Updated: 08:36 AM EST
Stolen Fetus Recovered After Mom Slain
Woman Charged; Father Reunited With Baby, Which Is in Good Health
By MARGARET STAFFORD, AP

MARYVILLE, Mo. (Dec. 18) - A baby girl that had been cut out of her mother's
womb was found after a frantic search, and authorities arrested the woman they
say strangled the mother and stole the child.

The child was found Friday in seemingly good health in an eastern Kansas home.
A red Toyota similar to a description offered earlier by police was in the
driveway.

Lisa M. Montgomery, 36, of Melvern, Kan., was arrested later Friday and charged
with kidnapping resulting in death.

Authorities say Bobbie Jo Stinnett, 23, was found Thursday in a pool of blood
inside her small white home in Skidmore, a town in northwest Missouri.

Earlier, Stinnett, who was eight months pregnant, had been talking with her
mother on the phone, and hung up saying a woman she had chatted with online had
just arrived at her door, authorities said.

U.S. Attorney Todd Graves said Montgomery contacted Stinnett through an online
message board, and authorities zeroed in on her using computer forensics.
Montgomery was seeking to buy a dog from Stinnett, who raised rat terriers, he
said.



Stinnett, married for little more than a year and expecting her first child,
worked at an engine factory in nearby Maryville. Her husband was at work when
she was killed, authorities said.

Montgomery is the mother of two high school-age children, but Graves said she
had been pregnant with another child that was never born.

It's unclear when she lost the baby or under what circumstances, but the
complaint said she had lied to her husband about giving birth. Graves declined
to give a motive for the crime.

According to the criminal complaint, Montgomery traveled about 40 miles to
Topeka, Kan., on Thursday to go shopping. Her husband received a call from her
saying she had gone into labor and given birth.

Kevin Montgomery and the couple's two children met Lisa and the newborn at a
parking lot in Topeka and drove home, according to the affidavit.

The next day, authorities say, Montgomery confessed that she strangled Stinnett
from behind, laterally cut her open, removed the baby and cut her umbilical
cord. She also admitted that she lied to her husband about the ordeal.

DNA tests positively confirming the child was the Stinnetts' were pending
Friday.

''We're confident we have the little girl that was taken from Skidmore,''
Nodaway County Sheriff Ben Espey said.

The grisly slaying shocked neighbors in the towns where the two women lived.

''They're very normal country people,'' said Sandra Bullock, 45, who lives
about a mile down the road from the Montgomerys. ''It's too hard to believe.''

Stinnetts' neighbor Bill Dragoo was equally surprised.

''It blows my mind that this happened,'' he said. ''She was such a shy person.
They didn't deserve this.''

Missouri State Highway Patrol Sgt. Sheldon Lyon said the investigation was
ongoing. He would not say if additional charges might be filed or if there were
other suspects.

Several pregnant women have been killed in recent years by attackers who then
removed their fetuses, in some cases to pass the children off as their own.

In one of the most recent cases, a 21-year-old woman was shot to death in
Oklahoma in December 2003, allegedly by another woman who pretended the
6-month-old fetus was her child. The fetus died and prosecutors are seeking the
death penalty."

http://www.cbc.ca/story/world/national/2004/12/17/shark-australia041217.html

Speaking of whales:

A Great White Shark killed a kid in Australia and now authorities are out on a hunt to kill the shark. This really bothers me. Sure it's sad that an 18-year-old kid was killed, but a shark have neither the intelligence nor the interest to tell the difference between humans and its food.

Kodos for the parents to agree with me.



random edit:
[Edited 12/18/04 9:25am]

I didn't think this was a funny report, but I guess some are more worried about the fucking whales and what not...
[Edited 12/18/04 9:19am]