A Chicago woman has been sentenced to 50 years in jail for the 2019 murder of a 9-month-pregnant lady, whose baby was removed from her womb.
Clarisa Figueroa altered her plea to guilty of first-degree murder on Tuesday.
The 50-year sentence was imposed 5 years after she reportedly murdered 19-year-old Marlen Ochoa-Lopez on April 23, 2019, and severed the woman’s baby from her womb.
Cook County Judge Peggy Chiampas asked Figueroa whether she realized she would have to complete the entire sentence and would not be released early.
“Yes,” Figueroa responded.
Figueroa’s guilty plea came after her daughter, Desiree Figueroa, admitted to helping her mother with the complex murder plot.
Desiree consented to testify against her mother and faced 30 years in prison.
Authorities said the conspiracy began after Figueroa’s older son died of natural causes, prompting her desperate hunt for a newborn.
According to authorities, she shared an ultrasound and images of a baby-themed room on Facebook.
In March 2019, she and Ochoa-Lopez met on a Facebook page for pregnant women. Figueroa allegedly lied to Ochoa-Lopez about her pregnancy.
The mother-daughter couple allegedly enticed the 19-year-old victim into their Chicago home with the promise of free baby clothes after posting an advertisement on Facebook.
“She was giving clothes away, supposedly under the pretense that her daughters had been given clothes, and they had all these extra boy clothes,” said Cicilia Garcia, a family spokesperson.
Clarisa Figueroa, according to police, strangled Ochoa-Lopez with a coaxial cable before cutting the baby from her womb.
Desiree Figueroa acknowledged to giving her mother a kitchen knife, which was used to remove the baby from the womb.
Detectives investigating Ochoa-Lopez’s disappearance learned that she had visited the Figueroas’ home.
After finding Ochoa-Lopez’s automobile near Figueroa’s house, they discovered her dead in a rubbish can outside.
Figueroa later called 911, claiming she had given delivery and her infant was not breathing.
When paramedics took the baby boy to the hospital, clinicians were concerned and tested his DNA.
The baby was identified as Ochoa-Lopez and her husband’s child through testing. The baby, Yovanny Jadiel Lopez, died months later, in June 2019.
Clarisa Figueroa duped her boyfriend, Piotr Bobak, into believing he was the father, according to police and prosecutors.
Bobak cleaned up the crime scene and received a four-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to obstruction of justice. He was freed on parole last year.