Leonora Jane Cillay. (Chatham County Sheriff's Office)
Leonora Jane Cillay's silver Hyundai Sonata revved up a boat ramp along the shoreline, witnesses say, and plummeted into the water.
Vodka bottles and beer cans floated from the car into Jordan Lake in Chatham County, N.C. A bystander told officers he jumped in and tried to reach the driver through the sunroof but that she closed it on his arm.
Then, a young boy stuck his hand out of a shattered rear window.
The account comes from an incident report that suggests that Cillay, a 41-year-old mother from Cary, was concerned that an "organization" was targeting her son, telling authorities that "this was the best option."
She directed investigators to her blog, where she has apparently written about her fears - and attempted to explain why she worries her young son is a target.
Bystanders pulled Cillay and her son from the water and paramedics transported the two to a nearby hospital.
Authorities told NBC affiliate WRAL that the boy was treated at UNC Hospitals in Chapel Hill and released.
The North Carolina Division of Parks and Recreation classified the case as an attempted suicide; Cillay was later arrested by North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation agents and charged late last week with first-degree attempted murder.
Park rangers responded to a call May 14 about a woman who had driven her car into Jordan Lake. When they arrived, Ranger Erin Brown said she saw the boy, wearing soaking-wet pants and a long-sleeved shirt.
"I bent down and asked him his name," Brown wrote in her report.
"He just stared at me and didn't say anything to me. I asked him if he was OK and if anything hurt - he just stared at me and didn't say anything."
Authorities say the boy is 6 years old; Cillay's blog says he is 5.
Brown said in the report that when she picked the boy up, he started crying and his mother started screaming, "I want my son, I want my son."
Rangers said Cillay was making strange statements and demanding that first responders remove their sunglasses and look her in the eyes.
"She kept saying, 'Look me in the eyes. I need to connect with people - look me in the eyes,' " Brown wrote in her report. "She asked me, 'Do you know how much I love my son?' I asked her, 'How much do you love your son?'
"She said, 'I love my son.' "
Brown said she asked Cillay whether her son could speak and she said no.
Authorities recovered a silver-colored box from the scene that contained money, passports, Social Security cards and an electronic device that measures radio and microwave frequencies, according to the incident report.
A suicide note was found near a restroom, according to the rangers. In it, they say, Cillay wrote that "this is the best I can do for" the boy.
She added: "I will always love him."
Authorities wrote in the report that they could not locate Cillay's blog.
But the blog's address appears to be misspelled in the report, with Cillay's first name written as "Leonore." Spelling it as "Leonora" leads to a site that matches Cillay's name and likeness.
That first-person blog, "Danger in a Safe Place," talks about Cillay's rough upbringing in London, saying she turned to "drinking and then self-harming" and was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder.
The blog says Cillay was concerned about her son, including his speech delays, claiming he was eventually assessed as having "sensory processing disorder and difficulties with motor planning" and put in therapy.
She also worried because he was short for his age, according to the blog; eventually, she started researching "dangers of electromagnetic radiation" and how it can impact bone growth.
"I knew we were surrounded by such radiation constantly and, alarmed at this discovery, I purchased a radiation meter, which confirmed my worst fears," the blog states, adding: "At the same time that I discovered the dangers of electromagnetic radiation, I also found information about Lyme Disease. Recognizing some of the issues in [the boy], I sought to determine if he might have what is known as chronic Lyme Disease."
It says test results were not conclusive.
The blog talks about how Cillay feared a terrorist attack and the Ebola virus - and wondered whether her son was at risk of a biochemical attack at her school.
"It has recently come to my attention again that we are in fact still being targeted for reasons unknown to myself by forces unknown to me acting in their own interests to fulfill some agenda, which is to our detriment," it states. "In my best effort to overcome this unknown force I am publishing the details of our experience to let this be known.
"Let there be peace on earth."
Authorities have not confirmed whether any information in the blog is reliable.
Shannon O'Toole, a spokesman for the State Bureau of Investigation, said in an email that the agency is aware of Cillay's blog and will present any findings to the Chatham County District Attorney's Office.
Kayley Taber, managing assistant district attorney for Chatham County, said prosecutors are also aware of the blog but she said she could not comment on its contents, citing an ongoing investigation.
Cillay's public defender, Ken Richardson, could not be immediately reached for comment.
Cillay is being held on $1 million bond, according to the Chatham County Sheriff's Office, and she is scheduled to appear in district court June 6.
© 2016 The Washington Post
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