Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Dog lover's stomach slit open, baby stolen

Episode Date: November 27, 2020

Bobbie Jo Stinnett was eight months pregnant when she was strangled and her baby cut from her body. Now the person convicted is facing execution. Prosecutors say the killer befriended the dog breeder over the internet and traveled from Kansas to purchase a puppy.Joining Nancy Grace today: Kathleen Murphy - North Carolina, Family Attorney, www.ncdomesticlaw.com Dr. Angela Arnold - Psychiatrist, Atlanta Ga www.angelaarnoldmd.com Chris Byers - former Police Chief Johns Creek Georgia, 25 years as Police Officer, now Private Investigator and Polygraph Examiner, www.chrisbyersinvestigationsandpolygraph.com   Dr Kendall Crowns - Deputy Medical Examiner Travis County, Texas (Austin) Sierra Gillespie - Crime Online Investigative Reporter Ben Levitan - Telecommunications Expert, www.benlevitan.com Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Bombshell. In the last hours, it has been announced that the first female federal prisoner to be executed in 70 years. Repeat, the first female federal prisoner will be executed. The first female federal prisoner to be executed in 70 years. And you'll see why. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Becky Harper is worried.

Her daughter, Bobby Jo, was supposed to pick her up at work. Becky calls her daughter's home and cell phones. There is no answer. When Becky got off work, then she went to the house to look for her daughter and found Bobby on the floor. She immediately called 911. Becky Harper sees her child sprawled out on the woodgrain floor. Blood all over the room.

Basically, her innards exposed. She's lifeless. Terrified, Becky tells the 911 operator it looks like her stomach exploded. It's a gruesome murder. The crime scene's horrific. It was described to me as a bloody snow angel. You were hearing Kathleen Garrett in the TV show Solved. Guys, the mother comes home and finds her daughter there dead. She says, quote, the innards are exposed that it looks as if her daughter's stomach exploded. Again, I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us, with me, an all-star

panel to make sense of it. First of all, Kathleen Murphy, renowned family attorney, joining me out of North Carolina at ncdomesticlaw.com. Dr. Angela Arnold, renowned psychiatrist, joining us out of the Atlanta jurisdiction. You can find her at AngelaArnoldMD.com. Former police chief of Johns Creek, Chris Byers, 25 years on the force, now PI and polygrapher at Chris ByersInvestig on the force, now PI and polygrapher at Chris Byers Investigations and Polygraph.com. Ben Levitan, telecommunications expert. We've called on him many times before for his expertise and knowledge. He's at BenLevitan.com. Dr. Kendall Crowns, the deputy medical examiner, Travis County, Texas. That is Austin joining us.

But first, to CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter, Sierra Gillespie. Sierra, why did Becky Harper go to her daughter's home? What concerned her? So her daughter, Bobby Jo, was supposed to pick her up from work. This is something that they had pre-scheduled, planned. Her daughter is pretty reliable. So she expected, you know, her daughter is going to be there to pick her up. So when she never arrived at Becky's work, she kind of got a little nervous, as any mother would. So she walked over to Bobby Joe's house. And that's when she found that gruesome crime scene.

Where did this happen? This happened in Skidmore, Missouri, which is about two hours south of Lincoln, Nebraska. What can you tell me about Skidmore, Missouri? What is that? What's the population? What do we know about it? What is Skidmore, Missouri? So this is a really small town.

The population, I know we're waiting on the 2020 census um but of the most recent census it's around two to three hundred people so i was not expecting that um skidmore a city and nottaway county missouri you're right population 284 that is uh even smaller than where I grew up in rural Bibb County uh red dirt roads pine trees and soybean fields it's about what all you could see there and I loved it so tell me about Skidmore the The reason, Sierra Gillespie, is when you're trying to figure out who a perp could be, if they're near a major interstate, if they're in a major metropolitan city where it could be anybody, if they're close to an airport, some hub of some sort that would bring in strangers. I'm assuming that's a big negative. Right. So this is a super small town. I looked it up on a map because I'd honestly never heard of it.

And it is kind of on the border of Iowa and Nebraska there. It's pretty far from Kansas City, actually. So it's a really, really small town. The closest interstate you've got is 29. But you wouldn't really have to go through Skidmore to get to any big city. Her mom comes over when Bobby Joe does not pick her up, the mom from work, the mom Becky Harper, and comes in to find her daughter dead. To Dr. Kendall Crowns, Deputy Medical Examiner, Travis County, Texas, that's Austin. Dr. Crowns, she says that her stomach looked like it exploded. She said you could see the, quote, innards.

What would that have been? What did she see? So what she probably was looking at was her intestines and her abdominal organs, because the abdominal organs are not held in place by your rib cage like your chest organs are. So when you cut into the abdomen itself, everything in the abdomen can, if you're standing up, can then come out. So that includes your intestines, your liver, your stomach, even your spleen and pancreas. Kidneys would probably stay in place. But really what she's probably describing is the majority of the intestines laying outside of the body. Take a listen to FBI criminal pursuit. He arrives on the scene to find a desperate Becky administering CPR on her unconscious daughter.

Bobby Joe was laying on the floor on her back and I noticed a lot of blood. The sheriff takes over CPR. on the floor on her back, and I noticed a lot of blood. The sheriff takes over CPR. In tears, Becky tells him her daughter is eight months pregnant. And I glanced at her stomach, and in my mind, I thought, no, she's not. Her stomach is too flat. She's not pregnant.

And then, of course, I could see the knife wounds on the lower abdomen. So I knew then that the baby had been cut out. Whoever attacked Bobby Jo gave her a crude C-section. There is no sign of the baby anywhere. EMTs arrive at the home minutes later and transport Bobby Jo to the hospital. But it's too late. Doctors pronounce her dead at 4.27 p.m. To Dr. Kendall Crowns, Deputy Medical Examiner, Travis County, Austin.

I'm guessing the COD, cause of death, would have been bleeding out, loss of blood? Well, the cause of death would probably be sharp force injuries because of the stab wounds. But the reason why she died would be, of course, loss of blood. Yes. What major arteries would have been severed? Well, in that situation, it's probably not a major artery that's getting severed. It's more a large group of blood vessels being disrupted by the injuries. So you've got the blood vessels that are involved with the uterus, the blood vessels that are in the abdominal cavity. All those blood vessels would probably have been damaged, but you wouldn't get like a major one like the aorta, but more like mesenteric vessels and uterine vessels. Well, what blood vessels feed the baby and go to the uterus, the placenta?

I mean, I would assume that would be a major amount of blood. Well, it is. The vessels that feed the uterus, it's quite a large complex of vessels that are involved with providing a blood supply to the uterus and then, of course, the placenta. So they are very, if you cut into them, they bleed quite heavily. So those would be the main vessels involved, the ones involved with the uterus. Again, Dr. Kendall Crowns, I'm just a JD,

you're the MD, but I think that the body contains about a little more than a gallon jug of blood. Does your body create more blood when you're pregnant to feed the baby? It does. So a pregnant woman has a higher circulating blood volume than your average person, so they can help nourish the baby with oxygenated blood. Take a listen to Kathleen Garrett from SALT. 3.43 p.m. Sheriff Ben Espy arrives at Bobby Joe Stinnett's house and immediately takes over CPR from Bobby Joe's distraught mother, Becky Harper. It was pretty apparent that there had been a violent struggle in the room where this occurred.

There was blood everywhere in the room, spattered all over the floor, the walls. It was an awful mess. There was just a massive amount of smeared blood in that room, probably an unused bedroom area. There were some puppy cages because Bobby Joe raised and sold rat terrier dogs. Bobby Joe was laying on her back in the middle of the room with blood and her stomach was exposed. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace.

Guys, we are talking about the death of a beautiful young woman, Bobbie Jo Stennett, pregnant at the time, to Dr. Angela Arnold, psychiatrist, joining us out of Atlanta. I remember when my fiancé was murdered. I did not want to see him in the casket. I've rethought that decision over the years and have now decided that was the right thing at that time. Because then just a few years ago, as you know, my dad passed away. And I was there when he passed away and stayed with his body after everybody else left. And that's in my mind forever. I almost

wish that it wasn't. I mean, I'm glad I did it. I wouldn't have it any other way. But that memory is there. This mom, the mom who discovered her daughter, Bobby Jo, murdered in this horrible fashion, a crude, barbaric C-section, with the baby gone and her daughter there saying she said her innards are exposed her words yeah how do you get past that memory in your mind is there's no way to wipe it away dr angie no she'll she will always have that picture in her head i'm sure she will suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder because of that. Because that's something that we suffer from if you experience something that is completely out of the ordinary as far as trauma goes. She will never get that picture out of her head.

There are types of therapy that you can do to help you dissociate how you feel about the trauma from the actual trauma itself. And that helps people to move forward from this. But she will never completely get rid of that vision in her head. I've never heard of that, Dr. Angela. What is that therapy? There's a therapy called EMDR. It has to do with eye movement. And there's another therapy called brain spotting. And there's another therapy called brain spotting. And there's some really good people here in Atlanta that are actually. What does E and D are stand for? Because to me, did you say it has to do with your eyes?

Yes. Yes. It's an eye. It's a therapy in which the therapist has you move your eyes, have you moved your eyes back and forth. And it's eye movement movement desensitization. I never can remember what the R stands for. And it helps you to, it really does work, Nancy.

It helps you to dissociate the trauma from the emotions that you feel from the trauma. I'm not buying it, not even for a little bit. Sorry, you're telling me rapid eye movement dissociates the bad memories from your mind. It dissociates the feelings that you have about the trauma from the actual trauma. You will never forget the trauma, but every time you think of the trauma, it won't bring you to that same horrific place that it brought you to when it first happened. It's just to dissociate the feelings from the trauma. Okay. Well, you know what? I'm going to put a pin in that and circle back to this murder. You know, to Chief Byers, Chris Byers, former Chief of Police, Johns Creek, now Chris Byers

Investigations and Polygraph.com. How in the hay, when you come on a scene like that, do you keep your cool? I remember coming on, not a scene like this, but let's just say triple homicide. Something always took over with me at that moment, and all I could think about was evidence and securing the scene and really fast- forwarding to the time of trial, how I was going to use this and that and that and this to prove a case. This sheriff comes on and thinks there may be a chance to save the victim. How do you keep your head on at that time, Chief? Yeah, at that point, it's just all about your training.

Your training kicks in. It becomes just your secondary movement. You know, one of the things that people all forget about when it comes to police officers, you know, if you're a doctor in a hospital, whatever, you're expecting this trauma to come to you. When the fire department gets somewhere, it's normally they've been told what they're coming up on. You know, when you're a police officer, you could be working a wreck one second, taking a theft report. You don't even know what you're walking into. So it is all about your training and experience kicks in.

There's just something in you that compartmentalizes and pushes you forward to do the job. Compartmentalizes. I guess you're right. Compartmentalizing. Guys, listen to this. The doctor said, Sheriff, you're running out of time. You're going to have to find this child very fast. A search of the residence as well as the neighboring area was conducted,

and the unborn child had not been found. The only information initially obtained during the neighborhood canvas was that a small red car had been seen at the residence earlier in the afternoon. We sealed off a big portion of Skidmore. I had a lot of volunteers looking in dumpsters, looking in the river, looking everywhere possible there could have been a baby that would have been tossed away. As the pressure mounts and the case grows more complicated, the sheriff calls for help. It was determined very early on that more investigative officers were needed in this investigation.

I suggested to the sheriff that we activate the initial response team of the Northwest Major Case Squad. Hearing our friend Kathleen Garrett at SOLD, straight out to telecommunications expert, Ben Levitan, joining me from Raleigh. He's at benlevitan.com. Ben, what is the name? I just want to say Dragnet, but I know that's not the correct name. The name of the device or the practice when police do a dragnet, basically, of all the cell phones that were in an area at a certain time. We would call it a cell tower dump. Okay, so if you connect to a cell tower, the cell tower, that's how you get your phone calls, Nancy. cell tower the cell tower uh that's how you get your phone calls dancy the phone company keeps track of where your cell tower is by your phone number and when you leave that cell tower we

deregister you from that cell tower and register you on the next cell tower so we want to know who was around bobby joe's house around the time of the crime. It's pretty easy to go talk to the phone company and say, could you dump a list of all the phone numbers that were here around this time? And what that gives you is a list of everybody who was in the area. The suspect could be in that area, but also witnesses could be in that area. Why isn't that used all the time? area, the suspect could be in that area, but also witnesses could be in that area. Why isn't that used all the time? Well, for one, there's probably some legal reasons, you know, lawyer, because it's very intensive, Nancy.

In an area like this with only 200 people, it's not going to be that onerous. But if you're talking about being in downtown Manhattan, how many thousands and thousands of people connect to a cell tower every hour? It's quite a bit. So a lot of times it's not useful, but in this case it would be useful if you could have a list of all the phones that were in the vicinity of the house at that time and could dump them, it would probably be a pretty simple matter to go through. Number one, you're looking for someone from out of town, so the area code and the phone

number are going to be different. And that's the first thing I would look for. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Guys, in the last hours, a stunning announcement has been made. The first female federal prisoner is set to be put to death. And now we're finding out why. First female prisoner in 70 years to be executed. Listen to our friend Kathleen Garrett. At 718 p.m., four hours after the 911 call, a forensic team begins a detailed sweep of the crime scene. It is the bloodiest one they have ever seen. Sergeant Dave Merrill, the highway patrol, started telling me investigators from Nottaway County had contacted him to borrow additional luminol to spray for blood.

Luminol is the chemical used to highlight blood and blood spatter. They wanted a quart or something, as much as they possibly could. That would be an exceptional amount of luminol used on a crime scene. There was a lot of blood that was lost. There was slippage.

You could see where they'd slipped on the floor, and they had wrestled around. And there were clots of blood the size of pop cans scattered around the room. The blood samples are rushed to the lab for DNA analysis. Bobby Joe's computer is sent to a computer forensic lab in Kansas City. But the crime scene yields few other clues. Okay, right there.

What does that mean? Dr. Kendall Crowns, Deputy Medical Examiner, Travis County, Texas. That's Austin. That there were clots of blood. The clots of blood are probably associated with the actual pregnancy. When the placenta is being removed and torn out of the body, you can get blood clots and also the fragments of placenta can be mistaken as blood clots. You know what, to you, Kathleen Murphy, North Carolina family lawyer, and family law is anything but family-like. It's like putting your hand between two fighting Rottweilers. Kathleen Murphy, just think about this. Think about this. Think about this.

What was done to this woman, a pregnant woman, I think she was eight or nine months pregnant. To me, that shows, you know, my point is in court, I know Jackie did and I did just then as Dr. Kendall Krause was describing why there were blood clots at the scene, not just freely flowing blood from her veins. You have to tell the jury that. You have to point that out to them in crime scene photos.

It is the duty of the prosecutor. There's no way around it, even as awful as it is. Why? You have to convince the jury of the trauma because they want that death penalty. They want to show how egregious. It's the truth. It is the truth. Have you ever had a case where the truth was awful and you did not want to describe it for a jury, but you had to? Whenever I went in front of the jury, I was no hope for. What do you mean? I went 100% to the truth and very descriptive and very clear. That was our job.

There's no way around it when they hear this. Guys, take a listen to FBI criminal pursuit. One of the first things that become obviously apparent to me was that there were ligature marks around her neck. I could see rope marks that were very visible pressed into her flesh that appeared to be a small cord of some type that had been rolled. And I could see three distinct marks that had been left in her neck. There are several jagged cut marks in Stinnett's lower abdomen where the baby was removed. And there's something else. When I looked at Bobby Joe's hands, there was hair there,

which indicated to me that Bobby Joe had probably grabbed a hold of her attacker. Some of it looked like it was Bobbie Jo's hair. Some of it did not. It's clear to everyone that the expectant mother fought for her child. She not only was trying to save her own life, she was trying to save Victoria Jo's life. She was struggling. She has defensive marks where her fingers were being cut. Her elbows, the skin was coming off her elbows trying to fight back.

Her feet were in a pool of blood and she was trying to save Victoria Jo's life. Okay, I need a medical examiner. Dr. Kendall Crowns, what are we hearing? Explain to me and break it down, please. We're not all medical doctors. Sure. So what I'm hearing is classic defensive type injuries. So as the individual is being stabbed, they try to protect themselves any way they can. You know, you don't have a knife yourself. So it even comes down to trying to grab the knife to just stop the attack. So you see these injuries on the hands and on the back of the arms as they're trying to protect themselves.

And then the hair fibers in the hands, I mean, at that point, it's fighting back is all she has left is grabbing the assailant's hair and then pulling the hair, just trying to stop the attack in any way she can. The fight of a lifetime. Bobbie Jo Stinnett waging war against her attacker to save not only her life, but the life of her baby. Back to you, Sierra Gillespie, CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter. How pregnant was Bobbie Jo Stinnett at age 23?

So she was eight months pregnant at the time of this attack. To you, Ben Levitan, I remembered the name of that device. It's called a stingray. A stingray. That's a whole other issue. What is that? Okay, so

when you use your cell phone, Nancy, you are connected up to the closest cell tower. You always connect to the closest cell tower, and that provides you a connection to the worldwide phone network. Well, now there's a controversial, and I have to say controversial, device out there that law enforcement uses. It's a mini cell tower. And this mini cell tower, they can drop it anywhere they want. And when they drop the cell tower in a neighborhood where they want to listen in on somebody, they just drop this device off on the street, and your phones all connect to this fake cell power and gives law enforcement the ability to wiretap you without getting a search warrant. So this is a little bit

Does it pick up all of the cell phone numbers that are being used in that area? It certainly does. It just, you have to understand, Nancy, that we put out cell towers based on the amount of people we think are going to be in the area. But suppose all of a sudden Atlanta decides to host the Olympics all of a sudden for a temporary amount of time. There's going to be millions of people in that area we don't expect and we can't build new cell towers. So what we do is bring in these little temporary cell towers to expand the coverage. I understand. I'm trying to think of a way that they could get all the cell phones that were used in this area in the time in question, particularly around the victim's house. In a scene like this, would you expect Chris Byers for there to be DNA from the defendant? Yeah, absolutely. When you're talking about a struggle like this,

I mean, they're talking about hair fibers and stuff in her hand. So yes, absolutely, there would be DNA. I would imagine on a scene just like this. With a blood-soaked scene, the police step back and punt using tried and true police techniques. Take a listen to FBI criminal pursuit.

Agents process Bobby Joe's computer to see if there are any clues that may lead them to her killer. Then Bobby Joe's mother, Becky Harper, reveals something important. Becky tells investigators that an unknown visitor was at Bobby Joe's house right before she was murdered. The person was interested in buying one of her rat terrier puppies. We knew that Bobby Joe received a phone call from her mother at 2.30,

during which time she says, I've got someone here looking at dogs. Could this customer be Bobby Joe's killer? Authorities interview Bobby Joe's neighbor who reports seeing a dirty pink or red car parked in front of Bobby Joe's house. He knows it was an import but can't recall the make or model. It was parked in front of Bobby Joe's house. He knows it was an import, but can't recall the make or model. It was parked in front of Bobby Joe's house. Probably the witness said it was there about 1230 and did not see when it left. Okay, right there, not only am I learning a lot, someone was in the home, but I'm getting a real time frame because now I'm learning the victim,

Bobbie Jo Stenon, age 23, eight months pregnant, is on the phone with her mother at 2.30 p.m. By 4.27, less than two hours later, she's pronounced dead. The mother, Becky Jo, has come home. She finds her daughter dead. She tries to revive her. She calls 911. The sheriffs get there. EMTs get there and she's declared dead. So you've got a two hour window. Now we learn there was a visitor in the home. I mean, Kathleen Murphy, I've argued this to juries before when the

defendant said, I didn't do it. What's the likelihood that in that, now we're down to about an hour and 40 minute window, that somebody else came in, murdered her, and escaped the scene with the baby unnoticed? That somebody else was there? What's the likelihood of that? It's very low. You're right. You're right. And especially with this town being as small as it is. So we're getting the other clue. We now know, Sierra Gillespie, CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter, that Bobby Jo bred rat terriers. So was that her business? That is correct.

So she and her husband bred these rat terriers out of their home. And she would advertise online. So very often she would be in these chat rooms. I mean, you have to remember this is 2004. The chat rooms are really popular. And that is where she would meet a lot of people who would be interested in the rat terriers, reach out and say, okay, I want to come by a puppy and stop by. Guys, chat rooms, online, right there.

I devoted a whole chapter of my new book, Don't Be a Victim, to online safety. Letting people you don't know come to your home, not blaming the victim. It's the fault of the killer. But in doing business out of your home, you're inviting complete unknowns into your home. Okay, guys, take a listen to Kathleen Garrett. He wanted the exact web address of the Breeders Board, which I gave him. And I spelled out Darlene Fisher and also her email address, which was Fisher4Kids, which I thought was rather odd because it sounded like she was fishing for a kid or a child.

I told them that the IP address appeared under every post and that I could give them the IP address. IP address is key information because there's only one computer. If we can trace that computer, as soon as we had that, I thought, if this baby's alive and Darlene Fisher is the one who took it, we can find her because we'll have her computer. Owen quickly traces the IP address to Darlene Fisher's internet provider.

I was able to determine it was assigned to Quest Communications out of Virginia. I passed that information on to Special Agent Lopanovich and he called me later and he had Quest Communications on the phone. I explained to them the nature of the situation that you had a murdered woman the fetus had been cut from her and they thought that the baby would be viable and that this was an emergency and we would provide them with paperwork, search warrant, grand jury subpoena down the road. And so they were very cooperative.

So they're looking for this name. It's like a needle in a haystack to you. Ben Levitan, what is an IP address? OK, this is really simple. You know that your phone has a specific phone number on the worldwide telephone network Nancy I can call you from anywhere in the world because I know your phone number mm-hmm now the Internet and you have a light point out yes you have okay go ahead now that's the phone network but there's also the Internet which is a data network, completely separate. Okay, this is completely separate.

And just like the phone network, every computer, every connection, wherever you connect to the Internet, that has a phone number, too. And that's called an IP address. For example, if I want to go to Crimes Online, Crimes Online is on a computer. Crime Online. Of course, Crime Online. Crime Online. If I want to go to Crime Online, I type that into my browser and say to see crime online what happens the first thing that happens is there's a the internet says well what's the IP

address for crime online so it so there's a directory out there and every website and has an address it looks up the address and it finds that it finds out what that IP address is an IP address is simply a phone number which will point you to connection on the internet now when you send us chat message to everybody in the chat room you send a message to the chat room and the chat room distributes distributes it to everybody that's in that chat room. How do they know? Well, they have a list of the IP addresses of everybody in that chat.

So it's like a phone number for computers. Now, the name that is coming up on this IP address is Darlene Fisher. But then old-fashioned police work comes into play and cops get a tip. Listen. A woman named Patsy Hughes claims that someone she knows, Lisa Montgomery, might have Bobby Joe's baby. Patsy Hughes knew Lisa Montgomery and had received a phone call from her saying that a baby has arrived. Lisa Montgomery's daughter was spending the night at Hughes' house when she heard that her mother had just had a baby. Okay, all right, bye.

What's so exciting? My mom just had her baby. Montgomery never looked pregnant, and Hughes has long been suspicious that she was faking it. She is also well aware that Bobby Joe's baby was stolen from her body. She was on these message boards and saw on the message board on December 17th,

someone had posted a message about Bobby Joe having been murdered. Hughes also reveals something shocking. Lisa Montgomery has something in common with Bobby Joe Stinnett. She's now showing Rat Terrier Dogs. She's in the Dog Circuit show. And it appears that she probably knows Bobby Joe. There you go.

Because when cops were looking at IP addresses and they find Darlene Fisher, that name didn't work. And then out of the blue, a woman named Patsy Hughes is piecing it together, an amateur sleuth. And it seems almost like that this woman, Lisa Montgomery, is not just taking the baby, but the life of Bobby Joe Stennett. Has she taken the baby and the life? She's now showing rat terriers on the dog circuit. From what I understand, it's a very close-knit circuit. Kathleen Murphy, just imagine it. You deal with people all day long taking this stand.

It's like a very close-knit group. These people, just think about the Westminster Dog Show. They all know each other. They see the same faces every year. Like at the courthouse, I'd see the same parade of defense attorneys, the same judges, the same experts. No offense, Dr. Kendall Crowns and Ben Levitan. You'd see the same group. That's the way the dog circuit is. And now suddenly this woman, Lisa Montgomery, is showing rat terriers just like Bobby Joe Stinnett. What about it, Kathleen?

I think these amateur sleuths are amazing. It's incredible. I think for them to follow that story and reach out to the police. Like last night, I just saw a Law & Order episode where someone was being assaulted, but everybody in the city kind of closed their curtains and walked away. But when people stand up and say, this is what I know. Wait, wait, wait. You were watching what?

Law & Order. Okay. You do know that's not real, right? That's pretend. Okay. Chief Chris Byers. I'll quickly move on to our police chief, former police chief from Johns Creek. Chief, how often has an amateur sleuth, a civilian, just as Kathleen Murphy is saying, cracked a case for you.

Oh, so many times, you know, all these technological advances in society have helped us with investigations, you know, and it's increased our time and being able to solve them quicker. But there's nothing like having a witness like that. So many people that just get involved in these things and piece things together that, you know, law enforcement is looking at some very specific things and so may miss some of these connections. So yeah, it's a, that's a, that's an amazing resource to have out there and we see how it works in this

case. Man, you're not kidding. Take a listen to solved. The morning after the murder, a team of police and FBI investigators are pursuing their best lead. An internet address traced to a computer that's connected to a phone line in a small town in Kansas. Quest Communications comes back and they're able to tell me the customer's name is Kevin Montgomery and he lives at a specific address in Melbourne, Kansas. With the information we had, we now knew we had a name,

we had a physical address in Kansas, so now we had a good lead to actually go to to see if we could physically find a baby. Almost simultaneously, investigators receive another tip pointing to Melbourne. It has to do with a woman who, let's just say that suddenly has a baby she'd been claiming she was pregnant someone didn't really think she was pregnant the woman's name is lisa montgomery that very morning good right same time both together the fbi guy says lisa montgomery and my dispatch lady says l Lisa Montgomery says, well, bingo.

Guys, she's already showing off the new baby girl. To Dr. Kendall Crowns, Deputy Chief Medical Examiner, joining us out of Austin. Can you look, how do you look at a baby and tell it's newborn? Usually when you're looking at a baby the newborns are just smaller and they uh uh i think that is basically it they're smaller compared to a a more adult baby i can't think of anything else to really say no they still have their their umbilical cord is still attached oh well i guess if uh you're talking right after birth, yeah, they would have the stump of the umbilical cord will be there and it'll dry off and fall out. But usually most

people don't see that when they're looking at them. To Sierra Gillespie, CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter, the victim had hair in her hands, just as Dr. Kendall Crowns pointed out. Who did it match? The hair ended up matching Lisa Montgomery. When police get there and they see Lisa Montgomery, they see that it is streaked blonde, just like the hair in the victim's hands. To Sierra Gillespie, tell me about, of course, after the jury convicted Lisa Montgomery, what is the mode of death penalty? She will receive lethal injections. This is the first federal female execution in 70 years. Sierra, did the baby go on to thrive and live?

Nancy, this is the most miraculous thing about this story. Yes, she did. Born the same day her mother died. Victoria Jo is her name, and she's now 16 years old. She was returned to her father, and she survived and was healthy. And just so you know, the baby had cut marks on it as well, but miraculously survived. We wait as justice unfolds. Nancy Grace, Crime Story, signing off. Goodbye, friend. You're listening to an iHeart Podcast.