A 53-year-old Oklahoma woman has been arrested after her 11-year-old granddaughter gave birth at home, and ensuing tests linked the infant to the child’s stepfather.
The girl’s biological mother, Cherie (34), and stepfather, Dustin Walker (33), were arrested first and initially charged with child neglect before indictments against the man were escalated.
The grandmother, however, has vehemently defended the couple, claiming that they loved their children and blamed the child’s pregnancy on a 12-year-old whom she once babysat.
The grandmother, 53-year-old Michelle Justus, has been charged with six counts of child
Image credits: Muskogee County Sheriff’s Department
“I just want people to know, we did not know this was happening. None of us. They’ve made my daughter and my son-in-law a monster. They are not. They love those children,” 53-year-old Michelle Justus told the local outlet, 2 News Oklahoma, previously.
At the time, she also steered the blame to a 12-year-old boy she claimed she had been babysitting.
“She keeps telling everybody that it was him,” Justus, who lives in the same house, said of the girl.
Image credits: KJRH -TV | Tulsa | Channel 2
“They got curious. That’s all I know.”
On August 30, it was reported that Justus had been charged with six counts of child neglect.
A court filing reported that the children did not have clothes and were living in dog feces
The charges are likely associated with reports that the 11-year-old and her grandmother lived with Dustin, Cherie, and five other siblings between 2 and 9 in “deplorable” conditions.
A neighbor by the name of Cheryl Adkins, who had described the household as “unstable and unsanitary,” claims she called police on them repeatedly.
Image credits: KJRH -TV | Tulsa | Channel 2
“They have had no running water for the last two or three years,” she told the Oklahoma outlet. “They have dogs in the house. They have cats in the house, six children.”
According to court documents obtained by NBC News, “The victims were found to be living in dog feces and had no clothing on.”
A neighbor who claims she phoned the police on the family on numerous occasions says she fears it is now too late
The grandmother responded to these observations, saying:
“We have animals, and so sometimes there’s trash on the floor because the dogs get into the trash.”
Image credits: Muskogee County Sheriff’s Department
“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.”
Adkins, who appears to have become emotionally invested in the fate of the 11-year-old, told the press that the girl’s guardians had “robbed her of her childhood.”
The 11-year-old girl received no medical care throughout her pregnancy, and the grandmother defended this, saying no one in the house knew she was expecting a child
Muskogee’s Assistant District Attorney Janet Hutson, speaking publicly shortly after Dustin and Cherie were arrested, described the case as “one of the most, if not the most serious,” she has taken on.
Image credits: Muskogee County Sheriff’s Department
“I was horror-stricken to find out it’s an 11-year-old little girl who’s given birth.”
Hutson went on to say the child had not undergone any checks during her pregnancy, and the only time she had seen a hospital was after she gave birth.
The local assistant district attorney says both parents could serve life sentences
While initial reports indicated that Dustin and Cherie were being held on $100,000 bail, documents seen by People suggest the duo has been released.
The children have snce been removed from the home and the custody of their parents, and according to Hutson:
“Each of the charges against both defendants are punishable by up to life.”
The last available statistics for the United States showed that 6.6 out of every 1,000 females fell pregnant before the age of 14
Image credits: NBC News
Going by the public’s reaction to this horror, cases like these are recurring. One netizen claiming to be social worker gave a personal account, writing:
“As a Social Worker I had a similar case. The mother didn’t want to get pregnant again and the boyfriend wanted a child.
“The mother talked her teenaged daughter into [submitting to] the mother’s boyfriend so he wouldn’t leave her and he could have a baby.”
Image credits: KJRH -TV | Tulsa | Channel 2
Image credits: Muskogee County Sheriff’s Office/Facebook
Statistics on child pregnancies in the United States are dated: the most recent available being from 1985 at a time when “6.6 of every 1,000 girls aged 14 and younger” fell pregnant annually.
This figure was double that of Canada’s, per Science and Babies: Private Decisions, Public Dilemmas (a study on the reproductive issues faced by Americans).
The public believes the grandmother knew
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