(News.com.au) A KANSAS woman who strangled a pregnant acquaintance to death and cut her unborn child from her womb in order to claim the girl as her own faces a possible death penalty after jurors rejected her insanity plea today.
Lisa Montgomery, who had faked a number of pregnancies in the past, was found at home a day after the gruesome slaying, cradling the stolen baby with a pile of birth announcement cards in front of her.
She confessed to the killing but briefly tried to pin the crime on her half brother.
Her defence team maintained that Montgomery, 39, suffered from the delusional belief that she was pregnant and did not comprehend that what she was doing was wrong when she strangled Bobbie Jo Stinnett in December 2004.
They said she suffered from pseudocyesis, a false belief of being pregnant and "brutal and sadistic" treatment as a child.
Prosecutors contend that Montgomery planned the crime for weeks or even months and researched how to perform a caesarean section on the internet.
Prosecutors said they would seek the death penalty at a sentencing hearing on Wednesday.
It will be up the same jurors who reached a verdict in about four hours to decide her fate.
"The only good thing to come of this is that Victoria Jo (the stolen infant) is a healthy three-year-old child who has been reunited with her father," US Attorney John Wood said during a post-verdict press conference.