Talk:Murder of Harmony Montgomery

Lead section has extra information
The lead section alleges "... murdered by child abuse in Manchester, New Hampshire. She was killed after a Massachusetts judge awarded her biological father, Adam Montgomery, custody." I am confused by these statements, which are not explained elsewhere in the article. As far as the article indicates, the biological father murdered his daughter, not child abuse, and the article says nothing about a judge awarding custody to the father or why this was a motive for the victim to be killed. The article suggests that after the mother "lost custody", (but does not explain how this happened), the victim's father was able to repeatedly assault the victim, which ultimately lead to her death and disappearance of her body. To ascribe the cause of the murder as child abuse is minimizing the seriousness of the crime. The article alleges the father murdered the victim, by repeatedly assaulting his daughter, violently, the resulting injuries presumably lead to the child's death, and the father concealed this crime by making the body disappear. The "child abuse" should be portrayed as an element of the murder, not its cause, which is the father. - Cameron Dewe (talk) 02:59, 16 March 2024 (UTC)


 * I agree with you! Maybe the line can be changed to "murdered in an act of child abuse" or simply "murdered by her father Adam Montgomery." TheFlawlessKing (talk) 18:06, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
 * @TheFlawlessKing: I think "murdered by her [biological] father, Adam Montgomery." is better wording, as the other wording does not make legal sense to me. If one looks at most common definitions of physical, sexual, emotional and/or psychological maltreatment or neglect of a child, especially by a parent or a caregiver.''" The definition is sufficiently broad to include death of a child, so the act of murdering a child is child abuse, in its worst form. One cannot distinguish the murder from the abuse because they are one and the same criminal act, but with murder being the more serious crime because it involves death, while child abuse is ranked somewhat less serious, because death is not a required element of the latter crime, if it is even considered a crime in the jurisdiction concerned. In this case, murder could have been hard to prove because there were no bodily remains to prove death had occurred. In such cases, police will often lay additional charges for lesser crimes that they can prove, in order to stop the offender walking free just because the most serious crime, murder, could not be proven. - Cameron Dewe (talk) 22:08, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
 * @Cameron Dewe Yes it makes a lot of sense! I'm also leaning toward "murdered by her [biological] father." And you have a good point, I hadn't seen it that way. I think that wording is better! TheFlawlessKing (talk) 23:50, 16 March 2024 (UTC)