Woman pleads guilty to murder for helping mom kill pregnant Chicago teen and cut baby from her womb
CHICAGO (CBS) -- A woman has pleaded guilty to murder charges in the gruesome slaying of 19-year-old Marlen Ochoa-Lopez, 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. CBS 2 has confirmed Figueroa has agreed to testify against her mother, Clarisa Figueroa -- who is also facing murder charges -- in exchange for a 30-year sentence.
The Figueroas both had 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 Lopez.
Last year, Clarisa Figueroa's boyfriend, Piotr Bobak, pleaded guilty to one count of obstruction of justice for helping cover up the murders. He was sentenced to 4 years in prison, and given credit for the 3 years and 8 months he had already spent in jail, so has already been released.
Police and prosecutors have said, not long after Clarisa Figueroa's own adult son died of natural causes, she told her family she was pregnant. They say she plotted for months to acquire a newborn, and that she posted an ultrasound and photos of a room decorated for a baby on her Facebook page. In March 2019, she and Ochoa-Lopez connected on a Facebook page for pregnant women
The two first met in person around April 1, 2019, when Ochoa-Lopez went to the Figueroas' house and left unharmed, prosecutors allege. The teen returned three weeks later to accept Clarisa Figueroa's offer of free baby clothes, and as Desiree Figueroa was showing Ochoa-Lopez a photo album of her late brother to distract her, Clarisa Figueroa sneaked up behind her and strangled her with a cord.
Once Ochoa-Lopez stopped showing signs of life, Clarisa Figueroa cut the baby from her womb with a butcher knife and she and her daughter wrapped the teen's body in a blanket, put it in a plastic bag and dragged it outside to a garbage can, according to prosecutors.
Later that day, Clarisa Figueroa called 911 claiming that her newborn baby wasn't breathing. When first responders arrived, the child was blue. Clairsa, a former certified nursing assistant, passed the baby off as her own when she took him to Christ Medical Center, where he died two months later.
The baby's real identity was not revealed for three weeks after Ochoa-Lopez's murder, after police investigating Ochoa-Lopez's disappearance conducted a DNA test on the baby and confirmed he was Ochoa-Lopez's. Detectives later found Ochoa's body stuffed in a trash can at the Figueroas' home.
