Feds to execute woman who killed victim, cut baby from womb

Washington, October 17

A girl convicted of fatally strangling a pregnant lady, slicing her physique open and kidnapping her child is scheduled to be the primary feminine inmate put to loss of life by the US authorities in additional than six many years, the Justice Department stated Friday.

Lisa Montgomery is scheduled to be executed by deadly injection on December eight on the Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute, Indiana. She can be the ninth federal inmate to place to loss of life because the Justice Department resumed executions in July after an almost 20-year hiatus.

Montgomery was convicted of killing 23-year-old Bobbie Jo Stinnett within the northwest Missouri city of Skidmore in December 2004.

Montgomery drove from her Kansas house to Stinnett’s home in Skidmore underneath the guise of adopting a rat terrier pet, prosecutors stated.

When she arrived on the house, Montgomery used a rope to strangle Stinnett, who was eight months pregnant however Stinnett was acutely aware and making an attempt to defend herself as Montgomery used a kitchen knife to chop the infant lady from the womb, authorities stated.

Prosecutors stated Montgomery eliminated the infant from Stinnett’s physique, took the kid along with her and tried to move the lady off as her personal.

Montgomery’s legal professionals argued that she had been affected by delusions when she killed Stinnett however a jury rejected her defence. Her legal professionals had additionally argued that she was affected by pseudocyesis, which causes a girl to falsely consider she is pregnant and exhibit outward indicators of being pregnant.

The Justice Department on Friday additionally scheduled the execution of a person convicted within the 1999 killing of two youth ministers in Texas. Brandon Bernard, 40, is scheduled to be executed by deadly injection on December 10.

Bernard and his co-defendant, Christopher Vialva, had been convicted within the 1999 kidnapping and killing of Todd and Stacie Bagley, an Iowa couple who had stopped to make use of a payphone in Killeen, Texas.

The couple agreed to offer Vialva and two others a journey, authorities stated. Vialva pulled out a gun, pressured the couple into the trunk and drove round for a number of hours, stopping at ATMs to withdraw money and making an attempt to pawn the lady’s wedding ceremony ring, in accordance with prosecutors. Both the victims had been shot within the head and positioned within the trunk of their automotive, which then was set on hearth.

Vialva was executed final month on the Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute.

The resumption of federal executions began July 14, with the execution of former white supremacist Daniel Lewis Lee. Since then, six others have been put to loss of life and one other man, Orlando Hall, is scheduled to be executed subsequent month. Anti-death penalty teams say President Donald Trump is pushing for executions through the marketing campaign season in a bid to burnish a repute a law-and-order chief.

Before the resumptions of executions this summer time, federal authorities had executed simply three prisoners within the earlier 56 years. AP