Darin Stallman, 44, of Crystal City has been sentenced to 12 years in prison for breaking into an Arnold home and holding a then-2-year-old boy hostage, court records show.
He entered an Alford plea, which means he did not admit guilt but agreed there was sufficient evidence to find him guilty of the offense.
On April 19, Jefferson County Div. 5 Circuit Judge Victor Melenbrink sentenced Stallman to nine years in prison for first-degree burglary and three years in prison for abuse or neglect of a child. The sentences will be served consecutively for a total of 12 years, according to court documents.
Stallman reportedly shattered glass on a back door to a home on Maple Drive on Feb. 27, 2021, and went through a door that led to the kitchen. Then, Stallman walked through the kitchen before making his way to the 2-year-old’s bedroom. The child’s parents heard the child cry and Stallman in the room through a baby monitor, the probable-cause statement in the case said.
Stallman used furniture to block the child’s bedroom door, preventing the child’s father from entering. In addition to the father and mother and 2-year-old, two other children were at the home when Stallman entered the house, but the mother and other children left before officers arrived, Arnold Police reported.
Stallman told police he was holding the child while he was barricaded in the room. Officers eventually got into the room, and Stallman reportedly fled the house by jumping out a window, the report said.
At about 6:10 a.m., officers arrested Stallman in the front yard of another home on the same street, Cpl. Brett Ackermann said in 2021.
Stallman, who also had lived in Arnold and St. Louis, had a prior felony conviction. He pleaded guilty in July 2010 to a persistent DWI offender charge stemming from a 2009 incident in St. Louis County and was sentenced to three years in prison. However, after he completed a treatment program, he was placed on five years’ probation, court records said.