Baby Cut Out From Pregnant Woman's Tummy - Strangled By Mother n Daughter

Nineteen-year-old Ochoa-Lopez had been strangled and her baby had been cut out of her womb in a grisly crime that took authorities three more weeks to uncover, Chicago police said.

The nine months pregnant with her second child, Marlen Ochoa-Lopez went to Clarisa Figueroa’s home last month to buy baby clothes, just as she had done at least once before, authorities said.

But four hours later, Figueroa stood on a sidewalk and called 911, claiming she had given birth to a baby who was brain dead.

Police announced murder charges against Figueroa, 46, and her 24-year-old daughter, Desiree Figueroa, at a news conference Thursday afternoon that marked the culmination of weeks of agony for Ochoa-Lopez’s family.

Clarisa Figueroa’s boyfriend, 40-year-old Piotr Bobak, was also charged with concealing a homicidal death, police said. The three were expected to appear in criminal court Friday.

“Words really cannot express how disgusting and thoroughly disturbing these allegations are,” CPD Supt. Eddie Johnson said at the news conference. “And I’d 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.”

Though three weeks passed between Ochoa-Lopez’s disappearance and the filing of murder charges, the 19-year-old’s stop at Clarisa Figueroa’s home in the 4100 block of West 77th Place was brief before it became deadly, Deputy Chief of Detectives Brendan Deenihan said Thursday.

Ochoa-Lopez had previously bought baby items from Clarisa Figueroa and arranged for another meet-up in the afternoon of April 23 through a Facebook group geared toward young mothers, Deenihan said. By 6 p.m. that evening, Clarisa Figueroa was on the phone with 911 after she and her daughter had allegedly killed the expectant mother. The older Figueroa told emergency workers she was suffering from “post-delivery issues,” a police source told the Chicago Sun-Times.

Detectives started working the case two days after Ochoa-Lopez disappeared, and the day after her husband, 20-year-old Yiovanni Lopez, reported his wife missing. She had last been seen about 3 p.m. the day of her disappearance, leaving her high school — Latino Youth High School near Cullerton and California — about 8 miles from the home on 77th Place.

Little progress was made in the investigation over the next two weeks. Despite Ochoa-Lopez’s car later being found near Clarisa Figueroa’s home with several parking tickets, Deenihan said detectives didn’t quickly find the car because it was nowhere near Ochoa-Lopez’s home or school.

”From the 25th of April to the 7th of May, detectives are basically working with the family and friends trying to locate Marlen and her car,” Deenihan said. “It’s during this time frame we don’t have any reason to believe that she’s in the area of 77th and Pulaski.”

The investigation “took a turn” on May 7 when one of Ochoa-Lopez’s friends told detectives about the Facebook group the missing woman was a member of, Deenihan said. Detectives checked Ochoa-Lopez’s social media account and learned that Ochoa-Lopez had arranged to pick up second-hand baby clothes from Clarisa Figueroa on the day she went missing.

Investigators went to Figueroa’s house and spoke with Desiree Figueroa, who initially only told them her mother was at the hospital with leg pains before “giving an extremely odd story” that her mom had just given birth, according to Deenihan. Police also found Ochoa-Lopez’s car in the area.

That same day, detectives went to the hospital and interviewed Clarisa Figueroa, who denied Ochoa-Lopez was at her home the day she went missing, but acknowledged the two had met before, Deenihan said.

After those two interviews, police were “fully aware of the direction this was going” and performed DNA testing to find out the true parentage of the baby. Those results showed Lopez was the real father.

On Tuesday, police executed a search warrant at Clarisa Figueroa’s house and found Ochoa-Lopez’s body in a garbage can in the backyard, Deenihan said. Also in the trash can were bleach, cleaning solution and the coaxial cable police said was used to strangle Ochoa-Lopez. Detectives found blood throughout the house and remnants of the expectant mother’s clothes.

Both Figueroa women and the older woman’s boyfriend were arrested at the home late Tuesday, police said. After more than 24 hours of interrogations, Desiree Figueroa confessed early Thursday that she helped her mother strangle Ochoa-Lopez, Deenihan said.

Police did not give a clear motive for the plot, but CPD Sgt. Michael Malinowski said Clarisa Figueroa’s 27-year-old son passed away two years ago, and the family may have “wanted to fill that void.” Johnson said detectives suspected the women planned to “raise the child as their own.”