The San Jose Police Department said the father of 3-year-old Ellie Lorenzo, who was found dead at a local recycling center, is a suspect in her murder.
Ellie’s mother told the Times in a statement Tuesday that before the girl’s death, her father had discovered that she was moving with the child to another state.
Police identified the father as Jared Lorenzo, 42. His body was found last week, shortly before the girl’s, at a recycling plant. Police said the man’s death was an apparent suicide.
Authorities said the investigation into Ellie’s death is ongoing, but Ellie was last seen alive with her father on the evening of July 11. The next morning, Lorenzo left his Fremont apartment and drove to San Jose where he dumped her body in a “dumpster,” police said.
Ellie Obi Lorenzo, 3, was killed by her father in San Jose
(San Jose Police Department)
A trash collection company then emptied the container and transferred its contents to the recycling center where Ellie’s body was found. After disposing of his daughter’s body, police said Lorenzo traveled to several cities in the San Francisco Bay Area before stopping in San Francisco, where he was found dead.
Authorities have not revealed a motive for the crime.
Chrystal Obi, the girl’s mother, gave an explanation in a statement to The Times in which she expressed anger at her daughter’s death and castigated the justice system that she said allowed it to happen.
Obi said she constantly feared for Ellie’s safety with her father, but the courts “continued to grant her partial custody and visitation rights.”
“Last week, Tuesday, I finally received confirmation that the courts would allow me to move with Ellie out of state, which he also learned of.”
She said that on Thursday morning in the San Francisco Bay Area city of Mountain View, where they live and where Ellie attended preschool, she kissed her daughter goodbye and told her she loved her before the girl left with her father for “court-ordered visitation.”
“But my daughter never came back.”
Obi added that she and her family were feeling overwhelming pain and grief.
“We humbly ask for privacy as we mourn the heartbreaking loss of our sweet Ellie.”
