Pregnant murder victim's mother describes gruesome scene
A gruesome crime scene was described in a US court to jurors deciding whether to recommend the death penalty for a woman convicted of killing an expectant mother and cutting the baby from her womb.
They listened yesterday to an emergency call in which the victim’s mother described the scene.
“It’s like she exploded or something,” a sobbing Becky Harper told the dispatcher in the recording. “There’s blood everywhere.” The federal jury convicted Lisa Montgomery on Monday of killing Bobbie Jo Stinnett on December 16, 2004, in the pregnant woman’s Missouri home.
The baby survived, and Montgomery was arrested the next day after showing the infant off as her own.
The penalty phase of the trial began yesterday.
Prosecutors say Montgomery, 39, deserves a death sentence for the kidnapping-resulting-in-death conviction.
Her lawyers argue that she should get life in prison without parole – the only other punishment the jury can choose – because physical and sexual abuse she suffered as a child left her mentally ill.
The defence said Montgomery suffered from pseudocyesis, a mental condition that causes a woman to falsely believe she is pregnant and exhibit outward signs of pregnancy.
They said her delusion of being pregnant was being threatened, causing her to enter a dreamlike, dissociative state when the killing happened.
A custody hearing had been set for January 2005.
