The pregnant Chicago teenager who was lured to the apartment of an older woman before being killed and having her baby cut out of her womb was strangled to death while being shown a photo album, a prosecutor said in court on May 17.
Marlen Ochoa, 19, whose last name has also been listed as Ochoa-Uriostegui and Ocha-Lopez in different reports, was found in a garbage can on May 15. The can was in the backyard of the house where police believe she was murdered.
Ochoa’s family told the Chicago Sun-Times that a 46-year-old woman lured her to her house through a Facebook group filled with young mothers, offering the teen baby clothes she said she didn’t need any more for free. Just hours after Ochoa was last seen, the woman called 911, claiming she had given birth to a baby inside her house.
The woman was later named as Clarisa Figueroa, who was arrested along with her boyfriend, Piotr Bobak, and her daughter, Desiree Figueroa.
In court on Friday, Assistant State’s Attorney James Murphy told Cook County Judge Susana Ortiz that Ochoa was being shown a photo album of the late son of the older woman when she was suddenly set upon by the elder Figueroa.
Ochoa managed to get her fingers under the cord around her neck before the woman strangling her, Clarisa Figueroa, yelled at her daughter, “You’re not doing your [expletive] job!” according to Murphy.
That’s when Desiree Figueroa, 24, pried Ochoa-Lopez’s fingers from the cord while her mother continued to strangle the teen.
After hearing the testimony, Ortiz denied bond to the Figueroas, who are charged with murder, saying she felt “the presumption is great” that they committed a “heinous and brutal murder” and that they pose “a real and present” danger to the community. They were charged with first-degree murder and aggravated battery to a child under 13 resulting in a permanent disability.
She also denied bond to Bobak, who was charged with the concealment of a homicide.
Bobak “willfully assisted the concealment of a crime” and “tried to destroy forensic evidence,” the judge said, reported NBC Chicago.
“Words cannot express how disgusting and thoroughly disturbing these allegations are,” Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson told reporters at a news conference to announce the charges about three weeks after Ochoa vanished on April 23.
“I would like to offer my sincere condolences and prayers to Marlen’s family, who instead of celebrating the arrival of a new life into their family, are now mourning Marlen’s loss, while at the same time caring for a new little baby that’s in grave condition.”
Asked about the family’s motivation for slaying the teen and stealing her baby, Johnson replied: “Only they know that,” reported ABC 7.
“We can only assume [they intended to] raise the child as their own,” he added.
When police arrived to question Clarisa Figueroa, her daughter told them that her mother was in the hospital with some kind of leg injury before adding that she had just delivered a baby, said Brendan Deenihan, deputy chief of detectives.
“She told an extremely odd story,” and officers “kind of knew where this is headed,” Deenihan said.
Police then searched the neighborhood and found Ochoa-Lopez’s car a few blocks away. On Tuesday they returned with a search warrant, finding cleaning supplies as well as evidence of blood in the hallway and in the bathroom. They later found the body in a trash can behind the house and recovered surveillance video that showed Ochoa-Lopez’s vehicle driving through the neighborhood on the day they believed she was killed, authorities said.
The Facebook group that Figueroa used to lure the teen to her house was shut down.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.