The New Hampshire Supreme Court reverses the second-degree murder conviction of Adam Montgomery, the father of Harmony Montgomery, who died at age 5 after police said he beat her and then moved her body before disposing of it. The court orders a new trial on the murder charge, according to reports. Multiple legal outcomes remain in place. While the murder conviction is overturned, Montgomery’s other convictions—assault, falsifying evidence, witness tampering, and abuse of a corpse—stand.
The Supreme Court says the evidence is sufficient to support the non-murder counts. However, it finds the evidence of Montgomery’s direct role in Harmony’s death was not “overwhelming” for the murder conviction. In particular, the court points to testimony from Montgomery’s wife as the evidence that “directly implicated” him in the killing, and concludes that other evidence, including statements about his feelings toward his daughter and remarks characterized as an admission that something “f**ked up,” does not meet the threshold to sustain the murder conviction.
The case now returns to the lower court for renewed proceedings on the murder charge.
