The delayed firearms theft trial against the father of Harmony Montgomery, who is also charged with the missing girl’s murder in a separate case, is finally underway in New Hampshire.
Adam Montgomery, 32, is accused of stealing a rifle and a shotgun between Sept. 29 and Oct. 3, 2019, faces two counts each of being an armed career criminal, felon in possession of a firearm, theft by unauthorized taking or transfer and receiving stolen property. The charges were indicted in April 2022.
The charges stem from the theft of two long guns — Mossburg 500 pump shotgun and the stag arms AR-15 — from Manchester resident Chris Frain, who took the stand Wednesday and said he stored the weapons in a blanket under his bed.
Montgomery and his now-estranged wife, Kayla Montgomery, were living out of cars with their children, including Harmony who is not Kayla’s daughter, toward the end of 2019 after being evicted from their Manchester apartment.
Harmony, age 5, went missing sometime in November or December of that year and has since been presumed dead, with the state relabeling the case a homicide investigation last August — and Montgomery was charged with her murder by October.
While New Hampshire Attorney General John Formella said after the firearm charges were brought that there is no evidence to link the Harmony case and the firearms case, the two are linked not only by defendant but by a detail Kayla Montgomery shared when interviewed during the firearms investigation that Adam Montgomery’s court-appointed attorney said “changed the landscape of the case.”
“During her June 3 (2022) interview, Kayla reported to police that Harmony had been murdered in December 2019 by the defendant,” a court filing by prosecutor Jesse O’Neill states.
In court Thursday, prosecutor Ben Agati, a senior assistant attorney general for New Hampshire, says the case boils down to Montgomery, a convicted felon barred from possession of firearms, “certainly doesn’t like being told what to do.”
“Despite living under the same rules that you and I live with here in New Hampshire, rules like don’t steal, rules like don’t hold on to property when you know it’s not yours … he violated those rules,” Agati said.
Agati said that Facebook messages will prove Adam Montgomery was shopping the hot firearms around for drug money and did eventually sell them.
Defense attorney Caroline Smith countered in her own opening statement that “at no time did Adam control the guns” and instead pointed to two others — also drug addicts who needed money for drugs — as those actually responsible.
One of them is Kim Frain, theft victim Chris Frain’s wife, who testified that she had gotten high at the home of Adam and Kayla Montgomery the night before the theft.
“They were taken by Ishmael Garcia with Kim’s consent,” Smith said. “Adam tried to help him, but he did not steal those guns.”
Testimony is scheduled to resume at 9 a.m.
