The New Hampshire Supreme Court has reversed the second-degree murder conviction of Adam Montgomery, who was accused of killing his 5-year-old daughter, Harmony Montgomery, in 2019. The court ruled that combining the murder charge with a separate assault charge jeopardized Montgomery’s right to a fair trial. The justices agreed that jurors may have improperly inferred his guilt in the murder case based on stronger evidence from the assault charge.
The court upheld Montgomery’s convictions for abuse of a corpse, tampering with evidence, and assault, which will remain part of his sentence. The second-degree murder charge has been sent back to the lower court for a potential retrial. The New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office confirmed it plans to pursue a retrial on the murder charge.
Montgomery was originally sentenced to a minimum of 56 years in prison in 2024, with the murder conviction accounting for 45 years of that sentence. He was already serving a 32.5-year sentence on unrelated gun charges. The court’s decision does not affect the earlier convictions or the additional firearms-related sentence.
The ruling noted that jurors were presented with strong evidence of Montgomery assaulting Harmony months before her death, which may have influenced their decision on the weaker evidence regarding her fatal injury in December 2019. The court emphasized that the assault and murder charges should have been tried separately to ensure a fair trial.
Harmony Montgomery’s body has never been found, and the case remains unresolved despite the legal developments.