Baker On Missing NH Girl Case: ‘I Feel Tremendous Amount Of Pain’

MASSACHUSETTS — While the governor of Massachusetts said everyone wanted to get to the bottom of what happened with a Massachusetts custody decision connected to a missing New Hampshire girl, he will wait until an independent oversight organization finishes its review.

On Wednesday, during a news conference, Gov. Charlie Baker was asked about the Harmony Montgomery missing child case in New Hampshire, as well as a letter sent by Gov. Chris Sununu to a supreme court judge requesting documents and information about the custody decision. Specifically, Sununu wants to know how a Lawrence judge could grant custody of the girl in 2019 to her father, a felon with a long history of violence. The girl, now 7, was last seen in October or November 2019, while in the custody of her father, Adam Montgomery.

In early 2019, a Massachusetts judge granted custody of the girl to him despite an extensive criminal history in both states dating back to when he was a teenager. In an effort to get more information, Sununu penned a letter Chief Justice Kimberly Budd of the Mass. Supreme Judicial Court attempting to find out what happened and why.

“I totally get where Gov. Sununu is coming from,” Baker said. “And we are cooperating to the fullest extent possible that we can with the Office of the Child Advocate here in Massachusetts — which is an independent entity that is reviewing this case and has the ability to access the data that is necessary to figure out exactly what happened.”

Baker said he was as interested in knowing what happened, too, as much as Sununu, the girl’s family, and the public.

“I felt his pain in that letter,” Baker said of Sununu’s request. “I did. And, like everybody else, I feel a tremendous amount of pain associated with what happened to Harmony.”

Baker, however, would not comment on the specifics of the case including whether the judge involved should have granted custody of the girl to her father. He said the child advocate office was “there for a reason and they are there for a purpose” and they should be allowed to finish working on the case.

“The reason they are there is to do independent reviews on complicated cases where people want answers when you are dealing with data that, generally speaking, is very hard to access,” Baker said.

Director Maria Mossaides, the state’s child advocate, was “very talented” and an “experienced person who will have access to information that is not available to many of the rest of us,” Baker said.

“And she has no dog in this hunt,” he said, deflecting comment on whether the Mass. Department of Children & Families dropped the ball. “This is 100 percent an independent review. I want to see the results of that review as much as Gov. Sununu and everyone else does.”

Neither Sununu nor his press office responded to a request for comment about Baker’s remarks before post time.

Police in Manchester were made aware that the girl was missing in December 2021, after her birth mother, Crystal Sorey, told police she had been unable to get in touch with the girl for more than two years. During the course of the investigation, police learned there was an assault accusation made by family members against her father and he was arrested.

State officials, also investigating the family, filed charges against the girl's stepmother, Kayla Montgomery, at first, for welfare fraud, although those charges were revised to include felony theft and other charges.

At least one residence where the family lived, in the West Side of New Hampshire's largest city, has been extensively searched twice for evidence connected to the case.
The reward for information that leads to the whereabouts of Harmony Montgomery has risen to almost $150,000.

Anyone with information about Harmony Montgomery is asked to call the Manchester Police Department's dedicated tip line at 603-203-6060, 24-hours a day, seven days a week.

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• Police Still At House Where Missing NH Girl Last Seen In 2019
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• Missing Girl's Father: 16 Years Of Crime In NH, Massachusetts
• Kayla Montgomery, Stepmother Of Missing NH Girl, Appears In Court
• Stepmother Of Missing NH Girl Arrested On Welfare Fraud Charge
• Court Docs Claim Father Of Missing NH Girl Admitted To Assault
• Father Of Missing New Hampshire Girl Arrested: Attorney General
• New Investigation Tip Line Set Up For Missing Manchester Girl
• Manchester Police Search House In Missing Child Investigation
• New Hampshire Child Last Seen In 2019; Police Seek Help With Case

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