Jury Convicts Long Branch Man Of First-Degree Murder

FREEHOLD, NJ - A Monmouth County jury has convicted a Long Branch man of the first-degree murder in the 2015 death of a 40-year-old city woman, Prosecutor Christopher J. Gramiccioni said.

Christopher Aparicio-Reyes, 23, was convicted Tuesday afternoon in the strangulation murder of Jennifer Pizzuto on Dec. 13, 2015. The verdict came after a four day trial before Monmouth County Superior Court Judge Joseph Oxley, he said.

The jury found that Aparicio-Reyes strangled Pizzuto after brutally beating her on her face and head in his room on Rockwell Avenue in Long Branch. He attempted to hide her body in another room, then left the house and hid at a friend’s apartment until officers from the Long Branch police department and the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office found him the next morning, Gramiccioni said.

Aparicio-Reyes is scheduled to be sentenced by Oxley on May 8. He faces a minimum sentence of 30 years in a New Jersey state prison without parole and a maximum sentence of life imprisonment and is subject to the provisions of the "No Early Release Act" (NERA) requiring him to serve 85 percent of the sentence imposed before becoming eligible for release on parole. He would also be under parole supervision for five years following his release from state prison.

The case was prosecuted by Monmouth County Assistant Prosecutors Christopher Matthews and Joseph Competello.

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