By DAMIEN FISHER, InDepthNH.org

Adam Montgomery maintains the only reason he was convicted of beating his five-year-old daughter to death is because the jury was prejudiced by evidence of other assaults Harmony Montgomery suffered from her father.

The New Hampshire Supreme Court heard arguments Wednesday on Montgomery’s appeal of his second-degree murder conviction, with defense attorney Pamela Phelan focusing largely on the argument that the murder trial should have been separate from the assault charge trial.

Adam Montgomery, 35, of Manchester, is serving 56 years to life for murdering Harmony, mutilating her corpse, and for an assault he perpetrated on the little girl months before the murder. But Phelan said prosecutors used the assault charge to improperly bolster the murder charge evidence in the eyes of the jury. The star witness for prosecutors at last year’s trial was Kayla Montgomery, Adam Montgomery’s now ex-wife and the woman he claims actually killed Harmony.

Phelan said the evidence for the assault, which took place in July of 2019, included multiple, credible witnesses, but Kayla Montgomery was the only eyewitness to Harmony’s murder.

“[T]he homicide case rested on the testimony of Kayla Montgomery, and she had significant credibility problems,” Phelan told the Court. “The July assault [evidence] was much stronger, and to the extent that the jury likely had significant doubts about what Kayla’s version of events were for Dec. 7, [2019], which is when the homicide is alleged to have happened, the jury could very likely have relied on the strength of that assault charge case in resolving doubt against Mr. Montgomery on the homicide charge.”

Kayla Montgomery repeatedly lied to investigators for months about what had happened to Harmony, and even lied in front of a grand jury, Phelan said. Kayla Montgomery only changed her story after a perjury conviction and the prospect of even more prison time loomed.

Phelan argued that Hillsborough Superior Court Judge Amy Messer erred when she denied the defense motion to sever the assault case from the murder case. But, as the justices noted Wednesday, Adam Montgomery’s legal team initially agreed to join the two cases before last year’s trial. That was before his defense strategy became blaming Kayla Montgomery for the crime.

Assistant Attorney General Sam Gonyea argued Adam Montgomery was convicted based on overwhelming evidence, including physical evidence and witnesses that corroborated Kayla Montgomery’s account of what Adam Montgomery did to Harmony after the murder. 

Prosecutors introduced evidence confirming Kayla Montgomery’s testimony that Adam Montgomery hid Harmony’s body in the ceiling at the Families in Transition shelter; that he stored her body in the freezer at his place of work; that he bought a bag of quicklime; and that he rented a U-Haul truck to drive Harmony’s corpse to never be found.

“If all those things could be corroborated by the physical evidence to show that Kayla wasn’t lying about those things, it becomes a lot easier to credit her testimony when she says ‘the look of an evil man in that car is why I didn’t do more to stop from raining blows on her face.’ That becomes a lot easier to buy once the rest of her testimony is credited, and very, very much of her testimony was,” Gonyea said. 

Adam Montgomery is serving his sentence after last year’s trial in which he was convicted on one count of second-degree murder for beating Harmony to death on Dec. 7, 2019; second-degree assault for beating Harmony so badly in July of 2019 that he left a black eye; witness tampering for forcing his then-wife, Kayla Montgomery, to lie about what happened to the little girl; and guilty on charges of falsifying evidence and abuse of Harmony’s corpse for the months of gruesome coverup.

Adam and Kayla Montgomery, both drug addicts, were living in their car in December of 2019 along with their small children, including Harmony, who was the daughter of Adam and Crystal Sorey, according to court records. Kayla testified Adam Montgomery flew into a rage when Harmony had a bathroom accident in the car and repeatedly punched her in the face on Dec. 7, 2019.

The couple covered up the crime by keeping her body for months as they moved into a shelter, and then an apartment. Harmony is believed to have been left somewhere in Revere, Massachusetts, and the search for her remains continues.

Adam and Kayla Montgomery explained Harmony’s sudden absence by telling people the child had gone back to live with her biological mother, Crystal Sorey, a Massachusetts resident. But it was Sorey who reported Harmony missing toward the end of 2021 after repeated attempts to contact her daughter, who was in Adam Montgomery’s custody, failed. A missing child search soon turned into a murder investigation as police dug deeper into Adam and Kayla Montgomery’s stories. 

Crystal Sorey reached a $2.5 million legal settlement with the State of New Hampshire. Part of her claim involved the fact that the Division for Children, Youth and Families failed repeatedly to protect Harmony despite credible reports of abuse. 

State Supreme Court Associate Justice Anna Barbara Hantz Marconi was disqualified from sitting in on the hearing Wednesday since it involves the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office. Hantz Marconi is back to work this week after taking a no contest plea deal and being found guilty for meeting with then-Gov. Chris Sununu seeking information in the investigation involving her husband, state Ports Director Geno Marconi, who is scheduled to go on trial next month.