California dad 'dumped 3-year-old daughter's body in bin' before taking his own life

A dad has been accused of dumping his three-year-old daughter's body in a bin before taking his own life after the girl's remains were discovered in the processing area of a recycling center.

Her heartbroken mom has revealed she lived in constant fear for her daughter's safety when she was with her father.

Police in the San Francisco Bay area reported that an employee found Ellie Lorenzo's body in the processing area of a recycling facility in San Jose. Ellie was last seen alive with her father, Jared Lorenzo, who was embroiled in a bitter custody dispute with the child's mother and committed suicide on Friday in San Francisco.

The San Jose Police Department stated on Tuesday that Lorenzo, 42, is a suspect in Ellie's death.

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"Ellie was stolen from me, her grandmother and the rest of our family and friends in an evil and brutal manner," Chrystal Obi, Ellie's mother, said in a statement posted on social media.

Obi revealed that Lorenzo had learned about the court's decision allowing her to move out of state with her daughter before he picked up Ellie from her home in Mountain View, California, for a court-ordered visitation.

Obi expressed her constant worry about Ellie's safety whenever she was with her father. "I wanted desperately for her constant supervision and worried for her safety each time she was with him for court-ordered visitation," she wrote.

Ellie was last seen alive with her father, John Lorenzo, at a residence in Fremont.

He then drove with the child to his apartment, according to a statement by the San Jose Police Department. Lorenzo left his apartment the next morning "and drove to the city of San Jose where he removed Ellie's body from the trunk of his vehicle and disposed of her in a trash receptacle," police said.

Ellie's body was unknowingly transferred to the recycling facility after the bin was emptied.

Obi wrote she did not doubt that her ex-husband "killed her" and took steps to hide his actions: "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," Obi wrote.

After allegedly dumping the child's body, police said Lorenzo drove to several Bay Area cities before being found dead from an apparent suicide in San Francisco. Authorities have not said how Lorenzo or Ellie died. The San Jose Police Department says the motive and circumstances of Ellie's death are still under investigation.

Obi had been fighting for sole custody since the couple split in 2021, alleging that Lorenzo was "increasingly erratic" and had become "progressively unstable," the Mercury News reported, citing court records.

When Ellie was five months old, Obi accused her husband of "emotional abuse" and "gaslighting me with excuses that don't make sense." She said Lorenzo "moves around the room talking to himself and becomes increasingly agitated," and "places tape over the light switches" to keep them on, the newspaper reported.