Arrest warrant issued for stepmother of Harmony Montgomery after she fails to appear in court

MANCHESTER, N.H. — An arrest warrant has been issued for the stepmother of Harmony Montgomery after she failed to appear in court for a scheduled hearing on Thursday morning, officials said.

Kayla Montgomery, 32, was supposed to attend a dispositional conference related to charges of welfare fraud and theft by deception, but she never showed up to the courthouse, according to the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office.

A judge has since granted the state’s request for an arrest warrant.

Montgomery is also accused of lying to a grand jury during testimony in May about where she worked and what her shifts were around the time Harmony went missing.

Kayla was freed from custody in June after pleading not guilty to perjury charges.

In August, Attorney General John M. Formella and Manchester Police Chief Allen D. Aldenberg announced that the search for Harmony had shifted to a homicide investigation.

Multiple sources of investigative information and new biological evidence led investigators to conclude that Harmony was murdered in early December of 2019, according to Formella and Aldenberg.

Harmony’s remains have not yet been located.

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