Montgomery Murder Conviction Overturned
New Hampshire Supreme Court Overturns Adam Montgomery's Murder Conviction, Citing Fair Trial Rights
Key Points
At Montgomery’s October appeal hearing, his lawyer argued that he should have been tried separately on the assault and murder charges, and also challenged evidentiary rulings—contending the court should not have allowed testimony from Kayla Montgomery and that police body-camera video should not have been shown at trial.
In defending the conviction, prosecutors told the New Hampshire Supreme Court that any error related to “joinder” was harmless because the “state’s case and the evidence of the defendant’s guilt [were] overwhelming,” but the justices rejected that argument when reversing the homicide conviction.
At sentencing, prosecutors said Montgomery chose to remain silent when the state offered to recommend a lower prison sentence if he revealed the location of Harmony Montgomery’s body.
The justices’ opinion included specific language explaining why some other convictions stayed intact: they wrote that Montgomery’s brief “does not specifically address” the convictions for falsifying physical evidence, witness tampering, and abuse of a corpse, and that (to the extent he challenged them) he “has failed to demonstrate reversible error.”
The New Hampshire Supreme Court overturned Adam Montgomery's second-degree murder conviction on June 11, 2026, in the death of his 5-year-old daughter, Harmony Montgomery, according to Boston 25 News. Harmony was allegedly beaten to death in December 2019. Her body has never been found.
The justices ruled that combining an earlier assault charge with the murder charge at trial denied Montgomery a fair trial. Four other convictions — second-degree assault, falsifying evidence, witness tampering, and abuse of a corpse — were left intact, MassLive reported. Montgomery will remain behind bars.
Why Joining Two Charges Together Sank the Murder Conviction
The legal problem centered on what lawyers call "joinder" — trying two separate charges in one trial. Prosecutors charged Montgomery with assaulting Harmony in July 2019, giving her a black eye, alongside the December 2019 murder charge. His defense attorney argued this let the jury see him as someone with a "propensity for violence" rather than weighing the murder evidence on its own merits, according to WGME.
Prosecutors told the Supreme Court any error was harmless because the "evidence of the defendant's guilt was overwhelming." The justices rejected that argument, Yahoo News reported. The murder case relied heavily on testimony from Kayla Montgomery, Adam's estranged wife, with no physical remains to corroborate her account. The court found the flawed process could not be dismissed as a minor mistake.
Four Convictions Stand, But the Murder Charge Falls
The Supreme Court was precise about what survived. The justices affirmed convictions for second-degree assault, falsifying physical evidence, witness tampering, and abuse of a corpse, MassLive reported. The court noted that Montgomery's appeal brief "does not specifically address" those charges and that he "failed to demonstrate reversible error" for them.
The murder reversal is significant, but Montgomery is not walking free. He is already serving a separate 32.5-to-75-year sentence for firearms offenses from a 2023 conviction. That sentence runs consecutively to his 2024 convictions. The New Hampshire Attorney General must now decide whether to retry him on the murder charge alone.
A Silent Response to a Body-for-Leniency Offer
At his May 2024 sentencing, prosecutors made Montgomery an offer: reveal the location of Harmony's remains and they would recommend a lighter prison term. According to WMTW, he said nothing — no verbal answer, no physical response. Prosecutors described his silence as a deliberate choice not to cooperate.
The judge sentenced him to 56 years to life on the murder count, ordered to run consecutively to his gun sentence. At sentencing, Montgomery again stated he did not kill his daughter. A separate wrongful death civil suit resulted in a $15.5 million judgment against him, and New Hampshire agreed to pay $2.25 million to Harmony's mother, Crystal Sorey, to settle a negligence claim against the state's child welfare agency.
What Comes Next for the Case and for Harmony
Harmony's body has never been recovered. Investigators identified a 26-mile stretch of highway between Manchester, New Hampshire, and Revere, Massachusetts, as the likely area where her remains were disposed of. Without a body, a retrial on the murder charge would be harder for prosecutors to win — Kayla Montgomery's testimony would again be the centerpiece, but this time without the July assault evidence to provide context.
The case has had a broader impact. Massachusetts lawmakers proposed the "Harmony Commission" to review failures in the custody system after a judge granted Adam Montgomery full custody in February 2019 despite a documented history of violence, Boston 25 News reported. The Supreme Court's ruling closes one chapter but leaves the core question — where Harmony is — unanswered.
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