Prison guard recorded fight with husband before her fatal fall from parking garage
A newlywed prison guard has been charged with assault 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, 30, a lieutenant for the Illinois Department of Corrections, is jailed on $100,000 cash-only bond on the third-degree domestic assault charge. No attorney is listed for him in online court records.
After his wife, 27-year-old Allissa Martin, was found dead over the weekend, police found her cellphone on the seventh floor of the garage, its camera still recording, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.
"The recording showed her pointing the camera toward herself," Detective Mark West wrote in a probable cause statement. "She then turned the camera toward this defendant and he was shown on camera. They were arguing."
Martin can be heard on the recording yelling at Jenkins to stop punching her face, according to court documents. 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," court documents say. He was covered in blood, CBS affiliate KMOV reported.
Jenkins, who's from the Illinois town of Taylorville, told police he and Martin were married May 22 in Las Vegas, charges say. He told police their co-workers had accompanied them to the Cardinals-Cubs game at Busch Stadium where they argued. West, the detective, said Jenkins "told me several lies" including claims that he hadn't been on the garage roof with Martin and that they hadn't become physical. The video reportedly refutes those statements.
Police said they are continuing to investigate Martin's death. Police say they have ordered an autopsy and are determining whether Jenkins should be charged with murder, KMOV reported.
Authorities confirmed to the station that Jenkins and Martin both worked for the Illinois Department of Corrections. Jenkins was hired in 2010, and Martin was hired in 2017.
