Murder charges have been filed against a woman and her daughter in the death of a pregnant Chicago woman whose baby was cut from her womb.
Police say 46-year-old Clarisa Figueroa and her daughter, 24-year-old Desiree Figueroa were charged Thursday, May 16, with first-degree murder in the death of 19-year-old Marlen Ochoa-Lopez. The older woman’s boyfriend, 40-year-old Piotr Bobak, is charged with concealment of a homicide.
Chicago police took the three into custody shortly before the body of Ochoa-Lopez was discovered behind a home on the city’s Southwest Side.
JUST IN: Chicago police say Clarisa Figueroa (left) and her daughter Desiree Figueroa murdered pregnant teenager Marlen Ochoa-Lopez and removed her unborn baby from her womb. The baby boy remains in grave condition at the hospital. 1/2 pic.twitter.com/SihS5KWx9O
— Rob Elgas (@RobElgasABC7) May 16, 2019
Three Offenders Charged with First Degree Murder #ChicagoPolice pic.twitter.com/zhJFvmxJAA
— Tom Ahern (@TomAhernCPD) May 16, 2019
Police say the break in the case came after detectives learned more than a week after Ochoa-Lopez’s April 23 disappearance that she had responded to a Facebook offer of free clothes and arranged to pick them up.
“Chicago Police announce three people charged in death of Marlen Ochoa-Lopez, including Clarissa Figueroa and her daughter Desiree, who police said killed Marlen, and a third who they said concealed murder,” said a Fox32 reporter on May 16.
Yavani Yadiel Lopez is Marlen Ochoa-Lopez’s son. He is brain dead and on life-support at Christ Hospital where his family has decided to keep him on life-support.
Charges against the people responsible expected shortly.
You can help the family here: https://t.co/D7PUH1CJgQ pic.twitter.com/6LBjpgZ3Rf
— Dakarai Turner (@Dakarai_Turner) May 16, 2019
The body of 19-year-old Marlen Ochoa-Lopez was found early Wednesday behind the house, more than three weeks after she disappeared. The nine-months-pregnant woman was last seen leaving her high school on April 23, the same day paramedics were called to the home several miles away on the Southwest Side about a newborn with problems breathing.
A 19-year-old pregnant woman who vanished last month was found dead in a Chicago home, authorities said. https://t.co/cdBmxj71BD
— WHNT (@whnt) May 16, 2019
“We believe that she was murdered, and we believe that the baby was forcibly removed following that murder,” Guglielmi said, calling it an “unspeakable act of violence.”
Chicago Fire Department spokesman Larry Merritt said a 46-year-old woman called 911 reporting that her newborn baby was in distress. When paramedics arrived “the baby wasn’t breathing, the baby was blue,” said Merritt. Paramedics tried to resuscitate the baby on the way to the hospital, he said.
The family of Ochoa-Lopez, a married mother of a 3-year-old son, said a woman on Facebook had lured her to the home by offering a stroller and baby clothes.
“She was giving clothes away, supposedly under the pretense that her daughters had been given clothes and they had all these extra boy clothes,” said Cecelia Garcia, a spokeswoman for the family.
Ochoa-Lopez’s family has been looking for her since her disappearance, organizing search parties, holding news conferences and pushing police for updates on the investigation.
A break in the investigation came after the woman who said she had given birth to the baby set up an online fundraising campaign, another spokeswoman for Ochoa-Lopez’s family said. The GoFundMe campaign said that the baby was about to die and money was needed for a funeral, Sara Walker said.
Police then conducted DNA tests to determine that Ochoa-Lopez and her husband, Yiovanni Lopez, were actually his parents, Walker said.
“Even though we found her without a life, at least we’re grateful that we found her. And we want justice — that’s what we want,” Ochoa-Lopez’s father, Arnulfo Ochoa, said Thursday as he stood with other relatives outside the county’s medical examiner’s office, where his daughter’s body was taken.
Lopez told reporters that he understood his son was likely to die soon, but that he still wasn’t giving up hope.
Surrounded by family members and supporters, the father of Marlen Ochoa-Lopez nearly collapsed this morning as he walked into the Cook County medical examiner’s office to identify his daughter’s body.https://t.co/eqv5sZ3KJc pic.twitter.com/q3tPTKPigO
— Ashlee Rezin (@Ashlee_Rezin) May 16, 2019
“We plead to God that he gives us our child because that is a blessing that my wife left for us,” he said in Spanish through an interpreter.
By Caryn Rousseau And Don Babwin
Epoch Times reporter Jack Phillips contributed to this report.