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Harmony Montgomery Part 1

2022/5/12
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This chapter discusses the extensive timeline of Harmony's life in the care of DCF in Massachusetts, leading to her father, Adam Montgomery, gaining custody despite concerns about his criminal history and the safety of his home.

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In 2020, in a small California mountain town, five women disappeared. I found out what happened to all of them, except one. A woman known as Dia, whose estate is worth millions of dollars. I'm Lucy Sheriff. Over the past four years, I've spoken with Dia's family and friends, and I've discovered that everyone has a different version of events.

Hear the story on Where's Dear? Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Voices for Justice is a podcast that uses adult language and discusses sensitive and potentially triggering topics, including violence, abuse, and murder.

My name is Sarah Turney, and this is Voices for Justice. Today, I'm discussing the case of missing child Harmony Montgomery.

The last confirmed sighting of Harmony was in October 2019, when the Manchester Police Department in New Hampshire responded to a call at her home. She was only five years old at the time. After bouncing between living with a foster family and her mother for most of her life, a judge awarded her father, Adam Montgomery, full custody of her.

This came as a shock to her mother, Crystal Sori, as Adam has a lengthy, violent criminal history, did not finish the steps required by family services to be reunified with Harmony, and no house visit was conducted to ensure the home was a safe environment for their daughter's unique medical and emotional needs.

Adam Montgomery was the last person to see Harmony, and unfortunately, he told police conflicting stories before going silent. Although the exact date of Harmony's disappearance is unknown, investigators believe she likely went missing between November 28th and December 10th, 2019.

In the winter of 2019, the Montgomery family was evicted from their home and began living out of their two vehicles. Shortly after this eviction, Adam Montgomery told his wife, Harmony's stepmother, Kayla Montgomery, that he was driving Harmony to be with her mother in Massachusetts. The problem is, Harmony's mother, Crystal Story, says that never happened. She hadn't seen her daughter since Easter of that year, and even then, that was just a video call. When

When she raised concerns that Harmony looked scared and Adam Montgomery wasn't allowing her to answer many of the questions Crystal was asking, he blocked all communication with her. After realizing that no one seemed to know where her daughter was, Crystal's story began calling Child and Family Services and the police. She also contacted schools Harmony would likely have been enrolled in and tried to visit Adam's former addresses, but she couldn't find any trace of Harmony.

Her concerns were often dismissed as just custody concerns. It wouldn't be until the New Hampshire Department of Children, Youth, and Families alerted police that they were unable to locate Harmony that an official investigation into her disappearance began, now two years after she was last seen. I want to warn you that this is an incredibly difficult case to discuss.

But it's a really important one. Not only does Harmony need our help, but so do so many children living in the foster care system in America. The tipping point for me covering Harmony's case was the 101-page report released just this month by the Office of the Child Advocate, or OCA, in Massachusetts.

This report details exactly how Harmony fell through the cracks of the system, how they failed her, how if reform is not made, they will continue to fail other children.

On page 7 of the report, there's a paragraph about confidentiality. In it, they basically say that although they don't usually release reports like this to the public, they wanted to release Harmony's report because the case has received so much press. And because, quote, the OCA believes that the insights from the case are so significant that the benefit to the public policy discussion is substantial. End quote.

And I couldn't agree more. We need to discuss these kids who fall through the cracks so we can help them, hold those who are responsible accountable, and improve the system for all children going forward.

Now, because there was so much new information about what led to Harmony's disappearance just released in this report, it's going to take me two episodes to cover her case. In this first part, I'm going to go over Harmony's family history and the extensive timeline released by the OCA. It walks us through what led to repeated, unnecessary trauma for Harmony and eventually her disappearance.

In part two, I'm going to go over what exactly led to her disappearance, the investigation into her disappearance, and I'm going to dig deep into the 101-page report released by the OCA, how the system failed Harmony Montgomery, and hopefully put their feet to the fire in hopes that this never happens again. So without any further introduction, this is part one of the case of Harmony Montgomery.

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Harmony Montgomery was born on June 7, 2014, in Massachusetts to her parents Crystal Sori and Adam Montgomery. At this time, Adam Montgomery was incarcerated, so Harmony lived with Crystal full-time. However, at just two months old, Harmony would enter the foster care system. Before I dig into the timeline that will make up much of this episode, let's talk about who Harmony is as a person and some of her unique challenges.

Unfortunately, we don't know much. And what's even more heartbreaking is that after an extensive review by the Office of the Child Advocate, or OCA, in Massachusetts, they don't know much either. In this 101-page report, they reviewed Harmony's experience in the foster care system, and what led to her being in Adam Montgomery's custody.

Page 5 of the report is titled About Harmony, and the opening paragraph honestly broke my heart. Quote,

This means that the OCA can only really see Harmony through descriptions of her at specific moments in time. Like her photographs that are widely distributed in the media, Harmony's personality, interests, and life experiences after she left Massachusetts are unknown to us, end quote.

Although I can't paint you a picture of what Harmony was like in her early years, we do have some information. And we know that she is absolutely a fighter. Harmony has some medical conditions that doctors were not able to completely figure out when she was born. It was believed that she would never be able to see, or be severely disabled according to the report.

But she defied everyone's expectations and retained vision in one of her eyes. Despite this, they say that she, quote, developed superior coping mechanisms as well as a knack for overcoming challenges, end quote. We also know that Harmony liked books, dolls, and playing with other children. She was described as charming, very active, and empathetic.

her language skills were excellent and she loved to basically eat everything she loved fruits veggies and even onions it was clear that despite the trauma harmony experienced at such a young age she was still thriving at least until she entered the care of her father adam montgomery

Now that we know at least a little more about who Harmony is as a person, let's take a step back and look at the circumstances she was born into, beginning with the history of her father, Adam. Born in 1990, Adam Montgomery has a lengthy criminal history. There are 21 items listed in his criminal case history in the state of New Hampshire alone, so I won't be going over each and every one of them.

But I do think it's important for you to understand some of his criminal history, as I do think it's relevant to what happens later in the case. In 2006, at age 16, Adam Montgomery was charged with possession of a dangerous weapon on school grounds. In July of 2007, he was accused of following a 15-year-old girl into her home. This is after he accused her and yelled at her about stealing his cell phone.

He was later charged with burglary and misdemeanor assault. The case would later be dismissed in 2008. In September 2007, he was charged with criminally threatening his 15-year-old ex-girlfriend with a knife. He was sentenced to 110 days in jail. In 2008, at now age 18, Adam broke into an apartment armed with a pellet gun and demanded money from the two women inside.

When the police arrived, he pointed the gun at an officer's chest. He was extremely lucky that the officer wrestled him to the ground to get the weapon. He later pled guilty to armed robbery and assault and battery with a dangerous weapon. In May of that same year, Adam was charged with stabbing a minor in the leg and pushing him out of a moving vehicle after a botched drug deal.

he was sentenced to four years in prison but only served three hundred and eighty-three days in twenty fourteen the same year that his first child harmony was born adam montgomery was charged with shooting a man he was buying heroin from in the head

The man lived, so he wasn't charged with murder, but he pled guilty to larceny, assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, carrying a firearm without a license, and discharging a firearm within 500 feet of a building. In September 2014, when Harmony was just 3 months old, he pled guilty to these charges and was sentenced to 18 months in jail.

Now, Harmony's mother, Crystal Sori, was also battling addiction and has left charges on her record from 2011. When she realized she was pregnant with her first child, Harmony, she knew she wanted to try to turn her life around. But it wasn't easy. And it would take her years to do so.

I feel like it's so hard to know what relationships are really like from the outside looking in. But given Adam's history and Crystal's statements that Adam would become violent with her when he was upset, even choking Crystal while she was pregnant with Harmony, I think it's safe to say that the relationship wasn't good. So this is what Harmony was born into. A violent relationship where both parents were battling addiction.

Like I mentioned, Adam was in prison when Harmony was born, so Crystal was her primary caregiver. So although Adam's past is definitely alarming and will come into play later, Crystal has made several statements that she absolutely bears responsibility for what happened to her daughter. So before I dig into this timeline, please know that Crystal acknowledges that, and I'm sure she regrets her actions every single day at this point.

I also want to say before you guys come for me that of course the responsibility of caring for a child lands on the child's parents. But when it's clear that neither parent can properly care for a child, that's when state services need to step in and consider the best interests of the child. As I go over this timeline, you will find that unfortunately, that just never happened for Harmony.

But let's dig in. In June 2014, the same month that Harmony was born, the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families' Haverhill Office, or DCF for short, received three reports alleging neglect of Harmony.

At this time, Crystal was provided services to assist her. In August 2014, when Harmony is just a few months old, two more reports are made to DCF. At this time, Harmony is removed from Crystal's care and placed with a foster family. Crystal is then given an action plan to reunify with Harmony.

Now, an action plan is basically just a list of things a parent needs to do to get their kids back. We don't know Crystal's exact action plan, but typically these types of plans can involve things like parenting classes, substance use disorder classes, drug testing, etc. This action plan was also sent to Adam Montgomery while he was incarcerated.

It's noted that between September and November 2014, DCF made several attempts to get in contact with Adam. In December, he finally responded. He expressed support for Harmony returning to Crystal and asked for a visit with Harmony. In January 2015, at about six months old, Harmony meets her father for the first time in a visit supervised by DCF. Immediately after this meeting, Harmony returns to the care of her mother.

However, DCF did retain legal custody of her. At this point, Crystal was following all the steps of the action plan and had several successful overnight visits with her.

In April 2015, Harmony is removed from Crystal's care again after she failed to comply with her substance use disorder program. Harmony is now 10 months old and goes back to her previous foster family for the second time. In June 2015, a foster care review was held. This is basically a meeting to determine the progress Crystal was making to resolve why Harmony was removed. These meetings are held every six months.

At this time, it was determined that Crystal was complying with the action plan, and the goal for Harmony remained reunification with her. In July 2015, a DCF case management team had a permanency planning conference regarding Harmony. These meetings are held to determine the long-term placement plan for children in their care. Basically, are they being reunified with a family member, or should the goal be adoption?

After this meeting, the goal for Harmony changed from reunification to adoption due to the length of time she had been in the care of DCF. About a year at this point. This same month, a judge grants DCF permanent custody of Harmony. Despite DCF now having permanent custody and the goal for Harmony being adoption, they take Harmony to visit Adam in prison again at the end of July.

If you're feeling a bit of whiplash here, just know you aren't alone. Harmony would stay with this foster family for about a year this time, and she appeared to be thriving now that she had real stability for the first time in her life. This seems to be the time that her vision was getting better, and she began passing childhood milestones that no one was sure she ever would. In June 2016, when Harmony was now two years old, another foster care review is held.

It's determined that Crystal was not fully participating in the action plan, was inconsistent with therapy and substance use disorder treatment, and she wasn't attending her scheduled supervised visits with Harmony. During the time Harmony had this extended placement with her foster family, Adam was released from prison. But he was no longer responsive to DCF's outreach, so the goal for Harmony remained adoption.

Then, in September 2016, Adam finally reaches out to DCF. He says he's been out of prison for about a year, and he's now living in New Hampshire. He's sober, and he's working full-time. So, he asks what he needs to do to be a part of Harmony's life. This is the first documented request of Adam Montgomery wanting any type of custody of Harmony. In October 2016, Adam meets with DCF, and they offer him supervised visits with Harmony.

By mid-October, he has three two-hour supervised visits with her. In December 2016, another foster care review was held. It acknowledged that Crystal was making efforts to stabilize and improve her situation. She was complying with the action plan and consistently visiting with Harmony at the DCF office.

They also noted that Adam received his action plan in November 2016, but had not completed the DCF comprehensive assessment. The goal for Harmony remained adoption.

In January 2017, Harmony's case is transferred from the DCF Haverhill Area Office to the Jackson Square Area Office in Boston. This is due to Crystal Sori relocating. So, the case is still with DCF, but now a different office, and presumably a different social worker overseeing her case.

By early February 2017, Adam has canceled several visits with Harmony, citing family and transportation issues, but he did see her about once a month. Those supervising visits always had the same notes about his interactions with Harmony. They said that he was very attentive to her needs, but he didn't usually have age-appropriate expectations or age-appropriate responses to her behavior. This will be important to remember.

That same month, the DCF Jackson Square area office holds their first permanency planning conference since the office switch, and they change Harmony's permanency goal from adoption back to reunification with Crystal. In March 2017, Harmony is returned to her mother's care for the second time while DCF retained legal custody of her.

At this time, Adam stops communicating with DCF, and Crystal allows Adam to see Harmony against DCF orders.

In April, Crystal informed DCF that she allowed Adam to speak with Harmony over the phone. They remind her that all contact with Adam is supposed to be supervised. In May, she tells them about two more incidents of allowing Adam to speak with Harmony. She's reminded again that she can't do that because Adam hasn't even responded to their attempts to contact him, let alone to set up formal visitation.

In September, Adam finally reaches out to DCF, and he informs them that he didn't receive their letter or phone calls about supervised visits with Harmony.

He admits that not only had he been speaking with Harmony on the phone, but he's had her in his care for the last four weekends in a row. On Fridays, he would pick her up from Crystal's home in Massachusetts, drive Harmony to his home in New Hampshire, and then bring her back on Sundays. DCF tells him outright that he can't do this and it needs to stop.

They also immediately request a meeting to assess Adam's situation and participation in the required action plan. They even send him another copy of this action plan, the most recent foster care review report, and a letter confirming their discussion and expectations for visits with Harmony. They literally could not be more clear.

When DCF goes back to Crystal and asks why she's breaking the rules and allowing Adam to do this, Crystal tells them that Adam threatened to get full custody of Harmony if she didn't. This same month, Adam has his formal meeting with DCF, where he expresses his frustration with his action plan and the fact that his visits with Harmony are to be supervised.

Adam provides documentation of his substance use disorder treatment and signs a release allowing DCF to verify his housing. He also agrees to submit pay stubs to verify his employment. At this time, he's offered weekly supervised visits with Harmony. But this didn't sit well with Adam Montgomery.

He was used to doing whatever he wanted whenever he wanted. So his housing was never checked. He never provided pay stubs. And he didn't attend a supervised visit with Harmony again until August 2018, almost a year after this meeting. Again, he basically stopped communicating with DCF. But the unsupervised visits through Crystal continued.

now somewhere around this time harmony was seeing a therapist who engaged her in play therapy basically she would observe harmony play and engage with her in hopes of better understanding how she was progressing and dealing with this time of extreme instability

Crystal says that through these play sessions, her therapist reported that it appeared Adam was likely abusing Harmony during their unsupervised visits. Crystal reported this finding to DCF and stopped allowing Adam to see Harmony while she was with her. In late September and early October 2017, two reports of neglect were filed against Crystal and Adam.

DCF investigated and supported these claims of neglect. In January 2018, now at about the age of three and a half, Harmony is removed for the third time from Crystal's care, and she's placed back with the foster family she was with during the two other removals. At this time, her foster family tells DCF that they are extremely concerned about Harmony's well-being with all the bouncing back and forth.

They say that she's experiencing serious trauma due to this instability. Unfortunately, this family, really the closest thing Harmony had to a real family instability, was ignored. In April 2018, Crystal requests a review and redetermination in hopes of getting Harmony back. This is scheduled for February 2019.

In early December 2018, the Foster Care Review Panel is held, and they determine that Crystal is not complying with her action plan as she has been unable to maintain her sobriety and has become inconsistent with her visits with Harmony. This is when they determine that Adam Montgomery has been consistent.

They say that since August 2018, so an entire four or five months, Adam has maintained consistent communication with DCF and attended all of his scheduled visits with Harmony. So at this point, the goal for Harmony is changed to reunification, but not with Crystal. For the first time ever, the goal was to reunify Harmony with Adam.

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After four years of bouncing back and forth between her mother and a foster family, DCF decides that neither of them should care for Harmony. Instead, the man with the extensive, violent criminal history, the man that has never really been consistent in his communication with DCF or ever really followed their rules, should care for this four-year-old little girl with special needs simply because he wants to.

If you're sensing some anger on my part, I'm sorry. I mean, although I try to remain as neutral as possible, researching, writing out, and then saying this timeline out loud just further instills in me how ridiculous this is. In that over 100-page report from the OCA that we will dig into, they place blame on DCF for putting Crystal and Adam's needs and wishes before Harmony's. And I couldn't agree more.

The needs of her parents were clearly put before the needs of her own. Now let's get back to this ridiculous timeline. After making the goal for Harmony to reunify with Adam, the Foster Care Review Panel projected that this would happen about one year later in December 2019. They said that before Harmony could go with Adam, he needed to participate in something called an Interstate Compact Placement of Children, or ICPC, home study.

Basically, an ICPC is a statutory agreement between all of the states here in the U.S. It lays out requirements for a child in the care of one state to move to another. The ICPC is supposed to ensure that when kids move across state lines, nothing is lost in translation. That the state the child is moving to is aware of their case history, medical needs, etc.

It's supposed to ensure that the home the child is moving to is set up to adequately care for them. This foster care review panel also set up a permanency planning conference, because Harmony had now spent most of her four years of life in the foster care system without ever achieving permanency through adoption or reunification with her family.

The permanency planning conference happened about a week after the foster care review panel. And here, they changed the goal for Harmony from reunification with Adam back to adoption because of the significant delay in Harmony achieving permanency.

Now, I cannot make this make sense, but in December 2018, a judge issues an order for an expedited ICPC to explore the possibility of her reunifying with Adam Montgomery despite this new permanence plan for adoption. The OCA report says this is, quote, "...the first indication that the expectations of the DCF case management team and the legal timelines were not aligned." End quote.

This expedited ICPC was supposed to take 20 business days to complete. However, by February 2019, the date set for both Crystal and Adam's review and redetermination hearing, it was not completed. Now, it's worth noting here that by this time, Adam was now married to a woman named Kayla Montgomery, and they had a few children together.

To protect the identities of these children, I really don't want to give any further description than that. But they were all younger than Harmony. Although DCF observed Harmony with Kayla as well, there were no notes about their interactions. So, we don't really know how Kayla treated Harmony. We just know that as a family, Kayla and Adam were fighting to get Harmony to live with them and her half-siblings in New Hampshire.

As far as why the ICPC wasn't completed, well, the Massachusetts ICPC Compact Administrator says that they provided the New Hampshire Compact Administrator with all the relevant information they had. But despite repeated attempts, they were unable to get updated information about Kayla Montgomery's participation in substance use disorder treatment in New Hampshire.

So, they never went any further with the home study because they didn't have enough information about Kayla. No one ever visited the Montgomery home to ensure it was an appropriate place for Harmony to live. And remember, this is a child with special medical and therapeutic needs. Between December 2018 and this hearing two months later, Adam attended three more supervised visits with Harmony.

The notes from those observing remained the same as they always had. Adam seemed attentive, but he didn't have age-appropriate expectations or responses to her. Now that this entire episode up to this point has set the framework for this hearing, let's finally dig into it. Because this is the hearing that will change Harmony's life forever.

There were several issues with this hearing, but one huge one was that DCF scheduled Crystal Story for two hearings at the same time. She had one hearing for Harmony and another for her younger child, Jameson. Crystal says that she voiced her concerns in advance that she wouldn't be able to attend both hearings since they were literally at the same time, but she says that they denied her request for a new date.

So Crystal went to the hearing about Jameson and was not present for Harmony's hearing. Let's talk about who attended this hearing. First, you have the attorney for DCF, who represents their stance on the matter.

Next, you have an attorney for Harmony, who basically represents what she wants, not necessarily what's best for her. And it does appear that Harmony did express to her attorney that she wanted to live with Adam. You have Adam Montgomery's attorney, and you have Crystal Story's attorney. And of course, you have the presiding judge, Mark Newman. At the hearing for Harmony, Adam Montgomery requested full and immediate custody of his daughter.

To their credit, DCF was the only party present at this hearing that objected to this. That being said, it seems that they did do a poor job presenting exactly why Harmony going to live with Adam was a terrible idea. According to the OCA report, "...the factual circumstances of Mr. Montgomery's parental capacity were not adequately explored, nor was the link to Harmony's needs and his ability to provide for them."

mr montgomery's housing or employment stability was not confirmed and there was no exploration of mrs montgomery's fitness or willingness to care for harmony more importantly there was almost no evidence presented about harmony and her needs

No attorney explored Mr. Montgomery's understanding of Harmony's visual impairment, her behavioral health and medical needs, or her special education services. The physical safety of the home for Harmony, who is visually disabled, was also not explored. End quote. Without giving explanation, and despite Crystal Story's reports of Adam abusing their daughter, her lawyer did not object to Harmony going with Adam.

So, quote, the judge then awarded Mr. Montgomery, who was living in New Hampshire, full custody of Harmony and determined that the ICPC did not apply.

As a result, the ICPC was not completed, and therefore, New Hampshire did not conduct a comprehensive evaluation of Mr. Montgomery's parental capacity. This decision was not appealed by the DCF legal team, and the DCF attorney was the only attorney that argued that the ICPC applied to Harmony's case. Approximately one week later, Mr. Montgomery took Harmony from Massachusetts to New Hampshire.

because the care and protection case had been terminated by the judge the dcf involvement with harmony ended so despite his criminal history despite not even checking to make sure they had food in the fridge and a place for harmony to sleep in their home

Despite him flat out refusing to cooperate with DCF's action plan for reunification. Despite Adam Montgomery seeing Harmony for about 40 hours in total in supervised visits. Despite having other options for Harmony Montgomery to finally have stability, safety, and love in her life, she is placed with Adam Montgomery, and DCF washes their hands of her case entirely.

About a month later, around Easter 2019, Crystal Sorey would speak with her daughter Harmony for the last time during a video call. I'm sorry you guys, I am really trying to keep it together. But Crystal says that in just the few weeks since she last saw Harmony, her entire demeanor changed. She was no longer the happy, outspoken little girl she knew. She said that Harmony was visibly terrified of Adam.

And every time Crystal tried to ask Harmony questions about school or her friends or her siblings, Adam would mute the call, say something to Harmony, then resume the call with Crystal. When Crystal brought up the obvious concerns with this, he cut off contact with her altogether, saying he had custody now and didn't have to do anything Crystal said.

Although I do not enjoy separating episodes into two parts because I know I will lose some of you along the way, this does feel like a natural stopping point for this episode because we have so much more to talk about. Over the next few months, several reports of abuse, neglect, and general concern about the welfare of the Montgomery children poured in.

By the end of 2019, Harmony was not in the care of her mother or father, DCF or DCYF in New Hampshire. She was just gone. And she wouldn't be reported missing until nearly two years later. In the next episode, I'm going to tell you what happened, or at least what we know about Harmony's time in the care of Adam and Kayla Montgomery.

Crystal Story's actions to try to locate her daughter, the official investigation launched to locate Harmony, and I'm going to dig deep into the OCA report about how this happened, and their recommendations to ensure it never happens again.

In the meantime, my call to action is to share Harmony's picture. As of recording this episode, there are still searches being conducted to locate Harmony. When the Manchester Police Department was handed this case, they were already two years behind. They and Harmony need as much help as they can get. So please, please share Harmony's picture. There is no way around the fact that so many people failed Harmony.

Harmony Montgomery was only five years old when she went missing from the Manchester, New Hampshire area sometime between November 28th and December 10th, 2019.

She would turn 8 next month in June 2022. She is a white female with blonde hair and blue eyes. She does require eyeglasses to see and she's blind in one eye. When she went missing, she was about 4 feet tall and weighed approximately 50 pounds. The Reward Fund for information about Harmony is ever-growing.

But as of recording this episode, it's up to $150,000. Anyone with information is urged to contact the dedicated tip line for Harmony at 603-203-6060. But as always, thank you, I love you, and I'll talk to you next time.

Voices for Justice is hosted and produced by me, Sarah Turney. For more information about the podcast, to suggest a case, to see resources used for this episode, and to find out more about how to help the cases I discuss, visit VoicesForJusticePodcast.com. And if you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to rate and review the show in your podcast player.

It really does help more people find the podcast and these cases in need of justice. Welcome to the Voices for Justice secret after show. I got more heated on this case than I do on a lot of cases, and I'm trying not to cry right now. You guys know I worked with kids in the foster care system.

I worked with kids who ran away from the foster care system, kids that I don't know if they ever made it back home, kids I don't know if they ever filed a police report to report them missing. From what I've seen in my time in the industry, the needs of the organizations, the protection of the organizations is more important oftentimes than the protection of the child. So,

Harmony's case is personal to me. These cases, just like Relisha Rudd, these cases where the parents were not able to do what they were supposed to do for their children and relied on the state's care, get to me. Again, first and foremost, the responsibility of a child falls on their parents. But when that cannot happen, that's why these programs are in place.

I think that's all I'm going to say at this point. And I know that this episode was kind of short for a two-parter, but there is so much more to dig into in the second part that this just felt like a very natural break in the case. So again, although I know that these two-parters...

aren't the most popular, and I know that I'm going to lose some people along the way, I really hope that you will join me next week to go into more of Harmony's case and what happened and how we can help these kids. Like the OCA said, they released this report in hopes of engaging the public in discourse about this subject in hopes of changing these policies, so let's do that. Let's talk about these kids who don't have anyone else.

I also want to say thank you. If you're here right now listening, thank you. I know that these cases are not easy to go over. It's not easy for me to research and cover and say these words out loud to you. But again, they are so important.

Alright, trying to shift gears now. It always feels so weird doing these transitions. There's just no natural way to do it most of the time. But switching gears, I do have an update for you guys. I have released my merch, the merch that I have been talking about for so long. Like I said, I was really just trying to perfect the collections and make sure that what I was putting in your hands was good stuff.

But it is now launched. You can find my merch on VoicesForJusticePodcast.com. I have a little merch tab on there. But more importantly, I want to tell you guys that 100% of the proceeds of my merch will go to a relevant nonprofit organization in true crime.

It's just something I really wanted to do. You guys know how I feel about this kind of stuff. So yeah, I'm super excited to announce that 100% of the profits will be donated. And from now until the end of June, those profits will be donated to the Black and Missing Foundation.

If you have been listening to me for some time, you guys know exactly who they are. If you don't, I really encourage you to go check them out. Go share their stuff on social media. They are really doing amazing work. Aside from that, I do have a personal little excited update for you guys about Kelsey German.

So Kelsey, if you guys, you guys know who Kelsey German is, come on. Kelsey German is the sister of Liberty German, who was unfortunately murdered in Delphi, Indiana a few years ago. Kelsey and I have become friends over the years to the point, you guys, I'm crying today, to the point where I really feel like an older figure sister to Kelsey. Yeah.

I will do anything for this girl. I believe in her so much. She is just so amazing despite what she's gone through. So I wanted to say that, you know, she's graduating from college this week. She's absolutely amazing. So I just wanted to say congratulations to Kelsey German. I don't know if she's going to hear this, but I would love it if you went over to her social media and gave her a big congratulations from the true crime community.

I can tell you that little stuff like that always made my day. So please, please, if you love Kelsey German, if you support what she's doing for her sister, please just go leave her a nice comment about graduating from college. It's not an easy thing to do in general and certainly not an easy thing to do while she's trying to navigate her sister's case. But as always, thank you for tolerating me here in this after show moment. I love you and I'll talk to you next time.