Officials ignored warning signs prior to young girl's death at the hands of her father, lawsuit says
apnews.com
The mother of a 5-year-old girl who was killed by her father had filed a lawsuit against the state of New Hampshire, alleging it was negligent because it had failed to investigate reports of physical abuse before she was killed.

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.

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    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.