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Following immense backlash, Lisa Montgomery, the only woman on death row, has been executed today following a last-minute U-turn.
And now, her final moments before receiving the lethal injection have been revealed by a witness…
This is the first time in nearly 7 decades that the U.S. government has put a female inmate to death.
Montgomery was initially meant to be executed last month, however, her lawyers had managed to have her execution postponed.
But why exactly was she given the death penalty in the first place?
Well, it’s because of the 2004 murder of Bobbie Jo Stinnett in the northwest Missouri town of Skidmore.
Bobbie Jo Stinnett was just twenty-three-years-old at the time of her murder…
And was also 8 months pregnant.
Montgomery strangled Stinnett from behind using a rope…
She then used a kitchen knife to remove the baby girl from her womb.
Unbelievably, the baby survived.
And, to make this case even more shocking, Montgomery took the child and attempted to pass her off as her own.
And was returned to the father.
Details of the crime left jurors in tears at various points during her trial.
Prosecutors at the time told the jury that Montgomery drove about 170 miles from her Melvern, Kansas, farmhouse to the northwest Missouri town of Skidmore under the guise of adopting a rat terrier puppy from Stinnett.
There, she strangled Stinnett, performing a cesarean and fleeing with the baby.
Prosecutors said Stinnett regained consciousness and even tried to defend herself as Montgomery cut the baby girl from her womb.
Later that day, Montgomery called her husband to pick her up from the parking lot of a Long John Silver’s in Topeka, Kansas, telling him she had delivered the baby earlier in the day at a nearby birthing center.
Montgomery was arrested the next day…
After showing off the premature infant, who is now sixteen and has not spoken out publicly about the tragedy.
Prosecutors argued the motive for the murder was that Montgomery’s ex-husband knew she had undergone a procedure that made her sterile and had planned to reveal she was lying about being pregnant in order to get custody of 2 of their 4 children.
Needing a baby before the court date, Montgomery turned her focus to Stinnett, whom she had met at dog shows, as per The New York Post.
Montgomery’s lawyers wanted the case to be reviewed…
More specifically, one of Montgomery’s lawyers, Meaghan VerGow, said her team planned to ask for the full appeals court to review the case.
Her legal team managed to put forward a big argument.
Claiming that Montgomery suffered from serious mental illness following years of mental abuse.
More specifically, her team said she suffered “sexual torture,” including gang rapes, as a child…
As a result, they said this permanently scarred her emotionally as well as exacerbating existing mental-health issues that ran in her family.
However, at trial, prosecutors accused Montgomery of faking mental illness…
Arguing that her murder of Stinnett was premeditated and consisted of meticulous planning, including online research on how to perform a C-section.
The government acknowledged Montgomery’s mental issues…
But disputed that she couldn’t comprehend her execution for killing another person because of them.
An appeals court granted Montgomery a stay of execution on Tuesday, shortly after another appeals court lifted an Indiana judge’s ruling that found she was likely mentally ill and couldn’t comprehend that she would be put to death.
However both appeals were lifted, allowing the execution to go forward.
The fifty-two-year-old was pronounced dead at 1.31 a.m. Wednesday…
After receiving the lethal injection at the federal prison complex in Terre Haute, Indiana, making her the eleventh prisoner to receive a lethal injection there since July when President Donald Trump resumed federal executions.
“The craven bloodlust of a failed administration was on full display tonight,” Montgomery’s attorney, Kelley Henry, said in a statement.
“Everyone who participated in the execution of Lisa Montgomery should feel shame.”
She continued.
“The government stopped at nothing in its zeal to kill this damaged and delusional woman,” Henry added. “Lisa Montgomery’s execution was far from justice.”
And now, a witness has spoken out about what happened in her final moments.
Michael Tarm, a legal writer present at the execution, said that Montgomery remained calm and silent before the procedure.
“As the execution process began, a female executioner standing over #LisaMontgomery’s shoulder, leaned over, gently removed Montgomery’s face mask and asked her if she had any last words,” Tarm reported.
To which, Montgomery refused.
“‘No,’ Montgomery responded in a quiet, muffled voice. She said nothing else.”
As per TIME, Montgomery looked “bewildered” at the journalists watching from behind a glass window and “tapped her fingers nervously” before closing her eyes to die.
“As the lethal injection began, at around 1:18 a.m., Montgomery kept licking her lips and gasped briefly as the pentobarbital entered her body through IVs on both arms.”
“A few minutes later, her midsection throbbed for a moment, but quickly stopped.”
Her death has been met with outrage from many on social media, who state she shouldn’t have been put to death due to severe mental illness and childhood trauma.
Make sure to stay posted for more updates on this story.
