A newlywed fell to her death while arguing with her husband in a parking garage over the weekend following a baseball game, officials said.
Allissa Martin Jenkins, 27, and her new husband Bradley Jenkins, 30, were at a parking garage in St. Louis after a St. Louis Cardinals game on June 1, according to charging documents obtained by KMOV.
Police responded to a 911 call around 1:45 a.m. on Sunday morning and found Martin’s body on a ramp in the garage. Jenkins was on top of her, bloody and possibly drunk.
Officers found Martin’s phone on the seventh floor of the garage and discovered she’d recorded her and her husband fighting. Martin was shouting at Jenkins to stop punching her in the face.
“The recording showed her pointing the camera toward herself,” Detective Mark West wrote in a probable cause statement obtained by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “She then turned the camera toward this defendant and he was shown on camera. They were arguing.”
The phone eventually dropped to the ground but kept recording audio, capturing her scream as she fell from the garage and landed.
“You hear her scream as she falls,” West wrote.
The video showed that Jenkins was lying when he said the pair were not in a physical argument or on the roof of the parking garage together. He was arrested and charged with domestic assault. Depending on the autopsy, he could be charged with murder, reported Fox 2.
The pair were wed on May 22 in Las Vegas.
Both Jenkins and Martin worked for the state Department of Corrections. Jenkins was hired in 2010 and was a lieutenant while Martin was hired in 2015 and was a corrections officer, a spokesperson for the department told the Post-Dispatch.
Court records showed that Jenkins has a history of violent crimes.
In June 2012, he was charged with misdemeanor battery, which was upgraded to felony aggravated battery two months later, reported WICS. He pleaded guilty to the misdemeanor and was on probation for 18 months.
That same year, an order of protection was filed against him, though it was later dismissed.
In 2017, Jenkins was charged with felony aggravated battery; he again took a plea deal that had him plead guilty to misdemeanor battery. This time, he was in jail for two days and on probation for two years.
Domestic Assault
More than 12 million people in the United States victims of rape, physical violence or stalking by an intimate partner—24 people per minute, according to the National Domestic Violence Hotline. “1 in 4 women (24.3 percent) and 1 in 7 men (13.8 percent) aged 18 and older in the United States have been the victim of severe physical violence by an intimate partner in their lifetime,” it reported.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), intimate partner violence affects millions of people in the United States each year.
Intimate partner violence (IPV) is defined as violence or aggression that occurs in a close relationship, usually perpetrated by current and former spouses and dating partners. “IPV can vary in frequency and severity and occurs on a continuum, ranging from one episode that might or might not have lasting impact, to chronic and severe episodes over a period of years,” the agency said.
The behavior can fall into four categories, which are physical violence, sexual violence, stalking, and psychological aggression.
Anyone affected by domestic violence, including friends and family members concerned about a loved one, can receive confidential help, advice, information or crisis intervention by calling the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233.