JEFF BARNARD
Associated Press
GRANTS PASS, Ore. (AP) — A 6-year-old autistic boy found dead after his mother told police she threw him from a bridge on the Oregon Coast had been happy in school since starting kindergarten in September, his principal said Wednesday.
London Grey McCabe will be remembered as a student who was “just full of joy and laughter,” Crestview Heights School Principal Kelly Beaudry said. “We were really fortunate to have him here as a kindergartener at Crestview, and he will be missed.”
Police say suspect Jillian McCabe parked her car at the north end of the picturesque Yaquina Bay Bridge as darkness fell on Monday then took her son in her arms, carried him to the middle of the span and threw him to his death in the water below.
She then dialed 911 on her cellphone.
“I just threw my son over the Yaquina Bay Bridge,” McCabe told the dispatcher, according to a probable cause affidavit filed by police.
Beaudry said the school in Walport will dedicate a wall in memory of London. Samples of his work with be posted and teachers can bring students to share their feelings.
Jillian McCabe has been charged with aggravated murder, murder and manslaughter. She has not entered a plea and her court-appointed defense lawyers have not returned calls for comment. She was being held without bail.
Her brother-in-law, Andrew McCabe, confirmed she had written an appeal on YouCaring.com, a crowdfunding website, in which she described struggling to care for her autistic son and her husband, Matt McCabe, who has been unable to work at his business doing email campaigns since developing multiple sclerosis and a mass on his brain stem.
The appeal ended eight months ago after she raised $6,831 toward a goal of $50,000.
The Oregon Department of Human Services had no record of the family contacting the agency for help, spokesman Gene Evans said.
The state medical examiner’s office conducted an autopsy on London, but Newport police said the results won’t be released.
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