Major Crimes Unit Launches Homicide Probe After Missing Woman's Body Discovered Buried in Yates County

The Rochester Police Department Major Crimes Homicide Unit has launched a formal murder investigation following the grim discovery of a missing 29-year-old city woman found buried several feet underground on a rural property in Yates County.

The investigation began when worried family members contacted law enforcement to report that they had not seen or heard from Majesty Montgomery for more than 24 hours. During initial interviews with the family and a preliminary check of her last known movements, responding officers uncovered troubling information that immediately raised concerns that Montgomery had fallen victim to a violent crime.

As the tracking timeline intensified, investigative leads quickly directed RPD homicide detectives to a sprawling, rural piece of land located in the Town of Starkey within neighboring Yates County. While conducting a meticulous grid search of the property alongside the Yates County Sheriff's Office, search teams discovered an area of recently disturbed brush and earth. Excavation of the site led to the recovery of Montgomery’s body, which had been concealed several feet beneath the surface.

The Monroe County Medical Examiner’s Office performed a forensic autopsy and officially ruled the death a homicide. While authorities are withholding the exact mechanism of death to protect the integrity of the active case, RPD investigators state they have established that Montgomery was murdered inside a residence at 32 1/2 Austin Street in the City of Rochester before her body was clandestinely transported out of the county to be buried. Crime scene technicians have spent days processing both the Austin Street residence and the recovery site for forensic data, ballistics, and trace evidence. No suspects have been publicly named, and no arrests have been finalized at this stage of the highly sensitive, ongoing investigation.