Suspect who cut baby from dead woman’s womb was faking pregnancy

CHICAGO — One of the women accused of strangling 19-year-old Marlen OchoaLopez and cutting her full-term baby from her womb had pretended for months beforehand that she was pregnant, Cook County prosecutors said in court Friday.

Clarisa Figueroa, along with daughter Desiree and boyfriend Piotr Bobak, continued the fraud for weeks after killing Ochoa-Lopez, prosecutors said, pretending the baby was Figueroa's and asking for money on a crowdfunding site as the newborn boy was hospitalized in grave condition.

All three were ordered held without bond Friday after Cook County prosecutors laid out the grisly details before a crowded courtroom in the Leighton Criminal Court Building.

The elder Figueroa, 46, and her daughter, 24, face one count each of first-degree murder and aggravated battery of a child causing permanent disability in Ochoa-Lopez's death . Bobak, 40, was charged with concealment of a homicide.

Police said the younger Figueroa confessed to assisting her mother in killing OchoaLopez, whose body was found Tuesday in the same garbage can outside the family's Southwest Side home in which police found coaxial cables used to strangle her.

Police said the motive for the killing was unclear, but police Superintendent Eddie Johnson said Thursday that "we can only assume" that the Figueroas planned to raise the baby as their own. Officials said the elder Figueroa had already lost a son in his 20s to natural causes within the last few years.

Ochoa-Lopez went missing on April 23 after leaving Latino Youth High School in Chicago's Little Village neighborhood. Nine months pregnant, the teen, who had met the elder Figueroa through Facebook, was lured to Figueroa's home with an offer of a double stroller and baby clothes. Once inside the home, police said Ochoa-Lopez, a mother of another young child, was killed and the baby cut from the womb.

The newborn had problems breathing, and the elder Figueroa made a frantic 911 call saying the baby was "pale and blue," officials said. The baby was rushed to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, where the teen's family said the boy was brain-dead but still hooked up to life support.

Police said detectives didn't begin to piece the case together until May 7 — two weeks after Ochoa-Lopez went missing — when a friend of the teenage mom mentioned that she took part on a chat site on Facebook. On checking out the site, detectives learned that Ochoa-Lopez had gone to the Figueroa home to collect baby clothes. Detectives then went to the home and interviewed the younger Figueroa, who eventually disclosed that her 46-year-old mother had just given birth to a baby. A search of the neighborhood revealed OchoaLopez's car parked not far away, police said.

That same day, detectives went to the hospital to talk to the elder Figueroa, who denied that Ochoa-Lopez had showed up at her house on April 23. Police subpoenaed hospital records and eventually learned from DNA evidence that the newborn was not the child of the elder Figueroa as she had claimed.

On Tuesday, detectives searched the Figueroa home. Inside the garbage can in the backyard, police found OchoaLopez's remains and the coaxial cable used to strangle her, authorities said. Detectives also found the remnants of burned clothes and the indication of blood throughout the Figueroa home as well as bleach and cleaning solution, police said.

Ochoa-Lopez's father has been critical of police efforts, saying he didn't think the department gave enough attention early on to the disappearance because of the family's immigrant background.

"We came to this country to give a good life for my daughter," Arnulfo Ochoa said outside the Cook County medical examiner's office. "We just want justice for what they did for my daughter," the father said.

The family also questioned why doctors at Advocate Christ Medical Center didn't ask more questions when the baby was taken there.

"Why didn't they notice?" Ochoa asked.

In a brief statement, Advocate Christ Medical Center declined comment "out of respect for patient privacy and in compliance with federal and state regulations."

At a news conference Thursday at police headquarters, officials were pressed by reporters to explain why detectives weren't able to more quickly figure out what happened to Ochoa-Lopez.

"Once they got that break on May 7, then things started going quickly," Johnson said. "There was nothing to point us in that direction in the beginning."

"Remember, this is real life. This isn't '48 Hours,'" Johnson said later in reference to a TV crime show. "It doesn't work like that. It takes time."

Johnson also addressed the frustration felt by OchoaLopez's family.

"All of us up here are parents, brothers, sisters, sons or daughters, so it doesn't escape us the emotional drain that something like this takes on people," the superintendent said. "I can't even ... pretend to imagine what that family is going through right now. They should be celebrating the birth of a young baby. Instead ... they're mourning the loss of the mother and possibly that young child."