New Hampshire social workers ignored a litany of warning signs that a 5-year-old girl was being physically abused by her father prior to the child’s death, the slain girl’s mother alleged in a negligence lawsuit filed Friday against the state.
Crystal Sorey says the state’s Division for Children, Youth and Families failed to act on numerous reports from multiple people about Harmony Montgomery’s welfare after father Adam Montgomery was awarded custody of the girl in February 2019.
Adam Montgomery was sentenced in May to a minimum of 56 years in prison after he was convicted of murdering his daughter and moving her corpse around for months before disposing of it. Police believe Harmony was killed by him nearly two years before she was reported missing in 2021. Her body was never found.
According to the lawsuit, the father’s uncle Kevin Montgomery contacted the agency to tell them Harmony had a “vibrant” black eye after she was “punched clear in the eye socket with full force” and that Adam had told him he’d “bounced her off” every wall in the house.
What the actual fuck.
The couple later discovered the girl was dead after the car broke down, Kayla Montgomery testified. She said her husband put the body in a duffel bag. She described various places where the girl’s body was hidden, including the trunk of a car, a cooler, a homeless center ceiling vent and the walk-in freezer at her husband’s workplace.
So this guy was toting a child-corpse around and hiding her in places where others simply didn’t notice? I wanted more info on the step-mother. Is she in prison for complicity in the scheme? I gotta think so.
Followed a link in the article to her testimony:
Kayla Montgomery said Harmony was potty trained, but had begun having frequent accidents. She testified that her husband punched Harmony in the head after two such accidents in the car.
He later covered Harmony with a blanket as the child cried, moaned and eventually went silent, the stepmother said. Their car broke down soon afterward and Adam Montgomery put Harmony’s body in the duffel bag, she said.
[…]
“Right,” said Montgomery, who is serving an 18-month prison sentence after pleading guilty to perjury for lying during grand jury testimony about where she was when Harmony was last seen.
[…]
The duffel bag made it from the trunk of a friend’s car to a hallway cooler near an apartment where Kayla Montgomery’s mother lived, and then to a ceiling vent in a shelter where the family stayed for about six weeks.
I find it difficult to believe that a corpse spent six weeks in a ceiling without detection, but there’s no reason to believe that she’s lying about this child dying from abuse. If anything, I think the step-mother may share more guilt in hiding the body. But I guess prosecutors weighed his conviction as the most important aspect of the case.
We live in such a fucked up society.
As the father of a nearly 5 year old girl, reading this makes my blood boil. I would strangle this man with every ounce of strength in my body
What did this mother do to lose a custody battle to this piece of shit? Was foster care not the better option here?? Fuck.
Maybe it was something as simple as dad made more money than mom did.
Blaming a victim probably isn’t the best choice here.
Which victim did I blame?
There is one victim here. Pretty sure I didn’t blame the dead child.
The wife is a victim as well as she lost her child.
Or do you think that a parent losing their child to murder doesn’t have any effect on them whatsoever?
I think without knowing why she lost the child, it’s not right to call her a victim before the child. For all you know, she was worse than him. Which, stands to reason.
Until I know, there is one victim. Your stance is conjecture. Mine is withholding judgement with reason. I won’t go into gender politics of custody and why there are red flags to begin with here; until we know why she lost custody to this (now) clear piece of shit and not to foster care…
There is one victim (dead child). And one culprit (the state).
Should the mother have been a decent mother, drug addicted but loving and providing, not abusive, etc, the there are two victims, and two counts against the state.
I am not going to jump to conclusions, especially when the available evidence (the fact that she lost custody to a deadbeat lunatic) suggests otherwise.
The mother could equally be a perpetrator or a victim. We don’t know yet.
I am not going to jump to conclusions
You already did.
No, I have remained purposely impartial.
Protip, don’t try and become a lawyer.
We have no evidence to sway us between “mom was worse than dad” and “mom is a victim”. (In fact the available evidence suggests mom was so bad that dads psychopathic character didn’t shine through as less safe from Mom than foster care. I’ve been generous to Mom given this and, again, not going into gender politics of custody battles…).
I understand you’re trying to be empathetic. I’m trying to preserve justice for a tortured, dead child. Until we don’t know mom wasnt worse, we remain impartial.
You may be right, mom may be a victim. But you may be doing a dead child a severe disservice. Withhold your judgement without facts present, please.
Was Dad’s cousin the DA? that changes things. We dont know. And until we do, we examine the available evidence.
Until more evidence is presented publicly, mom is not a victim. That doesn’t mean she can’t be, and I have left that window open. On purpose.
The known victim is a dead child. We proceed with respect to known victims so as to remain impartial.
I used to be an investigator for a child and family services agency.
Please stop trying to tell me who is a victim and who isn’t.
How much do we want to bet that someone along the line looked the other way because they believe in being violent towards their kids?
You know, the “spare the rod…” sort. Those people still exist, unfortunately.
The wife/stepmother should be in prison too as it sounds like she helped him cover it up.
According to the lawsuit, the father’s uncle Kevin Montgomery contacted the agency to tell them Harmony had a “vibrant” black eye after she was “punched clear in the eye socket with full force” and that Adam had told him he’d “bounced her off” every wall in the house.
Imagine being related to that piece of shit, seeing how horrible of a person he is, and being forced to watch him destroy a child’s life while the government refuses to do anything. I’m amazed the father isn’t dead. Being sentenced to prison or executed is too merciful. He should be tied up in public and subjected to a constant, high but non-lethal electric current until he dies of dehydration.
Edit: this is less about revenge and more about how I’m very low on empathy and patience for the shit heads of the world right now; and I’m extremely tired of them and wondering what it’d take to make them shut up and go away.
I understand the revenge fantasy, but advocating for the public torture of someone is fucked up, even if they are a monstrous piece of shit like this guy.
What are you supposed to do with people like that? He punched his child to death between a methadone clinic and a McDonald’s because she wet her seat. He bragged about “bouncing her off every wall in the house”. He moved her body around for months, and based on the locations he chose, it almost seems like taunting than “how do I get rid of this body”.
Can someone like that actually be rehabilitated, or can they serve as an example of what happens to monstrous pieces of shit like that? Like, normally I’m for rehab, but I’m not sure he can be rehabbed.
Can someone like that actually be rehabilitated
I doubt it. Which is why I’m a fan of letting them disappear forever in a prison, and never have the opportunity ever again to harm a child.
or can they serve as an example of what happens to monstrous pieces of shit like that?
Also doubt it.
These sort of people will not recognize their own actions as being wrong, and they also wont “learn” from the punishment of others.
So the only thing public torture would do is provide a spectacle for those who enjoy it. It won’t deter anything. There used to be public hangings, stocks, etc - which also was not stopping the crimes from happening.
Yeah, you’re right. Tbh I’d rather if they were gone so they don’t have a chance to escape and rejoin the real world, but there just isn’t a great solution to the problem that doesn’t end up with others suffering in some way. The people who do this kinda shit either A) do it knowing they’ll eventually get caught and believe the risk is worth the reward, or B) they’re so disconnected from reality that nothing can deter them from following whatever fucked up thoughts pop into their heads. A) knows exactly what they’re doing and are doing it anyway, while B) is basically an animal with human intelligence at that point. You ain’t stopping either one of them.
Unfortunately true. And the reason I personally land with prison is that enough innocent people end up there that I can’t support the death penalty. I actually just referenced a convicted murderer just a bit ago, whose conviction was overturned in no small part due to bad police work.
The best prevention, IMO, has nothing to do with the justice system, and a lot note to do with better social services. Counseling before something terrible and irreversible happens, better support for single parents, or even social workers/police/etc doing their job in this case, would have improved things drastically - a little girl would still be alive.
I can’t think of a better option than that.
Yeah, I mean, again, I’m usually for rehabilitation, prevention, counseling, etc. because I know there are a lot of innocent people; either innocent of action (they didn’t do it, were coerced, or the law was unjust or unjustly applied), or innocent because (imo) they had good reason (like stealing food or assaulting/killing your abusive spouse).
I also know there are plenty of people who could be kind, caring people, they just never had the chance to not be a criminal due to their upbringing; and they absolutely deserve to have a chance at rehabilitation.
But then you end up with these fucks. Just… What the fuck.
Yup totally get it. This is a point far beyond rehabilitation to me, where the only sane solution is to never allow that person to interact with the public again.
I have zero ability to comprehend any of their “reasoning”, and even if they change their behavior, I don’t see how it could possibly be worth the risk to the public to ever let them be free.
Its just… So far beyond anything understandable to do something like this.
I think I can relate, somewhat. It’s not easy, constantly being rational in the face of evil depravity. A just mind seeking a clean pattern of cause and effect can’t be blamed when it starts asking “where is the sword of the innocent”, and I personally get how that morphs to “Ok, will somebody give me the sword?”.
I’m there myself today, on other news. Beware the thoughts, however. There’s a difference between wanting to wield a sword to protect and one to punish; one is swift and necessary, the other opens the window to festering and becoming the abyss.
I wouldn’t weep at a swift and ignominious end now, and I certainly would personally swing down that figurative blade and go to sleep soundly but never with the idea the monster could be made to comprehend if I taint myself to the same level of depravity, best remain a monster-lite. Because even that course of action I’d take is not without its own brand of reprehensible in the just world I’d rather live in.
Very poetic, and yes. You’re right.
Edit: (I’m being serious btw, you write very well; I just don’t know what else to say aside from what I’ve said to the other commenters).
If it makes you feel better, he’ll likely have a target on his back in prison, as people who hurt children are supposedly not well-liked in there either. So he’ll be living in constant fear and paranoia.
Not really, again, this isn’t really about revenge; it’s more like, what would it take to make these kinds of people stop acting this way. Someone else made the point that, at the end of the day, they’re breaking the law anyway. The law hasn’t ever been, nor will likely ever be, enough to stop people like that. As such, a punishment like that probably wouldn’t do anything except make cruelty socially acceptable (it might actually backfire).
sigh
What a vibrant fantasy you have
If only you could put that energy into something else than fantasising about killing people gruesomely
