Harmony’s step-mom misses court hearing; capias issued for her arrest

MANCHESTER, NH – A judge issued a capias (a writ ordering an arrest) for Kayla Montgomery after she failed to appear Thursday morning for a hearing in Hillsborough County Superior Court Northern District.

Judge Amy Messer approved the state’s request for Montgomery’s arrest after 40 minutes had passed from the time the hearing was to begin – 10 a.m. – and Montgomery, the stepmother of Harmony Montgomery, who went missing for 2 ½ years before authorities in August declared her a homicide victim, still hadn’t appeared in court.

Montgomery is facing charges in three separate cases.  The court had scheduled a dispositional hearing Thursday in connection with the case charging her with perjury for allegedly lying to a grand jury concerning where she worked at a time Harmony was missing.

The hearing was to allow the judge to ask about the status of plea negotiations between the parties, and other matters to determine if there are issues the court needs to address before trial.

Defense Attorney Paul Garrity told the judge that he had been in contact with Montgomery, 32, last Friday and that Thursday morning he sent her a text.  At 10:27 a.m., he said she let him know she was on her way.

Senior Assistant Attorney General Jesse O’Neill asked the judge to issue the capias citing the motion he filed last week calling into question whether Montgomery was in compliance with her bail conditions.

Montgomery, when released on personal recognizance bail, was ordered not to use drugs and to participate in a drug treatment program.

The state is calling into question whether she is in compliance with those conditions, after police had contact with her in three incidents in August where drugs were seized.

O’Neill, in the Aug. 29 motion filed in Hillsborough County Superior Court Northern District, asked the court to order Montgomery to provide proof she is in compliance with the bail orders.

According to the motion, police had contact with Montgomery:

• Aug. 11, 2022, when officers stopped a car after observing what appeared to be a drug transaction. Montgomery was in the back seat;
• Aug. 22, 2022, when police obtained a search warrant for Room 442 at the Even hotel on John E. Devine Drive, after receiving information that Terrence Jackson and Montgomery were selling drugs out of the room.  Police searched the room, recovering drugs, drug paraphernalia and $1,000 in cash;
• Aug. 24, 2022, when police had a search warrant for a camper at Wolf Park. Montgomery was with a man in a Honda Accord parked next to it.  The man, who is not identified in the motion, consented to a search of the Accord and police found a glass cylindrical pipe with residue between the passenger seat, where Montgomery had been seated, and the center console.

Montgomery was not charged in any of those incidents.

O’Neill conceded the state has no evidence Montgomery violated the court’s orders but said in the motion the conditions are ones the state would not generally be able to verify on its own.

He said based on the police interactions with Montgomery, there is reason to believe she is not abiding by bail conditions.

O’Neill asked the court to require Montgomery to prove she is in compliance with conditions, that is, that she is not using any controlled substance and that she is participating in substance use disorder treatment as recommended by a treatment provider.

In addition to the perjury case, Montgomery is charged with two counts of receiving stolen property between Sept, 29 and Oct. 22, 2019 – a rifle and a shotgun knowing that they had been stolen or believing they had probably been stolen, and felony theft accusing her of collecting $2,450 in food stamps for Harmony between December 2019 and June 2021 when the child was missing.