A body discovered Sunday afternoon off Route 9 in Old Bridge has been identified as Stephanie Parze, the 25-year-old missing woman from Freehold Township, according to the Monmouth County Prosecutor's Office

Police found the body at 2:46 p.m. Sunday just south of Old Mill Road, according to Middlesex County Acting Prosecutor Christopher L.C. Kuberiet and Old Bridge Police Chief William Volkert.

An autopsy was performed Monday at 9 a.m., with the medical examiner confirming it was Parze's remains, Monmouth County Prosecutor Christopher Gramiccioni said in a post on Twitter.

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In a press conference Monday, Gramiccioni said John Ozbilgen, Parze's ex-boyfriend, was responsible for her death.

"Today we announce that now-deceased John Ozbilgen was responsible for the homicide of Stephanie Parze," Gramiccioni said in the press conference. "This is a finding we had suspected since early November, but only recently confirmed with further analysis of evidence we had seized during our investigation."

During the investigation, more than 50 search warrants in 10 different locations across the region were used to locate Parze, according to Gramiccioni. Search locations included Monmouth, Ocean, Middlesex, and Staten Island.

The body was found less than a half-mile away from Jake Brown Road, an area that the Parze family searched for their daughter just after thanksgiving.

Two teenagers, a 17-year-old and an 18-year-old, were walking along side the road when they discovered Parze's body, according to investigators

Stephanie Parze: What we know about the missing Freehold woman

Parze has been missing since Oct. 30.

That night she returned home from an evening out with family in New Brunswick. At about 10:30 p.m. she said goodbye to her family and went home. She sent a Snapchat on her way, it was the last time her family would ever hear from her.

'He's the reason she's not here': Parze's parents open up about ex-boyfriend's role

The next day, after not showing up to her babysitting job and not responding to calls and texts by family and friends, her mom, Sharlene Parze, reported her missing around 8:30 p.m. on Oct. 31.

[ Read more of our coverage of Stephanie Parze's disappearance, and make it easier to follow by downloading our mobile app today. ]

During the 911 call Sharlene told a dispatcher that Stephanie's on-again,off-again boyfriend, John Ozbilgen, may have been with her the night of Oct. 30.

Almost immediately after she was reported missing police started to zero in on Ozbilgen. Ozbilgens parents' Freehold Township home was the first place they checked, according to police logs.

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Ozbiglen, the solely named person of interest, hanged himself on Nov. 22, two days after being released from jail on an unrelated child pornography charge.

Prosecutor's revealed in court that the day before Parze went missing Ozbilgen had sent her a series of 10 unanswered texts in nine minutes, ending with an expletive-laden complaint.

'He would choke me': Ozbilgen's former girlfriend says she fears he killed Stephanie Parze

Watch our interview below with the parents of Stephanie Parze before their daughter's body was found.

An ex-girlfriend of Ozbilgen told the Asbury Park Press that she saw Ozbilgen on Oct. 31 in Staten Island, where he worked. She said he told her the police were going to be contacting her and to not say anything bad about him.

The ex-girlfriend said she noticed a scratch on his neck about the size of a woman's fingernail, when she asked what it was from he replied, "rough night, don't ask."

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Keith Schubert is the morning breaking news reporter. He can be contacted via text, call or signal at (732) 239-8731 or emailed at kschubert@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter at @keithsch94.