Missing Harmony Montgomery’s dad beat 5-year-old to death, spent months hiding body: affidavit
Missing New Hampshire youngster Harmony Montgomery was beaten to death by her dad — who then spent months moving around the 5-year-old’s body in a duffel bag, according to newly released testimony from his wife.
The helpless girl — whose body has never been found — was not reported missing until November 2021, nearly two years after police believe she was killed in Manchester.
A judge on Tuesday unsealed the affidavit leading to Harmony’s dad, Adam Montgomery, 33, being charged in October 2022 with second-degree murder, falsifying physical evidence and abuse of a corpse, all of which he pleaded not guilty to in October.
Much of it is based on interviews with Montgomery’s estranged wife, Kayla Montgomery, 32, who agreed to cooperate with prosecutors after reaching a plea deal in a separate perjury case.
She told cops that Harmony was repeatedly punched in the face by her dad on Dec. 7, 2019, for soiling the car they were living in with two other kids.
“I think I really hurt her this time. I think I did something,” Adam Montgomery said after the deadly beating, according to his estranged wife.
Kayla Montgomery recalled hearing Harmony moaning for around five minutes before she suddenly stopped, according to the affidavit unsealed following a public records request from WMUR-TV.
Police noted that “at no time did anyone stop or get Harmony medical attention.”
The couple only noticed Harmony was dead hours later when the car broke down — when the dad then put her body in a duffel bag, his wife told cops.
For the next three months, Adam Montgomery moved the body to various locations across Manchester to keep it hidden, according to the court doc.
His wife told investigators that it included stashing it in the trunk of a friend’s car, a cooler in the hallway of his mother-in-law’s apartment building, an apartment freezer and the ceiling vent of a homeless shelter — where it was removed when people complained about the smell.
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 the Portland Pie Co., where her husband worked as a dishwasher.
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 Montgomery finally disposed of the body in early March 2020 using a rented U-Haul truck.
While toll data shows the truck across the Tobin Bridge in Boston multiple times, no other location information was able to pinpoint where Harmony’s body was dumped, the document said.
Montgomery’s attorney — who had fought to keep the affidavit sealed — did not respond to a request for comment.
Kayla Montgomery was sentenced in November to at least 18 months in prison for lying about the last time she saw her then-stepdaughter.
As part of that plea deal, she agreed to cooperate with prosecutors, who dropped charges that she lied to state health officials about having the child in her care in order to collect welfare benefits and that she received stolen firearms.
Montgomery, 33, pleaded not guilty in October to second-degree murder, falsifying physical evidence and abuse of a corpse.
He was found guilty of six felony weapons charges in a separate case earlier this month, setting him up for at least two decades in prison.
With Post wires
