'Womb raider' Lisa Montgomery was raped by stepdad and his pals in specially-built room as a child, say lawyers
A court was told on Tuesday, January 5, that the first woman on federal death row in the last 70 years, Lisa Montgomery, was sexually abused by her stepfather and his friends while she was a child. Montgomery’s lawyers claimed that her stepfather constructed a room especially to rape her and her sister. The man was allegedly joined by his pals too, The Metro reported. Lawyers said she was "broken before being born" while trying to spare her from execution.
The execution of the 52-year-old has been set for January 12 after she was found guilty of strangling a 23-year-old pregnant woman, whose womb she cut to take out the unborn child. The brutal attack happened in Skidmore, Missouri, on December 16, 2004. Montgomery was faking her pregnancy at the time and met the victim, Bobbie Jo Stinnett, online while showing interest in buying a dog.
Montgomery’s lawyers pleaded directly to President Donald Trump at the 11th hour so that her execution would be transformed into life imprisonment. “Lisa Montgomery’s life was filled with torture, terror, failure, and betrayal,” the lawyers added. The woman's brain is damaged because her mother took excessive alcohol during pregnancy, the court heard.
The lawyers’ plea for clemency was backed by Diane Mattingley, Montgomery’s sister, who said to reporters she and the accused suffered sexual abuse at a young age. The molestation of Montgomery at the hands of her stepfather started when she was just 11 in a specially-constructed room at the back of their trailer. Mattingley said the man also raped her, sometimes while in the same room as her younger sister. It has been said that their mother also participated in the sexual exploitation and pimped Montgomery out to pedophiles.
Mattingley, who was later raised in foster care, said, “So many people let her down. Yes, I started out the same way, but I went into a place where I was loved and cared for and shown self-worth. I had a good foundation. Lisa did not and she broke. She literally broke.” Reports also said that before committing the 2004 horrible crime, Montgomery might have suffered a miscarriage. According to her lawyers, it would be wrong to execute her considering her mental illness. Montgomery’s execution came after Trump ordered it for 17 federal prisoners in 2020.
In November 2020, over a thousand supporters of Montgomery urged the president to commute her death sentence since she is not mentally well and a victim of trafficking and sexual abuse. Current and former prosecutors, anti-violence advocates, anti-trafficking organizations, advocates for abused and neglected children, and mental health advocates wrote a letter to Trump that stated, “Lisa’s experiences as a victim of horrific sexual violence, physical abuse, and being trafficked as a child do not excuse her crime. But her history provides us with an important explanation that would influence any sentencing recommendation we made as prosecutors.” It added that Montgomery’s history “is not an ‘abuse excuse’ as the jury was told at her trial,” and that proof of a defendant’s childhood trauma is “critically relevant to determining the appropriate punishment for a serious crime.”