Jury selection in trial over baby cut from womb

A WOMAN accused of strangling a pregnant woman and cutting the baby from her womb watched in court yesterday as attorneys began selecting a jury for her trial.

Prosecutors say the suspect, Lisa Montgomery, was nine months into a faked pregnancy and so desperate for a baby that she planned the December 2004 killing of 23-year-old Bobbie Jo Stinnett who was eight months pregnant.

Montgomery is charged with kidnapping resulting in death. Prosecutors allege that Montgomery, 39, strangled Stinnett and then used a kitchen knife to cut her baby from her womb.

The baby, Victoria Jo Stinnett, survived.

Jury selection was expected to take three days. US District Judge Gary A Fenner instructed the 80 potential jurors not to discuss the case with the media.

Montgomery pleaded not guilty to the charge in January 2005, and her lawyers have said they plan to use an insanity defence. They say Montgomery suffers from depression and impulsivity.

A search began when Stinnett’s mother found her daughter lying in a pool of blood. Police tracked down Montgomery and the baby the next day through emails she had sent Stinnett about buying a dog.

Authorities said they also found a bloody rope used to strangle Stinnett and a knife used in removing the baby from her womb. They are among more than 100 pieces of physical evidence prosecutors could present at Montgomery’s trial.

Prosecutors also have more than 100 possible witnesses.

Don Ledford, a spokesman for the US attorney’s office, said prosecutors would not discuss the case before the trial.

Among the exhibits prosecutors might use are Montgomery’s medical records from a 1990 tubal ligation. Relatives said she had repeatedly reported she was pregnant since undergoing the procedure after the birth of her fourth child.

When Montgomery, of Melvern, Kansas, announced in the summer of 2004 that she was pregnant, her mother and sisters tried to convince people there was no way she could be carrying a child.