Lisa Montgomery was executed by lethal injection in January 2021, becoming the first woman put to death by the U.S. federal government in nearly 70 years. Her crime shocked the nation in 2004, when she brutally murdered Bobbie Jo Stinnett, a pregnant dog breeder, by strangling her and cutting the fetus from her womb. Although Stinnett died, the baby survived and was later reunited with her family.
Montgomery’s troubled past included severe mental illness and a history of physical and sexual abuse dating back to her childhood. Experts testified that she suffered from psychosis and brain damage caused by trauma, but these arguments did not prevent her death sentence. Her lawyers argued her execution was unconstitutional because she could not fully understand her punishment.
On this #WorldDayAgainstTheDeathPenalty, we are focused on the invisible reality of women sentenced to death. I’m thinking about Lisa Montgomery. Lisa’s entire life was a tragedy from before she left her mother’s womb until the federal government killed her this past January. pic.twitter.com/t7HEZGWaWx
— Sister Helen Prejean (@helenprejean) October 10, 2021
As the execution began, witnesses recall a guard gently lifting Montgomery’s face mask to ask for last words. She responded with a soft, quiet “No.” The decision to execute her was met with both outrage and sorrow, highlighting deep debates over mental health and justice in death penalty cases.
The U.S. government executed convicted murderer Lisa Montgomery, the only woman on federal death row https://t.co/YCOFlLm9Bp pic.twitter.com/owsRsangrl
— Reuters (@Reuters) January 13, 2021
Her case drew widespread attention because federal executions had been halted for nearly two decades before resuming in 2020, and her was the first female execution at the federal level since 1953. Despite legal challenges and pleas for clemency, Montgomery died at the Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute, Indiana, marking a grim milestone in American penal history.
