Judge knew of worry over mom held in death

PORTLAND – The family of a woman accused of aggravated murder in the death of her 4-year-old son told a judge at a custody hearing for an older child last year they were concerned she was drinking too much.

Testimony recorded during an Aug. 27 hearing in Clackamas County Circuit Court indicated the family of Amanda Stott-Smith had seen her drinking on many occasions.

“I have really great concerns about Mandy’s abilities to be a mother at this time,” said Jackie Dreiling, her maternal grandmother.

“She doesn’t do things that I think a normal person would do,” Dreiling said. “I never know where she’s going to go with those kids.”

In court records obtained by the Oregonian, Dreiling joined Stott-Smith’s mother and brother-in-law to urge Clackamas County Circuit Judge Ronald Thom to grant the father of her oldest son more time with the boy.

Nathan Beck had been trying to get more time with his son by Stott-Smith since 2005. The couple were never married.

Thom had ordered evaluations of both parents, but Beck testified that Stott-Smith never set up an appointment.

Instead, it fell to her family to testify at the custody hearing last August.

“I love my daughter,” Kathy Stott said, “but I’m very concerned about everything going on right now.”

Stott-Smith also had two younger children, a daughter and another son, with her husband, Jason Smith.

Stott-Smith was indicted on a charge of aggravated murder in the death of the younger boy, 4-year-old Eldon Smith, and also charged with attempted aggravated murder for the near drowning of her 7-year-old daughter after the children were forced off the Sellwood Bridge early the morning of May 23.

Her brother-in-law, Daryl Gardner, testified last August that Stott-Smith had gotten “plastered” a few weeks before the hearing while driving with the two youngest children.

Gardner said she called him, saying she was lost. He said he was giving her directions to her parents’ home in Milwaukie when she drove into a ditch.

When her grandmother suggested that her marriage to Smith was failing, Stott-Smith dumped a milkshake on her head.

“I know she’d been drinking,” Dreiling said. “She wasn’t sober that night, and she was downtown with her little kids at dark.”

Portland police have declined to say whether Stott-Smith was drunk when she was arrested May 23 as she tried to commit suicide by leaping off a downtown parking garage.

Last February, Stott-Smith agreed to grant Beck full custody of their son, now 12, in a settlement approved by Thom.

Her husband, Jason Smith, had taken his two children to Eugene to live with him.

In her testimony last August, Stott-Smith’s grandmother, Dreiling, told her: “Mandy, I think you know you need help. You need help real bad.”