|
Friend tries to steal foetus
06/10/2007 10:43 - (SA)
Kansas City - A Missouri woman who was strangled by an acquaintance probably regained consciousness as the attacker sliced into her abdomen to steal her unborn baby, a pathologist testified.
Bobbie Jo Stinnett likely blacked out after being choked from behind with a rope, but began struggling again after her attacker loosened the rope to begin cutting into her belly, said Mary Case, the chief medical examiner for St Louis County, Missouri.
Case testified: "There is evidence that she regained consciousness while the incision was made in her abdomen." Lisa Montgomery, 39, was accused of strangling Stinnett and later using a kitchen knife to carve the baby from her womb.
Montgomery, who had been faking a pregnancy, then tried to pass the baby off as her own. The baby, Victoria Jo, was found safe a day later at Montgomery's home on December 17 2004.
Prosecutors plan to seek death penalty
Now nearly three years later, she was doing fine but did not know what really happened to her mother, her father testified on Thursday.
Montgomery's lawyers had conceded that she killed Stinnett, but were arguing that she was so mentally unbalanced that she did not understand that it was wrong.
They said she suffered from pseudocyesis, a false belief of being pregnant and "brutal and sadistic" treatment as a child at the hands of a stepfather.
Prosecutors contended that Montgomery planned the crime for weeks or even months and researched how to perform a Caesarean section on the internet.
Prosecutors planned to seek the death penalty if she was found guilty. The medical examiner said blood from the wound on Stinnett's abdomen had seeped up between her toes and covered the tops of her feet.
'I feel betrayed, sickened'
Case testified: "This indicates she stepped in blood on the floor. To step in blood she would have to be conscious."
Case also identified numerous defensive wounds on Stinnett's hands and forearms, which indicated she tried to fight off her assailant.
Montgomery met the Stinnetts at a rat terrier show in Kansas in April 2004 and struck up a casual acquaintance over the internet. Jurors heard testimony from the man who unwittingly put Montgomery on the path to Stinnett's home.
Jason Dawson, who ran several websites devoted to rat terriers, testified that he connected a woman who called herself Darlene Fischer with Stinnett in order to buy a puppy for her children.
Stinnett then gave the woman, whom investigators later determined was really Montgomery, directions to her home.
Dawson said he felt betrayed and sickened after he learned that Stinnett had been killed. Dawson said: "She was an incredible young lady. It yanked everything in my heart right out. It was shocking and wrong."
Dawson said he had come to consider Montgomery dishonest, but testified that Stinnett came to Montgomery's defence after he removed a listing for Montgomery's kennel from one of his websites.
- AFP
|
News
