Police searched a wetland area in Massachusetts for the remains of a New Hampshire girl authorities say was killed by her father Adam Montgomery.
The little girl made national headline news in 2021 when it was discovered by police that her whereabouts were unknown for more than two years after a Massachusetts judge switched full custody from Harmony’s mother Crystal Sorey to Adam Montgomery.
The judge stripped Sorey of custody of then-five-year-old Harmony over an alleged drug addiction problem and granted it to Adam Montgomery, who at the time had a long criminal record including armed robbery, violent assaults, and drug possession. He was finishing an 18-month sentence for shooting a man just prior to Harmony’s birth and have been described in police reports as a heroin addict.
He was found homeless and living in a car when police tracked him down to question him about the whereabouts of his daughter.
According to police reports, around Thanksgiving of 2021, Sorey contacted police and told them that her daughter was missing after she spent months trying to get New Hampshire Division of Children, Youth and Family (DCYF) to do a wellness check on Harmony. The little girl was supposed to be under the supervision of a DCYF but reports showed the agency failed to conduct routine checks on her.
An investigation followed and police held a press conference revealing that Adam Montgomery could not account for Harmony’s whereabouts since 2019.
Police have released limited details about Adam’s involvement in her disappearance. In January, he was indicted on a charge of second-degree murder on allegations he beat his daughter to death just days before Christmas in 2019.
According to a statement by Massachusetts state police, they searched for the little girl’s remains on Friday, April 6, in an area of Revere, a city just north of Boston, about 30 miles south of the New Hampshire border.
State Police spokesman Dave Procopio said the search “was prompted by information developed by investigators.”
According to national statistics, more than 900 children have been killed in the United States since 2008. Since January alone, 22 children have been killed by one of their parents in America.
In March, three South Carolina children were murdered in front of their mother while they lay sleeping in bed and a two-year Florida boy allegedly thrown into an alligator-infested lake by his father are among at least 22 children killed just since January.
In some of the cases, the children had parents involved in a divorce, a custody dispute, or past allegations of domestic violence involving the parents alleged to have carried out the killings.
In January, a Utah father shot his five children along with their mother and then himself less than two weeks after the mother filed for divorce. In Colorado, 5-year old Liam Brueche’s father allegedly shot and killed him using an air rifle after the father missed a scheduled custody exchange.
The same month in New Hampshire, 7-year-old Jaevion Riley was burned and beaten to death allegedly by his father after police ignored the boy’s mother’s repeated requests for wellness checks of the boy while in his father’s custody.
In February, a Duxbury mother killed her three young children by strangling them to death with exercise bands. She also tried to take her own life but survived. According to police reports, the 32-year old mother was on 12 different prescription medications for postpartum psychosis at the time of the murders. The children included a 5- and 3-year-old and an 8-month-old baby.
Among the children murdered in January were 9-year-old Mackenzie Hagger and her 13-year old sister Autumn Hagger, who were shot and killed by their father along with their mother Cynthia Clouse. According to police, Clouse was packing to leave her husband Roger Hagger, the children’s father, at the time he allegedly murdered them.
In the latest killings, South Carolina mom Aletha Holliday had recently filed for divorce when Charles Slacks, a U.S. veteran, showed up at her home. According to a press release from police, Hollliday tried to stop him as he walked upstairs to their rooms where he shot each one of them with a gun he brought.
The three slain children were 6-year old Aason, 5-year old Aayden, and 11-year old Ava. Slacks was Ava’s stepfather.
In the Harmony Montgomery case, police named March 4, 2020 as the day Adam concealed his daughter’s body. In addition to murder, he has been indicted on gun charges, tampering with witnesses, and falsifying evidence.
A 15-year old Florida teen was also killed in March by her father along with three other family members and a two-year old boy was found in the clutches of an alligator after his father allegedly murdered the boy’s mother by stabbing her more than 100 times then throwing his toddler son into a nearby lake.
