Murder in the Heartland

by M. William Phelps

  Jeff Owen, who did much of the forensics on Bobbie Jo’s computer, was extremely helpful in guiding me through the incredibly confusing labyrinth of those critical hours when he and Kurt Lipanovich figured out Darlene Fischer and Lisa Montgomery were the same person.

  To those in Melvern, Skidmore, and other parts of the Midwest who stretched out their arms and allowed me to pry into the history of the towns they love so much, I applaud you for your hospitality and warmth while I asked tough questions about the lives you lead.

  Those people, spread throughout the little towns I stopped in and gassed up my car, who talked to me about their lives over a cup of coffee, helped give this book its Midwestern feel of reality.

  This project took more time away from my family than any of the others. Without the support of Mathew, Jordon, April, and Regina, I could not have done it. They accept my passion for storytelling and the enjoyment I get out of the writing process and allow me the space I need to get things done. I am forever grateful for their love and support, and truly blessed to have it.

  SOURCES

  A journalist seeks to uncover the truth as thoroughly as he or she can. We develop sources, throw countless questions at them, and then go out and try to back up what is said with additional sources. In doing this, an author can truly uncover the hard facts. Just one little example proves how tedious a task this can be, and how the most basic information can get lost in the shuffle: the FBI’s affidavit claims Becky Harper made a 911 call at 3:38 P.M. on the afternoon of December 16, 2004. Sheriff Ben Espey’s notes and report have this fact as 3:28 P.M.

  For this book, I reached out to every pivotal person involved in the story and offered each the opportunity to speak.

  Some did. Others didn’t.

  Lisa’s oldest child, whom I called “Rebecca” in the book, had reservations about talking to me. Mainly, she was concerned about breaking a promise to her mother: Lisa had told her several times not to talk to me. It took a while for Rebecca to be convinced I wasn’t out to add more lies to a growing list and wanted everyone’s version of the truth. Even so, when she did finally agree to talk, Rebecca was careful about what she said. It was clear she’s one of Lisa’s dedicated allies. Quite admirably, Rebecca didn’t ever seem to judge her mother. Instead, she explained that she wanted to be there for her no matter what happened.

  Out of nowhere one day, I received an e-mail from Lisa’s only son, whom I have referred to in the book as “Ryan.” I had requested an interview with him, but he was apprehensive and rather terse; he said a few things and left it at that. Without being asked, he did send me a concluding remark one afternoon that shows, at least to me, how devoted he is to his mother: “For as long as I have lived with her, she was loving and always tried to push us to better ourselves. She was not always gentle, but she never hurt anyone…. Also, she could talk and I loved talking to her about a lot of stuff.”

  There was always an element of Carl Boman’s character I felt was missing from our conversations. Although the slice of his life I am referring to was well before he met Lisa, and really didn’t have a role in the story I was telling, I felt it was important to explore it anyway, if not to write about it, to at least know he was being completely honest with me. Carl was extremely guarded where certain portions of his life were concerned, even secretive in some respects. This worried me at first—but then I asked him to explain it to me in a more detailed way. As we were finishing up what turned out to be about four months of nearly daily interviews, I asked Carl for a closing comment.

  “There is a part of my life I don’t speak about,” said Carl. “I was young and not very mature. It is my business and is very painful. I have not had a blessed life. I have hurt others in my selfishness and immaturity, and have paid for those mistakes over and again. I have been blamed by Lisa and others, but we will continue to work to rebuild my life in the midst of this family crisis. If the people involved don’t wish to offer love and understanding and wish to only cause strife, then I will turn away. This situation isn’t the easiest; it is hard for all involved. There is no book you read to prepare. You wake up one morning and it is thrust upon you. I have made decisions. Right or wrong, I made them. I am far from perfect.”

  In the end, this story, for the most part, is about Lisa Montgomery, her life, and the road that led her to Bobbie Jo Stinnett. I started out wanting to include all I could about Bobbie Jo’s short life. But Bobbie Jo’s family and some of her close friends, understandably, did not want to talk to me, nor did Zeb. Therefore, I was left to sift through the little bit of information I could find and report it. I greatly regret not giving a more detailed portrait of Bobbie Jo’s life that would serve as a legacy to her memory.

  In many ways, this story forced me to put all of my journalistic skills to the test. Because I couldn’t rely on the comfort of police reports and certain court documents, and there wasn’t a trial to cull a lot of those documents from, I had to knock on doors, make calls, and try to find all the pieces of the story I could on my own. So many times throughout my career I have been faced with varying versions of the same scenes involved in the lives of those I write about. That collection of stories allowed me to track people down and ask them questions based on what a police report or piece of trial testimony had said. I couldn’t do that here. In a sense, I had to act as a prosecutor and defense attorney, even a cop, and develop my own questions based on what I had learned. This, I believe, forced me to dig deeper than perhaps I would have if given those documents.

  In those instances where several people told me varying versions of what happened, I went back and spoke to everyone I could. Some of those people simply would not talk to me, although I did give them the opportunity—and in some instances, multiple opportunities—to do so.

  A vast array of sources was used to create this work of nonfiction. The basic structure of the book was based on my extensive interviews with Carl Boman, many members of his family, and several other people closely connected to the story, some of whom have chosen to remain anonymous. I also obtained scores of documents associated with the case, which I used as primary source material. Throughout my research, I also had exclusive access to several additional items, which added an additional layer of truth and quality to the narrative: letters, cards, e-mails, interviews conducted by people close to several of the players and related back to me.

  I want to also acknowledge that I relied on previously published accounts—newspaper articles, magazine articles, Internet news articles, videotapes of press conferences, and cable-news network interviews with some of those involved in the story—in some sections of the book to make up for those portions of the story where participants would not speak to me. Most of those sources are clearly identified in the narrative. All of Pastor Mike Wheatley’s comments, for example, were taken from interviews he gave to cable-television crime shows and a few of the newspaper articles he participated in. For the most part, I chose these sources carefully, and only used information from what I deemed to be valuable, trustworthy, reputable news organizations: CNN, FOX News Channel, MSNBC, the New York Times, the Kansas City Star, Associated Press, CBS News, and a few local-news organizations in Missouri, many of which helped to contribute over three thousand news stories about the case.

  Some of the quotes were taken directly from television interviews. Several press conferences given by Nodaway County sheriff Ben Espey, U.S. attorney Todd Graves, and several members of the FBI were also used as direct quotes in the narrative, although not always attributed in the narrative itself. Those quotes appear, mostly, in the investigation portion of the book and reflect public statements made at what was a crucial period during the search for Victoria Jo and arrest of Lisa Montgomery. In order to keep the pace of the book moving swiftly, at certain times throughout the text I simply sourced some quotes—not all—with the tag “he (or she) said.” A lot of these quotes were repeated by several different news organizations in dozens of newspapers and on television news sh
ows.

  I want to be perfectly clear, however: in no way is this book written from newspaper accounts of the crime. Eighty-five percent of this book is written from exclusive information, interviews, and research I gathered during a one-year process of full-time investigative journalism. With so many true-crime books today tagged as being “ripped from the headlines” and rushed into print, I want readers to understand that although I used some newspaper accounts of the story to lead me along the way of a truthful narrative, I spent a considerable amount of time in Kansas and Missouri, along with other regions where the story took me, and conducted well over one hundred interviews with people from all over the country in order to report the most complete and accurate story I could.

  Primarily, the dialogue in the book was reconstructed after carefully piecing together different versions of events and juxtaposing those events with the multitude of interviews I conducted. In some instances, I took it upon myself to speak to as many people involved in a certain scene so as to reconstruct what was said accurately, which was then weighed against published accounts, legal documents, and anonymous sources. Some of the dialogue in the book is based on the memory and recollection of one or more of those involved in the scene.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  M. William Phelps has been called one of the country’s most esteemed experts on crime and murder, and has spent years building an outstanding platform to showcase his work. He has appeared on dozens of national radio and television programs as an expert correspondent on crime, most notably on Court TV, the Discovery Channel, Biography Channel, The Learning Channel, History Channel, the Montel Williams Show, and Radio America. You can read profiles about his work and life in such noted publications as Writer’s Digest, the New York Daily News, Newsday, the Albany Times-Union, the Hartford Courant, Advance for Nurses magazine, Forensic Nursing, The Globe magazine, the New York Post, Columbia Daily Tribune, and the New London Day, among others. His Web site is www.mwilliamphelps.com.

  SPECIAL UPDATE FOR THE PAPERBACK EDITION

  After the initial hardcover publication of Murder in the Heartland, I received a lot of mail. Most of it was positive; many readers wanted to express their gratitude for the book and their enjoyment of it. Some of the most gratifying comments I received were from sources who said the FBI had contacted them after reading the book. “We didn’t know this,” the FBI agents said, citing certain details, “until we read about it in Murder in the Heartland. Can you explain?” I took such comments as a great compliment to my research.

  Other readers, however, questioned my decision to write and publish the book before Lisa Montgomery’s trial. To them, and to others who share their skepticism, I’d like to explain that I never felt my book was dependent on Lisa Montgomery’s trial. I did not set out to write a standard type of murder-investigation-arrest-trial-conviction true crime account of the murder of Bobbie Jo Stinnett. From the beginning I sought to conduct a literary investigation into a gruesome, incomprehensible murder of a young woman, the brutal extraction of her unborn child, how the crime affected two small Midwestern communities, and the heartbreak and healing left in the wake of such madness. Since the book’s publication, three similar crimes have occurred. The public wants and deserves to know why such crimes happen and why some women, overwhelmed by the need for a child, see the only answer to their need in murder.

  A few people who wrote to me accused Carl Boman of being a backstabbing, egregious liar whose primary motivation was to make himself look good and those around him—including Lisa Montgomery—look bad. “Carl Boman lied to you about some things, Mr. Phelps,” was a common complaint. “How could you believe what he said without backing any of it up?” I was also asked, “Have you ever questioned why other family members didn’t want to contribute information…?”

  I backed up every anecdote Carl Boman and I discussed to the utmost extent possible. If I couldn’t find backup, I allowed Mr. Boman to describe those portions of his life in quotations, which are his words, not mine. I made no attempt to present him in heroic or unduly sympathetic terms. In fact, he was rather upset with me regarding sections of the book that seemed to portray him as a deadbeat dad and borderline codependent husband.

  As for the second question: Why didn’t other family members want to talk to me? I will say this: I spoke to no fewer than six of Lisa Montgomery’s immediate family members. To those who didn’t talk (and wanted to later), I have to ask, why didn’t you come forward when I invited you to? I reached out to every one of Lisa’s siblings, either directly or indirectly. I was told none wanted to speak to me.

  Whenever someone writes to me, criticizing something in one of my books, I offer the writer the opportunity to “correct the record” if I have, unintentionally, missed something. To do this, I require that person to show me proof, explain to me how someone lied, offer an alternative version of events for the reader, or go on record with an interview.

  Once I put that offer into writing and e-mailed it to those who complained about my presentation of the Lisa Montgomery story, I never heard from them again. They disappeared into cyberspace.

  I had several conversations with Boman about this. I told him, “Look, it’s not one or two people calling you a liar—it’s four. I have to take that into consideration and offer my readers an explanation.”

  “What are they calling me on?” Boman asked.

  “They won’t say specifically.”

  “Well, then, how can I defend myself?” he asked, logically enough.

  I asked Boman for his reaction to all of the unspecified but alleged “errors” in the book. Here is his response:

  “The people who have talked about me are a few, and I know who they are,” said Boman. “Their words do not affect me at all. I have not talked trash about anyone. I choose not to. We are moving on as a family. Many pains and past hurts are gone. Not one single day has gone by since this horrible crime that it has not at least crossed my mind—it affects us all. No one lives my life or has walked in my shoes. They have no idea what my kids have gone through. We are very close and they choose who they wish to associate with in their family. Judy [Shaughnessy] is really on a campaign against me; it is really kind of funny. She tells everyone I trashed her in your book. You wouldn’t believe the trash she is spreading, mostly to Lisa’s lawyers.”

  (I did not contact Judy Shaughnessy for this update.)

  Family conflicts of the he said-she said variety are inherently hard for a journalist to dissect. They come down to one person’s word against another’s. For me, the truth is in the details: people not wanting to go on the record and speak up for the “lies” they claim others have told. I find it telling that Carl and Lisa’s children are all living with Carl at this point, hundreds of miles away from Melvern, Kansas (and the rest of the family). I’ve been told that Lisa’s oldest daughter, Rebecca (who, at the end of Murder in the Heartland, was visiting her mother in prison once a week), hasn’t seen Lisa in months and is beginning a new life with her father and her siblings, while focusing on going to college.

  In writing this book I was determined to tell a side of the Lisa Montgomery story that would never be told: the ripple effect of one murder, and how it wreaks havoc on so many different people, including the family of the alleged perpetrator. This story will not be part of Lisa Montgomery’s trial. As I was compiling information for this update, I received an e-mail from a family member of one of the law enforcement investigators involved in the case, someone who wouldn’t talk to me while I was researching the hardcover. In part, this person wrote, “To say that I am disappointed would be putting it mildly.” The writer went on to say that he or she was not “currently”…“an author,” but had “started working on a few things….” He/she was disappointed that I hadn’t waited until the trial of Lisa Montgomery concluded. “The law enforcement officers involved could have then talked freely…[a]s it is, this book is full of mistruths and exaggerations.” He/she said I had “omitted” the work of “m
any fine officers…that put in many hours to help solve this murder.”

  Sheriff Ben Espey spoke to me at length for the hardcover. He gave his complete version of events. I went through each paragraph, each sentence, each word and quote with him before I sent the manuscript to my editors. We spent a lot of time getting the investigation portion of my book correct. Because the person who wrote me that e-mail was a relative of one of the officers involved in the case, he/she must have had an obvious bias, and probably felt jealous that Ben Espey, in my book, got most of the credit—which he wholly deserved—for solving the case. Sheriff Espey went far beyond the call of his duty to see that Bobbie Jo Stinnett’s baby was brought back safely to her father. If other officers who worked the case felt they deserved more credit from me, I am sorry they didn’t speak to me. I reported the story I was told by the one man who stayed with the case from the moment he discovered Bobbie Jo’s body until the baby was back in her father’s arms.

  During my book tour of the midwest, I had the opportunity to meet and speak with several people who were involved in the case. Some were relatives of law enforcement; some were friends and coworkers of others involved in the case. All of them said they had read the book and agreed it was accurate. “You did a great job,” one man, who is related to one of Ben Espey’s investigators, said. “There is more evidence in this case than you reported, but you did a great job in getting things right.”

  A lot of forensic and circumstantial evidence will come out during Lisa Montgomery’s trial. I chose not to include that evidence in the book because its disclosure might have caused problems for the prosecution.