CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- A missing pregnant woman, whose body was found at a home on the Southwest Side, was strangled to death and her baby was "forcibly removed" from the womb, according to police sources.
The Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office said remains found in a garbage can in the 4100 block of West 77th Place in the Scottsdale neighborhood were identified Wednesday as those of 19-year-old Marlen Ochoa. The autopsy shows she was strangled and classifies her death as a homicide.
"We believe that she was murdered and we believe that the baby was forcibly removed following that murder," said Chicago police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi.
Persons of interest are being questioned following Ochoa's disappearance from Little Village three weeks ago, Chicago police said.
"We believe all of them played some role in this unspeakable act of violence," Guglielmi said.
Ochoa, 19, disappeared April 23 and was nine months pregnant. She was last seen in the 2000 block of South California Avenue, according to a high-risk missing person alert from Chicago police.
According to police sources, charges are expected to be filed against a 46-year-old woman, who family say Ochoa met on a "Help A Sister Out" Facebook group. Ochoa reached out in the private Facebook group, for assistance in the final things she needed before her baby was born. The suspect offered to give away extra baby clothes and a stroller that had been given to her daughter.
Family spokeswoman Cecilia Garcia the family believes Ochoa was lured to the house under false pretenses.
"She was giving clothes away, supposedly under the pretense that her daughters had been given clothes and they had all these extra boy clothes," Garcia said.
Garcia said the same day Ochoa disappeared, someone called 911 to report a 46-year-old woman had given birth. A neighbor told CBS 2 that on April 23 the woman living at the house ran outside holding a newborn and wearing a blood-smeared shirt, but she had no blood on her gray shorts.
The neighbor said the woman told her, “I just had the baby, and it’s not breathing.”
A Fire Department spokesperson confirmed a baby in distress was taken to the hospital by ambulance from that address around 6:10 p.m. on April 23.
The suspect claimed the baby as her own and said he was delivered at home. DNA tests revealed the baby was Marlen and and her husband Yiovanni's. The baby remains in a hospital in “grave condition."
Garcia also said the woman Ochoa had contacted later set up a GoFundMe page to raise money for the medical expenses of the baby taken to Christ Medical Center, but that page has since been taken down. An anonymous tip eventually led police to conduct a DNA test on the baby.
Yiovanni Lopez visited his baby boy Tuesday night at the hospital and named him Yadiel Yiovanni Lopez.
It was previously reported that the baby suffers brain damage and would possibly be pulled from life-support in the coming days.
Police have not released any additional information on the persons of interest in custody. No charges have been announced.