Murder in the Heartland

by M. William Phelps

  While Zeb Stinnett and Becky Harper made the infant comfortable in her new surroundings, Lisa, wearing an orange prison jumpsuit and her signature oversized glasses, which somewhat shadowed the puffy bags underneath her eyes, was escorted into the courtroom, doing the “paper-slipper shuffle,” a term inmates sometimes use in place of the more common “perp walk.” With her long brown hair (laced with delicate streaks of blond) hiding her face, Lisa looked down the entire time and seldom made eye contact with anyone. Kevin, fidgeting in a front-row pew, watched his wife as she was led to a mahogany table in front of U.S. magistrate judge David J. Waxse.

  And there she stood, head bowed, handcuffs and leg chains clanking every time she moved even the slightest bit, waiting for the judge to begin.

  “If convicted, Mrs. Montgomery,” Judge Waxse said at one point, after announcing the charges against Lisa, “you could spend the rest of your life in prison or face the death penalty.”

  Earlier that morning, U.S. deputy attorney Matt Whitworth filed a motion asking the judge to keep Lisa in custody.

  “This case involves an act of extreme violence, which resulted in the death of Bobbie Jo Stinnett and the kidnapping of the victim’s baby girl, Victoria Jo Stinnett. Further, [the] defendant is now charged with the offense of kidnapping resulting in death, which carries a maximum sentence of life without parole or death.”

  Whitworth argued that because the government viewed Lisa as a danger to the community, not to mention a flight risk, she needed to be kept behind bars.

  “The government respectfully requests that this Honorable Court set a detention hearing to demonstrate that no condition or combination of conditions will reasonably assure the defendant’s appearance as required by the court and the safety of other persons and the community, and thereafter detain the defendant without bail pending trial of this matter.”

  The judge agreed, and set a bond hearing for December30.

  The U.S. Attorney’s Office also announced it was bringing in Nodaway County prosecutor David Baird as a special assistant U.S. attorney. Lisa allegedly had committed her crimes in Baird’s district. Baird knew the territory and scope of the township. He would be instrumental in investigation and case preparation. But, perhaps most important, Baird would be the go-to man when it came time to pick a jury. Baird knew the people of Missouri. He could add insight and ingenuity to every element of the prosecution.

  Baird was an experienced trial lawyer who knew the law well. He was working for the office during the Ken Rex McElroy fiasco in Skidmore, back in 1981, and had a reputation for pressing forward in the face of difficulty in even the most ordinary cases where the law had been breached or broken. Baird was a fighter for the people’s rights, often pursuing cases of child porn and rape. He fought hard, right up until the end of any case, high-profile or not. In the coming months, he would be invaluable in the U.S. Attorney Office’s case against Lisa.

  Todd Graves and David Baird had worked together several times, helping each other where they could, but were also unified in participating in a new drug task force in the Western District. The Northwest Missouri Interagency Team Response Operation (NITRO) had created solid relationships among law enforcement agencies in the district so they could fight together against a growing drug problem.

  “I am pleased to be a part of…the NITRO endeavor,” Baird said after NITRO was formed in 2002. “During my tenure as Nodaway County prosecuting attorney, my office has been actively involved in the vigorous prosecution of those associated with drug activity…. My office will be actively involved in the NITRO effort and provide it full support.”

  On the day of Lisa’s first court appearance, she was represented by public defenders Charles Dedmon and Ron Wurtz. Shortly before Lisa’s arraignment ended, Dedmon and Wurtz asked the judge to issue a gag order. Every time a new piece of information, no matter how small, was released, the entire history of the case sprang back into the forefront of the media. Some involved were starting to talk. Dedmon and Wurtz wanted a fair shot. They had refused to answer any questions from the media themselves; yet Todd Graves, Ben Espey, and several others, it seemed, were appearing with Larry King and Anderson Cooper on major news shows.

  Judge Waxse declined the gag order. “But I remind [everyone involved] to limit their comments to the media.”

  Assistant U.S. attorney Terra Morehead, who was representing the government, said, “We know what the rules are as it applies to dissemination of information.”

  Lisa’s children were thunderstruck by the image of their mom doing the perp walk on television. They couldn’t believe what they were seeing.

  “I know it was hard on everyone,” said Kayla. “I watched some of the news, but Auntie M didn’t want me to watch too much of it, because then I would dwell on it. Instead, she had me talk to her about how I felt…and to a psychiatrist (I think that is what he was…but he was a friend of hers). It helped, I guess.”

  As word of Lisa’s first day in court spread, members of the Ratter Chatter message board discussed Lisa’s alleged crimes. A rumor had started on one of the message boards saying Lisa supposedly had practiced the procedure she allegedly conducted on Bobbie Jo on some of her expecting rat terriers.

  “How the rumors about my mom ‘practicing’ on our champion bitch got started are beyond me,” Kayla said in her mom’s defense. “That one really makes me laugh, though—because only one of our dogs was shown at dog shows, and I showed him…. None of our dogs died while having puppies, or were ever missing.”

  74

  A day after Lisa’s arraignment, a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office said no decision had been made about whether the government would seek the death penalty. Such a decision would have to be approved by the Department of Justice.

  If the public was yearning for the details of Lisa’s admission, or her state of mind at the time Bobbie Jo was murdered, they were going to have to wait. The ten-minute hearing days ago, when the charges against Lisa were read into the record, had failed to yield any particulars about the alleged crimes.

  With hardly any assets and little money, Lisa was appointed a public defender, who had spoken on her behalf, telling the judge she “refused to waive her right to a preliminary and identity hearing.”

  Both hearings were eventually scheduled for Thursday morning, December 23. On that day, the case would officially be transferred to Missouri.

  Outside the courthouse, Todd Graves spoke to the press about the case he was preparing. “I’m not aware of any history of mental illness,” he said with a serious and direct manner. “But the investigation is, of course, in its early stages. There’s a lot of work left for us to do.”

  Kevin Montgomery was approached by the horde of reporters at the courthouse. “Can you tell us how Lisa’s doing?”

  “No comment.”

  “How are you holding up?”

  “I’m okay.”

  “Is there anything you’d like to say, Mr. Montgomery?”

  Kevin refused to speak about Lisa, instead offering his thoughts once again to Bobbie Jo’s family.

  “My family has suffered a tragedy, but I am not the only family.”

  75

  Much of the media left Skidmore by Tuesday morning. Bobbie Jo was going to be laid to rest later in the afternoon. Word was the entire town of Skidmore, in support of the Stinnett and Harper families, was going to attend, as well as people from across the region whose lives Bobbie Jo had touched in some way.

  Back at Lisa and Kevin’s house in Melvern, a wreath hung from the front door. Red, green and white Christmas lights still dotted the contour of the house, but had not been turned on for days. Lisa and Kevin’s goats and chickens were outside, in their pens, bleating and clucking.

  A majority of Melvern’s residents were standing behind the Montgomery family. “We are filled with sorrow,” one small-business owner in town said, “for the Stinnett and Montgomery families.”

  “When one person hurts,” another
neighbor said, shaking his head in disbelief, “everyone hurts.”

  Kayla Boman was torn. On the one hand, her mother was in jail facing the worst possible outcome imaginable. On the other, a town was preparing to bury a friend. If it had been proper, Kayla said, she would have made plans to attend the funeral. Then again, considering the circumstances, it just wasn’t something she felt she could do, emotionally or honorably.

  Since the events of December 16, Kayla had stayed away from the Internet message boards where Bobbie Jo and her mother had communicated—message boards that had become world-famous by this point. They contained too much speculation, rumor, and discussion for Kayla. No one knew her mother, or Bobbie Jo, for that matter, the way she did. To read half-truths and lies would only add to the misery she felt already. But for whatever reason, on the day of Bobbie Jo’s funeral, Kayla decided to log on to Ratter Chatter and read some of the memories people were sharing. It would be safe to assume that today the talk would be focused on Bobbie Jo.

  Kayla read a few posts and began to get “really upset.” Scrolling down the page, she saw pictures of Bobbie Jo. “It all seemed like it couldn’t be real.”

  Part of Kayla longed to “deny it all.” But the photographs of Bobbie Jo showing her dogs made denial impossible. One photo showed Bobbie Jo seven months pregnant, about three weeks before she was murdered. She looked at ease, beaming with happiness. Handling her dog, Fonzi, her stomach bulging out of her maternity blouse, her auburn-blond hair flowing below her shoulders, a slight smile on her face, Bobbie Jo seemed elated, Kayla thought, just to be alive.

  The photo made Kayla want to cry. Those pictures of Bobbie Jo showing Fonzi, she now knew, were going to be “burned into my memory.

  “I think I have looked at them enough. But I can’t help it. And then I start to think of what Tori Jo is missing out on. Just thinking about it now, I have tears in my eyes.”

  76

  An impressionist landscape artist could not have painted a more beautiful portrait of the day for Bobbie Jo’s funeral. The only drawback to the morning was that temperatures had turned arctic cold over the past few days, bringing that abrupt, bitter air that seeps through layers of clothing and stiffens the joints.

  Bobbie Jo’s body had been released by authorities late Sunday night and taken directly to the Price Funeral Home in downtown Maryville. Her funeral would begin in late morning at the funeral home and carry on until the afternoon, when she would be laid to rest in a family plot in Skidmore. Ben Espey and his deputies were set to give the funeral procession a full escort to the cemetery and make sure the media kept their distance.

  “We promised the family we’d oblige. It was the least we could do.”

  Maryville is, in a way, the capital city of Nodaway County. Home to Northwest Missouri State University, which educates some sixty-six hundred students at any given time, the town sits about fourteen miles east of Skidmore, one hundred miles north of Kansas City. With a population of approximately eleven thousand, it is one of the larger towns in the county.

  Inside the reception area of the Price Funeral Home, it was clear the day was going to be even harder than anyone had anticipated. By noon, mourners began arriving as Reverend Harold Hamon, sitting in a back office, peered out the window. The media kept back, but still had a strong presence across the street, with a few reporters venturing into the parking lot, photographers snapping people as they walked into the parlor, hugging themselves, trying to stay warm.

  The last census had found a majority of Skidmore’s 342 citizens to be in their early-to-mid thirties, a statistic that was represented on the day of Bobbie Jo’s funeral. Many who attended wore dark blue or black suits, while others donned blue jeans, turtleneck sweaters, cowboy boots, and Western ranch coats down to their ankles.

  “Pray for me,” Hamon said to those around him as he got up from behind the desk. Nodaway County sheriff Ben Espey, whose office was a football toss from the funeral home, was one of the first people Hamon ran into as he worked his way out into the crowd. Many people were still standing in line waiting to get in.

  The two men shook hands. “Thank you,” Hamon said. He was speaking of Espey’s persistence in pursuing the Amber Alert and ultimately getting Victoria Jo back to Zeb—and back into the arms of Skidmore.

  “You’re welcome, Reverend,” Espey said, holding back a storm of emotion.

  “I was addressing Christmas cards,” Hamon said, “at the moment it was happening…. Can you believe it?”

  “It’s okay, Harold, really,” Espey said.

  “I was sitting in my kitchen, right around the corner from the house.” He shook his head, thinking about it.

  Since the crime, Hamon hadn’t slept much. He had struggled over the words he would speak during the service. He’d written a four-page, single-spaced sermon to read, but ripped it up over the weekend and decided to start from scratch. He had been losing himself, he said, in Scripture, looking for the proper passage or Psalm to share on such a dire day. It was his job, he knew, to comfort the community.

  Yet accepting the responsibility didn’t make it any easier.

  The theme Hamon would be discussing during the service was how “good people” could be subjected to such tragedy. Why Bobbie Jo? Why would God bring a child into this world, but take her mother? These were thoughts people would have as they sat and pondered the events. Tears would come, surely. That was okay. Perhaps they were God’s way of washing away the pain. But anxieties and questions would prevail. It was up to Hamon to put the tragedy into some sort of context and explain it as God’s work, no matter how hard it was to accept.

  At 2:00 P.M., as the organist played a haunting rendition of “What a Friend We Have in Jesus,” Hamon walked into the main sanctuary of the funeral home and approached the pulpit beside Bobbie Jo’s casket. He could smell the glorious aroma from what seemed like a field of flowers surrounding her casket.

  He bowed his head. The packed room quieted. People who couldn’t fit into the home stood outside in the cold, pushing their way forward, hoping to hear Hamon’s words of hope.

  As he stood by the pulpit, hands folded together, his favorite Bible in one hand, a friend of the Stinnett family read the Lord’s Prayer as a chorus of perhaps three hundred echoed the Word of the Lord.

  Amen.

  “I don’t know if I’m up to this or not,” Hamon began, after the prayer. “I’ve struggled to find the right words for today, along with my own grief at Bobbie Jo’s passing. I don’t know what to say. This is one of those times where you can’t figure it out at all and words fail.”

  Though he started out with a wavering tone, within a few moments, Hamon found his voice. He read three Scriptures, each one more empowering than the previous:

  The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. He leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul. He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His names’ sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. For thou art with me; Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies; Thou annointest my head with oil; My cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the House of the Lord forever.

  In that passage, Psalm 23, David was describing his own experience, because he had spent so much of his early life caring for sheep. For those who took solace from the New Testament, Jesus had also been known as the “Good Shepherd.”

  After Hamon read the Scripture, he looked at everyone standing in front of him and said, “I don’t have the answer. But I know Someone who does.”

  Later, Hamon said, “I just tried to talk a little bit about how God had created this beautiful world of ours and had designed the home, and how He created man in His own image, and, as such, He created a creature that had the ability to choose, and he could choose for bad or choose for good.”

  People, Hamon not
ed, were forever victims of somebody else’s choices. In this case, according to the government, Lisa had selected Bobbie Jo.

  “In a lot of these terrible tragedies that happen, it’s impossible for us to understand because we’re not big enough in our minds, or our understanding. But there is One that sees the whole picture.

  “And that whole picture is presented in His word….”

  Following the touching service at the Price Funeral Home, pallbearers carried Bobbie Jo’s casket out into a waiting hearse as one of the largest funeral processions in Maryville history, led by the flashing lights on the vehicles of Ben Espey and his deputies, proceeded toward Hillcrest Cemetery, located just south of Skidmore on Highway 113.

  77

  Cars, trucks, and sport utility vehicles lined Highway 113 for about a mile-and-a-half of roadway running alongside Hillcrest Cemetery. Under a blue tent, mourners huddled near Bobbie Jo’s plot in the back of the cemetery. The thin fabric did little to diminish the bite of the stinging wind whipping across thousands of acres of farmland in every direction.

  But people managed.

  “There was an overwhelming outpouring of concern and sympathy for [Bobbie Jo’s] family,” Reverend Hamon said later. “It was mind-boggling.”

  A man in a field, maybe a mile away, stood in silence as the procession came up the blacktop road and slowly stopped. The man, with his three-day-old stubbly beard and stained plaid winter jacket, was in awe at such a sight, something he had never seen in his decades of living in the region.

  Bobbie Jo lay in a silver-plated coffin with gold trim, a large bouquet of white-and-yellow daisies dressing the top of it, almost identical to the flowers she had held while walking down the aisle almost two years ago.