Marine Recruit Joey Brancato's Body Found in Massachusetts

The body of a 21-year-old Marine recruit who disappeared in November has been discovered near a Massachusetts road, PEOPLE confirms.

“My baby, my Joey Brancato, I just can’t breathe, I’m gonna be lost without him!!!” the missing man’s mother, Kim LeBaron Brancato, wrote on her Facebook page after the news was confirmed.

“Cause and manner of death remain undetermined and under investigation,” reads a news release from the office of Norfolk County District Attorney Michael W. Morrissey.

Joseph “Joey” Brancato was last seen Nov. 18, 2017, in Boston’s Roslindale neighborhood, where he had moved in with 39-year-old Frank Lipka, who was then working as a Marine recruiter. Earlier this week Lipka was identified in court as a “person of interest” in Brancato’s disappearance.

A motorist who had stopped in the breakdown lane of the highway spotted Brancato’s remains on Wednesday off the roadside of I-95 in Canton. He was positively identified on Thursday, the Norfolk District Attorney’s Office reports.

Of learning her son had been found dead, Brancato’s mother reportedly said: “I still had a little bit of hope that Joey would walk through the door and this would all be just a big nightmare.”

“My heart is broken,” she told reporters outside her home. “I don’t know how I’ll go on without him. He was a good kid. He wanted to be a Marine. That’s all he wanted to do. He wanted to fight for his country but instead he’s found dead on the side of a road.”

The Former Recruiter’s Connection to the Case

Lipka, who does not face charges in Brancato’s disappearance, remains in the Suffolk County Jail in an unrelated case.

He was arraigned Monday on charges of assault with a dangerous weapon and unlawful possession of ammunition, according to a statement obtained by PEOPLE from the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office.

The court entered a not-guilty plea on Lipka’s behalf in the alleged assault, and Judge David Breen set bail at $10,000, further ordering Lipka to surrender his passport, wear a GPS monitor and have no contact with witnesses in the case if he posts bail and is released, the prosecutor’s office said.

A call by PEOPLE to Lipka’s defense attorney, Timothy Bransfield, was not immediately returned.

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Lipka had allowed Brancato, formerly of Winthrop, to move into his Rosindale apartment to help Brancato train for the Marines, Brancato’s family has said.

“I’m just hoping we can find out what happened and get justice for this,” said Brancato’s grandmother Midge LeBaron, reports the Boston Globe.

According to the Boston Herald, Suffolk Assistant District Attorney Michael Lafleur referenced the Brancato disappearance in court on Monday when he said of Lipka, “He is a person of interest in that case.”

In the assault case, Lipka is accused of pulling a gun on a food delivery man who came to his door on Sept. 3, 2017 — an alleged crime police became aware of during their “ongoing investigation into the disappearance of Mr. Brancato,” Lafleur said, the Herald reports.

Prior to his March 23 arrest at Boston’s Logan International Airport, Lipka had been held out of state in military custody at the request of Boston police, his attorney said, according to the Herald.

Lipka, whose office with the Marines was in Roslindale, was dishonorably discharged, reports local TV station WFXT. It was not immediately clear why.

‘Our Family Is Devastated Without Joey’

Brancato’s family said the young recruit had moved into Lipka’s apartment with him last fall, according to WFXT.

“I guess the recruiter said, ‘I can help you out, you can live in my basement,’ ” Brancato’s aunt Dawn Buccieri told New England Cable News in January, adding that some family members were not pleased with the arrangement.

Brancato was last seen by an acquaintance and left his personal items at Lipka’s home when he vanished, according to the website MissingVeterans.com.

His family had hoped to glimpse Lipka at Monday’s hearing but he was kept out of their view.

“If he cares about Joey, if he was worried about Joey’s well-being, why wasn’t he searching the woods with us?” Brancato’s cousin, Nicole DaSilva, told WFXT, after that hearing but before Brancato’s remains were found.

“Why wasn’t he providing us with information?” DaSilva said. “Why did he shut down and ask for an attorney?”

DaSilva created a YouCaring fundraising page to promote the family’s request for financial help in their search for answers about Brancato’s fate.

It states, “Our family is devastated without Joey and we don’t know what else to do.”

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