New Hampshire Supreme Court overturns Adam Montgomery murder conviction

adam montgomery’s second-degree murder conviction in the death of his 5-year-old daughter, Harmony Montgomery, was overturned Thursday by the New Hampshire Supreme Court. The court said a procedural flaw in how the case was tried required reversal of the murder count.

The ruling leaves Montgomery’s convictions for assault, falsifying physical evidence, witness tampering and abusing his daughter’s corpse in place. It also does not affect his separate decades-long prison sentence on unrelated firearms offenses from 2023.

New Hampshire Supreme Court

Montgomery was convicted in 2024 of second-degree murder for recklessly causing Harmony’s death and second-degree assault for an earlier incident of physical abuse. The high court said keeping the murder and assault charges together in one case jeopardized his right to a fair trial, and it reversed only the murder conviction.

Pamela E. Phelan, who represented Montgomery on appeal, said, "Justice is only served when we provide a person accused of a crime a fair and just trial". She also said, "A trial that is not conducted with those principles in mind does not do justice to persons accused of a crime or people who are victims of crimes."

Harmony Montgomery case

The murder case centered on the fatal beating of Harmony in December 2019, when the family was living in a car in Manchester, New Hampshire, after an eviction with his wife and two other children. Montgomery was later convicted at trial of beating his daughter to death, and the overturned count had rested in part on testimony from Kayla Montgomery, his estranged wife.

The court’s ruling does not disturb the rest of the criminal case built around testimony that he did not report Harmony’s death and hid her remains in several locations, including the ceiling of a homeless shelter and a walk-in freezer at the pizza shop where he worked for about a month.

Crystal Sorey lawsuit

Harmony’s disappearance went largely unnoticed by authorities for two years, and Crystal Sorey grew frantic in late 2021 and came to Manchester to find her missing child. Harmony’s remains still have not been located.

The case has also produced a civil finding against Montgomery in May, when he was found liable for his daughter’s death. A wrongful death lawsuit filed by Sorey led to nearly $15.5 million in damages for Harmony’s estate, and Sorey separately reached a $2.25 million settlement with the state of New Hampshire.