Murder In The Heartland. M. William Phelps
in law enforcement knew for sure if Bobbie Jo’s assailant had taken any of those precautions. They were assuming that whoever had taken the child was in a state of panic. Under those circumstances, anything could happen.
If the child was healthy and had survived the delivery without any lacerations or serious injuries, authorities believed Bobbie Jo’s attacker had chosen to take the child at the perfect time, a factor that was likely a big part of the reason Bobbie was chosen as a victim in the first place.
“A lot of young pregnant women go into labor at thirty-seven to thirty-eight weeks,” Chruma added. “Maybe Lisa Montgomery had a feeling she needed to wait until thirty-six weeks’ gestation for a healthy baby, but not too long after, or Bobbie Jo would have gone to the hospital already. A little planning on her part, perhaps?”
After all the evidence was collected, there would be little doubt in the government’s opinion that Lisa had planned on taking Bobbie Jo’s child for at least one month prior to Bobbie Jo’s murder. The very nature of the crime required premeditation and planning. How could Bobbie Jo’s attacker know, for example, Zeb would be at work? And, how could she know no one else would be at Bobbie Jo’s home when she arrived?
Ben Espey considered that whoever had gone to such great lengths to murder Bobbie Jo and cut her child from her womb had probably done a bit of research about how to keep the child alive. At least that’s what he hoped as he faced a full night of searching.
20
Bobbie Jo Stinnett’s killer had a thirty-minute jump on law enforcement, enough time to get away without anyone noticing. Driving to Melvern, Kansas, where she lived, couldn’t have been a trip Lisa Montgomery had plotted out in advance. With a three-and-a-half-hour car ride ahead of her on a good day, without any traffic or car problems, she had to maintain the health of a baby, who had been born prematurely out of a hospital, as she drove.
By the time Ben Espey sent word out regarding what had happened, Lisa was not heading into Melvern, however. She was on her way to Topeka, Kansas, where, authorities say, she would put the second part of her plan in to effect.
Still a long trip, at two-and-a-half hours, Topeka was a town Lisa had chosen as part of her after-the-kidnapping plan because she would have to, at some point, explain to her husband, Kevin, that she’d given birth to their child. She couldn’t just show up at home with her. He would wonder: Why didn’t you call from the hospital?
She had to prepare a story explaining the birth. Kevin and two of her own children would play roles in the scenario she planned.
21
Beyond trying to cut through the red tape of getting an Amber Alert issued, Sheriff Ben Espey had several other problems as the critical hours after the murder ticked away. Most important, he had to rally several different law enforcement agencies and undertake the daunting task of knocking on doors in Skidmore, with the hope of gathering as much information as he could about the last minutes of Bobbie Jo’s life.
While Espey was in the investigation room in the basement of the Nodaway County Sheriff’s Department, filling his blackboard with information, a lead came in that seemed, at least on the surface, extremely promising. The first twenty-four to forty-eight hours of any investigation are vital to solving the case. With an infant born prematurely—and under the most inhumane circumstances imaginable—time becomes your biggest opponent. Espey hoped someone in the neighborhood had seen something, anything. The murderer was, likely, covered with blood—maybe the baby, too. There was also an indication the murderer had blond hair. Crime-scene technicians had uncovered several strands of blond hair from both of Bobbie Jo’s hands.
Then a call came into the sheriff’s department regarding a resident at a nearby nursing home who supposedly had been involved in selling black-market babies for $6,000 each. Espey sent two deputies to fetch the man. When they got him back to the department, however, they realized immediately that getting anything out of him was going to be almost impossible, or at least a long, tedious process that would eat up crucial hours they didn’t have to spare.
“The guy was a deaf mute. I had to sit,” explained Espey, “and write out all of my questions to him. We spent all night trying to get things out of him.”
While that was happening, Espey had to brief the media, who were clamoring for a story. He stepped out from the basement of the department and held a short press conference in the back parking lot of the station.
“Someone was wanting a baby awful bad,” Espey said. “The victim was killed no more than an hour before she was found. She may have struggled with her killer…. Blondhair was found in her hands.”
Reporters shot questions at Espey in rapid-fire succession. He could give out only certain information. The investigation was ongoing. A killer was at large. A baby was missing. Compromising the investigation at such an early stage by giving out the wrong information was something Espey didn’t want to do. “There were no visible signs of forced entry into the home,” added Espey when pressed.
Reaffirming that the investigation was multipronged, Espey commended the many different law enforcement agencies helping out, “all over northwestern Missouri,” including the St. Joseph Police Department (PD) nearby, which had sent in a CSI team. “They are very well-trained…and very good.”
Espey made it clear Bobbie Jo’s husband, Zeb, was no longer considered a suspect, because he had an alibi: he was working at Kawasaki Motors when the murder occurred and had several witnesses to confirm his whereabouts.
Eight FBI agents were sent to the region and became part of the task force. A murder committed in the course of a kidnapping was a federal crime, especially with a suspect possibly crossing state lines.
As Espey saw it, the FBI’s presence early on was a godsend—specifically two agents who arrived hours after the murder.
Outside the department, on the street, Espey was still briefing reporters. “The doctors who examined Bobbie Jo gave us information indicating we probably would have a live child if we could find her….”
As twilight turned the Missouri sky as black as the ocean floor, police in Atchison County, Missouri, radioed in a report of sighting a “red car.” They were in pursuit of it.
Could it be?
But as cops tailed the car, they couldn’t get a good bead on the driver. As they approached the car to get a closer look, the driver turned off the headlights and, racing along the back roads of northwestern Missouri, took a turn into the woods alongside the main road. Within minutes, it vanished.
A glimmer of hope for Bobbie Jo’s family was gone as quickly as it came in. It would be the beginning of a long night of highs and lows for Ben Espey, as varying reports flooded the system.
“That red car in Atchison County,” said Espey, “that wasn’t our car. I knew it right away.” He could feel it, he said.
Espey had his own hunch about the case he was about to follow through on—a gut feeling that, in the end, would help solve the case.
22
Police in Topeka had the description Espey sent out via teletype and were combing the region for a “red, dirty car with an H on the hood.”
Lisa Montgomery worked her way through busy downtown Topeka, weaving in and out of traffic. By this point, anyone with a television set or radio knew what had happened in Skidmore. A woman with a newborn, a baby possibly bloodied and hurt, likely purplish in color, would stand out. Yet beyond escaping capture, Lisa soon had to face her husband and explain how she’d given birth to their child without letting him know she’d even gone into labor. Certainly he’d have questions.
While driving through a seedy section of town, filled with dingy bars, Laundromats, and check-cashing stores, Lisa drove past the Birth and Women’s Center on SW Sixth Avenue and slowed her car. She saw the Birth and Women’s Center sign written in white paint on the blue tarp overhanging the doorway. Directly across