A body found floating in a Rochester reservoir this week remained undiscovered in the water for nearly a month, authorities said Thursday.
The body of Abdullahi Muya, 29, was pulled from the city’s drinking water supply around 8 a.m. Tuesday during a routine morning inspection by the Highland Park Reservoir Water Department.
The horrifying discovery prompted the immediate draining of the reservoir, a boil advisory, and the closure of the city’s schools.
Muya’s body had been missing since February 18 and remained underwater for 24 days before being mobilized.
“Mr. Muya entered the gated reservoir area in the early morning hours of February 24. A short time later, at approximately 6:30 a.m., he slipped from the side of the reservoir into the water and tragically died.” Mayor Malik Evans said, citing security footage. It was discovered during the investigation.
“No one else was present and there does not appear to be a criminal element to this investigation.”
Police believe Muya climbed over a high spiked fence surrounding Highland Park and slipped to his death.
Evans said the 29-year-old man somehow did not set off heat or motion sensors and was not detected by any employees who may have been working at the time.
“This obviously begs the question: Why was he never discovered to have been in the reservoir for so long?” Evans said.
Rochester officials have previously maintained that the reservoir is “tested daily and water quality is continuously monitored.”
The mayor theorized that the size and depth of the reservoir, which holds approximately 26 million gallons of water, hid Muya from view.
Evans said the body was found “well below ground level” in the reservoir’s entrance structure, in an area covered by shadows and reflected waves.
Despite the long exposure of the decomposing bodies to the elements, Rochester’s drinking water was not affected and officials lifted the boil advisory on Thursday.
Evans claimed that water quality tests over the past few months, including when Muya’s body was in the reservoir, had yielded the same results, showing there was no contamination.
The reservoir is still in the process of being drained and cleaned, which could take up to eight weeks.
The reason Muya climbed onto the premises is still under investigation.
He was last seen six days before his death.On February 14, the day before his disappearance, his state ID was found in the parking lot of a local market, and his grieving family he told News10 at the time.
Muya had just moved into a new house in the city and suddenly stopped calling her loved ones. Her family soon became concerned that they would not be able to obtain the medication they needed for an unspecified health condition.
“He has to take his medication regularly every day. It helps him sleep. It helps keep him in the right mental state. If he doesn’t take it within a couple of days, he will… He becomes very paranoid,” his brother Mahmoud Muya told the magazine.
