New Hampshire father Adam Montgomery beat his 5-year-old daughter Harmony to death and then dragged her decomposing body every day to the restaurant where he worked, leaving it next to the food, prosecutors said at his murder trial.
Montgomery, 34, spent months moving his daughter’s “butchered” body to various hiding places before finally throwing it away “like yesterday’s trash,” prosecutors said at the opening of the father’s trial, which he refused to attend. .
He even stuffed Harmony’s compressed body into a carry-on bag, which he carried every day to the restaurant where he worked as a cook and dishwasher, the court was told.
“[The bag] It caught people’s attention because he kept it in the freezer during his shifts,” prosecutor Christopher Knowles told the court.
“I brought it to work regularly and kept it in a freezer where the company kept food and ingredients,” he said.
“People saw him putting it in and taking it out. “They couldn’t imagine what that bag contained.”
Adam Montgomery is on trial in New Hampshire, accused of murdering his five-year-old daughter and abusing her corpse. AP
The murderous father also hid his daughter’s body in the trunk of a friend’s car, in a cooler in his mother-in-law’s apartment building, in a roof vent of a homeless shelter where she lived, as well as in the freezer of an apartment, before disposing of the body at an unknown location, prosecutors said.
Harmony disappeared in 2019, but police did not learn of her disappearance or begin searching for the girl until two years later.
Harmony Montgomery disappeared in 2019, but police didn’t start looking for her until two years later. Manchester NH Police
Her father hit her angry for having accidents in the bathroom of his car; She then went to eat fast food and did drugs while ignoring her last cries as she died in the back seat of her car, she told the court.
The helpless girl’s body was never recovered.
“He’s the only person in this world who knows where Harmony is… and he hoped they would never find her,” Knowles said of Montgomery, who is serving a sentence of more than 30 years for weapons charges.
“The only person, the only person who murdered Harmony, who butchered her body and who disposed of her like yesterday’s trash.”
Montgomery pleaded not guilty in 2022 to charges of second-degree murder, abuse of a corpse, tampering with physical evidence, assault and witness tampering in Harmony’s death. He previously denied killing his daughter. He faces life in prison if he is convicted.
Despite a years-long search for Harmony, her body has not been recovered. AP
His ex-wife, Kayla Montgomery, had told police that her husband would beat Harmony as punishment for having accidents in the bathroom.
She said Adam told her he had “beat her around the house” after she put her hands over one of her children’s mouths.
On the day of her death in December 2019, Adam Montgomery repeatedly hit his emaciated and bruised daughter after she had two bathroom accidents in the family car, which also served as his home after a recent eviction, Kayla said.
Montgomery is charged with second-degree murder, abuse of a corpse, tampering with physical evidence, assault and witness tampering. AP Kayla Montgomery, Adam’s wife, told police that he allegedly hit Harmony for having accidents in the bathroom of her car, after which she died. AP
He then drove to a fast food restaurant, ate and did drugs while Harmony moaned in pain in the back seat of his car, Knowles said in his opening statement.
It wasn’t until several hours later, when their car broke down, that Adam and Kayla Montgomery discovered Harmony had died, according to the prosecutor.
The father placed his son’s lifeless body in a duffel bag and put it in the trunk. Over the next few months, Knowles said, Adam took steps to make Harmony’s body disappear: He bought a saw, blades and lime, and rented a moving truck.
Harmony’s father allegedly carried her rotting body in a carry-on bag and took it to work.
“He believed that if there was no body, there could be no evidence of the horrible things he did to her, and he would get away with it,” the prosecutor said.
Adam Montgomery’s lawyer told the court he had not harmed Harmony and accused his ex-wife of lying about what really happened to protect herself.
Kayla Montgomery, who is serving an 18-month sentence for perjury, is expected to testify against her husband.
Defense attorney James Brooks said a note found in Kayla’s cell revealed her willingness to “betray” her husband in exchange for a plea deal that would give her “immunity from anything.”
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Source: vtt.edu.vn