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You are now listening to True Murder, the most shocking killers in true crime history and the authors that have written about them Gasey, Bundy, Stammer, The Nightstalker BTK. Every week, another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and infamous killers in true crime history, True Murder with your host, journalist and author Dan Zupanski.
Good evening, You're listening to the program True Murder, the most shocking killers in true crime history and the authors that have written about them, with your host Dan Zupansky, and my guest this evening is Diane Fanning. And when Diane Fanning was nine years old, a man asking directions stopped and grabbed her by the arm, trying to drag her into his car. An oncoming vehicle honked her horn and there would be abductor. Let go of Diane and
fled the scene. She had, however, memorized the car's license plate number, and when police caught up with a man, he was also arrested for the murder of an eight year old girl killed just a month before. The dramatic event sparked a lifelong interest in the psychology of the criminal mind and led directly to her career as a celebrated true crime author. Published in two thousand, she has written three books of fiction and has ten true crime
books published by Saint Martin's Press. I want to welcome to the program, Diane Fanning. Thank you very much for agreeing to this interview. Diane.
Good evening, Dan, it's a pleasure to be here.
Thank you very much. Just going to introduce your book Baby Be Mind, just with a brief synopsis. Then I'll start asking you some questions to explain to our audience this incredible story. Thirty six year old Lisa Montgomery was a mother of four but still wanted to have more children. She claimed, the last time pregnant, she miscarried, and now she was pregnant again and desperate to have another child.
On December sixteenth, two thousand and four, in Skidmore, Missouri, Montgomery strangled eight month pregnant Bobby Jill Stinnette and cut from the womb her baby. Lisa Montgomery fled to Melbourne, Kansas, and managed to pass off the abducted newborn their own to her uninsuspecting husband and family members. Thanks to Amber alert and a forensic examination of computer correspondence, the baby was found safe and sound, and Montgomery was arrested at trial.
Was she suffering from mental illness or simply a cold blood of Killer. Welcome to the program, Diane. Let me ask for this very first question. You have written about other cases. I had mentioned that you have ten books under your belt. What specifically made you decide to write about this particular case.
Well, Dan, sometimes your interested the case is fostered by some little serendipitous coincidents. And I was initially drawn because December sixteenth, the day that Bobby Jo Stinnett was murdered, was also the day that I lost my grandmother. I had been many years before, but it was an anniversary and I was thinking about her that day, and so I was riveted with this thought of another discipline that day.
And then when I started listening to the first breaking news about this story and heard it was a seesarian abduction, I'd never heard of a crime like that before. I never knew what it even happened, So that is what got my interest. And of course, then when I went to research the crime, I found out that although it is a rare crime, there have been enough of them that the SBI had done a full study on that particular type of crime.
In that criminal Now.
Where were you living at that particular time.
I was living here in Texas.
In Texas, Okay. And how far from Skidmore, Missouri is is that in terms of miles for audience?
I have no idea, but it was too dark far for me to drive a Kansas city and drove north from there.
Okay. Now, in terms of the coverage of the story itself, how far was it reaching in terms of you were in Texas? Was it a big story in Texas? How far reaching was the story itself?
Yes, I think it was a bit everywhere because it made CNN News and of course it was on Nancy Grace and it was pretty much all the national media covered it because it was a spectacular crime with a particularly happy ending. I mean, Bobby Joe was dead, but the baby survived. In many of these cases the baby died as well. In this case was a little different and the things worked right to recover the baby very very quickly.
Okay, Well, you're getting a little bit ahead for our audience that is not familiar with the story. So let's go back a little bit and outline for our audience the killer herself, Lisa Montgomery, what kind of persons in terms of once she was an adult, what is some of what was she like as a person? And what was some of her background.
Well, she came from a family and I think this is important where she had a seal series of stepfathers and her mother had five children, and every time just about she had a child, it seemed to be to get married or to keep a marriage from breaking up. Her mother never did anything like Lisa did, but she taught her that pregnancy and partnership were two things that winter.
Legs, and if you could get pregnant, you could get a man or keep a man.
And so unfortunately along the way, one of those men that her mother had married was actually assaulted Lisa when she was a young teenager, and I think that scarred her a lot, and was combined with the dysfunctional family she was raised in, it made someone who wasn't exactly emotionally stable. But I think there was a deeper sigh to her character. I think she was very much the narcissist, perhaps a malignant narcissist. Everything had to be the way Lee so wanted it to be, and.
That's what led her down this road.
And she had she was married, had children of her husband left her, he claimed to be pregnant, he married her again. The pregnancy sort of disappeared. She claimed to be pregnant again, but both of these pregnancies happened outside after she's gotten a tube ligation, So I don't know how anybody could have thought she was pregnant there. But her first husband kind of got tired of all the
game playing and finally the marriage ended for good. And that's when she met her second husband, and she went through a couple of sony pregnancies with him before they were married. He married her thinking she was pregnant, but
then she claimed having miscarriage. Another time she claimed to be pregnant with twins, and then finally when it was obvious that he just have had it with her, that was when she realized that this pregnancy had to be real and she targeted the woman she was going to take the baby from.
Now, how many you talk about this is an incredible feature, a psychological feature. Whether this woman is obsessed with holding on to holding onto relationships that are going sour by being constantly being pregnant or expecting a child or and so this is the feature of her adult life. But how many children does Lisa Montgomery have herself? What kind of mother is she? And basically what kind of mother is she and how many children does she have before this event happened.
He has five children, just like her mother, and she seemed to be a very sporadic mother. Sometimes she seemed to do the right thing, but other times she would just lay on the sofa and read, and if the kids wanted something to eat, she throw something together, set a pot on the floor, and they would eat on the floor. She went from acting like a mother to
acting very disinterested and very bothered by her children. There is a difference between a newborn and a tiny baby that they look at you for everything and they don't really question you.
When children get older.
They're not giving as much of the positive feedback that narcissist needs.
And so.
She did get a lot from that, and she got really more from infants than she got from anyone adult or any of her own children.
No, you talk about narcissism, but was there any diagnosed psychological labels attached to her behavior? Was she seen by psychologists or psychiatrist or is this sort of a diagnosis after the fact. Was her mental illness prominent enough for anybody in her family or ex husband or anyone to officially have had her see someone is there any record of her, Not.
Until she's arrested. Okay, we'll see. Well, go ahead.
If you look at narcissism as being on the same spectrum is psychopathy and see progressive degrees, there's different levels of narcissism, and and Lisa checks in, I believe at the level of malignant narcissism, where you are willing to do anything and disregard anyone else's rights or anyone else's life to get what you feel you need.
Okay, Yeah, I'm glad you said that because I want to have a good understanding of what narcissism means in this context. And when you're talking about a psychopath for those that still don't know what that is, it's just complete devoid of conscience. People are able to do things that normal people would not be able to do.
Okay.
I wanted to ask you as well as that when you mentioned in the end when she did have her husband and she did steal the child, this had to be first done with her pretending to be pregnant and convincing people that she was pregnant. Now, how did she fool people like her husband and family members and girlfriends that she actually was pregnant. You talked about the tubal ligation. Well, how did this particular husband not know? Can you explain how on earth anyone could have been fooled by her?
Or to what extent did she did she fool these people? And about how did she go about it?
Well, you know, when I first started looking into this case, that was something that really confused me.
I mean, particularly a husband.
I how future the husband's thinking you're pregnant. Well, it's for one thing, her husband did not Kevin did not know that she'd.
Had a toub a ligation. Her first husband knew, but her second husband did not.
And uh so that you know, that was part of it. Now, he didn't particularly want any children because he had hers to raise. He had his own children by a previous relationship, but you know, he's a family kind of guy. He married her in the first place because he thought she was pregnant, so he he was committed for that for
that part of the relationship. What happens, according to the experts I talked to at the National Center for Missing Unexploited Children, is that in most all of these relationships where the staring abduction occurs, the husband or boyfriend has lost interest sexually in his partner, and when she says I'm pregnant, he embraces that because that means he does not have to touch her again. He's got an excuse.
I don't want to hurt the baby. It's not the real reason why he's not being intimate with his wife, but it is an acceptable reason. So they're doing that, and meanwhile, she's making sure that her husband never sees her completely naked. So you've got a dynamic that where people are trying. Both people are trying to keep physical space between one and another, and so realizing that she is pregnant then becomes more different.
Whether or not she's pregnant, it becomes more difficult.
And you complicate that with some of these women are able to swallow air in a way that makes their stomach very rigid. I don't know if you've ever touched the tummy of a woman carrying a child, but it's much It's much harder than you know, somebody's fat belly, you know. But if you swallow the air in the right way, you can make your stomach pooch out and be hard so that somebody with a minimal amount of
experience would not could not be sure. You know, with her husband, she'd say, oh, look feel this, and you know, all he wants to just get his hand away from her, so you know he doesn't with other people. When she told him to do that, I would suspect she probably waited because she had something gurgling in her stomach and you know, they just touched it and felt it and
you know, just accepted it. And she's wearing the pregnancy clothes and she was talking about it online and it was really a wonderful actually did I mean she's playing a part in the play.
She pulled it all very well.
But unfortunately this was reality and the end of the line could only have one result, and that was either her being found out or someone dying for her to.
Have what she needed.
Wow, that's an incredible level of deception, to say the least. Now, let's get to Bobby Joe Stinette and how Lisa Montgomery came to meet her. Tell us a little bit about Bobby Jostinette, Who was she, how old was she, where did she live, and how on earth did Lisa Montgomery come to meet her? And then these incredible faithful turn of events occur.
Bobby Chair was a lovely, sweet walltown girl. I mean the town she came from had a population of three hundred and forty seven people, so you know, this was little Midwest girl and she and she loved animals, always loved animals, had pets of all sorts, which she was a little girl, did barrel racing on horses as a teenager, and she worked when she was in high school, she had a part time job working in the past job, and then when she graduated, she continued doing that. And
she also got into rat terriers. And although she wasn't you know, she didn't go to college or anything, she was still a very smart girl. And she was on her own studying the genetics in breeding the rat terriers, and she was following finding things that could go wrong and breeding. People were calling her as young as she was, she was in her early twenties. They were following her to get advice on breeding different pairs together, and she would tell them what what the downside was of it.
I mean, she could figure it all out because she knew this stuff up one side and down the other. And part of that was being involved with the rat terrier group online and she went to these little get togethers dog shows through that group, and that is how she met Lisa Montgomery. Lisa had rat terriers too, and she bred them, and they ran into each other one get together at one time. There's a photograph showing the two of them together, but they're not sitting next to
each other. They're both in the same group photographs, so I don't think they were real close by any means, but they had some interactions. But Lisa knew that if she was going to take Bobby Joe's baby, she had to be a little sneakier than that. So what happened is Bobby Joe had initially said she was going to have a boy, but the woman in the group who
was supposed to have a boy had a miscarriage. So suddenly Lisa is saying she's going to have a girl because she found someone else in the group who posted their pregnant.
Picture online, and that was Bobby Joe.
And it's a horrible thing, but a pregnant woman should never post her picture or talk about it in.
An open form online.
Should be allowed to but it simply isn't safe because they are not only just people bet oncessarian abduction, but there's people been on infant abduction too, Who will take advantage of that? The list of dos and don't add this on the centers A website tells you, you know, you don't put your picture online. You don't put one of those few little thinker Blue Sports Senior Yard saying without a baby, that's like inviting trouble. And it's a shame that the world is that way, but it just is.
Did the website already have those warnings on? There are those that advice.
No, no. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children's website had that it's not particularly common knowledge. And and you know, she thought she was in a group of life minded people and and she was open and sharing with them and trusted them. And someone came on with an email address of Fisher for Children and contacted a friend of Bobby Joch and said she was looking for puppy, and he got her connected with Bobby Choe and Lisa set out to go to her house to pick up the puppy.
Now, how long was Lisa Montgomery looking for rat terriers? I mean he said she had been breeding rat terriers as well, oh for years.
That just had to be something she took advantage.
Of Yeah, it wasn't.
It wasn't something she initiated for this purpose, but it was because.
She was in a group.
With people that were pretty open with each other and sharing information. She saw that as an opportunity to take advantage of.
Okay, now, let's you're going to jump to a question that I was going to ask anyway, and I wanted to know what the significance of that fact was that you were speaking about that you talk about, you do include in your book other cases of child abductions that are very similar to this. Yes, killing, killing a woman
and stealing the baby. Can you go back just before we go into the crime itself and tell me what Lisa Montgomery knew about another crime that was very very similar and what its significance is and was in this particular case.
Well, there was a woman named Goodson who had a year earlier killed a woman in Oklahoma to steal her baby, and that did not go well. Effie was caught, the baby died, and Lisa was aware of this story and she told a friend, well, she she got caught because he was so stupid. And what Lisa saw from that is that you don't steal a baby out of the same town where you live, and you don't steal one too early to survive, and you've come prepared to do do the incision of the baby in a.
Way that it will keep the baby safe.
They found that in addition to that, she had studied online videos of cesarean sections of coats, So she was prepared and she brought the materials with her that she would need.
Now what you're talking about, she brought everything that she needed. Let's go to the actual meeting. Let's go to weve already set it up that they meet through this chat line, and they're talking about she wants to buy a rat terrier from Bobby Josinette. Now' continue from there and give us the fateful turn of events that really this story is centered on.
Well, she left all her home in Melbourne, Kansas, which fix about an hour outside of Kansas City, and her route would have taken her up to Kansas City and then passing Joseph's, Missouri, and then up into that north west corner near Iowa, and that is where Skidmore is and that is where Bobby Joe lived. And she came up on her small street to this little unassuming life bungalow and walked up to the door, and no one really knows what happened when Lisa.
Was at that door.
When Bobby Joe came to the door, she was expecting somebody else named Darling's Victor, and there was someone that had to at least have looked slightly.
Familiar to her.
Did she notice right away, forcing Lisa montgovery to force her way into the house, or did she just let it fly thinking she saw this one somewhere but didn't think anything of it.
We don't know. But they did end up in the.
Spare bedroom, which was used for a little kennel for her rat carriers, and it was there that Lisa took out a rope and put it around her neck and strangled her till she passed out. She with Bobby on the floor, Lisa got next to her and made the
first cut to remove the baby. At that point, Bobby Joe came back around, got to her feet, unbelievably bleeding the way she was, and struggled and fought until she was straggled again, and then Bobby Joe finished what she needed to do, took the left the baby up and took it with her and fled the home and started driving back to actually to to peek up, where she called her husband and said that she just had a baby.
They were evacuating the hospital and she couldn't drive all the way back by herself, and she needed him to come and pick her up at his gas through place. So he did, and he was delighted. He picked up picked up her the baby, and then one of their older teenage kids with a license, drove the other vehicle back home, and he was thrilled. I mean, you know, he was one of those guys that, you know, you just love a baby, like a lot of us do.
And they got up the next morning and they went to the community hang out cafe and took the baby around table to table. They went by the minister's house and showed off their little baby, Abigae, and the preachers was said something about well s was just born is a head too perfect, which is typical of a Cincerian birth child, and.
Lisa said something said.
All my children are like that, and her husband corrected and told her, you know, please, and so the you know, they went on doing this and they went back home and while they were in the house, the police came to their door.
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Okay, let's stop you right there, because I want to go back just a little bit. Bobby Joe has been killed and murdered, and then the horror is just unfolding, obviously, while Lisa Montgomery is pawning off this newborn as her own, and it's actually working her husband and other family members, and you say're going around to the community store and after the minister's home, and they're all looking at the baby and accepting it as hers. At least so far.
Now back at the crime scene, at the horror scene, I should say, who discovers the body? And then what happens?
Oh, that was the worst thing.
Bobby Joe's mother comes into the house to see how our dwn's doing.
How long after the murder?
Probably only about her an hour, okay or less.
You know, it's a very short amount of time. Her mother just worked a couple blocks.
Away and she came in and there she found her only child, I mean her only daughter, laying on the floor, bloody, looking like her stomach exploded. And she called nine to one one and immediately tried to do CPR. When the sheriff showed up, he joined in helping her with CPR until the amts got there and took her off in an ambulance, but she was already dead. And that is when it was after she was gone, actually that Bobby Jay's mother said where's the baby? And he said, what baby?
And that's when they learned that the baby was missing. And then they had a problem with amber alert because technically you have to have a description of the child and what the child was bearing and stuff like that in order to get an amber alert. But no one but the killer had ever seen this bab Well, there were some strings pools with a congressman helped make it happen so they could get out in the Amber alert.
And it was the Amber Alert that actually was the big help in finding the baby because someone that the person that set up the sale and someone in North Carolina involved in rat terriers too, were able to give information about the possible communications on the computer and by doing that they were able to track down to the internet service provider the location of the phone call, I mean the emails, so they knew exactly where the house was at that time.
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At point and they they contacted the police the birstplace because of the Amber alert.
So it was it was not based on the forensic examination itself. It was based on this straight with least work that had said listening.
At the same time, okay, the guy was analyzing the computer that the cops were talking to people and getting information, and it was like, you know, it all came together all at once. So it was a combination of both things.
Now, how many hours between her murder and of the police knocking on the door of Lese Montgomery and her husband's home questioning her about the baby that.
She had at this time just twenty four hours.
Less than twenty four hours. So, like you say, it's one of the true crime success stories if there is a happy ending somewhat. This is one of those rare cases for sure.
And one of the.
Odd things was when the police came into their home, they were sitting in the living room, the television was falling and the Amber alert was scrolling on the bottom of the screen.
Wow. I read in your book that the husband was only briefly considered a suspect whatsoever. But give us the reaction of the husband and the immediate family, and then afterwards you could tell us a little bit about the town's reaction. Melverne, Kansas is a small community as well. And then of course we're going to have to be talking about what happened in Skidmore and the reaction in Skidmore itself too.
So well, you know, put Kevin, I mean, he had no idea as far as he was concerned. This was his baby and the police are wanting to take his baby away, and he was like he couldn't understand what was going on because he really didn't know what.
Was going on.
Lisa did and pretty much gave up kind of quickly, under questioning and prodding.
She turned the baby over.
But Kevin, I mean, even the next day he called and asked when he was going to get his baby back.
You know, he just he.
Really thought it was his child. So it was a very perplexing thing for him. But you know, he not only did he have an alibi, but the sincerity of his response was there. And you know, you talk to people who've worked with the men who have been in this position, and they said, you know, a lot of
people automatically assume that Kevin must have been stupid. But the bottom line is that they know up doctors, lawyers, and even a judge who who went through, uh, the experience of a sake pregnancy that she believed that they believed some of them were a sincerean abductions falls were infant abductions. But these husbands really believed it was their child because of the psychology and the relationship and uh, their their inability to even conceive of someone doing a crime like that.
Yes, it is pretty hard to even imagine that long comprehend. Now, there was other family members, wasn't there if I'm not correct of a night incorrect? Wasn't there some of Lisa Montgomery's children from a previous marriage also in the home at the time when she tried to crass off the newborn.
Yes, and they bought it.
I mean they were only teenagers.
I mean, you know, mom says she's Pregnant's who's going.
To question mom and say, oh, you are not.
It's like, you know, here's the proof she said she was pregnant, even if we doubted.
Her, Here is the baby.
And you know, teenage girls, particularly a baby, they go notts, and they were just busy taking pictures of her and wanted to take turns holding her, and and you know, it was.
It was a very.
Normal family reaction to the arrival of a new baby.
Now what was the Obviously there was an incredible reaction in Skidmore, Missouri. And you have included in your book sort of the the incredible trail of tears that has gone on that has beset this town already. Maybe you can go into a little bit of just briefly some of the the horrific history that has occurred in this small town. And I asked, I'm very curious why did you feel compelled to include it in the story itself.
One of the reasons I felt compelled to include it is because this town.
Is so.
Haunted by its past and so paranoid about the outside world because how they perceived they were treated unfairly in the past.
And it all, it all really.
Was came to a head with Ken mackleroy, and he was the bully of the town. And I imagine a lot of people have seen the movie or read the book about Ken Macklroy. He was shot down dead in the middle of town in broad daylight, and although there were at least three thousand witnesses, none of them saw shames. And to this day that happened like whoa what thirty years ago or so, probably more than that now, but more than thirty years ago, and yet no one claims
to have seen anything. And they still don't know with any certainty who saw it and killed Ken mcelhoy.
But he had been a horrible.
Influence in the town, even shooting at other people. He sent out an old old man that was beloved by the town to the hospital near death. And he had a crafty lawyer who kept getting him out of horse thievery other fraud, and just one thing after another, and he never went to jail. And the townspeople just finally had enough.
What size town are we talking about? What it will be the population of this town, so we can get.
It sort of three hundred and forty seven.
Wow, Okay, a very small town. You talked about this particular event being one of them the events. Can you give me some more events in Skidmore, Missouri? You know, the Stanette family itself had so many, so much batter luck again to say the least, undersaving.
When I talked to people about the McElroy story. One of the things they said to me, almost universally, was, don't just tell about that. We're not the only one. This isn't the only crime here. You need to tell the whole story. And they were kind of passionate about that. And then when I went to one of the Bobby Joe's grandmother's by marriage, and I sat down in her kitchen and she said, it is horrible what happened to Bobby Joe. But this family has has had more than
this happened in the last five years. Others have died, and she wanted that story told. So I took the story of her other grandchild who was beaten to death in domestic violence. And I took the story of another grand trial who had gone missing from his home and police suspected he was abducted, tortured and murdered by this sicko that they hadn't bar behind bars on jobornographic charges, but they can't seem to pen any murder on it
because he was very good at disposing of evidence. So, you know, the people wanted these stories told, and I couldn't go into their community and take from them information and not give back something, and.
It was just fascinating to me to know the history.
Of this town and to know how much sorrow was in this small group of three and voice other people, one family in five years, losing three young people is unbelievable.
Right, Lisa Montgomery was arrested and charged for I assume of kidnapping and murder of Bobby Josinette. What were the official charges that she was charged with.
Yeah, there would there a number of kidnapping charges. I think there were a couple of them because Ted holding Bobby Captain was kidnapping charge and taking the child across the state lines and murder and murder. So she and that's that's who got into the death penalty because there were kidnapping with murder charges and she was tried in federal courts.
Now, you know, the thing is uh for our audience, there are there may be some people listening in Canada and some people and other jurisdictions other than the United States, and so laws are a little bit different in court are a little bit different. Now when we look at a particular case like this, most people will have to ask the question despite the background that you've given, given that there's there is a lot of evidence of premeditation
on her part, very calculating. Why is there not at least the fact that she's completely obsessed with being pregnant and that deception and she almost seems to be out of touch with reality in terms of being able to
get away with such an incredible, incredible abduction. Isn't there something to be said that there may be, there should have been, or could have been a mitigating factor to to fight the death penalty charge itself in terms of the death penalty has to have If you're going to not have a death penalty and have a life imprisonment imposed, there has to be some mitigating factors. Now, tell us a little bit about about that.
You could argue that her mental health was a medigating factor, the fact that she was assaulted sexually by a step parent was a midigating factor. But when it comes down to actually put pleading guilty by insanity, the law is very narrow. I think it is a bit too narrow. For example, you take angry and Yates, who drowned her five children.
She was there were long.
Records of her psychosis and escape from reality, and while it was probably a fact that she knew what she did was against the law. She did not feel like it was essentially wrong because God told her to do it and this is the way to favor children's souls. So but still, the first time around she was found jilting't given the death penalty that since been changed.
On appeal, But.
The bottom line was they felt the fact that she knew it was against law put her in death penalty category. I strongly disagreed when she got that death penalty. I thought that was wrong because she did have a track record.
Of serious mental illness. Lisa Recovery, on the.
Other hand, did not have that history. She had a history of being selfish and self obsessed, but not of
mental illness. And it is clear from the evidence of what she did and how she planned the crime for months and how she covered it up, and the beliefs want because that I mean, this was premeditated and it was obvious that she knew it was wrong, but she didn't care because it was right for her, And she didn't care that Bobby Joe was lying dead because it gave her what she wanted, not only to have a baby, but she had a baby that had never looked at
and imprinted on any other woman, So this baby would be hers.
And no one could take that child away.
That is what she believed. She was wrong in that, but that's what she believed.
Now, you talked about the trial, and you don't go too much into the trial at all in the book, and I wanted to ask you, first off, why you felt that it wasn't necessary to do that and what did actually transpire in the trial in terms of the death penalty and where is she in terms of the appeal now? And lastly, if you know anything about Missouri, what is their sort of track record in having a death penalty go forward? Well, California, for example, slow and
Florida is very quick. So where is Missouri?
This is outside of this is outside of state cure of stiction. It is irrelevant because this happened in Florida court. I mean federal court. So the federal this is federal law.
I see, and uh yeah.
And the defense don't give as many death penalties as as the state as some states do, but they do give some and they usually do eventually carry it off. I think their average is somewhere around a dozen years after the crime. But he is the trial being in federal court meant that nobody was allowed to come in with a camera or a video camera. There was no audio recording, no kind of recording at all, which is which is what usually happens in federal court. So uh available, I imagine,
But you know, you know how much of those things lost? Sure, tens of thousands of dollars, you know, So it's just not realistic. And he said, but she did. She was found guilty and she got the death sence. There has been one of people that's gone through that she is lost. And although I don't know if a second appeal is commenced, there's usually is a second one in a death penalty case, but because it's federal court that that just might be different.
But I don't think so. I think there is.
One of them is a habeas writ and another one's new evidence written.
They usually come through with both of them, So.
I imagine that that one is the second appeal is in early stages. But she's in a federal prison in love and.
Worth, Love and worth, okay, can so let's talk about the happy aspect of this, and that is Lisa Montgomery named the young girl Abigail, but that wasn't her. She has been named another name, so maybe could tell what the young girl's name is, how she's doing, and give us a little bit of that success story right now with the young girl.
Well, the little girl, as I had said earlier, survived this brutal birth and was returned to her her mother and I mean not to her, excuse me, to her family, to her father's dead. And and he hadn't really cared for the name Tory that Bobby Joe had picked out for the baby, but he kept it anyway, and she would be I guess about what five years old now, four years old now.
And.
There was a little bit of a custody fluff up between her father and her maternal grandmother, but they work that out in the courts, and the father does have custody and the grandmother does get visitations. So see leaning forward with her little life and is really lucky to be alive. And it's going to be hard some days. She's gonna have to learn the whole truth about her mother and what happened to her, and it's gonna be difficult to deal with.
Me. Yeah, I can imagine the thing. There was another sad aspect of it too, is that that Tory's grandmother, Bobby Jill's mother is actually ends up not being a big winner out of this as well, not only having the horror offying her daughter killed. That there has been some animosity we'll say, between jeb or zeb Stinnett and and it hasn't been smooth sailing for her to have access to her granddaughter.
No, you know, and and and that is very unfortunate. But when when you think about so, when when there's a loss of a child involved, there there there's really high emotion. And I think that all sorts of events afterwards are perceived in different ways by the mother who has lost a child and by the husband has lost the wife. And I think conflict is is unfortunately true.
I mean, so many.
Married couples who lose a child end up divorcing, so uh, it's not surprising there was conflict, but there there's been some mediation and most of that has been worked out. I mean, nobody ever gets as much of a loved child as they want, but I think it's been worked out fairly equitably so that Barbige's mother does have time with the child and is a part.
Of her life.
Oh that's great. I wanted to also talk you did include six other examples of very similar murder, and we did talk about the one involving a lady named Fie. But maybe you could tell us just briefly give us some of the other examples, because there are a couple examples that are at least as bad or even worse than this. And again, why did you feel compelled to
include those in this story? I mean, I think I have a good idea, but just for audience might be curious, why would you have included these and give us a brief background just on a couple of these.
Well, I.
Didn't include it to be solations, which is what I think some people thought. I included it because I had been so ignorant before I came to this case that I didn't know that this was happening. And I didn't want anyone else to walk away from this book thinking this is once in a lifetime thing, because one thing I learned from the experts I talked to was that
women needed to take steps to protect themselves. So they needed to know about more of these cases to know that it was it did happen before, this wasn't the only time, and they needed to be careful and needed to be cautious and listen to their instincts about people and protect themselves. So, you know, it was an educational thing for me, and I was essentially sharing that education with others. I mean, that's how I saw it from
the beginning. And there were there were some cases where you feel bad for someone being so disillusioned, but then.
You see what they do.
You know, like this emergency room technician, she was like thirty one years old, she's been divorced. She was a cancer survivor that because of the cancer, she had to lose her her of her her baby producing capability when they performed a hysterectomy, and she attempted to adopt three times and could never succeed in that. So it seemed like the answers to prayer. When her unmarried Nice got
pregnant and said she could adopt the child. But but then the niece changed her mind and she said that she was going to keep her baby, and you know, that was that, and so Aaron decided to take the baby away from her before it was born, and and that and that that was what she did. And it ended up that the baby died as well, and so no one got anything positive.
Out of that.
Uh, but it was I.
Mean, I mean, there's just so many.
Horrible cases. Michelle Bica, who decorated the room, brought tons of baby clothes, installed a monitor, told her husband she was pregnant. They tore birth to selling us together and talked about the baby's future, and you make all sorts of plans. And she went on just a short distance away from her own to another woman's house, claiming she was interested in the jeep they had advertised for sale, and she pulled out a hand, got and shot the woman in the back and she was killed instantly, and
she removed the baby boy and buried the mother. I mean, it was just it's just horrible, horrible loss of life for the stupidest.
Selfish reasons.
Yeah, it seems incredible that you know, your the book Baby Me Mine is an incredible story, and you would think this would be a very rare occurrence. And when you put in six other occurrences that are equally as bizarre, you come to realize that this is another a new frightening menace. It's a new another new aspect. There's serial killers, and then there's serial killers that want to contact the media, and then there's now this phenomenon, and there have been.
More cases since Lisa Montgomery committed this crime.
You know, there was.
One case where where the killer cut open the woman's body with the car key.
Yes, oh, incredible, incredible, you know, it's.
Just it's just horrible.
I mean, uh, but you know, and what was shocking to me is someone like Lisa Montgomery, who has actually given birth before, who understands what it's like to have a baby in your own body, and that she could commit a crime like this is far more appalling to me than someone who's never had a child, because they don't completely get it.
Yes, absolutely. I was going to ask you, how did working on this story affect you? Just basically the last question, how did working on this hardly affect you?
This was the most difficult book I've written, and I think a lot of reason for that is that I had a daughter about the same age as Bobby Joe, and it was easy to think, you know, of you know, oh my god, what if it was my daughter and if I found her body like that, and the whole thing kind of it tore me up. And and you know, I talked to her mother on the phone several times but every time we talked, she tried to answer her question and break into tears and she was choking and
she couldn't talk to me. Ended up, I got all the information from her secondhand, from her close friend, because she was not able to even talk about it. It devastated her life. I mean, it devastated so many people in Skidmore and people in the Ratteria community that knew and loved Bobby Joe. The impact of this crime went so far. And you look at Bobby Joe and it seemed like anyone who knew her liked her, loved her. I mean, she was just a sweet, wonderful young woman. And he's gone.
Yes, and the only I could say, the only upshot is the child. But it's going to be a difficult and an incredible time when that fate of her mother has explained to her and.
She has been robbed of someone who would have probably been a wonderful mother.
Well. Absolutely, absolutely, Well, I want to thank you, Diane. I've just wanted to for our audience's sake, if you have a website, if you could give us your website address.
Yes, it's www dot Dianefanning dot com. And I have a sample chapters of all my books on there so they can go and read and see which one interest them.
And you have. This is the tenth book published by Saint Martin's Press. This had come out in two thousand and six, I believe, and it's called a Baby b Mine. An incredible book. And I want to thank you very much, Diane for a very informative program, and thank you so much for being so generous to come on and talk about this incredible story and your equally incredible book.
It was a pleasure to talk with you.
Dane good luck.
If you're ready to get him well, Thank you very much, Diane Fanning, and I hope to talk to you again soon. Have a good note out.
Bye bye bye bye.
Yeah. And next week's guest is Don Lassiter, and he is the author of Die for Me, the horrifying story of sadistic killer partners Leonard Lake and Charles ng who, inspired by a fictional book called The Collector, abducted women and prison imprisoning them in a homemade dungeon, torturing, raping, and murdering them, all the while videotaping their ghastly deats. It is an incredible story and Die for me in an amazing book. The following week is Kathy Scott, author
of The Rough Guide to True Crime. After that is Nick Prown, author of Lethal Marriage, The case of Canada's Paul Bernardo Carlo Hamalka. One of the most shocking cases of all time. And if you're not familiar with this case, in this book, I was gonna says, wow, check this interview out. Definitely. That's Lethal Marriage by Nick proNT incredible story.
In the following weeks, Catherine Casey, author of Descent into Hell, will be appearing on the program, and a woman named Maurra Martingale, author of an incredible book called Cannibal Killers, will be discussing her book. In March, we'll have Philip Carlo making an appearance talking about Richard Ramirez, the Nightstalker. Also in March, Stevie Cameron, author of The Picton Files, the story behind Willie Pickton and his trial again one
of the most shocking serial killers of all time. If you haven't heard of Willie Picton, go to Crime Library and check it out. Credible. Also in March, Terry Sullivan, the prosecuting attorney who successfully investigated and prosecuted and wrote a definitive book about John Wayne Gacy. Sometime down the road after that, Sue Russell, author of Lethal Intent, the story behind female serial killer Aileen Warnos, the subject the subject of Oscar winning movie Monster, She'll be appearing on
the program. So we have a bevy of incredible authors talking about their books about some of the most shocking killers in true crime history. So that's every week eight o'clock here on block Talk Radio Central Standard time eight o'clock live, and anytime on demand on blog Talk Radio. So you've been listening to the program True Murder, the most shocking killers in true crime history, and the authors that have and about them. I will talk to you next time.
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