The father of missing New Hampshire girl Harmony Montgomery has been charged with murder.
Adam Montgomery allegedly beat his daughter to death in Manchester, New Hampshire, in December 2019, according to police, who say he repeatedly “struck” Harmony in the head with a “closed fist” and disposed of her body.
Adam Montgomery was charged on Monday with second degree murder, abuse of a corpse, falsification of evidence and tampering with a witness.
He has been in jail since January on several charges, including one alleging that he struck Harmony in the face in July 2019. He’s pleaded not guilty.
Harmony was 5 years old when she was last seen in either November or December 2019. But authorities didn’t know she was missing until fall 2021.
In August, the New Hampshire’s attorney general said she was killed. Officials are still searching for Harmony’s remains, but they said they have biological evidence that she was murdered sometime in early December 2019.
In June, investigators searched an apartment where Harmony and her father’s estranged wife once lived and left with a refrigerator.
Investigators said while they were talking to Harmony’s uncle, he revealed that Adam Montgomery had told him he caused an eye injury to her in 2019.
“I bashed her around the house,” Adam Montgomery allegedly said.
Court documents also said Adam Montgomery ordered her to “scrub the toilet with her toothbrush.”
In interviews with detectives since his arrest, police said Adam Montgomery has refused to answer many of their questions about Harmony’s whereabouts.
Kayla Montgomery, Harmony’s stepmother, pleaded not guilty to a theft by deception charge and is out on bail. She’s accused of falsely claiming that Harmony was living with her in order to collect welfare benefits.
The couple told police that Harmony was brought to be with her mother in Massachusetts around Thanksgiving 2019.