This story was originally produced by Manchester Ink Link. NHPR is republishing it in partnership with the Granite State News Collaborative.
A judge issued a $15.5 million judgment against Adam Montgomery in the wrongful death lawsuit brought by the mother of Harmony Montgomery, his 5-year-old daughter he beat to death.
Judge Michael A. Klass, presiding in Hillsborough County Superior Court Northern District, issued the order on May 6, 2026.
Montgomery, 36, was convicted of beating Harmony to death and then secreting her body for months before disposing of it in an unknown location. Her remains have never been found.
He is serving 56-years-to-life for her murder, and other offenses, consecutive to a 32-year sentence on unrelated firearms convictions. He is being held at Keen Mountain Correctional Center in Oakwood, Va.
Montgomery failed to respond to the lawsuit filed in July 2025 by Crystal Sorey, as administrator of her daughter’s estate. He never responded to any of the court pleadings and the court ruled he had defaulted.
The only issue remaining was the amount of damages the court would assess.
The judge, in his ruling, said recoverable damages include the pain and suffering Harmony endured during and up to her death by injuries intentionally inflicted by Montgomery as well as damages for loss of life, economic loss, and enhanced compensatory damages for the wanton, malicious, and oppressive conduct of the defendant intentionally causing Harmony’s death.
The final judgment against Montgomery totaled $15,491,311.02. It included $2,984,000 in economic loss damages; $10,000,000 for non-economic damages; $2,500,000 for enhanced compensatory damages; and $7,311.02 for costs.
Harmony was 5-years-old when she disappeared in 2019, although law enforcement would not learn about it for nearly two years after Sorey filed a missing person report.
A Massachusetts judge had awarded Adam custody in 2019, even though he had a violent past. At the time, Sorey was struggling with a drug dependency and was in rehab.
When he gained custody, Adam was married to Kayla Montgomery and the couple had two children. Both were struggling with drug addictions as well. In the time Harmony lived with her father, he abused and beat her. In the summer of 2019, relatives reported seeing her with a black eye. Adam, according to court testimony, told his uncle he “bashed her” around the house. The uncle notified the Department of Children, Youth and Families (DCYF) but nothing happened.
Around Thanksgiving 2019, the Montgomerys were evicted from their house and their car became their home before they ultimately moved into a family homeless shelter. While living in the car, Adam repeatedly beat Harmony because she continuously soiled her pants, an issue that began when they began living in the car.
One morning in December 2019, while driving to a fast-food restaurant, an enraged Montgomery repeatedly hit Harmony in the head for soiling her pants. The blows killed the little girl. Montgomery put his daughter’s body in a duffel bag and took it with him when the family went to Kayla’s mother’s house. They told everyone Harmony had gone to live with her mother.
As the family moved about the city, they took the child’s remains with them, first in the duffel bag and then other containers as Montgomery froze, cut, thawed and squished the remains to fit into smaller bags. Investigators believe Montgomery disposed of his daughter’s remains somewhere in Massachusetts. They have never been recovered.
Ultimately, Montgomery was convicted of second-degree murder, and other offenses, including abuse of a corpse.