Harmony Montgomery – live: Opening statements begin in father Adam’s murder trial

“For two years, he got away with butchering a five-year-old And the defendant made sure that Harmony would be gone without a trace,” the prosecutor told jurors.

The prosecutor also showed a medium-sized tote bag in which he said Harmony’s reduced body fit.

“When people across this nation, all the way from Florida to Alaska and everywhere in between ... we’re looking for Harmony, there’s one person who’s not. Her biological father, the defendant you saw two days ago,” a prosecutor tells jurors.

“His concern is that she would not be found and that his heinous and depraved actions wouldn’t come to light.”

Montgomery, 34, is accused of brutally hitting Harmony Montgomery in the head with his fist until she stopped breathing, causing her death on 7 December 2019. He is facing charges of second-degree murder, abuse of a corpse, falsifying physical evidence, assault and witness tampering.

Proceedings were off to a chaotic start on Wednesday after Montgomery told Judge Amy Messer via video conference that he intended to plead guilty to two of the charges — abuse of a corpse and falsifying physical evidence — and be tried on the remaining counts.

Montgomery, who did not appear in person during Wednesday’s proceedings in Manchester, New Hampshire, acknowledged that he had falsified evidence and abused a corpse in connection with Harmony’s December 2019 death.

He has not pleaded guilty to a count of second-degree murder, and his trial on that charge is expected to continue as planned.

Judge Amy Messer’s warning to jurors that “things don’t always go as planned” proved true after plans were changed to delay opening statements until after a jury view of key locations in the case. Shortly after jurors were sent on the tour, Montgomery’s attorneys and prosecutors returned to the courtroom to announce that he had conceded two of the charges he faced.

A jury of 12 people and five alternates was seated for the trial of Adam Montgomery, 34, in Manchester. His daughter, Harmony Montgomery, disappeared in 2019, but police didn’t know she was missing until two years later.

Police later determined she had been killed. Her body has not been found.

Judge Amy Messer told the pool of prospective jurors Wednesday morning that Adam Montgomery had a right to appear at his trial, but he also had a right not to.

“You are not to speculate on why he is not here today” nor draw any inferences, she said.

Adam Montgomery pleaded not guilty in 2022 to charges of second-degree murder, abuse of a corpse, falsifying physical evidence, assault and witness tampering. The trial is expected to last about three weeks.

He’s been incarcerated since 2022.

After the case came to light, officials in New Hampshire and Massachusetts passed the blame between each other.

The New Hampshire governor sent a letter to Massachusetts court officials slamming a judge for placing Harmony in the care of her “monster” father, given his violent past and long rap sheet.

Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker responded to the criticism saying he “felt his pain” but said he wanted to wait to see the results of the independent review by the Massachusetts Office of the Child Advocate.

The report later placed the blame on state agencies for failing to consider Harmony’s needs above her parent’s rights to her custody.

“The central and most important finding in this investigation and report is that Harmony’s individual needs, well-being, and safety were not prioritized or considered on an equal footing with the assertion of her parents’ rights to care for her in any aspect of the decision making by any state entity,” Maria Mossaides, Director, Office of the Child Advocate, said in the report. “When children are not at the centre of every aspect of the child protection system, then the system cannot truly protect them. This report describes the ripple effect of miscalculations of risk and an unequal weight placed on parents’ rights versus a child’s wellbeing.”

Harmony Montgomery, 5, was last seen in the fall of 2019, but authorities only started searching for her two years later. Now, her father Adam Montgomery is finally going on trial for her murder.

The Independent’s Rachel Sharp and Andrea Blanco report:

The jurors visited the Gilford Street home where Harmony, her father, stepmother and siblings lived. Jurors were expected to get off the bus transporting them from the courtroom.

Jurors were later taken to the parking lot of Colonial Village Apartments, where the Montgomerys lived in their car after being evicted.

And finally, they went to an apartment on Union Street where prosecutors believe Montgomery hid Harmony’s body while he lived there with his family in 2021.

“In a few minutes, we are going to get on a bus to see a couple of locations in Manchester. In some ways, it’ll be the beginning of a journey that you will likely never forget,” prosecutor Ben Agati said.

“It’s also the last journey that Harmony Montgomery took when she was alive and where her body went afterwards. It’s a journey into the actions of the defendant on the days of the attack and after. We’re going to drive by the place where Harmony was first assaulted, or where she was killed, or where she was ... crushed.”