Freehold Man Indicted In Murder of Girlfriend

A Freehold Borough man has been indicted on a charge of murder in the strangulation death of his girlfriend last year, according to the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office.

Sender Villatoro-Reyes, 25, of Hudson Street, was indicted Monday by a Monmouth County grand jury on a charge of first-degree murder.

He is accused of strangling his girlfriend, Lucenay Fermin Gallegos, to death on May 16, according to a report in the News Transcript from May.

Fermin Gallegos, 31, was found unresponsive when police were called to the apartment at 2:15 a.m. May 16, while the couple’s 3-year-old child slept in an adjacent bedroom. Authorities arrested Villatoro-Reyes and charged him with murder at the time.

The autopsy performed on May 16 by Middlesex County Assistant Medical Examiner Diane Karluk determined Gallegos’ death was caused by asphyxia due to manual strangulation, the News Transcript report said.

Reyes remains at the Monmouth County jail, Freehold Township, in lieu of $1 million bail with no 10 percent option.

If convicted of murder, Reyes faces a minimum of 30 years in prison without parole to a maximum of life imprisonment, subject to the provisions of the No Early Release Act, requiring him to serve 85 percent of the sentence imposed before becoming eligible for parole. He would also be under parole supervision for five years after he is released from prison.