New Hampshire Supreme Court overturns father’s murder conviction in death of missing 5-year-old Harmony Montgomery, orders retrial
The New Hampshire Supreme Court has overturned the second-degree murder conviction of Adam Montgomery in the death of his 5-year-old daughter, Harmony Montgomery, ruling that the charge should be retried separately from an assault case that was presented alongside it.
Harmony's body has never been found, but investigators believe she was killed in 2019, nearly two years before she was reported missing. Montgomery was sentenced in 2024 to a minimum of 56 years in prison after being convicted of second-degree murder, abuse of a corpse, falsifying evidence, witness tampering, and assault.
In a unanimous decision, the state's highest court found that combining the assault and murder charges in a single trial may have unfairly influenced jurors. The justices concluded there was a substantial risk that evidence related to an earlier assault could have led jurors to infer that Montgomery was also responsible for his daughter's death. As a result, the court reversed the murder conviction and ordered a new trial on that charge while allowing the remaining convictions to stand.
The murder conviction accounted for 45 years of Montgomery's sentence, which was imposed in addition to a separate prison term he was already serving on unrelated firearms charges. Prosecutors have indicated they intend to retry the second-degree murder case.
The case has drawn widespread attention since Harmony was reported missing in 2021. Authorities later announced they believed the child had died, despite never recovering her remains. The state also reached a multimillion-dollar settlement with Harmony's mother over allegations that warning signs of abuse were overlooked after Montgomery was granted custody of the girl in 2019.
Montgomery did not attend his trial, and his defense team called no witnesses. While his attorneys acknowledged his guilt on charges related to falsifying evidence and abuse of a corpse, they denied he was responsible for Harmony's death.
A key prosecution witness was Montgomery's estranged wife, Kayla Montgomery, who testified that he fatally assaulted Harmony while the family was living in their vehicle in December 2019. She told jurors that he later concealed the child's body in several locations before disposing of it months later. Kayla Montgomery, who previously served time for lying to a grand jury during the investigation, said she feared her husband and was unable to stop the abuse.
The retrial on the murder charge will determine whether prosecutors can again secure a conviction in one of New Hampshire's most closely watched child homicide cases.
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