Woman admits to helping her mother kill pregnant teen and rip baby from womb
Desiree Figueroa, 29, pleaded guilty on Monday to one count of first-degree murder
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An Illinois woman has admitted to helping her mother kill Marlen Ochoa-Lopez, a 19-year-old whose baby was cut from her womb in 2019.
Desiree Figueroa, 29, pleaded guilty on Monday to one count of first-degree murder, according to Cook County court records.
The 29-year-old has also agreed to testify against her mother, Clarisa Figueroa, who is also facing murder charges, in exchange for a 30-year sentence, CBS 2 reported.
The Figueroas had already been indicted on multiple counts, including murder, kidnapping, dismembering a body, and concealing a homicide in the deaths of Ochoa-Lopez and her baby, Yovanny.
Clarisa Figueroa’s boyfriend, Piotr Bobak, also pleaded guilty last year to one count of obstruction of justice for helping cover up the murders.
He was sentenced to four years in prison, but was released after being given credit for already spending three years and eight months in jail.
Police and prosecutors have accused Clarisa Figueroa of plotting for months to acquire a newborn after her adult son died of natural causes.
Investigators said she told her family she was pregnant and posted an ultrasound and photos of a room decorated for a baby on her Facebook page.
She later met Ochoa-Lopez on a Facebook page for pregnant women in March 2019 before the two women first met in person around 1 April 2019, when Ochoa-Lopez went to the Figueroas’ house and left unharmed, prosecutors allege.
The teenager then returned three weeks later to accept Clarisa Figueroa’s offer of free baby clothes.
When Ochoa-Lopez arrived, police believe Clarisa Figueroa and her then-24-year-old daughter Desiree strangled the young woman to death with a cord and cut the baby from her womb with a butcher knife, according to prosecutors, before the Figueroas wrapped the teen’s body in a blanket, put it in a plastic bag and dragged it outside to a garbage can.
Hours after, first responders received a call from Clarisa Figueroa, who claimed her newborn child was not breathing. When first responders arrived, the child was blue.
The baby was then taken to hospital where he died two months later.
Police did not connect the disappearance of Ochoa-Lopez and Clarisa Figueroa’s ill child until 7 May, when friends of Ochoa-Lopez provided police access to her Facebook account.
At that point, authorities saw that Ochoa-Lopez and Clarisa Figueroa had corresponded the day of the disappearance, and DNA tested the young child.
The DNA test determined that the child was of Ochoa-Lopez and her husband, Yovani Lopez.
A warrant allowed the police to search the Figueroa home, where they found cleaning supplies and evidence of blood in the bathroom and hallway, according to the Associated Press.