Adam Montgomery has remained absent from his own murder trial over the murder of his five-year-old daughter Harmony in Manchester, New Hampshire.
Mr Montgomery’s trial is under way more than four years after Harmony was last seen alive in 2019.
Authorities failed to search for the missing child – who was known to protective services – for more than two years after she went missing.
In 2022, Mr Montgomery was charged with second-degree murder, abuse of a corpse and falsifying physical evidence.
Kayla Montgomery told police that her husband struck the little girl several times after she had a bathroom accident.
The little girl’s remains were first hidden in a ceiling vent at a shelter where the family stayed after her death. Montgomery snuck the remains into his workplace freezer, before disposing of them in March 2020.
On Wednesday, jurors were shown a cut-out blood-stained piece of ceiling drywall where Harmony’s remains were once stored.
“As soon as I removed the cover, I could smell what I knew was decomposition,” former Manchester police detective Scott Reily said. “I could smell what I believed to be a dead body.”
Harmony’s remains have never been found.