Kansas City, Mo. ? Attorneys for a woman accused of killing an expectant mother and cutting the baby from her womb began their case Friday, focusing on Lisa Montgomery’s unhappy childhood.

Montgomery’s father, John Patterson, testified that he left his wife and children when Montgomery was 3 or 4 years old. Patterson said he was an alcoholic and that his wife, Judy Shaughnessy, drank heavily and cheated on him frequently.

Patterson also said he was serving in the military and was frequently out of the country. After a final attempt at reconciliation failed, he said, the Army sent him to Germany.

“I abandoned them, it’s the only thing I can say,” he said. “I wanted to see them again but I couldn’t deal with Judy.”

Prosecutors also rested their case against Montgomery, who is accused of killing Bobbie Jo Stinnett and taking the baby on Dec. 16, 2004. Montgomery has pleaded not guilty, and her lawyers are pursuing an insanity defense.

Part of that defense is that Montgomery was repeatedly abused and raped by her stepfather, Jack Kleiner, during her childhood and was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.

In a videotaped deposition Friday, Kleiner denied the accusations. Later, presented with a transcript of his and Shaughnessy’s divorce proceedings during which he had admitted some abuse, Kleiner said he didn’t have a good memory.

“I guess I said it; I guess so,” said Kleiner, who was too sick to travel to Kansas City.

In another videotaped deposition, Lewis Priest, of Tulsa, Okla., said the couple came to him one day and asked for a place for Kleiner to stay. He said Shaughnessy had caught Kleiner in bed with Lisa, then in her early teens.

Priest died of cancer two weeks after the deposition was recorded this summer.

Kleiner denied Priest’s accusations as well.

On Thursday, two officers who were among the first to interview Montgomery the day after Stinnett was killed testified that she told them she almost reconsidered her plan, but then decided to stay and commit the crime at Stinnett’s home in Skidmore.

Montgomery took a concealed rope and knife with her into Stinnett’s home and strangled the eight-months pregnant Stinnett before cutting into her womb and removing the baby with her hands, according to testimony from Sgt. Randy Strong, an investigator with the Maryville police department, and FBI Special Agent Scott Gentine.

The two men also said that Montgomery drove away holding the baby’s umbilical cord in her hands before stopping to clamp it and to clean up the baby. After changing clothes, Montgomery called her husband and asked him to pick her up at a Long John Silver’s in Topeka, near a center where she said she had given birth.

Prosecutors allege Montgomery, 39, had been faking a pregnancy for about nine months when she drove to Stinnett’s home and strangled the 23-year-old dog breeder.

Strong was one of the first investigators to enter Montgomery’s home in Melvern, Kan., on Dec. 17, 2004, where he found Montgomery sitting on the couch holding a baby. He said Montgomery initially denied even knowing about Stinnett’s death or that a baby was missing from Skidmore.

But after being questioned at a police annex in Lyndon, Kan., Montgomery eventually looked at the floor and said, “You have Bobbie Jo’s baby,” Strong said.

Strong testified that Montgomery told officers that she briefly reconsidered taking Stinnett’s baby, but “something out of character for her happened” and she went ahead with her plan.

Strong and Gentine both testified that after initially lying about Stinnett’s death, Montgomery was cooperative and seemed rational throughout the interviews. Gentine said Montgomery occasionally sobbed while talking to him, but then composed herself and continued.

While he did not believe Montgomery was faking her tears, Gentine said, “I don’t know if she was remorseful or sorry that she got caught.”