For hours on Friday, Kayla Montgomery testified about how Adam Montgomery brutally beat her 5-year-old stepdaughter, Harmony, to death and tried to cover it up.
She lied to the police for months, saying she didn’t know what happened to Harmony, out of fear for her safety and the safety of the three children she had with Montgomery, she said during the third day of the trial of her now-estranged husband at Hillsborough County Superior Court.
Adam Montgomery, 34, is charged with second-degree assault for allegedly causing bodily injury to Harmony between July 1 and July 22, 2019, including a black eye, and with second-degree murder in connection with her death in December 2019.
Adam Montgomery has not been in court since the first day of jury selection, waiving his right to appear.
In a surprise move, during its opening statement, the defense said Kayla Montgomery was with Harmony when she died while Adam was away. Adam Montgomery admitted guilt on the charges of abuse of corpse and falsifying evidence.
Prosecutor Christopher Knowles told Kayla Montgomery to face the jury and asked her point-blank: “Did you kill Harmony?”
“No, I did not,” she said.
“Were you alone with her when she died?” Knowles asked.
“No, I was not,” Kayla said.
On the morning of Dec. 7, 2019, Adam Montgomery screamed at Harmony after he smelled urine in the car and repeatedly struck her as he drove the family to Burger King on Hooksett Road in Manchester, Kayla testified.
She said she tried to stop him by putting her arm up in between the seats, but he looked at her with “his crazy eyes.” Harmony was covered in a blanket as she cried and moaned while they ordered food at the drive-thru.
The couple later discovered Harmony had died, after their car broke down at Elm and Webster streets in Manchester, she testified.
“Adam was trying to wake her up and she didn’t reply or anything,” Kayla Montgomery said.
Harmony’s face was black-and-blue and her eyes were puffed up when Adam “folded her in half and put her in the duffel bag,” she said. Neither of them called 911.
Harmony’s biological mother, Crystal Sorey, wept during the testimony and was comforted by several people as she held her hand over her mouth or placed her head down. The trial has drawn several people who have followed the case from the beginning.
During cross-examination, public defender Caroline Smith carefully went through every lie Kayla told police during the search for Harmony, including how the little girl was brought to Massachusetts to be with Sorey.
Smith reminded Kayla that she also faced the grand jury and told them she didn’t know what happened to Harmony.
“Looking at jurors while you are lying doesn’t change the lie,” Smith said.
Smith also pointed to a letter Kayla wrote in jail about “betraying Adam to get what you wanted.” The letter mentioned how she wanted to be with Adam for at least one more day, not about being fearful.
Knowles asked her why she stuck with the lies she told investigators.
“I was scared for myself and my children, who are also Adam’s, and for him because I didn’t want anybody to get in trouble,” Kayla said.
After testifying all day Friday, Kayla Montgomery will take the stand again on Monday morning. The trial could run until the end of the month.
What next?
Over the course of the trial’s first days, nine of more than 100 potential witnesses testified before the jury — 14 women and three men, five of whom are alternates.
The prosecution tried to pull on the jurors’ heartstrings by calling Sorey and Harmony’s foster mother, Michelle Raferty, to the stand on Thursday, the first day of testimony.
Raferty described Harmony as bubbly, always “leaving a sparkle wherever she went.”
On Friday, Kayla Montgomery testified how Adam climbed up a bunk bed to access a vent to place Harmony’s body in the ceiling inside the Families in Transition shelter on Lake Avenue. “He said there was blood up in the ceiling and liquid,” she said. When neighbors complained of smells, the body was removed.
Her testimony has been backed up with forensic and other physical evidence, Knowles said during opening statements. DNA and forensic experts will testify on their findings.
Knowles showed the jury a picture of drywall from the ceiling inside the room during opening statements.
“They saw deep stains in the drywall where Harmony’s blood had been absorbed,” he said. “That blood was tested. It was sent to a lab in Florida and tested. And that lab in Florida confirmed that that blood was Harmony. Something the defendant missed.”
Because Harmony’s remains have not been found, a medical examiner will not take the stand, the jurors were told during the selection process.
The witnesses
The jury has yet to hear details of the search for Harmony and the police investigation, which entailed thousands of hours of work by Manchester police and state and federal agencies, including the FBI.
The witness list includes 75 law enforcement officials.
According to court documents, the defense witness list compiled by Smith and co-counsel James Brooks is short, but they can also call those on the prosecution’s list if they don’t testify before the defense presents its case. One of those on the short list is Manchester police officer Travis Koeppel.
Koeppel responded to 77 Gilford St., where the Montgomerys were living at the time, on Sept. 11, 2019. Information from that visit was passed along to the Division for Children, Youth and Family.
Koeppel reported “that all three children, Harmony included, ‘appeared to be clean and fed. Their clothing was appropriate for the current conditions,’” according to court documents.
Kayla Montgomery testified the couple and their two children lived in Anthony Bodero’s Audi for two days after Harmony’s death. They bought heroin and crack from Bodero shortly after the brutal beating of Harmony, she said.
Brooks mentioned an interaction between Bodero and Kayla Montgomery during his opening statements.
“She does not describe seeking help from her friend that she got drugs from,” Brooks said. “She doesn’t describe any concern by her friend, Anthony Bodero, that she seems upset.”
Bodero is set to testify during the trial and has been appointed a public defender to represent him during his testimony.
Following the trail
Adam Montgomery transported Harmony’s body to different locations, including an apartment on Union Street where Kayla said Adam dismembered Harmony’s body in a shower and placed it in a bag with lime to speed up decomposition.
Kayla said Montgomery ordered her to bring the canvas bag to the now-closed Portland Pie Co. on Elm Street in Manchester, where he worked as a dishwasher and cook.
One witness, Cameron Gibney, is expected to testify to seeing the canvas bag in the freezer of the pizza place, according to the witness list.
“He recalled seeing the CMC bag in the cooler on a couple of occasions on both the floor and shelf, but never questioned Montgomery about it since he knew he had children,” an affidavit reads.
Travis Beach is expected to testify about renting a U-Haul for Adam Montgomery. The van made a 133-mile round trip, according to records obtained by police.
Beach’s girlfriend, Brittany Bedard, saw the canvas bag “protruding from the hotel’s mini-fridge and that stood out to her.”
Montgomery told Beach, “I f---ed up, I’m so f---ed” before taking the U-Haul, according to the affidavit.
Kayla Montgomery testified Adam wanted the van rented in somebody else’s name, “so they can’t prove Adam rented it.”
Adam Montgomery put the bag with Harmony’s body in the U-Haul and headed south.
“He said he wasn’t telling me where he was bringing her so that if anything like this happened and the cops got involved that I wouldn’t know where she is so I couldn’t tell anybody where she is,” Kayla Montgomery testified. “Only he would know.”
“Kayla, where is Harmony’s body?’ Knowles asked.
“I don’t know,” she said.
