She has exhausted all legal options except a last-ditch appeal for clemency from President Donald Trump, which was filed Christmas Eve. People confuse punishment with culpability, she went on. She told Lisa she had to "earn her keep." Judy later. For Montgomery, her lawyers argue, it began before she was born. Mattingly said she was fortunate to have been moved to a lovinghome of high school history teacher and coach Floyd Gwin;his wife, Zella Gwin;and their three biological children. While a six-week time period to prepare for clemency might always be unreasonable, it is particularly arduous given the pandemic.. She got into multiple car accidents, struggled to keep a job, moved around constantly, drank heavily, engaged in sex work and neglected her children. She was quiet and kind, they say. Montgomery gave birth to three daughters and a son from1987 to1990, court records say. Around age 8, she said, a man began raping her in the bedroom she shared with Montgomery, then 4, who lay in bed right next to her. Babcock noted that while at least a dozen other women across the U.S. have committed a similar crime in the past 20 years killing a pregnant woman to kidnap her baby Montgomery was the only one sentenced to death. Likewise, that jury wasn't directed to consider whether Montgomery was severely mentally ill, which Montgomery's attorneys are asking the president to take into account. The idea that that evidence of her bad mothering is part of what the jury could rely upon as a reason to sentence her to death its something you would never find in a case of a man.. "The Lisa I knew was a good person who cared about the other women in the pod and was quiet and generous and kind," Dorr said. At one point, one of Montgomery's brothers found a home movie that showed Montgomery's husband raping and beating her. Montgomery's lawyers argue that because of a combination of years of horrific abuse, and a raft of psychological issues, she should never have been given the death penalty. I thought they knew what was going on, she said. She was forced to sit in a high chair for hours if she did not finish her food. President Donald Trump can "break the chain of evil" experienced by Montgomery and other members of her family by granting clemency and commuting her sentence to life imprisonment, Mattingly said. Warnersaid the killinghad left Melvern residents stunned.. Dorr's marriage was failing when she fell in love with John Manard, a convicted murderer 21 years her junior. She had this ability to find what hurt you the most and use that against you, Mattingly said. As Montgomery grew up, court records say, observersnoticed that she increasingly appeared to be "spaced out," "not emotionally present" or in "her own little world.". After their biological father left the home, Mattingly says they were left alone with Shaughnessy's boyfriends, at least one of whom started raping Mattingly. She was born in 1968, the child of two troubled alcoholics. She lives in Lebanon, Ky., is married with two adult children and has worked the past 19 years for the state of Kentucky. Court records say Kleiner drank heavily, beat his wife and children, and made his daughters take off their clothes before he spanked them. He stressed that the juryheard testimony about her mental illness and her history of being abused, yet still unanimously recommended her execution. The infant found later that day to weigh 5 pounds, 11 ounces was "very still" and didn't cry, which concerned Strong. There are things children need to grow into healthy adults, among them love, praise and stability. Jurors heard an audiotape of Harper, Stinnett's mother, calling 911 after finding her body. Right: This cemetery at Melvern, where Lisa Montgomery formerly lived, has more than 1,800 gravesites, which is nearly five times the city's population. Montgomery was already vulnerable to serious mental illness, she added. The next morning, Lisa and Kevin Montgomery showed off a newborn girl dressed in a pink bonnet as they ate breakfast at the Whistle Stop Cafe in downtown Melvern. When Judy, Lisa's mother and my stepmother, came to beat us, I stood between her and the younger girls and took the beating, whether it was belts, cords or hangers. "She always wanted to be a mom," says Baumli. She credits this moment for her "fairly normal" life - a house on eight peaceful acres, a loving relationship with her children, nearly two decades at a job working for the state of Kentucky. Two days before the crime, her former husband (and stepbrother) sought custody of two of her children. Join half a million readers enjoying Newsweek's free newsletters, Everyone Practices Cancel Culture | Opinion, Deplatforming Free Speech is Dangerous | Opinion. "She seemed like a real personI could connect with and build a relationship with inside prison," Dorr said. Montgomery lived during her childhood in Washington, Kansas, Colorado, Oklahoma, California and Texas. They had been called in as part of the Northwest Missouri Major Case Squad, which was workingwith the FBI to identify Stinnett's killer and find the missing child. Kleiner built a makeshift shed on the side of the trailer for Montgomery, where he began molesting, and then raping, her. She testified as. In the cases where women are sentenced to death, prosecutors often use gender stereotypes against the defendants, she said, characterizing them as transgressive or not normal in some way. She faulted Montgomerys defense team at the time of the initial trial for failing to connect the dots between Montgomerys childhood trauma and her later behavior. Montgomery is scheduled to be put to death by a lethal injection of pentobarbital at Terre Haute prison in Indiana. Montgomery eventually divorced her first husband and married Kevin Montgomery. Eventually, Montgomery admitted she had acted alone in killing Stinnett and taking her baby. So my letters are important.. "They put her on suicide watch to keep her from killing herself, so that they can execute her," she said. Is it ethical to execute a woman for actions that cannot be meaningfully separated from her mental illness and ugly history of abuse? They believe that at the time of the crime, Montgomery was psychotic and out of touch with reality. As a teenager, Montgomery confided in a cousin, telling him the men would tie her up, beat her and even urinate on her afterwards. It is extremely rare for women to be sentenced to death, said Sandra Babcock, faculty director of the Cornell Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide and an expert on women and the death penalty. Diane Mattingly has been speaking publicly for the first time in the hope it can make a difference. If Mattinglycould speak directly to Trump, she said, she would tell him: "Please dont take my sister. Nobody has said that Lisa should never have been punished. After Mattingly was removed from the home by social services, Montgomery fell prey to her mother's new husband, who according to statements from his other children, was a violent alcoholic who began sexually abusing Montgomery when she was a pre-teen. She is the only woman on federal death row. She strangled Stinnett to death and cut the baby from her stomach. Investigators quickly realised that "Darlene Fischer" did not exist, and tracked Montgomery down the next day using her emails and computer IP address. "I fell in love immediately.". Every year. Lisa Montgomery's friend, Toby Dorr, provided this photo she took of a letter Montgomery wrote to her in November using black crayon. In December 2004, Boman filed a court action seeking custody of two of their children who still lived with Montgomery while arguing that the pregnancy Montgomery was fakingillustrated she was an unfit mother, according to newspaper accounts. Back home, the couple announced the birth of their daughter to their friends and relatives. I support my wife and her request for clemency, but because I am sick with COVID and am caring for my parents who are also sick with COVID, I ask the media to respect our need for rest and privacy," he said. That was ultimately dropped in favour of an insanity defence, but Henry believes the damage to Montgomery's credibility was already done. She helped him escape in a dog crate and went to prison after a vehicle chase 12 days later ended with their capture. It would be 34 years before the half-sisters would see each other again. Read about our approach to external linking. I felt sick watching the video. Montgomery's execution date was subsequently bumped back to Jan. 12. Her victim's community said otherwise. Montgomery's number of crayons and pieces of paper hassince been increased to 10 each. The threat of losing her children, combined with the years of untreated trauma and severe mental illness, pushed Lisa over the edge. The baby girl survived, andMontgomery took her home and briefly passed her off as her own until investigators arrested her the next day. As a teenager, Montgomery confided in her cousin, a deputy sheriff, that she was being raped by Kleiner and other men orally, vaginally and anally. They slept in twin beds in a small bedroomand fell asleep most nights holding hands, Mattingly said. The six-man, six-woman jury in October 2007 found Montgomery guilty and recommended she be executed. Several high-profile figures had appealed for clemency in Brandon's case but Mr Trump did not heed those calls. Ms. Since 2008, Montgomery has been held in a federal prison in Texas for female inmates with special medical and psychological needs, where she has been receiving psychiatric care. Montgomery smelled like a sour ashtray and body sweat" as Don Fritz and Randy Strong interrogated her on Dec. 17, 2004, Strong recalled. If her execution goes forward, she will be the first federal female inmate to be executed in almost 70 years. Judy Shaughnessy, drank during pregnancy. Some nights, she said, Shaughnessy would leave them in the house with a male babysitter. We cant travel to talk to witnesses or to prepare experts at this point, Harwell, Montgomerys lawyer, said. Bobbie's family deserves her," says Meagan Morrow, a high school classmate of Stinnett's. Shaughnessy drank excessively during her pregnancy, causing brain damage to Montgomery, according to court records. I am begging that somebody will finally stand up for her and say, shes been punished enough.. This is the stuff of nightmares.". But my hope is President Trump will stop Lisa's execution and commute her sentence to life in prison. When Lisa was a small child, Judy allowed men to rape her for money, including allowing her to be gang raped on multiple occasions. In the haze of her mental illness, she went to the home of a pregnant woman, killed her, and removed the baby. And theyre taking me away from her.. Judy Shaughnessy and her boyfriend physical, psychological . Mattingly, Montgomerys sister, is planning on visiting her next week. She moved in 1999 to Melvern, a town about 40 miles south of Topeka with 375 people today. "I have seen a lot of horrible things happen to women and children in my more than 40 years in law enforcement," Strongsaid. She learned Oct. 16 that she had been scheduled to die by lethal injection on Dec. 8. Tommy Kleiner and Montgomery have stayed in touch. A clemency petition asking Trump to reduce Montgomerys sentence to life without parole is expected to be filed in the coming weeks. They had corresponded for weeks on an online forum for rat terrier breeders and enthusiasts called "Ratter Chatter". Babies born naturally tend to have misshapen heads initially because of the pressure experienced as they go through the birth canal, he said. The family moved often. "God, no, please," she said. And to not fail her.". I didn't know what to do or how to talk to my sister about it.". Dr Katherine Porterfield, a clinical psychologist who evaluated Montgomery and spent about 18 hours with her, says that psychosis does not always look the way people expect it to. Friends and family began noticing Montgomery's tendency to slip into "a world of her own". "Oh, they're here, I've got to go," she said. And though there's been much recent debate over the fairness of Montgomery's sentence in courthouses and in the opinion pages of newspapers like the New York Times, a similar debate does not exist here. Stinnett bled to death. In Trumps final days in office, Lisa Montgomery a mentally ill victim of sex trafficking is set to be the first woman the U.S. executes in 70 years. Montgomery achieved considerable emotional growth once she was put in a stable environment where she felt safe and was receiving psychiatric medications for the first time, Dorrsaid. Stinnett came to, grabbing at Montgomery's knife and pulling out somehair before Montgomery strangledher to death. While all five are haunted by Stinnett's murder, they are also "bonded for life," Strong said. A former paramedic who had watched the births of all three of his children, Strong also considered the baby's head to be unusually round. Lisa Montgomery has been held at theCarswell Federal Medical Center in Fort Worth, Texas, for 12 years. It turns out that it only takes a few people to save a child's life: being loved by my foster parents saved mine. If they all go ahead, the federal government will have executed more people than any administration in nearly 100 years. Other times, her behavior could be erratic and inappropriate. His physical abuse of the children had sexual undercurrents: He would make the girls strip naked before whipping them. She said Montgomery's crimes have affected the way Melvern is perceived in the same manner anti-gay picketing by Westboro Baptist Church has influenced perceptions about Topeka. Lisa Montgomery - the only female inmate on federal death row in the US - has been executed for murder in the state of Indiana. Defense attorney Fred Duchardt told jurors that sexual abuse during her childhood had caused Montgomeryto become mentally ill and killed her soul. Lisa then took the baby home and cared for her as though she was her own. "There was so much pressure on her at that point," says Henry. "This was the act of a monster," he said. It is the only federal prison with an active death chamber. Shaughnessy has since died. Lisa was anally, orally, and vaginally raped by several men, one after the other for several hours at a time. In late December, Montgomery's legal team submitted a petition to President Donald Trump that makes the case that after a lifetime of abuse - which they characterise as torture - she is too mentally ill to be executed and deserves mercy. Her lawyers had argued she was a mentally ill victim of abuse who. Montgomery and Stinnett participated inthe "Ratter Chatter" online message board for rat terrier dog enthusiasts. Shaughnessy would beat Mattingly with whatever was in her hand, be it a belt or a broom, she said. But the psychological abuse targeted at her was even more damaging. They introduced her as their daughter, Abigail, and made multiple other stops. He was in her. She gives herself as an example - when Stinnett was murdered, Baumli was in rehab for a drug addiction. I couldn't believe how good it felt to be part of a loving family. Kleiner, the son of Shaughnessy and Jack Kleiner, was meeting witha parole officerat the time of the killing, Strong said. "Being loved unconditionally helped me heal, find a caring husband and raise two children who have hearts of gold," Mattingly wrote. Henry said Montgomery seemed out of touch with reality when Henry and Harwell, who work in Tennessee, traveled by plane to visit her in October and early November at Fort Worth. That is exactly what Lisa Montgomery developed into, which is a person who had profound disconnection from her body, from her mind, from her experience, Porterfield said. Clemency petition asking Trump to reduce Montgomerys sentence to life without parole is to. 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