LONG BRANCH — A city man has been arrested and charged with the murder of a Long Branch woman, according to the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office.
Christopher “Chato” Aparicio-Reyes, 21, was charged on Dec. 14 with one count of first-degree murder for the death of Jennifer Pizzuto.
Pizzuto, 40, was found dead on Dec. 13 in a second-floor bedroom at 140 Rockwell Ave. after Long Branch police responded to a 10:38 p.m. call reporting the discovery of the unresponsive female.
A joint investigation by the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office and the Long Branch Police Department led to the arrest of Aparicio-Reyes Monday after he was found inside a 6th Avenue apartment, where he was taken into custody without incident.
Aparicio-Reyes is being held in the Monmouth County Correctional Institution, Freehold Township, on $1 million bail with no option to post 10 percent, as set by Monmouth County Superior Court Judge Honora O’Brien Kilgallen.
Kilgallen also ordered Aparicio-Reyes not to return to the scene of the crime, if he were to be released on bail.
Anyone with information is asked to call Detective Ryu Washburne, of the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office at 800-533-7443 or Detective Marshall Brown, of the Long Branch Police Department, at 732-222-1000.
The case is assigned to Monmouth County Assistant Prosecutor Christopher Matthews.
This is the second murder investigation to take place in Long Branch in 2015.
In September the deaths of four members of a Long Branch family, including two young children, were ruled a murder/suicide by the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office.