Harmony Montgomery | Her Killer’s Conviction Was Thrown Out (Part 4)

Summary

Crime Weekly Podcast: Harmony Montgomery | Her Killer’s Conviction Was Thrown Out (Part 4)

Date: July 17, 2026
Hosts: Stephanie Harlowe & Derrick Levasseur

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Episode Overview

In the heart-wrenching fourth and final installment covering the Harmony Montgomery case, Stephanie Harlowe and Derrick Levasseur dissect the aftermath of Adam Montgomery's conviction—recently thrown out due to a legal technicality. They explore system failures, accountability, notable figures fighting for reform, and the lasting impact of the case. The episode blends expert analysis, passionate debate, and direct calls for justice, shedding light on the flaws within the U.S. child welfare and judicial systems, and the profound tragedy suffered by Harmony and children like her.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Emotional Toll & The Legacy of the Case

• The hosts express their ongoing emotional response to the Montgomery case, paralleling it with other notorious child abuse cases. Both admit the case has left them deeply affected and “haunted.”
  • Stephanie: "I genuinely feel like sometimes I'm like, I don't really hate anyone... then I go through these cases and I'm like, I hate Adam Montgomery. I hate Kayla Montgomery. Yeah. Like, don't forget... Tauros. Demetrius Toros. Hate him. So, you know, and then I think this one's definitely stuck with me. And. And it will for a while." [01:17]
  • Derrick: "Absolutely hate him. Can't stand him. And we're going to be following up with that case as it goes back to trial." [02:10]

2. Systemic Failures: Cross-State Blame & Accountability

• The episode deeply examines the systemic failures between Massachusetts and New Hampshire’s child welfare systems.
  • Reports: Both states issue their own reviews after Harmony’s disappearance and murder, largely deflecting blame onto the other and minimizing their own failings.
  • Stephanie: "A lot of people coming out and being like, how did this happen in the aftermath was generally like, how can we make this less our problem?" [09:28]
  • Inadequate home study, poor follow-up on welfare alerts, and failures to confirm Harmony’s whereabouts are highlighted as fatal failings.

Notable Quote:

"Judges should be held accountable for a decision they make that leads to the death of someone."
—Stephanie Harlowe [07:54]

3. Judicial Accountability (or Lack Thereof)

• Strong condemnation of the judge who placed Harmony with her father without proper evaluation, and broader criticism of judicial immunity:
  • Derrick: "Judges have the ultimate immunity. Like, you can't touch them. You cannot touch these people. They are basically one step below God." [25:08]
  • Stephanie: "You have one job. [...] It's not a hard job. As in, there's many avenues I could take. It's like, no, get all the facts I can and make the best judgment that is good for this child who is five years old and cannot protect herself. Right." [25:15]

4. Carol Erskine: The Relentless Advocate

• Introduction of former Massachusetts juvenile judge Carol Erskine, whose book Cruel Injustice exposes the depth of system-wide failure and pushes for transparency and reform.
  • Stephanie: "Carol wants to put blame every single place where it exists." [20:40]
  • Quote from Erskine: "What happened to sweet Harmony Montgomery... is a puzzle with many missing pieces. And while the agencies and government officials in Massachusetts want you to believe that the puzzle has been solved through its investigation by the Office of the Child Advocate, there are many missing pieces of the puzzle and others are scattered about, making it nearly impossible to assemble." [29:53]
• Erskine’s fight includes a request for federal investigation and an argument of possible deliberate cover-up by state actors.

5. Confidentiality Versus Transparency

• Discussion of the struggle to unseal juvenile court records to understand how Adam gained custody.
  • Noted that in Harmony's death, media and advocates like Bill Lichtenstein fought for, and won, the release (with redactions) of key hearing audio—but all records remain largely sealed.
  • Stephanie: "If the child dies. There's no longer a need to protect her." [30:28]

6. Legal Representation, Guardians Ad Litem, and Age Appropriateness

• The system's over-reliance on children’s expressed wishes—without consideration of age or ability—comes under sharp criticism.
  • Harmony was only 4 when she “expressed” desire to live with Adam, and the lawyer simply repeated this to the court.
  • Derrick: "A child's attorney has a duty to represent the child's legal position. And forcing that same attorney to argue against the child's expressed wishes can undermine the child's rights... But we're talking about a 4 year old." [43:18]
  • The hosts assert that for young or vulnerable children, a guardian ad litem is essential.

7. Settlements as Silencing Tactics

• New Hampshire settled the wrongful death lawsuit with Harmony’s mother, Crystal Sori, for $2.25 million, following other similar settlements—without admitting fault.
  • Carol Erskine’s stance: “$2.5 million is basically what it costs to keep the secrets of what happened to Harmony hidden. [...] For me, $2.5 million is the price of silence. And I just wasn't going to let that happen.” [62:31]
• The hosts agree settlements are used to avoid depositions and discovery that could expose deeper systemic issues.

8. Adam Montgomery’s Trial, Verdict, and Overturn

• Adam Montgomery was found guilty of second-degree murder and related charges. Notably, he refused to attend most of his own trial.
  • Stephanie: "He stayed in his holding cell at the jail and waived his right to attend. [...] He's a coward." [79:27]
  • The guilty verdict was emotionally overwhelming for jurors. During sentencing, Adam appeared bored and dismissive as family gave statements.
• Victim Impact Statements: Powerful, emotional words from Harmony’s mother contrasted sharply with Kayla Montgomery’s self-centered letter (critiqued as "a Dear John breakup letter").
• In July 2026, the New Hampshire Supreme Court overturned Adam’s murder conviction due to the faulty joining of two separate incidents in one trial, mandating a retrial (pending possible Supreme Court reconsideration).

Notable Courtroom Quotes

"You took a human life and you did so in the most callous and heartless of ways. [...] Harmony was an innocent five year old girl. You treated her in the worst of possible ways in both her life and in her death."
—Judge, sentencing Adam Montgomery [84:09]

"She lit up a room when she walked in. She made a mark wherever she went and you couldn't stand it."
—Crystal Sori, Harmony’s mother [86:12]

9. What Comes Next: Reforms and Ongoing Battles

• Carol Erskine continues to push for federal investigations, focusing on failures related to children with disabilities and suggesting possible civil rights violations.
• The hosts worry a new trial may place Adam at risk of acquittal, as key testimony now relies even more on Kayla Montgomery.
• Stephanie and Derrick voice hope for justice and urge professionals in child welfare to always "go the extra mile," underscoring the case’s grim lessons for future safeguards.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments (with Timestamps)

• "This is why I believe in evil." —Stephanie Harlowe [01:50]
• "Judges have the ultimate immunity. Like, you can't touch them. You cannot touch these people." —Derrick Levasseur [25:08]
• "What happened actually was that she wasn't evaluated, that Adam Montgomery received a call saying they were coming to evaluate her. He grabbed Harmony, he took her out of the house, and he fled with her so that she couldn't be seen." —Carol Erskine [63:20]
• "For me, $2.5 million is the price of silence. And I just wasn't going to let that happen, which is why I'm pursuing a federal investigation under the color of law." —Carol Erskine, via interview [62:31]
• "You're never going to be judged for doing too much. [...] You will be judged, though, if something like this happens and you did, too." —Stephanie Harlowe (to caseworkers and law enforcement) [110:46]

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Important Timestamps

• [05:52] – Summary of Adam and Kayla's arrests, initial home search, and DCYF failures.
• [07:10] – NH Governor Sununu and cross-state blame.
• [13:54] – Discussion of official state reports and their shortcomings.
• [20:40] – Introduction and analysis of Carol Erskine's approach and book.
• [29:53] – Carol Erskine quote on unsolved puzzle/main system critique.
• [52:43] – Efforts to unseal juvenile court audio and legal battles for transparency.
• [55:41] – Overview of NH's $2.25M settlement with Harmony’s mother.
• [63:05] and [63:20] – Carol Erskine's allegations of deliberate failure by DCF worker Tauros; possible cover-up.
• [79:27] – Adam Montgomery’s murder trial summary and his refusal to attend.
• [84:09] – Judge’s sentencing remarks (moving courtroom moment).
• [86:12] – Crystal Sori’s victim impact statement.
• [101:06] – Technical reasons for murder conviction’s overturning and legal analysis.
• [108:43] – Derrick’s closing message to professionals: “Take this case, put it on your bookshelf…”

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Final Reflections

Crime Weekly’s deep-dive concludes with a plea for genuine reform, accountability, and diligence in both child protection and the judiciary. The Harmony Montgomery case stands as a chilling, cautionary tale—a systemic failure where a vulnerable child was not just let down, but lost. Advocates like Carol Erskine continue the fight, while Stephanie and Derrick’s unwavering candor assures listeners that Harmony’s story will not be forgotten, and that its lessons must transform policy and save lives in the future.

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Transcript

[Derek Levasseur]

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[Bill Lichtenstein]

No.

[Derek Levasseur]

Okay, then, well, ask your doctor about which FDA approved uses of me. The Ozempic pen may be right for you. Call 1-833-OZEMPIC or visit ozempic.com to view the medication guide and learn more about Ozempic. Semaglutide injection, 2mg. Only Novo Nordisk makes FDA approved Ozempic. O There's only one Ozempic. I told you it was catchy.

[Stephanie Harlow]

Hello, everybody. Welcome back to Crime Weekly. I'm Stephanie Harlow.

[Derek Levasseur]

And I'm Derek Levasseur.

[Stephanie Harlow]

Today we are diving into part four, the final part of Harmony Montgomery. And like we said in Crime Weekly News, it's been a very tough kind of journey through Harmony's case. I will never forget it. I genuinely feel like sometimes I'm like, I don't really hate anyone. You know, it's like, I don't hate anyone. And then I go through these cases and I'm like, I hate Adam Montgomery. I hate Kayla Montgomery. Yeah. Like, don't forget.

[Derek Levasseur]

What's his name there. I keep forgetting it.

[Stephanie Harlow]

Oh, Tauros.

[Derek Levasseur]

Tauros.

[Stephanie Harlow]

Yeah. Demetrius Toros. Hate him. So, you know, and then I think this one's definitely stuck with me. And. And it will for a while.

[Derek Levasseur]

I get it now. Now that you've covered it, I. I definitely understand it. I think I wrote on a Crime Weekly Post the other day, I just. It was a photo of Adam, and I'm like, I just hate his face

[Bill Lichtenstein]

much.

[Stephanie Harlow]

Oh, I just. You really don't understand. And, you know, we saw it with Leticia Stout, too, Right? Very much. Reminds me of. Of that case.

[Derek Levasseur]

Yeah.

[Stephanie Harlow]

But Gannon wasn't even her. Her blood son. Right. Like, you know, people are evil and they're terrible to kids, but when you see somebody, a father to his daughter, right, who you think a father's supposed to protect their daughter from other men like that. And you. You just. You really don't understand, like, what exists inside of you. Like, this is. This is why I believe in evil.

[Derek Levasseur]

So, yeah, absolutely hate him. Can't stand him. And we're going to be following up with that case as it goes back to trial. It'll. It'll absolutely be one or two, maybe more Crime Weekly news. Everybody over here at Team Crime Weekly is hoping for a similar outcome to the first trial. He should be behind bars. And should be a lot worse what happens to him. But we'll save that combo for a different day real quickly because I've been wanting to get around to this for the past three or four weeks. Merchandise. Many of you guys have emailed us and messaged us about it. Crime Weekly Merch is up and [e-mail] forewarning. Some of the stuff is currently sold out, but I have already ordered anything that's sold out, and it should be here any day now. However, the reason it's sold out is because we have our Patreon. And one of the perks of being a Patreon member is we put it out there first. And I underestimated how many of the Patreon members were going to purchase it. So basically this, the allegedly sweatshirt, if you go on there and you'll look at that one, it's like this gray sweat. It's really cool. Completely sold out one day. So before we even announced that it was available to everybody else, it was gone. The no theories, just vibe shirt, that was another one where put it up there. A lot of the sizes sold out. Fortunately, I was able to get some more sizes in quicker with that shirt. And we are only out of the mediums right. Right now. But if you look under the sizes, we're pretty transparent about it. You can see how many are left. So, for example, an extra large, which is a common size, there's only four left. So if you want it, strongly recommend you go grab [e-mail] and if you want to get notified early, you can always sign up for our Patreon membership. And you also get a 10% discount. So there's multiple reasons to do it. It's definitely beneficial to the people who want to make that small investment if it's something you're into. On top of that, you get all these other perks, depending on what tier you get. And in addition to that, there's some other shirts on there as well. Like right now, I had found a box of the CrimeCon Denver shirts. I was literally just cleaning out the warehouse. We never do this, but I found a box of, like, random sizes. I think it's a couple extra smalls and maybe three or four. Three XLs and two or three, four XLs. Once they go, that's it. Because we never sell them on the store. That's only for people who come to CrimeCon, but I'm not gonna let them sit there. And unfortunately, some people can't make it. So if you're interested in that shirt, go check it out. Crimeweeklypodcast.com that's all I got. We'll dive into the episode.

[Stephanie Harlow]

And the extra large in that sweatshirt is not as big as you think it is. So I love the extra large. It's very comfortable for me.

[Derek Levasseur]

Yeah, some people said that, especially if you wear it a couple times, it may go a size down. I usually go a size up. We have gotten that question a couple of times. But if you're, if you like it more form fitting, it can be true to size. So we've, we've made exchanges for people in the past, usually with merchandise. It's. The sales are final because, you know, people wearing them and then they return them.

[Stephanie Harlow]

I just, I just, I think the extra larges, honestly, I would have gone with that. I got a large, but I like them to be a little bit more cozy.

[Derek Levasseur]

A little bit more cozy. A little pajama shirt.

[Stephanie Harlow]

Yeah, yeah, that's all we got.

[Derek Levasseur]

Appreciate the love, appreciate the support. Any questions, let us know. There's always Patreon members in the comments. And, and we're in there as well. We, we'll get you going, but I know you guys have been asking. We could probably be doing better with the merch stuff, but we're trying.

[Stephanie Harlow]

All right, so are you ready to get in?

[Derek Levasseur]

Unfortunately, yeah. Yeah, I am.

[Stephanie Harlow]

All right. So. On January 4, 2022, Adam Montgomery was arrested and charged with second degree assault, interference with custody, and endangering the welfare of a child. Obviously, we know it's going to be later upgraded to. To murder. So that same day, the FBI and the Manchester police searched the Guilford street property where Adam and Kayla had previously lived with Harmony and their two sons. They searched the property for two days, during which they dug up areas of the backyard, but nothing was found. They're trying to find Harmony's body at this point. On January 5th, Kayla Montgomery was arrested and charged with felony welfare fraud. And this was in relation to the benefits that Kayla had continued to receive for har. Harmony even after Harmony went missing. Because the amount of money Kayla had received exceeded fifteen hundred dollars, it was considered a felony level offense. So her bail was set at $5,000. But Kayla could not make bail, so she remained in jail until her trial. That same month, New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu instructed DCYF to begin an immediate review of how it had handled the case of Harmony. Montgomery released Apollo. New Hampshire's governor Chris Sinuno blasted the Massachusetts Child Protection Agency DCF and the judge who turned the seven year old

[Bill Lichtenstein]

over to her father.

[Stephanie Harlow]

In a letter to the Massachusetts top, judge, Sununu questioned the decisions that were made writing. What makes this case exceptionally unusual is that not only did a Massachusetts judge move to place this child with such a monster as Adam Montgomery, but it

[Bill Lichtenstein]

did so without a home study to be completed.

[Stephanie Harlow]

This home study likely would have proven that Adam Montgomery was unfit.

[Derek Levasseur]

Preach, preach, preach. Yeah, absolutely. And you know what? Nothing can be done to that judge.

[Stephanie Harlow]

Yeah, ridiculous. Yeah, exactly. We've talked about that before. I have a huge issue with judges. And you know, once again, I don't even know the name of that judge. A lot of those records are sealed.

[Derek Levasseur]

I have a couple names for them.

[Stephanie Harlow]

Yeah. But this judge was pretty much like, we don't need all of this home visit thing and we don't need like, like that to be done. Her father wants her. Give it her. You know, we've talked about this before. Judges should be held accountable for a decision they make that leads to the death of someone. So not every decision. Right. But a decision where it's, it's actually affecting somebody's life, as in they are being killed because of it. So.

[Derek Levasseur]

Well, if there's clear evidence that they just, it was just unconscionable what they did where, like again, sending this young girl to this guy without even doing

[Stephanie Harlow]

a home, knowing his criminal history history, or even asking questions about it, that

[Derek Levasseur]

to me is criminal in nature, what the judge did.

[Bill Lichtenstein]

Right.

[Derek Levasseur]

It's an incompetence. Like there should be, you shouldn't be able to hide behind that because even

[Stephanie Harlow]

with the judge, even if it's not being introduced by someone else, nobody's like, feeding it to you as a judge. You'd be like, well, why wasn't she with him for so many years? Like, why has he only seen her a handful of times in so many years? And then they could be like, well, judge, he was in prison. And then the judge could be like, why was he in prison? And then you would know this stuff.

[Amy Van Aken]

Right?

[Derek Levasseur]

Yeah. No, there's, there's got to be a procedure that's followed. And to be fair, there will be times where judges who are forced to make difficult decisions sometimes. Sometimes will get it wrong. That's going to happen. It's just the way it is. We're all human beings, but when there's not a policy and procedure being followed that's already being, it's already been put in place and they're just circumventing that to expedite something or move it through the court because they have a God complex and they need to be held accountable.

[Stephanie Harlow]

You know, I think a lot of this, like, I'm not saying people didn't care about Harmony, but I think a lot of people coming out and being like, how did this happen in the aftermath was generally like, how can we make this less our problem? Right. So Sununu's in New Hampshire, but he's like, how did this Massachusetts judge allow this to happen? You know, when it was like your New Hampshire DCF worker who we have already talked about, who shall not be named anymore, who went to the house, claimed he saw Harmony when he in reality actually didn't. So Sununu's over here, like Massachusetts, what did you do? And. And there's things to be cleaned up with in New Hampshire. Right. So what happened when Governor Sununu and all of these people came out and they were like, how did this happen? How in the world? Well, the Result was a February 2022 report that laid out several missed opportunities, such as New Hampsh never completed the home study before Massachusetts gave Adam custody. And In July of 2019, NH DCYF investigated a report that Harmony had a black eye, saw an injury, later accepted the explanation that it was from rough housing with her very much younger brother, and closed the allegation as unfounded. Then in January of 2020, when Harmony was no longer in the home, Adam told DCYF she was living with Crystal. And then this Demetrios Toros guy left Crystal a voicemail. But when Crystal didn't call back, there's no evidence that DCYF kept pushing to verify where Harmony actually was. So the report recommended better cross border communication with Massachusetts and other states, a new or improved ICPC border agreement, which the ICPC is the the home visit and like making sure the home is fit. More staffing in the Manchester DCYF office, lower caseloads, a modern case management system, and a policy requiring to confirm the residence of every child known to be a part of a household, even if someone claims that child moved away. I feel like that should have already been part of the standard procedure.

[Derek Levasseur]

Yeah, where was that?

[Stephanie Harlow]

Oh, no, my five year old daughter, Harmony, she lived here. She moved away, packed a bag, got on the road. You know, like, why is that not already a part of what you should be doing? You know, like, oh, I know, Adam, that I had to come to your house in July of 2019 because people were saying you gave your daughter a black eye and now you're telling me that she moved back in with her mother. So I accept that that sounds perfectly fine. I don't need to. To check up on it and, like, verify. So. Yeah, that's. That's weird. That should have already been something that they were regularly doing every time. So then it goes on to say, if the new caregiver cannot be reached, the report recommended involving law enforcement for a welfare check, which is what a decent human being would have done. Right. Even if it's not part of, like, your dcyf. Even if the book that tells you how to be a case management person doesn't explicitly say that. I mean, it's one call to the police, really. It's like, I'm just gonna call and make sure. Like, I'll call the police where Crystal. Sorry. Lives and just make sure they can go to the house and. And just confirm Harmony's there. When I can't get a hold of Crystal, I'm just gonna make sure the police can verify with me that Harmony's there. It's one call. Just as a human being worried about the welfare of a child.

[Derek Levasseur]

I like how you said that, too. Just as a human being. Not as. Because it's your job or because, you know, you're. It's a human instinct. You should have to want to make sure that that child is okay.

[Stephanie Harlow]

Yeah. It's a Demetrius Toros. You know when you're sitting on the toilet for 25 minutes, scrolling through your. Your freaking candy crush. Maybe instead of that, just call the police real quick. In. In Massachusetts where Crystal. Sorry. Lives. Like, just do that really quick. It'll take literally two minutes. So. But, no, that's not what happened. But. So then this report. And Governor Sununu did put emphasis on what New Hampshire could have done better, but it also put a lot of focus on what they considered to be the main issue, the biggest issue, the issue that started the whole thing, which was how in the world did this judge in Massachusetts allow Harmony to be in Adam Montgomery's custody? So they were like, yeah, New Hampshire. We got. We're not perfect. We're not perfect. We have small little tweaks to make. But really, what happened and who's at fault here is the. The judge in Massachusetts. So it's a little blame shifty. Right.

[Derek Levasseur]

I wanted to put that out there that I do feel like it's kind of like it's not our fault.

[Stephanie Harlow]

Yeah.

[Derek Levasseur]

Like their fault.

[Stephanie Harlow]

Massachusetts. It was a Massachusetts effect. By the time we got it, it was already. Mistakes had already been made.

[Derek Levasseur]

Yeah. But there are points in there. And I'm glad he's calling out the judge like, hey, listen, they screwed up here royally.

[Stephanie Harlow]

Yes, the Massachusetts judge, and I would say the Massachusetts child protective system did screw up in general, but that doesn't mean that New Hampshire's like, well, did we screw up as bad if we weren't the first ones to screw up? When accountability is missing, change does not usually follow.

[Derek Levasseur]

I'm with you there for sure. I'm with you there. I also say, without going too off of where you're going with it for this episode, with all of this, and I'm not saying it's right. I think Crystal's struggles opened the door for Adam to get back in there as well. I feel like having two parents who are both not model citizens. When you have a judge looking at it, he. He's. He or she, we don't know. Looking at it, saying, well, mom can't take care of her either.

[Stephanie Harlow]

She's got her with foster parents, and mom's had chances. We've given Harmony back to her multiple times. So now let's see what the dad can do, I guess.

[Derek Levasseur]

And I. I hate that I have to do this, but there'll be somebody there not blaming Crystal for that. But at the end of the day, when they're objectively looking at the reports, they're not seeing a mom who's got their stuff together, taking care of things on the right track, and this guy, a father who's just making mistake after mistake. They're seeing two parents who are both kind of dropping the ball. And maybe the judge looked at it and said, well, let's just let them both have a chance. See if this. See if having the child changes their. Changes the trajectory of where they're going and helps them get back.

[Stephanie Harlow]

I'm sorry. A child is not a trial run to see if I agree.

[Derek Levasseur]

I agree.

[Judge]

I hate.

[Derek Levasseur]

I hate that I'm even saying it,

[Stephanie Harlow]

but I know what you're trying to say.

[Derek Levasseur]

Yeah, I'm trying to understand how a judge would look at this and say, yeah, let's put this child in the custody of this guy.

[Stephanie Harlow]

Why a judge wouldn't look at both Adam and Crystal? Because you're like, I'm not blaming Crystal. I kind of am, like. And it's not like I'm blaming Crystal and taking any blame away from Adam. But when you're a parent and something happens to your child, there's blame to be shared. Because when you're a parent, you don't really get days off. You don't get to say, like, well, I can't protect my child right now, so somebody else has to do it. It's very much like, you kind of have to be on, especially if you know how bad Adam is. And according to Crystal, she did. She did. She didn't want Harmony to go with him at all. So is that not the motivation to. To be as. As good as you can and to not kind of, you know, waste the many chances that you were given to prove you, you could care for Harmony?

[Derek Levasseur]

Don't create the opportunity where Adam can slide in there?

[Stephanie Harlow]

Yeah, unfortunately, sometimes that's what you have to take a little bit more responsibility than the other parent because you know the other parent isn't fit and, you know, you can be. So when I look at the judge, I wouldn't have chosen Adam or Crystal. I would have said, hey, she's been in foster care with these loving foster parents for the majority of her life. That's probably who she considers to be her family. Why don't we give that a try? So, yeah, this is not. Not good. But there is blame shifting, and you're going to see. You're going to see more of it. So on May 4, 2022, the Massachusetts Office of the Child Advocates, who I'm going to refer to as the OCA from now on, because I'm not going to keep saying that they released an extensive report on Harmony Montgomery. You can find it online. It is very extensive. But once again, they minimize things and they blame shift. So New Hampshire released its own review first in February of 2022, because Governor Chris Sununu ordered DCYF to examine its involvement with Harmony after she was placed in Adam Montgomery's custody. But that only answered part of the question. So the Massachusetts office of the Child Advocate then released its own report on May 4, 2022, because Harmony had been a Massachusetts D child before she was sent to New Hampshire. And the OCA report looked backward at the decisions that put Harmony in Adam's custody in the first place. The foster care history, the court process, the incomplete interstate checks, lawyers, DCF and the February 2019 custody hearing. So the New Hampshire report was about missed chances after Harmony was already with Adam. The Massachusetts OCA report was about how the system allowed her to get there and at all. The Massachusetts report concluded that multiple actors failed to center Harmony's needs. DCF did not adequately assess Adam. The court did not have the full picture. Once again, they keep saying the court didn't have the full picture, as if it's not Partly the court's responsibility to make sure they have the full picture before making a decision.

[Derek Levasseur]

Yeah. Finish that sentence. The court didn't have the full picture, but still made a determination.

[Stephanie Harlow]

Yes, well, that's.

[Derek Levasseur]

That's the full picture.

[Stephanie Harlow]

I think they were trying to say the court didn't know that there was a fuller picture to be had because Harmony's legal representation didn't clearly present her needs.

[Derek Levasseur]

They would have known there was no home study done.

[Stephanie Harlow]

Yes. And once again. And the judge said, there's no home study. We don't need it.

[Derek Levasseur]

Yeah, that's.

[Stephanie Harlow]

The judge ordered that we didn't need that. And once again, as a judge, you might look at the situation and be like, wait, how many times has Adam seen Harmony? Why has he only seen her so few times in the time she's been alive? Oh, he was in prison for what? Attempted murder. What are we doing here? Right. That would have been the place, but it didn't happen.

[Derek Levasseur]

I would have also required some type of drug testing.

[Stephanie Harlow]

Yeah, well, he's supposed to be doing drug testing, Right?

[Derek Levasseur]

Sure. That he's clean at the time when he's taking custody of. Of Harmony. That is something that. It should be a prerequisite. I don't know if that was done and he just faked the test or.

[Stephanie Harlow]

Well, that's part of the. That's part of the home study process. Making sure you have employment, making sure you're clean, getting the names of his drug counselor and the method.

[Derek Levasseur]

Clean. Have a. Used to have an issue. Are you clean? Are you sober? When's the last time you've used? Okay, we're going to give you a couple drug tests. If you come back clean, I'll know you telling the truth.

[Stephanie Harlow]

Also, like we said, the home study process was incomplete because the judge was like, we don't need to do that. Let's go. And then also, Harmony's medical, developmental, and disability needs were not properly weighed, so the OCA framed it as a systemic failure in the child welfare and court process. Well, okay, fair, but that. What does that do for us? So now I want to talk about Carol Erskine. So Carol Erskine's a retired Massachusetts juvenile court judge and long time child welfare advocate. Now, I believe that Carol is the only person who's not out there trying to shift blame and trying to, like, kind of minimize it, because Carol wants to put blame every single place where it exists.

[Derek Levasseur]

I like it.

[Stephanie Harlow]

Yeah, I love Carol. She actually wrote a book about Harmony's case. It's very good. I used it heavily for my Research. So Carol served as a juvenile court judge in central Massachusetts for about 21 years. She retired in 2023, and before that she worked as a lawyer in juvenile matters. So you might say that she knows what she's talking about when it comes to the Massachusetts juvenile court system because she worked within it for decades. Her own bio says her work centered on abused and neglected children, foster care, child welfare, and juvenile court cases. So her connection to Harmony is both personal and professional. Erskine reportedly presided over the adoption of Harmony's little brother, Jameson, which gave her a direct connection to the family and to the aftermath of Harmony's death, because obviously, this affected Jameson heavily. And Carol Erskine later said Harmony's case was one of the most significant child welfare failures that she had ever seen, and she'd seen her share of them. So Carol Erskine is very important to Harmony's story because she has continued to fight for Harmony, and she doesn't believe that any report from any agency has done enough or taken enough accountability and responsibility. Her book about Harmony is called Cruel Injustice. It was published in 2024, and it was published even before some information came out. So she didn't even have the full picture at that point. But the book's central argument is not just Adam Montgomery killed Harmony. Although she accepts that Adam murdered Harmony, her larger conclusion is that Harmony was made vulnerable by a catastrophic failure of the Massachusetts child welfare and juvenile court system before she was ever placed in Adam's custody. The book description says a Massachusetts court granted custody of Harmony to her violent father in New Hampshire, and that Erskine believed the dangerously defective child protection system in Massachusetts made Harmony expendable. Now, when you first hear Carol Erskine talk, and we're going to hear her talk in a minute, you're kind of like, oh, you know, she's very, like, mild mannered and polite, but she says things with her chest. She says things with her chest and. And she does it in such a matter of fact way where it's kind of like she's saying something that's shocking. Like the court system covered up what it did to Harmony, and they're continuing to try to cover it up. But she says it so, like, this is just a fact. Like, this is what I have gathered evidence about, and this is what I believe. And what I'm saying shouldn't be a hot take because I have supporting evidence for it.

[Derek Levasseur]

So I like it.

[Stephanie Harlow]

Yeah, I do, too.

[Derek Levasseur]

I like it. Shoot from the hip. Back it up with evidence. How do you. How do you dispute that? How do you go back and Say, no, this is the wrong way to do it.

[Stephanie Harlow]

Yes. And she's also saying, like, not only did the. Did they suck. The court system sucked to begin with, but now they're trying to, like, make it go away. They're trying to make it go away, and they're trying to make you forget that it happened, and they don't want to make the changes that they need to make so that it doesn't happen again.

[Derek Levasseur]

Not the first case I've seen that in, that's for sure court. This is what they do, and they'll always go back down to. And they're doing it here. We didn't have all the information. The people below us didn't do the proper jobs to give us what we needed to make the right determination. Here. We just talked about a. A judge a few weeks ago, maybe a month ago, where it was an IT person who came in the room, and the judge treated him like, is there.

[Stephanie Harlow]

Yeah, yeah, we do. We saw that video.

[Derek Levasseur]

And I can tell you, I was. I was in a lot of those courtrooms, and behind closed doors and men, they. Sometimes those judges come in there, and we made a joke where, like, how's the case gonna go today? Well, depending on how their night went. Did they come into court pissed off today? Because that's how it's gonna go, and it shouldn't be the case. And then after the fact, when they get it wrong.

[Stephanie Harlow]

Yeah. Maybe the judge in Harmony's case was, like, fighting with their significant other, and they're just saying, I just want to, like. Like, hit the. The gap so I can get back to chambers and keep this argument going. Yeah.

[Derek Levasseur]

Let's get this going. And. And. And I've seen it after the fact where they do get it wrong, and automatically they're blaming the prosecution, they're blaming the defense, and they're blaming everybody else but themselves.

[Stephanie Harlow]

Well, the lawyers didn't give me all the information. Yeah.

[Derek Levasseur]

And I'm not just picking on judges here. I'm. I'm picking on them because we talk about cops and qualified immunity. Well, judges have the ultimate immunity. Like, you can't touch them. You cannot touch these people. They are basically one step below God. They cannot be charged with anything.

[Stephanie Harlow]

Yep. It's called judicial immunity. And I will forever pick on judges because they are the definition of literally. You have one job.

[Derek Levasseur]

Yeah.

[Stephanie Harlow]

Okay. And it's an easy job, and you get paid. I mean, it's not an easy job, but.

[Derek Levasseur]

No, it's easy. It's not easy. You're right.

[Stephanie Harlow]

It's easy if you're like, let me get all the. Let me get all the facts so I can judge this properly. You know, it's like, I'm not. It's not a hard job. As in, there's many avenues I could take. It's like, no, get all the facts I can and make the best judgment that is good for this child who is five years old and cannot protect herself. Right.

[Derek Levasseur]

No doubt about it.

[Stephanie Harlow]

And you get paid well for it. And like Derek just said, nothing's ever going to come back to bite you. Can't touch you one step under God, and you could stay there in your position for as long as you want. Basically, yeah.

[Derek Levasseur]

Even that judge who happened with him and multiple people came out and said that this wasn't the first time. I don't know. I got to follow up on that one. But I guarantee you he's still on the bench 100%.

[Stephanie Harlow]

I don't even have to look into it. All right, let's take a quick break, and then we're going to come back and talk more about Carol Erskine. This episode of Crime Weekly is brought to you by Wildgreen, which is basically

[Derek Levasseur]

people who want bread, pastries, and pasta at home, but don't want to become that kind of person who says, I'll run out to the store and grab something real quick. We all know you're not gonna.

[Bill Lichtenstein]

Exactly.

[Stephanie Harlow]

Because real quick is never real quick. Suddenly you're in the parking lot, you forgot what you came for. Somehow you're leaving with paper towels, a rotisserie chicken, no bread, some random cinnamon bre you're never gonna eat. Yeah.

[Derek Levasseur]

Be honest here. That feels very specific, Stephanie.

[Stephanie Harlow]

It is very specific. It's a lived experience. But Wild Green, okay, Wild Green makes it so much easier. I love wild Green. You guys know Derek loves wild Green.

[Derek Levasseur]

I love wild green. I actually just got a box yesterday.

[Stephanie Harlow]

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[Derek Levasseur]

Yes, and the baked from frozen part is extremely important because you don't have to plan ahead. And for someone like me, who all of a sudden, I'm just hungry, and to think about having to thaw it out for 20 to 30 minutes firsthand, it almost deters me from wanting to even do it. But the bake from Frozen, you take it out of the freezer, throw it in the oven, you're good to go.

[Stephanie Harlow]

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[Derek Levasseur]

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[Stephanie Harlow]

Wild Green actually uses a 20 hours slow fermentation process. So the quality is really there. It's like the texture, you can feel it. Wild grain uses simple ingredients and that slow fermentation process can be easier on your stomach. Plus it's packed with nutrients and we've

[Derek Levasseur]

talked about it numerous times before. Wild grain is much more than just bread.

[Stephanie Harlow]

Oh yeah, I mean fresh pastas, gnocchi, ravioli, the cookies, the, the croissants are so good. I always have like at least 10 packages of croissants on hand and everything's fully customizable. So you can choose from the variety box, like kind of build your own box thing, which is what I do. They have a gluten free box, a vegan box. They even have a new protein box. So it's really convenient whether you're trying to make dinner easy, have better breakfast options, or just keep something good in the freezer for when life gets chaotic. So imagine having fresh bakery quality bread, pastries and pastas at home without any trips to the store. And don't just take our word for it. They have over 40,000-star reviews and have been voted the best food subscription box by USA Today for three years in a row. For a limited time, Wild Green is offering our listeners $30 off your first box plus free croissants for life when you go to wildgrain.com crimeweekly30 to start your subscription today. That's $30 off your first box and free croissants for life when you visit wildgreen.com crimeweekly30 or you can use promo code CRIMEWEEKLY30 at checkout. Okay, so we're back. And Carol Erskine in her book wrote, quote, what happened to sweet Harmony Montgomery? Forever a beautiful child is a puzzle with many missing pieces. And while the agencies and government officials in Massachusetts want you to believe that the puzzle has been solved through its investigation by the Office of the Child Advocate, there are many missing pieces of the puzzle and others are scattered about, making it nearly impossible to assemble. End quote. So Carol goes over the OCA's report in her book and she's like, wrong, wrong, wrong. Minimized you that's actually not true. You minimize that like she just picks it apart. I love it. So Carol is very critical of the very system that she worked in for decades. She has stated very strongly that the child protection laws in Massachusetts provide little if any room to consider a child's best interest when compared to the rights of the parent. She said that throughout all of the reports and blame shifting, no one has answered the important questions about what happened in the courtroom that day in February of 2019 when Harmony was placed into the custody of her father. So this is also true. It's very. And we're going to talk about it a little bit more later on. But it was very secretive because it's a juvenile court and those records are sealed.

[Derek Levasseur]

Well, you know what they should have where it should be an exception to the rule.

[Stephanie Harlow]

If the child dies.

[Derek Levasseur]

A child's dead.

[Stephanie Harlow]

Yeah.

[Derek Levasseur]

There's no longer a need to protect her.

[Stephanie Harlow]

Exactly.

[Derek Levasseur]

So we're going to have an exemption to the rule where if the child passes away while in the custody of one of the said parents that the

[Stephanie Harlow]

court that the judge put her in put them with.

[Derek Levasseur]

We're going to unseal those records because the whole point is to protect the child.

[Stephanie Harlow]

So we can see.

[Derek Levasseur]

Let's see what happened here.

[Stephanie Harlow]

Exactly what happened. Because you got no doubts, right? You got transcripts.

[Derek Levasseur]

Yep. So we see what the judge's feelings were that day.

[Stephanie Harlow]

Yeah. We know how it went down. Like we don't know. But there is a way to.

[Derek Levasseur]

To know what would be the problem with that? And anyone who says, well, it would set a precedent. Great.

[Stephanie Harlow]

Yes.

[Derek Levasseur]

That's the precedent.

[Stephanie Harlow]

Yes.

[Derek Levasseur]

If the child passes away, every case involving that child, if it's only one child involved, dissected. And you know what? We'll redact the names of any other

[Stephanie Harlow]

children that may have been siblings.

[Bill Lichtenstein]

No problem.

[Stephanie Harlow]

You guys are good at redacting.

[Derek Levasseur]

But we need to go through and see the course of that case. Who was making those decisions. We want to see the transcripts. We want to know if the judge was actually just lacking information to make a thorough decision or did they not want that information to make a thorough decision?

[Stephanie Harlow]

I want to know how much weight was put behind the decision.

[Bill Lichtenstein]

Yes.

[Stephanie Harlow]

How long did it take you to make that? Did you have questions? Did you have follow up questions? I want to know.

[Derek Levasseur]

I don't think anybody, with the exception of maybe a handful of people would have an issue with unsealing the documents involving children's cases. If the children. Child is no longer with us, it's

[Stephanie Harlow]

not the handful of people, it's the entire system.

[Derek Levasseur]

Maybe people in the system would have an issue with it. But I'm saying the majority of the country. Yes, I agree, would be on board with that.

[Stephanie Harlow]

The general public, who should be voting to put people into these positions where they can now keep things from us. Yes, we should be able to.

[Derek Levasseur]

That's a legislative thing you can change too.

[Stephanie Harlow]

Yes, well, we know how, how fast and easy that goes.

[Derek Levasseur]

Oh yeah, that's true. I'm running for senator.

[Stephanie Harlow]

So after the OCA report, Massachusetts officials and agencies acknowledged the need for reform. But By April of 2023, the OCA was already saying, like, essentially this isn't moving fast enough. In an update, the OCA was very critical of the Massachusetts judiciary and the Committee for Public Counsel Services because those are the two parts of the system that controlled what the judge heard in the courtroom and how Harmony's interests were presented in court. So the judiciary controls how care and protection cases are handled in court. Judges decide what evidence is required, whether hearings go forward, whether an ICPC home study must be completed, whether a child can be moved across state lines, whether a parent is fit, whether a child's safety and needs have been sufficiently explored. So OCA was saying the court system could change its own practices so judges are not making life altering custody decisions without a complete record. And then CPCs, the Committee for Public Counsel Services, which is the Massachusetts public defender public counsel system, that's important because its Children and Family Law division provides legal representation to children and indigent parents in child welfare matters, including care and protection cases. So that means that CPCS is not just a lawyer organization, it's the body that trains, certifies, supports and sets standards for the lawyers appointed to represent children and parents in these cases. So Harmony did have an attorney representing her best interests in that courtroom In February of 2019, a CPCS appointed attorney. But according to the OCA report, her appointed counsel expressed Harmony's wish to live with Adam without presenting evidence about what Harmony specifically needed to thrive and to like, you know, have a good life. So the the lawyer was like Harmony wishes to live with Adam. Maria Masadas, the child advocate, said the problem was not necessarily that one individual attorney was routinely bad. It was that the CPCS standards guiding attorneys needed to be reconsidered. The OCA was basically saying under the current frame work, a child's attorney may focus on the child's expressed preference, like what the child says they want. But in cases like Harmonies, that is obviously dangerously inadequate. She was four Years old at the time. She had disabilities, she had trauma. She could not possibly understand what it meant to be moved across state lines and put into the custody of a father she barely knew with an incomplete home study and unresolved safety questions. So how can Harmony, at 4 years old, be better equipped to know what's in her best interest and say, I want to live with my dad? Which. Who even knows if she said that? But how can Harmony know that that's what she wants? And the. The adult lawyers know about Adam's criminal history, know about Adam's drug abuse, know that the home study was incomplete, know that they had to be chasing him down for years to even get him to see. See Harmony? They know all of that. And they. They might have to, you know, have questions about. Even if Harmony allegedly said that's what she wants, does she know what she wants? Does she know what she needs?

[Derek Levasseur]

No. No doubt. And she was very young, and that's why she has adults, attorneys, people protecting her, who are supposed to be going through it all to understand that, yes, she's not informed enough to make that decision. And if she had been older and understood the significance of what her dad had done in the past and what he was still doing, I don't think she would have felt that way. I think young children, myself included, even though my dad was My real father, was not a good guy, there were many times where things weren't going good because my mom was working four jobs or whatever, and I just wish I had. You know, I regret it now, but I, you know, wish I had more. What could be. Is the grass greener on the other side? Where I thought to myself, like, oh, I wish I could go stay with my father. In hindsight, I'm glad I didn't. But that's. That's the child in me wanting to have both parents or wanting to have that father figure. And that's where Harmony, if she did say it was coming from, or Harmony

[Stephanie Harlow]

has spent a total of what, I forget how many hours with Adam, but not many. So it's easy enough for a bad person to wear a mask during a short amount of time when they have to see their kid, like, three hours every six months, you know, and to pretend to be this nice guy. So Harmony may have been asked, like, are you afraid of your father? Or do you like your father? And based on what she knew of him, she was like, yeah, but what she knew was an incomplete home study. Basically, what she knew was what he had chosen to show while he was with her being supervised by state, you know, custody officials who were making sure, like, their interactions were good. So of course he's going to make it seem like their interactions are good.

[Derek Levasseur]

And also, again, not to just say it again. I'm sure Crystal would acknowledge this as well. But as a young child, Harmony's making the comparison to her current state and what it potentially could be with with Adam. And she didn't have a consistent home life with Crystal. She was constantly being bounced around. She was with Crystal, she was with Michelle and Timothy, the foster parents. That. That's not great either. So maybe she thought, okay, maybe I can find what I'm looking for with my dad.

[Stephanie Harlow]

But also, she's four.

[Derek Levasseur]

Yeah, that's. So that's my point. She's seeing everything through just a certain lens.

[Stephanie Harlow]

And does she even know what she's being asked? Like, was she asked, do you want to go live with your dad? Or was she asked, like, kind of questions like Demetrius Toros asked her, very vague, like, what do you think of your dad? Or is your dad nice to you? You know, like, was she even asked? And even if she had been asked, what are we taught? She's four. She is four. And she has disabilities and she has special medical needs. So basically, this is not. When I'm talking about this court appointed attorney for Harmony, it's basically like a public defender for children. I'm not talking about a guardian ad lidum who is specifically there to, yes, talk to the kids and see what they want, but also to take stock in things like to understand the history, to kind of look around the house and also pay attention to the kid's body language.

[Amy Van Aken]

And.

[Stephanie Harlow]

And then they go to the court and they say, this is what the child wants. And this is what. I think that's what a guardian adlitem will do. They don't just take the kid, oh, you want to go live with your dad? I'll go testify to the court about that. The Guardian of Lima is there to have the best interest of the child at heart, not to do what the child wants. Right. It's to take in all things and then make, you know, their observations and their recommendation based on that. So this is just like, is a. Yeah, it's a public defender for. For kids to go there on Harmony's behalf and say, this is what Harmony says. And it just, it's not working out. And I don't disagree with anybody who says this system needs to be overhauled because it's not working out.

[Derek Levasseur]

Agreed.

[Stephanie Harlow]

So the OCA follow up Report said in plain English, Massachusetts made promises to change things after Harmony's case, but the changes have been slow, and they're also less complete than they were after the death of another child, David Almond. Because when David Almond died, also in the care of a parent that he was placed in due to the flawed system, they. They actually did make a lot of changes. And they did it, you know, pretty quickly. And the OCA was saying that's not happening now because many of the fixes that we've kind of recommended require cooperation from the courts and CPCs, right? The, the people who are giving Harmony and kids like her, these lawyers. It's not just cooperation between the courts and DCF, it's CPCs that needs to cooperate also. And they kind of don't want to. So David Almond was 14 from Fall River, Massachusetts, and he had autism. He died in 2020. David was the victim of neglect and starved to death. His father, John Almond, and his girlfriend, Jacqueline Marie Coleman, both pleaded guilty to second degree murder in David's death. And the case led to a massive scandal in Massachusetts DCF because DCF had allowed John Allman's sons to be returned to him despite the previous neglect. And the department never visited the boys to check on their welfare during the COVID 19 pandemic. The OCA made recommendations after that case, and they said that their recommendations made in Harmony's report went beyond those made in the report that they published after David's death. But the changes have been slower to occur. And that was because those changes required the cooperation of many different people in many different agencies who weren't really ready to even take responsibility for their part in it. So why would they be ready to cooperate in changes made to a system that they don't think is broken? At least their part of the system they don't think is broken. Harmony's CPCS appointed attorney did advocate for Harmony to be placed with Adam, and no attorney in the courtroom objected to Adam's fitness. And the OCA found that this effectively allowed Adam's self presentation as a fit caregiver to stand as a fact without being meaningfully challenged. So it was like whatever Adam was showing them, they accepted that as what was the truth. They didn't, like, dive deeper, do the home study, investigate, like actually spend some time making sure that he was going to rehab, that he was clean from drugs. They didn't even make. They didn't even check his address really, or make sure he was. Was gainfully employed. They just took his word for everything, which is bananas so obviously CPCs, they pushed back on this hard. Their argument was basically, the OCA is reacting to a horrific outcome by recommending changes that could weaken parents and children's legal rights in child welfare cases. So CPCS is like, we are here to, to make sure that these parents and these children are, you know, legally and properly represented and you're trying to take away their rights. CPCS did not deny that Harmony's case was catastrophic, but they disagreed with the OCA's framing of what went wrong and how to fix it. The OCA's position was that a 4 year old like Harmony may say she wants to live with her father, but the court still needs someone to independently and forcefully present whether that's actually realistic, safe and in her best interests. CPCS's position is that a child's attorney has a duty to represent the child's legal position. And forcing that same attorney to argue against the child's expressed wishes can undermine the child's rights and the attorney client relationship. They actually said this. They're like, that lawyer would be actually harming the child and like harming their relationship with the child if they did anything but just present the child's wishes in court, which may be true. Once again, if we're talking about a 13 year old, a 14 year old, but we're talking about a 4 year

[Derek Levasseur]

old, yeah, there's got to be more stipulations added then if we're talking we want to protect the rights of the children, we want to make sure that they're represented fairly. I think common sense as far as bracketing age, as far as, as you just said, maybe one to birth till four, there's a certain level of guidance provided. Five to 10, another level, 11 to 15, another level, or 11 to 16, whatever it might be. But yeah, the ultimate goal is to protect the children, make sure they're represented fairly. But it's also number one priority should be to make sure you're not placing them into a home where they're going to be murdered. How about that? Let's go with that. And I know that it's not as black and white as we may be depicting it. I understand, even just to a lesser degree as a cop, where I sometimes hear stories about decisions that police officers made and these decisions are made in that moment based on the information they have. And I look at it from that perspective and say, well, I understand where you're coming from now, but based on my experience, I can understand where that officer was coming from even if I don't agree with the decision that was ultimately made. This is to me, as many people have pointed out, including, was it Senator or Governor Sununu, whatever his position was.

[Stephanie Harlow]

Yeah, Governor Sununu.

[Derek Levasseur]

Governor Sununu. That there was multiple opportunities to prevent this from happening and the ball was dropped at a multitude of levels, not just one particular person. And so I understand where CPCS is coming from and wanting to protect the rights of the people they're appointed to protect, which are children and their families. But they, you can't acknowledge on one hand that what happened here was a catastrophe and yet not offer any changes to the process to ensure it doesn't happen again.

[Stephanie Harlow]

So here's the thing. CBCS was not happy with the suggestion that maybe more guardian ad litems should be brought in, right. So then Governor Charlie Baker had proposed expanding the use of guardians ad litem and juvenile abuse and neglect cases. So someone would advocate specifically for the child's best interest. So like yes, cpcs, you can send your lawyer and you can, you know, tell what the child wants. But then we also need a guardian ad litem in these specific cases, like harmonies, right, where there may be a little bit more complex and nuanced to, to actually like do the, the legwork, right? So where a CPCS attorney represents child as a lawyer, which means they have attorney client privilege, which is weird because like an adult having attorney client privilege, four year old is weird to me, but. And they have like confidentiality and then like a duty of loyalty basically. Like I have to do what my client wants. The, the guardian ad litems, they are basically, there is like an unbiased like person who's looking an unbiased observer and they do investigations and they do meetings and interviews. And basically CPCS was like, why do we need guardian ad litems? Every child in Massachusetts has their own lawyer bringing in a guardian ad litem who has to do like interviews and investigations and written courts that's going to delay hearings by weeks or months. So that will take too long and we're already kind of like overwhelmed. So that's kind of what it seems like the motive is to churn these kids through so that they're not just sitting, you know, in, in the to do pile. And it's like get them with a parent, get them someplace because we got the next case we gotta, we gotta worry about. So we'll just bring an attorney in who can say like my client, the four year old says this is what they want want and we, we don't want somebody else to come in and make this process longer and more effective or more thorough. Yes, exactly.

[Derek Levasseur]

Oh, man.

[Stephanie Harlow]

So it's like, I'm not saying in every case, you know, If a kid's 15, 16, if there's not like allegations of abuse, neglect, drug use, stuff like that. Yeah, maybe, maybe the CPCS attorney is fine. But when there is a more complicated case, case like with Harmony, where she's got medical things and both of her parents are drug users and her father's been in prison, you know, when there's things that maybe, maybe make it a

[Derek Levasseur]

bit more complex, specific circumstances to that case.

[Stephanie Harlow]

Yeah. So maybe, and she's four, maybe bring in a guardian ad litem to do some research and investigation because then we wouldn't be here.

[Derek Levasseur]

Yeah. Try not to paint every case with a broad brush that treat it as, as needed depending on the circumstances presented during that particular situation. Because almost in all of these cases, even if there's a similar story, like you said, there's nuance to everyone, depending on the players involved, the parents, the environment, the child themselves, all of this plays a factor and you have to treat it on a case by case basis.

[Stephanie Harlow]

So CPCs, they got a lot of reasons of why they don't want these guardian ad litems getting in their way. They said guardians can reinforce flaws in the child welfare system, sometimes judging families by white middle class norms and potentially leading to more traumatic family separations. Doing more research and doing more investigation into what is best for the child is, is worse for the child because they could enforce these middle class white norms and lead to more traumatic family separations because there's nothing more traumatic than a five year old being killed at her father's hands. Right. So CPCS also argued, hey, isn't the Department of Child Protection dcf, isn't, Aren't they supposed to be the party looking out for the child safety? So if we just add another court actor to this, that could be redundant and I don't necessarily disagree with that actually, but there was a lawyer for DCF in the courtroom. That lawyer should have been saying, this is why, Judge, I don't think, you know, Harmony should be going with Adam. But that lawyer didn't either. So clearly DCF's not doing their job either. And if we're looking at it as a system, as a whole being broken, that's part of the reason. So Guardian Ad Litem 4 cases like harmonies aren't going to do like any harm at this point. It could just do more good, I think. So we're Going to take another quick break. We'll be right back.

[Derek Levasseur]

This episode is brought to you by Factor. And I feel like everyone knows the situation. Hunger hits. You're exhausted, and there's technically something healthy in your fridge that you could make. But subtly, your heart is actually wanting something that's probably not as responsible to eat.

[Stephanie Harlow]

And for me, and I know for you too, eating well isn't really like a willpower problem. It's a setup problem. It's a capacity issue. If I have good food ready to go, I'm fine. I'll have to plan it, shop for it, prep it it, cook it, clean it up after. You know, if I have to do that, like, that's where things fall apart.

[Crystal Sori]

Yeah.

[Derek Levasseur]

That's when dinner becomes a hostage negotiation with yourself.

[Stephanie Harlow]

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[Derek Levasseur]

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[Stephanie Harlow]

Yeah. And, you know, you said you're. You're trying to, like, slim down. You want high protein. But Factor has meals that are built around different goals too, right?

[Derek Levasseur]

Yeah, exactly. Whether it's weight loss, your overall Nutrition, more protein, GLP1 support, or muscle recovery. Through their muscle pro collection, Factor has options for everyone. Their meals are designed by dietitians and crafted by chefs. So you're not grabbing whatever is the easiest thing and hoping for the best.

[Crystal Sori]

Yeah.

[Stephanie Harlow]

And Factor also has over 100 rotating weekly items, including globally inspired meals. So you're not eating the same thing over and over. And they have ready to eat salads now, plus add ons like ginger juices and energy bites. The energy bites are really good.

[Derek Levasseur]

Exactly. The convenience is. It's a real thing for me, and I know it's a real thing for you. It saves on the stress you have during those busy weeks because you're trying to think about what meals you have to prepare. And. And Factor allows you to do that in just minutes. And I don't have to think too hard about it. The meals are right there. You just, you choose the one you want and you're ready to go.

[Stephanie Harlow]

It saved me so much stress during busy weeks. And if you're looking for a way to Simplify your nutrition. You've got to give factor a try. Head to factor meals.com crimeweekly50off and use code CRIMEWEEKLY50OFF to get 50 off and free daily greens per box with new subscription only while supplies Last Until. Until September 27, 2026. See website for more details. Okay, so in 2023, there was this filmmaker, Bill. Like Jenstein and supported by media organizations, he actually sought access to the audio recordings of the February 2019 closed door custody hearing where Adam was awarded custody. Okay, so he's saying, I know these records are sealed. I know it's juvenile court, blah, blah, blah, blah. I've heard it all. But at this point, Harmony's dead. And I believe, yeah, I believe that he's trying to make a documentary about what happened.

[Derek Levasseur]

Yeah, basically what we're asking for at this point.

[Stephanie Harlow]

Yeah, he's like, we, we should know now. We should know what happened. Like what. What exactly was the process? So the goal was not just curiosity. He wanted to understand how the decision happened inside a confidential juvenile court system and then use the audio in a documentary about secrecy in Massachusetts child protection and juvenile court proceedings. So he's making a film about the Massachusetts juvenile court system as a whole, apparently, Which I didn't really realize it was that bad until I started covering this case and looking at this stuff. Massachusetts is not good with this stuff. There's many, many, many examples of children like Harmony. Way too many, way too many. And if I started reading their names off, it would be shocking to you. So this matters because it directly attacked one of the central problems that Carol Erskine talks about, how confidentiality can protect children, but it can also shield the system. So the reporters committee explained the legal issue as a journalist seeking records from a juvenile court proceeding in a case where public attention had raised serious questions about DCS and juvenile court involvement. Massachusetts laws keep those proceedings confidential, but also allow disclosure when, quote, unquote, good cause exists. So we're going to talk about what happened with that, but we're going down the timeline. In February of 2024, Adam was convicted in New Hampshire of murdering his daughter Harmony. After that, Crystal sorry asked a New Hampshire court to declare Harmony legally dead so that she could administer Harmony's estate and pursue civil claims. So a New Hampshire judge granted that request in March of 2024. This is important because civil lawsuits usually require an estate representative. And declaring Harmony legally dead was not just symbolic. It opened the door for Crystal to pursue wrongful death claims. In September of 2024, Crystal sorry filed a Wrongful death lawsuit against the state of New Hampshire and dcyf. The lawsuit alleged that DCYF failed to protect Harmony despite repeated warnings from family members and neighbors that she was being abused. So in Massachusetts, lawmakers also proposed creating a Harmony Commission to study the welfare and best interest considerations of children in these care and protection cases. The proposed commission was meant to study where things went wrong in Harmony's case and recommend legislative changes to better balance parental rights with children's needs. That's what you were talking about, changing things like, like, not at the.

[Crystal Sori]

The.

[Stephanie Harlow]

The level of the system saying, hey, DCYF, hey, CPCs, make things happen, like work together and make this better. It's saying, we're going to make it a law that if you don't make it better and you don't do what you're supposed to do, then you're going to be in. In legal trouble.

[Derek Levasseur]

Yeah. And that, that's honestly what really deters people and also actually changes it at the root cause of the issue is when there's. When there's actually consequences for your actions. Accountability.

[Stephanie Harlow]

Yeah. And. And exactly. So now you can be arrested. Now you can, you know, instead of Demetrios Toros kind of just like floating off into the distance and nothing ever happening to him, now people can be held accountable because you broke the law. So the fact that this became a proposed commission actually shows that the reform question wasn't just did one judge make a bad call? Even though that judge did make a bad call, the actual question was, does Massachusetts care and protection law and practice structurally fail to give children an independent, powerful voice in court that will protect them? So on April 23, 2025, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court actually ruled that the filmmaker Lichtenstein had shown good cause to access the audio recordings of the February 2019 hearings. So this was a major transparency ruling. The SJC said that releasing the audio may help the public understand what happened to Harmony specifically and whether the child welfare system can take steps to prevent a similar traged. But the ruling was not a full unsealing of Harmony's entire file. It was targeted. It's access to the audio recordings from the hearings that culminated in Adam receiving custody and also with limits and with redactions. So I guess it's going to open a window into the sealed courtroom, but it doesn't throw open all the DCF records, all the legal filings, all the internal communications, foster care materials. It's not ever going to do that. Like, they will never allow that. And they're Even only allowing the audio recordings with. With redactions and, like, omissions. So as of now, this filmmaker, I. I would assume he has these things by now, and he's probably working on something. So we may have to wait for his documentary to be released to the public to kind of get an idea into what happened in that courtroom.

[Derek Levasseur]

Can't wait.

[Stephanie Harlow]

Yeah.

[Derek Levasseur]

Anything's better than nothing.

[Stephanie Harlow]

Yeah. And it's. And once again, I think it should be made public. Like, I think the whole thing should be made public. Like, he shouldn't just hold on to it for his own. Own film. Because I want to hear the whole thing. I don't want to just hear how it's edited to be in a documentary. Not that I'm saying it would be creative editing or narrative framing editing, but just like I want to hear all of it. I want to know everything. So on May 23, 2025, New Hampshire agreed to pay Harmony's mother, Crystal. Sorry. $2.25 million to settle the wrongful death lawsuit. So it's interesting because they don't want it to go to trial, because in a civil lawsuit, it's different than a criminal lawsuit. We've talked about this before. You're kind of going to force people to open up their books. But there's also less of a. A kind of legal standard. It's more of like, you know, show us everything you have. You're being sued now. You have to show us these records. And it seemed like New Hampshire did not want to do that, so they settled. Right. They denied wrongdoing, but the settlement resolved Crystal's claim that DCYF failed to protect Harmony despite abuse. So basically, it's important to know that New Hampshire is willing to pay out over $2 million to not have it go to trial. They denied wrongdoing, but also they're like, we don't want to have to.

[Derek Levasseur]

What you think? Huh?

[Stephanie Harlow]

We don't want to have to prove

[Derek Levasseur]

2 million just to keep it.

[Stephanie Harlow]

Keep it quiet, under wraps. We don't want to have to prove that we didn't do anything wrong. We. We. We would rather pay you $2.25 million of taxpayer money. By the way, if you live in New Hampshire, and if you live in New Hampshire, it's important to understand that this was at least the third recent case where New Hampshire had settled litigation involving the death of a child and alleged child welfare failures. So at least the third, and I'm sure there's plenty more, where New Hampshire, instead of being like, we'll Prove that we protected this child. Absolutely. They're like, let us give you money from the taxpayers. Let us give you taxpayer money to go on. Yeah. So this is one of the. I guess when you look at it, yes, this is an important accountability moment, but it's also deeply unsatisfying from, like, a public record standpoint, because a settlement pays money and ends litigation. But it also prevents discovery, depositions, sworn testimony, and a trial where state employees like Demetrius Toros would be forced to answer questions under oath. So that's why Carol Erskine would criticize the settlement and say that she felt like it was an attempt to make the case go away. Now, In July of 2025, Carol Erskine took her own materials to federal authorities and asked for an investigation into New Hampshire's role. So Carol Erskine's over here, like, I'm taking you down, Massachusetts. And then she's like, all right, now I'm going to set my sights on New Hampshire, because once again, you have things to answer for as well. So she basically wants a federal investigation into what happened in New Hampshire. And CBS Boston reported that Erskine wanted investigators to look at New Hampshire DCYF and look at whether workers falsified records. She said there were 17 other reports of abuse that, in her view, were largely not properly investigated. So now she's not just saying, you guys messed up. She's saying, you messed up. You knew you messed up, and then you tried to cover it up. Right. So Carol Erskine's position was that her book focused mainly on Massachusetts and how Harmony was placed with Adam. But her federal request focused on New Hampshire, what happened after Harmony arrived there, and whether DCYF failed to respond to warnings. She also explicitly said that she believed the New Hampshire settlement with Crystal was an attempt to make the case go away. Here, the child died, but I would direct.

[Derek Levasseur]

The child didn't just die. The child was killed. After the child was given to the person, the state delivered the child to the person who killed him.

[Crystal Sori]

Right.

[Bill Lichtenstein]

And that was a father,

[Stephanie Harlow]

Harmony Montgomery. Back in the spotlight this morning, now

[Bill Lichtenstein]

that a former Massachusetts judge has filed

[Stephanie Harlow]

a felon complaint requesting an FBI investigation into Harmony's murder, the Honorable Carol Erskine

[Bill Lichtenstein]

wants investigators to look at New Hampshire's

[Stephanie Harlow]

Division of Children, Youth, and Families and

[Bill Lichtenstein]

find out if workers falsified records relating to Harmony's case.

[Stephanie Harlow]

Recently, New Hampshire awarded Harmony's mother, Crystal Suri, $2.5 million to settle her wrongful death lawsuit against the state.

[Bill Lichtenstein]

Judge Erskine says she feels like that's an attempt to cover up why Harmony was placed with her father, Adam Montgomery, despite information that she wouldn't be safe with him. The reason that I say it's part of a cover up is because $2.5 million is basically what it costs to keep the secrets of what happened to Harmony hidden. I mean, the true fact is that

[Stephanie Harlow]

that

[Bill Lichtenstein]

Harmony's case with the Department of Children, Youth and Families has been covered up for quite some time. And the settlement in the civil suit is an agreement that for $2.5 million, the state has no liability and no wrongdoing. So for me, in $2.5 million is the price of silence. And I just wasn't going to let that happen, which is why I'm pursuing a federal investigation under the color of law, which allows for criminal prosecution.

[Stephanie Harlow]

And, Judge, your point of view is

[Bill Lichtenstein]

that Harmony's civil rights very well may have been violated by these DCF workers

[Stephanie Harlow]

when they were coming to the home to check on her. Would you tell us a little more, please?

[Bill Lichtenstein]

Right. I make the argument that. That her due process rights were violated in two ways. Procedural due process, which was what happened on July 29, 2019, the day that Harmony could have lived had the investigation been done properly. It was a requirement by law that there be an immediate investigation when there was an allegation of a dangerous physical assault giving her a black eye by her father. But even though the governor's report states that Harmony was seen that day and that there was, by law, they complied by notifying the police. What happened actually was that she wasn't evaluated, that Adam Montgomery received a call saying they were coming to evaluate her. He grabbed Harmony, he took her out of the house, and he fled with her so that. That she couldn't be seen. And then the police were notified that Harmony was seen and that there were no. That there were no injuries. That was a severe violation of her due process right to a fair investigation. And it was actually the day she could have lived had it been done. Right. But I make the allegation that it may have been deliberate, that he was warned. And.

[Crystal Sori]

And.

[Bill Lichtenstein]

And therefore, she wasn't seen. She wasn't actually seen until sometime in August when the bruising was gone.

[Stephanie Harlow]

So you heard what she said there. And basically, when we were talking about Demetrius Tauros, we kind of waffled a little bit. We were like, well, we don't want to say that, like, Harmony's dead because of him. And, you know, there was other factors at play. But Carol Erskine is basically saying that was the day that if things had been done properly, Harmony would have survived and she's even taking it a step further and saying that this was intentional, that somehow Adam Montgomery was warned ahead of time. Because obviously that was supposed to have been a surprise visit. Right. And according to Tauros's reports and records, it was a surprise visit. But Carol Erskine is saying no, I think he was given the heads up and that's why he was getting in his car and leaving. And even at that point point he was leaving with Harmony. And Tauros could have said, oh, hey, let me just see her really quick, but he didn't. And Carol Erskine is basically saying it's because that was the plan all along for Adam to be leaving so that

[Derek Levasseur]

Tauros could use that as an excuse.

[Stephanie Harlow]

And then, and then Tauros calls the police and says, don't worry, I've seen her. Even though in his own report he said he didn't actually see her.

[Derek Levasseur]

Yeah, there's definitely stuff there with Taurus where in many instances it's just complete incompetence and just gross negligence. But I will say, without investigating this case myself, it does smell of something more. And I'm not quick to go there. You guys have been with me a long time. Stephanie knows, like, that's not something that I take lightly to say, but there just seems like a lot of coincidences here. And then even when he didn't see the child, Harmony, he would report that he did. And why do that? Why do that? If there's nothing that's going to benefit you other than being lazy, why run that risk? I, I, you know, I've seen other cases before where I've had police officers who were like, ah, you know, I wasn't going to go, but to cover my ass, I went and checked it out. So not the right reasoning behind it, but they did it to make sure that didn't come back to bite him. He, he just seemed to be doing a lot here, Taurus, I mean, doing a lot here to protect Adam, or at least it appeared to be that way. And if I were to learn, or we were to learn that there might have been a heads up that, hey, winking a nod, maybe stopping by in a couple hours, would you be shocked by that?

[Stephanie Harlow]

No, I wouldn't be. I wouldn't be. Because he knew Adam previously.

[Derek Levasseur]

That's, that's right. And we said that very early in this series.

[Stephanie Harlow]

So I think that's why Carol wants the FBI to do an investigation. Because the FBI can pull cell phone records, they can pull communication between Tauros and Adam, and they can see was there communication between Demetrius Tauros and Adam Montgomery before Tauros showed up at the house.

[Derek Levasseur]

Seems like it'd be a good idea. Right.

[Stephanie Harlow]

And if there was, that's obviously. I mean, I. I think. I think Taurus could be then kind of held negligently, at least responsible for Harmony's death.

[Derek Levasseur]

Because eglagy may be criminal.

[Stephanie Harlow]

Yeah, yeah.

[Derek Levasseur]

If he was aware that there was, in fact, child abuse going on in the home and he took measures to cover it up.

[Stephanie Harlow]

Yeah. That's. Why would you do that?

[Derek Levasseur]

You know, and as much as I can't stand this guy and I really can't stand him, if he sees this, buddy, I'm not a fan, and I'm putting that lightly for the show, there's still a part of me to just be really transparent here. Cause he may see it.

[Judge]

It.

[Derek Levasseur]

I just think he's an idiot.

[Stephanie Harlow]

Yeah, but that's because you're projecting your good internal intentions onto somebody else. But also, remember, this man had already begotten in trouble and been, you know, hauled into court for beating his own wife. And he clearly, in the aftermath was like, that was so unfair that I was treated this way. So he could be looking at Adam, another man who's being given a bunch of trouble.

[Crystal Sori]

Wrong.

[Stephanie Harlow]

By the system. Given a bunch of trouble for putting his hands on a female. And it's like, oh, well, these people just let these men live. So what if they want to knock these women in their lives around every so often? Like, that's what a man should be able to do. This could be Demetrios Tauros's internal, like, thought process because. And. And so he's not doing it as in, like, oh, I hope you're beating your kid. He's doing it as in, like, don't worry, bro. I got you. Like, I know how these women are. I know how this system is.

[Derek Levasseur]

I'm with you there. And. And it may be a situation where what's more likely is that because he's an idiot and he didn't go do his job, he's acting under the assumption that this is a poor guy being wronged. He hasn't seen any signs of child abuse because he didn't do his job and investigate it. So there is a level of, like, him trying to help someone else who he sees a little bit of himself in.

[Stephanie Harlow]

Yes, I agree. Yeah, right.

[Derek Levasseur]

Maybe it's not as clearly as, oh, I know she's being abused, or she will be abused, and I'm going to cover it up. It's more so he just thinks that this is another good guy who just can't get a break. That makes sense.

[Stephanie Harlow]

And I also think it's interesting because Carol Erskine is like, well, yeah, New Hampshire paid off. Crystal. Sorry. Because maybe they were worried that if it went to trial and they had to open their books, there would be evidence of some contact. Like maybe DCYF in New Hampshire had already looked into Demetrius to Tauros, because, remember, Chris Sununu was like, do an investigation. How did this happen? And so they already did an investigation, and they may have discovered some kind of improper conduct, improper contact between Tauros and Adam. And so they already knew it was there, and they didn't want that to come out. So that's why they settled for quite a large amount, I would say.

[Derek Levasseur]

Yeah, I, I, I'm with you. They in that we did. We see that in a lot of different worlds where they, these companies look at the, the details.

[Stephanie Harlow]

The pharmaceutical companies and stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Derek Levasseur]

Understand that the blowback publicly is worse than any payment they would make.

[Stephanie Harlow]

Yeah. They're like, and they're also like, it doesn't look good that we're settling, but if they got into our records, it would be way worse. Like, there's stuff in our records we don't want anybody to ever know kind of thing. So In February of 2026, Carol Erskine made a separate federal request focused on Massachusetts dcf. So she's done New Hampshire, she's back to Massachusetts. And this one was broader than Harmony alone. She asked the U.S. attorney's office to conduct a federal civil rights, patent or practice investigation into whether Massachusetts DCF discriminated against children with disabilities in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act. And her request focused on the deaths of Harmony Montgomery, David Almond, Aela Ortiz, all children with disabilities who had involvement with DCF and died by homicide. Now, this is very important to her world view. Erskine is not saying Harmony was merely overlooked. She's saying that Harmony's disability and heightened vulnerability were minimized or erased, and that this may be part of a larger pattern in Massachusetts child welfare that moves the issue from negligence misjudgment into potential civil rights territory, which you heard her talking about with the court TV reporter, where she's saying, yeah, Harmony, many civil rights were actually violated here because under the law, she was entitled to a, an actual investigation. When somebody calls in and says she has a black eye and, and the state sends somebody out to look into that, she was entitled into an investigation that day. And that didn't happen. And I think that it was intentional. That it didn't happen. So in May of 2026, Crystal. Sorry. Acting as administrator of Harmony's estate, obtained a 15.49 million default judgment against Adam Montgomery in a wrongful death lawsuit. So she sued Adam. Right. We know Adam doesn't have no $15 million, but he. He didn't even respond to the lawsuit. So the court entered a default judgment and then assessed damages, including damages for Harmony's pain and suffering, loss of life, economic loss, enhanced compensatory damages for wanton, malicious, and oppressive conduct. Like I said, realistically, Adam Montgomery is never going to hand. Crystal. Sorry. A check for $15 million. But that wasn't really the point. The point was to create a civil judgment against him, a legal record that says Harmony's suffering, her pain, her loss of life, and the horror of what was done to her have value in the eyes of the court. And it also means that if Adam ever does receive money, whether it be prison, wages, an inheritance, media money, like, let's say he decides one day to start talking and he wants to have someone write a book. Yeah. You know, like. Like a million people have done. If he wants to be a part of a documentary, whatever, he cannot collect a dollar of it. Harmony's estate has a judgment that it can use to go after every son.

[Derek Levasseur]

Right. That's great.

[Stephanie Harlow]

So, no, the lawsuit probably was not. Not in reality, about collecting $15 million tomorrow. It was about making sure Adam remains legally and financially accountable for the rest of his life. And this matters even more now, I think, because even though Adam's criminal murder conviction was overturned, there is still, no matter what happens, a separate civil court record saying Adam is legally liable for Harmony's death. It doesn't replace a murder conviction. Obviously it does. It doesn't put him in prison. It doesn't prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt like a criminal court would, but it does preserve a formal legal finding of responsibility outside the criminal appeal process.

[Derek Levasseur]

And there is a. There's a lower threshold there. We've seen it in the O.J. simpson case and others.

[Stephanie Harlow]

Yeah, but a lower threshold. We all agree he did what he did.

[Derek Levasseur]

You know, he 100 did it. You know, doesn't hurt. That's for sure. And if he. I don't know how he would make money, but he could.

[Stephanie Harlow]

He could one day say, I have a scoop, and I. I want $3 million. And I'll tell you where Harmony is

[Derek Levasseur]

to some, but I feel like that'd be similar. Like Chris Watts. I'm sure Chris Watts would try to do something like that and nobody's. I think it would be a career suicide move for one of these journalists or news companies because, you know, people

[Stephanie Harlow]

would buy it and they would watch it.

[Crystal Sori]

Yeah.

[Derek Levasseur]

I guess they'd be. They'd be like, why haven't they done it with Chris Watts then?

[Stephanie Harlow]

Well, I mean, I think Chris Watts, he just. I mean, why haven't they done it? Because they know where the bodies are. Chris Watts has been interviewed a bunch

[Derek Levasseur]

of money to find his side of the story, maybe find out what actually happened.

[Stephanie Harlow]

So if he.

[Derek Levasseur]

And I say that sarcastically.

[Stephanie Harlow]

So if one day. So And. And authors have approached Chris Watts and talked to him and written him letters from prison. So. And yet people. People on one side are like, that's horrendous. How could you do that and give him a voice? And then they're like putting a pre order in on the book. So.

[Derek Levasseur]

No, you ain't wrong.

[Stephanie Harlow]

So if Adam ever one day is like, I'm bored. You know, let me shake it up a little bit. And he contacts an author and he's like, like, listen, I still say I didn't kill Harmony, but I have my side of the story and I know where her body is because I helped Kayla bury her. So I'm going to give you the scoop. But I want money for this. He can't. So I guess that's good. But the civil judgment, it does become a kind of legal backstop. Like if the criminal case is delayed, retried continually, legally complicated, the estate still always has that judgment against Ash Adam. So if Adam ever receives money in the future for anything, anything, like Harmony's estate has a legal claim that it can try to enforce and make sure he doesn't make that money. So we're gonna take another quick break and we'll be right back. This episode is brought to you by the Absorption Company. And I feel like a lot of us have had that moment where we look at our supplement cabin and think, is this wellness? Or have I accidentally started an expensive little collection?

[Derek Levasseur]

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[Stephanie Harlow]

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[Stephanie Harlow]

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[Derek Levasseur]

Yeah. So it's not just about taking the supplement. It's about whether your body can actually use it.

[Stephanie Harlow]

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[Derek Levasseur]

Yeah, that's. That's crazy. Less than 1% is rough.

[Stephanie Harlow]

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[Derek Levasseur]

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[Stephanie Harlow]

Yes, important note. And they also have magnesium, which supports over 300 bodily functions. Magnesium's good. Everybody needs to be taking it at sleep, stress, mood, muscle recovery, all of that. But once again, most Magnesium absorbs between 4 and 8%.

[Derek Levasseur]

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[Stephanie Harlow]

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[Derek Levasseur]

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[Stephanie Harlow]

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[Derek Levasseur]

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[Bill Lichtenstein]

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[Stephanie Harlow]

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[Derek Levasseur]

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[Stephanie Harlow]

Adam Montgomery's murder trial began in February of 2024 and it lasted just over two weeks. Now get this. He appeared in court for only one day of jury selection. And then once opening arguments began, he didn't go to court anymore. He refused to show up. He stayed in his holding cell at the jail and waived his right to attend. So this is like an actual right where you don't have to be present at your own trial. But I don't really know a lot of people who have.

[Derek Levasseur]

He's a coward.

[Stephanie Harlow]

Yeah. I don't know a lot of people who have taken advantage of that right.

[Derek Levasseur]

You know, he's a coward.

[Stephanie Harlow]

Yeah, he's a coward. So his defense attorney sat at the table without him him for the entire two week trial. The jury was handed the case late on the afternoon of Wednesday, February 21st. And they deliberated that night for about an hour before going home. They returned the following day. They deliberated for only a few more hours and then returned with the verdict of guilty. Guilty of second degree murder, guilty of second degree assault for the July 2019 incident, guilty of falsifying physical evidence, witness tampering and abuse of a corpse. Hopes so during deliberations, the jury did have one question for the judge. They wanted to clarify the legal definition of consciously disregarded. So Adam was charged with second degree murder because the state didn't argue that the killing of Harmony was premeditated or planned ahead of time, which is why he ended up being charged with reckless second degree murder. So to get a conviction for reckless second degree murder, the prosecutors had to prove two things. That Adam caused Harmony's death recklessly, and he did so under the circumstances, showing an extreme indifference to the value of human life. So during the trial, the jury learned that Adam repeatedly struck his five year old daughter in the head after she had bathroom accidents in the car. So before they could convict him, the jury legally had to prove that Adam consciously disregarded the rapid risk, meaning he was fully aware that what he was doing created a massive unjustified risk of death, but he actively chose to ignore that risk and keep going. So when the jury asked the judge to clarify what consciously disregarded meant, they were wrestling with a specific problem. Because Adam never admitted to anything. He never claimed or like, you know, said he did anything. It all came from Kayla. And there was no medical examiner's report to show what had happened to Harmony. They were like, how can we prove what was going on inside of Adam's mind when he was hitting Harmony repeatedly? And the judge responded to them very simply. The judge said, use your common sense and life experience. Right. And so using their common sense, the jury concluded that any adult knows that repeatedly punching a fragile five year old child in the head is likely to kill them.

[Derek Levasseur]

Reasonable person. I mean, you could see what the judge was saying, use common sense.

[Stephanie Harlow]

Yeah. The judge is like, it's not that complicated, guys.

[Derek Levasseur]

What do you think is going to happen if you punch a small four year old child in the head and face, what do you think is going to happen?

[Stephanie Harlow]

The jury, they decided that Adam, because he continued to beat her, because he stopped to buy fast food and didn't stop to like bring her to the hospital and he refused to get her medical attention when she stopped breathing, that Adam consciously disregarded the fatal risk to her life, which, yes, absolutely no doubt,

[Derek Levasseur]

which is why it's second degree, not first degree.

[Stephanie Harlow]

And they said he, he knew that putting her life in extreme danger, he was doing that and he just simply didn't care, which is where that conscious disregard comes in. So while the jurors did not speak extensively to the press afterward, court observers did notice, notice the profound toll that the trial took on them, which, Understandable. Right. We just saw portions of it and it took a toll on us. They sat through days of deeply disturbing testimony. And when the guilty verdicts were read out loud, several members of the jury could be seen visibly crying, wiping away tears and breathing heavy sighs of relief. Now, following his conviction, Adam Montgomery actually requested to skip his sentencing hearing on May 9th 9th, 2024. He was like, I don't need to go to that, do I? And the judge denied his request and ordered Adam to be physically present in the courtroom, which of course, because that's where victim impact statements are read, of course you have to be there, you idiot. He doesn't want to hear anybody talk about what he did. He doesn't want to hear people talk about how it harmed them.

[Derek Levasseur]

Wouldn't that be a great opportunity to get up there and say you didn't do it?

[Stephanie Harlow]

Yes, he, but he didn't. And him not being there actually like made the jury feel even more like, like this guy's an ass. He's a dirt bag. Yeah. During the, the victim impact statements and the judge's comments, Adam Montgomery had the audacity to look bored and annoyed at having to be there. In fact, there's one part, and I'm going to play it for you, but there's one part where they say you took a child away from her mother. And Adam like raises his eyebrows, like really, like really, you know, you can see it's like it's written all over him that he's just like, how dare they be talking to me like this.

[Judge]

You took a human life and you did so in the most callous and heartless of ways. You robbed a five year old girl, your own daughter, of the life that she was to lead. You stole from your sons, a sister, you took a daughter from her mother to. You were convicted of reckless second degree murder. Reckless in this context does not mean something that was an accident. It is defined under law as something that manifests the extreme indifference to a human life. Your extreme indifference to the value of human life is seen in so many of your actions in this case. And then after her death, you treated her body like it was trash. Worse than trash. You did unimaginable things to her body and all in an effort to save yourself from being discovered as her murderer. Your criminal history similarly reflects your extreme indifference to the value of human life, your actions having taken both a physical and emotional toll on so many. In light of the egregious nature of. Of the crimes of which you have been convicted in this case, and taking into consideration your extremely violent criminal history, the court finds the only way to do this is to keep you off the streets. To the extent. To the extent you seek to rehabilitate yourself, that will have to happen behind the prison walls. Harmony was an innocent five year old girl. You treated her in the worst of possible ways in both her life and in her death. Therefore, the court sentences you as follows. On charge ID 2027112C, the charge of second degree murder, you are sentenced to the New Hampshire State Prison for not more than life nor less than 45 years. That sentence is stand committed. That sentence is consecutive. All of these sentences, I should say now, are consecutive to each other.

[Crystal Sori]

To the monster who murdered my baby. I did not kill my daughter. And I look forward to trial to refute those offensive claims. That is all you have said about my sweet daughter's life. Another lie like all the other ones you've told. Like the COVID story you told that you dropped her on off with me knowing full well and good if you had, she would be thriving right now, not beaten and stuffed in a CMC bag where you put her. She had a life worth living, unlike your own. And it bothered you to your core that she was nothing like you and everything like me. Beautiful inside and out, Funny, smart, sassy, loving and most of all kind. She wasn't a coward like you. And I'll be forever grateful for that. You're a coward who has to be in control of everything and everyone around you. Insecure and paranoid. The list goes on. She is none of them those things. She lit up a room when she walked in. She made a mark wherever she went and you couldn't stand it. She was an incredible big sister. She loved her Brother Jameson to her core. And I know she loved your sons, too. No matter the picture you tried to paint of her, December 7th will forever be the darkest day of my life. The night you beat her to death. I woke up in the middle of the night in agonizing pain from my head to my toes. And I felt like I was dying. Not knowing in the most brutal way a part of me was dying. Suffering in that backseat for 20 minutes while you and your wife fed yourselves and your other children. And you got high. 20 minutes that you could have used to save her life. Did she cry for me? Did she scream? Did she beg you to stop? I'll never know. Because like I said, you're too much of a coward to tell the truth and do one good thing for Harmony. You may have taken her physically for me, but she is always, always with me. And I will forever look for her until the end of my days. But I hope that every day and every night you are on this earth. You hear nothing but my baby's giggle. I doubt you ever heard it in this life. All she knew with you was misery and fear. I hope you hear her sweet voice telling you to stop hitting her over and over. Or how she looked the very last time you saw her, broken and bruised. You were supposed to protect her, yet you did the opposite. Harmony wasn't anything to you but property that you could throw away when she was more of a burden to you than a meal ticket.

[Amy Van Aken]

My name is Amy Van Aken, and I'm reading a statement on behalf of Kayla Montgomery. Goodbye. I wanted to write a letter to you because it's the only way to tell you how I feel. I don't know about you, but I need some kind of. I will forever have a place in my heart for you. Whether you believe me or not. You were my best friend, my husband, the person I chose to spend the rest of my life with. You are the father of our children we have together, and I'm forever grateful for having them. I will never forget the birth of our first son we have. That was one of the many best days of my life. We had just gotten married and started a family of our own. I'll never forget when your grandmother said to me, you're the best thing that has ever happened. Happened to my grandson. I'll always remember the births of all the children we have. Also, when you stepped up to be a father to Harmony. You worked so hard to get custody of her, and it took a few years, but you got her. I won't forget the day we picked her up and brought her home, we were so excited. Then during the summer was when we both started to go downhill because of relapse after five years of sobriety. That was the beginning of the chaos. By the time Thanksgiving came around in the year 2019, we were losing everything. My job, our place to live. And after living in a car for a few weeks, we lost that. At the same time, Harmony dies because of your anger and hitting her so many times. We didn't even know she passed away until the car died and we had to take our kids out of the car. She didn't respond. She was lifeless. You are not the person I married, not the person who loved me and who never hurt me. It's like I married my father. Never would have thought I would have to run away from you until I knew I had to take our kids and leave you. I'll never forget that day either. It was one of the hardest things for me to do. The last couple of nights after you got arrested. The first time, I was sleeping with a knife because I did not know what you were going to do to me. I know you probably hate me because I had to do the right thing, but also because of all the bad. Not only did you lose your rights to our children, but so did I. Now I'm going to have to keep fighting, waiting for them to at least be back in their lives. You seem to forget you cheated, not me. And you just left the kids and I for some girl, packed your stuff and left to another state. I called you out on your BS when you're on your way to Maine. And I also called you out for being with someone else months before you left to Maine. You accused me, but you were the one cheating. The day you got arrested on January 2022, you called me and said to tell Kelsey you're sorry about her car. Yeah, right. That's all you're worried about. Not your wife and children you may never see again. No apology for cheating on me and making me think I was crazy. So I got to do all I can to get back on track with my life. You caused so much hurt and pain. I don't even know why I still care about you and actually feel bad for you. Oh, maybe it's because I'm not a cold, heartless person and still have some care about you. I was in love with you once. Now I still love you because you're the father of our children. This is goodbye for now. Maybe I'll see you at the future in some Point.

[Stephanie Harlow]

Goodbye, Adam. Okay, so not Kayla writing a Dear John breakup letter as a victim impact statement. We have to talk about that. But let's take. Let's take our last break. We'll be right back. This episode is brought to you by Smalls and Derek. We're going to play a quick round of false or fact.

[Derek Levasseur]

Oh, I've done this before. Okay, I'm ready.

[Stephanie Harlow]

Okay. False or fact?

[Judge]

Fact.

[Stephanie Harlow]

Cats are tiny, judgmental carnivores who believe they own your home.

[Derek Levasseur]

That is without a doubt a fact.

[Stephanie Harlow]

It is correct. Correct. But here's the real one. Cats are actually obligate carnivores. So that means they need lots of real meat to stay healthy.

[Derek Levasseur]

That one is also a fact.

[Stephanie Harlow]

Exactly. And that's why Smalls make so much sense. Right. Smalls creates fresh human grade food for cats and it's made specifically to help cats thrive.

[Derek Levasseur]

Yeah, because not all cat food is created the same. We know that by now.

[Stephanie Harlow]

Now, a lot of traditional cat food is made with cheap meat byproducts, fillers, and artificial ingredients. Ew. So basically, big pet food saves money by cutting corners and you and your cat end up with the shortcuts. You're paying for it. And your cat is consuming this stuff that's really not fit for. For your queen.

[Derek Levasseur]

Yeah, exactly. And cats aren't exactly known for tolerating disrespect, let's be honest.

[Stephanie Harlow]

And they're not going to tell you they're mad. They're going to show you. They'll stare directly into your soul and knock a glass off the counter just to make a point. But Smalls is different. Their fresh recipes, over 80% animal protein with zero fillers in the ingredients are human grade, which is what cats actually

[Derek Levasseur]

need because they use protein as their main source of energy.

[Stephanie Harlow]

Right. More quality protein, more fuel, more sustained energy. And according to smalls, after switching, 88% of cat parents reported overall health improvements. Things like better digestion, softer fur, more energy.

[Derek Levasseur]

Better digestion means the litter box situations improving as well. Which we all want that. We all need that.

[Stephanie Harlow]

And I also like that Smalls is risk free. So if your cat doesn't like their food, won't eat their food for any reason, they'll refund you. Which is important because cats are adorable little dictators with very specific opinions.

[Derek Levasseur]

Tiny dictators saw fur zero compromise.

[Stephanie Harlow]

I love it, though. So if you want to feed your cat fresh, high protein food without fillers, preservatives or artificial ingredients, Smalls is a really good option. Stop serving your little carnivore a bowl of processed shortcuts for a limited time because you are a Crime Weekly listener. Thank you very much. You get 60% off your first order, plus free shipping and free treats for life when you head to smalls.com crimeweekly one last time. That's 60% off your first order, plus free shipping and free treats for life when you head to smalls.com crime weekly. Okay, we're back. So I found it personally, incredibly offensive and disrespectful to Harmony that Kayla was allowed to have a victim impact statement read at Adam Montgomery sentencing. First of all, she made it all about.

[Derek Levasseur]

Especially when that's a statement you're going to make.

[Stephanie Harlow]

Yeah, exactly. She made it all about herself. There was nothing about a woman who

[Derek Levasseur]

has been cheated on or about a.

[Stephanie Harlow]

Exactly. She's like. She's like, you. You wanted to call me and ask about Kayla's car. Like, of course. You're a monster. Like, you are a monster, Kayla. You're both monsters. And you're probably the only two. She's like, remember when your grandmother said I was the best thing that ever happened to you? I still care for you. I still love you. Maybe I'll see you in the future. Like, y' all are weird. You're weird. This was about Harmony. Harmony was the true victim here. That you could have sent him a letter to prison. All right, if you wanted to say all that, you took away the attention from Harmony. You didn't say one thing about Harmony except the, like, Harmony died because of your anger. And remember, we were so excited to get her. Like, bull. Stop. None of us believe this. None of us believe this. So screw this. I hate her.

[Derek Levasseur]

I want to keep the attention on Adam because there's a lot of blame to go around here. Ultimately. He's the one who murdered her. He's the one who created the plan to hide her body. Kayla. Not a fan. I could say some other choice words that that victim statement was horrible. Completely just tone deaf for what was going on in that moment. And to me, it sounds like a scorned woman who was basically saying without saying it, see, I was your ride or die.

[Stephanie Harlow]

I would have been covering it up, but you cheated on me.

[Derek Levasseur]

There you go. You took the words out of my mouth. You did this to yourself by not keeping your dick in your pants. And that's why I turned on you. Not because it was the right thing to do.

[Stephanie Harlow]

Yeah, I would have been the Bonnie Dear Clyde. Because at the end of the day, and I'm just Gonna say it with my chest. Kayla does not care that Harmony's dead.

[Derek Levasseur]

It doesn't sound it. I gotta be honest with you. It doesn't sound it.

[Stephanie Harlow]

She never cared. She never, never cared. She never cared.

[Derek Levasseur]

She didn't even lose her appetite. She didn't even lose her appetite. She had a meal right after Burger King. This girl's in the back. We've. We've talked about.

[Amy Van Aken]

Disgusting.

[Stephanie Harlow]

Kayla, you're disgusting.

[Derek Levasseur]

To change it over real quick, Crystal statement. Much better. Much better. Obviously, Crystal laid into him, called him a coward multiple times. That's what he is. Amongst other things.

[Stephanie Harlow]

Even Crystal was a little bit like you. Hated her because she was like me and nothing like you. She was amazing and powerful and wonderful like me. You know, so even that, it was like, can we just talk about Harmony without making it about ourselves overall?

[Derek Levasseur]

And I know we got a couple more things to talk about here. Harmony was just in a really bad situation all the way around. She really had nobody looking out for her best interest other than Michelle and Timothy, who didn't get the opportunity to adopt. Adopt her and keep her, because if they had, we wouldn't be here right now.

[Stephanie Harlow]

Yeah, the rafter is. They're her foster parents. Yeah. So before the sentencing, the prosecutor had asked Adam to disclose where Harmony's body was in exchange for a minimum 35 year sentence. Adam showed no response. He did not look up from the table in front of him. In August of 2023, a jury had convicted Adam of stealing and selling firearms. And so he was sentenced to a minimum of 32 and half a. A half years, to a maximum of 67 years in prison. And for his daughter's death, Adam was sentenced to. I believe it was 56 years to life in prison, but 56 years minimum. But then on July 11, 2026, the New Hampshire Supreme Court overturned Adam's murder conviction because of a legal technicality. And in very simple terms, the murder conviction was thrown out because the state broke a fundamental rule of fairness by combining two completely separate crimes into one, one single trial. So in the American legal system, you will have the right to a fair trial. And part of that means a jury is only supposed to judge you for one specific incident at a time. Unless multiple crimes are directly connected, like a robbery, where a thief also steals a getaway car. So if a prosecutor wants to try a person for two totally different crimes that happened at different times, they're supposed to hold two separate trials. In this case, the prosecutors put two. Two different incidents into the same trial. So the incident in July of 2019, when Adam struck Harmony and gave her a black eye, and then the actual killing of Harmony several months later. So Adam's lawyers had asked the judge to split these two incidents into separate trials, but the judge said no and let the prosecutors present both to the same jury. Now, the New Hampshire supreme court ruled that mixing these two crimes together poisoned the jury's ability to be fair. For the July 2019 incident, the state had very strong and undeniable evidence for the murder. The physical evidence was much weaker and relied almost entirely on the word of Adam's ex wife, Kayla Montgomery, who had changed her story multiple times and had lied and done all of this. So by showing the jury the strong evidence that Adam was a violent ABUSER in the July 2019 incident, it made it impossible for the jury to look at the murder charge objectively. This is what the supreme court is saying. The high court. The supreme court said the jury most likely thought, well, we know for a fact he's a violent monster who beat her before, so he must have murdered her, too. I think that's not giving the jury enough credit for their intelligence. But okay. So the supreme court didn't say Adam was innocent. They just said the process was unfair because the rules were broken. The murder verdict cannot stand. To fix this, the state now has to do it the right way. They will need to hold a brand new trial trial for the murder charge only, where the jury can look at the murder evidence without being influenced by the July 2019 assault. So the trial judge allowed both crimes to be presented initially, and that's because the judge believed they were legally part of a single continuous pattern of escalating behavior, which, by the way, is an exception to the normal trial rules. So under the law, a judge can join coin two separate crimes into one trial if they show a common plan, scheme, or pattern, which it sounds to me, that's exactly valid.

[Derek Levasseur]

But I. I agree.

[Stephanie Harlow]

Right?

[Derek Levasseur]

Absolutely.

[Stephanie Harlow]

So the prosecution said the initial assault giving Harmony a black eye and the subsequent murder were not random, isolated events. Instead, they said both incidents were part of a continuous, ongoing campaign of extreme physical abuse aimed at the exact same victim. And the judge was like, yeah, I agree with this logic. And so the judge ruled that the jury needed to hear about the black eye to fully understand the hostile relationship between Adam and his daughter leading up to her death. Which, once again, if the law allows the judge to make this call, why are we, like, overturning it afterwards when. When judges are supposed to, you know, be able to interpret the law like that. And I don't think that's a big interpretation. I don't think it's like, oh, we really reached there.

[Derek Levasseur]

It's not a stretch by any means. No.

[Stephanie Harlow]

Yeah.

[Derek Levasseur]

What do I always say? Best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. Is it reasonable to say, hey, listen, this person has a predisposition to violence, has struck this girl before. Is it possible that that same level of violence resulted in her death? I think that the jury should have that information to make a correct and a thorough assessment if they should find this person guilty or not.

[Stephanie Harlow]

Exactly. So.

[Judge]

And.

[Stephanie Harlow]

And the judge within the law has the right to be like, yes, I can see how these two of these events have a common pattern or motive or plan. So the Supreme Court ruled that the judge's interpretation stretched the common plan rule way too far. They pointed out what they thought was two major flaws in. In the judge's reasoning. The assault happened in July 2019, but Harmony was killed in December 2019. So the court ruled that a five month gap is too long to claim the two events were part of a single continuous incident. This is the most dumb call the Supreme Court has ever made.

[Derek Levasseur]

Ridiculous. But. Okay, let's step back for five seconds. Ridiculous. I don't agree with it. You don't agree with it. But from what they're saying is a continuous event in their mind is, okay, the person struck them earlier in the day or the night before. Right. Hit them hard in the head the next day, they continue that where something else occurs. So it's a continuance of the same event that resulted in the death. It can't be two separate things. It can't be used as a stranger to show a pattern of behavior, which is what we're saying.

[Stephanie Harlow]

But that law. No, that law actually does give the judge, allow her to put those two things. If they show a can a common plan or pattern, that's part of what allows the judge to do that.

[Derek Levasseur]

Maybe they're seeing it as. Or they clearly were. They're seeing it as two separate events.

[Stephanie Harlow]

No, because the judge said that she believed they were legally part of a single continuous pattern of escalating behavior.

[Derek Levasseur]

Yeah.

[Stephanie Harlow]

Which that is.

[Derek Levasseur]

But I'm saying the Supreme Court obviously saw it differently.

[Stephanie Harlow]

Yeah, obviously. Why? Why it's this. This case that they choose to start, like, dotting their eyes and crossing their TE's. I don't know. But. So the high court. The Supreme Court also stated that the judge failed to properly weigh the prejudicial effect. A judge's ultimate duty is to ensure a fair trial. And the Supreme Court ruled that allowing the highly emotional, easily proven assault charge into the murder trial made a fair verdict impossible. The Supreme Court threw out the murder conviction sentencing, but Adam still has the non murder convictions to be served consecutively to his weapon sentence, meaning his absolute base time in prison is, I believe, like, at the, at the least it's like 43.5 years. So even if for some crazy thing that happens, the prosecutor fails to convict Adam in an upcoming murder retrial, Adam will remain locked up until he's roughly 77 years old, which I would like to point out is still way more time than if he had taken the deal and told prosecutors where Harmony's body is.

[Derek Levasseur]

But he's too big of a coward. He just doesn't want. He just wants to go down looking in some people's eyes as a victim.

[Stephanie Harlow]

Yeah. So I am very against the Supreme Court's decision here. And I could spend maybe the next roughly 10 minutes, minutes doing a quick Google search where there were a lot more blatant unfair unfairities in trials and the Supreme Court still ruled with the initial and original judge and overlooked those. So once again, why is it with Harmony's case you're like, oh, this highly emotional attack that we proved happened, the July 2019 blackout, we proved that happened. So yes, of course it's highly emotional. A father punching his five year old daughter in the face and giving her a black eye is supposed to be highly emotional. A five year old being murdered is supposed to be highly emotional. Just because something is affecting you emotionally, it doesn't mean that you can't still look at it in like a logical way. I, I don't understand why these two things suddenly like, oh, if something makes you emotional, how are you going to sit through the trial of a murdered 5 year old and not feel some emotional impact that there? But yeah, I think the Supreme Court really dropped the ball there. But at this point, before jumping straight into a new trial, the state is actually trying to save the original verdict. So I hope they do on June 24, 2026. So this was just a few weeks ago, actually, the state prosecutors filed an official motion asking the New Hampshire Supreme Court to reconsider and reverse its own opinion, which I think is a good move.

[Bill Lichtenstein]

Move.

[Stephanie Harlow]

Right. Because you don't want to have to go through a whole new trial. And at that point, it. There is a fear because a lot of the evidence against Adam Montgomery, if you're not looking at the July 2019 black eye and all the Stuff that happened there. A lot of it is just Kayla, who is not a sympathetic character and

[Derek Levasseur]

also could be considered a suspect as well.

[Stephanie Harlow]

Who. She's not a sympathetic character. At the very least, she allowed him to kill Harmony and then helped him cover up her murder for years. Right. It's somebody I look at and I'm like, I don't think you're any better than him, to be honest. So that. That is the person whose word is

[Derek Levasseur]

what's basically you're banking everything on and who was given a deal.

[Stephanie Harlow]

So I really don't want there to be another trial because I just. I don't want it. I don't want to see how it goes. I don't.

[Derek Levasseur]

No, I. It's always a risk.

[Stephanie Harlow]

It's always a risk. So it would be better. And if the Supreme Court could just be told like, yeah, you guys made a stupid call here. We can.

[Amy Van Aken]

There are.

[Stephanie Harlow]

There is legal precedent here to saying that the July 2019 black EY is part of an escalating pattern of violence, because that's how an escalating pattern of violence works. You know, domestic abusers don't beat their wives every day. Right. If there wasn't some good mixed in with the bad, most people would leave. So they have to kind of of be nice to them sometimes. So just cuz Adam maybe didn't beat Harmony every day for five months, it doesn't mean that that July 2019 incident is not directly related to his ability to do that and not worry about what would happen if he did it and not care if he hurt Harmony. So bad call. Hopefully the Supreme Court does reconsider and reverse. If the Supreme Court denies the state's motion to reinstate the conviction. The attorney general's office has vowed to immediately take Adam Montgomery back to court for a second murder trial. So that's where we're at now. I hope the Supreme Court doesn't take too long.

[Derek Levasseur]

I hope so too. I. You know, overall, my takeaway from this case and it took a lot out of us to cover this one, this was a tough one, one of the harder ones we've covered since the inception of. Of Crime Weekly, just based on the graphic nature of it and for anybody who stuck with us on this one, respect. Appreciate you guys going along for the ride because it was a difficult one.

[Judge]

But.

[Derek Levasseur]

But we all feel for Harmony. This was a complete injustice to her and anybody who cared about her. It should have never happened. And there's nothing we can do about that at this point other than make sure that Adam is kept behind bars. So I want to turn my attention to some different people because during this whole series, I had a few messages and emails come in from CPS workers, police officers, et cetera. And. And for the most part, all of them shared the same sentiment. Right. Like, there's a responsibility that you guys have that I think because of the caseload you may be currently in possession of, where you're doing hundreds of cases that you can become complacent on certain calls. Right. We're not saying you're Tauros here, but just you go into a call, maybe you don't do a thorough examination or investigation. Take this case, put it on your bookshelf in your brain, and use it as a reference on the days when you're feeling tired or upset or distracted by something outside of work. Because we've all been there. I've definitely been there. And understand that your job and the importance that comes with it is something that can't be put into words. There are other Harmony Montgomery's out there that can still be saved. So make sure that you consider that on every call you go on. And that goes for police officers as well. Remember, this is an isolated incident. You could be walking into the next one, but when that fork in the road comes up, you could be the difference here where instead of having a story end like this, we can have a positive outcome. And so that's. That's my takeaway as we leave this episode and go into the next one.

[Stephanie Harlow]

Yeah. And remember with Demetrios Tauros, like, when Adam said, oh, she's with her mother, Crystal, and then Tauros called Crystal, and she. She didn't answer, and he left a voicemail. When I said, like, just be a human and call the police and ask them to do a welfare check. Remember, you're never going to be judged for doing too much.

[Derek Levasseur]

No doubt. Being too.

[Stephanie Harlow]

You're never gonna be. You're never gonna be like, wow, he really went the extra mile. God.

[Derek Levasseur]

No doubt.

[Stephanie Harlow]

What is he so extra. No. You will be judged, though, if something like this happens and you did, too,

[Derek Levasseur]

and it's on your conscience. It's got. You got to live with that. So we're thinking of everybody involved. We love you guys. You know, parents. No. Non parents. I don't. You're a human being. This case of impact to you, and I'm so glad we covered it, because now I'm personally invested in the outcome, and I'm really hoping it's a quick one. And this is this whole decision is overturned, and we don't have to talk about Adam ever again.

[Stephanie Harlow]

To be fair, this very rarely happens, especially when the decision is unanimous. And I don't know if you know, but the Supreme Court decision to overturn his murder conviction was crazy. Unanimous.

[Derek Levasseur]

Yeah, it's crazy. So it's going to more than likely go to a new trial, and our family will be right there watching the whole thing, doing whatever we can from the distance to ensure that we get the same outcome. And he's back in prison with his. With his friends who have children. Children themselves and may not take too kindly to child abuse.

[Stephanie Harlow]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Derek Levasseur]

Just saying. Guys, we love you. We appreciate you. We will be back next week. Until then, everyone stay safe out there. We'll see you soon.

[Stephanie Harlow]

Bye, Sam.