The estranged husband of a Red Bank woman found murdered alongside the Garden State Parkway in 2011 was sentenced to 27 years in prison Thursday, NJ.com reports.
Superior Court Judge Richard English told Oscar Prior-Ramirez, 34, of Eatontown, that he must serve 85 percent of his sentence before he’s eligible for parole. The judge noted that Prior-Ramirez also has a U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement detainer, and so may be deported to Mexico upon his release, according to the report.
Last November, Prior-Ramirez, pleaded guilty to strangling his ex-wife, Viridiana Beltran-Gomez, 26, of Bank Street, during an argument on May 12, 2011. He also admitted that he concealed Beltran-Gomez’s body in a nearby wooded area, and then returned the next day to move her body, which he buried in a shallow grave off the parkway in Aberdeen.
Beltran-Gomez, a mother of two young children, was reported missing May 13, a day after she was last seen leaving her job at the now-closed 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.
Her body was discovered by investigators five weeks later.
From NJ.com:
“What happened here was heinous and the fact that the family that’s here in the back had to go for over a month or so without knowing where her body was compounded the situation,” English said before imposing the sentence. “I’m sure that every day that went by was just basic torture for this family.”
