ATLANTA (Court TV) — If someone told you an item was “folded into a tote bag” or “smushed into a vent,” you might think they were talking about something along the lines of a tarp. It’s hard to comprehend that this was the fate of a 5-year-old child. It’s a whole other level of horror when it happens to your own child and you have to go on knowing you were powerless to help her. This is the reality Crystal Sorey lives with every day.
Crystal Sorey, the mother of Harmony Montgomery, speaks to Court TV’s Vinnie Politan. (Court TV)
“I just feel that she’s not at rest,” Sorey lamented to Court TV’s Vinnie Politan during a powerful, hour-long interview on “Closing Arguments.”
Earlier this month, a New Hampshire jury found that Sorey’s daughter Harmony Montgomery’s death happened at the hands of her own father, Adam Montgomery (Sorey’s ex).
The trial was covered by Court TV, and Adam refused transport to the courthouse every single day. The only time Adam was visible in the courtroom during his trial was on the first day when he told the judge via teleconference that his attorneys had planned to acknowledge his guilt on two lesser charges — falsifying physical evidence and abusing a corpse.
Adam has never revealed the whereabouts of Harmony’s body, and Sorey told Vinnie that not a day goes by that she doesn’t wonder where she is.
WATCH: Crystal Sorey: ‘It’s Hard for Me to Carry On Knowing She’s Out There’
“I want to bring her home,” Sorey said. “I don’t plan on burying her. I plan on bringing her home, cremating her so she can stay with me where she belonged.”
Adam’s ex-wife, Kayla Montgomery, testified at her former husband’s trial, telling jurors that at one point Adam had folded Harmony’s body into a tote bag. Ironically, it was one of those canvas tote bags hospitals give out to new moms. Kayla also recalled Adam stashing the body in a ceiling vent over their bed at a shelter.
A picture of Harmony Montgomery is displayed on a monitor during prosecutor Christopher Knowles’ opening statement Thursday, Feb. 8, 2024 in the murder trial of Adam Montgomery. (Court TV)
Whatever is left of Harmony’s remains is still a mystery, but the little girl’s mother has vowed to bring her home so she can finally be at rest.
Sorey lost custody of Harmony to Adam in 2018. Adam, a career criminal who suffered from substance abuse, was in jail when Harmony was born on June 7, 2014.
Sorey explained that Adam was granted custody when she failed to show up at her custody hearing due to a separate appearance in another courthouse regarding another one of her children. Sorey spoke to Harmony for the very last time on a Facebook video chat in April 2019.
Sorey has admittedly struggled with addiction herself but also made it clear that she went through all the required programs to do right by her kids, and says she has remained clean and sober to this day.
Sorey also took a moment to clarify why, in her opinion, Adam didn’t want custody of Harmony in order to better her life; rather, he wanted to cash in.
“He didn’t work four years to get Harmony,” she said. “He never went to a class, he never went to groups, he never took parenting classes, he never did any of it. There is not one shred of evidence that he put any time or effort into getting her. All he did…is he forged paperwork proving that he had a job when he didn’t…He never went to court dates until he decided he wanted her, ’til he woke up one day and said ‘I think I want her ’cause she’s a meal ticket and I can get some social security for her.’ He never wanted her to better her life or to get to know her.”
MORE: NH v. Adam Montgomery: Murder of Harmony Montgomery Trial
At the time of Harmony’s death, she was living in a car with Adam, Kayla, and her two younger half-brothers. Harmony had begun having bathroom accidents in the car, which reportedly enraged Adam to the point where he would regularly beat her over the head. Those blows eventually killed her in Dec. 2019, but she wasn’t reported missing for another two years. Her exact time and date of death went unrecorded, almost as if she never existed.
(L) Adam Montgomery, (R) Harmony Montgomery (Photos provided by Manchester Police Dept.)
Sorey believes Adam won’t reveal Harmony’s whereabouts because “it’s the last shred of control he has left, and he’s gonna use it as a pawn.” She went on to say, (Adam’s) “hatred for me overshadows doing the right thing for his daughter. He doesn’t want me to have her. That’s what it is. It has nothing to do with the authorities finding her or any of that. He doesn’t want me, specifically, to have her.”
Sorey is not at all surprised that Adam was a no-show at trial.
“He’s 150% a coward,” she said. “He only hits women and children because he can’t face a man, and he makes sure that, if he thinks you’re even a tiny, tiny bit afraid of him, he is going to use that and he is going to do whatever he can to manipulate you or play on your emotions or play little mind games.”
Kayla, who has since lost custody of her three children and is currently in prison for perjury, testified against Adam at his murder trial. She has a parole hearing coming up in March, and Sorey did not mince words when describing her feelings about Kayla:
“She can convince the world that she was afraid. I do not believe that. I do not believe that. If you were so afraid, you would not have conceived a third child while my daughter was in the vent above your bedroom; above your bed with that man. You would not have conceived a child. And she did, and it happened to be a girl because that is how God works. And guess what? She don’t get to have her daughter either.”
Kayla Montgomery is sworn in by prosecutor Christopher Knowles before testifying at the trial of Adam Montgomery at Hillsborough County Superior Court in Manchester, N.H., on Friday, Feb. 9, 2024. (Jeffrey Hastings/Pool Photo via AP)
WATCH: Crystal Sorey’s Thoughts on Kayla Montgomery and Her Parole Hearing
When Vinnie asked Sorey what the world missed out on in not getting to know Harmony, her face lit up as she described an “amazing, rambunctious, smart” little girl who loved to sing, dance, and cheer people up when they were sad. She said she tried to give her a good life in the short time they had together.
“She had a huge heart in such a small body,” said Sorey, who stated she’ll never be able to comprehend the “pure rage” that Adam had towards her “when all she did was be born.”
Harmony didn’t ask to be born to two addicts, Sorey continued, and “she deserved so much more.”
As what would be Harmony’s 10th birthday approaches, Sorey said she spends a lot of time thinking about what her daughter might be like today and has made plans to organize searches for her body this Spring.
“We won’t stop until she’s home,” she said.
