Editor’s note: The details in this story are from a police affidavit and some may find it difficult to read.
By DAMIEN FISHER, InDepthNH.org
By the time Crystal Sorey got sober and began her frantic quest in late 2021 for someone, anyone, to help her find her child, the girl Harmony Montgomery, 5, was already dead.
The little girl with the now well-known big smile and glasses from her missing posters had allegedly already been murdered by her father, Adam Montgomery, and her body left to rot in the trunk of his car and a number of other places, according to the arrest affidavit unsealed Tuesday for the first time. The arrest warrant provides probable cause to arrest Adam Montgomery for second-degree murder, witness tampering, falsifying physical evidence and abuse of Harmony’s corpse and has been sealed since it was filed Oct. 21, 2022.
Harmony’s remains still haven’t been found, but the affidavit provides details of what police believe happened to her near the end of her life and how her body was moved from place to place in the months following her death.
Sorey lost custody of Harmony in 2018 due to a Massachusetts court order because of her addictions, according to the affidavit written by Manchester Police Detective John Dunleavy. That left the little girl in the care of her ex, Adam Montgomery and his current wife, Kayla Montgomery in Manchester.
Sorey last saw her daughter in Easter of 2019 on a FaceTime video, and told police the little girl looked scared. Sorey struggled with her sobriety, but finally clean she began searching for her daughter. Unable to find Harmony after close to two years of searching, she started contacting police, the state Division for Children, Youth and Families, and even Manchester Mayor Joyce Craig’s office.
The Division for Children, Youth and Families was involved with Adam Montgomery and his children due to reports of abuse, according to Dunleavy. Adam Montgomery allegedly gave Harmony a black eye in August of 2019.
The last time DCYF saw Harmony was in October of 2019. Despite months of Sorey raising the alarm about the whereabouts of her daughter, DCYF waited until September of 2021 to contact the Manchester School District about the girl. DCYF did not contact Manchester police. In fact, police started the investigation based on Sorey’s call to the department.
Police, working Sorey’s report as a missing child case, found Kayla Montgomery first in late December 2021, now split from Adam Montgomery. She told police Adam Montgomery had already sent Harmony back to live with Sorey in Massachusetts.
Detectives encountered Adam living in a car in Manchester with his new girlfriend, Kelsey Small. Harmony was not in the car, and Small claimed Adam Montgomery never talked about the girl. Adam Montgomery was not cooperative with police at this time. During a subsequent interview after he had been court ordered to cooperate, Adam Montgomery refused.
“Either arrest me or I’m leaving,” he reportedly said.
He would be arrested and charged with second degree assault for giving Harmony the black eye, but not until last year.
During a 2019 interview with Kayla Montgomery, she initially stuck to the lie that Harmony was sent to live with Sorey in November of 2019. This was during the time the family, including two young boys, was living in a Chrysler Sebring due to an eviction.
It wasn’t until Kayla Montgomery testified before the grand jury, and was then charged with perjury, that her story started to change. In June of 2022, Kayla Montgomery said Adam Montgomery beat Harmony to death in the Sebring.
The family had been living in the car for weeks, and on the day the car broke down, Dec. 7, 2019, Adam Montgomery killed his daughter, Kayla Montgomery told police. He was upset that she was having bathroom accidents in the car.
After one accident, he punched her in the face three to four times with his fist, Kayla Montgomery said. After the last blow he said something was different.
“I think I really hurt her this time, I think I did something,” Adam reportedly said.
The girl moaned for about five minutes and then went silent, according to the affidavit. Neither Adam nor Kayla Montgomery checked on her or tended to her injury for several hours that day. When they did check on her she was dead, according to Dunleavy’s affidavit.
Adam Montgomery put his daughter’s lifeless body into a duffle bag, and the family changed cars. Adam Montgomery put Harmony’s bag into the trunk of the different car. At times, he would put the bag into the snow to slow the decomposition of her body.
Throughout their homelessness, both Montgomerys were using crack and fentanyl, according to the affidavit.
Over the next several months, Harmony’s body was moved and hidden in various places around Manchester. First at Kayla Montgomery’s mother’s apartment when the family stayed there a short time. Harmony’s duffle bag was kept in a cooler.
The family next moved to the Families in Transition shelter in Manchester, and Harmony’s bag, now oozing, was hidden in the ceiling. Adam Montgomery had put the duffle bag inside a garbage bag to stop the liquid from seeping out, the affidavit said.
After another resident complained about the smell, Adam Montgomery wrapped the duffle bag in another garbage bag and hid the child’s remains in a closet.
Adam Montgomery then decided to remove his daughter from the duffle bag and placed her into a maternity bag from Catholic Medical Center. Dunleavy notes even Harmony, small and undernourished in life, and at this stage badly decomposed, would not easily fit into the maternity bag without someone dismembering or distorting her body in some way.
Kayla Montgomery testified smelling the body while Adam Montgomery took the bags into the shelter’s bathroom and made the switch. She could see steam coming out as Adam Montgomery worked to clean up after.
Adam Montgomery then kept his daughter’s remains in the freezer at the Portland Pie Pizza restaurant on Elm Street where he worked, the affidavit said.
The family eventually moved into an apartment on Union Street and brought Harmony’s body with them. Adam and Kayla Montgomery abused Harmony’s corpse when Adam Montgomery decided to add lime to the bag to speed decomposition. They “squished“ her body in and out of the bag, adding lime. Kayla Montgomery told detectives Harmony still had her skin and facial features.
Kayla Montgomery helped Adam Montgomery, cutting the child’s clothes off her frozen decomposed body. She told police she later heard loud “bangs” as Adam Montgomery stuffed the girl and the lime back into the bag.
Zipped up, this time Harmony was put into an apartment freezer.
In the spring of 2020, knowing the police were searching for the girl, Adam Montgomery got a rented U-Haul truck. Kayla said Adam took the maternity bag with Harmony’s remains with him in the middle of the night and returned in the early morning and said something to the effect of “it’s done.” Kayla said she didn’t see the maternity bag after that.