The body of a 26-year-old Texas woman who went missing more than a month ago was found lodged in a ventilation duct above a swanky steakhouse restaurant, cops said.


Police said that Jamie Minor, a restaurant hostess from Bee Cave, Tex., was trying to shimmy her way through the ventilation system leading into Perry's Steakhouse last month when she became trapped and died.


Homicide detectives and firefighters discovered her body on Saturday.


Austin police Cmdr. Julie O'Brien said medical examiners were working to determine a cause of death, but don't suspect foul play.


"This appears to be an incredibly tragic accidental death," O'Brien said in a news conference Monday.


Police, friends and family had been searching for the pretty brunette since she left her hosting gig at the Trace restaurant at the W Hotel in downtown Austin on May 23 and never came back.


Her co-workers at the Trace told police that Minor was acting "erratically" at work that night, and they had arranged for a friend to pick her up at around 10 p.m., the Austin American-Statesman reported.


But Minor allegedly took off without telling anyone and walked about five blocks to Perry's, where she once worked.


Security footage from outside the restaurant showed Minor trying to get in from a side door and then another door in the parking garage, police said.


But when she couldn't get in, cops said Minor broke into the building's duct system from a vent in an attached parking garage.


"What we believe for reasons we don't quite understand yet is that Jamie entered the parking garage, went to the third floor and forced entry into the duct system, attempting to get into the restaurant that was located on the ground floor because she had a friend who worked there," O'Brien said.


Eventually, she got stuck in a steep incline between the fist and second floors, cops said, and no one could hear her cries for help.


"That area is located in a part of the building where it's not readily accessible to anyone, so noises from inside the ductwork couldn't be heard," O'Brien said.


Maintenance crews found some of her belongings near the garage vent on June 2, sparking searches in both Bee Cave and Austin.


Minor's parents said Minor had struggled with mental illness, including bipolar disorder, since her early 20s.


She didn't have her own place, but was crashing with friends in downtown Austin, determined to make a living despite her struggles.


"I am just heartbroken she made the choices she did," Minor's mom, Pamela Minor, told the American-Statesman. "I am very saddened she couldn't get to safety. She probably became frantic. I am very saddened by the suffering she went through."