The public has a right to hear audio recordings from the custody hearing of Harmony Montgomery, a 5-year-old New Hampshire girl who was murdered by her father and vanished in 2019 after being placed in his care, the highest court in Massachusetts ruled Wednesday.
The father, Adam Montgomery, was found guilty in her death last year and sentenced to 56 years in prison on murder and other charges. Police believe Harmony Montgomery was killed nearly two years before she was reported missing in 2021. Her body was never found.
An independent review in 2022 found the Massachusetts child protection system failed to prioritize the girl’s needs. Harmony Montgomery suffered from a ripple effect of “miscalculations of risk and unequal weight placed on parents’ rights versus a child’s wellbeing,” said Maria Mossaides, head of Massachusetts’ Office of the Child Advocate.
Harmony Montgomery wasn’t made a priority in her own legal case, the report said, as neither the judge nor the attorneys put her medical, behavioral and educational needs or safety at the forefront of custody discussions. The report also said they did not enforce requirements that govern the placement of children from one state into another.
Filmmaker Bill Lichtenstein, with the support of several media outlets including The Associated Press, sued to gain access to recordings of the closed-door custody hearing to better understand how Adam Montgomery got custody of his daughter, despite having a long criminal record. Normally, family court hearings are sealed due to privacy concerns.
Lichtenstein says he wants the audio for a documentary about secrecy in Massachusetts’ child protection and juvenile court systems.
The state Supreme Judicial Court agreed that releasing the audio, “may help to better inform the public both about what happened to this child specifically and whether there are steps the child welfare system generally can take to minimize the possibility of repeating this…