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Chicago. A woman from Chicago who was accused of luring a pregnant teenager into her home and cutting the baby out of her womb with a butcher knife nearly five years ago has pleaded guilty to murder and was sentenced to 50 years in prison.
Clarisa Figueroa, 51 years old, who was seated in a wheelchair and wearing a bright yellow jumpsuit, did not give a statement but answered “Yes” when Cook County Judge Peggy Chiampas asked her if she understood that she would have to serve the entire sentence without the possibility of early parole, as reported by the media.
Prosecutors stated that Figueroa strangled Marlen Ochoa Lopez, who was 19 years old, with a cable on April 23, 2019, after luring her to her home with the promise of free clothes for her unborn child. Ochoa-López was nine months pregnant. Figueroa then called 911 and claimed she had given birth and the baby was not breathing.
The baby died two months later.
Yovanny Lopez, the husband of the victim and father of the child Yovanny Jadiel, described how the tragedy had impacted him and the couple’s eldest son, Josué, saying that Josué had lost his mother forever.
“The memory of my little son’s last breath in my arms is complete agony,” he said in a statement read in Spanish and English in the courtroom. “God’s justice will be served to you on the day you die.”
Authorities revealed that shortly after Clarisa Figueroa’s adult son died of natural causes, she informed her family that she was pregnant. She had planned for months to obtain a newborn and even posted an ultrasound and photos of a baby-decorated room on her Facebook page. In March 2019, she connected with Ochoa-López on a Facebook page for expectant mothers.
Detectives investigating Ochoa-López’s disappearance found that she had visited the defendant’s home. Two weeks after she went missing, police located her car parked nearby, and Desiree Figueroa, Clarisa’s daughter, informed them that her mother had recently given birth.
Later, DNA tests revealed that the baby was not Clarisa Figueroa’s. Ochoa-López’s body was discovered in a trash can outside Figueroa’s home.
It was disclosed that Clarisa Figueroa had deceived her boyfriend, Piotr Bobak, into believing he was the father, according to police and prosecutors. Bobak cleaned up the crime scene and was sentenced to four years in prison after pleading guilty last year to obstruction of justice.
Desiree Figueroa, who is 29 years old, confessed to murder in January for cooperating with her mother and was sentenced to 30 years in prison. She had agreed to testify against her mother.
