On January 18, 2014, Alisha Walker and a fellow sex worker arrived at the home of a man named Alan Filan. A 61-year-old teacher at Brother Rice High School, an all-boys Catholic school in Chicago, Filan had already contracted Walker’s services through the popular classifieds site Backpage.com twice before. This time, after they talked terms, he agreed to pay the two women $150 each for a half hour of sex.

ADVERTISEMENT

When they got there, Walker would later tell the police, Filan demanded the sex be unprotected. The women refused, reminding him that wasn’t what they’d discussed. Walker said Filan became upset and took back some of the cash he’d just paid them. An altercation ensued, and he punched Walker in the face, grabbed a knife from the kitchen, and charged. She intercepted his attack and wrestled the knife from him, she said, stabbing him several times before running away as he shouted epithets at her. By then, the other woman had fled, too.

Three days later, police discovered Filan dead in his home. A co-worker had called to check in on him after he’d failed to show for work. He was found having bled to death as a result of numerous stab wounds; a toxicology report showed that he had been drinking heavily that evening. Before long, Walker — who’s from Akron, Ohio, and had been in Chicago for a court date for a previous drug possession charge — was arrested at a motel in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and charged with first-degree murder.