Defense says Montgomery was unhappy, abused child

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Attorneys for a woman accused of killing an expectant mother and cutting the baby from her womb began their case Friday, focusing on Lisa Montgomery's unhappy childhood.

Montgomery's father, John Patterson, testified that he left his wife and children when Montgomery was 3 or 4 years old. Patterson said he was an alcoholic and that his wife, Judy Shaughnessy, drank heavily and cheated on him frequently.

Patterson also said he was serving in the military and was frequently out of the country. After a final attempt at reconciliation failed, he said, the Army sent him to Germany.

Earlier in the day, prosecutors rested their case against Montgomery, who is accused of killing Bobbie Jo Stinnett and taking the baby on Dec. 16, 2004. Montgomery has pleaded not guilty, and her lawyers are pursuing an insanity defense.

Part of that defense is that Montgomery was abused and raped by her stepfather, Jack Kleiner, during her childhood and was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.

In a videotaped deposition Friday, Kleiner denied the accusations, as well as claims he hit his wife and spanked his children on their bare buttocks.

Later, presented with a transcript of his and Shaughnessy's divorce proceedings during which he had admitted some abuse, Kleiner said he didn't have a good memory.

"I guess I said it; I guess so," said Kleiner, who was too sick to travel to Kansas City.

In another videotaped deposition, Lewis Priest, of Tulsa, Okla., said the couple came to him one day and asked for a place for Kleiner to stay. He said Shaughnessy had caught Kleiner in bed with Lisa, then in her early teens.

Priest died of cancer two weeks after the deposition was recorded this summer.

Kleiner denied Priest's accusations as well.

Prosecutors allege Montgomery, 39, had been faking a pregnancy for about nine months when she drove to Stinnett's home in Skidmore and strangled the 23-year-old dog breeder.

Sgt. Randy Strong, an investigator with the Maryville police department, was one of the first investigators to enter Montgomery's home in Melvern, Kan., on Dec. 17, 2004, where he found Montgomery sitting on the couch holding a baby. He said Montgomery initially denied even knowing about Stinnett's death or that a baby was missing from Skidmore.

But after being questioned at a police annex in Lyndon, Kan., Montgomery eventually looked at the floor and said, "You have Bobbie Jo's baby," Strong said.