Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan: What Happened to Harmony Montgomery?

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Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan: What Happened to Harmony Montgomery? · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:08
Speaker 1: Bodybags with Joseph Scott Morgan as far back as I.
0:20
Speaker 2: Can remember, Quinn, way way back. I have a memory
0:28
Speaker 2: that is burned into my mind, and I don't know
0:32
Speaker 2: if any of you guys had this experience. My grandmother
0:35
Speaker 2: had bought me what was referred to as a children's
0:41
Speaker 2: book of Bible stories, and she started at the beginning
0:45
Speaker 2: when I was a little old thing, and she read
0:48
Speaker 2: me the Creation story and I was always fascinated by it.
0:53
Speaker 2: The reason I was fascinated by it was, you know,
0:57
Speaker 2: you learn about the progression as it's laid out in
0:59
Speaker 2: the Bible, the creation of the heavens and the earth,
1:02
Speaker 2: and you know, the creatures. But then it gets to
1:06
Speaker 2: the creation of Adam, and Adam the name Adam actually
1:13
Speaker 2: originates in from a Hebrew word and I'm probably going
1:19
Speaker 2: to get this wrong, but it's called a damn. A
1:23
Speaker 2: damn ha, I think, is how it's pronounced, and it
1:26
Speaker 2: actually goes back to the term soil or dirt. And
1:31
Speaker 2: it makes sense, you know, because you know, as the
1:34
Speaker 2: story goes, God created Adam from the earth, right, and
1:43
Speaker 2: I was always amazed by that. And then the word
1:46
Speaker 2: is taken and it is Adam itself is used for
1:51
Speaker 2: in Hebrew apparently, and I'm no theologian, but the way
1:57
Speaker 2: the way I understand it, it actually is translated man.
2:03
Speaker 2: And I've been thinking about the name Adam quite a bit.
2:09
Speaker 2: I've been thinking quite a bit recently about, particularly this week,
2:14
Speaker 2: about what it means to actually be a man, what
2:20
Speaker 2: it means to take care of those that are within
2:27
Speaker 2: your circle, those that are yours, your children, your wife,
2:34
Speaker 2: standing up doing the hard thing when life is really
2:39
Speaker 2: really beating you up, to make the correct decision. But
2:45
Speaker 2: you know, you take a person who makes the wrong decision,
2:51
Speaker 2: and we all do, but you add, you add a
2:55
Speaker 2: little bit of evil to it, and suddenly you discover
3:06
Speaker 2: that you got a monster on your hands. Today we're
3:12
Speaker 2: going to have a discussion about a person named Adam.
3:20
Speaker 2: I won't call Adam a man, I'll say he's a male.
3:25
Speaker 2: And another person who is arguably one of the most
3:33
Speaker 2: defenseless creatures that's out there, who also had a name,
3:40
Speaker 2: a beautiful name called Harmony. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and
3:49
Speaker 2: this is body Bags Dave mac Gotta tell you, brother,
4:05
Speaker 2: I had a moment this week, and I don't have
4:09
Speaker 2: these frequently. But you know, I do so much TV,
4:15
Speaker 2: moving about from these various platforms that are out there.
4:18
Speaker 2: I had a moment, I guess it was on to
4:22
Speaker 2: you with I guess it's midweek. It's probably this past Wednesday,
4:28
Speaker 2: Wednesday night or Tuesday night, and I was I was
4:31
Speaker 2: on Court TV when my buddy Vinnie Politan, who, by
4:34
Speaker 2: the way, is one and finest people you'll ever meet
4:37
Speaker 2: in the news media, genuinely a good man, and I
4:45
Speaker 2: revisited with Vinnie the case of Harmony Montgomery and Harmony
4:54
Speaker 2: still to this day, where what two is it? Two years? No,
5:00
Speaker 2: we're more than that. We're multiple years down range from
5:04
Speaker 2: when she was actually last seen.
5:06
Speaker 3: Alive, actually last seen twenty nineteen.
5:10
Speaker 2: Twenty nineteen, yeah, yeah, roughly December. Yeah. And it all
5:17
Speaker 2: runs together after a while, because I got to tell you,
5:20
Speaker 2: we're in twenty twenty four now, and and I really
5:27
Speaker 2: thought that by this time we were going to find harmony.
5:34
Speaker 2: I thought that there would be a breaking news story
5:37
Speaker 2: that you know, and it's typical, you know, you they
5:42
Speaker 2: go to a shot on TV, you see a bunch
5:43
Speaker 2: of trucks lined up, and you say, we don't we
5:48
Speaker 2: can't confirm yet, But we know that the police are
5:50
Speaker 2: working in this area. Unnamed sources now tell us that
5:53
Speaker 2: they're you know, they're on a recovery. And as horrible
5:57
Speaker 2: as that is, I thought that maybe that would happen
6:00
Speaker 2: and we would have more answers. But my friend, I
6:04
Speaker 2: don't have really any more answers today than I did
6:08
Speaker 2: back in twenty nineteen. We have a bit of a storyline,
6:12
Speaker 2: I think, but we still don't have all that remained
6:17
Speaker 2: a harm It was.
6:17
Speaker 3: At the end of twenty twenty one when we actually
6:22
Speaker 3: heard the story that of little Harmony Montgomery five years
6:25
Speaker 3: old and she's missing. That was the first thing that
6:29
Speaker 3: we heard. And I remember pulling everything you could, finding
6:33
Speaker 3: news reporters and reading the reports and getting it all together.
6:36
Speaker 3: Harmon and Montgomery missing, and we started finding out it's
6:40
Speaker 3: in Massachusetts. We're dealing with the northeast, and we've got
6:43
Speaker 3: her mother, Crystal story. She's in Florida at the time,
6:47
Speaker 3: and so the reporters had her on Skype. Now mom
6:52
Speaker 3: says she hasn't seen her daughter in two years, and
6:56
Speaker 3: all of a sudden, who had her then? Okay, her
6:59
Speaker 3: biological father, Adam Montgomery, he had her. But Adam Montgomery
7:05
Speaker 3: told friends and family that he actually took Harmony back
7:09
Speaker 3: to Harmony's mother two years ago. And that's when her
7:13
Speaker 3: mother is saying, absolutely not. That did not happen. Now,
7:17
Speaker 3: when we first started covering the story, that's what it was.
7:20
Speaker 3: It was a missing child. Let's find Harmony Montgomery. Then
7:26
Speaker 3: we found out the layers, just as the police did.
7:30
Speaker 3: Wait a minute, she's been missing for how long? When
7:34
Speaker 3: was the last time you saw her? And I remember
7:37
Speaker 3: her mother, Crystal story saying, I have been trying to
7:40
Speaker 3: find out where my daughter is, but my ex has
7:44
Speaker 3: blocked me. He won't talk to me. They won't I
7:47
Speaker 3: can't have any communication whatsoever. So she went to the
7:50
Speaker 3: police and she said, I have not seen my daughter,
7:54
Speaker 3: you know, since April of twenty nineteen Easter, and after
8:00
Speaker 3: that they blocked me. And the one thing Crystal sorry
8:02
Speaker 3: said is when I last saw my daughter on a
8:05
Speaker 3: FaceTime phone call, her dad was in the background, and
8:09
Speaker 3: Harmony looked nervous, she looked upset. And that's when we
8:13
Speaker 3: found out a little bit more about Harmony. Harmony had
8:16
Speaker 3: some she was a very special child, and there was
8:21
Speaker 3: a lot of special things that Harmony dealt with. She
8:24
Speaker 3: did not see I was she completely blind?
8:28
Speaker 2: And her yeah, Harmony was actually blind. And if I'm
8:32
Speaker 2: not mistaken, she had she had a deficit I think
8:38
Speaker 2: since birth, and it's it involved the right eye. And
8:41
Speaker 2: you know, she her right eye if you see these images,
8:46
Speaker 2: and she looks like an angel. Oh, she said, you know,
8:49
Speaker 2: this perfect little little smile. Her right eye is kind
8:55
Speaker 2: of drawn to the center, if you will. And she
8:59
Speaker 2: she wore these rather robust glasses with very thick lens lenses,
9:04
Speaker 2: and and you know, this is something that I don't
9:08
Speaker 2: know if she if it was total blindness, and I
9:11
Speaker 2: don't know how the left eye was affected, but she
9:15
Speaker 2: was affected. And and hey, look look there. You know
9:20
Speaker 2: how many stories are there people out there that have
9:22
Speaker 2: dealt with with blindness right since birth? You know, and
9:26
Speaker 2: they adapt, but you know, it takes it takes a
9:30
Speaker 2: lot of patience on the part of a parent, of
9:33
Speaker 2: a parent that's dealing with side impaired and also hearing impaired.
9:39
Speaker 2: My wife spent a long time in public education working
9:43
Speaker 2: with hearing impaired and she she's very proficient at American
9:47
Speaker 2: sign language, and so she always had a heart for
9:49
Speaker 2: these kids and she'd work with them and I don't
9:52
Speaker 2: know how she did it, but she did it. And
9:55
Speaker 2: I'll get her to talk to me in sign language sometimes,
9:58
Speaker 2: but she truly has a heart for and as much
10:02
Speaker 2: as much fury as I've had about this case. When
10:08
Speaker 2: Jimmy and I sit around and you know, we go
10:10
Speaker 2: over the cases that I work and whatnot, I'm real
10:14
Speaker 2: careful when I begin to bring up Harmony's case to her,
10:18
Speaker 2: because I have it elicits such a level of rage
10:23
Speaker 2: from her that I don't I don't think it's going
10:27
Speaker 2: to end well at any point in time, because she's
10:31
Speaker 2: seen kids that have come through the system over the
10:33
Speaker 2: years that have problems at home and they don't get
10:37
Speaker 2: dealt with. People act like they don't care about them.
10:40
Speaker 2: They're discarded, and unfortunately, well unfortunately, you know, Harmony never
10:48
Speaker 2: made it to the point where she was going to
10:50
Speaker 2: go into the public education system. I actually one a
10:54
Speaker 2: shot at that.
10:55
Speaker 3: That was actually one of the tip offs, because she
10:58
Speaker 3: was fivest time she was seen, and based on the
11:02
Speaker 3: fact she hadn't been seen in two years, she should
11:05
Speaker 3: have been enrolled in school. That was the first layer
11:08
Speaker 3: they pulled back and wait a minute, where was she
11:10
Speaker 3: going to school when the story started falling apart from
11:15
Speaker 3: the mom and saying, well, DCYF, that's the Department of Children,
11:20
Speaker 3: Youth and Families. They were involved. There was a judge
11:25
Speaker 3: involved because there was a custodial issue dealing with because
11:27
Speaker 3: both parents, both biological parents had drug problems at the
11:31
Speaker 3: time that they decided that Harmony needed to be with
11:34
Speaker 3: her dad. Her mom was in a treatment program. She
11:38
Speaker 3: wasn't capable of caring for her daughter. Biological father got custody,
11:42
Speaker 3: but he didn't steal her. He had custody given to
11:45
Speaker 3: him by a judge signed.
11:46
Speaker 2: Off the court. Yes of the court.
11:48
Speaker 3: Yeah, And Adam Montgomery was nowhere to be found. When
11:52
Speaker 3: Crystal story said, I haven't seen my daughter. I haven't
11:55
Speaker 3: talked to my daughter. My ex husband will not let
11:57
Speaker 3: me see, he will not communicate with me, she goes
11:59
Speaker 3: to the police and most people, I will call myself
12:03
Speaker 3: as one of these people, why did you wait so long?
12:06
Speaker 4: Right?
12:06
Speaker 3: Two years? But let's put that aside for a minute.
12:08
Speaker 3: Find out where she is. Well, we can't find the dad.
12:11
Speaker 3: They found Adam Montgomery at the end of December, and
12:16
Speaker 3: he was now They found his wife, Kayla, and she
12:20
Speaker 3: said he's not with me anymore, he's not a new girlfriend,
12:23
Speaker 3: lives in another town, and like, where's harmony? And she said,
12:26
Speaker 3: I haven't seen harmony since Adam took her back to
12:29
Speaker 3: her mom. They finally get up with Adam Montgomery and
12:33
Speaker 3: he gives them the same song and dance. You know
12:35
Speaker 3: that I get. You know mom has and I know
12:38
Speaker 3: she doesn't. We're here because she called us saying you
12:41
Speaker 3: won't return her call.
12:43
Speaker 4: You had it? Now, where is harmony?
12:45
Speaker 2: You know what, Dave? I gotta tell you, buddy. One
12:47
Speaker 2: of the things that has always stuck with me. And
12:50
Speaker 2: I could see it in the faces of those police officers.
12:53
Speaker 2: And we're talking about up in Manchester, Hampshire. Yeah, and
12:58
Speaker 2: he's talking to a couple of his uniforms that are
13:00
Speaker 2: out there and they're saying, look, man, we you know
13:04
Speaker 2: paraphrasing here, we know that you have issues with the law.
13:09
Speaker 2: That's that secondary at this point in time. You know,
13:14
Speaker 2: we're not looking to jam you up or hook you
13:16
Speaker 2: up on charge. We just want to know where she is.
13:20
Speaker 2: And trust me, you know, I think that they knew that.
13:25
Speaker 2: Maybe they knew, I'm not sure because here's the unfortunate part.
13:29
Speaker 2: The Department of Family and Children's Services as well as
13:33
Speaker 2: the judge may have had more intimate knowledge about harmony,
13:38
Speaker 2: about her needs because she is she is truly look,
13:42
Speaker 2: she is truly a definition of a special needs kid
13:47
Speaker 2: that would need not just educational services, she needs medical services.
13:51
Speaker 2: She needs therapeutic services so that she can begin to
13:55
Speaker 2: deal with life and you know, develop in that way.
13:58
Speaker 2: Because she she has this problem with her eyes. There
14:01
Speaker 2: are some emotion emotional issues too that might be as
14:04
Speaker 2: a result of some kind of neurological deficit. Both parents
14:08
Speaker 2: have drug histories. I don't know if she was born
14:12
Speaker 2: into a situation where maybe you know that birth, at
14:16
Speaker 2: birth she may have been affected by whatever was going
14:19
Speaker 2: on systemically with her mother at that point in time.
14:22
Speaker 2: Who knows. And that's that's the real dark veil that
14:27
Speaker 2: kind of covers this whole thing, you know, because I
14:30
Speaker 2: think that any of us when we I'm speaking for you,
14:33
Speaker 2: and I shouldn't, but when I look at that baby,
14:38
Speaker 2: you know, I think of, first off, my grand my grandchildren,
14:42
Speaker 2: and I think about how much I like to read
14:45
Speaker 2: to them, how much I like to sit in a
14:47
Speaker 2: chair with them, and I like to just close the
14:50
Speaker 2: world out and devote myself to that moment time where
14:55
Speaker 2: I can be with them in the moment. And this
15:00
Speaker 2: child never had that. And it's yeah, the parents here
15:08
Speaker 2: have a burden to bear in this. I certainly, and
15:12
Speaker 2: as we discuss, Adam Montgomery is certainly somebody that's you know.
15:17
Speaker 4: Him, Joe.
15:18
Speaker 3: Where is your daughter? We just want harmony. Don't care
15:20
Speaker 3: if you got drugs in the car, don't care about
15:22
Speaker 3: your girl. I don't care about anything. Look happy New Year.
15:25
Speaker 3: Tell me where is harmony? Who has harmony? And if
15:29
Speaker 3: you hurt her, where did you leave her? We need
15:32
Speaker 3: to know where harmony is. That's all we're asking Adam.
15:35
Speaker 3: We don't care about anything else. And he says, Am
15:37
Speaker 3: I under arrest. No, sir, you're not un arrest. We're
15:40
Speaker 3: trying to find your daughter. And I ain't talking to you.
15:43
Speaker 2: I know. That's what I can't I can't begin to
15:46
Speaker 2: fathom this.
15:47
Speaker 3: I'm not talking to you if I'm not under arrest,
15:50
Speaker 3: I'm out of here.
15:53
Speaker 2: And what do you do if you're a police officer
15:55
Speaker 2: at that point in Tom, you know, I mean, they
15:57
Speaker 2: don't have I think at that point in time, remember,
16:00
Speaker 2: from an evidentiary standpoint, you have to develop probable cause
16:04
Speaker 2: in order to affect and arrest. And I know a
16:09
Speaker 2: lot of people out there are going to think, well,
16:11
Speaker 2: you know, a missing child and an uncooperative parent. If
16:14
Speaker 2: that's not probable cause, I don't know what is. Well,
16:17
Speaker 2: there's a high probability that the court might not necessarily
16:20
Speaker 2: view it that way, right, And that's he knows that
16:24
Speaker 2: because he's been on the inside.
16:25
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, you may, I'm glad you said that. He
16:28
Speaker 3: knows how the system works and he has used it
16:30
Speaker 3: to his advantage. He's living in his car with his
16:33
Speaker 3: girlfriend on drugs, doesn't know where he knows where his
16:35
Speaker 3: daughter is. He knows where she is. He's the only
16:37
Speaker 3: person other than Caylea Montgomery, his wife. They both know
16:41
Speaker 3: where she is and they're both lying. But job at
16:45
Speaker 3: police is to figure this out. And the job the
16:49
Speaker 3: police did. I told Joe this earlier when I was
16:52
Speaker 3: looking over this case because it gets really emotional. Joseph
16:56
Speaker 3: Scott Morgan and Dave mac both get overly emotional about
17:00
Speaker 3: this particular story because when we first covered it, she
17:03
Speaker 3: was missing, the missing girl. She's a beautiful little girl.
17:06
Speaker 3: Let's find out what Let's bring her own let's bring
17:08
Speaker 3: her home. And then it's like she ain't coming home.
17:10
Speaker 2: No, she's not. And I got to tell you, as
17:13
Speaker 2: a death investigator, when I get into cases and I
17:16
Speaker 2: start covering cases and watching them, I know that there look,
17:20
Speaker 2: people won't hope. Everybody wants hope that you know, the
17:23
Speaker 2: door is gonna fly open and their loved one is
17:26
Speaker 2: going to show up. Uh. You know you you use
17:29
Speaker 2: the word. We had We had a discussion off air
17:32
Speaker 2: just a little while ago, uh where you said that
17:35
Speaker 2: you know, you're a cynic and I said, no, dude,
17:37
Speaker 2: you're a realist. Yeah, uh, And I am cynic. I
17:41
Speaker 2: try to be realist, but I am. I am very
17:43
Speaker 2: cynical most of the time. And it's the world that
17:46
Speaker 2: I inhabit relative to what I do as a death investigator.
17:51
Speaker 2: If you if if you think about an adult, there
17:54
Speaker 2: is always that outside chance, Dave, there is always that
17:58
Speaker 2: outside chance that there could be an knock at the door,
18:00
Speaker 2: There could be a phone call. I don't know, there
18:04
Speaker 2: could they could be passed out in the driveway and
18:06
Speaker 2: you hadn't seen them in years and years. But when
18:09
Speaker 2: you're talking about a precious little angel, that is so
18:14
Speaker 2: fragile that she would require daily care to look after her.
18:22
Speaker 2: After a certain point in time, hope evaporates in stark
18:30
Speaker 2: cold reality sets in. I think possibly in my career,
18:59
Speaker 2: I had a moment, a moment of clarity. I guess
19:03
Speaker 2: it is when I realized what I was in the
19:06
Speaker 2: middle of as a death investigator, when I was standing
19:09
Speaker 2: over the body of a child that had died as
19:15
Speaker 2: a result of chronic abuse. And in that particular case,
19:22
Speaker 2: the child didn't show marks around their face and on
19:27
Speaker 2: their arms. The perpetrator in that case love to attack
19:34
Speaker 2: the abdomen and they would kick and punch a child
19:38
Speaker 2: over and over again, this particular child. And interestingly enough,
19:42
Speaker 2: here's a little forensic aside. The liver, which is essentially
19:51
Speaker 2: in the upper right quadrant of your abdomen, is arguably
19:56
Speaker 2: the most robust organ in your abnominal capvity, and it
20:01
Speaker 2: receives quite a bit of trauma when these blows are
20:05
Speaker 2: meeted out by those that intend great harm. This child
20:08
Speaker 2: died of eventually what was referred to, and yes, this
20:11
Speaker 2: is actually a term that forensic pathologists use. A fractured liver.
20:15
Speaker 2: You associate that with bone most of the time, but
20:18
Speaker 2: it's blunt force trauma and the liver. When you see this,
20:21
Speaker 2: it actually has kind of a jagged appearance to it
20:24
Speaker 2: looks like a fracture. But Dave with Harmony, there weren't
20:35
Speaker 2: no covering up because allegedly, when Adam Montgomery decided to
20:43
Speaker 2: fly into what seems to be a consistent rage with
20:49
Speaker 2: this child, he didn't try to mask it. He struck
20:53
Speaker 2: her in the face and about the head, over and
20:59
Speaker 2: over and over again, and actually in front of this
21:05
Speaker 2: witness that it turns out he was married to I
21:09
Speaker 2: think for a time, and she bore witness to this,
21:13
Speaker 2: and no shame whatsoever. You know, you talked, You made
21:17
Speaker 2: a great point when you talk about tell me that again.
21:20
Speaker 2: What did he say to the cops? He says, if
21:22
Speaker 2: what what was it?
21:23
Speaker 3: If I'm not under arrest, you know, I'm out of here.
21:26
Speaker 2: That's almost like you have you got no shame whatsoever,
21:30
Speaker 2: You have no self awareness.
21:31
Speaker 3: Let me share one thing with you that came out
21:34
Speaker 3: of the investigation. Okay, When Crystal Sorry, Harmony's mother calls
21:42
Speaker 3: police for help, she also called d CIF the Department
21:46
Speaker 3: of Children and Youth Family Services, and she was calling
21:50
Speaker 3: anybody she could. Now I was one of the first
21:51
Speaker 3: to say, why did you take you so long to call?
21:54
Speaker 3: And that's judgmental, Dave. And I shouldn't have said that
21:57
Speaker 3: because I don't know what she's going through. Granted, you know,
22:00
Speaker 3: I don't know people's situations. I don't want to be harsh,
22:02
Speaker 3: but that is my first thought because I have I
22:05
Speaker 3: have children, I got grandchildren. You know, it makes me
22:07
Speaker 3: I know where they are, I know what condition they're
22:10
Speaker 3: in right now, all of them.
22:12
Speaker 2: Can stop you real quick, Dave. I just I want
22:15
Speaker 2: to tell you this relative to making a comment about
22:20
Speaker 2: Crystal and why you would it's a it is a
22:25
Speaker 2: logical train of thought, and you're thinking like an investigator,
22:30
Speaker 2: because I got to tell you. If I'm not on
22:32
Speaker 2: the street and I'm dealing with the mother, the thought
22:37
Speaker 2: of you know, am I going to bruise her in
22:40
Speaker 2: some way emotionally, That's not what I'm interested in. At
22:44
Speaker 2: that point, I will pointedly ask her why did you
22:48
Speaker 2: wait so long to call us? Because now you know,
22:52
Speaker 2: we have those golden moments as investigators. You know, that's
22:56
Speaker 2: why you know you hear about the first forty eight
22:59
Speaker 2: for instance, that it's an old term that goes back
23:01
Speaker 2: wait predates. You know predates, Yeah, the TV show, Because
23:05
Speaker 2: what you talk about is the further out in linear
23:08
Speaker 2: time you move from the actual incident or when they
23:11
Speaker 2: were last known to be alive. Clock's ticking, and you're
23:16
Speaker 2: losing more and more information, you're losing evidence.
23:19
Speaker 3: I'm reminded of the nine one one call in Casey Anthony,
23:22
Speaker 3: when Casey Anthony's mother called nine one one wanting her
23:24
Speaker 3: daughter to be you know, arrested for stealing your car.
23:27
Speaker 3: Said found, We hadn't seen her in a month. Then
23:29
Speaker 3: we got a car and it smelled like a dead body's
23:31
Speaker 3: been in the trunk. Now we find out our granddaughter's missing.
23:34
Speaker 3: She's been missing for a month, and the and the
23:36
Speaker 3: nine one operators is wait a minute, is the mother there,
23:40
Speaker 3: Let me talk to her. Casey Anthony nonchalantly gets on
23:42
Speaker 3: the nine one one call. Hey, Well, what's up? Your
23:46
Speaker 3: daughter's missing? Yeah, she's missing for a month. I've been
23:48
Speaker 3: looking for Really, why did it take you a month?
23:52
Speaker 3: What have you been doing for a month? Well this
23:54
Speaker 3: is two years a month. Got the nine one one
23:57
Speaker 3: operators saying, why did you wait till now? We're talking
23:59
Speaker 3: to years now in this case. Yeah, in this case,
24:02
Speaker 3: Crystal story calls. You know, she calls police, I haven't
24:05
Speaker 3: found my I don't know what. She didn't accuse anybody
24:07
Speaker 3: of any wrongdoing, just saying my ex husband is keeping
24:10
Speaker 3: me away from my daughter. Now I can't find him,
24:12
Speaker 3: I can't find her. I can't Nobody will give me
24:14
Speaker 3: an answer. Would you help me? So they did. They
24:17
Speaker 3: opened it up, let's look into it. They think they're
24:19
Speaker 3: going to find her somewhere nearby, not a big deal.
24:21
Speaker 3: But once they started unraveling it, they realized, okay, there's
24:23
Speaker 3: more to this. We can't even find Adam Montgomery. They
24:26
Speaker 3: go and they talk to Calea Montgomery. She says Crystal Hawser,
24:29
Speaker 3: and then they know that Crystal is the one that
24:31
Speaker 3: called in. You know, I haven't seen my daughter. And
24:33
Speaker 3: so that's when they I got to find out him.
24:35
Speaker 3: Adam Montgomery is supposed to legally be responsible. Let's find him.
24:39
Speaker 3: So they start tracking back address, his phone numbers, associates.
24:42
Speaker 3: He is known to law enforcement, and that's how they
24:44
Speaker 3: find him. They find him a couple of weeks after
24:47
Speaker 3: they start looking for him, in his car living with
24:50
Speaker 3: his girlfriend of the moment, drug addicts.
24:53
Speaker 4: That's when where's your daughter. He lies. They know he's lying.
24:56
Speaker 3: He knows he's lying, but they know they've got an investigation,
24:59
Speaker 3: so they they let him go. They can't arrest him
25:01
Speaker 3: for no reason. But once they're able to get his
25:04
Speaker 3: story and the mother's story, then they're able to lean
25:07
Speaker 3: on the wife, Cayla Montgomery, and that's who finally, that's
25:11
Speaker 3: where they start getting answers. No granted, Adam Montgomery's wife,
25:14
Speaker 3: Cayla Montgomery, who was the step mother to Harmony Montgomery.
25:20
Speaker 3: Keep that in mind here. The stepmother is the one
25:22
Speaker 3: that actually starts shedding little pieces of truth as to
25:25
Speaker 3: what happened. Now, we're gonna have to speed dial this
25:28
Speaker 3: to get into the story because there's so much forensically
25:30
Speaker 3: that we have to get into, Joe, But the story
25:33
Speaker 3: is this best we can tell from everything that has
25:36
Speaker 3: been able to prove out in a forensic lab. At
25:39
Speaker 3: this point, Harmony Montgomery was in the back seat of
25:44
Speaker 3: the car was a Chrysler Sea Bring and Caylen Montgomery,
25:49
Speaker 3: the step mom, Adam Montgomery, the dad are dry. They're
25:52
Speaker 3: in the front seat. Now there are two other children involved,
25:55
Speaker 3: Kayla and Caylen Montgomery, and Adam Montgomery have two boys.
25:58
Speaker 3: At this point, they actually have another child. They actually
26:00
Speaker 3: have three children together and not at this time though,
26:03
Speaker 3: just the two boys. I don't know if the two
26:05
Speaker 3: boys were in the car or not, Joe kind of not.
26:07
Speaker 3: It's immaterial to the story at the moment, but they
26:10
Speaker 3: were involved later on. So you've got Adam Montgomery driving
26:13
Speaker 3: the car, Calen Montgomery in the passenger seat. In the
26:16
Speaker 3: back Harmony Montgomery. Harmony had an accident. As we mentioned,
26:20
Speaker 3: she is a special girl and has some special needs.
26:24
Speaker 3: She allegedly had an accident in the car, and according
26:27
Speaker 3: to Kayla Montgomery, she and Adam had just scored some
26:30
Speaker 3: heroin and they were on their way to Burger King.
26:33
Speaker 3: I don't know if they had used the heroin at
26:35
Speaker 3: this point or not, but they had just that. I'm
26:38
Speaker 3: assuming they did because otherwise it wouldn't be in the story.
26:41
Speaker 3: But when Adam is driving the car and he attacks Harmony,
26:50
Speaker 3: she's in the back seat. He's in the front seat
26:51
Speaker 3: driving and he attacks her for having an accident, and
26:56
Speaker 3: he beats her about the face. Not once, it's like
27:00
Speaker 3: you're driving on the ruad ha. He hits her not once,
27:03
Speaker 3: not twice, but three different times. He beats his five
27:07
Speaker 3: year old special needs daughter who can't see out of
27:10
Speaker 3: one eye, and he beats her so bad that the
27:14
Speaker 3: last time he hits her, he tells Kayla the step bomb,
27:20
Speaker 3: I think I really hurt her this time. I think
27:24
Speaker 3: I did something. That's when he crushed her face with
27:28
Speaker 3: his bare hands, his fist. He hit a five year
27:32
Speaker 3: old special needs girl in the back seat of the
27:34
Speaker 3: car while he's driving, so hard that he knew he
27:37
Speaker 3: had killed her.
27:39
Speaker 2: And they continued on to Burger King. Yep, that's you
27:43
Speaker 2: know where they were headed. And you know what's key
27:45
Speaker 2: in that statement, Dave to me, if I'm trying to
27:47
Speaker 2: figure this out forensically and trying to understand the trauma,
27:53
Speaker 2: and it's that quote. It's not so much I think
27:59
Speaker 2: I really hurt her, it's I think I really hurt
28:02
Speaker 2: her this time, which implies that this is an ongoing issue.
28:09
Speaker 2: And as we find out, he has been known to
28:12
Speaker 2: strike this child specifically for this reason, for soiling herself.
28:17
Speaker 2: And let's just break it down and look, little kids,
28:21
Speaker 2: you don't have to have special needs issues. It's compounded,
28:26
Speaker 2: you know, potty training and all that. And just so
28:30
Speaker 2: that we can paint the picture. This guy can do
28:35
Speaker 2: no better for his kid than to provide a domicile
28:42
Speaker 2: in a Chrysler product. That that's the domicile, okay. And
28:46
Speaker 2: the child probably from moment to moment, doesn't know where
28:50
Speaker 2: they're going to go. When's the next time I'm going
28:53
Speaker 2: to be able to go potty? And she's faced with
28:58
Speaker 2: that decision, and can you imagine And I've tried to
29:01
Speaker 2: think about this legitimately from this perspective, because it's this
29:08
Speaker 2: kind of learned or responsive behavior that she's going to have.
29:11
Speaker 2: When you see people that have been abused as a result,
29:14
Speaker 2: particularly when they're being struck, if there is a long line,
29:18
Speaker 2: all the abuser has to do. It doesn't even take emotion.
29:25
Speaker 2: You can turn and glare at them, and particularly with
29:29
Speaker 2: a child, a five year old child, and it gets
29:32
Speaker 2: their attention very very quickly. And she can This is
29:36
Speaker 2: the thing, and this is what breaks my heart about it.
29:39
Speaker 2: This child who is forced to live in this Chrysler
29:44
Speaker 2: product is living in this small space. And just so
29:51
Speaker 2: you know, the Seabreen is a two door car, it's
29:54
Speaker 2: not a four door. It's a cramped space. She's occupying
29:57
Speaker 2: the back seat, she's there is an awareness of fear.
30:02
Speaker 2: It just kind of permeates this environment and all he
30:05
Speaker 2: has to do is turn around. And so what does
30:08
Speaker 2: she do? I upside, you know, a tten on myself
30:11
Speaker 2: or whatever it was. However they became aware. Maybe it
30:14
Speaker 2: was a smell. I have no idea, But when we
30:19
Speaker 2: think about this, I hurt her this time. When you're
30:24
Speaker 2: an autopsy and you're trying to understand trauma to anyone,
30:32
Speaker 2: but let's just think about harmony. There'll never be an
30:35
Speaker 2: opportunity to do an autopsy, I doubt, very seriously. But
30:40
Speaker 2: you look at this progression of trauma where a child
30:43
Speaker 2: is initially struck, that heals, and then you strike them again,
30:49
Speaker 2: and you have these kind of overlapping, maybe focal areas
30:53
Speaker 2: of hemorrha throughout the body. That's one of the reasons
30:55
Speaker 2: when I instruct police officers and particularly those that work
31:00
Speaker 2: that work crimes against children, we have a chart that
31:05
Speaker 2: we use where I teach them about contusions and bruises
31:08
Speaker 2: and that sort of thing, because you can you can
31:10
Speaker 2: learn a lot. It's almost like the rings of a
31:12
Speaker 2: tree in a horrific way. But dependent upon what the
31:16
Speaker 2: status of a contusion is, you can get an idea
31:18
Speaker 2: that there has been a progression, not so much a
31:21
Speaker 2: progression as like a continued series of abuse.
31:25
Speaker 3: Sees, then they could find out see. One of the
31:27
Speaker 3: things the police found during their investigation was that in
31:30
Speaker 3: July of twenty nineteen, during that summer that Adam Montgomery
31:34
Speaker 3: had admitted to family members that he hit Harmony so
31:37
Speaker 3: hard in the face that he blackened her eye, and
31:40
Speaker 3: rather than tell them that she fell down or hit it,
31:42
Speaker 3: he actually told him I hit her. And so when
31:44
Speaker 3: police were investigating and talking to family to corroborate some
31:47
Speaker 3: of the things they were being told, family said, yeah,
31:49
Speaker 3: he hit her so hard it blackened ry.
31:52
Speaker 4: You'd be able to.
31:52
Speaker 3: Figure that out if you had the opportunity to look
31:56
Speaker 3: at her later, to find out if this was a
31:59
Speaker 3: regular pattern of a.
32:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know that, I'm glad you brought up
32:03
Speaker 2: the blackened eye because it troubles me when you have
32:07
Speaker 2: and if anybody's ever broken their nose for instance, or
32:11
Speaker 2: seen someone that has had some kind of plastic surgery,
32:15
Speaker 2: say a rhinoplasty or something like that, they'll have bilateral,
32:20
Speaker 2: bilateral blackened eyes. And one of the reasons is is
32:23
Speaker 2: that there's a fracturing that's going on, and the floor
32:28
Speaker 2: of the skull is very thin. It's when you get
32:30
Speaker 2: behind the eyes that area is and I've had forensic
32:35
Speaker 2: pathologists describe it as as eggshell like. And so if
32:39
Speaker 2: you and I've seen this done, you can actually take
32:42
Speaker 2: a skull in a flashlight and if you can position
32:46
Speaker 2: it just right, and there's some dissection that has going
32:51
Speaker 2: but just trust me with this. You can shine a
32:53
Speaker 2: flashlight up through the floor of the skull and it
32:57
Speaker 2: is translucent almost. That's how thin that bone is. And
33:00
Speaker 2: so how much more so for a five year old
33:02
Speaker 2: if you're dealing with repeated strikes. Now, it may bee
33:07
Speaker 2: her orbits weren't fractured. Maybe she had fractured nose, but
33:10
Speaker 2: that's still the skull and it you know, and the
33:14
Speaker 2: family is recognizing this. And what's really troubling is I've
33:17
Speaker 2: seen images of harmony. She always wears glasses and when
33:23
Speaker 2: she was little. Have you ever seen kids that are
33:27
Speaker 2: very young and I know that people in an audience
33:29
Speaker 2: will have You might have children like this that have
33:31
Speaker 2: had to wear glasses since they were like babies. They'll
33:35
Speaker 2: have these kind of plastic, rubberized glasses that kind of
33:38
Speaker 2: wrap their almost like goggles. Every image I have seen
33:42
Speaker 2: of her, with the exception of one that looked like
33:44
Speaker 2: some kind of school picture or portrait, she's always got
33:47
Speaker 2: glasses on. If you strike that child in the head,
33:52
Speaker 2: you're not only striking her like that, but you're also
33:56
Speaker 2: driving those frames into into her eye in the surrounding area.
34:02
Speaker 2: And here's another thing. What was the status of her glasses?
34:06
Speaker 2: I know that seems benign, but we're talking about care.
34:10
Speaker 2: Did she even have glasses at that point or did
34:13
Speaker 2: he not care enough to supply her with those or
34:15
Speaker 2: make it happen. She wasn't going to a doctor, so
34:19
Speaker 2: was this poor blind child who had limited sight obviously?
34:26
Speaker 2: Did she even still own a pair of glasses? Or
34:29
Speaker 2: did she sit back there in that backseat alone, terrified
34:37
Speaker 2: and habitually left in the dark?
34:57
Speaker 1: Who?
34:58
Speaker 2: When? Where? How? You never get an answer to why?
35:05
Speaker 2: You never do? And I it escapes me. I can't
35:09
Speaker 2: get an answer. None of us can get an answer
35:11
Speaker 2: to why. You can try it, But I think day,
35:16
Speaker 2: for our moments together right now, I'd like to try
35:20
Speaker 2: to understand what I really would That's the burning question.
35:24
Speaker 2: What became of her? I think I think you can.
35:29
Speaker 4: And that's Joe.
35:29
Speaker 3: I didn't think it was possible when we first started
35:32
Speaker 3: looking into this missing girl. What are we going to
35:34
Speaker 3: find because the dad who actually knows what happened is
35:38
Speaker 3: not cooperating.
35:39
Speaker 4: He's a liar.
35:40
Speaker 2: You know.
35:40
Speaker 3: We know all this, and now we have a lot
35:43
Speaker 3: more information that they have been able to verify it.
35:46
Speaker 3: And that's why I wanted to add this is I'm
35:47
Speaker 3: gonna be honest, friends, if you've ever wondered what you
35:51
Speaker 3: can learn where I thought we'll never know what happened
35:54
Speaker 3: to Harmony. I think forensically the story is told because
36:00
Speaker 3: after he says I think I heard her this time,
36:04
Speaker 3: they continued on. They went to Burger King. They ended
36:07
Speaker 3: up back at the Colonial apartment complex, where a friend
36:10
Speaker 3: of theirs lived. They were staying in their car in
36:12
Speaker 3: that parking lot. They stayed there for twenty minutes. Now,
36:15
Speaker 3: in that time period, they heard Harmony struggling, moaning, breathing, labored,
36:20
Speaker 3: but it did stop, and at some point they decide
36:27
Speaker 3: let's go somewhere else. By the way, they haven't checked
36:31
Speaker 3: on Harmony. They take off in the Chrysler Seabring and
36:35
Speaker 3: they're out on the road when the car breaks down.
36:37
Speaker 3: It breaks down at an intersection and they have to
36:41
Speaker 3: get it out of the road. They're going to have
36:42
Speaker 3: to get it towed. Well, that's when they find out
36:45
Speaker 3: she's dead. That's the first time they bothered a check
36:49
Speaker 3: on Harmony Montgomery. And they've heard her struggling to breathe,
36:52
Speaker 3: they heard her moaning, they heard it all stop. And
36:56
Speaker 3: now they find out she's dead. So what does this
36:58
Speaker 3: dear old dad do. He goes to the back trunk
37:01
Speaker 3: and he gets a bag, an under armour bag black
37:04
Speaker 3: and white, dumps out of the clothing in it, and
37:06
Speaker 3: he goes and he puts Harmony Montgomery's lifeless body into
37:10
Speaker 3: the armor under armored bag and they now walk back
37:13
Speaker 3: to the apartment complex. Once they're there, a friend that
37:18
Speaker 3: who lives in the apartment complex who then decides to
37:20
Speaker 3: let them stay in his audi in the parking lot
37:23
Speaker 3: for a couple of days, not letting him in their apartment. Okay,
37:25
Speaker 3: think about that. This is your friend, right, The friend
37:29
Speaker 3: knows them what. I'll let you stay out here in
37:31
Speaker 3: the parking lot in your car. You ain't coming in
37:33
Speaker 3: my apartment.
37:34
Speaker 4: Now.
37:36
Speaker 3: Adam Montgomery is carrying the lifeless body of his five
37:39
Speaker 3: year old special needs daughter in a bag over his shoulder.
37:43
Speaker 3: The friend comes, they get the rest of the stuff
37:44
Speaker 3: out of the car. They end up staying in the
37:47
Speaker 3: OUTI for a couple of days with Harmony's body. Now,
37:51
Speaker 3: after a couple of days, Caleb Montgomery, Adam's wife contacts
37:55
Speaker 3: her mother, Christine, can we come and stay with you?
37:57
Speaker 4: We're really out.
37:58
Speaker 3: We got a problem, you know, the cars in the
37:59
Speaker 3: shop and her moms they sure, you can come to
38:01
Speaker 3: stay with me for a little while. This is where
38:04
Speaker 3: they first transfer Harmony's body from the.
38:08
Speaker 4: Bag to a cooler.
38:11
Speaker 3: Or not I say, or not Joe, because I was
38:15
Speaker 3: looking at the story as they were able to find
38:17
Speaker 3: forensic evidence on everything else. They never found anything forensically
38:22
Speaker 3: in that cooler linking back to Harmony Montgomery, but they
38:25
Speaker 3: did find others. After a couple of weeks with mom,
38:29
Speaker 3: they get into a half like a halfway house for
38:32
Speaker 3: families in need, and they have a room there and
38:35
Speaker 3: it's a place that allows families that are going through
38:38
Speaker 3: a tough time to gather themselves together and to rent
38:40
Speaker 3: their own you know, save up, rent your own place,
38:42
Speaker 3: which is what they did. So after three weeks with mom.
38:46
Speaker 3: They leave and move into this fits center and they
38:51
Speaker 3: take Harmony's body. Now it's in it's back in the
38:54
Speaker 3: bag again. Okay, it's back in the under armored bag,
38:57
Speaker 3: the black and white bag. Harmony's dead by now for
39:00
Speaker 3: three and a half weeks or so, yeah, three and
39:02
Speaker 3: a half weeks. And they take the body and they
39:08
Speaker 3: put it in the ceiling tiles of but in their room.
39:11
Speaker 3: At some point they notice fluid leaking out of the bag,
39:16
Speaker 3: the under armor bag, and so Dad wraps it in
39:19
Speaker 3: a trash bag. They end up double wrapping it. The
39:23
Speaker 3: smell starts getting out. They're there for fifty three days
39:27
Speaker 3: in this room before they're able to move into an apartment.
39:30
Speaker 3: And in that time period there were people who complained
39:33
Speaker 3: of an odd smell.
39:34
Speaker 2: Right right, And it would in the ceiling. It's going
39:37
Speaker 2: to get into into the HVAC system probably, and it
39:42
Speaker 2: will travel or permeate it and it doesn't necessarily have
39:44
Speaker 2: to get into the air handler itself. It can kind
39:47
Speaker 2: of permeate, you know, because if you've got like an
39:49
Speaker 2: acoustic ceiling, there's not a big difference. You can move
39:52
Speaker 2: if you're in that space, you can move from one
39:56
Speaker 2: area to another. And certainly you're not going to prevent smell.
40:01
Speaker 3: I want to plastic garbage back the odor of the
40:04
Speaker 3: decomposition get out of that.
40:06
Speaker 2: It all depends on the nature of the sealed bags.
40:09
Speaker 2: And yes, and if if you have fluid that is
40:13
Speaker 2: leaking out, that's what's referred to as purge fluid. It happens,
40:18
Speaker 2: and it's a it's a it's a very interesting mix
40:24
Speaker 2: of fluids that decompasses, decomposing bodies produce. And it's a
40:31
Speaker 2: it's a mixture of blood. You've got cytoplasm. Uh, the
40:35
Speaker 2: cells are breaking down. Uh, it's it's an interesting mix.
40:40
Speaker 2: And even you can have liquefied fat sometimes the the
40:44
Speaker 2: adipose tissue in bodies. So you get this this you know,
40:49
Speaker 2: I've heard people described that that fluid.
40:54
Speaker 3: Is.
40:55
Speaker 2: I had one friend that used to uh uh refer
40:59
Speaker 2: to it as the most evil substance known to man.
41:02
Speaker 2: And the interesting thing about it is, even for people
41:06
Speaker 2: that work in the morgue and that go out on
41:08
Speaker 2: scenes and handle these cases, once you get this fluid
41:12
Speaker 2: on your clothing, you you better not wear anything that
41:18
Speaker 2: you really value because it's it's ruined. It's ruined. You
41:24
Speaker 2: have to you literally have to trash it and the
41:27
Speaker 2: smell will actually permeate your hair as well. I can
41:34
Speaker 2: go into a story from years ago that involved this,
41:38
Speaker 2: but and I will at some point in time, not
41:40
Speaker 2: in this episode, but just suffice it to say I
41:44
Speaker 2: was around this odor to the point with a ton
41:49
Speaker 2: of bodies. There were a big accident that had happened,
41:53
Speaker 2: and I had to wound up having to shave my
41:54
Speaker 2: hair and my mustache and because it was there and
41:58
Speaker 2: I couldn't get rid of the smell. So yeah, the
42:00
Speaker 2: fact that people would smell this and it's rather recognizable,
42:06
Speaker 2: and it's something that's identifiable very easily. But can I
42:12
Speaker 2: back up just for a second, Dave, I got to
42:15
Speaker 2: tell you man that image that you painted when Harmony
42:23
Speaker 2: was struck. I think that it's important for people to
42:26
Speaker 2: understand what I think she was going through at that
42:30
Speaker 2: point in time. As she is struck and according to
42:37
Speaker 2: what this wife has said, and this is where this
42:40
Speaker 2: information is coming from, if she's struck about the head,
42:45
Speaker 2: my thought is is that this is blunt force trauma
42:49
Speaker 2: that has impacted the brain. Probably something has been ruptured
42:55
Speaker 2: or torn, and not just vessels, but maybe the structure
43:00
Speaker 2: the brain itself, and what I'm thinking is maybe even
43:06
Speaker 2: the lower part of the brain where the brain stem
43:09
Speaker 2: is that controls our autonomic functions. Her body was beginning
43:13
Speaker 2: to shut down. And how it begins to shut down
43:17
Speaker 2: is that our skull obviously is very, very rigid, and
43:22
Speaker 2: so if somebody sustains head trauma and they're in a
43:27
Speaker 2: clinical setting, one of the things that has been done
43:29
Speaker 2: for many years is that you can actually create what
43:33
Speaker 2: they refer to as a burhole in the skull and
43:36
Speaker 2: you put a monitor. You can drop a monitor into that,
43:41
Speaker 2: into that area and keep track of the innercranial pressure
43:47
Speaker 2: because the slightest amount of pressure is going to cause
43:50
Speaker 2: your brain a non clinical way to put it to malfunction.
43:55
Speaker 2: And so what's happening is you're hearing her struggle to breathe.
43:59
Speaker 2: Her brain swelled. That's what's happening. Her brain is swelling.
44:03
Speaker 2: And if if they had ever had an opportunity to
44:07
Speaker 2: see Harmony's body and examine her brain, you would see
44:11
Speaker 2: that the brain first off ways more than it should.
44:14
Speaker 2: It's highly congested, there might be rips and tears in it.
44:19
Speaker 2: You're gonna have big focal areas of hemorrhage, and that's
44:23
Speaker 2: what she went through at that moment. Time. We don't
44:25
Speaker 2: know how much previous trauma may have impacted this as well.
44:31
Speaker 2: It may have been the perverb depend upon how frequently
44:33
Speaker 2: he was hitting her. This may have been the proverbial
44:35
Speaker 2: straw that broke the camel's back, because the brain is
44:37
Speaker 2: so very fragile.
44:40
Speaker 3: And he knew enough, Joe, that he went too far
44:42
Speaker 3: this time. He knew that, he knew he asked because
44:46
Speaker 3: he said something right then. I think I really hurt
44:49
Speaker 3: her this time.
44:51
Speaker 2: This time, and you can't you can't unhear that, And
44:54
Speaker 2: that's going to echo in my ears, Dave.
44:56
Speaker 3: And what bothers me is that we hear that. That's
44:58
Speaker 3: what we're told by Caleb Montgomery, the stepmother. And I'm
45:02
Speaker 3: thinking just about two years later, two years after he
45:05
Speaker 3: does this, when police are asking him about his daughter
45:08
Speaker 3: and he's lying, and he has the temerity to say,
45:11
Speaker 3: if I'm not under arrest, I'm leaving. I don't have
45:14
Speaker 3: to talk to you. And it's like, but two years earlier,
45:17
Speaker 3: you killed this innocent five year old girl with your fist,
45:19
Speaker 3: and now you know the cops don't know that. They
45:22
Speaker 3: probably suspect something bad has happened, but they don't know.
45:25
Speaker 3: They're just dude, tell us where your daughter is. Making
45:27
Speaker 3: a story that's feasible, We'll believe you. But here's my question, Joe,
45:31
Speaker 3: because I wondered, how is it possible if we don't
45:35
Speaker 3: have a body, how do you prove a murder? How
45:38
Speaker 3: can you say she's missing? How can you say that
45:40
Speaker 3: that Harmony Montgomery is dead? Based on To be honest
45:43
Speaker 3: with you, we get a lot of our information from
45:46
Speaker 3: Cayla Montgomery, Adam Montgomery's wife at the time, who has
45:49
Speaker 3: been twice now convicted of perjury on in this case
45:53
Speaker 3: two times. Okay, they caught her lying to the grand
45:56
Speaker 3: jury twice in this case about Harmony Montgomery. So if
46:01
Speaker 3: she's already in jail because she's a liar, and the
46:06
Speaker 3: information we have comes from this, how are they going
46:08
Speaker 3: to prove? Look, how would you prove that Harmon and
46:11
Speaker 3: Montgomery was in a bag in the ceiling tiles at
46:14
Speaker 3: this halfway house thing? That the home the home between
46:18
Speaker 3: the home?
46:19
Speaker 2: Are you I think that, Yeah, I think that it's
46:21
Speaker 2: going to be It will be an uphill battle for
46:25
Speaker 2: the prosecutor. First off, that's going to be the major
46:29
Speaker 2: point of contention, and just so that everybody understands, you know,
46:34
Speaker 2: Adam Montgomery has been charged with second degree homicide. He's
46:40
Speaker 2: not he's his trial is upcoming, and as a result
46:45
Speaker 2: of some of the revelations that came out in the
46:47
Speaker 2: past few days, I felt like we were compelled to,
46:49
Speaker 2: you know, to talk about the case. He's been charged.
46:51
Speaker 2: He has not been convicted when he goes to trial,
46:55
Speaker 2: though I can and these cases always happen where you're
46:58
Speaker 2: absent mortal remains. The defense attorney is going to make
47:03
Speaker 2: hay with this. So what are you left with? Well,
47:06
Speaker 2: whatever biological samples they have recovered, obviously from the ceiling,
47:12
Speaker 2: I think she was her body may have been placed
47:14
Speaker 2: in event for a while. And of course we've got
47:16
Speaker 2: this this cooler freezer. O.
47:20
Speaker 3: Hey, let's back up an event. Yeah, they found fingerprints, Joe. Yes,
47:24
Speaker 3: the story that Kayla Montgomery told about them putting her
47:29
Speaker 3: in the event and having to take her down, take
47:32
Speaker 3: her body down, to wrap it up in another bag.
47:34
Speaker 3: There were other things done to according to Caleb Montgomery,
47:38
Speaker 3: other things done, including including opening that bag in the bathroom,
47:47
Speaker 3: maybe dismembering. There were He's alleged. I gotta stay alleged.
47:53
Speaker 3: But the forensic people are working on the stories of
47:56
Speaker 3: Caleb Montgomery, trying to figure out what happened, knowing they
47:58
Speaker 3: take everything with the grain and salt. But as you
48:00
Speaker 3: do that, though, Joe, you're looking for real life stuff
48:03
Speaker 3: and you find it. You find their fingerprints in the vent,
48:05
Speaker 3: you find their finger print.
48:07
Speaker 2: Yes, you find right, and so let me take you fight.
48:10
Speaker 3: You start finding that evidence, doesn't that say, well, then
48:13
Speaker 3: let's follow the rest of this.
48:14
Speaker 2: Okay. I gotta tell you. You pointed this out because
48:17
Speaker 2: we were talking about you were talking about the thoroughness
48:20
Speaker 2: of the police department. Not only were Montgomery's and Kala's
48:25
Speaker 2: prince found? Who else? Did you say, I want everybody
48:28
Speaker 2: to hear this. Who else?
48:29
Speaker 4: Who?
48:29
Speaker 2: What other person found?
48:33
Speaker 3: I couldn't figure out, how are you possibly going to
48:35
Speaker 3: convict a man of killing his daughter when you don't
48:38
Speaker 3: have the body. It's because they have a story and
48:41
Speaker 3: they're verifying the story. So when they got to this
48:43
Speaker 3: place they went to they're talking out years later.
48:46
Speaker 4: Now years later, you're talking it was two years after
48:49
Speaker 4: the fact.
48:49
Speaker 3: When they're out there in the event where Caylen Montgomery
48:52
Speaker 3: said Adam Montgomery stored his dead baby, his five year
48:56
Speaker 3: old daughter in a bag, and so they dusted it
48:59
Speaker 3: for prints. They cut out the sheet rock, they cut
49:02
Speaker 3: out the vent, and they brought it back to the
49:03
Speaker 3: lab and tested. They were able to get every fingerprint
49:06
Speaker 3: on there and match them up to either there are
49:08
Speaker 3: ten different identifiable rint you know, fingerprints or palm prints.
49:13
Speaker 3: And they hit Adam Montgomery. They got it. They got
49:16
Speaker 3: all of his fingers, They got Kayla Montgomery, but they
49:20
Speaker 3: had one they couldn't identify, and it was a finger
49:23
Speaker 3: they could not figure it wasn't Adam and it wasn't Kayla,
49:26
Speaker 3: So who is it? They traced it back to the
49:29
Speaker 3: guy who did the original sheet work in the building.
49:34
Speaker 3: That's how thorough they were that they were able to
49:36
Speaker 3: pull down the fact that that that was still there,
49:39
Speaker 3: that somebody that actually did the sheet rock, his fingerprint
49:43
Speaker 3: was still there.
49:43
Speaker 4: That's amazing.
49:45
Speaker 2: It is And it goes to the pristine nature of
49:47
Speaker 2: those prints. That what I mean by that is that
49:53
Speaker 2: no one else it can be at least stated or
49:58
Speaker 2: there's a probability that no one else had access to
50:02
Speaker 2: that area, that it's a protected area. And if and
50:07
Speaker 2: we don't know what else may have been found up there.
50:10
Speaker 2: But when you think about the pristine nature of this
50:13
Speaker 2: prince and they've been preserved for all of this time,
50:17
Speaker 2: can you imagine what kind of surprise this, this guy
50:20
Speaker 2: hanging sheet rock may have had when they go to
50:23
Speaker 2: talk to him, or are they reach out to him
50:26
Speaker 2: and they say, yeah, your prints have been found and
50:28
Speaker 2: we're looking into this case. I think that what this is,
50:31
Speaker 2: what this really says, though, is that the police have
50:36
Speaker 2: been so very thorough and painstaking with this case, trying
50:41
Speaker 2: to collect every bit of information. I want to go
50:45
Speaker 2: back to something that you had mentioned just a moment ago, though,
50:49
Speaker 2: because look, this is the reality of it. It's what
50:51
Speaker 2: we talked about on bodybags. And I'm not going to
50:54
Speaker 2: sugarcoat this, but there is evidence that he had gone
50:58
Speaker 2: out and had purchased a diamond bladed saw along with lime.
51:06
Speaker 2: I think there were a couple of purchases of lime.
51:09
Speaker 2: And remember when Harmony's body, according to Kayla, was initially
51:18
Speaker 2: covered up, they were using this underarmour bag. Now, if
51:22
Speaker 2: I remember correctly, she had stated that at some point
51:27
Speaker 2: in time, Adam Montgomery went into the bathroom with the body,
51:35
Speaker 2: which by this time had been down for a protracted
51:38
Speaker 2: period of time. Am I or am I not correct
51:43
Speaker 2: in stating that this woman stated that she saw the
51:47
Speaker 2: body in the bathroom with him.
51:50
Speaker 3: The second time that he was in the bathroom with
51:52
Speaker 3: Harmony's body. The first time that he was in there
51:55
Speaker 3: six or seven hours. She didn't know what was going on,
51:57
Speaker 3: but she heard the water running. It was the second
51:59
Speaker 3: time that he was in there with her body. And
52:01
Speaker 3: she had been a long time, Joe, And that's why
52:03
Speaker 3: I wonder about decomposition. But she said she could still
52:07
Speaker 3: recognize that it was Harmony's body.
52:09
Speaker 2: Still, Yeah, and and would be would be recognizable? Uh,
52:17
Speaker 2: is hard to hard to fathom it would be. It's
52:23
Speaker 2: depend It's depended upon how well the body was preserved
52:29
Speaker 2: and if it was in a cool enough environment to
52:33
Speaker 2: facilitate this. The one problem with this is that she
52:37
Speaker 2: has been migrated around so many times. But back to
52:41
Speaker 2: what have may have occurred with her body is that,
52:48
Speaker 2: according to what the police believe, her body was actually
52:51
Speaker 2: moved into what's referred to as a maternity back. And
52:57
Speaker 2: this maternity bag is not if you think about the
52:59
Speaker 2: under her bag. If you go to the gym to
53:01
Speaker 2: work out you see people that actually I'm not talking
53:03
Speaker 2: about a backpack. I'm actually talking about like a gem bag.
53:06
Speaker 2: It's robust, it's big, and you could fit a small
53:10
Speaker 2: five year old child in that, But how are you
53:13
Speaker 2: going to take a much smaller bag and place her
53:17
Speaker 2: into that? And I think that that, you know, we
53:21
Speaker 2: have to think about, well, if she was dismembered, and
53:25
Speaker 2: she was dismembered in that location, if in fact that
53:28
Speaker 2: did occur, she could have been placed into a smaller
53:33
Speaker 2: back or maybe a couple of other ones in order
53:36
Speaker 2: to make her to make her mortal remains more portable.
53:42
Speaker 2: I hate to say that, Oh my god, that makes
53:44
Speaker 2: me sick to my back teeth, but that's what I'm thinking,
53:48
Speaker 2: because you have to begin to put yourself into a
53:52
Speaker 2: perpetrator's mind, as horrible as that is, to think, how
53:58
Speaker 2: can I draw the least amount of tension to myself?
54:02
Speaker 2: What do I have to do in order to remove
54:05
Speaker 2: this child from this environment and without making much of
54:10
Speaker 2: a mess. I'm fascinated by this bathroom, Dave, and how
54:14
Speaker 2: extensively it was taken apart, because if a dismemberment took
54:19
Speaker 2: part took place in there, it would be rife unless
54:23
Speaker 2: it was thoroughly, thoroughly cleaned, it would be rife with
54:25
Speaker 2: all kinds of trace evidence and including down at a
54:28
Speaker 2: molecular level.
54:29
Speaker 4: With DNA eight years later.
54:32
Speaker 2: I think that possibly. And if you hear water running.
54:36
Speaker 2: One of the great the great things about when you're
54:39
Speaker 2: processing a scene in a bathroom is that you always
54:44
Speaker 2: always should take apart the bathtub and the laboratory sink
54:50
Speaker 2: and take those drain traps out. And if you take
54:54
Speaker 2: the drain traps out, and trust me, people that work
54:57
Speaker 2: in forensics know what they're doing, and people that are
55:02
Speaker 2: doing this in a hurry and not paying attention, they
55:05
Speaker 2: always miss something. So not just the traps, which is
55:09
Speaker 2: the curved part of the pipe that you know, we
55:11
Speaker 2: don't see. If you look under your sink you'll see
55:13
Speaker 2: what I'm talking about, a drain trap, but also around
55:17
Speaker 2: the ring in the tub tub drain you can also
55:22
Speaker 2: find elements in there as well. Yeah, I think that
55:26
Speaker 2: it could be a possibility. And look going back, nothing's
55:30
Speaker 2: off the table here when you think when you think
55:32
Speaker 2: about that, they were able to recover these prints and
55:36
Speaker 2: they did such a thorough job with that. But here
55:39
Speaker 2: here's where you know we kind of, you know, we
55:43
Speaker 2: we Unfortunately we lose harmony at this point because you
55:48
Speaker 2: know her, her story I think is going to end somewhere,
55:58
Speaker 2: probably in Massachusett as far as her remains go, because he,
56:03
Speaker 2: you know, he had if I'm not mistaken, he had
56:04
Speaker 2: rented a truck. He had rented actually like a van,
56:08
Speaker 2: and they have videography, uh, and photos of this truck passing,
56:14
Speaker 2: you know, passing by CCTV cameras and you can clearly see,
56:17
Speaker 2: you can read the plates. I think it was a
56:20
Speaker 2: U haul there. And I'll never forget in the back
56:23
Speaker 2: windows a truck it says there's a sign in the
56:26
Speaker 2: back of the whend it says rent me on this
56:30
Speaker 2: this van that had been you know, rented by him.
56:35
Speaker 2: And they don't they can't track down exactly where he went.
56:40
Speaker 2: But I do have a colleague that believes that there
56:45
Speaker 2: is a likelihood he may have wound up in Revere, Massachusetts,
56:51
Speaker 2: and may have wound up going to the Saltwater marshes
56:57
Speaker 2: there that that speculator. I don't know that that's the case,
57:02
Speaker 2: but if that happened, and if he disposed of her
57:06
Speaker 2: remains out there, it doesn't matter how many holes you
57:08
Speaker 2: dig in the ground, dude, you go to a saltwater marsh.
57:12
Speaker 2: First off, child harmonies remains all that's left of her
57:21
Speaker 2: after these weeks, months of being migrated and moved around.
57:30
Speaker 2: Her final resting place was in potentially this dirty, filthy
57:36
Speaker 2: saltwater marsh. Now you've got this little girl's body that's
57:42
Speaker 2: going to be subjected to this harsh environment, all of
57:46
Speaker 2: the animal life that is in there, and also tidal flow.
57:51
Speaker 2: And we're talking about this is no you know, you're
57:54
Speaker 2: not talking about a pond out on your grandpa's farm.
57:58
Speaker 2: We're talking about saltwater or marsh. And so what is
58:02
Speaker 2: saltwater marsh lead to? What leads to open ocean. I
58:07
Speaker 2: don't know that any remnant will ever be found of harmony,
58:14
Speaker 2: and I don't know if there is enough justice in
58:17
Speaker 2: the world for harmony. But I can say this in
58:21
Speaker 2: closing today, Adam Montgomery is charged with second degree murder
58:30
Speaker 2: in her case. But I can tell you this harmony
58:35
Speaker 2: was failed. She was failed by a system, by a
58:41
Speaker 2: system that we're all too familiar with, a system that
58:46
Speaker 2: turned their back on her, the most defenseless among us,
58:54
Speaker 2: that turned a blind eye, and until that changes until
59:00
Speaker 2: punitive measures are taken against these individuals that lose track
59:04
Speaker 2: of these children, that don't have a full awareness of
59:07
Speaker 2: where they are at all times. This is going to
59:12
Speaker 2: happen again and again and again. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan
59:23
Speaker 2: and this is Body Pass