Editor’s note: Some of the details described in the story below may be disturbing for readers.
The trial of Adam Montgomery, the New Hampshire father accused of murdering his 5-year-old daughter, began Wednesday afternoon with the defendant absent from the courtroom - though he did make a virtual appearance where he told the judge he intended to admit guilt to some of the charges against him.
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Harmony Montgomery was 5 years old when she disappeared in 2019 and is presumed dead. Her father, Adam Montgomery, has been charged with five felony counts in the case: second-degree murder, second-degree assault, witness tampering, falsifying evidence and abuse of corpse. The last two were at center of the conversation as the trial started on Wednesday.
”Do you wish for them to acknowledge your guilt, on both of those charges, falsifying physical evidence and abuse of corpse?" Judge Amy Messer asked Montgomery through a video call.
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"Yes," he answered.
Montgomery was in court Tuesday, but missed the final selection of his jury late Wednesday morning: 12 jurors, and five alternates. The details of the case are difficult, and the trial is expected the last several weeks. NBC10 Boston spoke with one woman who was dismissed because she’ll be out of the country.
“It’s a hard case. I can’t even imagine and I think probably going into. It is nervous about it but I don’t think anybody can anticipate what’s going to be seen and her there," Bridgette McCarthy said.
The trial was slated to begin with opening statements Wednesday, but those statements were pushed back until Thursday morning. Instead, jurors attended a view, which involves taking them to see key locations that will be discussed during testimony.
The 43-year-old Montgomery is accused of punching Harmony to death in 2019 while in a car with his estranged wife Kayla and their two boys. He’s then accused of moving the young girl’s body from place to place after she died. During the view, jurors were shown the locations around Manchester where the events allegedly unfolded - places like a Burger King on Daniel Webster Highway and an apartment where they lived on Union Street.
“It’s going to be the beginning of a journey will likely never forget. It’s also the last journey that Harmony Montgomery took while she was alive,” Benjamin Agati, New Hampshire senior assistant attorney general, said while addressing the jury.
The defense disputed that statement, but did not disagree that the locations were important to the case.
Those include a methadone clinic where Harmony's father Adam Montgomery and his estraged wife Kayla Montgomery received treatment and the alleged location where he first struck Harmony in his car; a Burger King on Daniel Webster Highway where Adam Montgomery allegedly continued to strike his daughter along the drive from the clinic; the Colonial Village Apartments, where the family was living out of their car; the intersection of Elm and Webster, where the car died and Adam Montgomery allegedly realized Harmony was dead; an apartment on Union Street where the family lived and Harmony's body was allegedly stored; the location that once housed a pizza shop called Portland Pie Company, where Adam Montgomery once worked and where the prosecution alleges he stored his daughter's body in a freezer.
Opening statements are now scheduled for 9 a.m. on Thursday.
The details of the Harmony Montgomery murder case
Adam Montgomery was charged with Harmony's murder in October of 2022 — after years of speculation. A key prosecution witness is expected to be his estranged wife Kayla Montgomery, who is serving an 18-month prison sentence after pleading guilty to perjury charges. She agreed to cooperate with prosecutors.
Prosecutors say Adam Montgomery punched Harmony to death in 2019 while in a car with Kayla and their two boys.
Montgomery denied the accusations back when he was being tried for an unrelated weapons case last year, which he was found guilty and sentenced to at least 30 years in prison.
"I did not kill my daughter Harmony and I look forward to my upcoming trial to refute those offensive claims," he said at that time.
"The defendant, while having the benefit of the government, having the burden of proof, doesn’t present a sympathetic case," said legal analyst Michael Coyne.
Harmony's case prompted vigils in Manchester and generated national headlines. It is viewed as a tragic failure of the child protection systems in New Hampshire and Massachusetts, both states where the family was known to the system, and rallied cries to prioritize the well-being of children over parents in custody matters.
Harmony was moved between the homes of her mother and her foster parent's multiple times before Montgomery received custody in 2019 and moved to New Hampshire.
