Inset: Penny Busch, the victim (Facebook). Background: The home in Monroe County, New York, where Busch was killed (WHEC/YouTube).
A woman in Upstate New York is accused of strangling her sister to death and then trying to hide the evidence.
Jamie Busch was charged with second-degree murder and tampering with physical evidence in the death of her sister, 62-year-old Penny Busch. The defendant was 53 years old when she allegedly killed her older sister in October 2024.
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On Oct. 8, 2024, the sisters were at Penny Busch”s home on Ontario Street, outside of the small village of Honeoye Falls, New York. Sometime after 4:49 p.m., the women got in a “physical altercation,” and Jamie Busch strangled her sister to death, according to a criminal complaint obtained by local NBC affiliate WHEC.
Early the following day, the suspect took three of her sister’s cellphones and discarded them in a trash bin at the village’s Dunkin’ Donuts, the court document continues. At some point in the ensuing days, Jamie Busch reportedly transported Penny Busch’s body from her home and threw it in the Genesee River.
The Monroe County Sheriff’s Office was asked to do a welfare check on Penny Busch’s home, and on Oct. 11, 2024, deputies responded to her eight-acre residence. As they investigated, they “believed her disappearance was suspicious,” and a search, complete with K-9s, drones, and more, commenced.
Three days later, investigators “developed information focusing the search to an area of the Genesee River in the Town of Rush,” the sheriff’s office said. A body was found, and it was later identified as Penny Busch.
Jamie Busch was arrested for the alleged murder after “investigators established significant evidence and probable cause.” It is not yet clear what evidence authorities are leaning on or what motive they believe led to the alleged killing.
“The motive is something we’re going to keep close to our chest until the district attorney is ready to release that information, but she was murdered,” Monroe County Sheriff Todd Baxter said at the time.
Jamie Busch, who was a paraprofessional at Honeoye Falls Middle School, was deemed competent to stand trial, WHEC reported. That trial is set to begin on Feb. 3, 2026.
Honeoye Falls is located in Upstate New York, about 18 miles south of Rochester.
