She Was Promised Free Baby Clothes, Killed for Her Unborn

4 arrested in death of Marlen Ochoa-Lopez of Chicago
By Arden Dier,  Newser Staff
Posted May 16, 2019 7:50 AM CDT
Infant Snatched from Womb of Murdered 19-Year-Old
A stock photo of a Chicago police vehicle.   (Getty Images)

A pregnant Chicago 19-year-old arranged to pick up baby clothes from a person she met in a Facebook group. It appears to have been a horrific ruse. A 46-year-old woman called 911 on April 23, reporting that she'd given birth at her home on the 4100 block of West 77th Place. A neighbor describes seeing the woman cradling a baby with blood on her hands and shirt but not her shorts, per the Chicago Sun-Times. DNA tests showed the child taken to a hospital by ambulance belonged to Marlen Ochoa-Lopez, whose body was found at 1am Wednesday in a garbage can, allegedly in the backyard of the woman's home. "We believe that she was murdered, and we believe that the baby was forcibly removed following that murder," Chicago police rep Anthony Guglielmi says, per NBC News, describing the infant as in grave condition.

"It does not look good for the baby," who is in intensive care with brain damage, but relatives are "praying" and "hopeful," a family spokesperson tells the Sun-Times. The boy, who reportedly had brain damage, has been named Yadiel, a name Marlen had apparently chosen. Ochoa-Lopez, who was 9 months pregnant and never arrived to pick up her 3-year-old son from daycare on April 23, was last seen leaving Latino Youth High School around 3pm. Family members say the woman who reported giving birth about three hours later was the same one who offered to provide free baby clothes through the Facebook group "Help a Sister Out." She was arrested Tuesday at her home alongside another woman and two men, believed to be a daughter and the women's boyfriends. WGN reports a hidden room may have been found in the basement. (More murder stories.)

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