California father kills toddler and throws body in trash during custody battle

The mother of a toddler who was killed by her father and thrown into a dumpster in the San Francisco Bay Area said she feared for her daughter’s safety long before the murder and suicide.

The body of little Ellie Lorenzo was found at a recycling center in San Jose around 4:30 a.m. Saturday morning, just two days after she was sent to live with her father, Jared Lorenzo, for a court-ordered weekend, police said.

“Ellie was stolen from me, her grandmother and the rest of our family and friends in a vicious and brutal way,” grieving mother Chrystal Obi said in a statement on Wednesday.

Lorenzo, 42, had just learned that a court had granted Obi’s request to move to another state with her daughter before picking up the toddler from her Mountain View home on Thursday, according to Obi.

At some point that night or early that morning, he allegedly killed Ellie in his Fremont apartment. Police believe he left around 6 a.m. and drove 20 miles to San Jose, where he disposed of her body in a dumpster.

The bin was accidentally picked up by a garbage truck and taken to a local recycling facility, where it was found by a worker the next morning.

By this point, Lorenzo was already dead – he had driven through several cities in the Bay Area before taking his own life in San Francisco around 11 a.m. on Friday.

Obi said she had no doubt that her ex-husband “killed” her and did everything he could to cover up the crime. “He took her to another city, hid her body in a bag in a box in a dumpster and drove to another city to take his own life,” she wrote.

The heartbroken mother said she was worried about Ellie’s safety whenever the child was with her father.

“I was determined to have her under constant supervision and was concerned for her safety each time she was with him for court-ordered visitation,” she wrote.

She had been fighting for sole custody of the girl since the couple’s marriage fell apart in 2021. According to court documents obtained by Mercury News, the father had become “increasingly unpredictable” and “increasingly unstable.”

When Ellie was five months old, Obi accused her husband of “emotional abuse” and “he made up nonsense excuses for me.”

Lorenzo “walks around the room, talking to himself and becoming increasingly agitated,” she said, and “tapes the light switches” to keep them on.

Authorities have not yet released how Lorenzo or Ellie died. The motive and circumstances of the child’s death are still under investigation, San Jose police said.