Amanda Stott-Smith, who was serving a life sentence for the 2007 murder of her two young children by throwing them from the Sellwood Bridge in the middle of the night, passed away on Sunday, June 5, at the Coffee Creek Correctional Facility in Wilsonville.
In May of 2009, Stott-Smith killed her 4-year-old son, Eldon Jay Rebhan Smith, and tried to kill her 7-year-old daughter, Trinity Smith, by throwing them down the Sellwood Bridge. She was convicted and jailed in April 2010.
You can see a tweet for the confirmation of the news-
https://t.co/egMKaZfVZE @AnnaResearcher
— W. Clayton (@weciv01) June 5, 2023
David Haag and his girlfriend, Cheryl Robb, who lived on a houseboat to the north of the Sellwood Bridge, rescued the kids. A police sergeant gave Eldon CPR, but it was too late to save the boy’s life.
Stott-Smith was apprehended by police a few hours later, on the ninth level of a downtown parking garage, as she attempted to leap. She told detectives she tossed her kids down the bridge because she was angry that her ex-husband had gotten custody of them and thought he was seeing someone else.
After serving 35 years of her life sentence, Stott-Smith would have been eligible for parole and released at 67. A Portland Fire rescue boat was given the names of Trinity and Eldon a year and a half after the incident.
The Oregon Department of Corrections has been mum on the circumstances surrounding Stott-Smith’s death at 45. According to a spokesman, the official cause of her death would be determined by the Medical Examiner.
Stott-Smith’s crime and her troubled marriage with her husband are chronicled in “To the Bridge: A True Story of Motherhood and Murder” by Nancy Rommelmann.
