The baby who was ripped from the body of a pregnant 19-year-old woman as she was killed in Chicago in April died Friday, a family spokesperson said.
The woman, Marlen Ochoa-Lopez, was 9 months pregnant when a mother and daughter allegedly lured her to their house with the promise of free baby clothes and strangled her to death.
Her baby was then cut out of her body, and her body was disposed of in a trash can outside the house.
The baby, Yovanny Jadiel Lopez, had been hospitalized in grave condition since his mother’s death.
He died Friday “from his severe brain injury,” family spokesperson Julie Contreras said.
“Please keep his family in your thoughts & prayers as they go through this difficult time,” Contreras said.
Advocate Christ Medical Center, the hospital where the baby was being treated, expressed its condolences to the family in a statement to BuzzFeed News.
“Our hearts and prayers continue to be with the Ochoa-Lopez family, whose courage and grace have drawn the admiration of our entire organization,” a spokesperson for the hospital said.
Clarisa Figueroa, 46, and her daughter, Desiree Figueroa, 24, have been charged with murder, with prosecutors saying the mother wanted to raise another child after her 20-year-old son died of natural causes.
The 46-year-old’s boyfriend, Peter Bobak, was also charged with allegedly concealing Ochoa-Lopez’s death.
After allegedly killing the young mother, Clarisa Figueroa called 911, claiming she’d just delivered the baby herself and that the child was not breathing.
She later set up a GoFundMe account, claiming it was for her dying baby.
For weeks after her disappearance, Ochoa-Lopez’s family and friends had no idea what had happened to her.
Police did not crack the case until about two weeks later, when detectives discovered Ochoa-Lopez and Clarisa Figueroa had communicated in a Facebook group for pregnant mothers.
They then conducted a DNA test on the baby that showed Ochoa-Lopez and her husband were actually the parents.
Ochoa-Lopez was married and was also the mother of a 3-year-old son.
Her husband, Yiovanni Lopez, said in a press conference in May that he’d been visiting his newborn son in the hospital and was hoping for a miracle.
“We plead to God that he gives us our child,” he said in Spanish alongside a translator, “because that is a blessing that my wife left for us.”