Inset, top to bottom: Cherie Walker and Dustin Walker (Muskogee County Jail). Background: The home where the Walkers’ 11-year-old child gave birth over the weekend (KJRH).
A mother and stepfather in Oklahoma have been arrested for allegedly allowing their 11-year-old daughter to get pregnant and give birth inside of their family home with no medical personnel present.
Dustin Walker and Cherie Walker were both taken into custody this week and charged with one count each of felony child neglect.
The victim is the oldest of six children who lived in the home with the Walkers but have since been removed, Tulsa NBC affiliate KJRH reported.
While authorities have not released many details about the circumstances surrounding the child’s pregnancy, a reporter at the station spoke to the victim’s grandmother about the ordeal, who denied that the family knew anything was amiss.
“I just want people to know, we did not know this was happening. None of us,” the grandmother, who identified herself only as “Michelle,” said. “They’ve made my daughter and my son-in-law a monster. They are not. They love those children. They love them.”
Michelle also provided a possible explanation for the juvenile’s pregnancy.
“She [the victim] keeps telling us that it was a little 12-year-old that I used to keep — that I used to babysit,” she told the station. “She keeps telling everybody that it was him. They got curious. That’s all I know.”
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A neighbor told KJRH that the Walker home was kept in a deplorable state, lacking running water for about two or three years despite having six children and multiple dogs and cats in the house. The neighbor also said that she had made several calls to local law enforcement authorities regarding the welfare of the children in the home, adding that she did not believe the family’s claim that they were unaware of the 11-year-old’s pregnancy.
“This is getting to me,” she told the station. “They robbed her of her childhood.”
The victim’s grandmother pushed back on the neighbor’s claims about the state of the family’s home.
“We have animals, and so sometimes there’s trash on the floor because the dogs get into the trash,” she said. “It gets cleaned up. Right now, it’s probably a mess because the animals are in there. We try to let them out, but they try to keep it clean.”
Muskogee County Assistant District Attorney Janet Hutson spoke to Tulsa CBS affiliate KOTV about the case, calling it heartbreaking. The prosecutor also implied that she did not believe the family’s claim that they were unaware of the pregnancy, emphasizing that while the victim was “rather petite,” her baby was a “normal-sized infant.”
“This child is traumatized,” Hutson told the station. “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.”
The prosecutor noted that a doctor or school personnel would have typically reported the child’s condition to authorities, but said the parents had intentionally kept the 11-year-old out of school and had not taken her to see a doctor in over a year.
Hutson said she expects additional charges to be filed against the parents, but prosecutors are waiting on the results of a DNA paternity test, which should come back within about two weeks, before making any final decisions on that front.
The defendants are being held in the Muskogee County Jail on bond of $100,000. It was not immediately clear when they would appear in court next.
