Clarisa Figueroa and her daughter, Desiree, have been charged with the murder of Marlen Ochoa-Lopez. The women are accused of strangling the pregnant 19-year-old in Chicago, Illinois, in April, and cutting her baby from her womb. The mother and daughter were charged with aggravated battery and first-degree murder on Friday, May 17, and Clarisa's boyfriend Piotr Bobak was also charged with concealing a death and concealing a homicide.
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The family is said to have lured the pregnant woman to their home, promising via Facebook that they would give her baby clothes and supplies after she shared that she couldn't afford those things for her baby. They then reportedly killed her and took the baby and attempted to pass the child off as their own, since Clarisa had been pretending she was also pregnant. They also created a GoFundMe account to raise money to help their sick child, asking for $9,000 in donations.
The woman and her family set up a GoFundMe using the victim's baby's photos.
Clarisa's boyfriend Piotr “Pete” Bobak allegedly set up a GoFundMe account to ask for donations, claiming that his son was sick and may be dying. He set a goal of $9,000 for funeral arrangements. They had reached a total of more than $1,200. The page has since been taken down.
Pete shared a link to the fundraiser on his Facebook account.
He shared a link on his personal Facebook account asking for help for his newborn child. “My son is a fighter made it this far, but not much time left, life support, brain dead, very little function in the brain,” he captioned the post.
Police tracked down the Figueroas thanks to a conversation exchange they had with Marlen on Facebook.
Police say the family lured the pregnant woman into their home with the promise of giving her supplies for her baby. They reportedly contacted each other via Facebook and a friend of the victim told police about the conversation exchange after she had gone missing.
Marlen's husband spoke to reporters following his wife's death.
Following the murder of his wife, Yovani Lopez spoke to reporters demanding justice. "Why did these people, why did these bad people, do this? She did nothing to them," he said, according to The Washington Post. "She was a good person." He added: "We’re going to have justice with those responsible. We're going to go hard after them. We won't let it go."
The case became headline news in Chicago and later became national news.
The murder took place in April 23 and has since taken over the news cycle. On May 17, the women were charged with Marlen's murder.
