The body of a formerly pregnant Illinois woman was discovered Wednesday inside a trash can behind a Chicago-area home, according to offi...
The body of a formerly pregnant Illinois woman was discovered Wednesday inside a trash can behind a Chicago-area home, according to officials.
The young woman's baby was reportedly cut from her body after she was killed, according to police, the Chicago Sun-Times reported. Marlen Ochoa-Lopez, 19, died from strangulation, according to the Cook County Medical Examiner's Office.
"We believe that she was murdered and we believe that the baby was forcibly removed following that murder," Chicago Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said, adding that the baby is hospitalized in "grave" condition.
Ochoa-Lopez of Pilsen was nine months pregnant when she went missing April 23.
The young woman's family believe she was lured to the home of a Southwest Side woman, whom she reportedly met through a pregnancy support group on Facebook, for a stroller exchange and baby clothes.
"She was giving clothes away, supposedly under the pretense that her daughters had been given clothes and they had all these extra boy clothes," Cecelia Garcia, a spokeswoman for Ochoa-Lopez's family, told the Chicago Tribune.
What are the details?
Ochoa-Lopez was last seen leaving Latino Youth High School on April 23 when she left to meet up with the woman from the Facebook group called "Help a Sister Out," WBBM-TV reported.
Later that day, at 6:11 p.m., a 46-year woman called 911 claiming that she had just given birth at her home. The address of the home was the same address Ochoa-Lopez reportedly drove to earlier that afternoon for the meet up.
Paramedics responded to the call where they found a newborn baby not breathing. They performed CPR and transported the infant to Advocate Christ Medical Center.
Last week, the missing woman's Honda Civic was found about a block from the 46-year-old woman's home.
DNA testing has shown that the baby boy born April 23 belonged to Ochoa-Lopez and her husband Yiovanni Lopez. The family named the baby Yadiel Yiovanni Lopez.
"I have a lot of pain, a lot of anguish, a lot of sadness," Lopez told reporters in Spanish, the Sun-Times reported. "It's painful to lose your wife, the woman you love the most. It's painful."
The couple also have a 3-year-old son.
Did neighbors see anything?
One woman, who asked for anonymity, told the Sun-Times that she saw the 46-year-old woman standing outside holding a baby that was wrapped up in a sheet or towel.
"I said, 'What's up?' and she said, 'I just had the baby. It's not breathing.'"
The neighbor recalled seeing blood on the woman's hands and shirt.
"She said, 'I stood up and the baby came out,'" the neighbor told the newspaper.
The neighbor added that neither the woman or paramedics went inside the home.
What else?
On Tuesday, police entered the Scottsdale neighborhood home where neighbors said the 46-year-old woman lives with her boyfriend, daughter, and another man. Authorities took the four people into custody for questioning in connection with the young woman's murder.
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