A 19-year-old pregnant mother was found strangled to death in a Chicago home after her baby, who was found alive, was cut out of her dead body.
According to reports, Marlen Ochoa-Lopez (pictured above) had been missing since April 23 after arranging to pick up baby clothes from someone she met in a Facebook group.
That same day, paramedics responded to a 911 call from a 46-year-old woman saying that her baby boy was not breathing. That baby turned out to be Marlen’s, according to officials.
On Wednesday, authorities found a body in a garbage can on the same block from which the 911 call came. It’s unclear what led to the discovery of the body, but officials say the body was later positively identified as Marlen, who was nine months pregnant at the time of her death.
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The Cook County medical examiner’s officer confirmed that the cause of Marlen’s death was homicide by strangulation. After she was killed, reportedly strangled to death with a coaxial cable, police say her unborn child was “forcibly removed” from her womb.
Chicago police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said in a statement Thursday:
“We believe that she was murdered, and we believe that the baby was forcibly removed following that murder.”
Family members told local press that the baby, named Yavani Yadiel Lopez, is on life support at the hospital and is considered brain dead. Guglielmi confirmed that the baby is in grave condition.
Cecilia Garcia, a spokeswoman for the family, told reporters on Wednesday that DNA was used to confirm that the baby was Marlen’s.
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The victim was last seen leaving the Latino Youth High School, where she had been taking classes. According to Garcia, the teen had arranged to pick up baby clothes through a Facebook group for young mothers called “Help A Sista Out” on that same day.
Garcia said the family believes Marlen was lured to the home by a woman she met in the Facebook group who told her she was giving away baby clothes. She told press:
“She was giving clothes away, supposedly under the pretense that her daughters had been given clothes and they had all these extra boy clothes. That’s the false pretenses that we believe led [Ochoa-Lopez] to that house.”
Three people have been charged in connection to the death. It’s unclear whether the woman who made the 911 call is currently in custody.
Marlen is married and has a 3-year-old son she was supposed to pick up from day care on the day she disappeared. Her mother said at the press conference that Marlen’s son was not eating ever since the teen went missing.
The victim’s husband, Giovanni Lopez, spoke to reporters in Spanish through tears, telling Fox 32:
“I have a lot of pain, a lot of anguish, a lot of sadness. I can’t anymore. It’s painful to lose your wife, the woman you love the most. It’s painful.”
Our hearts are with Marlen’s family at this devastating time.
[Image via FOX10]
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