Harmony Montgomery: A Life Lost in the Custody of the System

Harmony Montgomery was five years old when she was last seen alive in 2019. Her father, Adam Montgomery, a man with a long criminal record and a documented history of violence, had been awarded custody months earlier. In 2022, investigators finally confirmed what many feared: Harmony had been murdered. Her death has since become a haunting symbol of what happens when the child welfare system chooses expediency and numbers over the safety of children.

This was not a case of a child hidden from authorities. Harmony was well known to both Massachusetts and New Hampshire child welfare agencies. She had been living in foster care in Massachusetts, where concerns about her safety and her parents’ fitness were well documented. Teachers and caregivers had raised alarms about her special needs and her vulnerability. Yet, despite these red flags, a Massachusetts Juvenile Court judge transferred custody to Adam Montgomery without conducting the legally required Interstate Compact on the Placement of Children, the very safeguard designed to ensure a child’s safety when crossing state lines.

The decision was not just a clerical error. It was the willful bypassing of a procedure meant to protect children like Harmony. By skipping the compact, Massachusetts effectively handed her over with no meaningful oversight or checks on the father’s ability to provide care. Once in New Hampshire, Harmony vanished into the shadows of neglect and abuse until her murder was uncovered years later.

Her case is not an anomaly. It fits into the same pattern of systemic blindness and bureaucratic negligence that has plagued child welfare agencies across New England. In Massachusetts, the death of David Almond in 2020 told a strikingly similar story. Almond, a 14-year-old with intellectual disabilities, was placed back with his father under DCF supervision. Within months, he was dead from starvation and fentanyl exposure. An official report labeled it a multisystem failure, acknowledging that every safeguard failed.

Connecticut has its own roster of tragedies. The 2017 starvation death of Matthew Tirado, a nonverbal autistic teenager, came after years of warnings from schools and repeated DCF visits. In his case, as in Harmony’s, reports were filed, concerns were raised, and yet the agency claimed it lacked “sufficient evidence” to intervene until it was too late.

The similarities are chilling. In each case, the child welfare agency or the courts had ample warning. In each case, the parents’ rights or bureaucratic convenience took precedence over the child’s life. In each case, secrecy and lack of transparency prevented the public from learning what went wrong until the worst had already happened.

Harmony’s story also reveals how financial incentives distort child protection. States are rewarded for moving cases quickly to permanency, whether that means adoption or reunification. In Harmony’s case, transferring custody to her father closed a case file. On paper, it looked like success. In reality, it was a death sentence. This dynamic has been well documented in Massachusetts, where inflated neglect reports and federal reimbursements for foster care create a system that thrives on volume, not outcomes.

Her father’s violent past was not a mystery. Adam Montgomery’s criminal record included armed assault, drug offenses, and domestic violence. He had no meaningful bond with Harmony before being granted custody. Yet the system prioritized closing her case over examining his history. This is the same kind of recklessness that allowed Raymond and Susan Blouin to remain licensed foster parents for decades in Massachusetts despite repeated abuse complaints. The pattern is unmistakable: warnings are ignored when they get in the way of bureaucratic efficiency.

The secrecy surrounding Harmony’s custody transfer is equally damning. Juvenile court hearings are sealed, records are hidden, and decisions that determine a child’s fate are made behind closed doors. The result is that no one outside the system can scrutinize the reasoning or hold decision-makers accountable. This secrecy has long been criticized in Massachusetts and Connecticut, where fatality reviews are delayed or withheld, and parents are denied due process to contest allegations. Harmony’s case shows the lethal consequences of keeping the public in the dark.

The public outrage after her disappearance was immediate. Politicians promised reforms. Governors in both states vowed to strengthen oversight. Hearings were held, audits were announced, and commissions were formed. Yet the same cycle has played out after every tragedy. Jeremiah Oliver in Massachusetts. Bella Bond on Deer Island. David Almond in Fall River. Matthew Tirado in Hartford. Each case generates outrage, headlines, and promises, but little real accountability.

Harmony’s death should have forced the question that has been avoided for decades: why do child welfare agencies and courts continue to prioritize parental rights and bureaucratic metrics over the lives of children? The ICPC was not followed. The father’s history was ignored. The child’s vulnerability was overlooked. The result was predictable, and it was catastrophic.

The system’s defenders argue that child welfare decisions are complex and that mistakes are inevitable. That excuse rings hollow when the same mistakes are made again and again. When teachers, doctors, and caregivers raise alarms that go unanswered. When reports pile up without meaningful response. When agencies expunge records of unsubstantiated cases, erasing the very warnings that could save a child’s life. These are not isolated missteps. They are systemic failures.

Harmony’s story also reveals how children with special needs are particularly at risk. Like David Almond and Matthew Tirado, Harmony required extra support and protection. Instead, her needs were used as bureaucratic excuses, with officials claiming that reunification or closure of the case was in her “best interest.” In reality, those decisions reflected what was easiest for the agency, not what was safest for the child.

It is easy to portray Harmony’s father as the sole villain. He is guilty of monstrous crimes, and he will be punished. But to stop there is to miss the larger truth. The system that enabled him to gain custody is equally guilty. It knew the risks. It had the tools to prevent the transfer. It chose not to use them.

The broader lesson is clear. Child welfare systems that are opaque, financially incentivized to remove or close cases, and shielded from accountability will continue to fail children. Harmony’s death was not an aberration. It was the logical outcome of a system that values procedure over people, secrecy over transparency, and funding over safety.

The public deserves to know how many more Harmonys, Davids, Matthews, and Bellas are out there, suffering in silence because the agencies designed to protect them have chosen not to listen. Until transparency is forced, until financial incentives are realigned, and until accountability is demanded, the tragedies will continue.

Harmony Montgomery’s name should be remembered not just as another victim of parental abuse, but as a symbol of systemic betrayal. She was a child caught in the crossfire of bureaucracy and neglect, abandoned by the very systems sworn to defend her. Her death is a reminder that in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and beyond, the child welfare system itself has become a threat to the children it is supposed to save.