‘She’s a miracle baby’: Miami-Dade inmates describe secret way they got pregnant in jail without meeting each other

By Heather Walker, Daniel Cohen, Janiah Adams

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    MIAMI, Florida (WSVN) — What happened inside a jail in South Florida made national headlines. Tonight for the first time we are hearing exclusively from both the mother and father. Investigative reporter Heather Walker is at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center in West Miami-Dade.

7News broke this story back in January when the woman’s family wanted to know how this could happen here. The DNA results are in and the dad is another inmate.

Daisy Link: “Hello.”

For the first time, Daisy Link is talking about how she became pregnant in jail.

In an exclusive interview with 7Investigates, the 29-year-old said even she can’t believe it happened.

Daisy Link: “It’s a real twist, it is. Everybody says it to me, this is like some Lifetime Movie Network.”

Link is locked up awaiting trial, charged with second-degree murder.

Police said Link was holding a gun after shooting her boyfriend in the leg, killing him.

Surveillance video: “You’ll be fine.”

She has been an inmate at TGK for more than two years. But in June, Link gave birth to a baby girl.

Daisy Link: “She’s a miracle baby, she’s a blessing.”

A miracle because Link said she’s never met the father of her baby face-to-face.

Daisy Link: “I’ve never met him. I’ve never, it’s crazy.”

He was also a TGK inmate and, like Link, is charged with murder.

The DNA results show inmate number 200147865, Joan Depaz, is the baby’s father.

Automated message: “This call is from the Miami-Dade Metro West Detention Center.”

Heather Walker: “So you guys have never physically touched each other?”

Joan Depaz: “Never, like the Virgin Mary.”

Heather Walker: “The big question here is how did this happen?”

Daisy Link: “Through the vent.”

Link said she and Depaz started talking through A/C vents in their cells.

Daisy Link: “You would knock on it and you can hear the people from the different floors. You would stand on the toilet actually to be able to talk to them.”

They said they also passed notes and pictures.

Daisy Link: “Being in isolation for so long you begin to spend hours and hours talking to this person, you know, to the point where it’s almost as if you’re in the same room with them.”

Link and Depaz formed a romantic relationship and the 23-year-old shared his dream.

Joan Depaz: “I always really wanted to have a baby. And I’m not gonna get to do that for a really long time. So if I had to choose somebody, you know, it would be you. And she was like, ‘Yeah, we could do that.’”

Depaz came up with a plan.

Joan Depaz: “Not gonna lie, this is gonna go down in history.”

Daisy Link: “I don’t know what my fate is, you kind of don’t know what’s yours. If we’re gonna go out might as well just go out with a bang, you know? If it works, it works. But it definitely did.”

Joan Depaz: “I told her a way that one of my friends had showed me through the vent. Because the vents is like a L-shape, really. It drops right into my vent, from her room, she could throw a pen into the vent and it’ll land right into my vent.”

Daisy Link: “We had figured out a way to drop the line. It was a line that we had established out of like bedding material.”

Joan Depaz: “I put the semen in Saran Wrap every day like five times a day for like a month straight.”

Daisy Link: “He would kind of like roll it up almost like a cigarette and he would attach it to the line that we had in the vent and I would pull it through. From there, I had placed it inside of, you know, the yeast infection applicators? I had placed it inside of there and then from there, yeah, I administered it.”

She said it only took a few tries before she became pregnant.

Daisy Link: “I was very excited. I was ecstatic about it.”

Heather Walker: “Is this possible?”

Dr. Fernando Akerman/fertility specialist: “Yes, that’s the short answer.”

Dr. Fernando Akerman is the medical director of the Fertility Center of Miami. He said the chances of this resulting in a successful pregnancy are slim, but not impossible.

Dr. Fernando Akerman: “We estimate that probably their chances were less than five percent, but that is not to say that the chances were zero. So this is absolutely a case that is exceedingly unusual. To my knowledge I’ve never heard or read anything like this.”

On June 19, the baby was born at Jackson Memorial Hospital.

Daisy Link: “I can’t believe it worked. I think everything happened for a reason.”

Joan Depaz: “Over here I’m like a celebrity.”

Their baby is now five months old. She’s living with his mom, who became a grandmother for the first time.

Link and Depaz, who are now in different jails, still talk on the phone and see their daughter on video visits.

Daisy Link: “She could be anything. I think that she’s gonna be something great.”

Now you may be wondering how this was able to happen without corrections officers realizing.

Miami-Dade Corrections has an internal affairs investigation, which officials tell us, is ongoing.

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