The newlyweds moved with Lisa’s three daughters and son to a rural farmhouse in Osage County just outside Melvern. The first house was small and crowded for this family of six. On weekends, when Kevin’s three boys came from their mother’s home to visit their dad, the place was jammed tighter than a skyscraper elevator at quitting time.
In September 2001, they rented a larger farmhouse from Isabel Phelon. To get to their new home, Kevin and Lisa followed State Route 31 as it cut through downtown Melvern, then turned left and headed out to Melvern Lake. After a small cluster of houses, the landscape opened to rolling fields—acre after acre of land that grew soybeans, milo, wheat and corn, or raised head after head of cattle. Lines of trees marched down the fence lines and along the roadways.
A little ways outside of town was the Melvern Cemetery. Old and new markers filled the little plot of land wedged between plowed and fallow fields. The stones from the 1800s were worn smooth by the wind, the rain, the snow—and splotched with rusty moss-like stains. It required squinted eyes and sensitive fingers to decipher the names and dates engraved on their faces.
Just a bit beyond the graveyard was the gravel and dirt of South Adams Road. Gravel crunched under tires as the road rose up over a hump and crossed two sets of railroad tracks. Finally, it arrived at the home of Lisa and Kevin Montgomery—1.8 miles and five doors from the highway.
Their new home—in traditional farmhouse white—was set back from the road just far enough to escape the pings of flying gravel. The side facing the street was a two-story rectangle. A one-story structure with a sloping roof covering a broad porch stuck out behind it. A barn and other outbuildings were scattered nearby, and well-used fields surrounded the three sides not bound by the road.
Past their house and down a small hill, the road reached an intersection. Just around that corner was the home of their landlady. The roofline was visible from the porch.
Kevin commuted up this bumpy road and seventy miles farther to get to work at Acme Sign in Kansas City, Missouri. The company was owned by Melvern native Darrell Schultze. There, Kevin used his electrician background in his work as a sign fabricator. He was a very particular and meticulous worker—more interested in doing his job right than in completing the task in record time.
The family threw themselves into the rural lifestyle. They raised their own hogs for meat for the dinner table. When time came to send off one of them for slaughter, Kevin’s boss, Darrell, often came by to help Lisa load the animal onto the truck. The Montgomerys raised a calf or two each year as well. Their livestock included a small herd of angora goats. She wanted to teach her children all she knew about the down-to-earth skills of gardening, cooking and raising livestock.
She sheared her goats and washed and dried the wool. Then the kids picked through it and carded the soft hair. This was the most tedious step in the process. The children soon learned to hide from sight when wool cleaning time came around.
When that chore was done, Lisa spun the wool into yarn, picking out any little pieces of grass or burrs that the children missed. She wrote for advice online:
I am hoping to learn how to knit a pair of socks with some of it, but my kids have already asked for mittens! Since it is white, I should be able to dye it, so here is another question—is it better to dye the wool or the already spun yarn? Or does it matter? And what are some natural dyes that I can find around a farm that would work?
Lisa loved the Internet. She posted online about her children and what she would do differently with the kids she would have with Kevin:
I had four kids a year apart. They learned cooperation, manners and are closer than they were before. As they are all in high school now, we have plans when they all graduate that our next ones will be home-schooled the first couple of years.
To the people of Melvern, Lisa always seemed to be pregnant. They lost count of the number of miscarriages she claimed. In one incident, she told everyone that she donated the lost fetus to science.
The Montgomerys’ minister, Reverend Mike Wheatley of the First Church of God, later said that Kevin and Lisa wanted their own children. Of course, Lisa never bothered to tell Kevin about the tubal ligation she had years before she met him. She hid her sterility and Kevin was none the wiser. Lisa told her preacher that when she and Kevin had a child of their own, she would be “attached at the hip to her husband.”
“There was a desperation there,” Wheatley told the media.
Wheatley and his wife thought Lisa was a very self-centered person who at the same time appeared to care deeply about her family and her kids. When they tried to talk to her about anything else, it was impossible.
Often Lisa dropped by the parsonage with her children. Whenever the Wheatleys turned the conversation to someone else in their congregation, Lisa either ignored their comments or cut them off and continued to talk only about her little world.
13
In 2002, Lisa started breeding rat terriers. By June 2003, she had three dogs in her kennel and was active on the rat terrier boards online. It was through these chat rooms that she encountered Jason Dawson, another rat terrier enthusiast who lived in the Kansas City area. Lisa had a male dog that Jason wanted to breed with one of his females. The two met at the Great Mall of the Great Plains in Olathe, Kansas—the halfway point between their homes.
Jason met with Lisa on two other occasions. Once, he brought one of his males to breed with Lisa’s female. On another occasion, Jason brought two puppies to Lisa for transport to another breeder at a dog show in Lexington, Kentucky.
Lisa made him uncomfortable at every encounter. “There was something just plain odd about her, but I couldn’t put my finger on it,” he said.
Nonetheless, he did not break contact with her until he became aware of her propensity for telling silly, unnecessary lies. When breeder Nancy Strudl accused Lisa of misrepresenting the pedigree of the dogs she sold, many in the rat terrier community were outraged and wanted Lisa ousted from their group. Only one person came to Lisa’s defense—a respected young breeder named Bobbie Jo Stinnett. “Maybe it was just a misunderstanding,” she wrote. She urged others to give Lisa a second chance. Because of their high regard for Bobbie Jo, the others relented.
Jason also learned of Lisa’s bizarre machinations over a puppy she got from one Tracey Ramirez. Lisa said she kept the dog when she actually gave it away. She then went to visit the animal and take photographs of it as it grew up. She sent these snapshots to Tracy to perpetuate the myth that the animal still lived with her.
As one deception piled on another, Jason put distance between himself and Lisa. He did not plan to interact with her again. When he did, he would not be aware that it was Lisa—he thought it was another person altogether.
Lisa was also involved in the lives of the children in her family. She attended school plays, worked with the kids in their 4-H club and always showed up for Little League games. She often was seen on the sidelines—one eye on the game, another on her busy fingers as she knitted away. She sewed pioneer-style outfits for her daughters and nieces to deck them out for the annual apple festival.
The kids went to class at the Marais Des Cygnes school on Main Street in Melvern, which housed both elementary and high school classes.
Lisa worked away from home, too. At one point, she juggled three jobs simultaneously: at Wendy’s on Interstate 35, at the Greyhound bus stop in Topeka, and at Casey’s General Store and gas station in Lyndon.
She enjoyed her job at Casey’s. She was friendly to all the customers and well-liked by the regulars. She developed a friendship with the woman she worked with on the weekend. Her coworker thought Lisa was very easy to get to know. It was comfortable to talk to Lisa—and they talked a lot. Often, they exchanged stories about their children, who were about the same ages. Lisa, she said, loved her kids and took a lot of pride in their accomplishments.
She never expressed any concerns about them except for the garden variety complaints that all parents make. She s
eemed to have a good relationship with all of her children. The people of Melvern liked them, too. One after another, they described Lisa’s children as “four of the sweetest kids you’ll ever meet.” Lisa was particularly excited about Kayla’s interest in rat terriers and dog shows.
While working together throughout 2004, the two women often discussed the progress of Lisa’s pregnancy. The coworker commiserated with Lisa about her morning sickness and her swelling feet.
The deepest, most heartfelt conversations they had revolved around Lisa’s mother, Judy Shaughnessy. Lisa expressed a fervent desire to forgive her mother, but actually doing it seemed a nearly insurmountable challenge.
On the surface, hearing Lisa list her activities was like reading the résumé of Super-Mom. Down deep, though, a deadly desperation was building. It manifested itself in the lies about her pregnancy. She displayed it, too, in her interactions with her half-brother Teddy and his girlfriend, Bonnie Taylor. Once Teddy’s son, Justin, was born, Lisa constantly badgered the couple to give the child to her.
Her desire to remove Justin from the care of Teddy and Bonnie did have merit. On a wind-whipped bitter cold day, the couple had been seen hitching rides along the highway with their baby in tow. The little child had to be suffering—wrapped in the thinnest of blankets and exposed to the cold.
On July 22, 2003, just before the baby’s first birthday, authorities from the Drug Enforcement Unit descended on Teddy and Bonnie’s home on East 8th Street in Ottawa, Kansas. Teddy was charged with one count for the possession of methamphetamine; three counts related to the manufacture of it; one count for the possession of ephedrine, pseudoephedrine, red phosphorous, lithium metal, sodium metal and other substances considered precursors of the controlled substance; a felony drug paraphernalia possession charge for the coffee filters, plastic tubing, acetone, matchbooks, phosphorous acid flakes, Red Devil Lye, aluminum foil, muriatic acid, Coleman Fuel and other items used in the processing, testing and distribution of a controlled substance; and a misdemeanor charge for possession of syringes and a spoon.
Because he was a first-time felony offender, he was able to get a reduced-term plea agreement. Only two prior misdemeanor incidents were on his record—both in Oklahoma: a driving with a suspended license charge in August 1999 and the unlawful possession of marijuana and resisting an officer on May 7, 2002.
Teddy pled guilty and received a sentence of 6 years in the El Dorado Correctional Facility, followed by 3 years of probation on the manufacturing charges plus an additional 13 months in prison on the possession charge. This short sentence was a departure from the federal drug guidelines, which called for incarceration for a 12M-year minimum on the manufacturing charge alone.
Many believed the only reason Teddy got caught and arrested in the first place was that Lisa tipped off the authorities and sent them to her half-brother’s door. With Teddy behind bars, her plot to get custody of her young nephew moved forward.
Two days after Teddy’s arrest, Lisa, her sister Patty Baldwin and her half-brother Tommy Kleiner were at Teddy’s house. Tommy was there at the request of his mother to pick up a microwave oven and some dishes that Judy loaned to the now incarcerated couple.
After loading up his car with his mother’s things, Tommy could not get his engine to start. He raised the hood and pulled out a knife to scrape the corrosive buildup off of the battery terminals.
Lisa and Patty came outside, Lisa calling Tommy’s name. He pulled his head out from under the hood with the knife in hand. Lisa saw the sunlight glisten on the blade and recognized a golden opportunity for drama. She taunted Tommy and accused him of threatening her. Lisa’s performance goaded Tommy into further action. He waved the knife around in the air, gave Patty a shove and shouted threats to both of the women. Lisa shrieked and the two sisters ran inside. Lisa called 9-1-1. Lisa told the responding officers that Tommy threatened to slice her throat with a knife.
While Lisa was on the phone, Tommy started his car and drove back to Lyndon in neighboring Osage County. According to his mother, Judy, Tommy drove to her farm. She said that DEA agents—thinking that Tommy might be connected to Teddy’s drug business—surrounded Judy’s home. They entered the house and removed Tommy at gunpoint.
Official records paint a different picture of that day’s events. Tommy was actually arrested at his own home in downtown Lyndon. There were no federal agents involved at all. Tommy was taken into custody and transferred to Franklin County.
Judy, it seemed, had once again colored reality with the story she wanted to tell in contradiction of the actual series of events.
Authorities charged Tommy with two felony counts of making violent threats with the intent to terrorize and one misdemeanor count of domestic battery for hostile physical contact with Patty Baldwin.
Tommy had a string of misdemeanor convictions in his past, but no felonies. In August 2000, he received a 10-day sentence, a year of probation and mandatory alcohol/drug education after he was found guilty of driving under the influence, improper driving on a paved road and racing on highways.
He had to pay a $500 fine and was sentenced to 90 days behind bars with another year of probation for misdemeanor battery against a law enforcement officer in November 2002. While still on the stretch of probation, he was busted again.
He pled nolo contendere to charges that he obstructed a process server and for criminal damage to property when he kicked in a patrol car window. He had to pay court costs, fees and restitution totaling $684. His two 90-day sentences for the offenses were stayed in exchange for an additional 6-month supervised probationary period. During that time, he was required to attend anger management classes, receive a mental health evaluation and make regular monthly payments.
In September, the current felony charges involving his half-sisters were reduced to misdemeanors. Tommy received a 60-day suspended sentence with a year of probation. He paid $177 in court costs and was ordered to continue counseling and to have no contact with Lisa Montgomery. There was no restraining order issued on behalf of Patty Baldwin because she did not seek one. She sent a short handwritten letter to the court: “I, Patty Baldwin, am requesting that the ‘no contact order’ for my brother Tommy Kleiner be lifted. I do not agree with the charges that the state has filed against him.” Although she was upset at the time of the incident, she no longer saw it as a big deal at all—and she was upset with Lisa for not letting it all go.
But Lisa still thought it was a big deal. Tommy only served one day behind bars and Lisa was not satisfied. According to Tommy and Lisa’s mother, she followed Tommy around and then reported him for violating the restraining order.
However, the report Officer Stout of the Lyndon police turned in told a different story. Lisa was at work at Casey’s General Store on the afternoon of November 30. Tommy and his girlfriend, Adrienne Von Behren, entered the store. Tommy picked up an item, went to the counter, threw down some money and left.
Lisa turned to Adrienne and said, “I’m calling the police.”
“Please do,” Adrienne said. “He came in here on purpose.”
One of Lisa’s friends insisted that Adrienne sided with Lisa because her relationship with Tommy was temporary—a month-long fling in the middle of Tommy’s relationship with another woman.
Why either woman was interested in Tommy was a big question. When he and his regular girlfriend finally broke up for good, they both went to court and obtained mutual restraining orders.
Lisa and Adrienne’s story was contradicted by a man who was pumping gas when it all came down. He said Tommy never entered the store at all. He just pulled in, filled up his truck and drove away.
The authorities may not have been able to discern the truth, but they nonetheless filed a motion to revoke Tommy’s probation. While it was pending, Lisa filed another complaint that Tommy was in violation of the restraining order.
On December 13, Jeremiah Tull drove Tommy to the Citizens State Bank in Lyndon. Both men went inside. While the
y were there, Lisa arrived at the bank. There was no communication between Lisa and Tommy, and Tommy left as soon as he finished his business there. Lisa accused him of stalking her, but the version of events as portrayed by banking personnel gave more credence to Judy’s claim that Lisa was following Tommy.
Tommy’s anger management group leader, Fred Elesland, wrote a positive report on Tommy’s progress to his attorney, who submitted it to the court. He wrote:
Tommy Kleiner has completed one course of anger management at this agency and recently asked if he can come back for more therapy due to another incident with another agency for which he needs to go to court.
[. . .] He has indicated that seeing me has been helpful. When I first met him he was reacting negatively to almost every interaction he had with authority figures. I’m afraid he still has problems with them but, at least now, he is more apt to take a time out and cool off rather than respond in a negative way and be arrested. It seems to me that this is progress.
I like him. He is very open with his feelings and I have the feeling that I can confront him openly and can challenge him to respond in ways that aren’t going to get him into further trouble.
Despite this letter and regardless of the questionable integrity of Lisa’s testimony, on February 11, 2004, the court found Tommy violated the no-contact provision of his suspended sentence and sent him to jail to serve the remaining 57 days of his sentence.
In the fall of 2003, Lisa was wearing maternity clothes again. She chattered to everyone who would listen about the upcoming birth of her baby. This pregnancy was conceived as part of Lisa’s ramp-up campaign to wrestle possession of her half-brother’s child, Justin, from her mother, Judy. Authorities had placed the boy in foster care when they arrested Teddy and his girlfriend.
Before the day of the hearing, Judy assumed she would have no trouble gaining custody of her grandchild. She had serious doubts when Lisa stepped into the courtroom. Lisa faced the judge clad in the apparel of an expectant mother. She argued that, as a mother-to-be, she was a better choice for rearing a small child. The final decision on Justin’s fate was continued to a second hearing.
Baby Be Mine Page 7