Blog, 911 calls add ominous details to Jordan Lake case

Andrea Blanford Image
Wednesday, May 25, 2016
Jordan Lake details
911 calls reveal chilling new details about a car in the lake.

JORDAN LAKE (WTVD) -- Newly-released 911 calls and a Wake County mother's blog are shedding new light on what may have led her to drive her car into Jordan Lake with her young son inside.

The incident happened the morning of May 14 at the Seaforth Boat Ramp.

The SBI said Tuesday that Leonora Cillay of Cary is still hospitalized and will likely be facing charges.

In the 911 calls, eyewitnesses describe a frantic scene just after Cillay's car went speeding toward the water.

"A lady just drove her car off the boat ramp into the lake," one caller said.

"Ok, is she still in the vehicle?" the 911 dispatcher asked.

"Yes! Yes! Yes!"

A family who had just launched their pontoon, came rushing back to see Cillay behind the wheel of her car with her 6-year-old son on her lap as it floated past the end of the dock and started to sink.

"We're there now," a woman from the boat said over the phone. "We're trying to shove the car backward with the boat."

Moments later the caller is heard yelling out to her husband, "Are you OK?"

"My husband cut his arm open," she said to 911. "Oh, God. Please hurry up! Please hurry."

PREVIOUS STORY: WAKE MOM DROVE INTO JORDAN LAKE WITH SON IN LAP

Eyewitnesses said the man tried pulling Cillay and her son out through the sunroof when she shut the roof on his arm. He still managed to get her out and then cut his hand reaching through the broken back window to grab the boy.

Among items investigators found floating in the water were vodka bottles and backpacks with documents inside from a mental health clinic in London, where Cillay is from, detailing a history of mental illness and her coping method of "deliberate self-harm."

Investigators also found a device used to measure radio and microwave frequencies. Details in Cillay's online blog point to her fear that her son was being exposed to dangerous levels of radiation.

In that blog, titled "Danger in a Safe Place," Cillay writes of the many medical tests she's requested for her son's various ailments over the years and her conviction there was a link to his school. She wrote that she believed her son was the target of terrorists plotting a bio-chemical attack through city water he was being served at school.

Cillay also wrote that she was once diagnosed with borderline personality disorder and she feared no one would believe her about the planned attack on her son.

In a bathroom near the dock, an eyewitness found a suicide note which read, "I know who I am now. I know what they plan to do with my son. I cannot let that happen. This is the best I can do for my son. I will always love him."

The family of good Samaritans that pulled Cillay and her son from the water held her back as they waited for help to arrive at the boat ramp.

"He won't let her go," the caller said of her father. "Because now she's wanting to run, because of what she just did."

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