her own.
The child was safely recovered.
Montgomery, who was 36 at the time, later confessed to the killing and abduction. She was convicted of kidnapping resulting in death, a crime established by the Federal Kidnapping Act of 1932.
A federal jury in Kansas City unanimously recommended a death sentence.
The federal government last executed a woman in December 1953. Bonnie Heady, along with Carl Hall, were put to death for the kidnapping and killing of a 6-year-old Kansas City boy.
The two were executed in the gas chamber at the Missouri State Penitentiary in Jefferson City. Heady was the first woman killed in the Missouri chamber, The New York Times reported at the time.
Montgomery would also be the ninth federal inmate to be put to death since the Justice Department resumed executions in July, after a nearly 20-year hiatus.
Before July, federal authorities had executed just three prisoners in 56 years.
The execution of women is rare. Only 16 of the 1,526 people executed since 1976 across the United States were women, according to the nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, D.C.
Montgomery is scheduled to be executed at the Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute, Ind.
One of her attorneys, Kelley Henry, said Montgomery endured years of physical, sexual and mental abuse by her mother and others. She accepted responsibility for her crime and now suffers from complex post-traumatic stress disorder, Henry said.
“Her severe mental illness and the devastating impacts of her childhood trauma make executing her a profound injustice,” she said.
This report contains material from The Associated Press.
