The New Hampshire Supreme Court threw out the murder conviction of a man accused of killing his 5-year-old daughter in 2019, ruling on June 11 that he did not receive a fair trial because the key charges were improperly combined.
Adam Montgomery, 36, was found guilty of second-degree murder in February 2024 in connection with the death of his daughter Harmony Montgomery, whose body has never been recovered, USA TODAY previously reported. He was also convicted of second-degree assault, abuse of a corpse, falsifying physical evidence and witness tampering.
Mr. Montgomery was sentenced in May 2024 to 56 years to life in prison, including 45 years to life for his second-degree murder conviction. Additional time was also imposed consecutively on the other convictions.
In a June 11 ruling, the New Hampshire Supreme Court threw out the second-degree murder conviction, arguing that the murder and assault charges should not have been prosecuted together. The court upheld the other convictions but remanded the second-degree murder charge to a lower court for further consideration.
“Under these circumstances, we conclude that trying the charges of second-degree assault and second-degree murder in a single trial jeopardized the defendant’s right to a fair trial,” the court said in its 15-page decision.
Despite the sentence, Montgomery will not be released from prison as he still has other convictions. He will continue to serve his sentence on those charges, as well as the 32-1/2 year sentence he was already serving on an unrelated gun charge.
In a statement to USA TODAY, the New Hampshire Department of Justice said, “We are disappointed in the court’s decision to retry him on the second-degree murder charge, and we plan to proceed with the retrial on that charge.” “Adam Montgomery has been convicted of multiple felonies stemming from Harmony’s death, as well as another firearms offense that was previously upheld on appeal.”
USA TODAY has reached out to Montgomery’s law firm for comment.
Harmony Montgomery wasn’t reported missing for nearly two years.
Authorities believe Harmony was killed in Manchester, a city less than 32 miles south of New Hampshire’s capital Concord. The girl was last seen in 2019, authorities said, but was not reported missing until late 2021.
The New Hampshire Department of Justice previously reported that Harmony was last seen the day before Thanksgiving after she and her family were evicted from their home in Manchester. Investigators later determined that she had been staying with her father and stepmother for several days after the eviction, as the family lived out of their car and moved around the city.
Authorities said the circumstances made it difficult to trace the girl’s movements, but multiple eyewitness accounts helped narrow the timeline of her disappearance. Witnesses told police they saw Harmony with the couple in the days after November 27, 2019. However, by early December 2019, the children were no longer together, authorities said.
At the time, authorities said the investigation had “narrowed the period of Harmony’s disappearance to approximately November 28, 2019 to December 10, 2019.” Months later, after an extensive investigation involving local, state and federal agencies, authorities concluded that Harmony was murdered in Manchester in early December 2019.
Her body has not been found, but investigators have determined from biological evidence and other findings that she was murdered, the New Hampshire Department of Justice said.
Adam Montgomery accused of abusing his daughter
Manchester police arrested Montgomery in connection with her daughter’s disappearance in January 2022, and Montgomery was later charged in her death.
Montgomery, who previously maintained his innocence in court, did not attend the trial and will not be present when the jury returns its verdict in 2024, USA TODAY previously reported.
During the trial, prosecutors alleged that Montgomery beat his daughter to death and disposed of her body in a bag, as well as abusing his wife and pressuring her to lie in court. Prosecutors at the time said they would not reveal where Montgomery hid Harmony’s body.
“Harmony was an innocent 5-year-old child, and you treated her in the worst way possible, both in life and in death,” Hillsborough County Superior Court Judge Amy Messer told Montgomery during a May 2024 sentencing hearing.
Contributor: Natalie Neysa Alund, USA TODAY. Lynn Velasco, USA TODAY Network – New England
