Jury selection begins for woman charged with killing expectant mother, cutting fetus from womb

A woman accused of strangling a pregnant woman and cutting the baby from her womb with a kitchen knife watched in court Monday as attorneys began selecting a federal court jury for her trial.

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

Montgomery, 39, is charged with kidnapping resulting in death. Prosecutors allege she strangled Stinnett in the victim's Skidmore home and removed the baby. The government is seeking the death penalty.

The baby, Victoria Jo Stinnett, survived.

Jury selection, which was closed to the public, was expected to take three days, with opening arguments starting Thursday. Prosecutors say the trial could last three to four weeks.

Montgomery, who appeared in court and sat between two of her lawyers, pleaded not guilty to the charge in January 2005, and her lawyers have said they plan to use an insanity defense. They say Montgomery suffers from several conditions, including post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and impulsivity.

U.S. District Judge Gary A. Fenner has yet to rule on a prosecution motion to disallow a defense expert to testify that brain scans indicate Montgomery suffers from a mental illness that caused her to believe she was pregnant.

In their motion last month, prosecutors said the "testing methods were scientifically invalid."

A massive 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 e-mails Montgomery 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. The rope and knife are among more than 100 pieces of physical evidence prosecutors could present at Montgomery's trial. Prosecutors also have more than 100 possible witnesses.

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 again was pregnant, her mother, Judy Shaughnessy, and sisters tried to convince people there was no way she could be carrying a child.