Man Indicted In Wife’s Murder

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Mother of two worked at Shrewsbury Avenue restaurant

By John Burton

RED BANK — A Monmouth County grand jury handed down an indictment last week charging an Eatontown man with murdering his wife, a borough woman who was the mother of two children.

The indictment, released last Wednesday, charges Oscar Prior-Ramirez with one count of first degree murder, the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office announced last Wednesday.
Law enforcement authorities allege Prior-Ramirez, 32, killed his estranged wife Viridiana Beltran-Gomez, 26, in June, 2011.
According to the prosecutor’s office, county, Red Bank and Eatontown detectives conducted an investigation that led them to discover Beltran-Gomez’s body last June, located about 100 feet off the Garden State Parkway at mile marker 119, in Aberdeen. The cause of death, the prosecutor’s office said last year, was homicidal asphyxiation.
Beltran-Gomez, who lived on the borough’s west side, had been working at a Shrewsbury Avenue restaurant, when she was allegedly seen with Prior-Ramirez on May 12, a day before she was reported missing.
Beltran-Gomez was the mother of two sons who were ages 7 and 4 at the time of her disappearance.
Authorities arrested Beltran-Gomez, who was hospitalized at the time for undisclosed causes, with first degree murder later in the day that the body was discovered. He remains incarcerated in the Monmouth County Correctional Institution, Freehold, in lieu of $1.5 million bail, authorities said.
A conviction of this charge means a minimum of 30 years in state prison, with a 30-year period of parole ineligibility, and a maximum sentence of life. And the charge is subject to the No Early Release Act, meaning those convicted must serve 85 percent of the sentence before being considered for parole, according to the prosecutor’s office.