Murder in the Heartland

by M. William Phelps

  At some point that afternoon, SA Kurt Lipanovich called. Kurt and Jeff had known each other for years and worked on several big cases together. A large man at about six feet two inches, two hundred pounds, Lipanovich was in excellent physical shape, more muscle than flab. Being a member of the FBI’s SWAT team, Lipanovich had a larger-than-life presence about him; he looked like a tough cop. Yet, he had no trouble sharing his rather “dry sense of humor” with fellow agents and lawmen, and then, quite quickly, falling into seriousness when the situation called for it.

  “Jeff, we got this tip from some woman in North Carolina,” said Lipanovich over the phone.

  “What is it?”

  “Some sort of message board: Annie’s Rat Terrier Rest Area.”

  “Great.”

  “Can you check it out?”

  “Of course.”

  “When you go through her browser history,” Lipanovich added, “see if Darlene Fischer visited that site, too.”

  “Got it.”

  Within an hour after Jeff found those pages where Bobbie Jo and Darlene were logged on to Annie’s Rat Terrier Rest Area and communicating with each other, he had all of their online discussions staring him in the face.

  Even better: on every post, at the bottom of the screen, was the IP address of each user.

  As soon as he had the IP address Bobbie Jo had been communicating with, Jeff ran a check under the Patriot Act on public available databases and—lo and behold—came up with a server, as well as the company maintaining it.

  “I have that information, Kurt,” said Jeff after calling Lipanovich back. There was enthusiasm in his voice. It was the first major breakthrough in the case. They were onto something big; both could sense the momentum.

  Even so, the computer forensic work was still somewhat of a side show to the traditional gumshoe investigation Ben Espey and his crew were doggedly pursuing. The St. Joseph PD had recovered the e-mail addresses from the chats between Bobbie Jo and Darlene Fischer the previous night, but the follow up with Microsoft, according to Jeff, had not been done to secure IP information. So, in effect, “the digital evidence was known,” but the additional steps needed to find out who Darlene Fischer was had not yet been done.

  Known as the Heart of America Regional Computer Forensic Laboratory in Kansas City (HARCFL), the lab Jeff Owen worked out of “accepts requests for computer forensics services from any law enforcement [agency]” within its service area, which comprises counties encompassing the entire state of Kansas and two-thirds of Western Missouri. The HARCFL also takes on cases from local police departments and the FBI. The goal of the RCFL (which has labs all across America) is to be a “one-stop, full-service forensics laboratory devoted entirely to the examination of digital evidence in support of criminal investigations.”

  It’s a simple concept. The lab, a “one-stop shop” devoted to computer forensic work, can get a lot more done in a day than other agencies involved in different aspects of a case. Much of the RCFL’s time is dedicated, “but not limited, to terrorism, child pornography, crimes of violence, theft or destruction of intellectual property, Internet crimes, and fraud.”

  One of HARCFL’s most recent accomplishments was the work the lab did in a serial killer case of high notoriety, which went unsolved for decades: the arrest of Dennis Rader, who admitted to being the BTK killer. Five computer forensic examiners from HARCFL traveled to Wichita, Kansas, where they “assisted the Computer Unit of the Wichita, Kansas, Police Department by imaging numerous computers using the most advanced forensics equipment available.” As a result, they were able to obtain digital evidence that, “when analyzed, was instrumental in the investigation and ongoing prosecution” of Rader.

  These men and women spend hours doing tedious computer work. But for RCFL examiners like Jeff Owen, their work is a vocation that can solve an otherwise impenetrable case.

  “It’s very rewarding,” said Jeff. “What’s great is, everyone here works for a different agency, but we work whatever case needs [to be] done. It is one of the rare examples of true cooperation in law enforcement.”

  A father of three and dedicated husband, James Domres had been involved in computer forensics for the New York State Attorney General since before the Internet became a staple in millions of American households. Domres, a member of the Western New York RCFL Executive Board since its inception, had been an asset in cases ranging from prosecuting members of al-Qaeda to an undercover operation exposing date rape drug sales over the Internet. His accomplishments have resulted in over one hundred arrests, capped off by an international investigation of forged identities, which led to the arrest of a man who had counterfeited hundreds of driver’s licenses, including one with a photograph of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, a major al-Qaeda operative and suspected national terrorist.

  In the field of law enforcement computer work, James Domres, Jeff Owen, and their colleagues all over the world are considered masters of their craft. It takes tremendous discipline to solve a crime by sitting in an office searching through the bowels of a box of plastic, wires, and circuit boards. But most agents love it.

  It would be safe to say James Domres is one of a handful of individuals in the United States who know more about the underlining operational procedures of the RCFL than most.

  The RCFL, Domres said, had been one of the best tools to come around in decades, aiding in several different types of investigations. He noted that computer crimes weren’t necessarily the only ones the RCFL could help local and federal law enforcement agencies with. Blackberries, iPods, and cell phones also leave strands of digital “DNA” evidence everywhere they go.

  “You see, before RCFL came about,” said Domres, “you had investigators doing both: forensics and computer investigations. We saw the need, to have labs where people did nothing but computer forensics—something that could support local agencies.”

  For Bobbie Jo Stinnett’s newborn child, possibly still alive, and her husband, who had lost a wife but still hoped he would be united with his daughter, the work Jeff Owen was doing was perhaps the most important job anyone had been given in the investigation thus far. It was up to the RCFL now to find out who Darlene Fischer was—and the residential address from which she had logged on to her computer.

  Jeff Owen traced Darlene Fischer’s IP address back to Qwest Communications. He phoned SA Lipanovich with the news. “I got it for you, Kurt.”

  “You do? What is it?”

  With the phone cradled between his shoulder and ear, Jeff read the IP address straight from the Internet message board, which he had logged on to “live” on one computer at his workstation. He swung around in his chair and checked it with the IP on Bobbie Jo’s computer, which he had sitting on another desk. “It’s a company out of Virginia, Qwest Communications.”

  “That’s great!”

  “Here, let me give you their number. This is what you need to tell them….” Jeff explained what Lipanovich needed to say once he got Qwest on the phone.

  “Great work, Jeff!” Lipanovich roared.

  “Kurt, you must understand,” said Jeff before they hung up, “what we have is the cyber equivalent to a return address on a letter from the suspect. The Internet service provider should be able to pinpoint exactly what address it went to—where the suspect lives.”

  43

  Special Agent Lipanovich called Qwest and spoke to Melissa Erwin, a senior security specialist.

  “Yes,” Erwin explained to Lipanovich, “that IP address is assigned to us. Let me see what I can do to find out where it originates.”

  Qwest, an Internet Service Provider (ISP), had nothing to do with Darlene Fischer, other than providing her, like millions of other computer users, with access to an Internet server.

  “Thanks,” said Lipanovich. “Make it quick, though. We’re fighting against time here.”

  Soon, Erwin called Lipanovich back. As luck would have it, he had Jeff Owen on another line. “Jeff, hold on, that’s Qwest calling back.”
/>
  Erwin said she needed more information.

  Lipanovich asked Jeff, “Can you verify exactly when Stinnett and Darlene Fischer chatted?”

  “Yup, hold on.” Jeff gave Lipanovich the actual times.

  “We’re going to get an actual physical address, Jeff,” said Lipanovich.

  “I told you.”

  “Based on the usage of that IP address,” Erwin said a minute later, “on December 15, 2004, I was able to determine through a reverse domain name system search that the server being used was located in Topeka, Kansas.”

  Topeka made sense. It was in the region where Bobbie Jo had been murdered. “There’s more,” added Erwin. “By reviewing our Internet connection logs, I was able to determine that the IP address used on December 15, 2004, between those times we discussed, was assigned to ‘kelimont at Earthlink dot net.’”

  Furthermore, it was a dial-up connection, as opposed to a cable modem, making it easy to trace.

  “Go on,” said Lipanovich. Everything was at last coming together.

  Erwin said, “I even did a reverse Internet search for the phone number and found that the number is being billed to a guy by the name of Kevin Montgomery. He lives on Adams Road in Melvern, Kansas.”

  And there it was: Kevin Montgomery. Melvern, Kansas.

  While Jeff Owen continued to gather evidence on Bobbie Jo’s computer, SA Lipanovich had a solid lead from Qwest Communications: a name and address of a male who was apparently the last person to communicate with Bobbie Jo online.

  Within a few hours after receiving the lead, Lipanovich found out Kevin Montgomery had three kids of his own. He had been married to thirty-six-year-old Lisa Montgomery for four years. Recently they had been celebrating because Lisa was in the last trimester of her pregnancy, and she and Kevin were preparing for the arrival of a new baby. That Kelimont e-mail address had been set up by Lisa, using an acronym: “Ke” stood for Kevin; “li” for Lisa; whereas “mont” referred to their last name, Montgomery.

  Lipanovich now had a name and, even better, an address in Melvern, Kansas.

  44

  Sitting at his desk, Sheriff Ben Espey was preparing to brief the press when he heard about the latest break.

  SA Kurt Lipanovich had been working closely with Espey throughout the morning and into the afternoon. Espey liked Lipanovich, respected his work ethic and resolve to find the child. Now, with a team of federal agents heading to Melvern to find out if Kevin Montgomery had anything to do with the case, it seemed the situation was out of Lipanovich’s and Espey’s hands.

  Espey had a gut feeling going into the early afternoon they would locate the child in Melvern. The tipster from Georgia, who had called in Lisa Montgomery’s name, had solidified the connection, at least for him. Coupled with what he had heard from the FBI, Espey knew where the child was—there was no doubt about it.

  “The baby was in Melvern, Kansas,” Espey said later. “As soon as I realized that, I sent my own men there to get her, whether the FBI would welcome them or not. It was about the child for me. My men were going to Melvern with one purpose: finding Victoria Jo. And the FBI wasn’t going to do anything to stop them from doing their jobs.”

  The race was on.

  45

  FBI agents converged on Melvern and set up a surveillance around Lisa and Kevin Montgomery’s home during the afternoon of December 17.

  As it happened, two additional agents headed to the west end of town on an entirely separate mission.

  With fewer than one hundred students enrolled during any given year, Melvern’s Marais des Cygnes Valley (High) School would be considered a foreign educational environment to most kids from larger cities and towns across America. In contrast to the overflowing classrooms more common elsewhere, ten students per classroom might be considered a lot in towns like Melvern and Skidmore.

  “School was very personal,” commented one former Marais des Cygnes Valley student. “If something happened on one end of the hall, it would be at the other end of the hall within five minutes. Everyone knew everything about everyone. And there was a lot of one-on-one time between teachers and students. Come to think of it, the teachers probably even knew our middle names.”

  Lisa’s children loved the intimacy of growing up in small-town America. Having an education system in place considered by many to be first-rate, and extremely personal, was an added bonus.

  During the latter part of the morning, Ryan, Alicia, and Rebecca were going about the daily routine at Marais des Cygnes Valley as if it were just another school day. The only difference in their lives was that they had a new baby sister at home waiting for them when they got out of class.

  Two FBI agents showed up at Kevin Montgomery’s parents’ house across town to discuss the best possible way to pull the kids out of class without making a scene. The FBI explained to Mr. and Mrs. Montgomery that they needed to question the children about Lisa and Kevin.

  “It involves a kidnapping.”

  Undoubtedly shocked by this, Kevin’s mother agreed to pick the kids up at school and bring them back to the house.

  “Great,” said one agent, “just don’t tell them what’s going on.”

  Burrowed in the brush behind the barn in back of the farmhouse and around the cornfields corralling the land near Lisa and Kevin’s house, several FBI agents were looking for any sign of a red car or newborn baby.

  As of early afternoon, no one seemed to be home.

  From his office in Maryville, Espey heard the FBI was planning on staking out the house for twenty-four hours, in order to watch Lisa and Kevin’s movements. The FBI wasn’t sure if they were dealing with a “drug house,” or if Kevin and Lisa were operating some sort of black-market baby factory, Espey explained.

  When Espey confirmed how the FBI was handling the situation, he called in Randy Strong and Don Fritz, two investigators—“the best in the state”—with Missouri’s Initial Response Team. Randy Strong worked for Maryville Public Safety as one of its chief investigators. A man with an intense dedication to law enforcement, Strong understood that Espey’s main concern was for the child.

  “Get in a car and get to Melvern as fast as you can,” Espey told Strong and Fritz. He was frustrated over the FBI’s desire not to move in right away and get the child to a hospital.

  “Sure, Sheriff,” said Strong. “We’re on our way.”

  “Just get into that house and get that baby. Drive through anybody that gets in your way.”

  Based on a piece of “solid” information Espey had uncovered himself, he believed the FBI was planning not to let any of his men go near the Melvern house, where they suspected Lisa and Kevin and the baby were going to show up anytime.

  Espey was firm in his conviction. “Drive onto that property. Knock on the front door. Walk in. And get that child.”

  At twelve by twelve feet, Espey’s office inside the Nodaway County Sheriff’s Department was as cramped as a jail cell. Espey didn’t use a computer. He had a few awards and commendations tacked to the cinder block concrete walls around him, but spent as little time as possible inside the confining room. His job, he maintained, was out in the field. He usually showed up at the office by 8:00 and was on the road by 9:00 A.M. He had no use for sitting behind a desk, pushing a pencil, staring at police reports and rap sheets. His heart was in working the streets. The FBI wasn’t going to walk into Espey’s county and take control at the last minute. He had made promises to Bobbie Jo’s family and told Zeb he’d bring his child back home. Regardless of the fallout later on, no one was going to stop him from attempting to make good on those promises.

  Would Strong and Fritz make it to Melvern in time? Espey had overheard an agent working out of his office tell another field agent that they were taking over the investigation now that they had solid information as to the whereabouts of the person responsible for sending the last e-mail to Bobbie Jo.

  “We’re not going to rush this deal,” Espey heard the agent say over the radio. “We’r
e going to do the stakeout. And we’re going to sit on it for a day or two.”

  This comment, specifically, upset Espey, who had been told repeatedly by doctors he had to get the child to a hospital as soon as possible after locating her.

  “I represent the community in northern Missouri,” said Espey. “That’s why it was so upsetting to me.”

  Espey faced one other major problem: the Kansas FBI regional office called to tell him he didn’t have jurisdiction in Melvern, Kansas.

  “That’s right, I don’t,” Espey told himself. “But it’s my case.”

  He hung up the phone.

  Espey radioed Randy Strong and Don Fritz as they headed down Highway 71 toward Kansas, reaffirming his position: “You drive through whatever barricade you have to in order to get that child back. Don’t worry about the FBI. I’ll handle them.”

  46

  A quick background check told the FBI neither Kevin nor Lisa had any prior arrests or convictions. Both were clean, as far as the law was concerned. Maybe there wouldn’t be any resistance. Perhaps it would all go smoothly.

  Still, why would a married couple with seven kids of their own between them murder a young expecting mother and cut her child from her womb? If, in fact, Kevin and Lisa were responsible, something was wrong with the entire scenario. As much as all the evidence seemed to point to them, there was a missing link. How did Kevin Montgomery fit into the picture? Had he helped Lisa? A few tips Ben Espey received the previous night made him consider the child might have been taken for resale on the black market. Detectives were still working on one of those leads. Were more people involved? Had Lisa and Kevin gone off to sell the child?

  The Melvern house Kevin and Lisa called home was a two-story white farmhouse set back from a gravel road about fifty yards. Surrounded by hundreds of acres of farmland, a muddy driveway led up to the door the family used on the side of the house. Another door faced the road, but nobody entered through it. Down the street, the closest neighbor was a good half-mile away. Lisa’s goats were out back. Her dogs were barking.