Updated: RSM Bridge Used for Another Suicide, Victim ID'd

By Martin Henderson, originally posted Saturday, 3:34 a.m.

The Santa Margarita Parkway Bridge claimed another life on Friday as a man jumped to his death in front of sheriff deputies. 

The incident took place close to where a Lake Forest woman killed herself last September. She was not discovered for five days.

According to Lt. Tim Rainwater of the Orange County Sheriff's Department, a call from an informant was made Friday, 6:27 p.m. to report a male standing on the bridge.  

Deputies arrived on the scene quickly and made contact with the individual, Jeffrey Jones, 34, of Mission Viejo. 

"He made it aware to the deputies that he didn't want them to make contact," Rainwater said. "They stepped back and continued to try to talk to him. Within a few minutes, he jumped off the bridge."

The Orange County Fire Authority responded after Jones leapt from the east side of the bridge. He died at the scene.

Jones is the eighth person to die after falling from the bridge, which rises 63 feet above O'Neill Regional Park and spans Trabuco Creek. Two of the deaths were accidents. The bridge is located just south of Alicia Parkway.

Prior to Friday, the most recent death took place last year when a Lake Forest woman, Michele Ann McKay, was discovered on the east side of the bridge, about five days after committing suicide; the coroner pegged her death as Sept. 4, 2012. It had been 25 months since the previous death at that location.

Only one person has ever survived a fall from the structure, which is essentially two bridges for separate directions of travel. Stephen Beckman did a high jump over the top railing in 2011 and lived, but went to the higher Oso Parkway Bridge a year later and jumped off that. He survived that, too, but was brain dead; his body was harvested of its organs for several local residents.

Despite the deaths, the deputies who patrol Rancho Santa Margarita have had good success in such tense situations, and four times in 2012 saved lives in peril, including deputy Tim Africano holding onto a boy on the outside of the fencing until help arrived on the Banderas Bridge, and deputy Felipe Martinez tackling a man who was on the ledge of the Antonio Parkway Bridge at  Tijeras Creek.