A St. Louis cop forced sex on her while she was pregnant, she says. He wasn’t charged

Brittany Walker had put her four children to bed before the police officer arrived at her door, responding to a domestic dispute she was having with her husband.

The St. Louis woman, who was 25 years old and six months pregnant at the time, said she knew something was amiss when the officer complimented her chest tattoo and asked her whether she was “freaky.”

“I was scared,” Walker told The Kansas City Star. “I mean, if I hadn’t been abused numerous times before, been in bad situations with guys, been fighting with them all my life, I might’ve said, ‘No.’”

But she feared the officer. She said images of Mike Brown and other police shootings flashed through her mind.

“He said, ‘I can be your sugar daddy.’”

Walker, now 28, said the St. Louis cop coerced her into performing oral sex that day in June 2015. Afterward, she wiped his DNA onto a T-shirt, hoping it would serve as evidence.

But the officer was never charged, according to the St. Louis Circuit Attorney’s Office and the St. Louis Police Department. That might change.

“An internal investigation was conducted,” said St. Louis police spokeswoman Michelle Woodling. “However, the officer resigned prior to any internal disciplinary action occurring. Criminal charges were applied for, and for the results, please check with the Circuit Attorney’s Office.”

St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner has decided to reopen the case, according to spokeswoman Susan Ryan. Gardner took office in January — becoming the city’s first African-American in the role.

Jennifer Joyce, the circuit attorney at the time of the incident, could not be reached.

During the initial investigation, Ryan said, the case was taken very seriously. Walker and others were interviewed. Evidence was collected.

“DNA evidence is very good to have,” Ryan said, “but it’s not always the deciding factor on whether you can prove there was a crime. It proves there was sexual activity, but whether there was criminal sexual activity — that’s what we have to prove.”

Walker said she’s going public now because she wants justice.

“I felt so wronged, because you have all this evidence — you’re not going to do anything?” she said.

She’s the subject of a documentary, made by cousin Matt Houchin, that recounts Walker’s plight and the aftershocks it had on her family. In the video, she is only identified as Missy.

The Riverfront Times in St. Louis was the first to interview Walker and reveal her identity.

Houchin struggled to interview his relatives as they spoke about his cousin’s suffering.

“And when editing, I had to hear the story time and time again,” he said. “But ... I was hoping to spark some interest” and try to answer why this kind of thing happens.

Walker said she’d called the police because her then-husband had taken her car without permission.

The officer, whom The Star is not identifying because he has not been formally charged, conducted an investigation and then returned to Walker’s house, she said.

He asked about her sexual life with her husband and then motioned to his crotch and pleaded, “Oh, come on,” according to Walker.

“I honestly thought that if I told him no, he would kill me in the house,” she told the Riverfront Times.

Before he left, she said, he asked to return 20 minutes later, when his shift ended. Later that night, he called her and reminded her “not to tell anyone,” she added.

“She called me ... crying,” said Walker’s mother, Carol Walker. “I said, ‘You have to call and report it.’”

Walker feared for her life and fretted because the officer had her address, phone number and a description of her vehicle.

At one point, she packed a suitcase and left her home on foot with her four children; her husband had yet to return with the vehicle.

For weeks afterward she’d find herself in tears. She didn’t tell her children why, and she said she received no sympathy from her husband, who blamed her for calling the police in the first place.

“I was thinking in my head it would be better off for everybody if I was just gone,” she says in the documentary.

Now separated from her husband, Walker said she’s living in a domestic violence shelter with her children.

Since the incident, she was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma and has undergone two rounds of chemotherapy.

She’s now in remission.

She worries time has run out for criminal charges to be filed. The statute of limitations varies depending on misdemeanor and felony crimes, Ryan said, and the Circuit Attorney’s Office is researching whether the incident can still be legally charged.

“They clearly didn’t care enough even with all the evidence,” Walker said. “We’re low-income in south St. Louis. Just another black girl in the city.”

This story was originally published December 14, 2017 at 2:24 PM with the headline "A St. Louis cop forced sex on her while she was pregnant, she says. He wasn’t charged."