Missing woman’s baby on life support; 4 questioned by cops

A pregnant woman met up with a person she contacted for baby clothes on Facebook the day she disappeared last month, shortly before that online acquaintance reported giving birth inside her Southwest Side home, family friends say.

But DNA tests have revealed the newborn belonged to the still-missing young mother, Marlen Ochoa-Uriostegui, her family says. And a female body was found near the home of the Facebook acquaintance early Wednesday.

Authorities have not yet identified the body found about 1 a.m. in a garbage can in the backyard of a home in the 4100 block of West 77th Place, according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office.

That’s the same block where a baby was taken to Christ Medical Center via ambulance after a 46-year-old woman called 911 the evening of April 23 to report that she’d given birth in her home on the 4100 block of West 77th Place, according to police and fire officials, who have not confirmed the cases are related.

Family Photo

According to Ochoa-Uriostegui’s family, the missing woman had arranged on Facebook to meet earlier that day with the 46-year-old woman, who had offered the expectant mother extra baby clothes for her boy due in May.

Ochoa-Uriostegui, who was nine months pregnant, has not been seen since she left her high school that day in the 2000 block of South California Avenue, according to a high-risk missing person alert from Chicago police.

DNA tests ordered by detectives have since shown the that the baby who arrived at Christ Medical Center that day belongs to Ochoa-Uriostegui and her 20-year-old husband, Yiovanni Lopez.

The father visited the newborn Tuesday night and named him Yadiel Yiovanni Lopez. The baby remains in intensive care with brain damage, said Sara Walker, a student pastor at Lincoln United Methodist Church who’s been helping family members of the missing woman communicate with police.

“It does not look good for the baby, but they are praying and hopeful,” Walker said.

The woman who claimed to be the mother was arrested Tuesday, along with another woman and two men — none of whom previously were known by Ochoa-Uriostegui’s family — from the home on 77th Place, Walker said.

Police have not identified the people of interest. They previously said Ochoa-Uriostegui’s car was found earlier this month about a block away from the home of the woman who falsely claimed to have given birth to the child.

Before she went missing, Ochoa-Uriostegui apparently went to the woman’s home after the two connected on a Facebook group geared toward young mothers. The woman was offering Ochoa-Uriostegui free baby clothes, Walker said.

No one has seen Ochoa-Uriostegui since that meet up April 23, Walker said — the same day police say the 46-year-old called for help claiming she’d given birth shortly after 6 p.m. at the home on 77th Place.

Ochoa-Uriostegui was last seen leaving school around 3 p.m. at Latino Youth High School near Cullerton and California — about 8 miles from the home on 77th Place.

The 46-year-old woman later set up a GoFundMe online campaign to raise $9,000 for her baby’s funeral, claiming the boy was sick and about to die, Walker said. An anonymous tip eventually led detectives to check the parentage of the baby with saliva from Lopez and hair samples from Ochoa-Uriostegui’s home, she said.

Walker said distraught family members were focused on finding Ochoa-Uriostegui, who lived in West Englewood, nearly 5 miles away from the Scottsdale neighborhood home where the 46-year-old reported giving birth.

“They’re distraught. Beside themselves,” Walker said. “It’s horrific, scary situation. We need to find out what happened now. The family wants answers.”

Results of an autopsy on the body found Wednesday on 77th Place have not yet been released.

A woman who lives near the Scottsdale home, who asked not to be named, recalled seeing an ambulance drive by on April 23. She said she noticed her neighbor standing by her front door cradling a baby that was wrapped in a white towel or sheet.

“I said ‘What’s up?’ and she said, ‘I just had the baby, it’s not breathing,’” she recounted, noting that neither she nor first responders went inside the house.

“She said ‘I stood up and the baby came out,” said the neighbor, who recalled seeing blood stains on the woman’s hands and some on a T-shirt she was wearing, but not on the shorts she had on.

“Before she left in an ambulance, she told me several times, ‘Please call up someone to come and lock the house,’” said the neighbor, adding that the woman lived in her parent’s basement.

The neighbor who didn’t want to be identified also said she saw police arrest the woman on Tuesday along with her daughter and both of their boyfriends. Each was put into a separate police vehicle, she said.

A man who lives down the block recalled seeing the car that was eventually traced back to Ochoa-Uriostegui. He said it had been parked in the same place for at least a week — about a block from the home where a body was found — and that there was a parking ticket on it.

Contributing: Luke Wilusz