Kayla Montgomery (L) and Harmony Montgomery (R)
Kayla Montgomery, 32, the stepmother of suspected murder victim Harmony Montgomery, 5, was sentenced to prison on Friday on perjury charges.
Montgomery’s punishment ranged from three-and-a-half to seven years in prison, according to The Associated Press. One and a half years were suspended from the minimum, and she received credit for time served. For her part, she agreed to cooperate in the second-degree murder case against her estranged husband Adam Montgomery, 32, who is accused of beating Harmony to death.
Police in Manchester, New Hampshire, announced in January that Harmony had disappeared some time in late 2019, but she had only been reported missing recently. They revised the timeline of her last known whereabouts from October 2019 to November or December of 2019. Authorities said that Kayla Montgomery lied to a grand jury about working at a doughnut shop on Nov. 30, 2019; she claimed to have last seen her stepdaughter on that day. Prosecutors dropped related charges against her for allegedly lying to collect welfare benefits. They also dropped charges that she received stolen guns.
Adam Montgomery stands accused of killing his daughter “by repeatedly striking Harmony in the head with a closed fist.” Adam Montgomery was charged with one count each of falsifying physical evidence by allegedly destroying evidence when he hid or destroyed his daughter’s body to prevent the investigation from moving forward; abuse of a corpse for allegedly purposefully and unlawfully moving or concealing the corpse of Harmony Montgomery “or any part thereof”; and tampering with a witness for allegedly attempting to have wife Kayla “testify falsely.”
The lack of knowledge as to Harmony’s whereabouts made its way onto law enforcement’s radar after an alarm was raised by her biological mother, Crystal Sorey, who repeatedly lost and regained custody of her daughter due to substance abuse problems throughout the girl’s too short life. Harmony was apparently last enrolled in school down in Massachusetts, Police Chief Allen Aldenberg said.
In her initial interview, Kayla Montgomery told Manchester Police investigators she had not seen Harmony Montgomery since a morning in late November or early December 2019 while she was getting ready for work. That morning, Kayla Montgomery allegedly told police, her husband Adam said he was taking his daughter to stay with her mother in Lowell, Mass. The girl’s mother, Sorey, never saw her daughter after that alleged trip.
Before charging the father with killing his daughter, authorities declared the child dead based on numerous leads, including “biological evidence.” They have yet to find her body. They believe she was murdered in Manchester in December 2019.
Adam Montgomery was previously hit with gun charges and abuse for allegedly striking his daughter.
He allegedly told his uncle, Kevin Montgomery, that he had violently abused the girl.
“I bashed her around this house,” Adam reportedly said.
Colin Kalmbacher contributed to this report.
[Images via New Hampshire Department of Justice]