IT will likely take "awhile, meaning weeks" to process and analyze the evidence – including a refrigerator – that was removed from a missing girl's father's former home, a retired FBI agent has said.
Earlier this week, it seemed the world was going to finally get answers about what happened to eight-year-old Harmony Montgomery after she seemingly vanished in 2019.
After a series of alleged errors, no one reported her missing until December 2021.
Police narrowed down the time of her disappearance to November 28 to December 10, 2019, but the months-long search so far has been fruitless and frustrating.
That was until Tuesday when there seemed to be an ominous breakthrough in the case.
Law enforcement at every level – local, state and federal – swarmed the Manchester, New Hampshire home where Harmony's father Adam Montgomery and now estranged wife Kayla once lived.
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Police were outside the home for about 24 hours. At one point, FBI agents wheeled a refrigerator in and out of the house and secured it with specialized wrapping.
Blair Miller, who adopted Harmony's younger brother Jamison, told The Sun this week, "We wanted answers, and now we're afraid of it."
That will likely take "awhile, meaning weeks," said Jennifer Coffindaffer, a retired FBI agent with nearly three decades of experience.
She told The Sun on Friday that she's never seen an entire fridge get removed from a home. There were also pieces of the closet removed.
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"They think biological evidence from Harmony is in there," Coffindaffer claimed. "Whether that's a hair or something.
She also claimed for a judge to sign off a probable cause warrant for the fridge means there's new, corroborated information that leads law enforcement to believe it's vital and needs to be tested in a lab.
The evidence will go from here to the FBI field office in Boston and then likely to the FBI lab in Quantico.
From there it can take weeks because a life is not in immediate jeopardy, according to Coffindaffer, but it will likely be high on the priority list because of the intense media coverage.
"They're looking for biological or trace evidence," the retired FBI agent said.
For example, if there was a picture of her in a pink outfit, law enforcement could be looking for pink fibers in the floorboard that could corroborate child abuse accusations against Adam.
"They're building the case in totality," Coffindaffer said. "They have to find what happened to her. They're building on building blocks."
EXPECT THE WORST
Meanwhile, Jamison, who's just five years old, doesn't know what's going on and his adopted fathers Blair and Johnathon Miller said they're preparing to talk to him once they know more information.
On Tuesday "the US Marshals and DA's office are telling us to standby and they'll let us know as soon as they can but prepare for the worst," Blair said.
"We're realizing we're going to have to have that conversation with him. We were trying to keep hope alive, but that hope is being ripped away from us."
ADAM'S ALLEGED ABUSE
Eight-year-old Harmony was last seen alive in October 2019; however, police were not aware of her disappearance until two years later.
According to records by the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families, Harmony was bounced between her mother’s care and DCF for much of her young life.
The young girl was placed in the custody of her father, Adam, in 2019 when she was roughly five years old.
Investigators have since narrowed the time frame of Harmony's disappearance to November 28 to December 10, 2019.
Adam, 31, is being held on charges of felony second-degree assault stemming from an alleged attack against Harmony in 2019.
However, he has not been charged with the child's disappearance.
The 31-year-old is also facing a misdemeanor charge of interference with custody and two misdemeanor counts of endangering the welfare of a child.
Adam's brother, Michael, told police the 31-year-old was physically abusive to Harmony and gave her a black eye.
A detective then spoke to Adam's Uncle Kevin and asked him about Harmony’s eye injury.
According to court documents, Kevin said that Adam told him in July 2019 that he [Adam] “bashed her [Harmony] around the house.”
Adam was allegedly angry at Harmony – who was five years old at the time – because she was supposed to be watching her infant brother but he started crying, which enraged the father.
The uncle also said Adam spanked his daughter, forced her to stand in the corner for hours, and ordered her to scrub a toilet with her toothbrush.
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