Adam Montgomery, the father of missing seven-year-old Harmony Montgomery, has reportedly been identified as a suspect in an unsolved murder case in Lynn, Massachusetts.
Mr Montgomery is already facing charges of physically abusing his daughter in July 2019 and endangering her welfare. He was arrested on 4 January in connection with the Harmony case, and is currently in a jail in New Hampshire.
But now, the police are also looking into Mr Montgomery in connection with the murder of Darlin Guzman in Lynn in 2008, according to Boston 25 News.
Guzman’s body was found in the parking lot of a convenience store at Austin Square in Lynn on 10 February 2008. He had been shot in the chest.
Police rushed him to the hospital but he was pronounced dead.
Mr Montgomery and two other members of his family have reportedly been the focus of the investigation into Guzman’s murder. They had decided to meet Guzman at the White Hen convenience store at Austin Square on that day, and the meeting resulted in fatal gunfire, an unidentified source told the television channel.
Mr Montgomery was 18 at that time and had several other charges against him in New Hampshire. He was out on bail at the time.
Meanwhile, the search for Harmony Montgomery is still underway.
Harmony has not been seen since around October or November 2019 when she was five years old. Yet, a missing persons investigation was only launched in December 2021.
She was living with her father, who had been given custody of his daughter in February 2019, as well as his wife Kayla Montgomery and their children at a house on 77 Gilford Street in Manchester at the time. The little girl had been in and out of foster care for much of her life. In 2018, her mother Crystal Sorey lost custody of her due in part to substance abuse.
Mr Montgomery has refused to tell law enforcement officers the whereabouts of his daughter, according to a police affidavit.
The Manchester police announced this week that the reward money has climbed to $140,000 (around £102,000) for information that leads to her whereabouts.
The missing girl is about four feet tall and weighs 50 pounds, according to the police description. She has blonde hair and blue eyes and is also blind in her right eye. She wears glasses.
Questions have been mounting over how a little girl could not be seen for more than two years without any action being taken by authorities. The child protection agencies in both Massachusetts and New Hampshire are under intense scrutiny for their handling of the legal custody of the seven-year-old.