Police search Massachusetts wetlands in connection to Harmony Montgomery case

REVERE, Mass. — Authorities on Friday searched an area in Revere as part of the investigation into the death of Harmony Montgomery, a New Hampshire girl who vanished in 2019.

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In a news release, Attorney General John M. Formella and Manchester Police Chief Allen D. Aldenberg announced that local, state and other law enforcement agencies were aiding in the search. In a statement obtained by WFXT, a spokesman for Massachusetts State Police said the search “was prompted by information developed by investigators.”

Authorities did not immediately elaborate on the new information.

State police said 18 units including troopers, K-9s and drones were searching wetlands near Route 107, according to The Associated Press. The search began just before 9 a.m.

Authorities announced in August that the search for Harmony, who was 5 years old when she went missing, had become a homicide investigation, WFXT reported. At the time, Formella said the shift was made due to new information and biological evidence.

Officials previously said that Harmony was last seen in December 2019 but that she was not reported missing until the end of 2021.

According to the AP and WFXT, police first learned Harmony was missing when they got a call from her mother, Crystal Sorey, in November 2021. Sorey told authorities she had been trying to locate her daughter for months. Police then contacted her father, Adam Montgomery.

In October, authorities arrested Montgomery on charges including second-degree murder, falsifying physical evidence, abuse of a corpse and tampering with witnesses. Formella said evidence showed Montgomery hit Harmony in the head with a closed fist repeatedly, causing her death, WFXT reported. The news station reported he’s also accused of having destroyed his daugther’s body sometime between Dec. 7, 2019, and March 4, 2020.

Earlier, a grand jury indicted him on a felony charge of second-degree assault, alleging that he hit Harmony in the face in July 2019, according to WFXT.

A grand jury last year indicted Harmony’s stepmother, Kayla Montgomery, on a charge of welfare fraud after investigators alleged that she obtained $1,500 in food stamp benefits between December 2019 and June 2021 by failing to remove Harmony from her family account, despite the fact that Harmony was no longer living with her or her husband. She is also facing perjury charges.

According to WFXT, both Adam Montgomery and Kayla Montgomery told investigators that Harmony was living with her mother.

Harmony was placed in her father’s care after being in the custody of the Massachusetts Department of Children & Families for years. According to WFXT, the Office of the Child Advocate looked into Harmony’s case and found that DCF had failed her by “placing an unequal weight on the parents’ rights versus a child’s wellbeing.”

Authorities said that Harmony’s remains have not yet been located.