The Leesburg Police Department is looking for another person of interest in the case of a missing 84-year-old woman that is now a homicide investigation.
- Bernadine Montgomery, 84, last seen June 15
- Have information? Call Crimeline at 1-800-423-8477
Detectives are currently looking for 34-year-old David Adam Mariotti.
Bernadine Montgomery was last seen Wednesday, June 15, at a home on the 100 block of Palmora Boulevard. Her 2005 blue Chevrolet four-door vehicle was also missing, but police found the vehicle abandoned at a nearby park.
Her case is now being called a homicide investigation since police said they found “possible signs of foul play” inside her home.
Montgomery was reported missing a week later on Wednesday, June 22.
On Tuesday, a neighborhood friend said the same week Montgomery was reported missing, there was a mobile meth lab bust down the street.
Mariotti is currently wanted on unrelated charges (Lake County arrest warrants), and detectives would also like to speak with him regarding the Montgomery case.
“Leesburg, it was a little southern town when I moved here,” Bob Lovell said. “You didn’t lock your house, you didn’t lock your car. But that’s changed.”
Lovell doesn’t just open his door for anyone.
He said when he heard about people going through his neighborhood asking for money or help with car trouble, he put out a warning.
Neighbors said they noticed people coming in and out of Montgomery’s home, but didn’t think anything of it.
“She had a lot of friends at the church and so people coming in and out of her house did not alarm anyone,” Lovell said.
But on June 22, a neighbor called 911, worried that she hadn’t seen Montgomery in over a week.
Crime scene investigators with the Lake County Sheriff’s Office taped off her home and searched for evidence.
“She was a very, very nice person,” Lovell said. “Very trusting person, but she was of course up in age, I think 84, she was beginning to mentally slow down a little and I was somewhat concerned the last time I talked to her.”
Jeremy David Gentry, 43, was charged with grand theft of a motor vehicle, since witnesses identified him driving the missing woman’s car. Detectives said Gentry told them he doesn’t remember or know what happened to Montgomery, because he was high on drugs.
Detectives also said Montgomery had recently befriended several people who were much younger than her and may have scammed her out of thousands of dollars.
We reached out to the Leesburg Police Department for more information on that mobile meth lab bust around the same time, but we have not yet received that report.
Anyone with information on Mariotti's whereabouts is asked to contact the Leesburg Police Department at 352-787-2121 or Crimeline at 1-800-423-TIPS (8477).
Bernadine Montgomery, 84, was last seen June 15 at a home on the 100 block of Palmora Boulevard. The case is now classified as a homicide investigation, police said Thursday, June 30.