Harmony Montgomery | Her Killer’s Conviction Was Thrown Out (Part 4)

In October of 2021, the body of five-year-old Elijah Lewis was found buried in a Massachusetts park. And when Crystal Sorey heard what had happened to that little boy, something inside her panicked- because she had been trying, for months, to get people to listen to her about her own missing child. Her daughter, Harmony Montgomery. Harmony was supposed to be in first grade. She was supposed to be wearing her glasses. She was supposed to be getting medical care for the condition that left her blind in one eye. She was supposed to be protected. Instead, by the time anyone officially started looking for her, Harmony had not been seen in two years. Harmony did not disappear from a life where everything seemed fine. She disappeared after years of warning signs, reports, custody battles, missed appointments, police calls, allegations of abuse, unstable homes, substance abuse, homelessness, and adults pointing fingers at every other adult in the room. Her mother failed her. Her father failed her. Her stepmother failed her. The courts failed her. Child protective services failed her. The systems built specifically to catch a little girl before she fell through the cracks watched those cracks open wider and wider. This was a child who had already spent so much of her tiny life being moved from place to place, plan to plan, home to home. A child with medical needs. A child with a little brother who loved her, missed her, and kept looking for her at playgrounds because he believed, the way children do, that if he looked hard enough, maybe she would just be there. But Harmony wasn’t there. And for years, the people responsible for knowing where she was, and making sure she was safe and cared for, simply didn’t.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:12Stephanie Harlowe?

  Hello, everybody. Welcome back to Crime Weekly. I'm Stephanie Harlow.

• 0:16Derrick Levasseur?

  And I'm Derrick Levasseur.

• 0:17Stephanie Harlowe?

  Today, we are diving into part four, the final part of Harmony Montgomery. And like we said in Crime Weekly News, it's been a very tough kind of journey through Harmony's case. I will never forget it. I genuinely feel like sometimes I'm like, I don't really hate anyone. You know, it's like, I don't hate anyone. And then I go through these cases and I'm like,

• 0:40Derrick Levasseur?

  Oh, yeah.

• 0:40Stephanie Harlowe?

  I hate Adam Montgomery.

• 0:41Derrick Levasseur?

  There's a few people who hate this case.

• 0:42Stephanie Harlowe?

  I hate Kayla Montgomery. Yeah, like,

• 0:44Derrick Levasseur?

  Don't forget, what's his name there? I keep forgetting it.

• 0:47Stephanie Harlowe?

  Oh, Toros.

• 0:49Derrick Levasseur?

  Toros.

• 0:49Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, Demetrius Toros. Hate him so, you know, and then I think this one's definitely stuck with me and it will for a while.

• 0:59Derrick Levasseur?

  I get it now. Now that you've covered it, I definitely understand it. I think I wrote on a Crime Weekly post the other day, I just, it was a photo of Adam and I'm like, I just hate his face.

• 1:09Stephanie Harlowe?

  I hate his face so much. Oh, I just, you really don't understand. And you know, we saw it with Letitia Stow too, right? It very much reminds me of that case.

• 1:19Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah.

• 1:20Stephanie Harlowe?

  But Gannon wasn't even her blood son, right? Like, you know, people are evil and they're terrible to kids. But when you see somebody, a father to his daughter, right? Who you think a father is supposed to protect their daughter from other men like that. And you just, you really don't understand like what exists inside of you. Like, this is, this is why I believe in evil. So.

• 1:41Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, absolutely hate him. Can't stand him. And we're going to be following up with that case as it goes back to trial. It'll, it'll absolutely be one or two, maybe more Crime Weekly Newses because everybody over here at Team Crime Weekly is hoping for a similar outcome to the first trial. He should be behind bars and should be a lot worse what happens to him. But we'll save that convo for a different day. Real quickly, because I've been wanting to get around to this for the past three or four weeks, merchandise. Many of you guys have emailed us and messaged us about it. Crime Weekly merch is up and running. It's at crimeweeklypodcast.com.

• 2:20Derrick Levasseur?

  Forewarning, some of the stuff is currently sold out, but I have already ordered anything that's sold out and it should be here any day now. However, The reason it's sold out is because we have our Patreon and one of the perks of being a Patreon member is we put it out there first and I underestimated how many of the Patreon members were going to purchase it. So basically the allegedly sweatshirt, if you go on there and you'll look at that one, it's like this gray sweat, it's really cool, completely sold out one day. So before we even announced that it was available to everybody else, it was gone. The no theories, just vibe shirt, that was another one where, put it up there, a lot of the sizes sold out. Fortunately, I was able to get some more sizes in quicker

• 3:05Derrick Levasseur?

  with that shirt and we are only out of the mediums right now. But if you look under the sizes, we're pretty transparent about it. You can see how many are left. So for example, an extra large, which is a common size, there's only four left. So if you want it, strongly recommend you go grab it at crimeweeklypodcast.com. And if you want to get notified early, you can always sign up for our Patreon membership and you also get a 10% discount. So there's multiple reasons to do it. It's definitely beneficial to, to the people who want to make that small investment. If it's something you're into, on top of that, you get all these other perks depending on what tier you get. And in addition to that, there's some other shirts on there as well. Like right now, I had found a box

• 3:49Derrick Levasseur?

  of the Crime Con Denver shirts. I was literally just cleaning out the warehouse. We never do this, but I found a box of like random sizes. I think it's a couple extra smalls and maybe three or four, three XLs and two or three, four XLs. Once they go, that's it. Cause we never sell them on the store. That's only for people who come to Crime Con, but I'm not going to let them sit there. And unfortunately, some people can't make it. So if you're interested in that shirt, go check it out, crimeweeklypodcast.com.

• 4:22Derrick Levasseur?

  That's all I got. We'll dive into the episode.

• 4:24Stephanie Harlowe?

  And the extra large in that sweatshirt is not as big as you think it is. So I love the extra large. It's very comfortable for me.

• 4:31Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, some people said that, especially if you wear it a couple of times, it may go a size down. I usually go a size up. We have gotten that question a couple of times, but if you're, if you like it more form fitting, it, it can be true to size. So we, we've, we've made exchanges for people in the past. Usually with merchandise, it's the sales are final because you know, people wearing them and then they return them.

• 4:50Stephanie Harlowe?

  I just, I just, I think the extra large is honestly, I, I would have gone with that. I got a large, but I like them to be a little bit more cozy.

• 4:59Derrick Levasseur?

  A little bit more cozy, a little pajama shirt.

• 5:01Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah.

• 5:02Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, but that's all we got. Appreciate the love. Appreciate the support. Any questions, let us know. There's always Patreon members in the comments and, and we're in there as well. We'll, we'll get you going. But I know you guys have been asking, we could probably be doing better with the merch stuff, but we're trying.

• 5:17Stephanie Harlowe?

  All right. So are you ready to get in?

• 5:19Derrick Levasseur?

  Unfortunately, yeah. Yeah, I am.

• 5:22Stephanie Harlowe?

  All right. So on January 4th, 2022, Adam Montgomery was arrested and charged with second degree assault, interference with custody, and endangering the welfare of a child. Obviously, we know it's going to be later upgraded to, to murder. So that same day, the FBI and the Manchester police searched the Guilford Street property where Adam and Kayla had previously lived with Harmony and their two sons. They searched the property for two days, during which they dug up areas of the backyard, but nothing was found. They're trying to find Harmony's body at this point. On January 5th, Kayla Montgomery was arrested and charged with felony welfare fraud, and this was in relation to the benefits that

• 6:03Stephanie Harlowe?

  Kayla had continued to receive for Harmony, even after Harmony went missing. Because the amount of money Kayla had received exceeded $1,500, it was considered a felony level offense. So her bail was set at $5,000, but Kayla could not make bail, so she remained in jail until her trial. That same month, New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu instructed DCYF to begin an immediate review of how it had handled the case of Harmony Montgomery.

• 6:32Speaker 02

  Lisa Paula, New Hampshire's Governor Chris Sununu blasted the Massachusetts Trial Protection Agency, DCF, and the judge who turned the seven-year-old over to her father. In a letter to the Massachusetts top judge, Sununu questioned the decisions that were made, writing, "What makes this case exceptionally unusual is that not only did a Massachusetts judge move to place this child with such a monster as Adam Montgomery, but it did so without a home study to be completed. This home study likely would have proven that Adam Montgomery was unfit."

• 7:03Derrick Levasseur?

  Preach, preach.

• 7:05Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah.

• 7:06Derrick Levasseur?

  Absolutely. And you know what? Nothing can be done to that judge.

• 7:09Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, exactly. We've talked about that before. I have a huge issue with judges. And, you know, once again, I don't even know the name of that judge. A lot of those records are sealed.

• 7:23Derrick Levasseur?

  I have a couple of names for him.

• 7:24Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah. But this judge was pretty much like, "We don't need all of this home visit thing and we don't need like that to be done. Her father wants her given," you know, we've talked about this before. Judges should be held accountable for a decision they make that leads to the death of someone. So not every decision, right? But a decision where it's actually affecting somebody's life, as in they are being killed because of it, so.

• 7:52Derrick Levasseur?

  Well, if there's clear evidence that they just, that it was just unconscionable what they did, where like, again, sending this young girl to this guy without even doing a home study.

• 8:01Stephanie Harlowe?

  Without knowing his criminal history, or even asking questions about it.

• 8:05Derrick Levasseur?

  That, to me, is criminal in nature, what the judge did, right? It's incompetence. Like, there should be, you shouldn't be able to hide behind that.

• 8:12Stephanie Harlowe?

  Because even with the judge, even if it's not being introduced by someone else, nobody's like feeding it to you, as a judge, you'd be like, "Well, why wasn't she with him for so many years? Like, why has he only seen her a handful of times in so many years?" And then they could be like, "Well, Judge, he was in prison." And then the judge could be like, "Why was he in prison?" And then you would know this stuff.

• 8:30Derrick Levasseur?

  Right. Yeah, no, there's, there's gotta be a procedure that's followed. And to be fair, there will be times where judges who are forced to make difficult decisions sometimes will get it wrong. That's It's gonna happen. It's just the way it is. We're all human beings. But when there's not a policy and procedure being followed, that's already been, it's already been put in place. And they're just circumventing that to expedite something or move it through the court because they have a god complex. They need to be held accountable.

• 8:58Stephanie Harlowe?

  You know, I think a lot of this, like, I'm not saying people didn't care about Harmony, but I think a lot of people coming out and being like, how did this happen in the aftermath? Was generally like, how can we make this less our problem, right? So Sununu's in New Hampshire. But he's like, how did this Massachusetts judge allow this to happen? You know, when it was like, your New Hampshire DCYF worker, who we have already talked about, who shall not be named anymore, who went to the house, claimed he saw Harmony when he and reality actually didn't. So Sununu's over here like Massachusetts, what did you do? And, and there's things to be cleaned up with in New Hampshire, right?

• 9:39Stephanie Harlowe?

  So what happened when Governor Sununu and all of these people came out and they were like, how did this happen? How in the world? Well, the result was a February 2022 report that laid out several missed opportunities, such as New Hampshire had never completed the home study before Massachusetts gave Adam custody. And in July of 2019, New Hampshire DCYF investigated a report that Harmony had a black eye, saw an injury later, accepted the explanation that it was from roughhousing with her very much younger brother, and closed the allegation as unfounded. Then in January of 2020, when Harmony was no longer in the home, Adam told DCYF she was living with Crystal.

• 10:20Stephanie Harlowe?

  And then this Demetrius Toros guy left Crystal a voicemail, but when Crystal didn't call back, there's no evidence that DCYF kept pushing to verify where Harmony actually was. So the report recommended better cross-border communication with Massachusetts and other states. A new or improved ICPC border agreement, which the ICPC is the, the home visit and like making sure the home is fit. More staffing in the Manchester DCYF office, lower caseloads, a modern case management system, and a policy requiring Workers to confirm the residence of every child known to be a part of a household, even if someone claims that child moved away. I feel like that should have already been part of the standard procedure.

• 11:04Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah. Where was that?

• 11:06Stephanie Harlowe?

  Oh, no. My five-year-old daughter Harmony, she lived, she moved away, packed a bag, got on the road, you know, like, why is that not already a part of what you should be doing? You know, like, oh, I know, Adam, that I had to come to your house in July of 2019 because people were saying you gave your daughter a black eye. And now you're telling me that she moved back in with her mother. So I accept that. That sounds perfectly fine. I don't need to to check up on it and like verify. So, yeah, that's, that's weird. That should have already been something that they were regularly doing every time. So then it goes on to say, if the new caregiver cannot be reached, the report recommended involving law enforcement for a welfare check, which is what a decent human being would have done, right?

• 11:51Stephanie Harlowe?

  Even if it's not part of like your DCYF, even if the book that tells you how to be a case management person doesn't explicitly say that. I mean, it's one call to the police, really. It's like, I'm just gonna call and make sure. Like, I'll call the police where Crystal Sorey lives and just make sure they can go to the house and and just confirm Harmony's there. When I can't get a hold of Crystal, I'm just gonna make sure the police can verify with me that Harmony's there. It's one call, just as a human being worried about the welfare of a child.

• 12:20Derrick Levasseur?

  I like how you said that, too, just as a human being, not as because it's your job or because, you know, you're, it's a human instinct you should have to want to make sure that that child is okay.

• 12:32Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, it's a Demetrius Toros. You know, when you're sitting on the toilet for 25 minutes scrolling through your, your frigging Candy Crush? Maybe instead of that, just call the police real quick in in Massachusetts where Crystal Sorey lives. Like, just do that really quick. It'll take literally two minutes. So, but no, that's not what happened. But so then this report and Governor Sununu did put emphasis on what New Hampshire could have done better, but it also put a lot of focus on what they considered to be the main issue, the biggest issue, the issue that started the whole thing, which was how in the world did this judge in Massachusetts allow Harmony to be in Adam Montgomery's custody? So they were like, yeah, New Hampshire, we got, we're not perfect. We're not perfect. We have small.

• 13:15Stephanie Harlowe?

  Little tweaks to make, but really what happened and who's at fault here is the judge in Massachusetts. So it's a little blame shifty, right?

• 13:23Derrick Levasseur?

  I wanted to put that out there that I do feel like it's kinda like, it's not our fault.

• 13:29Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, like it was a domino effect. By the time we got it, it was already mistakes had already been made.

• 13:34Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, but there are points in there and I'm glad he's calling out the judge like, hey, listen, they screwed up here royally.

• 13:41Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yes, the Massachusetts judge and I would say the Massachusetts child protective system did screw up in general, but that doesn't mean that New Hampshire's like, well, did we screw up as bad if we weren't the first ones to screw up? When accountability is missing, change does not usually follow.

• 13:58Derrick Levasseur?

  I'm with you there for sure. I'm with you there. I also say, without going too off of where you're going with it for this episode, with all of this, and I'm not saying it's right, I think Crystal's struggles opened the door for Adam to get back in there as well. I feel like having two parents who are both not model citizens, when you have a judge looking at it, he or she, we don't know, looking at it saying, well, mom can't take care of her either. She's got her with foster parents.

• 14:30Stephanie Harlowe?

  And mom's had chances. We've given Harmony back to her multiple times. So now let's see what the dad can do, I guess.

• 14:36Derrick Levasseur?

  And I hate that I have to do this, but there'll be somebody there, not blaming Crystal for that, but at the end of the day, when they're objectively looking at the reports, they're not seeing a mom who's got their stuff together, taking care of things, on the right track, and this guy, the father, who's just making mistake after mistake. They're seeing two parents who are both kinda dropping the ball and maybe the judge looked at it and said, well, let's just let them both have a chance. See if having the child changes the trajectory of where they're going and helps them get back.

• 15:11Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, I'm sorry. A child is not a trial run to see if he can be a fully functioning adult.

• 15:17Derrick Levasseur?

  I agree. I hate that I'm even saying it. I'm trying to understand how a judge would look at this and say, yeah, let's put this child in the custody of this guy.

• 15:26Stephanie Harlowe?

  Why a judge wouldn't look at both Adam and Crystal? Because you're like, I'm not blaming Crystal. I kind of am, like, and it's not like I'm blaming Crystal and taking any blame away from Adam. But when you're a parent and something happens to your child, there's blame to be shared. Because when you're a parent, you don't really get days off. You don't get to say like, well, I can't protect my child right now, so somebody else has to do it. It's very much like you kind of have to be on, especially if you know how bad Adam is. And according to Crystal, she did. She did. She didn't want Harmony to go with him at all. So is that not the motivation to, to be as, as good as you can and to not kind of, you know, waste the many chances that you were given to prove you, you could care for Harmony?

• 16:11Derrick Levasseur?

  Don't create the opportunity where Adam can slide in there.

• 16:15Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, unfortunately, sometimes that's what you have to take a little bit more responsibility than the other parent because you know the other parent isn't fit and you know you can be. So when I look at the judge, I wouldn't have chosen Adam or Crystal. I would have said, hey, she's been in foster care with these loving foster parents for the majority of her life. That's probably who she considers to be her family. Why don't we give that a try? So, um, yeah, this is not, not good, but there is blame shifting and you're going to see, you're going to see more of it. So on May 4th, 2022, the Massachusetts Office of the Child Advocate, who I'm going to refer to as the OCA from now on, because I'm not going to keep saying that, uh, they released an extensive report on Harmony Montgomery. You can find it online.

• 16:58Stephanie Harlowe?

  It is very extensive, but once again, they minimize things and they blame shift. So New Hampshire released its own review first in February of 2022 because Governor Chris Sununu ordered DCYF to examine its involvement with Harmony after she was placed in Adam Montgomery's custody. But that only answered part of the question. So the Massachusetts Office of the Child Advocate then released its own report on May 4th, 2022, because Harmony had been a Massachusetts DCF child before she was sent to New Hampshire. And the OCA report looked backward at the decisions that put Harmony in Adam's custody in the first place. The foster care history, the court process, the incom- Interstate checks, lawyers, DCF, and the February 2019 custody hearing.

• 17:42Stephanie Harlowe?

  So the New Hampshire report was about missed chances after Harmony was already with Adam. The Massachusetts OCA report was about how the system allowed her to get there at all. The Massachusetts report concluded that multiple actors failed to center Harmony's needs. DCF did not adequately assess Adam. The court did not have the full picture. Once again, they keep saying the court didn't have the full picture, as if it's not partly the court's responsibility to make sure they have the full picture before making a decision.

• 18:12Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, finish that sentence. The court didn't have the full picture, but still made a determination.

• 18:18Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yes, well-

• 18:18Derrick Levasseur?

  That's, that's the full picture.

• 18:20Stephanie Harlowe?

  I think they were trying to say the court didn't know that there was a fuller picture to be had because Harmony's legal representation didn't clearly present her needs.

• 18:28Derrick Levasseur?

  They would have known there was no home study done.

• 18:30Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yes, and once again, and the, the judge said, "There's no home study. We don't need it."

• 18:34Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, that's my point.

• 18:35Stephanie Harlowe?

  The judge ordered that we didn't need that. And once again, as a judge, you might look at the situation and be like, "Wait, how many times has Adam seen Harmony? Why has he only seen her so few times in the time she's been alive? Oh, he was in prison? For what? Attempted murder? What are we doing here?" Right? That would have been the place, but it didn't happen.

• 18:53Derrick Levasseur?

  I would have also required some type of drug testing.

• 18:57Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, well, he's supposed to be doing drug testing, right?

• 19:00Derrick Levasseur?

  Ensure that he's clean at the time when he's taking custody of, of Harmony. That is something that it should be a prerequisite. I don't know if that was done and he just faked the test, or-

• 19:09Stephanie Harlowe?

  Well, that's part of the, that's part of the home study process. Making sure you have employment, making sure you're clean, getting the names of his drug counselor and the methadone clinic where he's going.

• 19:19Derrick Levasseur?

  Used to have an issue. Are you clean? Are you sober? When's the last time you've used? Okay, we're going to give you a couple of drug tests. If you come back clean, I'll know you're telling the truth.

• 19:28Stephanie Harlowe?

  Also, like we said, the home study process was incomplete because the judge was like, "We don't need to do that. Let's go." And then also Harmony's medical, developmental, and disability needs were not properly weighed. So the OCA framed it as a systemic failure in the Child Welfare in Court- Process. Well, yeah, okay, fair, but that, what does that do for us? So now I want to talk about Carol Erskine. So Carol Erskine is a retired Massachusetts juvenile court judge and longtime child welfare advocate. Now, I believe that Carol is the only person who's not out there trying to shift blame and trying to like, kind of minimize it because Carol wants to put blame every single place where it exists.

• 20:10Derrick Levasseur?

  I like it.

• 20:10Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, I love Carol. She actually wrote a book about Harmony's case. It's very good. I used it heavily for my research. So Carol served as a juvenile court judge in central Massachusetts for about 21 years. She retired in 2023 and before that she worked as a lawyer in juvenile matters. So you might say that she knows what she's talking about when it comes to the Massachusetts juvenile court system because she worked within it for decades. Her own bio says her work centered on abused and neglected children, foster care, child welfare, and juvenile court cases. So her connection to Harmony is both personal and professional. Erskine reportedly presided over the adoption of Harmony's little brother Jamison, which gave her a direct connection to the family and to the aftermath of Harmony's death

• 20:55Stephanie Harlowe?

  because obviously this affected Jamison heavily. And Carol Erskine later said Harmony's case was one of the most significant child welfare failures that she had ever seen, and she'd seen her share of them. So Carol Erskine is very important to Harmony's story because she has continued to fight for Harmony and she doesn't believe that any report from any agency has done enough or taken enough accountability and responsibility. Her book about Harmony is called Cruel Injustice. It was published in 2024 and it was published even before some information came out. So she didn't even have the full picture at that point. But the book's central argument is not just Adam Montgomery killed Harmony, although she accepts that Adam murdered Harmony.

• 21:40Stephanie Harlowe?

  Her larger conclusion is that Harmony was made vulnerable by a catastrophic failure of the Massachusetts child welfare and juvenile court system before she was ever placed in Adam's custody. The book description says, "A Massachusetts court granted custody of Harmony to her violent father in New Hampshire" and that Erskine believed the dangerously defective child protection system in Massachusetts made Harmony expendable. Now, when you first hear Carol Erskine talk, and we're going to hear her talk in a minute, you're kind of like, oh. You know, she's very like mild mannered and polite, but she says things with her chest. She says things with her chest and and she does it in such a matter of fact way where

• 22:22Stephanie Harlowe?

  it's kind of like she's saying something that's shocking, like the court system covered up what it did to Harmony and they're continuing to try to cover it up. But she says it so like, this is just a fact, like this is what I have gathered evidence about and this is what I believe. And what I'm saying shouldn't be a hot take because I have supporting evidence for it. So.

• 22:43Derrick Levasseur?

  I like it.

• 22:44Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, I do too.

• 22:45Derrick Levasseur?

  I like it. Shoot from the hip, back it up with evidence. How do you how do you dispute that? How do you go back and say, no, this is the wrong way to do it?

• 22:51Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yes, and she's also saying like, not only did the did they suck, the court system sucked to begin with, but now they're trying to like, make it go away. They're trying to make it go away and they're trying to make you forget that it happened and they don't want to make the changes that they need to make so that it doesn't happen again.

• 23:08Derrick Levasseur?

  Not the first case I've seen that in, that's for sure. Court, this is what they do and they'll always go back down to, and they're doing it here. We didn't have all the information, the people below us didn't do the proper jobs to give us what we needed to make the right determination here. We just talked about a judge a few weeks ago, maybe a month ago, where it was an IT person who came in the room and the judge treated him like, shh.

• 23:36Stephanie Harlowe?

  Isn't that, yeah, yeah, we do, we saw that video.

• 23:38Derrick Levasseur?

  I can tell you, I was I was in a lot of those courtrooms and behind closed doors and man, they sometimes those judges come in there and we made a joke where like, how's the case gonna go today? Well, depending on how their night went. Did they come into court pissed off today? Because that's how it's gonna go. And it shouldn't be the case. And then after the fact, when they get it wrong.

• 24:00Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, maybe the judge in Harmony's case was like fighting with their significant other and they're just like, yeah, I just want to like hit the gavel here so I can get back to chambers and keep this argument going. Yeah.

• 24:09Derrick Levasseur?

  Let's get this going and and and I've seen it after the fact where they do get it wrong and automatically they're blaming the prosecution, they're blaming the defense and they're blaming everybody else but themselves.

• 24:20Stephanie Harlowe?

  The lawyers didn't give me all the information. Yeah.

• 24:23Derrick Levasseur?

  And I'm not just picking on judges here. I'm I'm picking on them because we talk about cops and qualified immunity. Well, judges have the ultimate immunity. Like, you can't touch them. You cannot touch these people. They are basically one step below God. They cannot be charged with anything.

• 24:38Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, it's called judicial immunity, and I will forever pick on judges because they are the definition of literally you have one job.

• 24:45Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah.

• 24:46Stephanie Harlowe?

  Okay, and it's an easy job and you get paid. I mean, it's not an easy job, but it's easy if you it's easy if you're like, let me get all the, let me get all the facts so I can judge this properly. You know, it's like I'm not, it's not a hard job as in there's many avenues I could take. It's like, no, get all the facts I can and make the best judgment that is good for this child, who is five years old and cannot protect herself, right?

• 25:09Derrick Levasseur?

  No doubt about it.

• 25:10Stephanie Harlowe?

  And you get paid well for it. And like Derek just said, nothing's ever gonna come back to bite you.

• 25:15Derrick Levasseur?

  Can't touch you.

• 25:16Stephanie Harlowe?

  One step under God and and you could stay there in your position for as long as you want, basically.

• 25:22Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, even that judge who did happen with him and he multiple people came out and said that this wasn't the first time. I don't know. I got a follow up on that one, but I guarantee you he's still on the bench.

• 25:31Stephanie Harlowe?

  A hundred percent. I don't even have to look into it. All right, let's take a quick break and then we're gonna come back and talk more about Carol Erskine.

• 25:43Stephanie Harlowe?

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• 25:46Derrick Levasseur?

  Which is basically people who want bread, pastries and pasta at home, but don't want to become that kind of person who says, I'll run out to the store and grab something real quick. We all know you're not gonna.

• 25:56Stephanie Harlowe?

  Exactly, because real quick is never real quick. Suddenly you're in the parking lot, you forgot what you came for, somehow you're leaving with paper towels, a rotisserie chicken, no bread, some random cinnamon bread that you're never gonna eat. Uh, yeah.

• 26:08Derrick Levasseur?

  Be honest here, I that feels very specific, Stephanie.

• 26:11Stephanie Harlowe?

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• 26:19Derrick Levasseur?

  Love Wild Grain. I actually just got a box yesterday.

• 26:21Stephanie Harlowe?

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• 26:28Derrick Levasseur?

  Yes, and the bake from frozen part is extremely. Important because you don't have to plan ahead. And for someone like me who all of a sudden, I'm just hungry, to think about having to thaw it out for 20 to 30 minutes firsthand, it almost deters me from wanting to even do it. But the bake from frozen, you take it out of the freezer, throw it in the oven, you're good to go.

• 26:46Stephanie Harlowe?

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• 27:05Derrick Levasseur?

  Butter on everything and the sourdough, that's, that's one of my favorites. I think it's one of your favorites as well.

• 27:11Stephanie Harlowe?

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• 27:25Derrick Levasseur?

  And we've talked about it numerous times before, Wild Grain is much more than just bread.

• 27:29Stephanie Harlowe?

  Oh yeah, I mean, fresh pastas, gnocchi, ravioli, the cookies, the croissants are so good. I always have like at least 10 packages of croissants on hand and everything's fully customizable. So you can choose from the variety box, like kind of build your own box thing, which is what I do. They have a gluten-free box, a vegan box, they even have a new protein box. So it's really convenient whether you're trying to make dinner easy, have better breakfast options, or just keep something good in the freezer for when life gets chaotic. So imagine having fresh bakery-quality bread, pastries, and pastas at home without any trips to the store. And don't just take our word for it, they have over 40,000 five-star reviews and have been voted the best food subscription box by USA Today for three years in a row.

• 28:12Stephanie Harlowe?

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• 28:36Stephanie Harlowe?

  Okay, so we're back and Carol Urschain in her book wrote, quote, "What happened to Sweet Harmony Montgomery, forever a beautiful child, is a puzzle with many missing pieces. And while the agencies and government officials in Massachusetts want you to believe that the puzzle has been solved through its investigation by the Office of the Child Advocate, there are many missing pieces of the puzzle and others are scattered about making it nearly impossible to assemble," end quote. So Carol goes over the OCA's report in her book and she's like, "Wrong, wrong, wrong, minimize. That's actually not true. You minimized that." Like, she just picks it apart. I love it. So Carol is very critical of the very system that she worked in for decades. She has stated very strongly

• 29:21Stephanie Harlowe?

  that the child protection laws in Massachusetts provide little, if any, room to consider a child's best interests when compared to the rights of the parent. She said that throughout all of the reports and blame shifting, no one has answered the important questions about what happened in the courtroom that day in February of 2019 when Harmony was placed into the custody of her father. So this is also true. It's very, and we're going to talk about it a little bit more later on, but it was very secretive because it's a juvenile court and those records are sealed.

• 29:54Derrick Levasseur?

  Well, you know what they should have where it should be an exception to the rule?

• 29:57Stephanie Harlowe?

  If the child dies.

• 29:59Derrick Levasseur?

  Hey, child's dead.

• 30:00Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah.

• 30:01Derrick Levasseur?

  There's no longer a need to protect her.

• 30:03Stephanie Harlowe?

  Exactly.

• 30:04Derrick Levasseur?

  So we're going to have an exemption to the rule where if the child passes away while in the custody of one of the said parents that the court-

• 30:11Stephanie Harlowe?

  That the judge put her in.

• 30:13Derrick Levasseur?

  Put them with, we're going to unseal those records because the whole point is to protect the child.

• 30:18Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, so we can see-

• 30:19Derrick Levasseur?

  Let's see what happened here.

• 30:20Stephanie Harlowe?

  Exactly what happened because you got transcripts, right? You got transcripts.

• 30:24Derrick Levasseur?

  Yep.

• 30:25Stephanie Harlowe?

  So we know-

• 30:26Derrick Levasseur?

  Let's see what the judge's feelings were that day.

• 30:27Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, we know how it went down. Like, we don't know, but there is a way to know.

• 30:32Derrick Levasseur?

  What would be the problem with that? And anyone who says, "Well, it set a precedent", great.

• 30:37Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yes.

• 30:38Derrick Levasseur?

  That's the precedent. If the child passes away, every case involving that child, if it's only one child involved- And you know what? We'll redact the names of any other children that may have been mentioned. No problem.

• 30:49Stephanie Harlowe?

  You guys are good at redacting.

• 30:50Derrick Levasseur?

  But we need to go through and see the course of that case. Who was making those decisions? We want to see the transcripts. We want to know if the judge was actually just lacking information to make a thorough decision? Or did they not want that information to make a thorough decision?

• 31:07Stephanie Harlowe?

  I want to know how much weight was put behind the decision.

• 31:09Derrick Levasseur?

  Yes.

• 31:10Stephanie Harlowe?

  How long did it take you to make that? Did you have questions? Did you have follow-up questions? I want to know.

• 31:14Derrick Levasseur?

  I don't think anybody, with the exception of maybe a handful of people, would have an issue with unsealing the documents involving children's cases if the child is no longer with us.

• 31:26Stephanie Harlowe?

  It's not the handful of people, it's the entire system.

• 31:28Derrick Levasseur?

  Maybe people in the system would have an issue with it, but I'm saying the majority of the country

• 31:32Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yes, I agree.

• 31:33Derrick Levasseur?

  would be on board with that.

• 31:34Stephanie Harlowe?

  The general public, who should be voting to put people into these positions where they can now keep things from us, yes. We should be able to...

• 31:43Derrick Levasseur?

  That's a legislative thing you can change, too.

• 31:45Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yes, well, we know how fast and easy that goes.

• 31:48Derrick Levasseur?

  Oh yeah, that's true. I'm running for Senator.

• 31:52Stephanie Harlowe?

  So after the OCA report, Massachusetts officials and agencies acknowledged the need for reform. But by April of 2023, the OCA was already saying, like, essentially, this isn't moving fast enough. In an update, the OCA was very critical of the Massachusetts Judiciary and the Committee for Public Counsel Services, because those are the two parts of the system that controlled what the judge heard in the courtroom and how Harmony's interests were presented in court. So the judiciary controls how care and protection cases are handled in court. Judges decide what evidence is required, whether hearings go forward, whether an ICPC home study must be completed, whether a child can be moved across state lines, whether a parent is fit,

• 32:36Stephanie Harlowe?

  whether a child's safety and needs have been sufficiently explored. So OCA was saying the court system could change its own practices. So judges are not making life-altering custody decisions without a complete record. And then CPCS, the Committee for Public Counsel Services, which is the Massachusetts Public Defender Public Counsel System, that's important because its Children and Family Law Division provides legal representation to children and indigent parents in child welfare matters, including care and protection cases. So... That means that CPCS is not just a lawyer organization. It's the body that trains, certifies, supports, and sets standards for the lawyers appointed to represent children and parents in these cases.

• 33:20Stephanie Harlowe?

  So Harmony did have an attorney representing her best interests in that courtroom in February of 2019, a CPCS-appointed attorney. But according to the OCA report, her appointed counsel expressed Harmony's wish to live with Adam without presenting evidence about what Harmony specifically needed to thrive and to like, you know, have a good life. So the lawyer was like, Harmony wishes to live with Adam. Maria Masada, the child advocate, said the problem was not necessarily that one individual attorney was routinely bad. It was that the CPCS standards guiding attorneys needed to be reconsidered. The OCA was basically saying, under the current framework,

• 34:03Stephanie Harlowe?

  a child's attorney may focus on the child's expressed preference, like what the child says they want. But in cases like Harmony's, that is obviously dangerously inadequate. She was four years old at the time. She had disabilities. She had trauma. She could not possibly understand what it meant to be moved across state lines and put into the custody of a father she barely knew with an incomplete home study and unresolved safety questions. So how can Harmony, at four years old, be better equipped to know what's in her best interests and say, I want to live with my dad? Which, who even knows if she said that? But how can Harmony know that that's what she wants? And the adult lawyers know about Adam's criminal history,

• 34:48Stephanie Harlowe?

  know about Adam's drug abuse, know that the home study was incomplete, know that they had to be chasing him down for years to even get him to see Harmony. They know all of that. And they might have to, you know, have questions about, even if Harmony allegedly said that's what she wants. Does she know what she wants? Does she know what she needs?

• 35:08Derrick Levasseur?

  No, no doubt. And she was very young, and that's why she has adults, attorneys, people protecting her who are supposed to be going through it all to understand that.

• 35:18Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yes.

• 35:19Derrick Levasseur?

  She's not informed enough to make that decision. And if she had been older and understood the significance of what her dad had done in the past and what he was still doing, I don't think she would have felt that way. I think young children, myself included, even though my dad was, my real father was not a good guy, there were many times where things weren't going good. Because my mom was working four jobs or whatever, and I just wish I had, you know, I regret it now, but I, you know, wish I had more, or what could be, is the grass greener on the other side? Where I thought to myself like, oh, I wish I could go stay with my father. In hindsight,

• 35:57Derrick Levasseur?

  I'm glad I didn't. But that's, that's the child in me wanting to have both parents or wanting to have that father figure. And that's where Harmony, if she did say it, was coming from.

• 36:09Stephanie Harlowe?

  Or Harmony has spent a total of what? I forget how many hours with Adam. But not many, so it's easy enough for a bad person to wear a mask during a short amount of time when they have to see their kid like three hours every six months, you know, and to pretend to be this nice guy. So Harmony may even ask like, are you afraid of your father? Or do you like your father? And based on what she knew of him, she was like, yeah, but what she knew was an incomplete home study, basically. What she knew was what he had chosen to show while he was with her, being supervised by state, you know, custody officials who were making sure like their interactions were good. So of course, he's gonna make it seem like their interactions are good.

• 36:52Derrick Levasseur?

  And also, again, not to just say it again, I'm sure Crystal would acknowledge this as well, but as a young child, Harmony's making the comparison to her current state and what it potentially could be with, with Adam. And she didn't have a consistent home life with Crystal. She was constantly being bounced around. She was with Crystal, she was with Michelle and Timothy, the foster parents. That that's not great either. So maybe she thought, okay, maybe I can find what I'm looking for with my dad.

• 37:19Stephanie Harlowe?

  But also, she's four.

• 37:20Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, that's the that's my point. She's seeing everything through just a certain lens.

• 37:25Stephanie Harlowe?

  And does she even know what she's being asked? Like, was she asked, do you want to go live with your dad? Or was she asked, like, kind of questions like Demetrius Toros asked her? Very vague, like, what do you think of your dad? Or is your dad nice to you? You know, like, was she even asked? And even if she had been asked, what are we talk? She's four. She is four, and she has disabilities, and she has special medical needs. So basically, this is not, when I'm talking about this court-appointed attorney for Harmony, it's basically like a public defender for children. I'm not talking about a guardian ad litem who is specifically there to, yes, talk to the kids and see what they want, but also to take stock in things, like to understand the history,

• 38:07Stephanie Harlowe?

  to kind of look around the house and also pay attention to the kid's body language. And then they go to the court and they say, this is what the child wants, and this is what I think. That's what a guardian ad litem will do. They don't just take the kid, oh, you want to go live with your dad? I'll go testify to the court about that. The guardian ad litem is there to have the best interest of the child at heart, not to do what the child wants, right? It's to take in all things and then make, you know, their observations and their recommendation based on that. So this is just like, it's a, yeah, it's a public defender for for kids to go there on Harmony's behalf and say, this is what Harmony says. And it's just, it's not working out. And I don't disagree with anybody who says this system needs to be overhauled because it's not working out.

• 38:52Derrick Levasseur?

  Agreed.

• 38:53Stephanie Harlowe?

  So the OCA follow-up report said in plain English, Massachusetts made promises to change things after Harmony's case, but the changes have been slow. And they're also less complete than they were after the death of another child, David Allmond, because when David Allmond died, also in the care of a parent that he was placed in due to the flawed system, they they actually did make a lot of changes and they did it, you know, pretty quickly. And the OCA was saying, that's not happening now because many of the The fixes that we've kind of recommended require cooperation from the courts and CPCS, right? The people who are giving Harmony and kids like her, these lawyers. It's not just cooperation between the courts and DCF.

• 39:38Stephanie Harlowe?

  It's CPCS that needs to cooperate also, and they kind of don't want to. So David Allmond was 14 from Fall River, Massachusetts, and he had autism. He died in 2020. David was the victim of neglect and starved to death. His father, John Allmond, and his girlfriend, Jacqueline Marie Coleman, both pleaded guilty to second degree murder in David's death. And the case led to a massive scandal in Massachusetts DCF because DCF had allowed John Allmond's sons to be returned to him despite the previous neglect. And the department never visited the boys to check on their welfare during the COVID-19 pandemic. The OCA made recommendations after that case, and they said that their recommendations

• 40:20Stephanie Harlowe?

  made in Harmony's report went beyond those made in the report that they published after David's death, but the changes have been slower to occur. And that was because those changes required the cooperation of many different people and many different agencies who weren't really ready to even take responsibility for their part in it. So why would they be ready to cooperate in changes made to a system that they don't think is broken, at least their part of the system, they don't think is broken? Harmony's CPCS-appointed attorney did advocate for Harmony to be placed with Adam, and no attorney in the courtroom objected to Adam's fitness. And the OCA found that this effectively allowed Adam's self-presentation as a fit caregiver to stand as a fact without being meaningfully challenged.

• 41:05Stephanie Harlowe?

  So it was like, whatever Adam was showing them, they accepted that as what was the truth. They didn't like dive deeper, do the home study, investigate, like actually spend some time making sure that he was going to rehab, that he was clean from drugs. They didn't even make sure, they didn't even check his address really, or make sure he was gainfully employed. They just took his word for everything, which is bananas. So obviously, CPCS, they pushed back on this. Hard. Their argument was basically the OCA is reacting to a horrific outcome by recommending changes that could weaken parents and children's legal rights in child welfare cases. So CPCs

• 41:45Stephanie Harlowe?

  is like, we are here to make sure that these parents and these children are legally and properly represented and you're trying to take away their rights. CPCs did not deny that Harmony's case was catastrophic, but they disagreed with the OCA's framing of what went wrong and how to fix it. The OCA's position was that a four-year-old like Harmony may say she wants to live with her father, but the court still needs someone to independently and forcefully present whether that's actually realistic, safe, and in her best interests. CPCs's position is that a child's attorney has a duty to represent the child's legal position, and forcing that same attorney to argue against the child's expressed wishes

• 42:25Stephanie Harlowe?

  can undermine the child's rights and the attorney-client relationship. They actually said this. They're like, that lawyer would be actually harming the child and harming their relationship with the child if they did anything but just present the child's wishes in court. Which may be true, once again, if we're talking about a 13-year-old, a 14-year-old, but we're talking about a four-year-old.

• 42:48Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah. There's got to be more stipulations added than if we're talking, we want to protect the rights of the children, we want to make sure that they're represented fairly. I think common sense as far as bracketing age, you know, as far as, as you just said, maybe one to birth till four. There's a certain level of guidance provided. Five to 10, another level. 11 to 15, another level, or 11 to 16, whatever it might be. But yeah, the ultimate goal is to protect the children, make sure they're represented fairly, but it's also number one priority should be to make sure you're not placing them into a home where

• 43:30Derrick Levasseur?

  they're going to be murdered. How about that? Let's go with that. And I know that it's not as black and white as we may be depicting it. I understand even just to a lesser degree as a cop where... I sometimes hear stories about decisions that police officers made and these decisions are made in that moment based on the information they have and I look at it from that perspective and say, "Well, I understand where you're coming from now, but based on my experience, I can understand where that officer was coming from, even if I don't agree with the decision that was ultimately made." This is, to me, as many people have pointed out, including, was it Senator or Governor Sununu, whatever his position was.

• 44:14Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, Governor Sununu.

• 44:15Derrick Levasseur?

  Governor Sununu, that there was, there was multiple opportunities to prevent this from happening and the ball was dropped at a multitude of levels, not just one particular person. And so I understand where CPCS is coming from and wanting to protect the rights of the people they're appointed to protect, which are children and their families, but they, you can't acknowledge on one hand that what happened here was a catastrophe and yet not offer any changes to the process to ensure it doesn't happen again.

• 44:45Stephanie Harlowe?

  So here's the thing. CPCS was not happy with the suggestion that maybe more guardian ad litem should be brought in, right? So then Governor Charlie Baker had proposed expanding the use of guardians ad litem in juvenile abuse and neglect cases, so someone would advocate specifically for the child's best interest. So like, yes, CPCS, you can send your lawyer and you can, you know, tell what the child wants, but then we also need a guardian ad litem in these specific cases like Harmonies, right? Where there may be a little bit more complex and nuanced to, to actually like do the legwork, right? So where a CPCS attorney represents child as a lawyer, which means they have attorney-client

• 45:30Stephanie Harlowe?

  privilege, which is weird, because like an adult having attorney-client privilege with a four-year-old is weird to me, but, and they have like confidentiality and then like a duty of loyalty, basically like I have to do what my client wants. The guardian ad litem, they are basically there as like an unbiased like person who's looking, an unbiased observer, and they do investigations and they do meetings and interviews. And basically CPCs was like, why do we need guardian ad litem? Every child in Massachusetts has their own lawyer. Bringing in a guardian ad litem who has to do like interviews and investigations and written reports, that's going to delay hearings by weeks or months. So that will take too long and we're already kind of like overwhelmed.

• 46:15Stephanie Harlowe?

  So that's kind of what it seems like the motive is to churn these kids through so that they're not just sitting, you know, in, in the to do pile. And it's like, get them with a parent, get them someplace because we got the next case we gotta, we gotta worry about. So we'll just bring an attorney in who can say, like, my client, the four-year-old says this is what they want. And we, we don't want somebody else to come in and make this process longer and more effective.

• 46:41Derrick Levasseur?

  Or more thorough?

• 46:43Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yes, exactly.

• 46:44Derrick Levasseur?

  Oh, man.

• 46:47Stephanie Harlowe?

  So it's like, I'm not saying in every case, you know, if a kid's 15, 16, if there's not like allegations of abuse, neglect, drug use, stuff like that, yeah, maybe, maybe the CPCs attorney is fine. But when there is a more complicated case, like with Harmony where she's got medical things and both of her parents are drug users and her father's been in prison, you know, when there's things that maybe, maybe make it a bit more complex.

• 47:11Derrick Levasseur?

  Specific circumstances to that case.

• 47:13Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah. So maybe, and she's four, maybe bring in a guardian ad litem to do some research and investigation because then we wouldn't be here.

• 47:21Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, try not to paint every case with a broad brush. Treat it as, as needed, depending on the circumstances presented during that particular situation because. Almost in all of these cases, even if there's a similar story, like you said, there's nuance to everyone depending on the players involved, the parents, the environment, the child themselves. All of this plays a factor and you have to treat it on a case by case basis.

• 47:47Stephanie Harlowe?

  So, CPCS, they got a lot of reasons of why they don't want these guardian ad litem getting in their way. They said guardians can reinforce flaws in the child welfare system. Sometimes judging families by white, middle-class norms and potentially leading to more traumatic family separations. Doing more research and doing more investigation into what is best for the child is worse for the child because they could enforce these middle-class white norms and lead to more traumatic family separations. Because there's nothing more traumatic than a five-year-old being killed at her father's hands, right? So CPCS also argued, hey, isn't the Department of Child Protection, DCF, aren't they supposed to be the party looking out for the child's safety?

• 48:33Stephanie Harlowe?

  So if we just add another court actor to this, that could be redundant. And I don't necessarily disagree with that, actually. But there was a lawyer for DCF in the courtroom. That lawyer should have been saying, this is why, Judge, I don't think Harmony should be going with Adam. But that lawyer didn't either. So clearly, DCF's not doing their job either. And if we're looking at it as a system as a whole, being broken, that's part of the reason. So guardian ad litem for cases like Harmony's aren't going to do like any harm at this point. It could just do more good, I think. So we're going to take another quick break. We'll be right back.

• 49:16Derrick Levasseur?

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• 49:32Stephanie Harlowe?

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• 50:16Stephanie Harlowe?

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• 51:42Stephanie Harlowe?

  Okay, so in 2023, there was this filmmaker, Bill Leichgenstein, and supported by media organizations, he actually sought access to the audio recordings of the February 2019 closed-door custody hearing where Adam was awarded custody. Okay, so he's saying, I know these records are sealed. I know it's juvenile court, blah, blah, blah, blah. I've heard it all. But at this point, Harmony's dead.

• 52:06Derrick Levasseur?

  Still want him.

• 52:07Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, I believe that he's trying to make a documentary about what happened.

• 52:12Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, basically what we're asking for at this point.

• 52:14Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, he's like, we should know now. We should know what happened. Like, what exactly was the process? So the goal was not just curiosity. He wanted to understand how the decision happened inside a confidential juvenile court system and then use the audio in a documentary about secrecy in Massachusetts child protection and juvenile court proceedings. So he's making a film about the Massachusetts juvenile court system as a whole, apparently, which I didn't really realize it was that bad until I started covering this case and looking at this stuff. Massachusetts is not good with this stuff. There's many, many, many examples of children like Harmony. Way too many, way too many. And if I started reading their names off, it would be shocking to you.

• 52:57Stephanie Harlowe?

  So this matters because it directly attacked one of the central problems that Carol Erskine talks about, how confidentiality can protect children, but it can also shield the system. So the reporters committee explained the legal issue as a journalist seeking records from a juvenile court proceeding in a case where public attention had raised serious questions about DCF and juvenile court involvement. Massachusetts laws keep those proceedings confidential, but also allow disclosure when, quote unquote, "good cause" exists. So. We're going to talk about what happened with that, but we're going down the timeline. In February of 2024, Adam was convicted in New Hampshire of murdering his daughter Harmony.

• 53:40Stephanie Harlowe?

  After that, Crystal Sorey asked a New Hampshire court to declare Harmony legally dead so that she could administer Harmony's estate and pursue civil claims. So a New Hampshire judge granted that request in March of 2024. This is important because civil lawsuits usually require an estate representative. And declaring Harmony legally dead was not just symbolic. It opened the door for Crystal to pursue wrongful death claims. In September of 2024, Crystal Sorey filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the state of New Hampshire and DCYF. The lawsuit alleged that DCYF failed to protect Harmony despite repeated warnings from family members and neighbors that she was being abused.

• 54:23Stephanie Harlowe?

  So in Massachusetts, lawmakers also proposed creating a Harmony Commission to study the welfare and best interest considerations of children in these care and protection cases. The proposed commission was meant to study where things went wrong in Harmony's case and recommend legislative changes to better balance parental rights with children's needs. That's what you were talking about, changing things like not at the level of the system, saying, hey, DCYF, hey, CPCS, make things happen, like work together and make this better. It's saying, we're going to make it a law that if you don't make it better and you don't do what you're supposed to do, then you're going to be in legal trouble.

• 55:00Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, and that's honestly what really deters people and also actually changes it at the root cause of the issue is when there's when there's actually consequences for your actions, accountability.

• 55:10Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, and exactly. So now you can be arrested. Now you can, you know, instead of Demetrius Toros kind of just like floating off into the distance and nothing ever happening to him, now people can be held accountable because you broke the law. So the fact that this became a proposed commission actually shows that the reform question wasn't just did one judge make a bad call, even though that judge did make a bad call. The actual question was, does Massachusetts care and protection law and practice structurally fail to give children an Independent, powerful voice in court that will protect them. So on April 23rd, 2025, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court actually ruled that the filmmaker, Lichtenstein, had shown good cause to access the audio recordings of the February 2019 hearings.

• 55:56Stephanie Harlowe?

  So this was a major transparency ruling. The SJC said that releasing the audio may help the public understand what happened to Harmony specifically, and whether the child welfare system can take steps to prevent a similar tragedy. But the ruling was not a full unsealing of Harmony's entire file. It was targeted. It's access to the audio recordings from the hearings that culminated in Adam receiving custody. And also with limits and with redactions. So I guess it's going to open a window into the sealed courtroom, but it doesn't throw open all the DCF records, all the legal filings, all the internal communications, foster care materials. It's not ever going to do that. Like, they will never allow that.

• 56:37Stephanie Harlowe?

  And they're even only allowing the audio recordings with redactions and, like, omissions. So as of now, this filmmaker, I would assume he has these things by now, and he's probably working on something. So we may have to wait for his documentary to be released to the public, to kind of get an idea into what happened in that courtroom.

• 56:56Derrick Levasseur?

  Can't wait.

• 56:57Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah.

• 56:57Derrick Levasseur?

  Anything's better than nothing.

• 56:58Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah. And it's, and, well, once again, I think it should be made public. Like, I think the whole thing should be made public. Like, he shouldn't just hold on to it for his own film. Because I want to hear the whole thing. I don't want to just hear how it's edited to be in a documentary. Not that I'm saying it would be creative editing or narrative framing editing, but just like, I want to hear all of it. I want to know everything. So on May 23rd, 2025, New Hampshire agreed to pay Harmony's mother, Crystal Sorey, $2.25 million to settle the wrongful death lawsuit. So it's interesting, because they don't want it to go to trial. Because in a civil lawsuit, it's different than a criminal lawsuit. We've talked about this before. You're kind of going to force people to open up their books.

• 57:41Stephanie Harlowe?

  But there's also less of a, a kind of legal standard. It's more of like, you know, you show us everything you have. You're being sued. Now you have to show us these records. And it seemed like New Hampshire did not want to do that. So they settled, right? They denied wrongdoing, but the settlement resolved Crystal's claim that DCYF failed to protect Harmony despite abuse reports. So basically, it's important to know that New Hampshire is willing to pay out over $2 million. To not have it go to trial. They denied wrongdoing, but also they're like, we don't want to have to prove.

• 58:15Derrick Levasseur?

  Makes you think, huh?

• 58:16Stephanie Harlowe?

  We don't want to have to prove.

• 58:16Derrick Levasseur?

  Two million just to keep it.

• 58:18Stephanie Harlowe?

  Keep it quiet.

• 58:18Derrick Levasseur?

  Under wraps.

• 58:19Stephanie Harlowe?

  We don't want to have to prove that we didn't do anything wrong. We, we, we would rather pay you 2.25 million dollars of taxpayer money, by the way, if you live in New Hampshire. And if you live in New Hampshire, it's important to understand that this was at least the third recent case where New Hampshire had settled litigation involving the death of a child and alleged child welfare failures. So at least the third, and I'm sure there's plenty more, where New Hampshire, instead of being like, we'll prove that we protected this child, absolutely. They're like, let us give you money from the taxpayers. Let us give you taxpayer money to move on. Yeah. So this is one of the, I guess, when you look at it,

• 59:01Stephanie Harlowe?

  yes, this is an important accountability moment, but it's also deeply unsatisfying from like a public record standpoint, because a settlement pays money and ends litigation, but it also prevents discovery, depositions, sworn testimony, and a trial where state employees, like Demetrius Toros, would be forced to answer questions under oath. So that's why Carol Erskine would criticize the settlement and say that she felt like it was an attempt to make the case go away. Now, in July of 2025, Carol Erskine took her own materials to federal authorities and asked for an investigation into New Hampshire's role. So Carol Erskine's over here like, I'm taking you down Massachusetts. And then

• 59:45Stephanie Harlowe?

  she's like, all right, now I'm going to set my sights on New Hampshire, because once again, you have things to answer for as well. So she basically wants a federal investigation into what happened in New Hampshire. And CBS Boston reported that Erskine wanted investigators to look at New Hampshire DCYF and look at whether workers falsified records. She said there were 17 other reports of abuse that, in her view, were largely not properly investigated. So now she's not just saying, you guys messed up. She's saying, you messed up, you knew you messed up, and then you tried to cover it up. Right? So Carol Erskine's position was that her book focused mainly on Massachusetts and how Harmony was placed with Adam, but her federal request focused on New Hampshire.

• 1:00:28Stephanie Harlowe?

  What happened after Harmony arrived there and whether DCYF failed to respond to warnings. She also explicitly said that she believed the New Hampshire settlement with Crystal was an attempt to make the case go away.

• 1:00:41Speaker 03

  Here, the child died, but I would direct-

• 1:00:43Speaker 04

  The child didn't just die. The child was killed after the child was given to the person, the state, delivered the child to the person who killed him, right? And that was a father.

• 1:00:57Speaker 05

  Harmony Montgomery back in the spotlight this morning now that a former Massachusetts judge has filed a federal complaint requesting an FBI investigation into Harmony's murder. The Honorable Carol Erskine wants investigators to look at New Hampshire's Division of Children, Youth and Families and find out if workers falsified records relating to Harmony's case. Recently, New Hampshire awarded Harmony's mother, Crystal Sorey, $2.5 million to settle her wrongful death lawsuit against the state. Judge Erskine says she feels like that's an attempt to cover up why Harmony was placed with her father, Adam Montgomery, despite information that she wouldn't be safe with him.

• 1:01:42Speaker 06

  The reason that I say it's part of a cover up is because $2.5 million is basically what it costs to keep the secrets of what happened to Harmony hidden. I mean, the true fact is that Harmony's case with the Department of Children, Youth and Families has been covered up for quite some time. And the settlement in the civil suit is an agreement that for $2.5 million, the state has no liability and no wrongdoing. So for me, in $2.5 million is the price of silence.

• 1:02:24Speaker 06

  And I just wasn't going to let that happen, which is why I'm pursuing a federal investigation under the color of law, which allows for criminal prosecution.

• 1:02:34Speaker 05

  And Judge, your point of view is that Harmony's civil rights very well may have been violated by these DCF workers when they were coming to the home to check on her. Would you tell us a little more, please?

• 1:02:49Speaker 06

  Right, I make the argument that her due process rights were violated in two ways. Procedural due process, which was what happened on July 29, 2019, the day that Harmony could have lived had the investigation been done properly. It was a requirement by law that there be an immediate investigation when there was an allegation of a dangerous physical assault, giving her a black eye by her father. But even though the governor's report states that Harmony was seen that day and that there was, by law, they complied by notifying the police, what happened actually was that she

• 1:03:33Speaker 06

  wasn't evaluated, that Adam Montgomery received a call saying they were coming to evaluate her. He grabbed Harmony, he took her out of the house, and he fled with her so that she couldn't be seen. And then the police were notified that Harmony was seen and that there were no injuries. That was a severe violation of her due process right to a fair investigation, and it was actually the day she could have lived had it been done right. But I make the allegation that it may have been deliberate, that he was warned, and therefore she wasn't seen. She wasn't actually seen until sometime in August, when the bruising was gone.

• 1:04:16Stephanie Harlowe?

  So you heard what she said there, and basically when we were talking about Demetrius Toros, we kind of waffled a little bit. We were like, well, we don't want to say that Harmony's dead because of him, and you know, there was other factors at play. But Carol Erskine is basically saying that was the day that if things had been done properly, Harmony would have survived. And she's even taking it a step further. And saying that this was intentional, that somehow Adam Montgomery was warned ahead of time because obviously that was supposed to have been a surprise visit, right? And according to Toros' reports and records, it was a surprise visit. But Carol Erskine is saying, no, I think he was given the heads up and that's why he

• 1:05:00Stephanie Harlowe?

  was getting in his car and leaving. And even at that point, he was leaving with Harmony and Toros could have said, oh, hey, let me just see her really quick, but he didn't. And Carol Erskine is basically saying it's because that was the plan all along for Adam to be leaving so that Toros.

• 1:05:16Derrick Levasseur?

  Could use that as an excuse.

• 1:05:17Stephanie Harlowe?

  And then, and then Toros calls the police and says, don't worry, I've seen her, even though in his own report, he said he didn't actually see her.

• 1:05:24Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, there's definitely stuff there with Toros where in many instances, it's just complete incompetence and just gross negligence. But I will say without investigating this case myself, it does smell of something more. And I'm not quick to go there. You guys have been with me a long time. Stephanie knows, like, that's not something that I take lightly to say, but there just seems like a lot of coincidences here. And then even when he didn't see the child, Harmony, he would report that he did. And why do that? Why do that if there's nothing that's going to benefit you other than being lazy? Why run that risk? I, you know, I've seen other cases before where I've had police officers who were like, ah, you know, I wasn't going to go, but to cover my ass, I went and checked it out.

• 1:06:09Derrick Levasseur?

  So not the right reasoning behind it, but they did it to make sure that they didn't come back to bite him. He, he just seemed to be doing a lot here, Toros, I mean, doing a lot here to protect Adam, or at least it appeared to be that way. And if I were to learn, or we were to learn, that there might have been a heads up that, hey, wink and a nod, maybe stopping by in a couple hours.

• 1:06:33Derrick Levasseur?

  Would you be shocked by that?

• 1:06:34Stephanie Harlowe?

  No, I wouldn't be. I wouldn't be because he knew Adam previously.

• 1:06:39Derrick Levasseur?

  That's, that's right. And we said that very early in this series.

• 1:06:42Stephanie Harlowe?

  So I think that's why Carol wants the FBI to do an investigation because the FBI can pull cellphone records. They can pull communication between Toros and Adam and they can see was there communication between Demetrius Toros and Adam Montgomery before Toros showed up at the house?

• 1:06:59Derrick Levasseur?

  Seems like it'd be a good idea, right?

• 1:07:01Stephanie Harlowe?

  And if there was, that's obviously, I mean, I, I think, I think Toros could be then kind of held negligently, at least responsible for Harmony's death because-

• 1:07:14Derrick Levasseur?

  Negligent, maybe criminally.

• 1:07:15Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:07:16Derrick Levasseur?

  If he was aware that there was in fact, child abuse going on in the home and he took measures to cover it up.

• 1:07:24Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, that's, how, why would you do that?

• 1:07:26Derrick Levasseur?

  You know, and as much as I can't stand this guy and I really can't stand him, if he sees this buddy, I'm not a fan and I'm putting that lightly for the show. There's still a part of me to just be really transparent here because he may see it. I just think he's an idiot.

• 1:07:43Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, but that's because you're projecting your good internal intentions onto somebody else. But also remember, this man had already begun in trouble and been, you know, hauled into court for beating his own wife. And he clearly in the aftermath was like, that was so unfair that I was treated this way. So he could be looking at Adam, another man who's being given a bunch of trouble.

• 1:08:04Derrick Levasseur?

  Wrong by the system, air quotes.

• 1:08:05Stephanie Harlowe?

  Wrong by the system, given a bunch of trouble for putting his hands on a female. And it's like, oh, would these people just let these men live? So what if they want to knock these women in their lives around every so often? Like, that's what a man should be able to do. This could be Demetrius Toros's internal like, thought process. Because, and then so he's not doing it as in like, oh, I hope you're beating your kid. He's doing it as in like, don't worry, bro. I got you. Like, I know how these women are and all this system is.

• 1:08:33Derrick Levasseur?

  I'm with you there. And, and it may be a situation where what's more likely is that because he's an idiot and he didn't go do his job, he- He's acting under the assumption that this is a poor guy being wronged. He hasn't seen any signs of child abuse because he didn't do his job and investigate it. So there is a level of like him trying to help someone else who he sees a little bit of himself in.

• 1:08:57Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yes, I agree. Yeah.

• 1:08:58Derrick Levasseur?

  Right? Maybe it's not as clearly as, oh, I know she's being abused or she will be abused. And I'm going to cover it up. It's more so. He just thinks that this is another good guy who just can't get a break. That makes sense.

• 1:09:11Stephanie Harlowe?

  And I also think it's interesting because Carol Erskine is like, well, yeah, New Hampshire paid off Crystal Sorey. Because maybe they were worried that if it went to trial and they had to open their books, there would be evidence of some contact. Like maybe DCYF in New Hampshire had already looked into Demetrius Toros. Because remember Kristin Nunu was like, do an investigation. How did this happen? And so they already did an investigation and they may have discovered some kind of improper contact, improper contact between Toros and Adam. And so they already knew it was there and they didn't want that to come out. So that's why they settled for quite a large amount, I would say.

• 1:09:48Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, I, I, I'm with you. They, in that, we, we see that in a lot of different worlds where they, these companies look at the, the, the details.

• 1:09:56Stephanie Harlowe?

  Pharmaceutical companies and stuff. Yeah.

• 1:09:58Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, understand that the blowback publicly is worse than any payment they would make.

• 1:10:02Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, they're like, and they're also like, it doesn't look good that we're settling, but if they got into our records. It would be way worse. Like there's stuff in our records. We don't want anybody to ever know kind of thing. So. In February of 2026, Carol Erskine made a separate federal request focused on Massachusetts DCF. So she's done New Hampshire. She's back to Massachusetts and this one was broader than Harmony alone. She asked the US Attorney's Office to conduct a federal civil rights patent or practice investigation into whether Massachusetts DCF discriminated against children with disabilities in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act. And her request focused on the deaths of Harmony Montgomery, David Allman, Azella Ortiz,

• 1:10:44Stephanie Harlowe?

  all children with disabilities who had involvement with DCF and died by homicide. Now, this is very important to her role. Erskine is not saying Harmony was merely overlooked. She's saying that Harmony's disability and heightened vulnerability were minimized or erased and that this may be part of a larger pattern in Massachusetts child welfare. That moves the issue from negligence, misjudgment into potential civil rights territory, which you heard her talking about with the Court TV reporter, where she's saying, yeah, Harmony's civil rights were actually violated here because under the law, she was entitled to an actual investigation. When somebody calls in and says she has a black eye and the state sends somebody out

• 1:11:28Stephanie Harlowe?

  to look into that, she was entitled into an investigation that day and that didn't happen. And I think that it was intentional that it didn't happen. So in May of 2026, Crystal Sorey, acting as administrator of Harmony's estate, obtained a 15.49 million default judgment against Adam Montgomery in a wrongful death lawsuit. So she sued Adam, right? We know Adam doesn't have no 15 million dollars, but he didn't even respond to the lawsuit. So the court entered a default judgment and then assessed damages, including damages for Harmony's pain and suffering, loss of life, economic loss, enhanced compensatory damages for wanton, malicious, and oppressive conduct.

• 1:12:13Stephanie Harlowe?

  Like I said, realistically, Adam Montgomery is never going to hand Crystal Sorey a check for 15 million dollars, but that wasn't really the point. The point was to create a civil judgment against him, a legal record that says Harmony's suffering, her pain, her loss of life, and the horror of what was done to her have value in the eyes of the court. And it also means that if Adam ever does receive money, whether it be prison wages, inheritance, media money, like let's say he decides one day to start talking and he wants to have someone write a book. Yeah, you know, like a million people have done. If he wants to be a part of a documentary, whatever. He cannot collect a dollar of it. Harmony's estate has a judgment that it can use to go after every cent.

• 1:12:57Derrick Levasseur?

  Great, that's great.

• 1:12:59Stephanie Harlowe?

  So, no, the lawsuit probably was not in reality about collecting 15 million dollars tomorrow. It was about making sure Adam remains legally and financially accountable for the rest of his life. And this matters even more now, I think, because even though Adam's criminal murder conviction was overturned, there is still, no matter what happens, a separate civil court record saying Adam is legally liable for Harmony's death. It doesn't replace a murder conviction, obviously. It does, it doesn't put him in prison. It doesn't prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt like a criminal court would, but it does preserve a formal legal finding of responsibility outside the criminal appeal process.

• 1:13:37Derrick Levasseur?

  And there is, there's a lower threshold there. We've seen it in the OJ Simpson case and others.

• 1:13:42Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, but a lower threshold, we all agree, he did what he did, you know?

• 1:13:45Derrick Levasseur?

  He 100% did it, you know? Doesn't hurt, that's for sure. And if he, I don't know how he would make money, but...

• 1:13:50Stephanie Harlowe?

  He could, he could one day say, "I have a scoop and I want 3 million dollars. I'll tell you where Harmony is," to some...

• 1:13:56Derrick Levasseur?

  But I feel like that'd be similar with like Chris Watts. I'm sure Chris Watts would try to do something like that and nobody's... I think it would be a career suicide move for one of these journalists or news companies to...

• 1:14:06Stephanie Harlowe?

  They don't care though, because you know people would buy it and they would watch it.

• 1:14:08Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, I guess.

• 1:14:09Stephanie Harlowe?

  They'd be, they'd be like...

• 1:14:10Derrick Levasseur?

  Why haven't they done it with Chris Watts then?

• 1:14:12Stephanie Harlowe?

  Well, I mean, I think Chris Watts, he just, I mean, why haven't they done it? Because they know where the bodies are. Chris Watts has been interviewed...

• 1:14:21Derrick Levasseur?

  You're saying, paying him a bunch of money to find his side of the story and maybe find out what actually happened to Harmony?

• 1:14:25Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, so if he...

• 1:14:26Derrick Levasseur?

  And I say that sarcastically.

• 1:14:27Stephanie Harlowe?

  So if one day...

• 1:14:28Derrick Levasseur?

  I know, actually, abitur.

• 1:14:29Stephanie Harlowe?

  And, and authors have approached Chris Watts and talked to him and...

• 1:14:32Derrick Levasseur?

  Oh, I'm, I'm no doubt.

• 1:14:33Stephanie Harlowe?

  Written him letters from prison, so...

• 1:14:34Derrick Levasseur?

  No doubt about it.

• 1:14:35Stephanie Harlowe?

  And yeah, people, people on one side are like, "That's horrendous. How could you do that and give him a voice?" And then they're like putting a preorder in on the book, so...

• 1:14:41Derrick Levasseur?

  No, you ain't wrong.

• 1:14:43Stephanie Harlowe?

  So if Adam ever one day is like, I'm bored, you know, let me shake it up a little bit. And he contacts an author and he's like, listen, I still say I didn't kill Harmony. But I have my side of the story and I know where her body is because I helped Kayla bury her. So I'm going to give you the scoop, but I want money for this. He can't. So I guess that's good. But the civil judgment, it does become a kind of legal backstop. Like if the criminal case is delayed, retried, continually legally complicated, the estate still always has that judgment against Adam. So if Adam ever receives money in the future for anything, anything, like Harmony's estate has a legal claim that it can try to enforce and make sure he doesn't make that money.

• 1:15:26Stephanie Harlowe?

  So we're going to take another quick break and we'll be right back. This episode is brought to you by The Absorption Company. And I feel like a lot of us have had that moment where we look at our supplement cabinet and think, is this wellness or have I accidentally started an expensive little collection?

• 1:15:45Derrick Levasseur?

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• 1:15:49Stephanie Harlowe?

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• 1:16:03Derrick Levasseur?

  You're basically paying for fancy pee.

• 1:16:05Stephanie Harlowe?

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• 1:16:24Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, so it's not just about taking the supplement. It's about whether your body can actually use it.

• 1:16:29Stephanie Harlowe?

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• 1:16:46Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, that's that's crazy. Less than 1% is rough.

• 1:16:48Stephanie Harlowe?

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• 1:17:00Derrick Levasseur?

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• 1:17:06Stephanie Harlowe?

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• 1:17:21Derrick Levasseur?

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• 1:17:25Stephanie Harlowe?

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• 1:17:32Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, which is kind of the whole point.

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• 1:17:58Stephanie Harlowe?

  Adam Montgomery's murder trial began in February of 2024, and it lasted just over two weeks. Now get this. He appeared in court for only one day of jury selection. And then once opening arguments began, he didn't go to court anymore. He refused to show up. He stayed in his holding cell at the jail and waived his right to attend. So this is like an actual right where you don't have to be present at your own trial. But I don't really know a lot of people who have.

• 1:18:26Derrick Levasseur?

  He's a coward.

• 1:18:27Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, I don't know a lot of people who have taken advantage of that right, you know?

• 1:18:30Derrick Levasseur?

  Oh, he's a coward.

• 1:18:31Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:31Derrick Levasseur?

  He's a coward.

• 1:18:32Stephanie Harlowe?

  So his defense attorney sat at the table without him for the entire two-week trial. The jury was handed the case late on the afternoon of Wednesday, February 21st, and they deliberated that night for about an hour before going home. They returned the following day. They deliberated for only a few more hours and then returned with the verdict of guilty. Guilty of second-degree murder, guilty of second-degree assault for the. July 2019 incident guilty of falsifying physical evidence, witness tampering and abuse of a corpse. So during deliberations, the jury did have one question for the judge. They wanted to clarify the legal definition of consciously disregarded. So Adam was charged with second degree murder because the state didn't argue that the killing

• 1:19:17Stephanie Harlowe?

  of Harmony was premeditated or planned ahead of time, which is why he ended up being charged with reckless second degree murder. So to get a conviction for reckless second degree murder, the prosecutors had to prove two things, that Adam caused Harmony's death recklessly and he did so under the circumstances showing an extreme indifference to the value of human life. So during the trial, the jury learned that Adam repeatedly struck his five-year-old daughter in the head after she had bathroom accidents in the car. So before they could convict him, the jury legally had to prove that Adam consciously disregarded the risk, meaning he was fully aware that what he was doing created a massive

• 1:19:58Stephanie Harlowe?

  unjustified risk of death, but he actively chose to ignore that risk and keep going. So when the jury asked the judge to clarify what consciously disregarded meant, they were wrestling with a specific problem because Adam never admitted to anything. He never claimed or like, you know, said he did anything. It all came from Kayla. And there was no medical examiner's report to show what had happened to Harmony. They were like, how can we prove what was going on inside of Adam's mind when he was hitting Harmony repeatedly? And the judge responded to them very simply. The judge said, use your common sense and life experience.

• 1:20:37Derrick Levasseur?

  Hmm.

• 1:20:39Stephanie Harlowe?

  Right? And so using their common sense, the jury concluded that any adult knows that repeatedly punching a fragile five-year-old child in the head is likely to kill them.

• 1:20:49Derrick Levasseur?

  That's it. Reasonable person. I mean, you could see what the judge was saying. Use common sense.

• 1:20:53Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, the judge is like, it's not that complicated, guys.

• 1:20:55Derrick Levasseur?

  What do you think is gonna happen if you punch a small four-year-old child in the head and face? What do you think is gonna happen?

• 1:21:02Stephanie Harlowe?

  The jury, they decided that Adam, because he continued to beat her, because he stopped to buy fast food and didn't stop to like bring her to the hospital, and he refused to get her medical attention when she stopped breathing, that Adam consciously disregarded the fatal risk to her life, which, yes, absolutely.

• 1:21:20Derrick Levasseur?

  No doubt, which is why it's second degree, not first degree.

• 1:21:23Stephanie Harlowe?

  And they said he, he knew that putting her life in extreme danger, he was doing that, and he just simply didn't care, which is where that conscious disregard comes in. So while the jurors did not speak extensively to the press afterward, court observers did notice the profound toll that the trial took on them, which, understandable, right? We just saw portions of it, and it took a toll on us. They sat through days of deeply disturbing testimony, and when the guilty verdicts were read out loud, several members of the jury could be seen visibly crying, wiping away tears, and breathing heavy sighs of relief. Now, following his conviction, Adam Montgomery actually requested to skip his sentencing hearing on May 9th, 2024.

• 1:22:07Stephanie Harlowe?

  He was like, I don't need to go to that, do I? And the judge denied his request and ordered Adam to be physically present in the courtroom, which of course, because that's where victim impact statements are read. Of course you have to be there, you idiot. He doesn't want to hear anybody talk about what he did. He doesn't want to hear people talk about how it harmed them.

• 1:22:27Derrick Levasseur?

  Wouldn't that be a great opportunity to get up there and say you didn't do it?

• 1:22:29Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yes, he, but he didn't, and him not being there actually like made the jury feel even more like, this guy's an asshole.

• 1:22:35Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, we got it right.

• 1:22:36Stephanie Harlowe?

  He's a dirtbag.

• 1:22:36Derrick Levasseur?

  We got it right.

• 1:22:37Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah. During the, the victim impact statements and the judge's comments, Adam Montgomery had the audacity to look bored and annoyed at having to be there. In fact, there's one part, and I'm gonna play it for you, but there's one part where they say, you took a child away from her mother, and Adam like raises his eyebrows, like, really? Like, really? You know, you can see, it's like, it's written all over him that he's just like, how dare they be talking to me like this?

• 1:23:08Speaker 07

  You took a human life, and you did so in the most callous and heartless of ways. You robbed a five-year-old girl, your own daughter, of the life that she was to lead. You stole from your son's a sister, you took a daughter from her mother.

• 1:23:26Speaker 07

  You were convicted of reckless second degree murder. Reckless in this context does not mean something that was an accident. It is defined under law as something that manifests the extreme indifference to a human life. Your extreme indifference to the value of the human life is seen in so many of your actions in this case. And then, after her death, you treated her body like it was trash, worse than trash. You did unimaginable things to her body, and all in an effort to save yourself from being discovered as her murderer. Your criminal history similarly reflects your extreme indifference to the value of

• 1:24:07Speaker 07

  human life, your actions having taken both a physical and emotional toll on so many. In light of the egregious nature of the crimes of which you have been convicted in this case, and taking into consideration your extremely violent criminal history, the court finds the only way to do this is to keep you off the streets. To the extent you seek to rehabilitate yourself, that will have to happen behind the prison walls. Harmony was an innocent five-year-old girl. You treated her in the worst of possible ways, in both her life and in her death. Therefore, the court sentences you as follows.

• 1:24:49Speaker 07

  On charge ID 2027112C, the charge of second degree murder,

• 1:24:56Speaker 07

  you are sentenced to the New Hampshire State Prison for not more than life nor less than forty-five years. That sentence is stand committed. That sentence is consecutive. All of these sentences, I should say now, are consecutive to each other. To the monster who murdered my baby.

• 1:25:15Speaker 07

  I did not kill my daughter, and I look forward to trial to refute those offensive claims.

• 1:25:22Speaker 07

  That is all you have said about my sweet daughter's life. Another lie, like all the other ones you've told. Like the cover story you told, that you dropped her off with me, knowing full well and good if you had, she would be thriving right now.

• 1:25:41Speaker 07

  Not beaten and stuffed in a CMC bag where you put her.

• 1:25:48Speaker 07

  She had a life worth living, unlike your own. And it bothered you to your core that she was nothing like you and everything like me.

• 1:25:59Speaker 07

  Beautiful inside and out, funny, smart, sassy, loving, and most of all, kind.

• 1:26:08Speaker 07

  She wasn't a coward like you, and I'll be forever grateful for that. You're a coward who has to be in control of everything and everyone around you. Insecure and paranoid, the list goes on.

• 1:26:23Speaker 07

  She is none of those things. She lit up a room when she walked in. She made a mark wherever she went, and you couldn't stand it. She was an incredible big sister. She loved her brother Jamison to her core, and I know she loved your sons too. No matter the picture you tried to paint of her.

• 1:26:49Speaker 07

  December 7th will forever be the darkest day of my life. The night you beat her to death, I woke up in the middle of the night in agonizing pain. From my head to my toes and I felt like I was dying, not knowing in the most brutal way, a part of me was dying.

• 1:27:08Speaker 07

  Suffering in that backseat for twenty minutes while you and your wife fed yourselves and your other children. And you got high, twenty minutes that you could have used to save her life.

• 1:27:21Speaker 07

  Did she cry for me? Did she scream? Did she beg you to stop? I'll never know.

• 1:27:29Speaker 07

  Because like I said, you're too much of a coward to tell the truth and do one good thing for Harmony. You may have taken her physically from me, but she is always, always with me.

• 1:27:44Speaker 07

  And I will forever look for her until the end of my days. But I hope that every day and every night you are on this earth, you hear nothing but my baby's giggle. I doubt you ever heard it in this life. All she knew with you was misery and fear. I hope you hear a sweet voice telling you to stop hitting her over and over, or how she looked the very last time you saw her, broken and bruised. You were supposed to protect her, yet you did the opposite.

• 1:28:15Speaker 07

  Harmony was anything to you but property that you could throw away when she was more of a burden to you than a meal ticket.

• 1:28:21Speaker 05

  My name is Amy Van Aken and I'm reading a statement on behalf of Kayla Montgomery. Goodbye. I wanted to write a letter to you because it's the only way to tell you how I feel. I don't know about you, but I need some kind of closure. I'll forever have a place in my heart for you, whether you believe me or not. You were my best friend, my husband, the person I chose to spend the rest of my life with. You were the father of our children we have together, and I'm forever grateful for having them. I will never forget the birth of our first son we have. That was one of the many best days of my life. We had just gotten married and started a family of our own. I'll never forget when your grandmother said to me, "You're the best thing that has ever happened to my grandson."

• 1:29:04Speaker 05

  I'll always remember the births of all the children we have. Also, when you stepped up to be a father to Harmony. You worked so hard to get custody of her, and it took a few years, but you got her. I won't forget the day we picked her up and brought her home. We were so excited. Then, during the summer, was when we both started to go downhill because of relapse. After five years of sobriety, that was the beginning of the chaos. By the time Thanksgiving came around in the year 2019, we were losing everything. My job, our place to live, and after living in a car for a few weeks, we lost that. At the same time, Harmony dies because of your anger and hitting her so many times. We didn't even know she passed away until the car died, and we had to take our kids out of the car. She didn't respond. She was lifeless.

• 1:29:48Speaker 05

  You are not the person I married, not the person who loved me and who never hurt me. It's like I married my- My father. I never would have thought I would have to run away from you until I knew I had to take our kids and leave you. I'll never forget that day either. It was one of the hardest things for me to do. The last couple of nights after you got arrested the first time, I was sleeping with a knife because I did not know what you were going to do to me. I know you probably hate me because I had to do the right thing, but also because of all the bad, not only did you lose your rights to our children, but so did I. Now I'm going to have to keep fighting for them to at least be back in their lives. You seem to forget you cheated, not me, and you just left the kids and I for some girl, packed your stuff and left to another state. I called you out on your BS when you're on your way

• 1:30:32Speaker 05

  to Maine, and I also called you out for being with someone else months before you left to Maine. You accused me, but you were the one cheating. The day you got arrested on January 2022, you called me and said to tell Kelsey you're sorry about her car. Yeah, right. That's all you're worried about, not your wife and children you may never see again? No apology for cheating on me and making me think I was crazy? So I gotta do all I can to get back on track with my life. You caused so much hurt and pain. I don't even know why I still care about you and actually feel bad for you. Oh, maybe it's because I'm not a cold, heartless person and still have some care about you. I was in love with you once. Now I still love you because you're the father of our children. This is goodbye for now. Maybe I'll see you at the future in some point. Goodbye, Adam.

• 1:31:17Stephanie Harlowe?

  Okay, so not Kayla writing a Dear John breakup letter as a victim impact statement? We have to talk about that, but let's take, let's take our last break. We'll be right back.

• 1:31:30Stephanie Harlowe?

  This episode is brought to you by Smalls. And Derek, we're going to play a quick round of False or Fact.

• 1:31:35Derrick Levasseur?

  Oh, I've done this before. Okay, I'm ready.

• 1:31:37Stephanie Harlowe?

  Okay, False or Fact. Cats are tiny judgmental carnivores who believe they own your home.

• 1:31:42Derrick Levasseur?

  That is without a doubt a fact.

• 1:31:44Stephanie Harlowe?

  It is. Correct. Correct. But here's the real one. Cats are actually obligate carnivores. So that means they need lots of real meat to stay healthy.

• 1:31:53Derrick Levasseur?

  That one is also a fact.

• 1:31:54Stephanie Harlowe?

  Exactly. And that's why Smalls makes so much sense, right? Smalls creates fresh, human-grade food for cats, and it's made specifically to help. Cats thrive.

• 1:32:03Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, because not all cat food is created the same. We know that by now.

• 1:32:06Stephanie Harlowe?

  A lot of traditional cat food is made with cheap meat byproducts, fillers, and artificial ingredients. Ew. So basically, big pet food saves money by cutting corners and you and your cat end up with the shortcuts. You're paying for it and your cat is consuming this stuff that's really not fit for your queen.

• 1:32:24Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, exactly. And cats aren't exactly known for tolerating disrespect. Let's be honest.

• 1:32:28Stephanie Harlowe?

  And they're not going to tell you they're mad. They're going to show you. They'll stare directly into your soul and knock a glass off the counter just to make a point. But Smalls is different. Their fresh recipes are over 80% animal protein with zero fillers and the ingredients are human grade.

• 1:32:43Derrick Levasseur?

  Which is what cats actually need because they use protein as their main source of energy.

• 1:32:46Stephanie Harlowe?

  Right. More quality protein, more fuel, more sustained energy. And according to Smalls, after switching, 88% of cat parents reported overall health improvements. Things like better digestion, softer fur, more energy.

• 1:33:00Derrick Levasseur?

  Mm-hmm. And better digestion means the litter box situation's improving as well, which we all want that. We all need that.

• 1:33:06Stephanie Harlowe?

  And I also like that Smalls is risk-free. So if your cat doesn't like their food, won't eat their food for any reason, they'll refund you, which is important because cats are adorable little dictators with very specific opinions.

• 1:33:17Derrick Levasseur?

  Mm-hmm. Tiny dictators suffer zero compromise.

• 1:33:20Stephanie Harlowe?

  I love it, though. So if you want to feed your cat fresh, high-protein food without fillers, preservatives, or artificial ingredients, Smalls is a really good option. Stop serving your little carnivore a bowl of processed shortcuts for a limited time because you are a Crime Weekly listener. Thank you very much. Get 60% off your first order plus free shipping and free treats for life when you head to Smalls.com/crimeweekly. One last time, that's 60% off your first order plus free shipping and free treats for life when you head to Smalls.com/crimeweekly.

• 1:34:00Stephanie Harlowe?

  Okay, we're back. So, I found it personally incredibly offensive and disrespectful to Harmony that Kayla was allowed to have a victim impact statement read at Adam Montgomery sentencing. First of all, she made it all about herself.

• 1:34:14Derrick Levasseur?

  Especially when that's the statement you're gonna make.

• 1:34:15Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, exactly. She made it all about herself. There was nothing in there.

• 1:34:17Derrick Levasseur?

  Was this about a woman who's been cheated on, or about a murderer?

• 1:34:20Stephanie Harlowe?

  Exactly. She's like, "You wanted to call me and ask about Kayla's car, like, of course. You're a monster. You are a monster, Kayla. You're both monsters, and you're probably the only two." She's like, "Remember when your grandmother said I was the best thing that ever happened to you? I still care for you. I still love you. Maybe I'll see you in the future." Like, y'all are weird. You're weird. This was about Harmony. Harmony was the true victim here. That you could've sent him a letter to prison, alright? If you wanted to say all that, you took away the attention from Harmony. You didn't say one thing about Harmony, except like, "Harmony died because of your anger, and remember we were so excited to get her?" Like, bullsh** stop. None of us believe this. None of us believe this. So, screw this one. I hate her.

• 1:35:05Derrick Levasseur?

  I want to keep the attention on Adam, because there's a lot of blame to go around here. Ultimately, he's the one who murdered her. He's the one who created the plan to hide her body. Kayla, not a fan. I could say some other choice words. That victim statement was horrible, completely just tone deaf for what was going on in that moment. And to me, it sounds like a scorned woman who was basically saying without saying it, "See? I was your ride or die. I loved you."

• 1:35:36Stephanie Harlowe?

  I would've kept covering it up, but you cheated on me.

• 1:35:38Derrick Levasseur?

  There you go. You took the words out of my mouth. You did this to yourself by not keeping your dick in your pants, and that's why I turned on you. Not because it was the right thing to do.

• 1:35:48Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, it would have been the Bonnie Deer Clyde because at the end of the day, and I'm just gonna say it with my chest, Kayla does not care that Harmony's dead.

• 1:35:54Derrick Levasseur?

  It doesn't sound it. I gotta be honest with you. It doesn't sound it.

• 1:35:57Stephanie Harlowe?

  She never cared. She never, never cared. She never cared about Harmony.

• 1:36:01Derrick Levasseur?

  Appetite. She didn't even lose her appetite. She had a meal right after this girl's in the backseat. We've, we've talked about Kayla at length.

• 1:36:08Stephanie Harlowe?

  Disgusting Kayla. You're disgusting.

• 1:36:10Derrick Levasseur?

  To change it over real quick, Crystal's statement, much better, much better. Obviously, Crystal laid into him, called him a coward multiple times. That's what he is, amongst other things.

• 1:36:20Stephanie Harlowe?

  Even Crystal was a little bit like, you hated her because she was like me and nothing like you. She was amazing and powerful and wonderful, like me, you know? So even that, it was like, can we just talk about Harmony without making it about ourselves?

• 1:36:35Derrick Levasseur?

  Overall, and I know we got a couple more things to talk about here, Harmony was just in a really bad situation all the way around. She really had nobody looking out for her best interests, other than Michelle and Timothy, who didn't get the opportunity to adopt, adopt her and keep her because if they had, we wouldn't be here right now.

• 1:36:53Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, they're after her. They're her foster parents, yeah. So before the sentencing, the prosecutor had asked Adam to disclose where Harmony's body was in exchange for a minimum 35-year sentence. Adam showed no response. He did not look up from the table in front of him. In August of 2023, a jury had convicted Adam of stealing and selling firearms, and so he was sentenced to a minimum of 32 and a half years to a maximum of 67 years in prison. And for his daughter's death, Adam was sentenced to, I believe it was 56 years to life in prison, but 56 years minimum. But then on July 11th, 2026, the New Hampshire Supreme Court overturned Adam's murder conviction because of a legal technicality.

• 1:37:33Stephanie Harlowe?

  And in very simple terms, the murder conviction was thrown out because the state broke a fundamental rule of fairness by combining two completely separate crimes into one single trial. So in the American legal system, you have the right to a fair trial, and part of that means a jury is only supposed to judge you for one specific incident at a time, unless multiple crimes are directly connected, like a robbery or a thief also. steals a getaway car. So if a prosecutor wants to try a person for two totally different crimes that happened at different times, they're supposed to hold two separate trials. In this case, the prosecutors put two different incidents into the same trial. So the incident in July of 2019 when Adam struck Harmony and gave her a black eye,

• 1:38:16Stephanie Harlowe?

  and then the actual killing of Harmony several months later. So Adam's lawyers had asked the judge to split these two incidents into separate trials, but the judge said no and let the prosecutors present both to the same jury. Now, the New Hampshire Supreme Court ruled that mixing these two crimes together poisoned the jury's ability to be fair. For the July 2019 incident, the state had very strong and undeniable evidence. For the murder, the physical evidence was much weaker and relied almost entirely on the word of Adam's ex-wife, Kayla Montgomery, who had changed her story multiple times and had lied and done all of this. So by showing the jury the strong evidence that Adam was a violent abuser in the July

• 1:38:58Stephanie Harlowe?

  2019 incident, it made it impossible for the jury to look at the murder charge objectively. This is what the Supreme Court is saying. The High Court, the Supreme Court, said the jury most likely thought, well, we know for a fact, he's a violent monster who beat her before, so he must have murdered her too. I think that's not giving the jury enough credit for their intelligence, but okay. So the Supreme Court didn't say Adam was innocent, they just said the process was unfair. Because the rules were broken, the murder verdict cannot stand. To fix this, the state now has to do it the right way. They will need to hold a brand-new trial for the murder charge only, where the jury can look at the murder evidence without being influenced by the July 2019 assault.

• 1:39:39Stephanie Harlowe?

  So the trial judge allowed both crimes to be presented initially, and that's because the judge believed they were legally part of a single, continuous pattern of escalating behavior. Which, by the way, is an exception to the normal trial rules. So under the law, a judge can join two separate crimes into one trial if they show a common plan, scheme, or pattern. Which it sounds to me that's exactly valid, but...

• 1:40:05Derrick Levasseur?

  I agree.

• 1:40:06Stephanie Harlowe?

  Right?

• 1:40:07Derrick Levasseur?

  Absolutely.

• 1:40:08Stephanie Harlowe?

  So the prosecution said the initial assault, giving Harmony a black eye, and the subsequent murder were not random, isolated events. Instead, they said both incidents were part of a continuous, ongoing campaign of extreme physical abuse aimed at the exact same victim. And the judge was like, "Yeah, I agree with this logic." And so the judge ruled that the jury needed to hear about the black eye to fully understand the hostile relationship between Adam and his daughter leading up to her death. Which, once again, if the law allows the judge to make this call, why are we overturning it afterwards? When judges are supposed to be able to interpret the law like that? And I don't think that's a big interpretation. I don't think it's like, "Oh, we really reached there."

• 1:40:50Derrick Levasseur?

  It's not a stretch, by any means, no.

• 1:40:52Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:53Derrick Levasseur?

  What do I always say? Best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. Is it reasonable to say, "Hey, listen, this person has a predisposition to violence, has struck this girl before. Is it possible that that same level of violence resulted in her death?" I think that the jury should have that information to make a correct and a thorough assessment if they should find this person guilty or not.

• 1:41:13Stephanie Harlowe?

  Exactly. And the judge, within the law, has the right to be like, "Yes, I can see how these two events have a common pattern or motive or plan." So the Supreme Court ruled that the judge's interpretation stretched the common plan rule way too far. They pointed out what they thought was two major flaws in the judge's reasoning. The assault happened in July 2019, but Harmony was killed in December 2019. So the court ruled that a five-month gap is too long to claim the two events were part of a single, continuous incident. This is the most dumb call the Supreme Court has ever made.

• 1:41:47Derrick Levasseur?

  Ridiculous, but okay. Let's step back for five seconds. Ridiculous, I don't agree with it, you don't agree with it. But from what they're saying is, a continuous event in their mind is, okay. The person struck them earlier in the day or the night before, right? Hit them hard in the head. The next day, they continue that where it something else occurs. So it's a continuance of the same event that resulted in the death. It can't be two separate things. It can't be used as a to show a pattern of behavior, which is what we're saying.

• 1:42:18Stephanie Harlowe?

  But that law, no, that law actually does give the judge of allow her to put those two things. If they show a can a common plan or pattern, that's part of what allows the judge to do that.

• 1:42:33Derrick Levasseur?

  Maybe they're seeing it as, or they clearly were, they're seeing it as two separate events.

• 1:42:39Stephanie Harlowe?

  No, because the judge said that she believed they were legally part of a single, continuous pattern of escalating behavior.

• 1:42:45Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, I agree.

• 1:42:46Stephanie Harlowe?

  Which that is.

• 1:42:47Derrick Levasseur?

  But I'm saying the Supreme Court obviously saw it differently.

• 1:42:50Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, obviously. Why, why it's this, this case that they choose to start like dotting their i's and crossing their t's? I don't know. But so the high court, the Supreme Court also stated that the judge failed to properly weigh the prejudicial effect. A judge's ultimate duty is to ensure a fair trial, and the Supreme Court ruled that allowing the highly emotional, easily proven assault charge into the murder trial made a fair verdict impossible. The Supreme Court threw out the murder conviction sentencing, but Adam still has the non-murder convictions to be served consecutively to his weapon sentence, meaning his absolute base time in prison is, I believe, like at the, at the least, it's like 43.5 years.

• 1:43:35Stephanie Harlowe?

  So even if for some crazy thing that happens, the prosecutor fails to convict Adam in an upcoming murder retrial, Adam will remain locked up until he's roughly 77 years old, which I would like to point out is still way more time than if he had taken the deal and told prosecutors where Harmony's body is.

• 1:43:54Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, but he's too big of a coward. He just doesn't want, he just wants to go down looking in some people's eyes as a victim.

• 1:43:59Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, so I am very against the Supreme Court's decision here, and I could spend maybe the next roughly 10 minutes doing a quick Google search where there were a lot more blatant unfair unfairties in trials, and the Supreme Court still ruled with the initial and original judge and overlooked those. So once again, why is it with Harmony's case? Well, you're like, oh, this highly emotional attack that we proved happened, the July 2019 black eye, we proved that happened. So, yes, of course, it's highly emotional. A father punching his five-year-old daughter in the face and giving her a black eye is supposed to be highly emotional. A five-year-old being murdered is supposed to be highly emotional. Just because

• 1:44:42Stephanie Harlowe?

  something is affecting you emotionally, it doesn't mean that you can't still look at it in like a logical way. I don't understand why these two things suddenly like, oh, if something makes you emotional, how are you going to sit through the trial of a murdered five-year-old and not feel some emotional impact there? But, uh, yeah, I think the Supreme Court really dropped the ball there. But, uh, at this point, before jumping straight into a new trial, the state is actually trying to save the original verdict. So, I hope they do. Um, on June 24th, 2026, so this was just a few weeks ago, actually, the state prosecutors filed an official motion asking the New Hampshire Supreme Court to reconsider and reverse its own opinion, which I think is a good move, right? Because you don't

• 1:45:25Stephanie Harlowe?

  want to have to go through a whole new trial. And at that point, there is a fear, because a lot of the evidence against Adam Montgomery, if you're not looking at the July 2019 black eye and all the stuff that happened there, a lot of it is just Kayla, who is not a sympathetic character.

• 1:45:42Derrick Levasseur?

  And also could be considered a suspect as well.

• 1:45:45Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yes, who she's not a sympathetic character. At the very least, she allowed him to kill Harmony and then helped him cover up her murder for years, right? It's somebody I look at, and I'm like, I don't think you're any better than him, to be honest. So, that is the person whose word is what's basically...

• 1:46:05Derrick Levasseur?

  You're banking everything on and who was given a deal.

• 1:46:08Stephanie Harlowe?

  So I really don't want there to be another trial, because I just, I don't want it. I don't want to see how it goes. I don't.

• 1:46:16Derrick Levasseur?

  No, it's always a risk.

• 1:46:18Stephanie Harlowe?

  It's always a risk. So it would be better if the Supreme Court could just be told like, yeah, you guys made a stupid call here. We can, there is legal precedent here to saying that the July 2019 black eye is part of an escalating pattern of violence, because that's how an escalating pattern of violence works. You know, domestic abusers don't beat their wives every day, right? If there wasn't some good mixed in with the bad, most people would leave. So they have to kind of... Be nice to them sometimes. So just because Adam maybe didn't beat Harmony every day for five months, it doesn't mean that that July 2019 incident is not directly related to his ability to do that and not worry about what would happen if he did it and not care if

• 1:47:02Stephanie Harlowe?

  he hurt Harmony. So, bad call. Hopefully, the Supreme Court does reconsider and reverse. If the Supreme Court denies the state's motion to reinstate the conviction, the Attorney General's office has vowed to immediately take Adam Montgomery back to court for a second murder trial. So, that's where we're at now. I hope the Supreme Court doesn't take too long.

• 1:47:21Derrick Levasseur?

  I hope so too. I, you know, overall, my takeaway from this case, and it took a lot out of us to cover this one. This was a tough one. One of the harder ones we've covered since the inception of Crime Weekly, just based in the graphic nature of it. And for anybody who stuck with us on this one, respect, appreciate you guys going along for the ride, because it was a difficult one. But, we all feel for Harmony. This was a complete injustice to her and anybody who cared about her. It should have never happened. And there's nothing we can do about that at this point, other than make sure that Adam is kept behind bars. So I want to turn my attention to some different people. Because during this whole series,

• 1:48:06Derrick Levasseur?

  I had a few messages and emails come in from CPS workers, police officers, etc. And for the most part, all of them shared the same sentiment, right? Like, there's a responsibility that you guys have, that I think because of the caseload you may be currently in possession of, where you're doing hundreds of cases, that you can become complacent on certain calls, right? We're not saying you're toros here, but just you go into a call, maybe you don't do a thorough examination or investigation. Take this case, put it on your bookshelf in your brain, and use it as a reference on the days when you're feeling tired or upset or distracted by something outside of work. Because we've all been there. I've definitely been there. And understand that

• 1:48:53Derrick Levasseur?

  Your job and the importance that comes with it is something that can't be put into words. There are other Harmony Montgomerys out there that can still be saved. So make sure that you consider that on every call you go on, and that goes for police officers as well. Remember, this is an isolated incident. You could be walking into the next one, but when that fork in the road comes up, you could be the difference here where instead of having a story end like this, we can have a positive outcome. And so that's, that's my takeaway as we leave this episode and go into the next one.

• 1:49:28Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, and remember with Demetrius Toros, like when Adam said, "Oh, she's with her mother, Crystal", and then Toros called Crystal and she, she didn't answer and he left a voicemail. When I said like, "Just be a human and call the police and ask them to do a welfare check", remember, you're never going to be judged for doing too much.

• 1:49:44Derrick Levasseur?

  No, no doubt. Being too thorough.

• 1:49:46Stephanie Harlowe?

  You're never gonna be, you're never gonna be like, "Wow, he really went the extra mile. God."

• 1:49:50Derrick Levasseur?

  No doubt.

• 1:49:50Stephanie Harlowe?

  What is he, so extra? No. You will be judged though if something like this happens and you did too little.

• 1:49:56Derrick Levasseur?

  And it's on your conscience. It's, you gotta live with that. So, we're thinking of everybody involved. We love you guys. We, you know, parents, non-parents, I don't, you're a human being. This case impacts you and I'm so glad we covered it because now I'm personally invested in the outcome and I'm, I'm really hoping it's a quick one and this is, this whole decision is overturned and we don't have to talk about Adam ever again.

• 1:50:17Stephanie Harlowe?

  To be fair, this very rarely happens, especially when the decision is unanimous. And I don't know if you know, but the Supreme Court decision to overturn his murder conviction was unanimous.

• 1:50:27Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, it's crazy. So it's gonna more than likely go to a new trial and our family will be right there watching the whole thing, doing whatever we can from the distance to ensure that we get the same outcome. And he's back in prison with his, with his friends who have children, children themselves and may not take too kindly to child abuse.

• 1:50:47Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:50:48Derrick Levasseur?

  Just saying. Guys, we love you. We appreciate you. We will be back next week. Until then, everyone stay safe out there. We'll see you soon.

• 1:50:55Stephanie Harlowe?

  Bye.