MAITLAND, Mo. – The husband of murdered womb-snatch victim Bobbie Jo Stinnett yesterday lovingly showed off a tender picture of him cradling the couple’s miracle baby – and said every day with her gives him hope amid his nightmare.
“It’s been rough,” said an emotional Zeb Stinnett, 24, of the four weeks since his young wife was brutally slain by a sicko acquaintance and then had her 8-month-old fetus cut from her belly.
“But I just look at [the baby], pick her up, and that usually does it,” the first-time dad told The Post in an exclusive interview.
He beamed as he talked about his newborn daughter, Victoria Jo, who miraculously survived her 23-year-old mother’s gruesome murder.
The boyish-looking Stinnett is off for up to 12 weeks paternity leave from his job at the local Kawasaki manufacturing plant. He’s staying at his mom’s home, where he can get some relief from his demanding new full-time job as Mr. Mom.
New to changing diapers and filling about eight bottles of formula a day on little sleep, Stinnett says his situation is a far cry from where he thought he would be a little less than a month ago.
Bobbie Jo was his childhood sweetheart. They were dreaming of soon trading their small rental cottage in Skidmore, Mo., for a home they would buy for their growing family with help from money she was earning as a dog breeder.
But the couple’s lives changed horribly on Dec. 16, when disturbed dog breeder Lisa Montgomery, 36, drove to their home and allegedly strangled Bobbie Jo before stealing the baby and trying to pass it off as her own.
Stinnett knows he’ll have to one day tell his daughter what happened to her mom. But it’s not something he’s dwelling on at the moment.
“The most important thing right now is my daughter,” the dad said. “A lot of people set too high expectations these days. I just want her to be normal.”
He said that as a special tribute to his wife, he will start calling the baby Tory Jo, a nickname that Bobbie Jo loved – which he wasn’t so keen on. He also has held onto two of her favorite rat terriers, Belle and Tipsy, as well as her pet Dalmatian, Maddy.
Bobbie Jo’s mom, Becky Harper, gets to help out by baby sitting.
Like any new grandma, Harper proudly crowed about her only grandchild, who sleeps in a crib that last held her now-10-year-old son, Tyler.
“I think she looks just like Zeb,” Harper said of Victoria Jo.
“Zeb says she’s got Bobbie Jo’s chin and eyes.”
Harper was the one who found her daughter’s bloodied corpse inside the house.
Bobbie Jo was supposed to pick her up at home to drive her to a garage, where she was having work done on her truck that fateful day.
When Bobbie Jo didn’t show up, Harper walked to her daughter’s home – and found her.
“I keep thinking, I wish I had gone over there earlier,” said the mom, who still keeps a smiling photo of Bobbie Jo on her refrigerator door.
Of her daughter, a heartbroken Harper added: “She wanted [the baby] so bad. And now she’s not even going to get to raise her.
The horrific slaying shocked the nation, as it became clear Montgomery not only knew her tragic victim – but the pair and their families had been friendly with each other.
Montgomery, the mother of four, apparently had wanted to give her new husband a child and lied about being pregnant, friends and authorities said. She murdered Bobbie Jo to fulfill her twisted dream, they said.
Send donations for the family, made out to Zeb Stinnett, to: Nodaway County Sheriff’s Dept., c/o Stinnett Family, 404 N. Vine, Maryville, Mo., 64468.