Credit: Alamy & Death Penalty Information Center
Woman On Death Row Performed Defiant Final Act Before She Was Executed
A woman on death row used her last moments to perform a defiant final act before she was executed.
In the final moments before an execution, every second becomes intensely personal.
Inmates may reflect on their lives, reach out to loved ones, or assert control over the one choice left to them: how to face the end.
It is a moment with nothing to hide, where feelings, thoughts, and choices come together in one final act of control.
For Lisa Montgomery, those final moments followed a shocking and tragic crime: the 2004 murder of 23-year-old Bobbie Jo Stinnett and the attempted abduction of her unborn child.
The case, marked by extreme violence, a complex history of abuse, and intense public scrutiny, ultimately led to her conviction and death sentence.
The murder of Bobbie Jo Stinnett and the survival of her baby
In December 2004, Montgomery drove 175 miles from her home in Kansas to Skidmore, where she had an appointment to look at some puppies owned by Stinnett.
The pair had connected online through dog-breeding forums, and Stinnett was under the guise that Montgomery was actually a woman who went by the name Darlene Fischer.
When Montgomery arrived at Stinnett’s home, she overpowered her, strangled her with a rope, and cut her unborn baby out of her womb.
Police quickly uncovered that ‘Darlene Fischer’ didn’t exist, and they tracked Montgomery the following day through emails and her computer IP address. She was found cradling the newborn.
Montgomery’s fabrication was quickly exposed, and she confessed to the murder.
Stinnett had died from her injuries, but her baby was safely recovered and returned to her family.
Lisa Montgomery’s final chapter and legal struggles
In 2007, Montgomery was tried and found guilty.
She received a lethal injection at a prison in Terre Haute, Indiana, in January 2021, becoming the first female federal inmate to be executed by the US government in 67 years.
Her death came after a last-minute stay of execution was lifted by the US Supreme Court.
Montgomery’s lawyer, Kelley Henry, condemned those involved in the execution, declaring that they should ‘feel shame.’
Henry stated: “The government stopped at nothing in its zeal to kill this damaged and delusional woman.
“Lisa Montgomery’s execution was far from justice.”
Montgomery’s defense argued that she endured severe childhood trauma and suffered from mental illness, a key focus in her appeals.
It was also claimed that she was suffering from psychosis and disconnected from reality at the time of her horrific crime.
While Montgomery’s lawyers and some commentators highlighted the impact of this abuse, the courts ultimately rejected it as grounds to overturn her conviction or sentence.
A childhood marked by extreme abuse and a town divided over justice
Montgomery’s older half-sister, Diane Mattingly, believes their childhood experiences may account for the disturbing actions her sibling would go on to commit.
“If somebody would have intervened way back when she was young, this would have never happened,” Mattingly told Vice News. “You wouldn’t know Lisa’s name.”
Mattingly said the pair grew up in a terrifying household, where physical, psychological, and s**ual abuse at the hands of Montgomery’s mother, Judy Shaughnessy, and her boyfriend, was a regular occurrence, reports the BBC.
The girls’ biological father had left home, and after some time, Mattingly was whisked away to foster care. Yet Montgomery stayed behind.
“I couldn’t understand why I was being taken out of the home and Lisa was being left behind, I didn’t understand it. I thought they knew about the r***. I thought they knew about the beatings. I thought they knew about the torture that Judy [her mother] was inflicting,” Mattingly said.
The abuse is said to have escalated once Mattingly left the home – their stepfather allegedly built a room at the back of their isolated trailer, where Montgomery would be repeatedly r**ed and watched throughout a cutout window at all times.
Montgomery’s lawyer, Henry, said the abuse Montgomery suffered throughout her childhood and adult years was so bad that a social worker hired to evaluate her said it was ‘as extreme as I’d ever seen, in 40 years of private practice and 32 of death penalty work. I can’t think of another case where I’ve had a client who was so extremely tortured.’
Yet in the town of Skidmore, Missouri, there is little sympathy for Montgomery – horrified by the brutality of her crime, many believe the death sentence was warranted.
A high school classmate of Stinnett’s, Meagan Morrow, said before the execution: “Bobbie deserves to be here today. Bobbie’s family deserves her. And Lisa deserves to pay.”
A life unraveling
The turmoil that defined Montgomery’s early years continued well into adulthood.
Montgomery married her stepbrother at 18 years old, with whom she had four children over five years.
Their relationship was not the escape that she may have been hoping for – it’s alleged that Montgomery’s brothers found a video that showed Montgomery being r**ed and beaten by her husband.
In a statement, he said: “It was violent and like a scene out of a horror movie. I felt sick watching the video. I didn’t know what to do or how to talk to my sister about it.”
Eventually, Montgomery divorced her first husband and married Kevin Montgomery. At some point, her lawyers believe she lost touch with reality, with fantasies of being pregnant. Although she had undergone sterilization after the birth of her fourth child, she repeatedly claimed to her husband that she was pregnant.
Montgomery’s lawyers have put forward the theory that the chain of events that led to Stinnett’s murder was the fear that her lies about being pregnant would be exposed by her ex-husband, and would be used against her if he sought custody of their children.
“There was so much pressure on her at that point,” Henry explained. Adding that Montgomery’s ex-husband was cruel and harassing, she said: “She was completely detached from reality.”
The last words of Lisa Montgomery
Montgomery’s execution, delayed twice – first by the pandemic and later for a mental competency hearing – ended at age 52 in a moment that underscored both the finality of the law and the complexity of her life.
Witnesses reported that her face mask was removed during the procedure, and when asked for last words, she offered only a single, defiant response: “No.”
That brief act captured the tension at the heart of her story: a woman shaped by extreme trauma, whose actions shocked a community and sparked debate over justice, accountability, and the limits of compassion.
While some see her death as closure for a horrific crime, others point to the lifelong abuse and mental illness that shadowed Montgomery, leaving a case as unsettling as it is tragic.
Related Article: Death Row Inmate’s Chilling Final Request To Family Of Elderly Woman He Set On Fire
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