Execution is back on the calendar for Melvern resident Lisa Montgomery after her attorneys recently contracted coronavirus.
US District Judge Randolph Moss has delayed the execution to Jan. 12. The execution was originally coming Dec. 8, but federal public defense attorneys Kelley Henry and Amy Harwell recently came down with COVID-19.
The defense team had been working with Montgomery on a clemency petition, citing what they say is severe mental illness and her history as a victim of gang rape, incest and child sex trafficking. The judge in the case has set Dec. 30 as the date for submitting that petition.
Montgomery killed Bobbie Jo Stinnett in December 2004 after Montgomery drove to Missouri, ostensibly to buy a puppy. Montgomery tried to pass the baby off as her own after killing Stinnett but later confessed to the crime. She was convicted in 2007.
The last federal female inmate to be executed was Bonnie Heady after a kidnapping and murder incident in Missouri in the early 1950s.
