
Assistant State's Attorney James Murphy told Cook County Judge Susana Ortiz that 19-year-old Marlen Ochoa-Lopez managed to get her fingers under the cord around her neck and that the woman strangling her, Clarisa Figueroa, then yelled at her daughter, "You're not doing your f---ing job!"
The daughter, 24-year-old Desiree Figueroa, then pried Ochoa-Lopez's fingers from the cord while her mother continued to strangle the teen, Murphy said.
Ortiz denied bond to the Figueroas, who are charged with murder, saying she felt "the presumption is great" that they committed a "heinous and brutal murder" and that they pose "a real and present" danger to the community. She also denied bond to Clarisa Figueroa's boyfriend, 40-year-old Piotr Bobak, who is charged with the concealment of a homicide.
The mother's lawyer asked Ortiz to place the Figueroas in protective custody for their safety, given "the nature of the case."
Clarisa Figueroa, 46, apparently wanted to raise another child a year after her adult son died of natural causes, investigators said.
"Words cannot express how disgusting and thoroughly disturbing these allegations are," Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson told reporters at a news conference to announce the charges. They came three weeks after the disappearance of Ochoa-Lopez, whose body was discovered this week in a garbage can in the backyard of Figueroa's home on the city's Southwest Side, about 4 miles from Ochoa-Lopez's own home.
Police did not connect the woman's disappearance and the 911 call about the baby until May 7, when friends of Ochoa-Lopez directed detectives to her social media account, which showed she had communicated with Clarisa Figueroa in a Facebook group for expectant mothers.
The three suspects were scheduled to appear Friday in bond court.
Associated Press writers Don Babwin and Caryn Rousseau, and videojournalist Noreen Nasir contributed to this report.