New Hampshire social workers ignored a litany of warning signs that a 5-year-old girl was being physically abused by her father prior to the child’s death, the slain girl’s mother alleged in a negligence lawsuit filed Friday against the state.

Crystal Sorey says the state’s Division for Children, Youth and Families failed to act on numerous reports from multiple people about Harmony Montgomery’s welfare after father Adam Montgomery was awarded custody of the girl in February 2019.

Adam Montgomery was sentenced in May to a minimum of 56 years in prison after he was convicted of murdering his daughter and moving her corpse around for months before disposing of it. Police believe Harmony was killed by him nearly two years before she was reported missing in 2021. Her body was never found.

  • edric@lemm.ee
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    2 months ago

    If it makes you feel better, he’ll likely have a target on his back in prison, as people who hurt children are supposedly not well-liked in there either. So he’ll be living in constant fear and paranoia.

    • Mossy Feathers (She/They)@pawb.social
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      2 months ago

      Not really, again, this isn’t really about revenge; it’s more like, what would it take to make these kinds of people stop acting this way. Someone else made the point that, at the end of the day, they’re breaking the law anyway. The law hasn’t ever been, nor will likely ever be, enough to stop people like that. As such, a punishment like that probably wouldn’t do anything except make cruelty socially acceptable (it might actually backfire).

      sigh