How Everything Unfolded
For years, true crime aficionados have wondered how it could’ve taken two whole years for anyone to notice the little girl was missing. But former Massachusetts juvenile court judge Carol Erskine thinks she knows the answer.
According to her, it was a calamitous confluence of unfortunate but deliberate events and decisions that helped Adam keep his vile secret.
“Everything that could have gone wrong for Harmony did go wrong,” Erskine tells A&E Crime + Investigation. “Adam Montgomery had this very precise and malevolent plan to make sure she was isolated from the world, and no one saw her. He tormented her inside that house. He beat her and made her stand in the corner. He made her clean the floors with a toothbrush.”
“On July 29, Harmony’s uncle, Kevin, returned from Florida and he was beyond upset when he saw her face,” explains Erskine, adding that Adam had punched Harmony, who is partially blind, in the eye. “He called the Division for Children, Youth and Families” in New Hampshire to report her injuries.
Court documents claim a bent spoon, used to cook heroin and drug paraphernalia was seen inside the home Adam shared with his now-estranged wife, Kayla Montgomery, and their two sons. Court records also allege drugs were being sold out of the home. Tsaros was assigned the case, and drove out to Montgomery’s home.
“What we know now from the murder trial is that a call was made to the house, saying, ‘They’re coming to look at Harmony’s eye,’” Erskine says. “He grabbed her up, threw her in the car and drove off as the social worker was pulling into the driveway.”
Tsaros told the Manchester Police Department that he saw Harmony and did not observe any bruises. “He called the police off,” Erskine says. “Had he not, Adam would’ve been arrested and Harmony would’ve been placed into foster care. She’d still be alive.”
Erskine tells A&E Crime + Investigation that Tsaros and Montgomery were well-acquainted: Tsaros was working as a counselor when a much younger Adam was placed in juvenile detention.
“He was Adam’s counselor,” Erskine clarifies. “Adam Montgomery decided no one other than that specific social worker saw Harmony.”
Harmony Montgomery’s Final Months
That September, Harmony was supposed to enter preschool, but her father never enrolled her. She had no teachers wondering where she was. He also never registered her with a New Hampshire pediatrician, and her doctors in Massachusetts—where she was scheduled for an eye surgery—were told that she had moved.
“He made sure she was never seen by a mandated reporter,” Erskine says.
Tsaros closed Harmony’s case in mid-October 2019 and even issued Montgomery a letter, noting all of the allegations made against him were unfounded. Weeks later, on November 22, Harmony’s beloved half-brother, Jameson, was adopted by his parents in a special court ceremony. Less than three weeks after that, Harmony was dead at her own father’s hands.
Both Adam and his now-estranged wife Kayla were still using drugs when they were evicted from their home and forced to live out of their car at the time of Harmony’s death. Often, the drug abuse occurred in the presence of Harmony and the couple’s sons.
Kayla testified that on December 7, 2019, her husband beat Harmony to death while the family was driving in Manchester. According to her, the girl had been urinating and defecating in her pants, which angered Montgomery. When the couple realized Harmony was dead, Adam placed her battered body into a duffle bag and claimed he disposed of the remains using a U-Haul van that his friends rented in March 2020.
Erskine notes that the town has “a gigantic incinerator,” and believes Adam may have used it to get rid of his daughter’s body.
“I don’t think we’ll ever find her remains,” Erskine says with a sigh.
Months after Harmony’s murder, COVID-19 hit and forced everyone to stay inside their homes. The Montgomerys told people Harmony went to live with her mom.
“So, nobody’s looking for her, and really, nobody’s even asking about her,” Erskine says.
A Concerned Mother's Call for Help
In November 2021, Sorey’s suspicions finally lead her to local officials. The Manchester police publicly announced Harmony’s disappearance and their search for her on December 31, 2021. That same day, Manchester police found Montgomery living in a car with a girlfriend after separating from Kayla. When asked by cops about Harmony’s whereabouts, the dad claimed she was safe with her mom, and they immediately took him into custody.
Kayla was also arrested and charged with felony welfare fraud for allegedly receiving food stamp benefits for Harmony long after Harmony supposedly went missing; the charges were later dropped. Kayla eventually pleaded guilty to lying to a grand jury after claiming Adam told her around Thanksgiving 2019 that Harmony went to live with her mom in Massachusetts. She served 16 months of her 18-month sentence before being paroled in March 2024.
According to Erskine, Harmony’s half-brother was never granted sibling visitation, which also could have helped shed light on her abusive situation before Montgomery ended up taking them entirely too far.
“Jameson and Harmony had a close bond in foster care,” Erskine says. “For a while, when the doorbell would ring, he’d say, ‘It’s Harmony, she’s coming to visit me.’ He would stop kids on the street or in the park—like little blonde girls with glasses—and he’d ask, ‘Are you my sister, Harmony?’ Jameson knows now his sister has passed, but he doesn’t know any of the details.”
In September 2024, Sorey filed a negligence lawsuit claiming that Tsaros failed to carry out his duties as required by the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services. The state agreed to pay Sorey $2.25 million in May 2025, and a wrongful death suit filed against Montgomery is still pending.
