WOMB RAIDER KILLER EXECUTED: LISA MONTGOMERY (JANUARY 13, 2021)

            On this date, January 13, 2021, Lisa Montgomery became the first female federal inmate in 67 years to be executed by the US federal government. The victim was a 23-year-old American woman found murdered in her home in Skidmore, Missouri. Lisa Marie Montgomery, then aged 36, strangled Stinnett from behind and removed Stinnett's unborn child, eight months into gestation, from her womb. The child was safely recovered by authorities and returned to the father.

   

Lisa Montgomery (left) murdered Bobbie Jo Stinnett (right) before cutting her child from her womb

[PHOTO SOURCE: https://www.scotsman.com/news/people/lisa-montgomery-who-death-row-inmate-granted-stay-execution-and-what-happened-bobbie-jo-stinnett-3093412]

Murder of Bobbie Jo Stinnett

Bobbie Jo Stinnett (December 4, 1981 – December 16, 2004) was a pregnant 23-year-old American woman found murdered in her home in Skidmore, Missouri. The perpetrator, Lisa Marie Montgomery, then aged 36, strangled Stinnett from behind and removed Stinnett's unborn child, eight months into gestation, from her womb. The child was safely recovered by authorities and returned to the father.

Montgomery was tried and found guilty in 2007, and executed by lethal injection on January 13, 2021, after exhausting the appeals process. Montgomery was the first female federal inmate in 67 years to be executed by the federal government.

INTERNET SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Bobbie_Jo_Stinnett

Investigation results

Bobbie Jo Stinnett was eight months pregnant with her first child. She and her husband ran a dog-breeding business from their residence. Montgomery met Stinnett online in a Rat Terrier chatroom called "Ratter Chatter".

It is known that Stinnett was expecting the arrival in Skidmore, Missouri, of prospective buyers for a terrier at about the time of her murder. Montgomery told Stinnett that she, too, was pregnant, leading to the two women chatting online and exchanging e-mails about their pregnancies. Additionally, there was no sign of forced entry. Authorities now believe that Montgomery, posing as customer "Darlene Fischer", arranged to visit Stinnett's house on that day. On December 16, 2004, Montgomery entered the house, strangled Stinnett, and cut the premature infant from her womb.

It was speculated that Montgomery's motivation stemmed from a miscarriage she may have suffered and subsequently concealed from her family. How or whether Montgomery had recently become pregnant is unclear. Montgomery's former husband has since told authorities that she underwent a tubal ligation in 1990, and that she had a history of falsely telling acquaintances that she was pregnant.

The case

Stinnett was discovered by her mother, Becky Harper, in a pool of blood about an hour after the assault. Harper immediately called 9-1-1. Harper described the wounds inflicted upon her daughter as appearing as if her "stomach had exploded". Attempts by paramedics to revive Stinnett were unsuccessful, and she was pronounced dead at St. Francis Hospital in Maryville.

The next day, December 17, 2004, Montgomery was arrested at her farmhouse in Melvern, Kansas, where the newborn had been claimed as her own and was recovered. The day-old baby was placed in the custody of her father. The quick recovery and capture was attributed to, in part, the use of forensic computer investigation, which tracked Montgomery and Stinnett's online communication with one another. Both bred rat terriers and may have attended dog shows together. The later investigation was also aided by the issuance of an AMBER alert to enlist the public's help. The alert was initially denied because it had never been used in an unborn case and thus there was no description of the victim. Eventually, after intervention by Congressman Sam Graves it was implemented. When authorities went to speak to Montgomery they found her in the living room holding the baby and watching television with the AMBER alert flashing on the screen.^[16] DNA testing was used to confirm the infant's identity.

Lisa Montgomery
Born	Lisa Marie Montgomery February 27, 1968 Melvern, Kansas, U.S.
Died	January 13, 2021 (aged 52) USP Terre Haute, Terre Haute, Indiana, U.S.
Cause of death	Execution by lethal injection
Criminal status	Deceased (Executed)
Spouse(s)	Kevin Montgomery
Parent(s)	Judy (mother) Jack Kleiner (stepfather)
Criminal charge	Kidnapping resulting in death
Details
Date	December 16, 2004
Country	United States
State(s)	Missouri
Date apprehended	December 17, 2004

Perpetrator

Lisa Marie Montgomery (February 27, 1968 – January 13, 2021) resided in Melvern, Kansas, at the time of the murder. She was raised in an abusive home where she was allegedly raped by her stepfather for many years. She sought escape mentally by drinking alcohol. When Montgomery was 14, her mother discovered the abuse, but reacted by threatening her daughter with a gun. She tried to escape this situation by marrying at the age of 18, but both the first marriage and a second marriage resulted in further abuse, although in police interviews Montgomery admitted she was attracted to the S&M scene and that she "liked taking the whip".

Montgomery had four children before she underwent a tubal ligation in 1990. Montgomery falsely claimed to be pregnant several times after the procedure, according to both her first and second spouses.

Trial and ruling

Montgomery was charged with the federal offense of "kidnapping resulting in death", a crime established by the Federal Kidnapping Act of 1932, and described in Title 18 of the United States Code. If convicted, she faced a sentence of life imprisonment or the death penalty.

At a pre-trial hearing, a neuropsychologist testified that head injuries, which Montgomery had sustained some years before, could have damaged the part of the brain that controls aggression. During her trial in federal court, her defense attorneys, led by Frederick Duchardt, asserted that she had pseudocyesis, a mental condition that causes a woman to falsely believe she is pregnant and exhibit outward signs of pregnancy. According to The Guardian, Duchardt attempted to follow this line of defense only one week before the trial began, after being forced to abandon a contradictory argument that Stinnett was murdered by Montgomery's brother Tommy, who had an alibi. As a result, Montgomery's family refused to co-operate with Duchardt and describe her background to the jury.

Dr. V. S. Ramachandran and MD William Logan gave expert testimony that Montgomery had pseudocyesis in addition to depression, borderline personality disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder. Ramachandran testified that Montgomery's stories about her actions fluctuated because her delusional state fluctuated, and that she was unable to appreciate the nature and quality of her acts. Both federal prosecutor Roseann Ketchmark and the opposing expert witness forensic psychiatrist Park Dietz disagreed strongly with the diagnosis of pseudocyesis.

On October 22, 2007, jurors found Montgomery guilty, rejecting the defense claim Montgomery was delusional. On October 26, the jury recommended a death sentence. Judge Gary A. Fenner formally sentenced Montgomery to death. On April 4, 2008, a judge upheld the jury's recommendation for death.

Duchardt's aforementioned pseudocyesis defense, Montgomery's past trauma and separate diagnoses of mental illness were not fully revealed to the jury until after her conviction, by her appeals team. This led critics, including Guardian journalist David Rose, to argue that Duchardt provided an incompetent legal defense for Montgomery. Fenner required Duchardt to be cross-examined in November 2016. Duchardt rejected all criticism and defended his conduct.

Subsequent legal proceedings

On March 19, 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court denied Montgomery's certiorari petition. Montgomery, who is registered for the Federal Bureau of Prisons under number 11072-031, was as of 2017 incarcerated at Federal Medical Center, Carswell in Fort Worth, Texas, where she would remain until she would be transferred to the site of her execution. For a long time, she had been the only woman with a federal death sentence.

Experts who examined Montgomery after conviction concluded that by the time of her crime she had long been living with psychosis, bipolar disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorders. She was said to be often disassociated from reality and to have permanent brain damage from numerous beatings at the hands of her parents and spouses.

Montgomery's scheduled execution on December 8, 2020, by lethal injection at the U.S. Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana, was delayed following her attorneys' contracting COVID-19. On December 23, 2020, Montgomery was given a new execution date of January 12, 2021. U.S. District Court Judge Randolph Moss found that "the director's order setting a new execution date while the Court's stay was in effect was 'not in accordance with law,'" prohibiting Montgomery's execution to be rescheduled until January 1, 2021, at the earliest. On January 1, a three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit vacated Moss's ruling, effectively reinstating Montgomery's execution date of January 12. On that date, federal judge Patrick Hanlon granted a stay of her execution on the grounds that her mental competence must first be tested as it could be argued she did not understand the grounds for her excution, per the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The stay was also vacated by a 6–3 ruling from the Supreme Court and the execution was ordered to be carried out right after this.

Only three other women have been executed by the U.S. federal government: in 1865, Mary Surratt, by hanging; in 1953, Ethel Rosenberg, by electric chair; and – also in 1953 – Bonnie Heady by gas chamber.

Execution

Montgomery was executed by lethal injection on January 13, 2021, pronounced dead (EST) 1:31 a.m. at the federal prison complex in Terre Haute, Indiana, following a 6–3 ruling from the Supreme Court to deny a stay of execution. When asked if she had any last words she replied "No". Shortly after her death, her lawyer released a statement stating that "The craven bloodlust of a failed administration was on full display tonight. Everyone who participated in the execution of Lisa Montgomery should feel shame."

Popular culture

The case was described in the books Baby Be Mine, by author Diane Fanning, and Murder in the Heartland by M. William Phelps. The case was also featured in an episode of the true crime series Deadly Women titled "Fatal Obsession", and in the fifth episode of the documentary series No One Saw a Thing that aired on the Sundance Channel on August 29, 2019.

OTHER LINKS:

https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca8/08-1780/081780p-2011-04-05.html

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9105171/Appeals-court-vacates-order-delaying-womans-execution.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_executed_by_the_United_States_federal_government

CATHY HENDERSON THE BABY KILLER (DECEMBER 27, 1956 TO AUGUST 3, 2015)

            On this date, August 3, 2015, Cathy Henderson, a woman who murdered an infant on January 21, 1994, died in prison. I will post information about this wicked witch from several internet sources. Do not forget the victim, Baby Brandon Baugh and remember Ding Dong the wicked witch is dead! 

  

Cathy Henderson

(December 27, 1956 to August 3, 2016)

Baby Brandon Baugh

(October 16, 1993 to January 21, 1994)

INTERNET SOURCE: http://murderpedia.org/female.H/h/henderson-cathy.htm

Cathy Lynn Henderson

General Information:

• Date of Birth - 12/27/56
• Date of Offense - 1/21/94
• Age at Time of Offense - 37
• Prior Occupation - Babysitter
• Education - 12
• Prior Prison Record - None
• Location of Crime - Temple, Texas
• Co-defendants - None
• Race and Gender of Victim - White male

Crime Committed: Convicted in the abduction and murder of 3-month-old Brandon Baugh. Henderson had been babysitting the young boy and his 2 1/2-year-old-sister Megan, for three months prior to the murder without incident.

Henderson later told police that Brandon died after she dropped him accidentally on his head. She said she panicked, buried the boy, and fled to her native Missouri, where she was later arrested.

Using a map drawn by Henderson, authorities found Brandon's body in a cardboard box in a shallow grave outside of Temple on Feb. 8, 1994. An autopsy determined Brandon died of a fractured skull. 

  

Cathy Henderson’s file

Source: Texas Department of Criminal Justice

Cathy Lynn Henderson

On the morning of January 21, 1994, the parents of Brandon Baugh delivered their three-month-old baby to Cathy Lynn Henderson, the infant’s daily caregiver, at Henderson’s home near Austin, Texas.
Tragically, Brandon died of massive head trauma later that day when, according to Henderson, he fell from her arms and struck his head upon the concrete floor of the home. 

Henderson had nursing experience, but when her efforts to provide cardiopulmonary resuscitation did not succeed, Henderson panicked, buried the infant’s body near Waco, and fled to Missouri.
On February 1, 1994, the Federal Bureau of Investigation arrested Henderson in Kansas City on federal and Texas kidnapping warrants. 

F.B.I. Special Agent Michael Napier promptly initiated custodial interrogation, beginning with the familiar Miranda warning. Henderson first denied knowledge of the child's whereabouts and stated that she had left him with his grandmother, but the Agent persisted and later, through leading questions, Napier elicited from Henderson a confession that she killed the baby. 

He asked her, “When you say the whole thing, are you talking about that Brandon is dead, that you know where the body’s located, that it was an accident, that you’re sorry? She responded by nodding her head. Later, Napier said, “Brandon’s dead. It was an accident.” To this statement, Henderson replied, “Yes.” Napier asked, “Did you bury him?” She responded, “Of course I did. He’s just a baby.”
Henderson Agent Napier then asked Henderson to sign a written statement, to tell him the specific location of the infant’s gravesite, and to draw a map depicting that location. The Agent’s persistence doubtless brought home to Henderson both the seriousness of her circumstances and the significance of the Miranda admonition he had delivered only moments before. 

Henderson therefore refused to sign any statement, refused to disclose the location of the gravesite, refused to draw the map requested by Agent Napier, and asked instead for the assistance of an attorney. Napier then terminated his interrogation.

  

Henderson then met with Assistant Federal Public Defender Ronald Hall, the attorney initially provided in response to her request for the guiding hand of counsel. She spoke with him privately and in confidence, telling Hall where she had buried the body of Brandon Baugh, and drawing for Hall a sketch-map of that location as a means of reducing her words to paper. 

After Henderson agreed to extradition to Texas, attorney Hall sent the map and other confidential information to a Texas attorney, Nona Byington, who agreed to represent Henderson until the State court appointed a criminal law specialist to assume Henderson’s defense. 

After State officials learned that Henderson had exercised her Miranda rights and refused to draw a map for Agent Napier, but that attorney Byington now had the map drawn for attorney Hall, they turned the heat upon Ms. Byington. 

A grand jury subpoenaed Byington, and the local Sheriff demanded that she hand over the map. When Ms. Byington refused, the Sheriff had her arrested on a charge of “tampering with evidence,” and his officers searched her office and automobile, albeit to no immediate avail. The Sheriff also defamed Ms. Byington to an eager press, labeling her an “accomplice to an ongoing crime.” 

This whipped-up public frenzy well summarized in THE TEXAS LAWYER’S edition of February 14, 1994: Anyone listening to the radio call-in shows in Austin recently had no doubt who was the most hated lawyer in central Texas. Austin’s Nona Byington, three years out of law school and representing a woman accused of abducting a missing 3-month-old boy, endured five days of vilification for refusing to give authorities the maps her client had drawn showing the location of the infant’s body. 

On February 7, 1994, the grand jury issued another subpoena demanding that Ms. Byington relinquish her client’s map. But the hated and vilified Ms. Byington continued to stand her ground; she refused to comply, asserting the confidentiality of the privileged communications and her client’s rights under the fifth, sixth, and fourteenth amendments. 

The State immediately sought a court order compelling attorney Byington to surrender the map, on pain of jail if she refused. An evidentiary hearing on the State’s motion was held the same day. Consistent with the Sheriff’s inflammatory defamations, the State chiefly argued that by withholding the map, attorney Byington was facilitating the “ongoing crime” of kidnapping, and that the crime-fraud exception to the attorney client privilege therefore trumped Henderson’s assertion of the privilege.

However, after considering all the evidence presented to him at the hearing, the presiding judge rejected the “ongoing kidnapping” argument, saying, “I’m convinced that the child is deceased, and since I’m convinced the child is deceased, I really don’t see how it can be an ongoing crime.”
The next morning (February 8, 1994), however, the judge nevertheless ordered Ms. Byington to surrender the map, saying that the map was not a confidential communication because, at the time she prepared it for attorney Hall, Henderson harbored the subjective intent of assisting the authorities in locating the infant’s body. 

Ms. Byington reluctantly capitulated to the court’s order and, using the seized map, State authorities located the body of Brandon Baugh on the evening of February 8. 

On February 9, 1994 the State charged Henderson with the capital murder of Brandon Baugh. Before trial, the same judge revisited his ruling of February 8, this time under a defense motion to suppress the evidence to which the seized map had led the State. 

The motion was denied on the same ground of nonconfidentiality, and also upon the ground that the crime-fraud exception to the attorney client privilege nullified Ms. Byington’s refusal to betray her client’s confidences. The judge ignored his prior finding that the child was dead, and revived the “ongoing kidnapping” rationale that he refused to invoke at the hearing on February 7-8, 1994. He then added that if the child were dead, the crime-fraud exception for “abuse of corpse” came into play.
Trial was held in May 1995, and the jury convicted Henderson on the sole charge of capital murder of an infant, in violation of TEXAS PENAL CODE § 19.03(a)(8).

Cathy Henderson

She says it was an accident but the jury believed otherwise, making babysitter Cathy Henderson the only Travis County woman currently on Texas Death Row.

On Texas Death Row: 

Cathy Henderson, Texas Department of Criminal Justice Number 999148, was received at TDCJ on June 1, 1995. After three months of babysitting Brandon and Megan Baugh, Henderson abducted, murdered, and buried 3-month old Brandon, later telling police that the baby's death was an accident.

About Cathy Henderson: 

A petite 37 year old blond with no prior criminal history, Cathy Lynn Henderson had been babysitting the Baugh children for about 3 months before the January 21, 1994 abduction and murder. Originally from Missouri, Henderson had been living in northeast Travis County and was the babysitter for Megan and Brandon Baugh in 1993/94. Upon the disappearance of Henderson and baby Brandon, a nationwide search ensued. Henderson was found in Missouri.

About Brandon Baugh: The body of 3-month old Brandon Baugh was found in a box buried in a shallow grave outside Temple, Texas on Feb. 8, 1994. He had died days earlier on January 21. An autopsy revealed he died from head injuries that, according to the medical examiner, were not consistent with a fall from the babysitter's arms as Cathy Henderson had claimed. At the time of his death Brandon also had a 2 1/2 year old sister, Megan.

 

Cathy Lynn Henderson cries during an interview on Texas women's death row
in Gatesville, Texas, on April 17, 2007.

(Photo LM Otero/AP photo)

INTERNET SOURCE: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/woman-convicted-of-killing-infant-dies-2-months-after-plea/

By Crimesider Staff AP August 4, 2015, 3:21 PM

Woman convicted of killing infant dies 2 months after plea

AUSTIN, Texas - A woman who spent nearly two decades on Texas death row for killing an infant has died in prison, less than two months after she pleaded guilty to murder ahead of a new trial.

Cathy Lynn Henderson, 58, died Sunday at University Medical Center Brackenridge in Austin, Travis County Sheriff's Department spokeswoman Lisa Block said.

Henderson's attorney, Jon Evans, told the Austin American-Statesman she was hospitalized for breathing difficulties about two weeks after accepting a plea deal June 12 where she avoided a retrial and took a 25-year prison sentence. She was being treated for pneumonia and then a stroke, Evans said.

Travis County prosecutors decided not to pursue a death sentence at a trial that had been set for September, but she could have received a life term if convicted.

Under the June plea agreement, credit for time she already served meant she could have been released in four years.

Henderson was just days away from execution in 2007 when the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals halted her punishment for the 1994 death of Brandon Baugh, a 3-month-old child she was babysitting. The same court subsequently granted her a new trial.

Henderson had insisted she dropped the child while caring for him at her Pflugerville home.

Henderson said she performed CPR but didn't call 911, panicked and fled. She wrapped him in his blanket, stuffed him in a wine cooler box and traveled north, burying him in a field 60 miles away. Then she drove to her native Missouri where she was later arrested.

At her trial, then medical examiner Roberto Bayardo testified it was "impossible" to attribute Brandon's head injury to an accidental fall.

But Bayardo recanted his testimony in 2007, saying advances in the understanding of pediatric head injuries found that relatively short falls onto a hard surface could produce injuries similar to those he discovered during Brandon's 1994 autopsy. Bayardo concluded he could not determine if the boy's injuries were the result of "an intentional act or an accidental fall." 

Henderson had been moved from state prison to custody of Travis County authorities in January 2013 and was at the Travis County Correctional Complex in Del Valle when she became ill.

Block said while there's no evidence of foul play in Henderson's death, an autopsy was planned.

AP

INTERNET SOURCE: http://www.statesman.com/news/news/crime-law/cathy-lynn-henderson-babysitter-convicted-of-murde/nnB2R/

Cathy Lynn Henderson, babysitter convicted of murder, dies in hospital

8:53 a.m. Monday, Aug. 3, 2015 | Filed in: Crime

  

Former babysitter Cathy Lynn Henderson is escorted into Judge Jon Wisser’s courtroom in February 1994 for her arraignment on murder charges.

Cathy Lynn Henderson, who dominated national headlines in 1994 for the the killing of 3-month-old Brandon Baugh, died Sunday after a month of hospitalization, her lawyer said Monday. She was 58.

Once just two days away from execution, the former babysitter spent nearly two decades in prison before winning a new trial in 2012. On June 12, just months before her case was to go to trial a second time, Henderson hobbled into the courtroom on crutches with the help of her lawyers and pleaded guilty to murder. She was sentenced then to 25 years in prison, but with credit for time served, she could have been released in four years.

Henderson was taken to the hospital on June 24 after she had trouble with her breathing. She was diagnosed with pneumonia and had a stroke during her stay.

“Cathy Lynn Henderson passed away last night, at peace and without pain,” her lawyer, Jon Evans, told the American-Statesman. “In the last few weeks of her life she was relieved of a 21-year burden. Her version of the events of the tragedy of Brandon Baugh finally was given the proper respect and credence it deserved. She passed with that satisfaction.”

A sharply divided Court of Criminal Appeals overturned Henderson’s capital murder conviction and sentence in December 2012. The court upheld a recommendation by District Judge Jon Wisser that she have a new trial based on new scientific discoveries into the nature of head injuries.

Henderson claimed that Baugh died after slipping from her arms and falling about 4 feet to the concrete floor in her home in the Pflugerville area. She said she panicked, burying the boy’s body in a Bell County field before fleeing to Missouri, where she was found and arrested 11 days later.

Some supporters of the Baugh family said they were relieved to see Henderson plead guilty after years of lies and denials. But Brandon’s parents, grandmother and sister said they had been surprised and disappointed to learn she would not face a jury once more.

“I have no doubts that your plea today is not an act of contrition but another act of selfishness in order to gain your freedom,” Brandon’s father, Eryn Baugh, told Henderson on the witness stand on the day she took her plea.

Follow Jazmine Ulloa on Twitter: @jazmineulloa

Cathy Lynn Henderson takes her seat after pleading guilty to murder before Travis County District court Judge Karen Sage on June 12, 2015. Henderson spent nearly two decades on death row for the 1994 death of 3-month-old Brandon Baugh before her capital murder conviction and sentence in were overturned in December 2012. DEBORAH CANNON / AMERICAN-STATESMAN

OTHER LINKS:

http://victimsfamiliesforthedeathpenalty.blogspot.com.au/2016/01/in-loving-memory-of-baby-brandon-baugh.html

http://victimsfamiliesforthedeathpenalty.blogspot.com.au/2015/10/dead-baby-walking-truth-about-cathy.html

http://victimsfamiliesforthedeathpenalty.blogspot.com.au/2015/10/dead-baby-walking-truth-about-cathy_16.html