Harmony Montgomery was five-years-old when she was last seen in 2019, believed to be killed by her father.
Adam Montgomery, 34, was found guilty on February 22, 2024, of murdering his young daughter and moving her body to different locations in the months after her death. It took a jury less than a day to convict Montgomery of Harmony’s murder, even though her remains have never been found.
Harmony was born in Massachusetts in 2014 to Montgomery and Crystal Sorey, who were unmarried and not even dating at the time of Harmony’s birth. The first years of Harmony’s life were troubled, with the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families (DCF) a regular presence in her young life.
When Harmony was born, it was believed she would be blind and severely disabled, according to an investigative report by Massachusetts’ Office of the Child Advocate (OCA). She ended up being blind in one eye but finding ways to cope.
Her father was in prison at the time of her birth, so she lived with her mother until DCF became involved when Harmony was just two-months-old. DCF placed Harmony in foster care, where she bounced back and forth between that and her mother’s care until February 2019, when her father and his wife, Kayla, were given custody. The couple lived in New Hampshire, and just five months after they gained custody of Harmony, the New Hampshire Department of Children, Youth, and Families (NHDCYF) received a report about abuse. Harmony had a black eye and Montgomery admitted to hurting his daughter.
Even with Montgomery’s admission, NHDCYF’s assessment of the situation determined the allegations of harm were unfounded in October 2019.
The OCA’s report, released in May 2022, found that DCF did not complete an assessment about whether Montgomery was capable of caring for Harmony and her medical needs. He rarely responded to the DCF case management team, and when he did respond, they couldn’t actually speak to him other than to manage his supervised visits with Harmony. The report also found Harmony had 20 supervised visits with her father from the time of her birth to when she was four-and-a-half-years-old, for a total of 40 hours spent with her father.
Her father was not required to complete or even start tasks on his action plan designed to ensure he would be a good caregiver for his daughter. There was also no transition plan in place to make sure the new custody arrangement would be successful. Montgomery was also allowed to take Harmony across state lines and was not required to comply with regulations from the Interstate Compact on the Placement of Children (ICPC). This meant that there was little DCF could do once Harmony went to live with her father in New Hampshire.
In January 2020, a few months after Harmony’s black eye, NHDCYF received a report about the Montgomerys that didn’t mention Harmony. The department asked Montgomery about Harmony and he told her the little girl had been living with her mother in Massachusetts since Thanksgiving. NHDCYF tried to confirm this information but couldn’t get ahold of Sorey, Harmony’s mother.
One year later, in January 2021, NHDCYF received another report about the Montgomery household that didn’t mention Harmony. A second report, again with no mention of Harmony, was made in March 2021. At the time, Montgomery again claimed Harmony was living with her mother and said he hadn’t seen her in a year.
Months later, in September 2021, NHDCYF was contacted by a friend of Sorey’s, who was concerned that Harmony had not been seen since 2019 and that she was supposed to be living with her father in Manchester, New Hampshire. NHDCYF did some research and found that Harmony, who would have been seven at the time, was not enrolled in school in Manchester. The department then began searching for the Montgomerys.
On November 18, 2021, Sorey reached out to Manchester police to say she had not seen her daughter since a FaceTime call in April 2019, more than two and a half years earlier. On December 27, 2021, NHDCYF told the police they couldn’t find Harmony and police opened a search. Within days, Manchester police announced Harmony’s disappearance and that a search had commenced.
In early January 2022, Montgomery was arrested after he was found to be living in his car with a girlfriend. He was charged in Harmony’s disappearance. His wife was also arrested and charged.
At Montgomery’s trial this month, prosecutors alleged that he beat Harmony to death in December 2019 after she had a bathroom accident in his car, prosecutor Christopher Knowles said in his opening statements, according to CBS Boston. After killing his daughter, prosecutors alleged, Montgomery “pulled into that parking lot at Burger King and he ordered his food.”
He ordered his food and he ate. He didn’t stop to check on Harmony,” Knowles added, according to the outlet. “He didn’t look back at her. He didn’t show any concern for this innocent little girl, the child he had just beaten. He ordered his food, and he ate. And he didn’t stop.”
During the three months after Harmony’s death, Montgomery allegedly moved her body to different places and in different containers. His wife Kayla testified that at one point, Harmony’s body was in the trunk of a friend’s car, a cooler left in the hallway of her mom’s apartment building, the ceiling vent of a homeless shelter where she and Montgomery were living with her two kids, and a freezer in an apartment. Kayla also said the remains were held in a tote bag from a hospital maternity ward that she placed in a stroller between her own two kids to bring it to Montgomery’s place of work, CBS reported. At another time, People magazine reported, Harmony’s body was apparently kept in a closet until neighbors complained about the smell.
It is believed that in March 2020, Montgomery disposed of Harmony’s body using a rented U-Haul. Her remains have never been found.
Montgomery claimed at trial that it was Kayla who killed Harmony and tried to frame him, but jurors didn’t buy it.
Montgomery was found guilty on five charges: second-degree murder, second-degree assault, witness tampering, falsifying evidence, and abuse of a corpse. Kayla pleaded guilty to charges of lying to police to obstruct their murder investigation. She is serving an 18-month sentence as part of her plea deal.
Montgomery faces decades in prison and likely will be sentenced in April. He was already in prison for an unrelated gun conviction that sentenced him to 30 years behind bars.
