With the exception of the attorneys for Massachusetts’ child services, all of the other attorneys in the case did not object to Harmony being returned to her father without a home study and didn’t have objections to the fact that he “had never had an overnight visit with her that we are aware of,” Mossaides said. The report also said they did not enforce requirements that govern the placement of children from one state into another. Harmony wasn’t made a priority in her own legal case, the report said, with neither the judge nor the attorneys putting her medical, behavioral and educational needs or safety at the forefront of custody discussions. She was moved between the homes of her mother and her foster parents multiple times, the report said, causing “significant trauma and harm.” She is blind in one eye and has behavioral needs, and was in the custody of child protective services in Massachusetts since she was 2 months old. Her father was in prison when she was born. Harmony Montgomery was born in Massachusetts in 2014 to unmarried parents who were no longer together and had a history of substance abuse, according to the report by the independent agency. Investigators have narrowed the window for her disappearance to 13 days in late 2019, coinciding with the eviction of her father and stepmother and witness accounts of the family living in cars. A message seeking comment on the report was left with Adam Montgomery's lawyer. Adam Montgomery and her stepmother, Kayla Montgomery, pleaded not guilty on charges related to her wellbeing. Her father Adam Montgomery said he brought Harmony to be with her mother in Massachusetts around Thanksgiving in 2019, but her mother hadn't seen her since a video conversation that Easter. She is still considered a missing person. The review was promised earlier this year, not long after police in Manchester, New Hampshire, learned the child had been missing for two years and began a massive investigation. “But we do know that this beautiful young child experienced many tragedies in her short life, and that by not putting her and her needs first, our system ultimately failed her.” “We do not know Harmony Montgomery’s ultimate fate, and unfortunately, we may never,” Mossaides said at a news conference. 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.
The Massachusetts child protection system failed to prioritize the needs of a 5-year-old New Hampshire girl who vanished in 2019 after her father was awarded custody, according to a much-anticipated independent review released Wednesday.