Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

Lapses cited in linking baby to slain woman

- SARA BURNETT

CHICAGO — Police and Illinois’ child-welfare agency say staff members at a Chicago-area hospital didn’t alert them after determinin­g that a bloodied woman who arrived with a gravely ill newborn had not just given birth to the boy, as she claimed.

The woman, Clarisa Figueroa, was charged more than three weeks later with killing the baby’s mother, Marlen Ochoa-Lopez, after police found her body outside Figueroa’s home. Chicago police say she cut Ochoa-Lopez’s baby out of her womb on April 23, then called 911 to report she had given birth to a baby who wasn’t breathing. Paramedics took Figueroa and the baby to Advocate Christ Medical Center in suburban Oak Lawn.

The baby remained hospitaliz­ed on life support Saturday, according to authoritie­s.

Prosecutor­s say that when Figueroa was taken with the baby to the hospital, she had blood on her upper body and her face, which a hospital employee cleaned off. They also say Figueroa, 46, was examined at the hospital and showed no physical signs of childbirth.

Advocate Christ Medical Center has declined to say whether or when it contacted authoritie­s, citing state and federal regulation­s. Oak Lawn police said they were not contacted about Figueroa by the medical center or any other agency.

A spokesman for the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services, Jassen Strokosch, said Saturday that the agency was alerted May 9 that there were questions about who had custody of the child in order to make medical decisions. He said he couldn’t speculate about why the agency wasn’t contacted sooner.

“We don’t know what was happening at the hospital,” he said.

Strokosch said the child-welfare agency was alerted by someone required by law to contact the department about suspected abuse or neglect, but he couldn’t say who contacted the agency.

However, that was after Chicago police had connected Figueroa to Ochoa-Lopez’s disappeara­nce.

Chicago Police Superinten­dent Eddie Johnson said police learned Ochoa-Lopez was missing when her husband reported it on April 24. On May 7, Chicago police learned from one of Ochoa-Lopez’s friends that she had been communicat­ing through a private Facebook group with Figueroa about buying clothing. Police then went to Figueroa’s home, where her 24-year-old daughter told them her mother had recently had a baby.

Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said Saturday that authoritie­s had to subpoena medical records from the hospital for Figueroa and the child. He said police didn’t learn that Figueroa showed no signs of childbirth until “a couple weeks” after she was examined.

DNA testing determined Figueroa was not the baby’s mother and that Ochoa-Lopez’s husband was his father. Strokosch said his department let protective custody of the child lapse on May 13 because his father had been identified.

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