• Suspect in gruesome crime
Dec. 20: A woman accused of killing a pregnant woman and stealing the baby from her womb faces charges of kidnapping and murder. NBC's Kevin Corke reports.
Today show

Suspect in death
of mother-to-be
said to confess
Investigators followed digital trail to discovery
NBC News and news services
Updated: 7:46 p.m. ET Dec. 20, 2004KANSAS CITY, Mo. - In the end, it wasn’t a fingerprint or a blood spatter that led authorities to the woman suspected of strangling a mother-to-be and cutting the baby from her womb.

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It was an 11-digit computer code.

Police zeroed in on Lisa Montgomery in the most 21st century of ways, by trolling computer records, examining online message boards and — most important — tracing an IP address, 65.150.168.223, to a computer at her Melvern, Kan., home.

“That in and of itself led us to the home,” Jeff Lanza, an FBI spokesman here said of the IP, or Internet protocol, address, the unique number given to every Internet-connected computer.

Investigators say that just before the slaying, Montgomery had corresponded over the Internet with the victim, Bobbie Jo Stinnett, about buying a dog from Stinnett. The same technology that makes instantaneous communication possible enabled authorities to crack the case in a matter of hours and rescue the premature baby.

First court appearance
Montgomery, 36, made a first appearance Monday before a packed courtroom in Kansas City, Kan., where her attorney refused to waive her right to preliminary and identity hearings. Both hearings have been scheduled for Thursday morning.

Montgomery is charged with kidnapping resulting in death. Her attorney, Charles Dedmon, would not comment after the hearing.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Terra Morehead also declined to comment, but authorities have said Montgomery confessed to the crime. The 4-day-old girl was released from a hospital in Topeka, Kan., on Monday. Hospital officials did not release any other details at the request of the family.

The suspect’s husband, Kevin Montgomery, told reporters outside the courthouse he knew nothing about his wife’s alleged actions. He has not been charged with any wrongdoing.

“My family has suffered a tragedy, but I am not the only family,” he said. “This has to be as hard or harder on them as it is on me. I sure hope they get as much support from their church and community as I have because we are all going to need it.”

Computer was a key
Within hours of Stinnett’s killing Thursday at her Skidmore, Mo., home, investigators realized the potential information her computer could hold in finding her killer.

Stinnett, 23, raised rat terrier dogs at home and had been expecting a potential customer the afternoon she was killed. In fact, she had to get off the phone with her mother because the customer was at the door, according to investigators.

When Stinnett’s body was discovered, detectives collected not just physical evidence; they also took her computer.

Besides trying to find the killer, investigators were racing against time to find the baby, who was one month premature when she was cut from her mother’s belly and, it was feared, may have suffered oxygen deprivation or other trauma when her mother was strangled.

‘Please get in touch with me’
At the lab, clues seemed to pour out of the computer within minutes — who Stinnett had been e-mailing, what sites she had been visiting. Important tips from the public came in, too. Among them: a North Carolina dog breeder pointed to communications on a rat terrier message board.



• Digital breadcrumbs
MSNBC.com's Bob Sullivan talks about the Internet's role in the arrest of Lisa Montgomery.
MSNBC


“My adrenaline just started rushing,” said the breeder, Dyanne Siktar. “I knew they could track the IP.”

It turned out that at 4:22 p.m. on Wednesday, the day before Stinnett’s slaying, someone identifying herself as Darlene Fischer posted a message to the victim on a rat terrier message board. “Please get in touch with me soon as we are considering the purchase of one of your puppies,” it said.

About an hour later, Stinnett communicated with Fischer for about 20 minutes, investigators said. Then, at 7:44 p.m., Stinnett posted a message to Fischer: “I’ve e-mailed you with the directions so we can meet. I do so hope that the e-mail reaches you. Great chatting with you on messenger. And do look forward to chatting with you tomorrow a.m.”

From dial-up to discovery
Investigators traced Fischer’s IP address back to a dial-up connection from Montgomery’s home in Melvern, about 120 miles southwest of Skidmore. On Friday, less than 24 hours after the slaying, investigators found the baby, Victoria Jo, at the home and arrested Montgomery.

As for how the killer knew Stinnett was about to become a mother, Stinnett had a Web site about her dogs that investigators said may have included a picture of Stinnett pregnant. The FBI would not comment on whether the pair had ever met before last week, or how the killer knew Stinnett was still pregnant.

Experts say IP addresses are not foolproof; they can be made up, like nearly anything else in the Internet age. But they often are part of a package of evidence that can lead to a conviction.


“Quite often, in the past, detectives would walk past the computers at the crime scene and look at the hairs and fibers and fingerprints,” said FBI agent Tom Maiorana, director of the bureau’s Regional Computer Forensic Laboratory here. “Now we’re seizing the computers and finding out a tremendous amount of information about the lives of the people involved.”

Neighbors in mourning
In the small northwestern Missouri town of Skidmore, the minister who presided over Stinnett’s wedding last year is offering his services at her funeral on Tuesday.

“They were kids in the neighborhood, nice young kids,” said the Rev. Harold Hamon of Skidmore Christian Church. “She’s just a real nice girl, real pretty, quiet and reserved.”

Hamon said he was probably addressing Christmas cards when Stinnett was killed at her home in Skidmore while her husband, Zeb, was at work. A short time later, a member of his congregation called to say she had heard an ambulance and wondered if anyone near the church was hurt. Hamon said he looked out the window and saw police cars parked in front of Stinnett’s house.

‘Right under your nose ... ’
“It’s almost unbelievable that right under your nose something terrible can be happening,” Hamon said.

Montgomery, a mother of two, lied to family and friends about being pregnant with twins and suffering a miscarriage, investigators said. Detectives doubt she was pregnant at all.

• ‘A lot of work left for us’
Dec. 20: Todd Graves, U.S. attorney for the Western District of Missouri, talks with "Today" show anchor Katie Couric about the gruesome murder of a pregnant woman and the kidnapping of her child.
Today show



She met her husband at a Topeka fast-food restaurant with Stinnett’s baby, telling him she had gone into labor while shopping in the city, authorities said.

Todd Graves, U.S. attorney for the Western District of Missouri, told NBC's “Today” show he’s not aware if Montgomery had any history of mental illness but says the investigation is still in its early stages.

A few similar cases have been reported in the past. Two of the most highly publicized were in 1987, when Cindy Lynn Ray, who was 8½ months pregnant, was abducted and slain in Albuquerque, N.M., and in 1995, when Debra Evans, nine months pregnant, was slain in Addison, Ill. In both cases, infants were cut from their wombs and kidnapped.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.