Adam Montgomery wants allegations of bad acts, prior convictions excluded from murder trial

MANCHESTER, NH – Adam Montgomery, who is to be tried in early February for the murder of his 5-year-old daughter, is asking the court to exclude from trial allegations he neglected and assaulted her, and any evidence of his prior convictions.

On Thursday, Dec. 21, 2023, Public Defenders Caroline L. Smith and James T. Brooks filed motions in Hillsborough County Superior Court North asking that any alleged prior bad acts by Montgomery be excluded from his trial.  They also want evidence that he purchased lime from Home Depot to be excluded as well.

Jury selection is scheduled to begin Feb. 6, 2024.

Montgomery, 33, is charged with second-degree murder for repeatedly punching Harmony in the head on Dec. 7, 2019, causing her death; falsifying physical evidence, for concealing Harmony’s body; abuse of a corpse, for removing, concealing or destroying his daughter’s corpse; witness tampering for attempting to induce Kayla Montgomery, his estranged wife, to testify falsely.

Prosecutors maintain Montgomery murdered his daughter on Dec. 7, 2019, and then, in the following months, hid her remains in an ice cooler, an apartment ceiling, a commercial freezer and an apartment refrigerator/freezer.  Kayla Montgomery told investigators that Adam Montgomery used lime on Harmony’s remains.  Lime helps with decomposition.

Her body has not been recovered.

In a document titled “Motion In Limine, Re: Allegations of Prior or Subsequent Bad Acts,” [see documents below] defense attorneys said the state has not said it intends to introduce evidence of other bad acts but, out of an abundance of caution, Montgomery was seeking to preclude evidence including that he:

• Sold or possessed firearms;
• Allegations of domestic abuse purportedly against Kayla Montgomery;
• Allegations of neglect in caring for Harmony Montgomery and any assaults or assaultive behavior against Harmony Montgomery other than the charged second degree assault and the conduct on Dec. 7, 2019 alleged by Kayla Montgomery;
• Allegations of assaults and/or other assaultive behavior; against others including an alleged assault on Cory Watts;
• Allegation he sold illegal drugs;
• Allegations he used illegal drugs and experienced episodes of paranoia due to drug use;
• Allegations of theft;
• Allegations of domestic abuse against Crystal Sorey (Harmony’s mother) or prohibiting Sorey from seeing Harmony;
• Evidence that Montgomery was formerly a resident of the Youth Development Center;
• Evidence of prior convictions, unless Montgomery testifies.

In August, Montgomery was sentenced to 32½ to 75 years in state prison for being an armed career criminal and possessing stolen guns.  He is appealing those convictions.

While the defense attorneys want those specific allegations and evidence excluded from trial, they also want the court to allow them to impeach Kayla Montgomery, who is the state’s key witness when it comes to Harmony’s death, with her criminal record.  Specifically, they want the court to admit evidence of her felony convictions on two charges of perjury, for lying to the grand jury investigating the disappearance and death of Harmony; false report to police officer; attempted possession of a prescribed drug.

They argue that charges of receiving stolen property and theft by deception (the same guns her husband was convicted of possessing) were pending when she first implicated Adam Montgomery in Harmony’s death to investigators.  When she pled guilty to the perjury counts, those other charges were dropped, provided she continued her cooperation.

“Mr. Montgomery asserts that the charges pending at the time Ms. Montgomery was purportedly cooperating with police and up to her plea on the perjury charges gave motive for her to curry favor with the police for both issues of bail and the ultimate outcome of the then-pending charges,” defense attorneys wrote.

As for the purchase of lime from Home Depot, the defense said Kayla Montgomery claimed Adam used lime to tamper with Harmony’s remains.  Kayla told police she didn’t know how or when the lime was obtained.  She said she didn’t know if he used any tools in tampering with the remains.

Manchester police obtained records of two purchases from Home Depot during the relevant time period.  The first was a cash transaction for a 40-pound bag of “pelletized limestone” on Feb. 15, 2020, at the Hooksett Home Depot.  The second was another cash transaction for a 40-pound bag of pelletized limestone, a lithium-ion battery and charger, a fuel grinder and a metal cutting diamond blade from Home Depot’s Manchester location on Feb. 26, 2020.

Financial records indicated that money sufficient to cover the cost of the Manchester transaction was withdrawn from Kayla Montgomery’s account at an ATM location less than a mile away, 22 minutes prior to that purchase.

Investigators, however, did not recover video of the individual who made the purchases because the video had been destroyed.

Defense attorneys said the Home Depot purchases should be excluded because the identity of the customer is unknown and nothing connects the purchases to Adam Montgomery.

They also said that Kayla Montgomery denied knowing how, when or where the lime she described was obtained.  She further denied knowledge of Adam Montgomery using any tools in connection with the purported tampering of Harmony Montgomery’s remains.

“Because there is no evidence connecting either Adam Montgomery or Kayla Montgomery to the Home Depot purchases, the purchases do not have any tendency to make a fact of consequence more or less probable, and the Court should therefore exclude the evidence as irrelevant,” according to the filing.