New Hampshire Supreme Court Overturns Murder Conviction in Harmony Montgomery Case
The New Hampshire Supreme Court overturned Adam Montgomery's second-degree murder conviction on Thursday, citing a procedural flaw in combining charges. His assault, evidence-tampering, and related convictions remain in place, and he will stay in prison due to separate firearms sentences.
The Boston GlobeThe New Hampshire Supreme Court overturned Adam Montgomery's second-degree murder conviction on Thursday, citing a procedural flaw in how the case was tried. The court said combining the murder charge with a second-degree assault charge in a single trial jeopardized his right to a fair trial.
Montgomery, now 36, was convicted in 2024 of second-degree murder for recklessly causing the death of his five-year-old daughter, Harmony Montgomery, who died in 2019. He was also convicted of second-degree assault for an earlier incident of physical abuse.
The court reversed only the murder conviction and left the assault conviction intact.
Montgomery's other convictions for falsifying physical evidence, witness tampering, and abusing his daughter's corpse were affirmed by the court. Those convictions, together with an earlier unrelated firearms case, mean he will remain behind bars. The overturned murder conviction had carried a sentence of 45 years to life.
A public defender representing Montgomery on appeal said the ruling addresses important aspects of fairness in criminal proceedings. "Justice is only served when we provide a person accused of a crime a fair and just trial," the public defender said.
A spokesperson for the state attorney general's office, which prosecuted the case, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Montgomery was also found civilly liable in May for his daughter's death and ordered to pay nearly $15.5 million in damages to her estate. The girl's mother, Crystal Sorey, reached a separate $2.25 million settlement with the state of New Hampshire.
Harmony Montgomery's disappearance went largely unnoticed by authorities for two years until Sorey grew frantic in late 2021. Montgomery never divulged the location of his daughter's remains, which still have not been located. The case had been based in part on testimony from his estranged wife about how he hid the body in locations including a homeless shelter ceiling and a restaurant freezer.
