MANCHESTER, N.H (NewsNation) — The search for 8-year-old Harmony Montgomery has led investigators to a second-floor apartment where her father and stepmother once lived in Manchester, New Hampshire.
FBI agents dressed in white plastic suits carried a refrigerator out of the home. Wrapped in biohazard tape, it was then loaded into a truck.
Harmony was last seen in 2019, when she was 5 years old. Authorities, however, didn’t know she was missing until last year.
Harmony’s mother, Crystal Sorey, said she was relieved to find out police were at the apartment.
“I was kind of relieved because I have told police they needed to look further into that building since the beginning,” she said. “It was my intuition.”
Sorey has been desperate to find her daughter and is pointing fingers at Harmony’s father, Adam Montgomery, who is locked up on child abuse charges and his current wife Kayla Montgomery.
Kayla Montgomery, 31, bonded out of jail last week. She is accused of lying during grand jury testimony about the investigation and illegally collecting food stamps in Harmony’s name.
She has been ordered to have daily check-ins with police, continue her substance abuse treatment and have no contact with Harmony’s father.
Harmony lived with her father and stepmother prior to her disappearance because Sorey was battling a drug addiction.
The decision to give her father custody — despite his violent, criminal past — sparked a state investigation into how child welfare cases are handled.
Law enforcement is not yet saying what they found inside the apartment. But the FBI evidence team doesn’t appear to be leaving anytime soon.
Authorities have blocked off roads and set up a tent outside the building. They even brought in an air conditioner unit as temperatures rose.
Sorey said she doesn’t know if Harmony is still alive.
“I don’t. I don’t anymore,” she said. “I’m trying to hang onto hope and I’m hoping she is still alive.”
Sorey has said in the past she thought Harmony was sold into sex trafficking for drug money. But in light of the investigation returning to the New Hampshire apartment, she is losing hope Harmony is even alive.