Harmony’s DNA detected; witnesses tell tale of CMC bag with child’s remains

MANCHESTER, NH – Testimony on the seventh day of Adam Montgomery’s murder trial followed the movements of the CMC bag prosecutors say contained his slain daughter’s remains as it moved from a family shelter to a walk-in cooler at now defunct downtown restaurant, to a Union Street apartment and then to the EconoLodge.

First, however, testimony dealt with DNA found on the large piece of blood-stained sheetrock cut out of the ceiling of the Families in Transition shelter on Lake Avenue.

DNA expert Alan Ackroyd-Isales of DNA Labs International in Deerfield Beach, Fla. conducted tests on the sheetrock and its metal railings.

Adam Montgomery, 34, accused of beating five-year-old Harmony to death in the back seat of his car then hiding her remains for months and her murder for years, again was absent from the courtroom. He last appeared in court for a portion of the jury selection, eight days earlier as of Thursday.

RELATED STORY: Adam Mongomery’s Absence from trial rare, not helpful to his case, legal experts say

From late December 2019 through Feb. 20, 2020, Montgomery stayed there with his wife, Kayla, and their two sons.  Kayla testified that after killing his daughter with punches to her head, he placed her body in a duffel bag which he took with them as the family moved about the city.  One of those hiding places, Kayla said, was in the ceiling of the room at the family shelter.

Ackroyd-Isales testified about the results of testing he did on the sheetrock panel and its accompanying rails.   The New Hampshire State Police Forensic Laboratory already determined that the stains were blood.

He said DNA testing does not determine that something is absolute but rather, that the probability is that something is true.

While he said he could not say “conclusively” that Harmony Montgomery was the source of DNA found on sheetrock and metal rails, he said the “probability is quite high.”

For the sheetrock he said the “likelihood ratio was 1.1 trillion times more likely if that DNA profile originated from Harmony Montgomery and an unknown person than if it originated from two unknown people.”  For the rails, it was 1.4 trillion.  A trillion, he said, is “1” with 12 zeroes.

The tests also indicated that DNA from another individual also was present but who that person was could not be determined.

Under cross-examination, Ackroyd-Isales said the testing did not determine if Adam Montgomery’s DNA was present.

One of the many witnesses on Thursday was Cameron Gibney of Hooksett who worked at the Portland Pie Company on Elm Street when Adam Montgomery also worked there, in the winter of 2020, in the kitchen doing prep work and preparing pizza.

He recalled seeing Adam with a CMC bag that he put in and took out of the walk-in cooler on a number of occasions.

“He would always place it in the walk-in cooler on the lower lefthand side on a shelf,” Gibney said.  The shelf was where the mustard and other condiments were stored, he said.  No other employee stored anything in the cooler, said Gibney who was the front house manager.

Others who testified included:

• Eugene Robert “Bob” Wasson,” who works at Home Depot in Londonderry, but who previously worked simultaneously in Londondery and the Manchester Home Depot. He testified about a Home Depot receipt with a date and time Of Feb. 26, 2020, 11:42 a.m., detailing the cash purchase of a 40-pound bag of lime; a tool grinder; a battery, and a Diablo blade totaling nearly $400.  In a search of sales from Feb. 5, 2020, to March 4, 2020, of five area Home Depots, he said there were only three cash transactions in which lime was purchased.
• Manchester Police Detective Max Rahill testified about a Feb. 26, 2020 ATM withdrawal at 11:20 a.m. of $503.50 from Montgomery’s account of $503.50 from Citizens Bank, about a ½ mile from the Manchester Home Depot, and which took place a little more than 20 minutes before the Home Depot purchase.  There was no video available for either the ATM withdrawal or the Home Depot transaction because, Rahill said, police made the requests more than two years later and video was no longer available.

Under cross-examination, Rahill said Kayla Montgomery told him on Dec. 7, 2019, when they drove back to Colonial Village after going to Burger King, and before the car broke down, that she bought drugs from Anthony Bodero.

At a June 2023 meeting with prosecutors, Rahill brought photos of various saws and asked Kayla if she had seen them in the apartment or at her mother’s house. Rahill said Kayla told him Adam told her he could “put her (Harmony) in pieces.” Prosecutors maintain Montgomery told his wife that he wanted to dismember Harmony’s body to get rid of it. Kayla, he said, did not identify the photo of the fuel grinder, which was purchased at Home Depot.

• Britney Bedard of Daytona Beach, Fla., formerly of Auburn, said in March 2020, she was dating Travis Beach, a friend of Adam’s.  She used her “card” to rent rooms for her and Travis, and Adam and Kayla, for two nights – March 3 and 4, 2020 – at the EconoLodge.  “There was a U-Haul rented in someone’s name, I don’t remember exactly why, but they needed a card on file and they asked if they could use my card,” she said.  Asked if she put the U-Haul in her name, she said, “Noooo, I did not.”

She also said prior to renting rooms at the EconoLodge, she and Beach were at the Comfort Inn but they wanted too large a deposit.  When they came out, she said she saw Adam and Kayla with the two boys in a stroller. Kayla was pushing the stroller and in between the two boys, she said, was the beige CMC bag.

• Dennis Timothy Cloutier of Alstead, the maintenance man for 644 Union St., where Adam, Kayla and their two sons lived after leaving the shelter.  When Cloutier took the stand, his cell phone rang and the judge instructed him to turn it off.  She also told him to remove his sunglasses. He set them on top of his head.

He said on Feb. 27, 2020, a day after Kayla said Adam worked on Harmony’s body in the shower for hours “dethawing” her body and then placing it in lime, he was called to the apartment for a clogged drain. He said the overflow plate was turned sideways because a screw had been removed.  It took him about 35 minutes to make the repair during which he said Adam Montgomery paced back and forth outside the bathroom door.

He also went to the apartment another time for a lighting fixture that had “popped off the ceiling and was hanging by the wires.”  He said Adam said he “pulled them down because he thought there was cameras in them.”

He said when Adam and Kayla Montgomery vacated the apartment, he did a clean-out.  “We threw the fridge away,” he said.

• Brendon Middleton, presently serving a sentence in the Valley Street jail.  He said he rented the U-Haul on March 3, 2020, for his friend Travis Beach who said he needed it to move furniture from his father’s house and he didn’t have a card or money. When the van was returned the next day, it had logged 133 miles.

Middleton said he didn’t know Kayla and Adam Montgomery at the time and only learned in July 2022 that police believed Adam used the van on a trip to Massachusetts to dispose of Harmony’s body.

• Roseanne Smith, a yoga instructor and driver for Pelican Transportation testified she drove Adam and Kayla on a regular basis to the methadone clinic on Market Street when they lived at the shelter and later on Union Street.  She was positive that in March 2021 she picked up Adam and Kayla at the Union Street address to take them to the methadone clinic.

“It was something I’ll never forget,” she said.  “It was not like other rides.” Kayla’s left eye was badly bruised and starting to close, she said.  The previous day, Smith said, she did not have a black eye.

Kayla, she said, didn’t move or say very much because Adam was in the car.  She drove them to and from the clinic that day.  When they returned to Union Street, Adam got out of the car and Smith gave Kayla her phone because she wanted to call for help.

“She was shaky,” Smith said.  And Adam was walking back towards the car.

“I didn’t see Adam there,” she said.  “I saw pure rage walking toward me.”

Adam reached into the window of the car and twisted the phone from her hand and said, “You’re not giving my wife that phone.”

Smith told him, “I love you.  Please give me the phone back.  I’m trying to help you guys.” He gave her the phone and she passed it on to Kayla.

Smith said she did not report him to police but did report the incident to her boss.

“I told her I didn’t think I should be picking them up anymore,” she said.  “I was very frightened.  Thereafter, I started carrying pepper spray.”

Under cross-examination, she said when she told Adam she loved him, his face softened and he gave her the phone back.

“The anger in his face went away,” she said.  “That rage and knee-jerk reaction, it was very frightening. It was assault.”