In an opening statement, prosecutors described Adam Montgomery callously beating his daughter Harmony then continuing his drive to a fast food restaurant without checking on her.
“He pulled into that parking lot at Burger King and he ordered his food. He ordered his food and he ate. He didn’t stop to check on Harmony,” Christopher Knowles told jurors, according to WBZ. “He didn’t look back at her. He didn’t show any concern for this innocent little girl, the child he had just beaten. He ordered his food, and he ate. And he didn’t stop.”
Montgomery, who has so far refused to attend any portion of his trial in person, is accused of killing 5-year-old Harmony because she would not say she needed to go to the bathroom and would have accidents in the car where the family was living, as CrimeOnline has reported.
Montgomery’s attorney, James Brooks, said in his opening statement that his client did not kill the little girl — who disappeared in 2019, although police didn’t learn about the disappearance for two more years. Instead, Brooks said, it was Montgomery’s now-estranged wife, Kayla Montgomery, who is now serving an 18-month sentence after pleading guilty to perjury charges and agreeing to cooperate with the prosecution.
The jury “can and should” find Adam Montgomery guilty of charges related to covering up Harmony’s death, Brooks said.
“Kayla Montgomery was the last person to see Harmony alive and know how Harmony died,” he said. “Adam is not an innocent here. He and Kayla covered up Montgomery’s death … Adam Montgomery did not kill Harmony.”
“Kayla was all about about protecting herself to wiggle out of accountability for her own crimes,” said Brooks.
Kayla Montgomery is expected to testify on Friday, WMUR reported.
In his statement, prosecutor Knowles detailed the months of hiding Harmony’s body after her death, with her father moving the remains around in a variety of containers — the trunk of a friend’s car, a cooler in an apartment hallway, a ceiling vent in a homeless shelter, and a freezer in an apartment.
Investigators say Adam Montgomery disposed of the body in March 2020 in a rented truck.
“He believed if there was no body to find, there would be no evidence of what he had done and he would get away with this heinous crime,” Knowles said.
After the opening statements, prosecutors began their case with testimony from Harmony’s foster mother, her biological mother, a paternal great uncle, a former Child Protective Services employee who worked the Montgomery’s case, and a friend of Adam Montgomery’s.
Kevin Montgomery, the great-uncle, told the jury that he told CPS in 2019 he saw Harmony with a black eye and that Adam Montgomery told him she got it because “I bashed her around the f****** house.”
CPS worker Demetrios Tsaros said Montgomery explained the black eye by saying he’d bought the children “foam swords or light sabers and they were playing with them and that Harmony was struck in the face.”
But Montgomery told his friend Nicholas Ahern that “she acquired it during a soccer accident.”
Montgomery, who appeared at trial via video link, told the judge on Thursday that his attorneys will acknowledge his guilt on charges of falsifying physical evidence and abuse of a corpse, but he insists he did not kill his daughter.
For the latest true crime and justice news, subscribe to the ‘Crime Stories with Nancy Grace’ podcast.
[Featured image: Harmony Montgomery/Facebook]
