Viridiana Beltran-Gomez was last seen at her job at Siena Grill before her body was found last week. (Photo by Dustin Racioppi; click to enlarge)
By DUSTIN RACIOPPI
A missing Red Bank mother whose body was discovered last week died by asphyxiation, the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office said.
The results of 26-year-old Viridiana Beltran-Gomez‘s autopsy, conducted Sunday, were made available yesterday, four days after her body was discovered off the Garden State Parkway in Aberdeen, First Assistant Prosecutor Christopher Gramiccioni said.
Gramiccioni would not comment on the specifics of Beltran-Gomez’s death, saying only “asphyxiation is just cutting off of the air to the lungs.”
Authorities, who had conducted at least two other searches in Red Bank since Beltran-Gomez was reported missing in May, found her body about 75- to 100-feet off the Parkway, near mile marker 119 in Aberdeen, Gramiccioni said, declining to elaborate on how investigators expanded their search to that location.
“During our investigation we received information to go to that area near mile marker 119, and thankfully we found her remains,” he said.
Authorities have charged Beltran-Gomez’s estranged husband, Oscar Prior Ramirez, of Eatontown, with murder.
Prior-Ramirez, 31, has been in a local hospital under the supervision of the Prosecutor’s Office since he was arrested. His bail is set at $1.5 million, and Gramiccioni said as far as he knows, Prior-Ramirez has not hired an attorney.
Grammiccioni said he would not comment on a claim relayed to redbankgreen that Prior-Ramirez was badly injured when he jumped from a window at his home as police arrived to question him about his ex’s disappearance. He also declined to identify the hospital where Prior-Ramirez is being treated.
Beltran-Gomez, a mother of two young children, was reported missing May 13, a day after she was last seen leaving her job at Siena Grill on Shrewsbury Avenue. She was reported last seen with Prior-Ramirez, whose Jeep Grand Cherokee Limited was seized by authorities before he was charged with murder.
