MANCHESTER, N.H. (Court TV) — The mother of a young girl whose murdered body has never been found filed a lawsuit against the State of New Hampshire and several of its agencies for her daughter’s death.
Harmony Montgomery and Crystal Sorey. (Crystal Sorey)
Harmony Montgomery was only five years old when she was beaten to death by her father, Adam Montgomery, in 2019. She wasn’t reported missing for approximately two years. Adam was convicted of murdering her after he admitted to disposing of her body in a bag, a cooler and a ceiling vent as he moved it around and hid it for months.
Crystal Sorey, Harmony’s mother, lost custody of the little girl while she was alive, but was declared the sole administrator of her estate following a hearing in March. Sorey had asked the state to declare Harmony dead and assign her as the administrator ahead of her planned lawsuit.
On Friday, Sorey filed the lawsuit both as administrator of Harmony’s estate and on her own behalf. The lawsuit targets the State of New Hampshire, the New Hampshire Division for Children, Youth and Families (DCYF) and the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services, according to records reviewed by Court TV.
The lawsuit accuses the failures of the agencies named as beginning in 2018, before Harmony’s death, when proper home studies failed to be conducted before Adam was awarded custody of Harmony by a Massachusetts Court. Sorey also accuses the state of failing to properly investigate a report of abuse in 2019, when Adam’s uncle said that Harmony had a black eye from her father.
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DCYF allegedly received a number of reports of the alleged abuse Harmony was suffering, but the lawsuit alleges the agency failed to follow up with some of the reporters and ignored glaring issues in the home, which included drug paraphernalia out and visible and electricity being cut off to the property. A note in one of the reports cited by the lawsuit says that a caller wondered “whether DCYF was waiting for children to die.”
“[The DCYF officer] asked Harmohy whether her eye still hurt, and she said no; whether she felt safe at home; and she said yes; whether anything had happened that made her feel scared or sad, and she said no; and whether her mom, dad or anyone else hurt her recently or ever and she said no. On information and belief, [the officer] conducted this interview in a public part of the home with other present, in violation of DCYF Policy 1201. On information and belief, [the officer] did not ask Harmony any questions related to the reports that she had been punished by being [made] to stand in the corner for hours, that she had been punished by being made to stay in her room for most of teh day, or that she had been punished by being made to scrub the bathroom with a toothbrush.”
Adam told DYCF officers in Jan. 2020 that Harmony had gone back to stay with her mother in November. According to the lawsuit, no attempt was made to contact Sorey to confirm the information for 12 days, when the officer left a voicemail and made no follow-up.
While prosecutors said that Adam used a U-Haul to eventually dispose of Harmony’s remains, they have never been found. Prosecutors and Sorey pledged to continue searching for her after Adam’s conviction. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Kayla Montgomery, Adam’s wife and Harmony’s stepmother, witnessed the murder and testified at Adam’s trial. She was released from prison on parole in May after serving the term of a plea agreement she reached with prosecutors.
