PORTLAND, Ore. — The woman accused of sending her two children off a Portland bridge last month made a distraught phone call to her estranged husband shortly before the kids hit the water, according to newly released court documents.
Jason Smith told a police detective that Amanda Jo Stott-Smith called from her cell phone at about 1 a.m. on May 23. Jason Smith had been granted custody of the children in April, and Stott-Smith was hours late returning them from a visit.
“Help me, help me,” Stott-Smith said, according to her husband. Smith told a detective his wife also made statements such as: “You’ve taken my joy away,” “Don’t have my kids anymore” and “Why have you done this to me?”
Stott-Smith, 32, also told her husband she believed he was having an affair with a family friend.
Smith said he pressed Stott-Smith about the children, but got no response from his crying wife.
“Are the kids OK?” he asked. “Where are the kids?”
The details from the phone call were included in search warrant affidavits unsealed Tuesday. The warrants allowed detectives to search Stott-Smith’s 1991 Audi and a rental home the couple previously shared.
Among the items seized were seven medication bottles, two bundles of photocopies from St. Vincent Behavioral Health Services, a hand saw on the front passenger seat of the car and three handwritten notes found in a leather purse in the trunk. The documents don’t include what the notes said or the type of medication in the bottles.
Stott-Smith has pleaded not guilty to aggravated murder in the death of 4-year-old Eldon Smith, and attempted aggravated murder for the near drowning of the couple’s 7-year-old daughter, who survived the 75-foot plunge and more than 30 minutes in the Willamette River.
A medical examiner determined that Eldon Smith died from drowning. The affidavit states he had superficial injuries consistent with being thrown from a bridge, rather than a dock.
Though it’s not precisely known when the girl and boy dropped from the Sellwood Bridge, logs from the Portland Bureau of Emergency Communications show a caller phoned at 1:20 a.m. to report a child screaming for help. A couple who live on the river pulled the girl and her lifeless brother from the water at about 2 a.m.
Stott-Smith was arrested later that morning when Officer Wade Greaves spotted the Audi in a downtown parking garage, the suspect’s arm outside the window holding a cigarette. The documents say the authorities tracked Stott-Smith to the parking garage through signals from her cell phone.
When Stott-Smith spotted the officer, she hurried from the car and tried to jump off the parking garage. Greaves grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her back.
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