:format(jpeg):focal(2596x1403:2606x1393)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/gfrmedia/D6PJK2TS6ZGEZFUWITLTR3DQK4.jpg "Woman pleads guilty to murdering teenager and removing child from her womb")
Woman Pleads Guilty to Murder in Baby Cut from Womb Case
Chicago — A Chicago woman accused of luring a pregnant teenager to her home and cutting her baby out of her womb with a butcher knife nearly five years ago pleaded guilty to murder Tuesday and was sentenced to 50 years in prison.
Clarisa Figueroa, 51, who sat in a wheelchair and was dressed in a bright yellow jumpsuit, did not give a statement but answered “Yes” when Cook County Judge Peggy Chiampas asked her if she understood she would have to serve the entire sentence without the possibility of early parole, local media reported.
Prosecutors have said Figueroa strangled 19-year-old Marlen Ochoa Lopez 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, who was nine months pregnant, was then reported to have been called 911 by Figueroa herself, claiming she had given birth and the child was not breathing.
The child died two months later.
Pioter Bobak, 40, Clarisa Figueroa, 46, and Desiree Figueroa, 24, were also involved in the case. Yovanny López, husband of the victim and father of the child Yovanny Jadiel, described in court the impact of the tragedy on him and his eldest son, Josué, who he said “has lost his mother forever.”
Authorities revealed that shortly after Clarisa Figueroa’s adult son died of natural causes, she told her family she was pregnant. They say she planned for months to obtain a newborn and had posted ultrasound images and photos of a baby’s room on her Facebook page.
Detectives investigating Ochoa-López’s disappearance found that she had gone to the defendant’s home. Two weeks after she disappeared, police located her car near Figueroa’s residence, and Desiree Figueroa informed them that her mother had recently given birth. Subsequent DNA tests proved the child was not Clarisa Figueroa’s.
Ochoa-López’s body was ultimately discovered in a trash can outside Figueroa’s home. Clarisa Figueroa deceived her boyfriend, Piotr Bobak, into believing he was the father, while 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, 29, pleaded guilty to murder in January for her role in the crime and was sentenced to 30 years in prison after agreeing to testify against her mother.