ST. LOUIS — An Illinois man was sentenced to two years of probation after taking a plea deal on charges related to his wife's fatal fall from a downtown St. Louis parking garage in 2019.
Bradley Jenkins, 35, of Taylorville, pleaded guilty Tuesday in St. Louis Circuit Court to misdemeanor domestic assault, reduced from third-degree felony domestic assault. The plea deal cancels a jury trial that was scheduled for next week.
Jenkins had been charged with shoving his wife, 27-year-old Allisa Lee Martin, during an argument in the Stadium East Parking Garage on June 2, 2019. Jenkins told police that he and Martin had argued during a Cardinals-Cubs game the day before she fell.
The St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department said it received a call at about 1:45 a.m. that a woman had fallen from the parking garage at 200 South Broadway. Police arrived to find Jenkins covered in blood and straddling Martin’s body on the garage's ramp. Officers said Jenkins appeared to be agitated and intoxicated.
According to court documents, Martin’s cell phone was found on the seventh-floor rooftop of the parking garage and was still recording. The video showed her yelling at Jenkins to stop hitting her before she dropped the phone.
Shortly after that, police said the recording captured the sounds of her screaming as she fell and her body hitting the ground.
St. Louis Circuit Judge Michael Noble on Tuesday accepted Jenkins' plea agreement, suspended a one-year jail sentence and put him on probation for two years. He is required as conditions of his probation to attend a domestic violence intervention program, refrain from using drugs and alcohol and have no contact with Martin's family.
Jenkins was originally charged in 2019 with third-degree assault by former St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner. Three months later, Gardner's office issued a statement saying it needed more evidence.
The case was dismissed with plans to refile; it was not refiled until more than two years later in April of 2022 when a St. Louis grand jury indicted him on the third-degree domestic assault charge, to which he pleaded not guilty.
Jenkins and Martin were both Illinois prison guards and had gotten married the previous month in Las Vegas, authorities said.