To the Bridge

by Nancy Rommelmann

included “Blunt Head Force Trauma.”

blood and urine samples were taken. Results showed there were no controlled substances, alcohol, or c...

Trinity was admitted to Oregon Health & Science University Emergency Medicine...

Upon arrival, she was “talking and somewhat hysterical.” She was hypothermic but quickly warmed “with bear hugger, warm blankets, gastric lavage.” She...

On May 27, Trinity was released and sent home with Ibuprofen 100 mg/5 ml Oral Suspension for pain, and oxycodone 5 mg/5 ml Oral Solution for moderate pain as needed, a follow-up appointment in two weeks, and the instruction that it was “okay to play on playground as long as chest doesn’t hurt.”

The report included a summarized “verbatim account” of an interview with Trinity on May 26, conducted by a social worker

Trinity clearly states that she had fallen asleep in the car and that when she woke up she realized she was in the water. She did not make any other statements about any unusual events during the evening that provide much insight into this tragic incident.

Ms. Smith said the reason she put the children in the water was to “end their suffering” in an apparent reference to the mother’s perception about an ongoing custody conflict with Mr. Smith impacting

her children.

This record was made public on August 30, 2010. KGW-TV aired a short piece mentioning as much on September 2. The segment received no online comments. No other news outlet picked it up. “End their suffering” required effort, required that we expand what we took to...

I needed to know: What suffering?

Shanon was a former DA, now in private practice. Tiffany wanted him to get to Amanda before another attorney did, not for the job so much as support, someone who could maybe protect her, from whatever additional horrors were on the way.

Was he representing her? Shanon, whose full-sleeve tattoos were partially inked in, said he was. They let Shanon see Amanda. She recognized him, he later told Tiffany, but otherwise she was seriously out of it. Tiffany did not want details about the crime, not yet, and heard only that Amanda

had turned her face to the wall and talked to Shanon for two hours. The next day, Tiffany found the press hiding in the bushes in front of her house. She loaded her six-month-old and her eighteen-month-old into the car while reporters shouted questions at her. They had found Tiffany’s name during a check of Amanda’s criminal record in Multnomah County. In July 2000, Amanda and Jason got into a fight, and she was arrested. Had she thrown an air conditioner at his head? Tiffany did not remember, only that Amanda called her at two thirty in the morning needing bail money, something like $400. Tiffany had driven downtown and bailed Amanda out.

her

mug shot from that arrest seemed to reflect that she was not: in it, her eyes were bright, her smile relaxed, and her skin and hair as smooth as a mannequin’s. The equipoise did not surprise Tiffany, who knew Amanda as the girl at George Fox University raising a baby alone, this barefoo...

G...

Tiffany had seen Amanda as a role model, had admired her mothering to the point that when Tiffany was pregnant with her first child, it was Amanda she had confided in, telling her she loved the baby she was ...

If you could get on Amanda’s wavelength, it was a mostly beautiful place, where everything was rosy and there was nothing to stress about, it was all la-di-la-di-la. Which Amanda said about everything!

Amanda was living in her own little world, a place where the mantra was, “Don’t worry, it will all work out.”

Amanda sometimes did not appreciate the stress she was putting on others.

Amanda should have been. She had a baby to take care of, and she did it well when she wanted to, but she also wanted the life of a girl whose responsibilities were taken care of by others, like the time

they went to Tahoe for spring break. They had to change planes in Oakland. April wanted a cigarette, so they stepped outside the terminal. Amanda started looking through her stuff, looking and looking. Guys, she said. I lost my pot. Tiffany did not think Amanda could seriously have brought pot through security, on the plane, but

Amanda said she had; it had been in her sunglasses case and must have fallen out in the terminal ...

Tiffany and April were flirts but pretty straitlaced, and they realized on that trip that Amanda was not. In the scheme of things, she wasn’t wild; she was more a typical college girl, the kind that might have better liked being in South Padre Island for spring break, doing wet T-shirt contests and Jell-O shots.

Tiffany also saw that Amanda did not

feel as though...

enough on her own. One of the guys she fooled around with was no longer interested in her the next day, which, come on; who cares? But Amanda did care; she...

It was so overreactive, like some switch had flipped, all because some random guy did not pay her attention.

Tiffany told herself it was because Amanda always felt like the underdog, that she wanted to be accepted and liked and loved and told she was okay, and the only way she knew how to do this was through hooking up with a guy, believing

what he said, and doing exactly what he told her to do. Amanda would talk about what these guys had promised her, things like, “As soon as I break up with my girlfriend, we’re going to go on the phatest vacation. We’re going to go to Vegas for the weekend.” And Tiffany or April would say, “Amanda...

and they’re not going to break up because you slept w...

She only learned the hard way, Tiffany thought, always the hard way.

Becoming pregnant by one guy her freshman year and

another before her senior year was not the nor...

Amanda’s family, whom Tiffany met a few times and thought very, very conservative, were members of a church where wives were expected to be obedient to their husbands.

Amanda was seen, by her parents, as a rebellious sinner. Amanda said she wanted to please them, to change their minds.

when she planned to marry Shane Cook, the father of her second child. Maybe, Tiffany thought then, Amanda had been right; it was all going to work out. And then Shane killed himself.

Around this time, something curious happened,

Jason was the one by Amanda’s side during her

last month of pregnancy, who was in bed with her when her water broke, who drove her to the hospital when contractions began. Tiffany never liked Jason. He was stiff in his demeanor, not light on his feet; she and April would crack jokes that he never joined in on. He told Amanda he didn’t like her friends, that they we were a bad influence,

Tiffany was thinking, little do you know; Amanda is a strong girl, and she...

Amanda was swept up in Jason’s largesse, eating seven-course meals, shopping at Saks, an...

vacation...

rich boyfriend, with the new jewels. She showed off her sparkles to Tiffany and April, until she’d lose a bracelet, maybe at a club downtown—honestly, she didn’t know where. Tiffany did not know that Amanda was not losing her jewelry. Amanda did not kn...

She did not know the diamond Ebel watch he gave her for graduation, the Rolex he bought himself, and the leather jackets from Neiman-Marcus were later pawned or sold for cash. Amanda tended to trust what guys told her, and Jason could talk and talk until she believed what he was saying.

they had the added cushion of more than $200,000 in stocks, established years before by Jason’s maternal grandmother, that Jason had been given control of some months earlier. The funds might have provided a secure boost for two young adults launching their lives. Instead the money proved

an accelerant. Jason and Amanda bought no property and made no investments; they spent it on $6,000 bike frames and $1,000 cameras; they burned through cash so fast they might as well have piled it on the living room floor and set it on fire. Christine Duncan’s petition to the court in October 2000, seeking to wrest control of the funds from her son, included a letter from

Anthony Cubito, who had “worked as a counselor with Ms. Christine Duncan and her family perio...

Tiffany’s concern, Christine Duncan’s alarm: neither moved Amanda. She dug in. She hoped to marry Jason.