A newlywed prison guard was sentenced Tuesday to probation after his wife, also a corrections officer, recorded a fight that ended with her being found dead at the bottom of a parking garage near the stadium where the St. Louis Cardinals play.
Bradley Jenkins, of Taylorville, of Illinois, was initially charged with third-degree felony domestic assault after 27-year-old Allissa Martin’s 2019 death. Court documents say a video taken on Martin’s phone recorded Martin yelling at Jenkins to stop punching her in the face before she dropped the phone. Jenkins was a lieutenant for the Illinois Department of Corrections at the time.
“The recording showed her pointing the camera toward herself,” Detective Mark West wrote in a probable cause statement at the time. “She then turned the camera toward this defendant and he was shown on camera. They were arguing.”
She then dropped the phone. “Shortly after that, you hear her scream as she falls,” West wrote.
When police arrived, Jenkins was straddling Martin’s body and “appeared to be intoxicated,” according to court documents. He was covered in blood, CBS affiliate KMOV reported.
But after a grand jury declined to indict him, he was recharged with a lesser count of misdemeanor assault. He pleaded guilty to that charge before he was sentenced, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.
In June 2022, Martin’s mother sued a bar, the parking garage operator and Jenkins for the wrongful death of her daughter. She argues that the bar overserved alcohol to her son-in-law and the parking garage operator didn’t provide adequate security. That case is ongoing.
Authorities confirmed to KMOV that Jenkins and Martin both worked for the Illinois Department of Corrections. Jenkins was hired in 2010, and Martin was hired in 2017.
Jenkins, who’s from the Illinois town of Taylorville, told police at the time that their co-workers had accompanied them to the Cardinals-Cubs game at Busch Stadium where they argued.
Thanks for reading CBS NEWS.
Create your free account or log in
for more features.
