The perpetrator, Lisa Marie Montgomery,[3] then aged 36 years old, strangled Stinnett to death and cut her unborn child (eight months into gestation) from her womb.

Montgomery was arrested in Kansas the next day and charged with kidnapping resulting in death – a federal crime due to the interstate nature of the offense.

[5][6][7] Bobbie Jo Stinnett was born on December 4, 1981, and graduated from Nodaway-Holt High School in Graham, Missouri, in 2000.

[9] Stinnett and Montgomery had met through dog show events and had ongoing interactions in an online Rat Terrier chatroom called Ratter Chatter.

That night, Stinnett told her husband and her mother, Becky Harper, that a woman from Fairfax was going to stop by and look at the puppies.

At 2:30 p.m., Stinnett received a phone call from Harper, her mother, and confirmed that she would give Harper a ride home from work at 3:30 p.m.[13] Some time after the phone call ended, Montgomery attacked Stinnett and used the cord to strangle her until she was unconscious, after hanging out together at the house for approximately two hours.

Meanwhile, after driving a short distance from Stinnett's home, Montgomery stopped to clamp the umbilical cord and to suction any mucus from the baby’s mouth.

Stinnett was discovered by her mother, Becky Harper, lying in a pool of blood, approximately an hour after the murder.

[14] Harper immediately called authorities and described the wounds inflicted upon her daughter as appearing as if her "stomach had exploded.

[18] Police had initially gone to Montgomery's home at 32419 S Adams Rd in Melvern, Kansas after tracing online communications to her IP address, hoping to interview her as a witness.

After ringing the doorbell, Kevin let the officers into the home where they found Montgomery inside, holding the infant and watching television.

When the alleged due date passed, Montgomery told Kevin that the baby had died and that she had donated its body to science.

On December 10, 2004, days before the kidnapping, Bowman filed a motion for change of custody of the two minor children who lived with Montgomery.

Given the fact that the crime spanned two state lines (the baby was moved from Missouri to Kansas) it was brought to the federal level.

[16] At a pre-trial hearing, a neuropsychologist testified that the head injuries Montgomery had sustained some years before could have damaged the part of the brain that controls aggression.

[30] 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.

[31] 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.

[32][33] Ramachandran testified that Montgomery's stories about her actions fluctuated because of her delusional state; thus she was unable to describe the nature and quality of her acts.

[34] Both federal prosecutor Roseann Ketchmark and the opposing expert witness forensic psychiatrist Park Dietz disagreed strongly with the diagnosis of pseudocyesis.

[19][38] Duchardt's pseudocyesis defense, Montgomery's past trauma and her separate diagnosis of mental illness were not fully revealed until after her conviction.

This led critics including Guardian journalist David Rose to argue that Duchardt provided an incompetent legal defense for Montgomery.

[44][45] During her appeals, Montgomery's lawyers argued that she technically did not commit the crime of kidnapping resulting in death, claiming that Victoria Jo Stinnett was not considered a person until she was removed from her mother's womb.

That claim was dismissed, with the courts saying the felony murder rule nullified this and that Montgomery needed to kill Bobbi regardless in order to complete the kidnapping.

[28] The case of Atkins v. Virginia ruled that executing individuals with intellectual disability violates the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution regarding cruel and unusual punishments.

[46] Nevertheless, Montgomery was scheduled for execution on December 8, 2020, by lethal injection at the U.S. Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana, but this was delayed following her attorneys contracting COVID-19.

[53] Montgomery was eventually executed by lethal injection[11] on January 13, 2021, at the United States Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana.

[6][7] Only three other women have been executed by the U.S. federal government: Mary Surratt, by hanging in 1865; Ethel Rosenberg by electric chair in 1953; and Bonnie Heady by gas chamber, also in 1953.

The intent was for Montgomery to "go absolutely psychotic" in her team's attempt to postpone her execution by "proving mental fragility exacerbated by sexual abuse in childhood."

After surviving the tragic events of 2004, she was raised by her father, Zebulon Stinnett, with support from extended family members, near the town of Maitland, Missouri, a mere ten-minute drive from Skidmore.

Swedish author and playwright Lars Norén wrote a novel called En liten roman about her, released posthumously in 2024.