America’s only female death row inmate was sexually assaulted by her stepfather and his pals in a specially-built room, a court heard. Lisa Montgomery’s lawyers claim both she and her sister were abused in the room at a court hearing on Tuesday which saw them plead for the 52 year-old to be spared execution.

Montgomery, who is due to be executed January 12 for strangling pregnant friend Bobbie Jo Stinnett, then cutting Stinnett’s unborn daughter from her womb, was ‘broken before she was born,’ according to her lawyers.

They have made an 11th hour plea directly to President Trump to commute the sentence to life behind bars, after a judge last week dismissed an appeal against Montgomery’s execution.

Her lawyers added: ‘Lisa Montgomery’s life was filled with torture, terror, failure, and betrayal.’ Montgomery was born brain-damaged because of her mother’s drinking, the court was told.

Montgomery’s plea for clemency was also supported by her older sister Diane Mattingley, who told reporters of the sexual abuse they both endured.

The girls’ stepdad is said to have begun molesting Montgomery from the age of 11, in a specially-constructed room at the back of their trailer. Mattingly said she was also raped, sometimes while in the same room as her younger sister.

Montgomery’s mother is said to have joined in the exploitation, and pimped her daughter out to pedophiles.

Mattingly, who was later put into foster care said: ‘So many people let her down.

‘Yes, I started out the same way, but I went into a place where I was loved and cared for and shown self worth. I had a good foundation. Lisa did not and she broke. She literally broke.’

Montgomery, who resides at the Federal Medical Center in Carswell, Texas, killed eight months pregnant Stinnett in Skidmore, Missouri, in December 2004.

The 23 year-old victim worked as a dog breeder, and met her killer in an online chat forum about rat terriers.

Her unborn baby, later named Victoria Jo survived, and was returned to Stinnett’s husband Zeb after Montgomery was arrested.

Montgomery, who is due to be executed by lethal injection, may have suffered from a miscarriage before she targeted Stinnett.

Her lawyers say it is wrong to execute her because of her mental illness. Montgomery’s execution is set to take place after Donald Trump ordered a resumption of federal executions for the first time since 2002.

Other executions carried out in the interim were performed by individual US states.

Trump’s order 17 federal prisoners executed in 2020 – the most killed at the behest of any US president since the 19th century.

If she is executed, Montgomery will likely be the last federal inmate executed for the forseeable future, if ever.

President-elect Joe Biden is due to be sworn into office on January 20.

He opposes the death penalty, and is highly likely to halt federal executions again.

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