Family reflects on Posey's downward spiral: When love can't stop the fall
Regina Stokes smiles as she holds up the gift she has just been given by her family pastor: a T-shirt with a photo of her son, Jonathan Corey Posey, centered on the front.
The picture is a mug shot from the Rock Island County Jail. It is the most-recent picture taken of a young man who, for most of his life, has been at the center of photo album after photo album in his parents' and grandparents' homes.
To his family, he is Corey, an only child until he was 15, and the first grandchild in his tightly knit family. They call him the prince of the family.
Four years ago, the young prince began to change.
When Corey was arrested July 7 and charged in the dragging death of Illinois State Police Master Sgt. Stanley Talbot, it was like breaking the tape at a predictable finish line.
"In the last few years, he was just angry about the way things were going," his mother said. "There were the problems with police, his girlfriend, finding a job, smoking pot all the time."
Corey's mother and father, James Stokes, did not get too excited when their son got his first ticket. It was for driving without a seat belt when he was 16. They figured it could have been worse.
They were right. He was stopped
by police five more times for driving without a seat belt, twice for possession of drugs and alcohol, driving while intoxicated and getting into a shoving match with a state trooper in the middle of Brady Street.
As a junior at Central High School in 1997, Corey had tired of skipping school and decided to drop out. His mother tried to intervene.
"I took the afternoon off from work and drove to Central to find out what I could do," she said. "They told me I could sign him up for a GED (general equivalency degree) at Scott Community College, so I drove straight there from the high school and signed him up.
"He went for about a week and that was it," she said. "He was changing then — like something was going on inside of him that I couldn't get to."
The changes were not subtle.
The early run-ins with the law were relatively minor: a speeding ticket, underage tobacco possession and making an improper turn. He held a couple of jobs for a short time, but was fired for missing too much work. As Corey grew more frustrated by his troubles, his troubles grew as well.
The big problems began when he was 18 and was charged with drug possession in Rock Island County. He pleaded guilty. Two months later, there was more trouble.
One month after his 19th birthday, Corey kicked a hole in the wall at his girlfriend's apartment. Rather than offering an apology, he chose to fight with police. He had left the apartment and was sitting in his car when an Iowa State Patrol trooper, who was flagged down by his girlfriend's mother, asked him to step out. Corey cussed at the officer and began walking across traffic on Brady Street.
The trooper tried to get him out of the street, but Corey resisted. To make matters worse, the police found an open container of alcohol in the car and added it to his list of citations.
Corey's parents thought the worst had come when he was arrested for drunken driving in Scott County in March 2001. When he did not appear in court to answer the charge, a warrant was issued for his arrest.
He was being sought on that warrant when, police allege, he was stopped by Talbot at the Rock Island checkpoint June 23. As the car sped away, Talbot was dragged, then fell to the pavement and died.
The vehicle escaped police that night.
Corey later was arrested on the failure to appear warrant and was booked into the Scott County Jail. His parents posted bond and he was released July 3. Four days later, he was in bigger trouble than his parents could have imagined: He was arrested for the murder of Stanley Talbot.
Even before the claims that have been made against Corey in the Talbot case, his behavior toward police came as a surprise to his family. His parents, grandparents, aunt and uncle all say Corey always treated them with great respect.
"He would never sass or rebel," said his grandfather, John Posey Sr. "He was always very respectful to his elders.
"I think that's why he won't let me visit him at the jail, because he doesn't want to disappoint me."
Instead, he talks to his Corey by phone. And he found another way to feel some connection with his grandson.
"Corey was telling me one day how hot it was in the jail — in those little, tiny cells," John Posey Sr. recalls. "So, I shut myself into the smallest bedroom in the house one day and just stayed there for a while.
"I sat in there and tried to imagine how Corey feels."
His mother and father believe they know how Corey was feeling when he repeatedly found himself in trouble with the law: frustrated. But his parents were frustrated, too. They tried to tell Corey that a simple way to prevent police from continually stopping him on seat belt violations was to start buckling up.
Corey's mother admits her son had little to quarrel about with his parents.
"He was spoiled," she said. "I think I should have been harder on him."
His father, who can name every one of the friends Corey hung out with, doesn't see it that way.
"I don't think I could have done anything differently," he said. "I think that everything that happened was his destiny — even driving onto that bridge that night in Rock Island.
"I just don't believe we could have changed things."
His mother winced at the words before shrugging in defeat.
"He was doing illegal things, too," she said. "It was things I didn't appreciate, and I worried about him being involved with the drugs.
"I'd say, ‘Corey, you've got tickets coming out the ying-yang, and you're driving around with that stuff in your pocket,' " she remembers. "Sometimes, I would just cry."
The Posey and Stokes family pastor, Bishop McArthur Anderson of the Pentecostal Church of God, has known Corey for most of his life and has witnessed his upbringing and the way he handled adulthood.
There were the countless times he saw Corey on the front porch of his parents' home. When his little sister, Sierra, now 6, was born, Corey doted on her and often would sit on the porch all afternoon, holding his baby sister.
It was not too long before he went to jail that Corey was seen on the sidewalk between his house and the church — drawing hopscotch boxes on the sidewalk and playing with Sierra.
"But he lacked a sense of direction," Anderson said. "He didn't have a lot of structure in his life.
"The last few times I've visited him at the jail, I have seen a different Corey than the young man who went in there," he said. "Here's an example: You know, very few people can pick up the Bible, read it and remember what they've read, and that's why it is so hard for people sometimes.
"Corey amazes me, because he retains it — even quotes it to me," he said. "You would be shocked at how he can apply the lessons he reads to his life, and I sit and listen in amazement that he gets the relationship between the spiritual and the practical."
Corey's parents believe his loss of freedom and the time he spends with little else to do but think and read are good for their son.
"This authority and this discipline have worked for Corey," his mother said. "He says to me, ‘Mom, I wish I would have listened to you.'
"He has told me more than once, ‘I didn't know how much I love you all,' " she said. "He couldn't be more remorseful."
Part of Corey's personal growth behind bars may be coming from his uncle, John Posey Jr., who writes to his nephew every two weeks and sends him information about his family and cultural history, books and family pictures.
"I'm trying to help him discover his strength," his uncle said. "I send him things that I hope will help him find his way.
"I told him that he needs to write me back, because I need something to hold onto, too."
Corey's aunt, Debbie Green, holds onto a memory from something that happened just a couple of months before he went to jail.
"As old as he is, he's still very affectionate, which is sometimes hard for young men to show," she said. "But I remember, not too long ago, running into him and some of his friends at the grocery store.
"He kissed me on the cheek — right there in the store and in front of his friends."
It will likely be a very long time before Corey can hang out with his friends again. Still, his parents said he was not disappointed with last week's decision to delay his trial.
"Corey's concerns are truth and fairness," Anderson said. "He believes that what is right will come in time."
He is not the only one. After a first court appearance in the case, Talbot's wife, Ladonna Talbot, made this statement through an Illinois State Police spokesman: "She said she does not have a revenge or get-him-back-for-it attitude. She understands that is not going to bring Stan back.
"She wants to see him held accountable for what he did after it has worked through the courts."
As his family waits for that day, they wonder how a young man with a loving, hard-working and college-educated family could have sunk so far. But they also watch with eagerness as he tries to find his way out of the dark.
"I think this whole ordeal has saved Corey," his mother said. "And, for the Talbots and for this mother, that is a very hard thing to say."
Barb Ickes can be contacted at (563) 383-2316 or bickes@qctimes.com.