After 27 years with the Renton Police Department, former detective Peter Montemayor announced his retirement in 2023, having served as one of the department’s longest tenured investigators.

Montemayor left the U.S. Navy in 1994 with a degree in criminal justice from Seattle University, searching for a job in law enforcement.

Having interviewed for a crime analyst position in Kirkland, and after applying for positions in the King County Sheriff’s Department and Seattle Police Department, Montemayor’s two-year job search ended after the Renton Police Department hired him in 1996.

Montemayor started and worked for almost five years as a patrol officer before a detective position opened in the department.

As a detective, Montemayor said he woke at 4:30 a.m. every morning and ran on a treadmill as his wife laid out his clothes and made him lunch.

“I’m like, ‘it’s early. You don’t have to do that,’” Montemayor said. “Her comment was, … ‘I couldn’t live with myself if you went off and something happened and I didn’t kiss you goodbye and tell you that I love you.’”

The work of a detective was difficult and taxing work, seeing case after case from beginning to end, tracking cases from investigation to the court proceedings, and maintaining individual relationships per case, Montemayor said.

A number of cases will stay with Montemayor.

In 2010, a suspect named Ezekiel James Watkins led Renton detectives to a field near Meeker Middle School where he had stabbed and buried Kathy Chou, a 19-year-old Lindbergh High School senior student.

Montemayor served as the detective in charge of the dig-up process. They located her near the end of the day as the sun started to set. Montemayor held Chou’s head as they lifted her from the ground.

His 27-year career ended earlier than he anticipated, Montemayor said. He wanted to reach 30 years of service.

“I really had a difficult time seeing myself taking another homicide case,” Montemayor said. “There’s just a lot of energy and effort [required] and I just didn’t have it.”

The cases in a detective’s caseload stay forever, Montemayor said.

“I could be retired for years and have to come back,” he said.

Montemayor said he found meaning serving for his home community within the exhaustion, frustration and disheartenment.

“I am a Rentonite and my family has deep roots there,” Montemayor said. “It meant a lot to me to be a police officer in [Renton].”

Montemayor plans to maximize his retirement by fishing, fixing up his house, finding involvement with a church, practicing guitar, and enjoying time with his wife.

“She’s played second fiddle for 27 years,” Montemayor said. “I encouraged her not to, but she felt that she would get up at that hour with me [every day], and that’s the kind of thing that gets you through.”