Kansas City, Mo. ? The woman charged with strangling an expectant mother and cutting the baby from her womb was placed on a suicide watch after authorities found a stash of medications in her jail cell, a federal prosecutor says.

Documents filed Monday in U.S. District Court referred to a possible plan by Lisa M. Montgomery to commit suicide, and described how officials at the jail in Leavenworth, Kan., dealt with the matter after discovering the medications in early March.

Montgomery, 37, of Melvern, Kan., is scheduled to stand trial in April 2006 on a charge of kidnapping resulting in death. Prosecutors have said they plan to seek the death penalty.

She is accused of killing Bobbie Jo Stinnett, 23, at her home in Skidmore on Dec. 16, then cutting her open with a kitchen knife and taking the unborn child from her womb.

The baby, Victoria Jo Stinnett, is healthy and in the care of her father, Zeb Stinnett, in Skidmore.

Deputy U.S. Atty. Matt Whitworth wrote in his court filing that a corrections officer searched Montgomery’s cell March 4 and discovered a letter and unspecified medications that she had been hiding, presumably for a suicide attempt.

An internal jail memorandum said the letter “had a strong suicidal theme.”

A psychiatrist later ordered her to be placed on a suicide watch. Montgomery was dressed in new clothes and given a new blanket, both made of a tough fabric, making it difficult to construct a noose.

A corrections officer was also assigned to watch her, and jail records say Montgomery cried for about 45 minutes after being put on the watch.