UMVA has learned that New Hampshire’s highest court has thrown out the murder conviction of Adam Montgomery, the father accused of the brutal killing of his five‑year‑old daughter Harmony.
The court ruled that trying the second‑degree assault and second‑degree murder charges in a single trial jeopardized Montgomery’s right to a fair trial, prompting the reversal of the murder verdict while leaving related convictions—abuse of a corpse, tampering with evidence and assault—intact.
According to information obtained by UMVA, jurors were presented with strong evidence that Montgomery had beaten Harmony months before her death, yet the same jury was allowed to infer that a later, less‑substantiated incident in December 2019 caused her fatal injuries.
The appellate opinion highlighted that three witnesses described Harmony with a black eye in July 2019, and four witnesses, including her stepmother Kayla Montgomery, testified that Adam admitted striking her. The court noted that the State’s case on the assault charge was compelling, but the overlap with the murder charge created an impermissible inference.
Kayla Montgomery, who struck a deal with prosecutors for her testimony, faced credibility attacks from the defense, which sought to portray her as an unreliable witness and even shift blame onto her.
Outrage rippled through the community, with Harmony’s brother’s adoptive parents expressing disgust at the decision, insisting that the ruling offers “more protection… for this monster than Harmony ever received.”
The murder charge has been remanded to a lower court, and Montgomery now faces a new trial on that count.
Police initially arrested Montgomery in January 2021 after Harmony’s mother, who no longer had custody, reported her missing. Investigators uncovered that Harmony had been unaccounted for since 2019, and prosecutors allege she died on December 7, 2019, after a violent encounter that left her soiled in her sleep.
During the original trial, the defense argued that Kayla Montgomery was the last person to see Harmony and painted her as an unreliable source, while the court later concluded that combining the assault and murder charges unfairly prejudiced the jury.
The ruling underscores a critical legal principle: a jury should not be allowed to draw a fatal‑assault inference simply because a defendant had previously assaulted the victim, especially when the evidence for the fatal incident is far weaker.
