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Former Lynx star Maya Moore and her husband, Jonathan Irons, announced the birth of their first child, Jonathan Hughston Irons Jr., the pair told Good Morning America on Tuesday.
The newest member of the Irons family was born in February. The announcement of his arrival comes four days after the two-year anniversary of Jonathan’s release from prison.
Moore stepped away from the WNBA after the 2018 season to help free her now husband from a Missouri prison after a wrongful conviction. According to The New York Times, Irons was convicted at the age of 18 of a burglary and shooting at the home of Stanley Stotler, who survived the crime after being shot in the right temple and right arm. Irons was tried as an adult—though the crime he was accused of committing occurred when he was 16—and sentenced to 50 years after the 1998 verdict.
Irons spent more than two decades in prison and met Moore in 2007 through prison ministry, per The Times. Their meeting came before the future ’11 No. 1 draft pick’s freshman year at UConn, where she led the team to four Final Four appearances and two National Titles in four seasons.
After six All-Star nods, four WNBA Finals wins and the 2014 league MVP award, Moore announced she would not be returning for the 2019 season and would be going on a hiatus. According to The Times, she wanted to help Irons build the case for what they thought would be his final appeal. The two had maintained and fostered a close friendship since meeting a decade earlier.
In March 2020, Irons’s conviction was vacated by a state judge. The decision hinged on the fact that the prosecution in his initial trial had not given Irons’s defense fingerprint evidence that could have been used to argue his innocence. He was released in July ’20, and the two were married a few weeks later.
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The pair told the GMA crew that the trio love “dancing, making up songs” and “tummy time.”
“Marrying Jonathan was one of the happiest days of my life,” Moore said in an Instagram post. “Delivering JJ was one of the proudest days of my life! Witnessing Jonathan be a Father…Priceless.”
