ST. LOUIS – An Illinois man pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor on Tuesday in connection with his wife’s fatal fall from a downtown St. Louis parking garage.
St. Louis police were called to a parking garage in the 200 block of South Broadway around 1:45 a.m. on June 2, 2019, after a woman was found dead on a garage ramp. The woman, identified as Allissa Martin, was pronounced dead at the scene. She was 27.
Martin’s husband, Bradley Jenkins, was with her body when police arrived. Jenkins told police they’d been married in Las Vegas on May 22. He said they both worked for the Illinois Department of Corrections.
Jenkins told police he and Martin had argued during a Cardinals game the night before.
Police found Martin’s cellphone on the seventh floor of the parking garage above where her body was discovered. The phone’s video recording mode had been activated.
When played back, police said the video showed Martin pointing the camera toward herself and then toward Jenkins. They were arguing. During the recording, Martin can be heard yelling for Jenkins to quit punching her. Martin dropped the phone, but it continued recording. Shortly after, police said you could hear Martin scream as she fell from the parking garage, as well as the sound of her hitting the ramp below.
Jenkins was arrested at the time, but the case was dropped in September 2019 after a St. Louis grand jury declined to indict.
The Illinois Department of Corrections fired Jenkins in July 2019, two months before the charge was dropped.
The St. Louis Circuit Attorney’s Office refiled charges of third-degree domestic assault against Jenkins on April 19, 2022. U.S. Marshals arrested Jenkins in Taylorville, Illinois, after the charges were refiled. He was taken to the Christian County Jail on April 26. He was then moved to St. Louis on April 28.
The case was slated to go to trial next week when Jenkins agreed to plead guilty to fourth-degree domestic assault, a misdemeanor. A St. Louis Circuit Court judge accepted the plea agreement, suspended a one-year jail sentence, and put Jenkins on probation for two years.
