Rome Man Charged With Murder After Body Found in Wooded Area

A puncture wound to the chest killed 31-year-old Michael J. Brown in a thin strip of woods behind a gas station in Rome, New York. Five days later, Gregory L. Mignot Jr. was in handcuffs.

Brown, a Rome resident, was found unresponsive on the morning of April 1, 2026, after officers were dispatched at approximately 8:25 a.m. to the 200 block of East Dominick Street. The body was located in a small wooded area wedged between East Dominick Street and Railroad Street, directly behind the Mirabito Gas Station. He was pronounced dead at the scene. Police noted the patch of woods near the Mohawk River is commonly used by homeless individuals who sleep along the riverbank, which helps explain why the area remained publicly accessible. A portion of Railroad Street was shut down as investigators moved in to process the scene, interview witnesses, and work to establish cause and manner of death.

The investigation moved quickly. On April 6, at approximately 6:20 a.m., the Rome Police Detective Division and the Rome Police Special Response Team executed a search warrant at Liberty Gardens Apartments, a 180-unit HUD-funded public housing complex at 200 N. Levitt Street, originally built in 1952 and managed by the Rome Housing Authority. Mignot, 47, was taken into custody at Apartment 417.

He was charged with one count of murder in the second degree, a class A-I felony under New York State law that carries a potential sentence of 15 years to life in state prison. Arraigned in Rome City Court, Mignot was remanded without bail to the Oneida County Correctional Facility. His next scheduled court appearance is Friday, April 11, 2026.

The investigation remains open. Investigators said additional details, including formal charging documents and further victim information, would follow once family notifications and early prosecution paperwork were complete. The precise relationship between Mignot and Brown, along with motive, had not been released as of the arrest.

The case stands out sharply against Rome's own numbers. The city of roughly 32,000 in Oneida County recorded just 77 violent crimes in all of 2024, a rate approximately 34.6% below the national average and part of an overall crime rate 24.6% lower than the U.S. norm. A homicide in a publicly accessible wooded area in a city that size tends to cut deep into the community's sense of safety, and with forensic processing still ongoing, there is almost certainly more to this case than what investigators have put on the record so far.