Mountain View mother mourns death of 3-year-old daughter found at San Jose recycling facility

A Mountain View mother is mourning the death of her 3-year-old daughter, who was found at a San Jose recycling facility last weekend. Police have named the father, now deceased, as the suspect in the homicide case.

Ellie Obi Lorenzo had been reported missing from Fremont, where she was last seen with her father, Jared Lorenzo, according to a statement from the San Jose Police Department. Lorenzo had custody of the the child and had driven her to his apartment on Thursday evening, July 11.

Earlier that morning, the girl’s mother, Chrystal Obi, had kissed her daughter goodbye in Mountain View, where she lived and attended preschool, before she was sent to her father’s home in Fremont as part of a court-ordered custody visit.

Just two days before, Obi, a Stanford doctor, had received notification from the court that she would be allowed to move out of state with her daughter.

In a Facebook post on July 16, Obi wrote that, “For years I feared constantly for Ellie’s well-being in the hands of her father even with his limited access under shared custody. I wanted desperately for her constant supervision and worried for her safety each time she was with him for court ordered visitation. Yet the system continued to grant him partial custody and access.”

The post also claims that Lorenzo was aware his daughter would be moving away.

According to police, Lorenzo left his Freemont apartment around 6 a.m. on Friday, July 12 and drove to San Jose, where he allegedly removed his daughter’s body from the trunk of his vehicle and placed it in a dumpster.

Lorenzo then headed to San Francisco where he died from an apparent suicide around 11 a.m. that same day, according to police and other news reports.

Not knowing that there was a body in the dumpster, a garbage company emptied the receptacle and transferred the contents to a recycling facility on Charles Street in San Jose. Around 4:30 a.m. on Saturday, July 13, an employee reported finding a body in the processing area of the facility, police said.

On Monday, July 15, the Santa Clara County Medical Examiner-Coroner’s Office identified Ellie Lorenzo as the victim. The office determined that she had died from “craniocerebral injuries due to blunt force head trauma.”

“We are all heartbroken at the loss of our sweet little Ellie. Ellie was stolen from me, her grandmother, and the rest of our family and friends in an evil and brutal manner,” Obie wrote in the Facebook post on July 16. “Her father killed her and went to great lengths to cover his crime by moving her to a different city, hiding her body in a bag inside a box inside a dumpster, and driving to another city to take his own life.

“We are experiencing an unbearable pain and our grief is overwhelming. I will share more of my story after I have had the time to mourn with my family. We humbly ask for privacy as we grieve the heartbreaking loss of our sweet Ellie.”