This booking photo provided by the Chicago Police Department, Thursday, May 16, 2019, shows Desiree Figueroa, who is charged in the death of 19-year-old expectant mother Marlen Ochoa-Lopez. First-degree murder charges have been filed against Figueroa and her mother, Clarisa Figueroa, in connection with the death of Ochoa-Lopez, whose body was discovered earlier in the week, strangled before her baby was cut from her womb. (Chicago Police Department via AP)CHICAGO (AP) – A mother plotted for months to acquire a newborn before she and her daughter strangled a pregnant Chicago woman and cut her baby from her womb using a butcher’s knife, prosecutors said Friday as they revealed gruesome new details about the case.
Marlen Ochoa-Lopez, 19, was lured to the home where Clarisa Figueroa lived with her daughter, Desiree, by Facebook postings offering free baby clothes. When she arrived, the daughter showed her a photo album of her late brother to distract her as her mother started trying to strangle her with a chord, prosecutor Jim Murphy said.
When Ochoa-Lopez managed to get her fingers under the cord, Clarisa Figueroa yelled at her 24-year-old daughter – “You’re not doing your f—ing job!” The daughter then pried Ochoa-Lopez’s fingers from the cord “one by one” while her mother continued to strangle the teen for another five minutes, Murphy said.
This booking photo provided Thursday, May 16, 2019, by the Chicago Police Department shows Piotr Bobak, charged with concealment of a homicide. Bobak’s girlfriend, Clarisa Figueroa, and her daughter Desiree Figueroa are charged in the death of 19-year-old expectant mother Marlen Ochoa-Lopez, whose body was discovered earlier in the week, strangled before her baby was cut from her womb. (Chicago Police Department via AP)Once Ochoa-Lopez showed no signs of life, Clarisa Figueroa cut her open with a butcher’s knife, removed the placenta and the baby, then put the baby in a bucket with the umbilical cord still attached, said Murphy, reading from court documents .
The plot may have originated in late 2018, when Clarisa Figueroa told her family she was pregnant and later posted on Facebook an ultrasound and photos of a room decorated for a baby. Desiree Figueroa was surprised, Murphy said, because her mother had previously had her fallopian tubes tied to prevent pregnancy.