An 11-year-old Oklahoma girl’s mother and stepfather are jailed on felony neglect charges after the youngster gave birth at home with no medical or prenatal care, prosecutors said Sunday.
The parents told police they had no idea the child was pregnant for the 36 weeks before she delivered a full-term baby on Aug. 16 in Muskogee, local news outlets reported. Investigators said she hadn’t seen a doctor in more than a year, KOTV-TV reported. They also said the kids may have been home-schooled.
Dustin Walker, 34, and Cherie Walker, 33, of Muskogee, Oklahoma, have five other children, according to a neighbor.
“They have no running water for the last two or three years,” next-door neighbor Cheryl Adkins told KJRH-TV, adding that multiple dogs and cats also lived there.
Adkins was skeptical of the parents’ insistence they didn’t know the girl was pregnant and told KJRH she had called police and other authorities several times to get them to check on the children.
All the siblings have been removed from the home, and in addition to the child neglect charges, the couple stands accused of failing to provide supervision or medical care for the child, Muskogee County Assistant District Attorney Janet Hutson told local news outlets.
“I was horror-stricken to find out it’s an 11-year-old little girl who’s given birth,” Hutson told KOKI-TV. “And that she had no medical care, and she had no one to be with her.”
Hutson said both parents were being held at Muskogee County Jail on $100,000 bond each, and that more charges will likely follow.
“This child is traumatized,” Hutson told KOTV. “She’s been through a horrific ordeal. I mean, not only has somebody gotten her pregnant, but she gave birth at home without medical assistance, and this will be her life for the rest of her life.”
Paternity test results will be available in a couple of weeks, authorities said. But the girl has told her family a local boy was the father, her grandmother told KJRH.
“She keeps telling us that it was a little 12-year-old that I used to babysit,” said the grandmother, identified as Michelle. “She keeps telling everybody that it was him. They got curious. That’s all I know.”
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