CASES UPDATE
ADAM MONTGOMERY HAS BEEN CONVICTED OF MURDERING THE MISSING FIVE YEAR OLD
Adam Montgomery – the father of missing five-year-old Harmony Montgomery – has been found guilty of second-degree murder.
The verdict comes after Montgomery declined to appear in the courtroom throughout a trial in which his defence blamed his estranged wife Kayla for the little girl’s death. After the verdict, Allen Aldenberg, the police chief of Manchester, New Hampshire, said, “This isn’t about winning or losing. This is about a girl that was murdered by her father. I can think of no worse crime.”
ADMISSION
Harmony was living with Montgomery and Kayla when she disappeared in December 2019. She was not reported missing for two years, when biological mother Crystal Sorey alerted the authorities. It had been alleged that Montgomery, 34, beat Harmony to death after she wet herself in the back seat of his car, which they had been living out of, along with Kayla’s two infant sons. As the trial opened, the prosecution alleged, “The defendant smelled what she had done and for that, he hit her,” adding that Montgomery then drovetoafast-foodrestaurant. “He didn’t stop to check on Harmony. He didn’t show any concern for this innocent little girl, the child he had just beaten. He ordered his food, and he ate.” However, though Montgomery admitted covering up the death of his daughter, he continued to deny murder. The admission saw him plead guilty via video to abuse of a corpse and falsifying evidence. But Montgomery’s attorney alleged it was Harmony’s stepmother who was the last person to see her alive, saying, “Kayla knows how Harmony died… Adam did not kill her.”
ON THE STAND
Kayla, 33 –who is serving an 18-month sentence for perjury after lying during grand jury testimony –took to the stand as the prosecution’s star witness. She alleged Montgomery regularly abused Harmony, saying the little girl was kept “hidden under ablanket to cover her bruised body and bloodied face from the beatings”. About the day in question, 7December 2019, she said, “Adam came back to the vehicle. He could smell urine, and he started yelling at Harmony, and kept hitting her in the head… Iput my arm up and said to stop, but he gave me this look that was, like, evil.”
She admitted Harmony was “crying and moaning” before “going silent”, and said that neither adult checked on he
