The New Hampshire Supreme Court reversed Adam Montgomery’s second-degree murder conviction tied to the death of his 5-year-old daughter, Harmony Montgomery, ruling June 11 that key charges were improperly combined at trial. The court upheld other convictions,
The New Hampshire Supreme Court reversed Adam Montgomery’s second-degree murder conviction tied to the death of his 5-year-old daughter, Harmony Montgomery, in a decision issued June 11—finding the way prosecutors built the trial denied him a fair chance to defend himself.
Montgomery. 36. was convicted in February 2024 and sentenced in May 2024 to 56 years to life in prison. including a 45-year to life term for the second-degree murder conviction. But the Supreme Court’s June 11 ruling sent only that murder count back to a lower court for further proceedings after concluding that the trial should not have combined the murder charge with related assault allegations.
“We conclude that, under these circumstances, trying the second degree assault and second degree murder charges in a single trial jeopardized the defendant’s right to a fair trial,” the court wrote in the 15-page ruling.
Under the same decision, the Supreme Court upheld Montgomery’s other convictions. He was also found guilty of second-degree assault, abuse of a corpse, falsifying physical evidence and witness tampering.
Even with the murder conviction reversed, Montgomery will not be released. The decision left standing the other felony convictions, meaning he will continue serving his sentence on those charges. He is also serving a separate 32½-year sentence he was already serving on unrelated gun charges.
The New Hampshire Department of Justice said it plans to seek a retrial of the murder charge. “We are disappointed by the Court’s decision to order a new trial on the second degree murder charge and we plan to pursue a re-trial on that charge. ” the Department of Justice said in a statement. “Adam Montgomery remains convicted of multiple serious felonies arising from Harmony’s death. as well as separate firearms offenses that were previously upheld on appeal.”.
The Supreme Court’s ruling landed as a rare break in a case that has left deep uncertainty around what happened to Harmony Montgomery. Her body has never been recovered.
Harmony Montgomery was not reported missing for almost 2 years. Authorities believe she was killed in Manchester, a city less than 20 miles south of Concord, the New Hampshire capital.
According to authorities, Harmony was last seen in 2019 but not reported missing until late 2021. The New Hampshire Department of Justice previously reported that Harmony was last seen after being evicted with her family from a Manchester home the day before Thanksgiving. Investigators later determined she was with her father and stepmother in the days following the eviction. as the family lived out of vehicles and moved around the city.
Authorities said the pattern of moving made it difficult to trace Harmony’s whereabouts. but multiple witness accounts helped narrow the timeframe. Witnesses told police they saw Harmony with the couple in the days after Nov. 27, 2019. By early December 2019, authorities said the child was no longer with them.
At the time. investigators said the probe had “narrowed the window of Harmony’s disappearance to approximately November 28–December 10. 2019.” Months later. after an extensive investigation involving local. state and federal agencies. authorities concluded that Harmony had been killed in Manchester in early December 2019.
While her body has never been found, investigators said biological evidence and other findings led them to determine she was murdered, according to the New Hampshire Department of Justice.
Montgomery was arrested by the Manchester Police Department in January 2022 in connection with his daughter’s disappearance and was later charged in her death. At the trial. prosecutors alleged Montgomery beat his daughter to death. put her remains in bags and disposed of them. and abused his wife while pressuring her to lie for him in court. Prosecutors also said Montgomery would not reveal where he hid Harmony’s body.
Montgomery previously professed his innocence in court and did not attend his trial. He was also not present when jurors returned their verdict in 2024.
At the May 2024 sentencing hearing, Hillsborough County Superior Court Judge Amy Messer told Montgomery, “Harmony was an innocent 5-year-old.” She added, “You treated her in the worst of possible ways, in both her life and her death.”
The sequence of rulings leaves a stark division in the case: a murder conviction that must be retried because of how charges were combined. while a set of other convictions—along with separate firearms punishment—remain in place. Montgomery’s future in prison is therefore not determined by whether the murder count stands alone. but by the other convictions the Supreme Court upheld and the additional sentence he is already serving.
The case now moves forward for the second-degree murder charge in lower court, even as the rest of the convictions stay intact.
New Hampshire Supreme Court Adam Montgomery Harmony Montgomery second-degree murder fair trial retrial second-degree assault abuse of a corpse witness tampering falsifying physical evidence Manchester