It was one of the most bizarre sex crimes in recent Tulsa history. Now it’s over, and both adults involved are headed to prison.

The 12-year-old girl showed up a Hillcrest Hospital in midtown Tulsa in July 2021 in labor.

The father-to-be apparently expected to walk out with the girl and their new bundle of joy.

“They walked in just like any other couple would, excited to deliver their newborn child,” Tulsa Police Officer Danny Bean told FOX23 News in 2021.

When the child, well below the age of consent, showed up to give birth, doctors immediately called Tulsa Police to report what was happening.

  • Burn_The_Right@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    No one would have been in trouble if they were married. In Oklahoma, there are no age restrictions for marriage. An adult can marry a toddler if they want. Child marriage is a long-standing conservative tradition, unfortunately.

    • Kalash@feddit.ch
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      1 year ago

      No one would have been in trouble if they were married

      Would being married actually nullify age of consent laws though?

      Genuinely asking.

    • trashmonkey@lemmy.world
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      I disagree with the no age restrictions statement. That makes it sound like there are no restrictions. According to Wikipedia , in Oklahoma, you have to be 18 to get married, 16 with a parent’s permission, and any age under 16 requires a court order.

      • filcuk@lemmy.zip
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        1 year ago

        I can’t imagine a use for court ordered marriage that would result in anything good.

        • WaxedWookie@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          One of my wife’s friends needed parental consent because she got married at 17 (to a guy a few years older). The whole thing worked out OKish - they’ve been together nearly 20 years, had a couple of kids, but I think they both recognise they got together too young, and wouldn’t otherwise be together today - though they have no plans to separate.

        • SterlingVapor@slrpnk.net
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          1 year ago

          I can. By making it technically possible, you can divert attention.

          One example would be for crazy edge situations. Like letting children with terminal illnesses fulfill their last wishes, or letting hormone ridden teens make their case to a judge, keeping them from more extreme actions.

          But more practically, I think this is a great idea… 99.9% of anyone asking for this either needs court ordered mental evaluation and/or a referral to CPS to do a deep dig into the situation. By making it technically possible, that means anyone seriously pursuing this has to explain themselves to a judge.

          Unfortunately our judicial system has a lot more to do with money than justice (so most people who would actually go through with this probably have the money to protect themselves from consequences), but this law would be a sensible part of a more perfect system… Granted this should almost never be granted by the court (terminally ill child is the only situation that makes sense to me), but there’s value in it

          My opinion would change greatly if this is a real path to child marriage rather than a mostly theoretical possibility

      • aceshigh@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        any age under 16 requires a court order.

        i wonder under what circumstances this happens.

        • joel_feila@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          mostly when the girl is raped by her future husband and the family did want to live with the shame/sin of sex before marriage. So they just marry off the girl and pretend the sex happened after the wedding

      • JokeDeity@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        You must not know many American conservatives. Child marriage is a big thing for them.

    • LillyPip@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      An adult can marry a toddler if they want.

      No way that’s true. How is this the top comment?

      Even if hyperbole, come on. Even famously backwards Oklahoma isn’t that bad. Jesus.

  • MagicShel@programming.dev
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    1 year ago

    How do you have an entire fucking family show up for a baby shower and not one god damn person says a thing? How do these people show up at a hospital with a pregnant 12 year old thinking this was going to have a happy ending?

    That’s some George Costanza shit right there. “Was I not supposed to impregnate 12 year olds? Because I had no idea. I mean if someone had told me that was frowned on around here, I never would’ve done it.”

  • INeedMana@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    After reading the title, I did not expect this to get even more fucked up

    Miranda-Jara was initially in a relationship with the girl’s mother but when things soured between the two, mom allowed Miranda-Jara to move on to her then-12-year-old daughter. Eventually, they would begin living together as a couple

  • callouscomic@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    RAPE! She helped him RAPE!

    GET THE FUCKING HEADLINES CORRECT.

    A 12 year old did not “get pregnant by grown man.” She was FUCKING RAPED!

    Holy shit, it implies the issue here was the getting pregnant. There’s a little something that occurred before that and it was called RAPE!

    • M0oP0o@mander.xyz
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      1 year ago

      I would also point out the human trafficking by pimping out your own child. Really need some sort of extra charge for that one, something about abusing a position of power.

      • TopRamenBinLaden@sh.itjust.works
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        There actually is in a lot of states. There is a specific charge for, “sexual abuse on a child from a position of trust”, that is specifically used for parental guardians. The charge is treated as a higher class than just sexual abuse on a child by itself, and I think the minimum is around 10 years for it. It should probably be higher considering people go to prison longer for drug charges, but at least its something.

        I learned this from watching too many true crime documentaries.

    • WaxedWookie@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I’m not sure whether the rape or the non-consentual pregnancy and forced birth is worse…

      Then there’s the fate of the child born to the kind of monster that would pay to do this…

    • BonesOfTheMoon@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I read this article about an underage marriage, and while it explains how they get to that point in a more specific way, these are still men who rape children incapable of consent. No matter how you slice it, it’s rape.

  • indomara@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    The last sentence is a punch in the gut.

    “The girl’s father was in prison for a separate sex crime and has no involvement in his daughter’s life, Tulsa Police told FOX23 News at the time of the incident.”

  • magnetosphere@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    How is this going to work out legally for the girl and her baby? The girl isn’t even old enough to have her own bank account. Is she old enough to make parental decisions for her baby? Will the state take the baby away from her?

    As terrible as it is, I wonder if that might be for the best.

        • A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          The good outcome would have been someone shooting the mother and the rapist before they traumatized the poor kid.

          • TopRamenBinLaden@sh.itjust.works
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            I feel terrible for agreeing with this, but it’s true. This poor little girl literally would have been less traumatized if someone just killed her parents.

    • icedterminal@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      From the many times I’ve seen this type of incident on the news (unfortunately), they usually place the baby in the care of relatives first if possible.

      • jasondj@ttrpg.network
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        1 year ago

        If theres a responsible relative who wants their nieces/granddaughters/cousins rapists baby…sure.

        • Fisk400@feddit.nu
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          The baby of a rapist is still just a baby and I believe that most people consider them equally deserving of care as any other baby.

        • aceshigh@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          the baby didn’t do anything wrong, and deserves to be loved and cared for just like any other baby.

        • DogMuffins@discuss.tchncs.de
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          I think most people would at least consider it. Ultimately the child is innocent, and related to you by blood. Totally understandable that the mother may not want to raise a child like resulting from rape, but for the rest of the family the relationship to the child is the same as any other niece or cousin or whatever.

      • Evie @lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Honestly as unpopular as it is for me to say…, those need to be stopped too… no one should be getting married as teens when they can’t vote or sign a contract legally…

        • ricecake@sh.itjust.works
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          1 year ago

          Romeo and Juliet laws are fine for consent purposes, but yeah… They can wait for marriage until they’re both adults.
          Too many weird ways that people can technically get away with selling children.

          • Evie @lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            For consent, yes! But the contract/marriage part… I think they are more dangerous than good.

        • tinkeringidiot@lemmy.world
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          Shouldn’t be that unpopular, really. Under those laws, a 16 year old can marry an 18 year old no problem. But, if things aren’t so great a year later (and let’s be honest, we all know people who’ve had those marriages), the now 17 year old needs permission from their adult spouse (parents don’t count anymore, since marriage also emancipates them) to retain an attorney or file for divorce.

          Giving the maximum benefit of doubt here and assuming that Romeo and Juliette laws are an honest attempt not to saddle young lovers with a lifetime offender registration, the marriage component of them should be scrapped.

  • aceshigh@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    The girl’s father was in prison for a separate sex crime and has no involvement in his daughter’s life, Tulsa Police told FOX23 News at the time of the incident.

    so i guess that explains why she was comfortable with allowing an adult to rape her daughter. these are the kind of men she dates.

  • 21Cabbage@lemmynsfw.com
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    1 year ago

    “one of the most bizarre sex crimes in recent Tulsa history” is a pretty specific statement and makes that city sound terrible.