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[March 19, 2010]  KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) -- A husband testified Tuesday he believed his wife had given birth and never suspected the baby she showed him had been crudely cut from another woman's womb.

Kevin Montgomery said he didn't find it odd that his wife, Lisa, told him she had delivered the baby at a birthing center and needed to be picked up at a nearby fast-food restaurant Topeka, Kan.

"I knew she didn't like hospitals and doctors," Kevin Montgomery said.

His wife is accused of killing Bobbie Jo Stinnett, 23, and carving her baby from the womb on Dec. 16, 2004.

Kevin Montgomery, who denied any participation in the slaying, said he and his wife took the baby to a diner, a bank, the courthouse and the convenience store where Lisa worked.

She was arrested the next day while showing off a baby in her hometown of Melvern, Kan.

Also Tuesday, each of the couple's ex-spouses testified that Lisa Montgomery had announced other fake pregnancies to family and friends in the years leading up to Stinnett's slaying.

Lisa Montgomery's former husband, Carl Bowman, testified that she was unable to have children after undergoing a tubal ligation in 1990. He said her doctor recommended she undergo the procedure after their fourth child was born more than two months premature.

While Bowman was on the stand, the prosecution showed a form Lisa Montgomery signed before undergoing the surgery in which she noted she had been counseled that the sterilization was not reversible.

But Lisa Montgomery claimed to be pregnant twice after undergoing the procedure and before she split up with Bowman, he testified. After Bowman learned in 2004 that Montgomery was claiming to be pregnant again, he threatened to use it against her in court to gain custody of two of the couple's four children.

"At that time, I told her I was going to expose her lies," Bowman said. A custody hearing was set for Jan. 25, 2005.

Bowman testified that he noticed a change of attitude in Montgomery in November 2004.

"She seemed more confident," he said.

He recalled receiving a phone call from Montgomery the day before the murder. "She said she was going to prove me wrong," Bowman testified.

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Lori Colwell said that when she heard about Lisa Montgomery's pregnancy in 2004, her response was: "Here we go again. I didn't believe her."

Colwell also testified that her former husband has poor social skills and is easily manipulated. Colwell said she tried to persuade Kevin Montgomery to bring Lisa Montgomery to a doctor so he would realize she wasn't pregnant. An appointment was set up, Colwell said, but Lisa Montgomery canceled it.

Colwell also testified that she received a voice mail from Lisa Montgomery on Dec. 16 saying she "got the baby."

Colwell said a friend later told her an Amber Alert for a missing baby had been issued.

"I said 'That's not funny,'" Colwell testified. "And he said, 'No, it's on the news.'"

Several dog breeders, who knew Lisa Montgomery because she raised rat terriers, testified that she had told them she was pregnant with twins but lost one. In a letter to the breeders on Dec. 13, three days before the killing, Montgomery said she was going to be induced on Dec. 16.

"Please be thinking of our family over the next few days," the e-mail said.

Prosecutors plan to seek the death penalty if Montgomery is convicted of kidnapping resulting in death. Her lawyers don't deny Montgomery's involvement in Stinnett's death but are pursuing an insanity defense. Besides convicting or acquitting her, jurors have the option of finding her not guilty by reason of insanity.

The trial was expected to last about three weeks.

[Associated Press; by Heather Hollingsworth]

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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