Harmony Montgomery: Everything We Know

Update 10/24/2022: Adam Montgomery was officially charged with the murder of Harmony Montgomery, who investigators say was killed in December 2019. Harmony’s remains have not yet been recovered. A trial is currently pending. If you have any information, please contact the new tip line at 603-932-8997.

Adam Montgomery gets a surprise visit from police

The sharp staccato sound of a flashlight tapping on the glass of the driver’s side window startled Adam. The beams from the flashlights swept across the front seats, and the harsh light, diffusing through the glass windshield, blinded the occupants. Adam was no stranger to the law. He knew that those flashlights belonged to the police. The officers asked him to roll down the window.

At first, he thought that it was about where he was parked. It wasn’t easy to be homeless. No matter where he landed, it seemed the police would always come by and check on him. He just wanted peace.

He had a new girlfriend, Kelsey Small, who was in the car with him, and they were off the grid at the moment – nothing but a car to call home. They were parked on Harvell Street, a short street just off of 293 on the west side of the Merrimack River (Manchester, NH), and it was pretty quiet on a holiday in the winter – no one was out to occupy the baseball diamonds and tennis courts that flanked the road.

It was New Year’s Eve, and although it wasn’t much of a celebration – huddled together in their cold car in the midst of winter in Manchester, New Hampshire, it was enough for them to be together. 2022 was only hours away.

He braced himself for the familiar questions. “What are you doing here?” … “We had a call about a suspicious vehicle.” … “Have you two been drinking?” … et cetera.

What he wasn’t expecting was for the Manchester Police Officer to ask him about his daughter, Harmony. He stiffened. They explained to Adam that they were looking for her. Her mother had reported her missing. Was she with him? When was the last time he saw her? Does he know where she is? What were the circumstances of their last time together?

Adam shut down. He quickly said that the last time he had seen her was when he returned Harmony to her biological mother in November of 2019 – about 2 years ago. The police weren’t satisfied with that. They explained that she didn’t have her and hadn’t seen her in OVER two years. “Where is she, Adam?”

He had had enough. “Am I under arrest?” he inquired. They said no. “Well then leave me be.”

They asked him how they might reach him, and Adam admitted to police that he didn’t even have a cell phone. The best way to reach him? Occasionally he would have access to his email.

They left, and he breathed a sigh of relief.

Adam no stranger to the law

Adam Montgomery’s encounters with law enforcement went back quite a ways.

In one incident, when he was 18 years old, in 2008, he broke into an apartment in Malden, Massachusetts, a suburb on the north side of Boston, and demanded money from two women there at gunpoint. He held the gun to one of their necks (according to a police report). Officers arrived and detained Adam and his associate, at which point Adam pointed the gun at one of the officers. They wrestled him to the ground and took the gun away from him, and it was later determined the gun was a pellet gun. He pled guilty to armed robbery and assault and battery with a dangerous weapon.

Even when he was just a young teenager, he had a series of run-ins with the law: court records indicate that he was involved with the court system at ages 12, 14, and 16, and his first criminal charge against him as an adult was filed when he was 17 years old.

In 2014, when he was 24, he shot a man in the face in Haverhill, Massachusetts, (on 8th Ave and Cedar Street) during a drug deal. In the same incident he got shot in the arm. Adam said that the shooting occurred during a struggle after the man he was supposed to buy heroin from tried to rob him. The man he shot survived – his name is Robert Jacobs, and he was 28 years old at the time. When police found him, they discovered he had been shot in the left side of the chin and the bullet exited his skull at the left temple. According to Robert, Adam wanted to buy three grams of heroin, and after he showed it to him, Adam pulled out a gun and attempted to rob him. Adam was shot in the arm by a third man, 22-year-old Cameron Vitalone. The gun that Adam used to shoot Robert—a .38 caliber revolver—was used by the third man to shoot Adam. And it was found by police on the sidewalk of 8th Avenue.

Adam fled the scene and was discovered in Manchester by the US Marshall’s office when they went to arrest him on an unrelated probation violation. When they found him, that’s when they discovered the bullet wound in his right arm.

Later that year he pled guilty to several crimes arising from the incident – including assault and battery with a dangerous weapon and carrying a firearm without a license, and the judge sentenced him to 18-months (suspended) to be served concurrently with other offences.

As recently as last year he was charged with stalking his ex-wife, with whom he separated as a result of domestic violence in March of 2021. After discovering a steak knife in the yard where Adam was snooping around the house, her mother filed a restraining order against him, but it was later dismissed because they couldn’t find Adam to serve him with the papers.

Adam’s children, a short history

Adam has four kids.

He had one child with his first wife, Crystal Sorey. Her name is Harmony Montgomery. She is the girl that the police were asking him about. She was born June 7th, 2014, the same year as the shooting incident in Haverhill. If she is alive today, she would be 7 years old.

The other three children are ages 4, 2, and 1 as of this recording, and they all share the same mother: Adam’s second wife Kayla Rivera Montgomery. She has custody of them.

So of Adam’s four known children, 1 is missing, and 3 are in the custody of his ex-wife.

Harmony’s half-brother, Jamison, and his adoption

In addition to Harmony, Crystal had another child—Jamison—but he did not share the same biological father as his sister, Harmony. I don’t know the name of his father.

Jamison was in the foster care system, and the state was working to place him with adoptive parents.

Blair and Jonathon Miller, a Washington, DC couple, adopted him in November of 2019, and have been outspoken about Harmony’s case. They would love to see their young son reunited with his older half-sister.

He just turned five years old on December 2nd.

Living in squalor

In 2019, Adam lived at 77 Gilford St, Manchester, NH with Kayla. The home was owned at the time by Adam’s grandmother, Helen Montgomery, and although I don’t know the details of the arrangement, it appears that they moved in upstairs at the small Cape Cod home with their 3 children as well as Harmony, whom Adam was given custody of in February of 2019. I believe that Jamison was in the foster care system at this time.

Helen may have lived there with them at the time, but at some point she went to Florida and then never ended up moving back in. Adam was paying rent to her.

All hell broke loose at this house throughout 2019. Police received and responded to 29 calls to 77 Gilford St, 13 of which were in the five-month span between June and November. The calls ran the gamut: domestic violence, animal related, building complaints, and child welfare. I have police reports from 11 of those calls on the website.

In July there was an incident of a friend who dropped by and overstayed his welcome, getting high and refusing to leave.

Also in July there was a violent episode between presumably Adam and Kayla that was overheard by someone walking by who called the cops.

In August, another neighbor called the police because they were worried about the welfare of the children. They didn’t believe that the house had electricity and they saw an awful lot of trash. A couple of months prior, around June of 2019, the power to the house was shut off, so Adam put a generator in the yard to run the bare necessities for the family of 6. Police responded, but according to the report, there was food in the house, and everyone appeared to be healthy.

Also in August, Adam picked up the phone to call the cops and report his uncle, Kevin Montgomery, who he claimed was harassing him. He said that Kevin had moved out months prior and had come back while Adam was away from the house to retrieve his TV. He also claimed that he was calling the children’s services government organization in New Hampshire, called DCYF, and making false reports.

By the end of August, it was noted in a report that Adam and his family were in the process of being evicted. Evidently his grandmother had stopped making payments on the mortgage and the house was going into foreclosure. More neighbors were calling about the condition of the property and referred to Adam and his family as “squatters”.

In September, there was a call about a dog, evidently they had a pet dog, and the caller said that she heard people inside yelling at the dog and then the dog yelping and whimpering, more yelling, and then the dog being put outside, and that it was an ongoing problem.

On September 11, 2019, there was a big confrontation between Kevin Montgomery and his nephew, Adam. Kevin was with Adam’s grandmother and called the cops saying that Adam wouldn’t let him into the home. Once he finally got inside, pushing open a door that was held shut by a refrigerator, there was a lot of yelling and screaming; evidently Kevin flipped a bed over and was very hostile.

About a week later, another neighbor called in a suspicious activity report. She heard loud music at 3:00AM the night prior and then noticed the next morning that one of the cars appeared to have been broken into – there were pry marks all over it.

All of these incidents are documented in official police reports that are included at the bottom of this page.

By early December, Adam, Kayla, and the kids left. The eviction process was at its final stop, and they were about to be forced out by law enforcement.

There are photos of the home below, and you can see the old rusty generator that was used as their electrical source. I can only imagine the irritation of the neighbors having to contend with the constant drone of a gasoline-powered generator sitting out in the driveway with an extension cord running through a window.

Harmony’s mother raises the alarm

Fast forward two years. It was November of 2021, and Harmony’s mother, Crystal, hadn’t seen her 2 and a half years. The last time that she had seen Harmony with her own eyes, in fact, was on Easter of 2019. She had been getting nowhere with Adam. He had blocked her phone number and blocked her from contacting him on social media accounts. Her only ways of getting any information about Adam were through intermediate parties. She later wrote that “Adam never enrolled [Harmony] in school, and she had missed important doctor’s appointments about her eye.”

As time had passed, her concern about her daughter had grown, and in early November, she started driving around to places she thought Adam was likely to be, trying to find her daughter. Finally on November 18, 2021, Crystal called the Manchester Police Department and reported her missing. Since a child services organization was involved, and since Crystal didn’t have custody of Harmony, the police sent a report to DCYF and waited for their response. On December 27, 2021, a little over a month later, they got their response: DCYF couldn’t find Harmony either.

Two days later, on December 29th, Crystal, weary of waiting, sent out emails to everyone involved as well as the Manchester mayor’s office, expressing her frustration. She said that her next stop was taking her story to the media. Through either coincidence or the threat of exposure, police acted immediately.

Police alert the public

On December 30th, police interviewed Adam’s younger brother, Michael Montgomery, and on the same day, his uncle Kevin Montgomery. Kevin told cops about what he had seen at heard at 77 Gilford.

On December 31st, the Manchester Chief of Police held a press conference and made the big announcement. He said, “At this time I have dedicated all available resources and personnel to locating Harmony. I’m begging the community. I don’t care if you saw this young girl a year ago and you think it’s irrelevant. Call us.” The first media coverage started to pick up on the 31st.

That same day police interviewed Kayla Montgomery, Adam’s ex-wife, and she, too, said she knew nothing about Harmony’s whereabouts. She hadn’t even seen Adam in a couple of months.

Almost immediately, a reward fund for tips relating to her disappearance was raised. $2,500 were pledged by Manchester Crimeline and an additional $10,000 were pledged by local business owners Dick Anagnost and Arthur Sullivan.

Timeframe of Harmony’s disappearance narrowed

It was at about this time that police started to piece together when they believed the last time Harmony was seen by anyone alive.

Kayla recalled to police that around Thanksgiving of 2019, November 28th, when they were getting evicted from 77 Gilford, Adam told her that he was returning Harmony to her mother in Lowell, Massachusetts. Kayla left for work that day and when she got home, Harmony was gone, and as far as she knew, that’s where Harmony still was – with her biological mom.

Crystal, though, hadn’t seen her since April 2019, and flatly denied that trip ever occurred.

When they left 77 Gilford with their three kids, they needed a place to stay, and after living out of a car on the streets for about a week, Kayla’s mom pitched in to help.

She recalled that they stayed with her briefly in December, and that when they moved in, Harmony was not with them.

The day that they moved in? December 6th.

So sometime between November 28th and December 6th, 2019 was the last time that anyone had reported seeing Harmony.

Weirdly this window of time was just a short two weeks after her younger brother, Jamison, was officially adopted by the Miller family.

Adam arrested and held in jail

Police were looking to exert some pressure on Adam and Kayla, and they had just the ammunition that they needed.

Adam’s uncle, Kevin, walked the police through an incident that happened back at 77 Gilford. In July of 2019, Kevin said that Adam had given Harmony a black eye by hitting her in the face. He said Adam’s own words to him were “I bashed her around this house.” Evidently Adam had asked Harmony to watch one of her younger half-siblings while he was out of the room, and when he returned and found the young boy crying with Harmony holding her hand over his mouth to silence him, he lashed out at her. In addition to this nasty incident, Kevin said that Adam doled out cruel punishments: standing for hours in a corner, hard spanking, and cleaning the toilet with her toothbrush. Police were satisfied with the account about her black-eye and took action.

On Tuesday, January 4th, 2022, just a couple of weeks ago, police arrested Adam on several charges. Second degree assault for the July 2019 strike to Harmony’s face, a charge of “endangering the welfare of a child” arising from her Thanksgiving 2019 disappearance, and “interference with custody by concealing a child”. They locked him up and a judge denied him bail, explaining that “the defendant's release will endanger the safety of the defendant or of the public”. He still remains in jail.

When Kayla’s mother was asked about Adam, she said, “He is pure evil. Adam can sweet talk and swindle and talks up the storm but is actually the devil”. She continued, “Adam for the first couple of years—he was a sweet guy—but he’s not. He’s pure evil.”

Kayla arrested on fraud relating to Harmony

On Wednesday, January 5th, as the judge ordered Adam to be held without bail, police arrested his ex-wife, Kayla Rivera, at the Families in Transition shelter on class A felony welfare fraud charges. Her 3 young children were brought to Kayla’s mother’s place to stay.

The charges stated that Kayla stole more than $1,500 worth of monthly food benefits from November 30th, 2019 until June 2nd, 2021 (about 18 months). Kayla, on her paperwork with the state, claimed that during that time period, Harmony was a part of her household (despite the fact that she was not) and therefore collected extra benefits on Harmony’s behalf—money that she wasn’t entitled to. Kayla has said that she believed that Harmony was with her mom during that timeframe.

The following day, a judge gave her the following bail conditions: $5,000 bail, she was not to speak with Adam, she couldn’t leave New Hampshire, and she had to sign an extradition waiver, which simplified means that if she did leave the state, she waived her right to an extradition hearing and authorities would be able to bring her back to New Hampshire right away.

Less than a week after she was charged (on Monday, January 10th), prosecutors substituted the class A felony welfare fraud charges against Kayla Rivera with 9 other charges. Her lawyer also filed a motion to reduce her bail because he believed $5k was too high now that she was no longer being charged with a class A felony. Kayla was arraigned on Tuesday the 12th with downgraded class B felony charges of fraud.

It's not clear whether or not Kayla made bail, or remained in jail during this time.

Police search Adam’s old home (77 Gilford)

The weekend prior (Sat, January 8th to Monday, January 10th), the FBI joined the Manchester and NH state police in the search for Harmony, and searched Adam’s former home at 77 Gilford. The house was sold to new owners in May 2020. The current homeowners, whose property is now entangled in the mess of an investigation, have no connection to the Montgomery’s or to the case. Police didn’t disclose what they were searching for, but at 10:30 on the morning of Sunday, January 10th, officers were seen lugging sheets of insulation down the driveaway into the back of a police truck. The truck left the residence 10 min later while the rest of the crew continued their work.

January in New England is never a warm time, but for the past 2 weeks, the Northeast has been especially cold. Temperatures have averaged below 20 degrees, dipping below zero at times, with a wind child that makes it feel much colder.

During the 3-day search, much of the efforts were focused on the backyard. WHDH Boston showed drone footage from above Gilford St, which was completely blocked off with police cars the entire length of the street. It also showed the backyard of 77 Gilford. Police had created a network of pipes designed to thaw the ground with hot water running through. Giant sheets of plastic and tarps can be seen as well as tents covering a majority of the backyard. Once the ground was soft enough, police began digging.

Reward for information climbs rapidly

While police have been extensively searching for anything that might lead them to Harmony, the public has stayed vigilant: Internet and couch sleuths hopped on board, scouring the internet for any clues that could help.

Generous Samaritans have been continually increasing the reward fund for information, at this point it was up to $94,000. There were vigils, and news segments, and Facebook groups popping up left and right. At a vigil that Saturday night, January 8th, (the weekend of the dig at 77 Gilford) Crystal Sorey, told the media, “I want her to know that I'm out here, and we're going to hand out fliers every single day, and we're going to pass out these posters as far as we can.“

Internet sleuths making stunning discovery

I’d like to take a moment to shout out the podcast “True Crime Replay” who shared an amazing discovery from internet sleuths about this case.

There is currently an active Ebay listing selling an automatic transmission and a power steering pump from a car that formerly belonged to Adam Montgomery. The car’s license plate is visible in the listing and is confirmed to be the same license plate as one that appeared in one of the police reports from the many incidents at 77 Gilford. It is a gray 2010 Chrysler Sebring.

The car’s VIN number was published as part of the listing on Ebay, and sleuths ran a CarFax report to see what it would reveal, and what they found out is either a tremendous coincidence or a break in the case.

As a reminder, the key timeframe that we are keenly interested in is the period between November 28th and December 6th, 2019, and there are two reported incidents from this exact timeframe. I don’t know the details of where Carfax gets its information, but I would suspect the primary sources are DMV’s, insurance companies, and repair shops.

On November 29th, there was a report of damage to the front center of the car.

On December 2nd, there was a report of damage to the front left of the car.

You can see excerpts from the Carfax report below.

There are no further details in the report, but this suggests a theory as to what may have happened to Harmony.

What if Adam were involved in an accident and Harmony was killed or critically injured. Could he have made her disappear instead of facing the consequences for vehicular manslaughter?

Was Harmony protected by the state?

There have been many loud critics blaming the state for failing to protect Harmony.

A lot of the decisions about her are confidential, and we may never know the full circumstances to have an informed opinion about her treatment by the state, but here’s an outline of what we know.

In 2018, Harmony’s mother, Crystal, lost custody of her due to substance abuse issues. I believe that Harmony entered the foster care system at this point.

By February of 2019, Adam had gotten custody of her. When reporters asked Crystal about this outcome, she explained that she had asked the judge for a continuance and it was denied. The reason for the delay? She had a conflicting hearing the same day at the same time for her son, Jamison’s, adoption. Since she couldn’t be in two places at once, the judge decided to give sole custody of Harmony to her father.

I suspect that it would have been possible for Crystal to get a court-blessed visitation arrangement to see Harmony, but I don’t believe that happened, so she was at the whim of Adam’s generosity.

At first, briefly, Adam allowed her to communicate with Harmony over the phone or virtually, but Crystal said that Easter of 2019 was the last time she had contact with her daughter.

By July of 2019, Adam’s Uncle, Kevin, had notified the state about Harmony, and he insists today that they could have acted then. Adam later described to police that Kevin was “harassing” him by making untrue claims to child protective services.

Crystal’s father (Harmony’s maternal grandpa), told Boston 25 News that he or his family had called social workers “14 times in 2020 and 2021” about Harmony. He said, “that poor girl has been through hell in the system, and the system has failed her.”

Jamison’s adopted parents also contacted the state and told them that they were willing to adopt Harmony as well, but they said she had been reunited with her father.

Reporters have been trying to apply some pressure to the child services agencies, lawmakers, and the governor’s offices to review the secret decisions that were made by child services and the juvenile court system to see if they did in fact act in Harmony’s best interest.

Prominent lawmaker and Massachusetts chairman of the joint committee on children and families has asked for the “Office of the Child Advocate” to review the decisions made on Harmony’s case. He said, “This is on the permanent agenda until we get the answers we think we need.” He estimated that pulling the case files will take 2-3 weeks, and then a review will be conducted after they are retrieved.

I learned that New Hampshire employs a total of 283 child protection workers, and since 2019, 196 have transferred out of their positions or quit. That’s 69.2% turnover in two years. The Concord Monitor reported that a former Manchester child protection worker, Amber Bennett, said that she had cases for more than 200 children and was working 70-80 hours a week in the spring of 2019 trying to keep up.

The mission statement of the organizations is to “partner with families and communities to provide resources and support that lead to the safety and healthy development of children, youth, and the communities in which they live.”

New Hampshire governor Sununu ordered DCYF to immediately review Harmony’s case, but said, preliminarily, "Right now, I feel very confident DCYF has done a good job of staying on top of the case and transmitting the information."

Crystal had this to say: “I’m not going to lie, I’m hostile at this point. I have a lot of hostility to a lot of people that failed my daughter. And I'm included, I'm always going to own the fact that I played my part on this. But I never gave up on her. She is so very, very loved by everyone who's ever met her.”

But why did it take two and a half years since Crystal last saw her daughter, in Easter of 2019, to take action?

Harmony’s case in one word? Tragedy.

Blair and Johnathan Miller, the adoptive fathers of Jamison (Harmony’s little brother), spoke with Good Morning America this past Saturday, January 15th pleading with the public to come forward with information. Jamison, who spent time in foster care with Harmony when he was about 3, remembers his sister and asks about her frequently. He even looks for her when they go to the park, hoping she might be there to play.

Johnathan said, “The thought that I may have to tell my 5-year-old ‘we couldn’t protect your sister the way we get to protect you’ is heartbreaking.”

It’s a tragedy that Blair and Johnathan Miller weren’t able to adopt Harmony. If they had succeeded, she would likely be living a happy life with her brother, in a warm and loving home.

As of the release of this episode, January 18th, 2022, the reward for information leading to Harmony’s whereabouts has climbed to more than $137,000. Hopefully if somebody is holding onto pertinent information about Harmony’s disappearance, it doesn’t take additional money to do the right thing and come forward with what they know.

This case is still developing and will be constantly evolving every day. Police have received more than 300 tips and counting. I believe this episode to be as accurate as possible at the time of release, but because new information is constantly coming in, some information might change in the future. What remains though is the need for answers and the hope, no matter how small, that Harmony is safe and will be found.

Harmony Montgomery is currently 7 years old with blonde hair and blue eyes. She is blind in her right eye and should be wearing glasses. It’s also possible she has lost some baby teeth. She’s around 4 feet tall and weighs about 50lbs. If you have any relevant information to the investigation of Harmony Montgomery, please call the Manchester police department exclusive Harmony tip line at 603-932-9887.

Links

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Adam and Kayla Montgomery's home, 77 Gilford St, Manchester, NH — Adam and Kayla Montgomery’s home, 77 Gilford St, Manchester, NH

Manchester Police Press Conference, Harmony Montgomery

Harmony Montgomery, search of 77 Gilford St

Crystal Sorey, Harmony Montgomery's mother — Crystal Sorey (Harmony’s mother)

Adopted family, Blair Miller, Crystal Sorey, Jamison Miller, Johnathan Miller (left to right) — Blair Miller, Crystal Sorey, Jamison Miller, Johnathan Miller (left to right)

Sources For This Episode

Newspaper articles

Various articles from the Associated Press, Boston Globe, Boston Herald, CNN Wire service, Daily Star, Insider, New Hampshire Union Leader, TCA Regional News, The Daily Beast, The Haverhill Gazette, The Independent, The Telegraph, USA Today, Washington Post.

Primary authors were Dean Shalhoup, Dugan Arnett, Gabriela Miranda, Jeffrey Hastings, John Ellement, John Hilliard, Jonathan Phelps, Josie Albertson-Grove, Kathy McCormack, Marie Szaniszlo, Marisa Iati, Mark Hayward, and Pilar Melendez.

Full listing here.

Official Documents

Police reports related to 77 Gilford St, Manchester, NH (2019), here.

Affidavit related to Adam Montgomery’s criminal charges (2022), here.

Videos

'Missing: Harmony Montgomery’s mother speaks out | Full Interview' (Youtube), 1/10/2022

'Harmony Montgomery, Internet Sleuths Find Adam's Car!' (Youtube), 1/13/2022

'The mother of Kayla Montgomery speaks to the media…' (Youtube), 1/6/2022

'Great-uncle of missing Harmony Montgomery…' (Youtube), 1/6/2022

'Harmony Montgomery Went Unreported For TWO YEARS' (Youtube), 1/9/2022

'25 Investigates: NH Child Advocate launches…' (Boston 25 News), 1/12/2022

'77 Gilford Street Manchester, NH 03102 - Single Family - Real Estate - For Sale' (Youtube), 4/1/2020

Online written sources

'NH - Harmony Montgomery, 7, Manchester, Oct 2019' (Websleuths), 1/7/2022, by PommyMommy

'Power Steering Pump 2.4L Fits 09-17 JOURNEY 797562' (Ebay), 12/15/2021, by hebertsusedautoparts

'Timeline: Missing NH girl Harmony Montgomery' (Boston 25 News), 1/6/2022, no author credited

Photo Sources

Some stills from video sources, most photos sourced from various Facebook groups and online news sites.

Carfax and police reports from True Crime Replay.

Credits

Created, researched, written, told, and edited by Kristen Seavey

Research, writing, photo editing support by Byron Willis

Adam Montgomery gets a surprise visit from police