Daily News from New York, New York • 7

''7. 1 i L-d 111 I i i sr- nil DUDEO! ffl i'7A -rw-i IN THE HOURS AFTER Lisa Montgomery allegedly strangled a Missouri woman and fled with a baby sliced from her womb, she behaved like any other new mom. 'I i She took the infant to her pastor for his blessing, gave her older kids photos to bring to school and showed the baby off at the local diner. She dolled up the tiny girl in a Winnie-the-Pooh outfit and even picked a name for the horribly kidnapped child, Abigail. "She said that she wanted a name from the Bible," the Rev.

Mike Wheatly of the First Church of God in Melvern, said yesterday. But it was all a charade, exposed when FBI agents raided Montgomery's century-old farmhouse in eastern Kansas and charged her with the most gruesome of crimes. Montgomery is due in federal court tomorrow. The baby, declared "a miracle" by her father Zeb Stinnett and renamed Victoria Jo, was doing well and being cared for in a Topeka, hospital yesterday. According to authorities, the 36-year-old suspect was so desperate to have another child she hatched a macabre plan.

On Thursday, posing as a customer interested in buying a rat terrier dog, she drove to see fellow breeder Bobbie Jo Stinnett, 23, in Skidmore, Mo. She strangled Stinnett who was eight months pregnant extracted her fetus and fled, authorities allege. She drove to Topeka, called her husband to tell him she'd gone into labor and asked him to pick up her and the baby. That afternoon, Montgomery called Wheatly and announced, "I just gave birth." At 9 the next morning, she and Kevin Montgomery showed up at his door with the baby. The pastor was unsettled.

The tiny girl had scratches and a bruise, and, unlike the Mont-gomerys, very long fingers. "It just didn't look like either one of them," he said. Lisa Montgomery was quiet, but her husband seemed ecstatic. "He had an ear-to-ear grin," Wheatly said. "He was just a proud dad." The couple went to the Whistle Stop Cafe on Main St.

and polished off plates of eggs, bacon and hash browns with the baby in a car seat on the floor. "I was irate," said diner owner Kathy Sage. "You don't bring a newborn out in public." Lisa Montgomery told her, "Yeah, it's only a day The people's reaction here was, We BY NICOLE BODE IN MELVERN, KAN. and TRACY CONNOR IN NEW YORK DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS didn't know you were She said most people didn't" Lisa Montgomery may have faked pregnancies before. In an April 2003 Internet posting, she wrote that she and her husband, who has three kids from his first marriage, were expecting a new baby "any day." Soon after, she was telling people the baby was a stillbirth.

"Supposedly, a year ago she had a nine-month fetus but she miscarried," said June Harred, 58, owner of the Main Street Barber Shop. "But there was no funeral, no nothing. One day she just wasn't pregnant anymore." She carried out her latest charade for months, writing often about it on the Web site where she encountered Bobbie Jo Stinnett. "I cannot get down on the floor to take better pictures due to being pregnant and getting back up is a story in itself," she wrote on Dec. 10.

The Montgomerys already had a large family. Lisa Montgomery had four kids with her first husband, though the youngest recently went to live with a family in Alabama, neighbors said. Kevin Montgomery, an electrician, had three kids from a previous marriage who live with their mom. The Montgomerys were back-to-the-land types who raised livestock and used a spinning wheel to make wool. "Our next project is to butcher our own pig," Lisa Montgomery wrote on one Web site.

"Any suggestions would be helpful." Around town, some people regarded the woman as odd. "She wasn't all there," Harred said. "Everybody that's met her said she's not quite right." But the village is rallying around her real kids, now secluded with their grandparents. Her eldest daughter, Desiree, asked Harred's husband, Bob-the high school janitor, to help retrieve her schoolbooks yesterday. "She looked like she'd been up all night.

That little girl's eyes were swelled up," she said. Wheatly said his heart breaks for Kevin Montgomery. "He's proud one moment and his wife is arrested the next," he Said. nbooeQnyaatlynewconi ii.n i bie Jo on the day she was killed, and that the woman had arranged the deadly meeting through their chat board. They also recalled that both Stinnett and Montgomery had discussed their pregnancies on the chat site.

Montgomery, who was not pregnant, was claiming as recently as last week that she was due in days. "Darlene Fischer was supposed to meet her on Thursday," wrote one poster. One chatter figured out that the Internet address for Fischer traced back to Kansas where the baby was eventually recovered at Montgomery's home. By 8 a.m., several members had called the police with the information they had gathered. Police said the tips and a sighting of the suspect's car led them quickly to Montgomery.

By the time it was over, the pain was palpable in the messages. "We just saw a murder plan in front of us and it makes me so sad," wrote one poster. One woman wrote she'd just been told by the suspect that she was due to give, birth the day Stinnett was killed. "Now I'm just sick as heck. the woman wrote.

"If this is true she just posted to me not long ago that she was going to have her baby Thursday." mbeckerGnydailyneiKS-Com Irt Lr. tl A rat terrier protects Melvern, home of Kevin and Lisa Montgomery (inset), accused killer. rat terrier ends in murder look forward to chatting with you tomorrow a.m. "Thanks name withheld, and talk to you soon, Darlene! "Have a great evening "Bobbie" Montgomery had been on the chat board often, using her own name and posting photos of her own rat terrier puppies and seeking mates for her own breeding projects. Early Friday morning, as frantic news reports aired about the horrific baby snatching, the regulars on the Ratter Chatter site realized the victim was one of their own.

And then they realized that "Darlene" would have met Bob CD 3 ro.