Editor’s note: Some of the details included in the story below may be disturbing for some readers. Watch Day 1 of the trial here.
More than two years after a New Hampshire police chief begged for information to find a long-missing 5-year-old girl, her father faces trial on charges that he killed her and spent months moving her body before disposing of it.
Adam Montgomery appeared in court Tuesday for the first day of jury selection in his murder trial, which is expected to begin as soon as Wednesday. He’s accused of killing his 5-year-old daughter Harmony, even though her body hasn’t been found.
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The 34-year-old is charged with second-degree murder, falsifying physical evidence and abuse of a corpse. He’s pleaded not guilty.
Prosecutors say Adam Montgomery punched Harmony to death in 2019 while in a car with his estranged wife Kayla and their two boys. He was found guilty of unrelated gun charges last summer and was sentenced to at least 30 years in prison.
At that time, he said this about his daughter: “I did not kill my daughter Harmony and I look forward to my upcoming trial to refute those offensive claims.”
Investigators allege that after Harmony's death, her father moved the young girl’s body from place to place, including the trunk of a friend’s car and an apartment freezer. They say he finally disposed of the body in 2020 using a rented truck.
Legal analyst Michael Coyne says it’ll be tough for Montgomery to overcome those kinds of accusations, even though many of them are circumstantial.
“The defendant, while having the benefit of the doubt and the government having the burden of proof, doesn’t present a sympathetic case,” Coyne said.
A key prosecution witness is expected to be Kayla Montgomery, who is serving an 18-month prison sentence after pleading guilty to perjury charges. She agreed to cooperate with prosecutors.
“The jury, at the end of the day, still has to make a determination that he contributed to her murder, and the proof needs to be beyond a reasonable doubt,” Coyne said.
The case prompted vigils in Manchester and generated national headlines. It exposed weaknesses in child protection systems and provoked calls to prioritize the well-being of children over parents in custody matters. Harmony was moved between the homes of her mother and her foster parents multiple times before Adam Montgomery received custody in 2019 and moved to New Hampshire.
Harmony Montgomery case timeline
Police first became aware that Harmony might be missing after receiving a call from her mother, Crystal Sorey, in November 2021. She had been trying to locate the girl for months and had last seen her during a phone video coversation around Easter of 2019.
The case drew national attention and unleashed public grief and anger as it highlighted cracks in the child welfare system.
Adam Montgomery arrested
Adam Montgomery was arrested in October of 2022, two months after authorities said the case had become a homicide investigation. They have said they believe Harmony was killed in Manchester in early December 2019. Her body has not been found. Investigators announced a new tip line late last year.
Police said they contacted Montgomery, who had custody of Harmony, and other family members by the end of December 2021. According to court documents, police told him that Harmony had not been seen in more than two years and there was concern over whether she was still alive.
Harmony’s father and stepmother, who have since pleaded not guilty to charges related to her well-being, told police that Adam brought Harmony to be with Sorey in Massachusetts around Thanksgiving 2019.
Gruesome new details emerge
According to a police affidavit released last summer, Adam Montgomery spent months moving and hiding Harmony's body before disposing of it.
According to the affidavit, Kayla Montgomery told police that Adam Montgomery killed Harmony on Dec. 7, 2019, while the family lived in their car. Kayla, who was Harmony’s stepmother, said he was driving to a fast food restaurant when he turned around and repeatedly punched Harmony in the face and head because he was angry that she was having bathroom accidents in the car.
“I think I really hurt her this time. I think I did something,” he said, according to Kayla Montgomery.
The couple noticed Harmony was dead hours later when the car broke down, at which time Montgomery put her body in a duffel bag, Kayla Montgomery said.
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For the next three months, investigators allege, Adam Montgomery moved the body from container to container and place to place. According to his wife, the locations included the trunk of a friend’s car, a cooler in the hallway of his mother-in-law’s apartment building, the ceiling vent of a homeless shelter and an apartment freezer.
At one point, the remains were kept in a tote bag from a hospital maternity ward, and Kayla Montgomery said she placed it in between her own young children in a stroller and brought it to her husband’s workplace. An employee at the now-closed restaurant told police he saw it there but never questioned Montgomery “since he knew he had children.”
Investigators allege that Adam Montgomery disposed of the body in early March 2020 using a rented moving truck. Toll data shows the truck in question crossed the Tobin Bridge in Boston multiple times, but the affidavit has no other location information to indicate the location Harmony’s body. In April of 2023, police searched a marshy area in Revere, Massachusetts.
Harmony was born in Massachusetts in 2014. Her parents were unmarried, were no longer together and had a history of substance use, according to a recent report by the Massachusetts Office of the Child Advocate. Adam Montgomery was in prison when she was born.
She was blind in one eye and had behavioral needs, and went into the custody of child protective services in Massachusetts when she was 2 months old. She was moved between the homes of her mother and her foster parents multiple times, the report said, causing “significant trauma and harm.”
Adam Montgomery was awarded custody of Harmony in February 2019.
'I did not kill my daughter...'
A Hillsborough County jury found Montgomery guilty of six felony weapons charges in a separate case in June of 2023 and he was sentenced to 30-60 years in prison. He has since appealed that conviction. At his sentencing in that case, he denied killing his daughter and asked the judge not to consider the murder case when sentencing him.
“I did not kill my daughter Harmony and I look forward to my upcoming trial to refute those offensive claims,” he said, acknowledging that he was an addict and would use his time in prison to “change things about myself”
“I could have had a meaningful life but I blew that opportunity through drugs,” he continued. “I loved my daughter unconditionally and I did not kill her.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
