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Estranged wife of Adam Montgomery details alleged abuse, says she still cares about him
Kayla Montgomery, the prosecution's star witness, claims she saw her husband beat young Harmony Montgomery to death in late 2019.
Kayla Montgomery, the estranged wife of Adam Montgomery, testified again Monday that she saw him beat his young daughter Harmony to death in 2019. During cross-examination, Kayla was asked about her troubled relationship with Adam. She still cares about him, she said, while also tearfully explaining his abusive behavior.
“I still care about him because he’s the father of my children,” she said. “He was my best friend. It’s been hard for me to just let go.”
Kayla and Adam had two boys together. Harmony was Adam’s daughter from a previous relationship.
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Prosecutors say that Adam repeatedly punched Harmony after she soiled herself in a car that the family was living in on the morning of Dec. 7, 2019. They allege she died later that day, and that he hid her body in a duffel bag when their car broke down.
During the investigation, Kayla lied to police and a grand jury by telling them a story about how Adam dropped her off at work and then brought Harmony to see her biological mother. Kayla now acknowledges that lie and is serving time in a women’s correctional facility in Concord for perjury. She testified that Adam scared her, and so she repeated his cover story in an effort to help him evade authorities.
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Officials have said that Kayla and Adam carried Harmony’s body around for months after she died, hiding it in various bags that were stored in, among other places, a cooler, a pizza shop freezer, and the ceiling of a shelter.
Lawyers representing Adam concede that he falsified physical evidence and abused his daughter’s corpse, but dispute that he killed her. In opening statements, they shifted the blame to Kayla and said that Adam discovered Harmony’s dead body in the early morning hours of Dec. 7, 2019, when he returned from unspecified “business” trying to make money to support the family.
Adam’s lawyers have focused on a note that Kayla wrote while incarcerated. In it, Kayla apparently lays out her demands for a plea agreement, expresses her desire to be with Adam, and describes her actions toward him as a “betrayal.” The note casts doubt on Kayla’s claims of living in fear of Adam, his lawyers have suggested.
When presented with a photo of herself with black eyes allegedly caused by Adam, and asked why she would stay with someone who did that to her, Kayla said she was scared, and that she still cared about him.
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“For some reason I still cared about him,” she said through tears Monday when presented with a photo of Harmony. “I was scared.”
Adam grew paranoid in the months after Harmony died, she said. He falsely accused her of sleeping with other men and of working with police. He used fear to make sure Kayla stuck to the false story about dropping Harmony off with her biological mother, she said.
“He was abusive, in all ways, physical, emotional, and mentally,” Kayla said Monday about Adam.
Kayla previously told investigators that Adam gave her “evil eyes” during and after Harmony’s death to keep her in line using fear.
When asked if she thought Adam was “pure evil,” Kayla responded Monday by saying “when he would start going crazy, yeah.”
Kayla was asked if there were “good times” with Adam.
“Yeah,” she said. “But it was mostly bad.”
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