Daisy Link, 29, had been held at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center in Miami-Dade, Florida, since June 2022, charged with second-degree murder. Joan Depaz, 23, was being held in pretrial detention in another unit of the same complex for first-degree murder. They never saw each other face to face. However, on June 19, 2024, their daughter was born at Jackson Memorial Hospital.
The method was documented by WSVN-TV’s journalistic investigation: Depaz passed semen wrapped in plastic wrap through the air-conditioning ducts that connected both detention areas. Link used it with an applicator. Dr. Fernando Akerman, a physician consulted by the media, estimated that the probability of that procedure resulting in a pregnancy was less than 5%. It was not zero.
The DNA test confirmed paternity. Forty-eight hours after the birth, the baby was handed over to Depaz’s mother. Miami-Dade Corrections opened an internal investigation. In 2025, Depaz pleaded guilty to murder and was sentenced to 25 years in prison. Recordings of calls revealed that Link had planned the pregnancy as a strategy to obtain her freedom.
