Excerpt: 'Murder in the Heartland'

June 7, 2006 — -- In December 2004, Bobbie Jo Stinnett -- eight months pregnant with her first child -- opened the door of her Missouri home to a woman she believed wanted to purchase a dog from her breeding service.

The woman, Lisa Montgomery, didn't want a dog, though. She wanted Stinnett's unborn child.

Montgomery allegedly strangled Stinnett and removed a healthy baby girl from her womb with a knife. Montgomery passed the baby off as her own until she was caught by police and allegedly confessed. She is currently in prison, awaiting trail.

In his new book, "Murder in the Heartland," M. William Phelps traces the grisly crime and the motives that drove Montgomery.

You can read an excerpt from the book below.

Prologue: Desperation

On December 13, 2004, Lisa Montgomery e-mailed her ex-husband, Carl Boman, about picking up their children. Carl and Lisa had been divorced (a second time) for five years. They lived hundreds of miles apart, in different states. Weekend visitations had become a tangled mess of changed times and dates, failed promises, and heated arguments--all brought on, Carl insisted, by his ex-wife.

"You can pick the kids up at 7am on Christmas morning," wrote Lisa.

She wanted the children home by eight o'clock on Christmas night, she then demanded. On top of that, Lisa didn't want her mother, Judy Shaughnessy, to see the children. She was adamant: "They are not to go out to [her] house."

Carl Boman had never intended to stop by his ex-mother-in-law's. The stipulation was, he said, just one more way for Lisa to wield some sort of control over the situation, as she, reluctantly, handed the kids over to him.

Throughout the e-mail, Lisa ranted and raved about the children's wants and needs, what Carl could and could not do. Looking at the e-mail later that night, it occurred to Carl that Lisa was doing the same thing she had done for the past ten years: manipulating and controlling the situation. In his opinion, all she had ever done was "spread hate and lies," said Carl, "and cause problems by making up stories." About him. Her current husband. The kids. Her mother. Sisters.

Ever herself.

Lately, she had been fabricating a story about her being pregnant. She had been telling people she was carrying twins, but had lost one child the previous month. The second child, she claimed, was healthy and due on December 13. To prove it, she had an ultrasound photograph and a nursery set up in her house. She'd gone to doctor appointments. Bought the child clothing and toys.