https://www.myjoyonline.com/only-woman-on-us-death-row-lisa-montgomery-facing-lethal-injection-given-a-24-hour-stay-of-execution/-------https://www.myjoyonline.com/only-woman-on-us-death-row-lisa-montgomery-facing-lethal-injection-given-a-24-hour-stay-of-execution/

A judge has granted the only woman on US federal death row a 24-hour stay of execution to check whether she is competent to be put to death on mental health grounds.

Lisa Montgomery, 52, who strangled an expectant mother before cutting her unborn child from the womb and passing it off as her own, was due to die by lethal injection on Tuesday at the Terre Haute federal prison in Indiana.

Judge James Patrick Hanlon, from Indiana, based his ruling on evidence that Lisa Montgomery, 52, was unable to understand the government's rationale for her execution.

She would have become the first woman to be federally executed in America for 70 years.

Montgomery drove 170 miles from her home in Kansas to the house of heavily pregnant dog breeder Bobbie Jo Stinnett, 23, in Skidmore, Missouri, in December 2004 under the guise of picking up a puppy.

But instead she strangled her with a rope and used a knife to perform a makeshift caesarean before fleeing with the premature baby girl.

Montgomery is due to be put to death at the Terre Haute federal prison in Indiana

She was caught after trying to pass the child off as her own as part of a plot to win custody of two of her four children.

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DISCLAIMER: The Views, Comments, Opinions, Contributions and Statements made by Readers and Contributors on this platform do not necessarily represent the views or policy of Multimedia Group Limited.