KANSAS CITY, KAN. ? A woman accused of killing an expectant mother and cutting the baby from her womb waived her right to a preliminary hearing in Kansas on Thursday and is being moved to federal custody in Missouri.

Federal prosecutors in Missouri charged Lisa Montgomery, 36, of Melvern, with kidnapping resulting in death. She is accused of strangling 23-year-old Bobbie Jo Stinnett, who was eight months pregnant, in her Skidmore, Mo., home on Dec. 16, then cutting her baby from her womb.

Montgomery will make an initial appearance before a federal judge in Missouri on Tuesday, to be followed by a detention hearing on Thursday. Todd Graves, the U.S. attorney for the western district of Missouri, already has asked that Montgomery be denied bond.

Clad in an orange jumpsuit, a somber Montgomery was asked to speak up Thursday when she acknowledged to the judge in Kansas City, Kan., that she understood what she was doing in court.

She briefly glanced back toward her husband, who was sitting in the front row in the courtroom, as she was being led out. Kevin Montgomery declined to speak with reporters after the hearing.

Authorities said the baby was found Dec. 17 with Montgomery and her husband in Melvern. The infant, named Victoria Jo Stinnett, went home with her now-widowed father, Zeb Stinnett, after spending the weekend in a Topeka hospital.

Montgomery

Bobbie Joe Stinnett was found by her mother in a pool of blood on Dec. 16. Officials said Montgomery called her husband from Topeka on that same day and told him she had just delivered a baby.

Kevin Montgomery has not been charged in the case. Authorities have not said whether they think he knew his wife’s pregnancy was a hoax, and Kevin Montgomery has said he knew nothing about his wife’s alleged actions.

Investigators have said that just before the slaying, Montgomery corresponded over the Internet with Stinnett about buying a dog.

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A spokeswoman at the hospital where Victoria Jo Stinnett was treated after Montgomery’s arrest said the baby girl would need to see a pediatrician regularly but is not expected to experience any major complications.