Amanda Stott-Smith, who threw her children off the Sellwood Bridge in the middle of the night more than a decade ago, died on Sunday morning at the Coffee Creek Correctional Facility in Wilsonville where she was serving a life sentence.
Stott-Smith was sentenced in April 2010 for intentionally killing her 4-year-old son, Eldon Jay Rebhan Smith, and trying to kill her 7-year-old daughter, Trinity Smith, by dropping them off the Sellwood Bridge the previous May.
The children were pulled out of the water by David Haag and his companion, Cheryl Robb, who lived in a floating home northwest of the Sellwood Bridge. A police sergeant then performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation on Eldon, but it was too late to save the boy.
Police caught Stott-Smith a few hours after the act on the ninth floor of a downtown parking garage; they grabbed her as she tried to jump.
She told police she threw her children off the bridge as an act of revenge against her estranged husband, who had obtained custody of the children a month earlier and who she presumed had a new girlfriend.
Stott-Smith was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 35 years, meaning she could have been released at age 67.
A year and a half after the tragedy, a Portland Fire rescue boat was named for Trinity and Eldon.
The Oregon Department of Corrections did not say how Stott-Smith, now 45-years-old, died at the prison. A spokeswoman said the Medical Examiner will determine the cause of her death.
A book, “To the Bridge: A True Story of Motherhood and Murder” by Nancy Rommelmann, documents Stott-Smith’s act and the dysfunctional relationship she had with her husband.
