An East Orange man who previously admitted to killing his estranged girlfriend was sentenced to 30 years in State Prison on Friday, Union County Prosecutor William A. Daniel announced today.
According to Prosecutor Daniel, the July 2021 incident that resulted in a widely broadcasted Amber Alert launched a multi-state investigation which led to the child's recovery and the discovery of Uyar’s body in Tennessee.
An investigation led by the Union County Prosecutor’s Office led to Rios being identified as the suspect in the case after their son Sebastian Rios did not show up for daycare on July 9 and Uyar did not arrive for scheduled work shifts, according to Union County Assistant Prosecutor Robert Grady, who prosecuted the case.
A welfare check was conducted on Uyar’s home by members of the Rahway Police Department, but no one was found inside, Grady said.
According to officials, shortly after that, the State Police issued an Amber Alert that was sent to privately owned cell phones, broadcast on electronic billboards along highways in New Jersey and beyond, and widely shared via social media.
Through the persistent efforts of the Union County Prosecutor’s Office, as well as a result of the extraordinary assistance from the Putnam County Tennessee Sheriff’s Office and the FBI’s Memphis Field Office and satellite offices – Sebastian Rios was found unharmed in Monterey, Tennessee on July 10, when Tyler Rios was taken into custody.
Officials said that later in the day, investigators located Uyar’s body in a wooded area nearby, off of Interstate I-40.
An autopsy performed on Uyar revealed that her death resulted from strangulation and blunt force trauma.
The investigation subsequently revealed that, on July 8, Rios killed Uyar in her Rahway home before placing her in the trunk of her car, then taking their son and fleeing to Tennessee.