Advocate: Massachusetts system 'failed' missing girl Harmony

The needs of a missing 5-year-old girl who authorities began looking for two years after she was last seen were not prioritized from the time she was an infant in Massachusetts until her father was awarded custody of her in New Hampshire, the head of Massachusetts' Office of the Child Advocate said in a report released Wednesday.

Harmony Montgomery, who's last known sighting was in 2019 while in the custody of her father, suffered from a ripple effect of "miscalculations of risk and unequal weight placed on parents' rights versus a child's wellbeing," said Maria Mossaides, head of the Office of the Child Advocate.

Montgomery, still the subject of a search, was born in Massachusetts in 2014 to unmarried parents who were no longer together and had a history of substance abuse, according to the report by the independent agency. Her father was in prison when she was born.

Harmony, who is blind in one eye and has behavioral needs, was in the custody of child protective services in Massachusetts since she was 2 months old. She was moved between the homes of her mother and her foster parents multiple times, the report said, causing “significant trauma and harm" to her wellbeing.

By February 2019, her father, who was living in New Hampshire and had had little contact with her, was awarded custody. She disappeared in late November or early December of that year.

“When children are not at the center of every aspect of the child protection services system, then the system cannot truly protect them," Mossaides said at a news conference.

“We do not know Harmony Montgomery's ultimate fate, and unfortunately, we may never. But we do know that this beautiful, young child, experienced many tragedies in her short life, and that by not putting her and her needs first, our system...