The murder conviction of Adam Montgomery, who was sentenced to life imprisonment for the death of his five-year-old daughter Harmony Montgomery, has been overturned.
In a surprising decision on Thursday morning, the New Hampshire Supreme Court ruled that Montgomery faced too many charges simultaneously during his trial, according to a report by WMUR.
Montgomery, aged 36, had been convicted in 2024 for the murder of Harmony, who disappeared in December 2019 and was blind in one eye.
This recent ruling, however, does not mean Montgomery will be released from prison.
During the investigation, it was revealed that Adam had violently assaulted Harmony by repeatedly punching her after an incident while she was asleep in a car.
Following the assault, Montgomery and his wife, Kayla—Harmony’s stepmother—consumed opioids and fast food while Harmony succumbed to her injuries in the vehicle’s backseat. Tragically, her body has never been recovered.
Adam was convicted of second-degree murder, abuse of a corpse, witness tampering, and falsifying physical evidence.
But in October 2025, Adam’s lawyer argued that his client should have been tried separately on the assault and murder charges because the joint charges jeopardized his right to a fair trial.
Adam Montgomery was granted the shocking second chance on Thursday morning after the New Hampshire Supreme Court determined that he was tried for too many convictions at the same time
Adam, 36, was found guilty of murdering Harmony in 2024 after the little girl disappeared in December 2019
The state argued that the joinder, or combining multiple criminal charges, was ‘harmless,’ but Supreme Court justices disagreed.
‘We conclude that the misjoinder of offenses was not harmless as to the homicide charge. Accordingly, we reverse the defendant’s conviction of second-degree murder,’ justices determined.
Adam’s lawyer also argued that the court should not have allowed Kayla’s testimony and that police bodycam footage should not have been shown at the trial, according to the outlet.
Kayla was released on parole after serving 18 months as part of a 2022 plea deal.
She pleaded guilty to lying to a grand jury about not knowing what happened to her stepdaughter, and agreed to testify against Adam at his murder trial.
Kayla confessed to being in the car when her estranged boyfriend beat Harmony to death, and that she helped him hide her body for months.
During the trial, prosecutors described how the child-killer moved Harmony’s body into different containers and places as her body decayed.
The locations included the trunk of a friend’s car, a cooler in the hallway of his mother-in-law’s apartment building, the ceiling vent of a homeless shelter, and an apartment freezer.
Kayla, Harmony’s stepmother, was released on parole after serving 18 months as part of a 2022 plea deal
At one point, Kayla said that Harmony’s body was kept in a tote bag from a hospital maternity ward.
Kayla said she placed the tote bag between her own young children in a stroller and brought it to her husband’s workplace.
Investigators described how Montgomery finally disposed of the body in early March 2020 with a rented moving truck.
Harmony’s mother, Crystal Sorey, who did not have custody of her daughter, called Montgomery a ‘coward’ following his verdict.
‘He’s a coward. He’s a coward, he’s always been a coward’ she told reporters outside court.
‘That’s why he did what he did. He took her away from the people that loved her because he couldn’t hack that he didn’t have control. That’s all he cared about, control, everything in his life. She wasn’t anything to him’ she explained.
Following the latest court ruling in Adam’s case, former Manchester Police Chief Allen Aldenberg, who led the investigation during Harmony’s disappearance and murder, said he hopes the killer dad will be retired.
Harmony, who was blind in one eye, was moved into different containers and places after she died. Her body has not been found
‘I’m hopeful and I’m confident that they’re going to retry him for the murder of a little girl that would have been 12 this month,’ Aldenberg told WMUR.
‘Everybody needs to take a deep breath, digest this, and I would hope that the attorney general is going to retry him for the murder of this little girl.’
The New Hampshire Department of Justice shared a similar view to Aldenberg, stating: ‘We are disappointed by the Court’s decision to order a new trial on the second-degree murder charge, and we plan to pursue a re-trial on that charge.
‘Adam Montgomery remains convicted of multiple serious felonies arising from Harmony’s death, as well as separate firearms offenses that were previously upheld on appeal. Montgomery’s total sentence of 43.5 years for these additional charges stands and is not affected by the Court’s decision today.’
