Baby stolen from womb said in good condition
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-12-21 11:41

A baby girl cut from her murdered mother's womb by a woman who later tried to pass the child off as her own was in very good condition, a Kansas hospital said on Monday.

Stormont-Vail Regional Health Center in Topeka also said the case had generated an outpouring of concern and sympathy from the public for five-day-old Victoria Jo Stinnett and her family, with calls, notes and gifts including tiny baskets of infant clothes sent to the hospital.

Lisa Montgomery, 36, of Melvern, Kansas, the woman who FBI agents say confessed to the kidnapping and murder of eight months pregnant Bobbie Jo Stinnett, 23, has been charged under federal law with kidnapping resulting in death. [Reuters]

"She remains in very good condition, resting comfortably in the neonatal intensive care unit," hospital spokeswoman Tami Motley said. She said the girl's father, Zeb Stinnett, had asked that no other information be released, and it was not known how long the child would remain at the medical center.

Lisa Montgomery, 36, the woman who FBI agents said confessed to the murder and kidnapping, has been charged under federal law with kidnapping resulting in death.

The victim, eight months pregnant Bobbie Jo Stinnett, 23, was found strangled in her Missouri home on Thursday with her abdomen sliced open, the baby gone and the umbilical cord cut.

The FBI said Montgomery came to Stinnett's home after inquiring over the Internet about buying a rat terrier dog, a breed Stinnett raised. It was a trace on the e-mail that led investigators to track down Montgomery at her home in Kansas. She had been showing off the child as her own and told her husband that she had suddenly given birth.

Police also said Montgomery had told her family she suffered a miscarriage at some time in the past, though it was not known when or if she really had been pregnant. No information has been released on what might have motivated the crime.

Stinnett said the fact that his daughter survived the ordeal was a miracle.

Todd Graves, the U.S. Attorney in Kansas City, Missouri, said on Monday it was too early to say whether Montgomery suffered from mental illness.

"We're still very early in the investigation and I'm not aware of that one way or the other," he said in an interview on NBC's "Today" show.

He said the crime underlined how the Internet both brought crime into the victim's home in a small rural town but also allowed investigators to solve the case and recover the baby a day later.

Montgomery's husband has not been charged.

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