Adam Montgomery ‘butchered’ 5-year-old daughter Harmony, then took corpse to restaurant where he worked: prosecutors
New Hampshire dad Adam Montgomery beat 5-year-old daughter Harmony to death — then lugged her decomposing corpse every day to the restaurant where he worked, leaving it next to food, prosecutors told his murder trial.
Montgomery, 34, spent months moving his daughter’s “butchered” body to various hiding spots — before finally throwing it out “like yesterday’s trash,” prosecutors told the opening of the dad’s trial, which he refused to attend.
He even stuffed Harmony’s compressed body into a tote bag — which he brought every day to the restaurant where he worked as a cook and dishwasher, the court was told.
“[The bag] stood out to people, because he placed it in the freezer during his shifts,” prosecutor Christopher Knowles told the court.
“He brought it with him regularly to work and he stored it in a freezer where the company kept food, ingredients,” he said.
“People saw him bringing that in and out. They couldn’t have imagined what that bag contained.”
The murderous dad also hid his daughter’s corpse in a friend’s car trunk, a cooler in his mother-in-law’s apartment building, a ceiling vent of a homeless shelter where he lived as well as an apartment freezer, before disposing of the body in an unknown location, prosecutors said.
Harmony went missing in 2019, but police did not learn of her disappearance or start looking for the child until two years later.
Her dad beat her in anger at her having bathroom accidents in their car — then went for fast food and did drugs while ignoring her final cries as she died in the backseat of his car, the court was told.
The helpless girl’s body was never recovered.
“He is the only person in this world who knows where Harmony is … and he was hoping that she would never be found,” Knowles said of Montgomery, who is serving a sentence of more than 30 years on weapons charges.
“The one person, the one and only person who murdered Harmony, who butchered her body, and who disposed of her like yesterday’s trash.”
Montgomery pleaded not guilty in 2022 to charges of second-degree murder, abuse of a corpse, falsifying physical evidence, assault and witness tampering in Harmony’s death. He has previously denied killing his daughter. He faces up to life in prison if convicted.
His estranged wife, Kayla Montgomery, had told police that her husband would hit Harmony as punishment for having bathroom accidents.
She said Adam told her he had “bashed her around the house” after she placed her hands over the mouth of one of his sons.
On the day of her death in December 2019, Adam Montgomery repeatedly punched his emaciated and bruised daughter after she had two bathroom accidents in the family car, which doubled as their home following a recent eviction, Kayla said.
He then drove to a fast-food eatery, had a meal, and did drugs as Harmony moaned in pain in the backseat of her car, Knowles said in his opening statement.
It was not until several hours later, when their car broke down, that Adam and Kayla Montgomery discovered that Harmony had died, according to the prosecutor.
The dad placed his lifeless child’s body in a duffel bag and put it in the trunk. Over the next few months, Knowles said, Adam took steps to make Harmony’s body disappear, buying a saw, blades and lime, and renting a moving truck.
“He believed that if there was no body, there could be no evidence of the horrible things that he did to her, and he would get away with it,” the prosecutor said.
Adam Montgomery’s lawyer told the court that he did not harm Harmony — and accused his estranged wife of lying about what actually happened to protect herself.
Kayla Montgomery, who is serving an 18-month sentence on a perjury conviction, is expected to testify against her husband.
Defense attorney James Brooks said a note found in Kayla’s jail cell revealed her willingness to “betray” her husband in exchange for a plea deal that would grant her “immunity from everything.”
With Post wires
