Suspect's friends wonder if they should've seen signs

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- In the community of dog breeders where Bobbie Jo Stinnett was well liked and respected for her knowledge of rat terriers, the feelings held about Lisa Montgomery were quite different.

People were skeptical about some of the things Montgomery said in her postings on Internet message boards -- including claims she was pregnant. Jason Dawson, a 29-year-old dog breeder from Kansas City, said Montgomery "made some enemies with her lies."

"She had burned some bridges, lying about some of the stuff she was doing with her breeding," he said.

The lies went deeper, according to her ex-husband. Montgomery often faked being pregnant to get attention -- even though she had her tubes tied 14 years ago. His attorney said she made a similar claim in a custody case years ago.

"She didn't seem like she was all there," said lawyer James R. Campbell, of Burlington, Kan.

Federal prosecutors have charged Montgomery, 36, with strangling 23-year-old Bobbie Jo Stinnett, eight months pregnant with her first child, and cutting the baby from her womb in an attack last week at Stinnett's home in Skidmore. The baby, named Victoria Jo Stinnett by her father, Zeb, was found in good health Friday in Melvern, Kan., and left the hospital on Monday.

Investigators have said Montgomery confessed to the crime, and she is scheduled to make a second appearance in a federal court today. A message left Wednesday with Montgomery's public defender was not immediately returned.

Montgomery and her current husband, Kevin, spent part of Friday morning showing the baby off as their own at a diner in Melvern and at the home of their minister. Dawson said Montgomery had posted computer messages claiming she was due in December with twins. Later, she said she lost one of the babies.

Such news would have come as a surprise to Montgomery's former husband, Carl Boman, of Bartlesville, Okla. He told Kansas City television station WDAF-TV that Montgomery has been incapable of having a baby since having her tubes tied in 1990 after delivering the couple's youngest daughter.

"She never was pregnant," Boman told WDAF. "Anything they're buying about a lost baby, a miscarriage, all of it's a lie. Since 1990, she has never been pregnant."

Boman married Montgomery -- then Lisa Kleiner -- in 1986 in Cleveland, Okla., Campbell said. The two were divorced in Bartlesville in 1994, then remarried four months later in Springdale, Ark. The two were divorced again in 1998 in New Mexico, and Montgomery married her current husband in 2000.

Boman told WDAF that Montgomery probably became so wrapped up in her pregnancy story she needed to come up with a baby to save face.

"I believe it drove her, this fact that she didn't want to be proven wrong in this situation," Boman said. "People were looking at her like something wasn't quite right."

John H. Wisner, a forensic psychiatrist at the University of Kansas Medical Center in Kansas City, Kan., said on the surface, it sounds like Montgomery has some mental health issues.

"Stealing other people's children is common enough that it's in the Bible," he said. "Usually people who do it have a personality disorder and a need to have the kinds of psychological goodies they perceive as going along with pregnancy."

In psychology, he said, there's not much difference between stealing a person's child and killing that person.

"The baby is not important," Wisner said. "They want an accessory, like a car, and don't care who they hurt to get it. Legally there's a big difference, but psychologically there's a fairly small difference between the two things."

Dawson said Montgomery frequently sought attention from others on the message boards and sometimes became upset when she didn't get it.

He said he had met Montgomery in person and often chatted with her online. From those conversations, he learned that besides the dogs, she also raised large animals such as goats -- including breeding them and delivering their offspring.

Dawson said a woman who identified herself as Darlene Fischer contacted him the day before Stinnett's death, asking him where in northern Missouri she could find someone who raises rat terriers. He said the woman claimed to be from England and was now living in Missouri with her husband.

"She asked me a ton of questions about puppies and played along like a regular puppy buyer," Dawson said. "She knew I would refer her to Bobbie. She said she had two kids who would love a puppy for Christmas. I was trying to help her out."

Investigators traced Fischer's message to Montgomery's computer in Kansas. They said Montgomery used the fake name when she got directions from Stinnett on how to get to her Skidmore home.

"She was one of the few people who didn't have any grudges against anybody," Dawson said of Stinnett. "She was a real down-to-earth, great young lady."