An Atmore woman who was arrested in July and accused of doing nothing to stop her mother-in-law from prostituting the woman’s teenage daughter, was back behind bars just 10 days after she finally was able to make bond.
Melissa Deann Stoker, 37, spent more than four months in the Escambia County Detention Center before a $100,000 bond was posted on her behalf on November 20. That bond represented a significant reduction in her original surety requirement of $1 million and came with several conditions, including that Stoker could not have any contact with any person 18 years old or younger.
Her short-lived freedom came to an end November 30 when the Escambia County District Attorney’s Office petitioned Circuit Judge Bert Rice to revoke the bond. The revocation request was filed after Atmore police discovered that Stoker was either residing at or visiting a local home where several minor children were also staying.
“Lieutenant (John) Stallworth was told that Melissa Deann Stoker was in a house on Wilson Avenue where there were small children,” said APD Chief Chick Brooks. “That is a violation of her bond, so she was taken into custody and transported to the county jail.”
Stoker is now being held without bond on one count each of first-degree human trafficking, endangering the welfare of a child and contributing to the delinquency or need of supervision of a child. According to published reports, Rice ordered that Stoker remain in jail “until further resolution of the case by the court.”
Her mother-in-law – 67-year-old Mary Lue Daw – and Charles Clarence Stacey, Daw’s 87-year-old boyfriend, were each arrested in mid-July after an investigation by city police and local Department of Human Resources personnel determined that Daw accepted money from Stacey in exchange for permission to have sex with her granddaughter, who was 13 at the time.
Court documents show that Daw orchestrated an illicit tryst between her boyfriend and her son’s child at Daw’s home. Stacey reportedly coerced the 13-year-old into a back bedroom, where he had sex with her and threatened to do her harm if she “did not participate in the sexual servitude.”
Stoker was subsequently arrested after the investigation revealed that she had become aware of the illegal sexual contact, yet continued to leave her daughter in Daw’s care.
The girl’s apparently guiltless granny has remained behind county bars under $1 million bond since her arrest on one count each of rape in the first degree, human trafficking, promoting prostitution in the first degree and enticing a child for immoral purposes.
Stacey is the only one of the trio currently not in jail. The 87-year-old – charged with one count each of first-degree rape, first-degree human trafficking, first-degree promoting prostitution and enticing a child for immoral purposes – has been released under stipulations including that he wear a monitoring device 24 hours a day and that he not have contact with any minor child.