Woman pleads guilty to murder for helping her mother kill pregnant teen, cut baby out of her womb
A woman accused of helping her mother kill a pregnant teen and cut the baby out of her womb on Monday pleaded guilty to murder in the case that drew international attention for its brutal and bizarre details.
Desiree Figueroa, 29, was charged along with her mother, Clarisa, of murder and other felonies in connection with the strangling of 19-year-old Marlen Ochoa-Lopez. Clarisa Figueroa is still facing charges.
The mother and daughter lured Ochoa-Lopez to their Southwest Side home in April 2019 with the promise of free baby clothes, prosecutors have alleged. Clarisa Figueroa strangled the teen with a cable, according to prosecutors, and sliced open her abdomen from side to side, removed the baby from the womb and placed him inside a bucket, they said.
The baby, Yovanny Jadiel Lopez, died months later on June 14.
The plea agreement stipulates that Desiree Figueroa testify against her mother in an upcoming trial. She entered her plea of first-degree murder in front of Judge Peggy Chiampas at the Leighton Criminal Court Building.
Prosecutors agreed to a sentence of 30 years in prison following her testimony. Clarisa Figueroa is scheduled for trial later this month.
A third co-defendant, Piotr Bobak, the boyfriend of Clarisa Figueroa, last year pleaded guilty to a felony count of obstruction of justice and was sentenced to four years in prison.
Ochoa-Lopez was nine months’ pregnant when she was last seen on April 23, 2019, leaving her high school in the Little Village neighborhood. Clarisa Figueroa planned to raise the baby herself, and tricked Bobak into believing the baby was his child, police and prosecutors have said.
During the hearing, Desiree Figueroa cried softly as prosecutors read the gruesome details of the killing.
Reading the agreed-upon facts of the case into the record, Assistant State’s Attorney Andy Varga said Clarisa Figueroa said she was going to “do something stupid,” and kill Ochoa-Lopez and steal her baby.
She made comments to the effect of “I’m going to jail for a long time,” Varga said.
Desiree Figueroa talked to Ochoa-Lopez while her mother approached the teenager from behind, Varga said. She wore latex gloves and used a cord to strangle Ochoa-Lopez while the woman faced Desiree Figueroa.
While strangling the woman, Clarisa Figueroa told her daughter, “Do your f****** job,” Varga said.
Family members attended the hearing, crying together after the plea was entered.
After cutting out the baby, Clarisa Figueroa called 911 and announced that she had delivered a baby who was not breathing, prosecutors have said. As paramedics arrived, she was holding the baby with its placenta and umbilical cord attached.
Both were rushed to Advocate Christ Medical Center. The newborn had problems breathing and appeared blue.
About two weeks after Ochoa-Lopez was last seen, detectives investigating her disappearance learned the teen had gone to the Figueroa home the day she disappeared.
They went to the home and were told by Desiree Figueroa that her mother had recently had a baby. They found Ochoa-Lopez’s car parked nearby.
Detectives visited Clarisa Figueroa at the hospital, but she denied that the teen came to her home the day she disappeared. Police eventually used DNA to determine Clarisa Figueroa was not the baby’s mother.
When detectives arrived to search the Figueroa home, Bobak was outside cleaning a rug with bleach and a hose, prosecutors said during a bond hearing in 2019. When Bobak saw the officers, he dropped the bleach and hose, and walked away, they said.
Ochoa-Lopez’s decaying body was found in a garbage can outside the Figueroa home with the coaxial cables used to strangle her still around her neck, prosecutors have said.
After police discovered Ochoa-Lopez’s body and her hospitalized child, her husband, Yovany Lopez, told the Tribune he prayed for the baby’s recovery, though family were told he had brain damage.
“It’s so hurtful losing a wife that you spent beautiful moments with,” he told the Tribune at the time.
Ochoa-Lopez was the oldest of four siblings and had a 3-year-old son when she was killed, family members told the Tribune in 2019. The teenager loved music and aspired to work in fashion, according to family.
“We came to this country to give a good life for my daughter, but there’s bad people in this country too, who have taken her life,” said Arnulfo Ochoa, the teen’s father, at the time. “She had a big future. Even though she was married, she was carrying on with her studies to give a better life to her child.”
