Woman admits killing pregnant teen for her baby, gets 50 years

A Chicago woman who killed a pregnant teenager and aimed to pass the baby off as her own pleaded guilty to murder Tuesday and was sentenced to 50 years in prison, prosecutors said.

In April 2019, Clarisa Figueroa, 51, who had been pretending to be pregnant, fatally strangled Marlen Ochoa-Lopez, 19, who was eight months pregnant, according to a legal document known as a bond proffer.

Figueroa cut Ochoa-Lopez’s baby from her body in hopes of passing him off as her own, the court record said. The boy later died.

Now, Figueroa is set to serve her sentence at an Illinois state prison, according to the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office, ending a grim five-year case that stunned a community and left a husband widowed and without a son.

“The memory of my infant son’s last breath in my arms is complete agony,” the baby’s father, Yovanny Lopez, said in a statement in the courtroom.

Figueroa and her daughter, Desiree Figueroa, were arrested in May 2019 after investigators found Ochoa-Lopez’s car near Figueroa’s home and then discovered Ochoa-Lopez’s remains stuffed in a garbage bag in Figueroa’s garage, according to the proffer.

Figueroa had known Ochoa-Lopez. They met on a Facebook group page for expecting mothers in March 2019 when Ochoa-Lopez, responding to a post by Figueroa offering free baby clothes to pregnant mothers expecting to deliver in May, visited her home.

Figueroa appeared to have joined the Facebook page to keep up the ruse of a fake pregnancy.

A month earlier, she posted in the group a photo of a nursery and said she planned to name her baby Xander, building on a deception that began in December 2018, when she first claimed to be pregnant.

The news came as a shock to her daughter, since Figueroa had previously had her fallopian tubes tied.

To kill Ochoa-Lopez and steal her baby, Figueroa enlisted the help of her daughter, Desiree, then 24.

They initially planned to murder her in their home on April 1, 2019, but the plan was foiled when Desiree’s boyfriend threatened to call the police after hearing of their plan. Desiree later told her boyfriend that the plan was an April Fool’s joke.

But Ochoa-Lopez would return to the Figueroa home April 23.

This time, Figueroa managed to strangle Ochoa-Lopez in the living room with a cable as her daughter subdued her. After the killing, the pair sliced her abdomen open and removed the fetus, a boy, and then called 911 to claim that Figueroa had just given birth to a baby who was not breathing.

Paramedics took Figueroa and the baby to the hospital.

Members of the medical staff suspected something was awry, as Figueroa showed no signs of having given birth, according to prosecutors.