Darren Wilson secretly got married last month

Wilson's new wife, Officer Barbara Spradling won a medal of valor award in 2012

Published November 24, 2014 5:26PM (EST)

In this Feb. 11, 2014 image from video released by the City of Ferguson, Mo., officer Darren Wilson attends a city council meeting in Ferguson.         (AP/City of Ferguson)
In this Feb. 11, 2014 image from video released by the City of Ferguson, Mo., officer Darren Wilson attends a city council meeting in Ferguson. (AP/City of Ferguson)

Ferguson, Mo. has been host to a close-to-constant stream of protests, sit-ins and organizing events in response to the fatal shooting of unarmed teenager Michael Brown this past August. The officer responsible for the shooting, Darren Wilson, 28, has managed to stay totally out of the public eye, even skipping a trial for a case that won him an award, possibly for fear that any sort of appearance would result in (at least emotional) injury.

However, according to a report from the New York Times' Julie Bosman and Campbell Robertson, Wilson managed to get married in October to a fellow officer in the Ferguson Police Department, Officer Barbara Spradling, 37, without anyone finding out.

Bosman and Robertson report:

The couple obtained their marriage license in Clayton, Mo., outside St. Louis, in the recorder of deeds office on the fourth floor of the Lawrence K. Roos administrative building, steps away from the courthouse where the grand jury has been meeting.

While security guards question people going in and out of the building, the deeds office itself is a blandly bureaucratic place where clerks sit in open cubicles. A clerk at the marriage license desk said on Monday that she was surprised that Officer Wilson went there, as opposed to another county or state -- possibly Las Vegas, she said -- where he could have filled out paperwork with a greater guarantee of privacy.

According to the office's records, the couple got married on Oct. 24, with one of Wilson's lawyers, Greg Koppel, and an Oakland, Mo. judge, Christopher B. Graville as witnesses.

The two own a house on Manda Lane in Crestwood, Mo., but quickly abandoned it after Wilson's identity was revealed in conjunction with Brown's death.

Spradling received a medal of valor award in 2012, according to the New York Times.


By Joanna Rothkopf

MORE FROM Joanna Rothkopf


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Barbara Spradling Darren Wilson Ferguson Michael Brown Wedding