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Originally charged with counts that included murder, Tyler Rios, 27, took a deal from prosecutors rather than risk trial in what had been a highly-publicized Amber Alert incident.
He pleaded guilty on Monday, April 4, to first-degree aggravated manslaughter for killing 24 year-old Yasemin Uyar on July 8, 2021, Union County Prosecutor William A. Daniel announced Tuesday.
Rios also pleaded guilty to desecrating Uyar’s remains, the prosecutor said.
Under the terms of his plea deal, Rios will have to serve 25½ years in state prison before he’ll be eligible for parole -- meaning he’d still be in his early 50s when he’s eventually released.
Authorities began searching for Uyar and little Sebastian Rios after the boy didn’t show up for daycare and she didn't arrive for scheduled work shifts.
Tyler Rios was quickly identified as a suspect after a welfare check by Rahway police found the mother and son gone from her home.
New Jersey 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.
Union County prosecutor’s detectives also called their colleagues at the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office in Tennessee. They suspected that Rios -- who has relatives in the area -- was in the vicinity.
Within minutes, local police spotted Uyar’s silver Ford Fiesta at the Bethel Inn Hotel off Route 40 in Monterey, a tiny town of 2,850 people between Nashville and Knoxville on land that was once owned by Thomas Jefferson.
Rios refused to surrender, so police and FBI agents stormed the hotel room. They seized him without incident and recovered Sebastian, who they said was unharmed.
Rios then led federal agents and sheriff’s officers to a wooded area less than 10 miles away on Route 70, near Cookeville, TN, where they found Uyar’s body.
She’d died from strangulation and blunt force trauma, an autopsy found.
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Rios had killed Uyar in her apartment before putting the body in the trunk of his car, grabbing his son and fleeing to Tennessee, said Daniel, the Union County prosecutor.
Rios had previously been convicted of aggravated assault on a domestic violence victim and was sentenced to 180 days in jail with three years of conditional probation in February 2020, court records show.
Yasemin Uyar was the victim, a close family friend told Daily Voice.
Rios had agreed as part of a plea deal to complete anger management classes and not have any contact with her again.
Union County Superior Court Judge John Deitch scheduled sentencing for June 10.
Daniel, the county prosecutor, said his office will request a 25-year prison term on the aggravated assault plea and five years on the desecration plea, with the sentences running consecutively.
Rios would have to serve 85% of the stretch before being eligible for parole under New Jersey’s No Early Release Act (NERA), the prosecutor said.
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