KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A coalition of more than 1,000 supporters on Wednesday urged President Donald Trump to stop the execution of a Kansas woman who killed an expectant mother, citing horrific abuse and mental illness.
Lisa Montgomery, 52, would be the first woman executed by the federal government in 67 years. She is scheduled to die by lethal injection Dec. 8.
Montgomery, from Melvern, Kansas, was convicted in 2007 of strangling 23-year-old Bobbie Jo Stinnett in northwest Missouri, cutting her unborn baby from her womb and kidnapping the baby. The child was later found safe.
The coalition of supporters includes prosecutors, anti-sex trafficking and anti-domestic violence groups, child advocates and mental health groups, according to a news release issued Wednesday. In a series of letters, they asked for Trump to grant clemency to Montgomery.
In one letter, signed by more than 800 people and organizations, the authors said Montgomery's mother abused alcohol during her pregnancy, which resulted in permanent brain damage.
"While her experiences of victimization and mental illness do not excuse her crime, they do help to explain what otherwise seems unimaginable," the group wrote. "Lisa has experienced a life-time of punishment and it is now time for mercy."
A group of 41 current and former prosecutors wrote in a letter that her "extreme suffering and abuse" weigh in favor of clemency.
"Lisa's experiences as a victim of horrific sexual violence, physical abuse, and being trafficked as a child do not excuse her crime," the group wrote. "But her history provides us with an important explanation that would influence any sentencing recommendation we made as prosecutors."
The prosecutors wrote that mental health professionals found Montgomery's crime was directly linked to the cruelty she went through.
Montgomery is the only woman among the 55 prisoners on federal death row.
In another letter, two former prosecutors outlined two separate, but similar, cases, in which the women received lengthy prison sentences: one was 30 years to life, the other a 100-year sentence.
A letter from the National Council for Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls said Montgomery's death would "prove the ultimate failure of the system that was meant to protect Lisa as an abused and tortured child." That would have likely saved Stinnett's life too, the letter continued.
Montgomery's execution won't bring back Stinnett, the authors wrote. Instead, "It will only add to the immeasurable grief that this case has already caused."
