Читать книгу Murder In The Heartland - M. William Phelps - Страница 16

Bobbie Jo Stinnett was under the impression she and Darlene Fischer had just met. But Darlene had met Bobbie Jo back in April 2004 at a dog show in Abilene, Kansas. Since that day, they had spoken online a number of times. Yet, she hadn’t introduced herself as Darlene Fischer—instead, she went by her real name.

Lisa Montgomery.

The use of two names seemed to fit into what some later claimed was a “split personality” Lisa Montgomery had developed during the six months before she showed up at Bobbie Jo’s house in Skidmore. “Lisa lied so much,” recalled one family member, “she believed her own lies. This is why I feel she has a split personality: her other ‘self’—or ‘others’—took over at some point.”

After the dog show in Abilene, Bobbie Jo had become friends with Lisa’s youngest daughter, Kayla. Bobbie Jo and Kayla corresponded online through e-mail and instant messaging quite frequently. Kayla admired Bobbie Jo. Even loved her, she said.

“The last time I talked to Bobbie Jo,” recalled Kayla, “…she was ecstatic about having her baby. She had a name picked out for quite some time…. She was telling me how [the baby] would sleep in their room (as they had a small house) until they could find a bigger house. I know Bobbie Jo would have been one awesome mother to that sweet little baby.”

So why was Lisa Montgomery disguising herself as Darlene Fischer? Why hide behind a false identity? Wouldn’t Bobbie Jo recognize Darlene as Lisa as soon as she answered the door? Wouldn’t it put Lisa in an awkward position?

It was indeed an odd circumstance that Lisa Montgomery put herself in: one more piece of the puzzle that wouldn’t make sense later when people learned of the unfathomable horror that was about to take place inside Bobbie Jo’s little farmhouse.

The corn and soybean fields stretch along Highway 113 far beyond where any of Skidmore’s 342 residents can see. In some areas, the vast flatness of the land runs adjacent to roadways made of gravel, cement, and blacktop, while rolling hills disappear into the horizon. Skidmore is a picturesque parcel of untarnished landscape, tucked in the corner of a state most locals feel blessed to call home.

“Skidmore ain’t dun changed in, I dunno, a hundred years,” said one local. “Same ol’ town here’a.”

The town is full of kind and generous people. Among the tumbleweeds, farmhouses, clapboard ranches, windmills, and one water tower, crime generally involves the theft of a John Deere tractor or a few kids popping out streetlights after lifting their daddy’s shotgun. When the lights go out and the moon settles over the rolling meadows bordering the town, beyond the subtle hum of a chorus of crickets, the only sound coming from town might be the echo of a dog’s lonesome bark or the drunken laughter of a local sippin’ whiskey, swinging on a porch hammock, having a grand ol’ time all by himself.

In the enormity of the Midwest, Skidmore is a flyover town many don’t know exists. People in town like it that way, and they respect the privacy the region offers. The beauty of the landscape is a constant reminder that every part of life—ashes to ashes, dust to dust—is rooted in the rich black soil that breeds it. Traditions thrive in Skidmore: in the one Christian church, the one café, the pinewood rocking chairs on just about every porch, and the souls of the men and women who work the land. One would think here, in this serene hush of a community, violence and murder would be unthought-of, if not for television crime shows piped into homes via satellite dishes.

But that has not been the case.