Update: Day Of The Dead Event To Honor Mom Postponed

EAST HAVEN, CT —On the Day of the Dead, a family and a community will come together to celebrate the life of Lizzbeth Aleman-Popoca.

Update: Due to rain the event is moved to same time, same place on Monday.

The body of the young mother was found dumped in a shallow grave behind a dumpster and garbage bins at LoMonaco’s restaurant in Branford in mid-July. The 27-year-old had been missing for weeks when investigators discovered her remains.

Aleman-Popoca was a migrant woman from Guerrero, Mexico. She lived in East Haven with her daughter, sister, and father before she was killed. No suspect has been named. No arrest has been made. But her body was found on the property of a restaurant where her partner, previously referred to by police as her "husband," Jonnathan X. Jara-Aucapina, worked for more than seven years.

Patch was on the scene for hours last summer as crime scene technicians and investigators from the Connecticut State Police Major Crimes Squad flew a drone, took measurements and images, and put items in brown paper evidence bags. At dusk, they took shovels — with a spotlight illuminating the area where police had earlier found "disturbed" earth — to dig in a small area littered with large garbage bins in the back of the restaurant parking lot.

Police have repeatedly told Patch that the case is still under investigation and have never named Jara-Aucapina as a suspect.

The mother of a 7-year-old daughter, Aleman-Popoca was last seen June 30 but was not reported missing until July 3.

Police said in July that Jara-Aucapina said he was phoned by his daughter the morning of July 1 to say she'd awoken and her mother was not there, but said her "personal belongs" were. Two days later, he told police she was missing. The couple were not legally married, but he is father to her daughter.

Aleman-Popoca's sister Yaneth told Patch that her sister, "Would never leave her baby. She would never leave her. She's her priority. She would have called me. We have good communication. She wouldn't leave us, leave her family without calling to say, 'Come take care of the baby.' She's not the kind of person to randomly go missing. No."

It took nearly two months, but the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner ruled her death "homicidal asphyxia."

Lizzbeth Aleman-Popoca was strangled to death.

Sunday's Day of the Dead procession is a celebration of her life, but also a call for justice

"Lizzbeth is one of thousands of women who go missing every year, and in some cases, are later found dead," a statement from the family reads.

"This year, as we celebrate Day of the Dead, we honor the life of Lizzbeth Aleman-Popoca and we call attention to the epidemic of missing and murdered women right here in our city, state, and country. We know the murder of Lizzbeth is a case of femicide, and it is not the first nor the last case of femicide even at a local level."

Sunday, community members from Justice for Lizzbeth and the Semilla Collective will gather at the Quinnipiac Park and hold a procession throughout the Fair Haven neighborhood, illuminating the streets to celebrate Day of the Dead.

"We stand with Lizzbeth’s family to denounce her death as femicide and honor her life in community," organizers said.

The Day of the Dead procession for Lizzbeth Aleman-Popoca begins at 4:30 p.m. in Quinnipiac Park at 158 Front St., in New Haven.

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