Woman went viral for mystery jailhouse pregnancy. She’s guilty of murder: Miami jury
The Miami inmate who made national headlines when she became pregnant while behind bars was found guilty of murder Thursday afternoon.
Daisy Link, 30, remained stoic as the verdict was read. She was convicted of second-degree murder for killing her husband Pedro Jimenez, 33, outside her Homestead residence in June 2022. Link shot Pedro once in the leg.
Jimenez’s loved ones gasped and wiped their tears after hearing the verdict. The six-person jury deliberated for about two hours before announcing its decision.
“We thank the jury for their careful examination of all the facts and evidence presented by prosecutors during the trial,” Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle said in a statement.
Link is facing up to life in Florida prison when she’s sentenced.
Link’s defense attorney claimed that she acted in self-defense when she shot Jimenez, her husband of nine years who brutally beat her days before the killing. Prosecutors, however, painted a drastically different picture of the murder, alleging that Link killed her husband because she wanted to end their relationship.
Turning to the jury Thursday morning, prosecutor Alex Bergida pointed at Link and urged the jury to find her guilty of murdering her husband. Link and Jimenez, he said, were a “toxic” family — with a pattern of violence between the couple.
Bergida acknowledged Jimenez’s checkered past – and said, unlike Link claimed, Jimenez was “not a good guy.”
“I disagree,” Bergida said. “But he didn’t deserve to die.”
Link was captured on Ring camera footage mocking and belittling Jimenez after shooting him, Bergida said. The prosecutor played the footage, highlighting where Link told Jimenez “It’s not like I hit a major artery. You’ll be fine.”
Bergida detailed the moments leading up to the gunfire, including when Jimenez said “Do it, do it. I want to die. I gave you everything.”
Link then called 911 and pretended not to know who Jimenez was despite being married to him for nine years, Bergida said. Link put her head down when the call was played for the jury.
When police responded to the scene, Link admitted that she knew Jimenez and was captured on video saying “Pedro, what the f--- happened?” Per Bergida, Link repeatedly changed her story when detectives questioned her for an hour and a half.
“You know what Ms. Link did?” the prosecutor told the jury. “She lit a match, and she lit a fire... because she wanted to end the relationship.”
For Bergida, Link’s motive to kill Jimenez? She was “mad as f—,“ as she told detectives, because Jimenez was always away working as a trucker.
“He fled and he ran and she fired,” the prosecutor said. “I don’t know what is more [depraved] than shooting a man and then mocking him.”
Addressing the jury, Link’s attorney Ayuban Tomas waved photos of dark bruises on Link’s upper body and blood on her head. Those injuries, he told the jury, were caused by Jimenez – a cocaine abuser who, Tomas said, “terrorized and traumatized” Link and their two children.
“Five days before he died, he beat Daisy Link halfway to death, smashed her skull in,” Tomas said. “...He proved what he’s capable of just five days before this happened.”
Prosecutors, Tomas said, didn’t refute testimony about Link fearing that she was in danger of Jimenez’s abuse.
“They can ask you to forget... but you know it happened,” the attorney said, flashing the photos to the jury.
Shortly before the shooting, Jimenez yanked Link’s hair and shoved her to the ground, opening “wounds he created just a few days before,” Tomas said. Link had asked Jimenez to leave, he said, but Jimenez was “back to cause trouble.”
“Isn’t it reasonable that Daisy Link would fear that this man would hurt her, that he would kill her?” Tomas said, once again holding the photos before the jury.
Link, son testified about abuse
During her trial, Link took the stand in her own defense, testifying about the moments leading up to the shooting. Jimenez, she said, grabbed her by the hair and threw her to the ground in a drug-fueled rage over infidelity.
The couple’s almost decade-long relationship, Link said, was marred by domestic violence. However, she said she didn’t call the police on Jimenez because she feared he would be deported.
“I took a shot. I initially aimed towards the floor as I lifted the gun,” Link said on the stand. “I didn’t expect it to hit him. I just thought the sound would scare him off.”
Link and Jimenez’s 11-year-old son also testified about witnessing Jimenez beating his mother. Link had a saddened expression and rested her face on her hand as the child spoke to the jury via Zoom.
Link was at the center of a media storm after she became pregnant while at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center in 2023. In June 2024, she gave birth to a daughter, conceived by Link and inmate Joan DePaz after Link inseminated herself with DePaz’s sperm, which was passed through an air vent. DePaz is now in prison serving a 25-year sentence for murder.
