Harmony Montgomery's dad is guilty of murder. But what about the state agencies that failed her?
MANCHESTER (CBS) – Harmony Montgomery's father Adam was convicted of her murder, but he was by no means the only adult to fail the little girl.
"There's been some failures here, and those failures were not on the part of the Manchester Police Department," said Manchester Police Chief Allen Aldenberg. "I will stand by that to the end of my career and beyond."
The failures he's talking about are in the state agencies who were tasked with caring for Harmony – specifically the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families and New Hampshire's Division for Children, Youth and Families.
How agencies failed Harmony
Since Harmony was reported missing, the Office of the Child Advocate, a neutral watchdog agency in both states, investigated Harmony's care.
Harmony was passed between her mother Crystal Sorey and the same foster family three different times during her first four years of life, spending the most time with her foster family when her mother relapsed in her drug addiction multiple times.
Then, in late 2018, Adam Montgomery petitioned for custody. He had spent Harmony's birth and early life in jail and, according to the investigation, had made very little effort to be a part of her life before applying for custody.
In February 2019, a Massachusetts judge granted Adam custody of Harmony, meaning she would move to New Hampshire and any Massachusetts DCF oversight would be severed. "When a Massachusetts judge decided that Adam was a fit parent to take custody of Harmony, that sealed her fate," said Wendy Murphy, a local lawyer and advocate. "That was the most important moment in this child's life."
The judge who decided to give Adam custody retired six months after the decision and occasionally filled in as a recall judge until September 2023.
Checks that didn't happen
The director of the Office of the Child Advocate in Massachusetts says he made the decision without being presented with the necessary information from attorneys on either side of the case. Massachusetts DCF employees had requested what's known as an ICPC check, which would require New Hampshire to guarantee that Adam was sober, had a safe place to live, was employed, and was ready to parent Harmony, who had special needs and serious medical issues, including total blindness in one eye.
That check never happened, and the Massachusetts judge granted Adam custody without any guarantee that he had a place to live.
"Adam had only spent - in the period just before the transfer of custody - had only spent 20 hours with his daughter, and so he had never had her for a full day," explained Maria Moissaides, the Director of the Office of the Child Advocate. "The visits occurred in a DCF office that was supervised by DCF staff. He had never put her to sleep. He had never given her a bath. He didn't know, or his wife did not know, what it was like to actually parent Harmony over a weekend."
Still, Adam was granted custody, and Harmony was moved to New Hampshire, no longer under the watch of Massachusetts DCF. Ten months later, she was killed.
There was also one crucial piece of information that neither attorneys nor the judge had at the time: Harmony, as a toddler, feared her father. It came from "a very reputable source that Harmony was afraid of her father," Moissaides said. "[That] would have made a very big difference, I am sure, both to the attorneys and to the social workers."
Policy changes because of Harmony
In a statement to WBZ-TV, the Massachusetts Courts spokesperson said, "Based on recommendations by the Office of the Child Advocate and based on an internal review of court policies and practices that relate to the timely placement of children, the Trial Court formed a working group in 2022 comprised of Juvenile Court judges and key partners in care and protection proceedings…The working group is examining Care and Protection policies and procedures, establishing reasonable time periods to the permanent placement of children, and identifying and addressing barriers to achieving timely permanency. The working group is in the process of developing recommendations that cover all of these crucial areas."
A Massachusetts DCF spokesperson said, "The Department of Children and Families will not forget Harmony Montgomery. We continue to implement changes and improvements to our work as recommended by the Office of the Child Advocate."
Massachusetts DCF has implemented changes as a result of Harmony's case, including:
- Developed and signed a provisional placement agreement with New Hampshire in December 2022 regarding placements of children with kin across state lines.
- Hired and onboarded a dedicated legal training coordinator in October 2022 to coordinate and conduct ongoing training of DCF legal staff and hired additional attorneys and paralegals to decrease attorney caseload and workload.
- Engaged Evident Change, a nationally recognized leader in child safety and risk assessment, to design, validate and implement a research-based actuarial tool to help DCF decide if reunification is safe. The Department has completed testing of the tool and is the process of upgrading the Department's Information Technology system to accommodate the use of the tool and will begin training staff in the spring.
- Developed a protective casework policy, which reinforces the requirements for social workers to make ongoing contact with professionals and relativeswho see families regularly to understand child safety and to inform decision-making. The Department will begin to implement the policy this year.
New Hampshire DCYF implemented a number of changes, including:
- Established a new interstate Compact for the Placement of Children (ICPC) and entered into a new ICPC agreement with Massachusetts. Other New England states are considering whether to enter into comparable agreements.
- Amended policy to require confirmation of residence for all children known to be members of a household.
- Added an assistant supervisor position in the Manchester District Office.
- Continued to reduce caseloads for child protection service workers (18 assessments per CPSW in December 2023) and increased utilization of voluntary, community-based services.
Crucial to these changes are the enforcement of interstate checks on parent fitness. The directors of child protective services in all New England states have reached an agreement to conduct these necessary checks.
"It is very important that there's a shared understanding and a shared commitment to processing interstate compacts as quickly as possible, so that information can be shared with the respective courts," Moissaides said.