The tragic death of a toddler, whose body was discovered in Francisco Bay area recycling center, has left a grieving mother questioning the court’s decision to grant visitation rights to the child’s father. The toddler, Ellie Lorenzo, was found dead early Saturday morning, two days after she was sent to spend the weekend with her father, Jared Lorenzo, as part of a court-ordered visitation.
Ellie’s mother, Chrystal Obi, expressed her deep sorrow and shock over the brutal manner in which her daughter was taken from her. “Ellie was cruelly taken from me, her grandmother, and the rest of our family and friends,” Obi said in a statement released on Wednesday.
According to Obi, Jared Lorenzo, 42, had recently been informed of a court decision allowing Obi to relocate with her daughter out of state. The father picked up Ellie from their Mountain View home on Thursday, and it is believed that he killed her in his Fremont apartment later that night or early the next morning. Police suspect that Lorenzo then drove approximately 20 miles to San José, where he disposed of Ellie’s body in a trash bin.
The trash bin was later collected by a garbage truck and transported to a local recycling facility. It was there that a worker discovered Ellie’s body the following morning. By this time, Lorenzo had taken his own life, driving through several Bay Area cities before ending his life in San Francisco around 11 a.m. on Friday.
Obi expressed her certainty that her ex-husband was responsible for their daughter’s death and had gone to great lengths to conceal his crime. She described how he moved her body to a different city, hid it in a bag within a box inside a dumpster, and then drove to another city to commit suicide.
Obi also revealed her longstanding concerns for Ellie’s safety during her court-ordered visits with her father. She had been fighting for sole custody of Ellie since their marriage ended in 2021, citing Lorenzo’s increasingly erratic and unstable behavior. Court records show that Obi had accused Lorenzo of emotional abuse and gaslighting when Ellie was just five months old.
The San Jose Police Department has not yet disclosed the cause of death for either Lorenzo or Ellie. The circumstances surrounding Ellie’s death remain under investigation.