Overview
- The New Hampshire Supreme Court on Thursday reversed Montgomery’s 2024 second-degree murder conviction while upholding his convictions for second-degree assault, falsifying physical evidence, witness tampering and abuse of a corpse.
- The justices said joining the July 2019 assault case — backed by multiple witnesses — with the December 2019 murder charge created a substantial risk jurors would rely on the stronger assault evidence to infer guilt on the weaker murder theory.
- Much of the state’s murder case depended on testimony from Kayla Montgomery, who had pleaded guilty to lying to a grand jury, and the court found other evidence did not sufficiently corroborate her account of the fatal December attack.
- The New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office said it will pursue a new trial on the remanded murder count, while Montgomery is expected to remain in prison serving long gun-related and other sentences.
- Harmony’s body has never been found, the case prompted official reviews of child-welfare failures and the ruling raises questions about how prosecutors will present evidence and witness credibility if the state moves forward with retrial.