Inside the thriller dying of mum-of-one who plunged from automobile park
The last time Julie Stephenson spoke to her daughter was to make plans for her granddaughter’s birthday party.
Over the next 12 hours, a series of still unexplained events would unfold that would see Jamie Smith, 23, fall to her death from a multi-storey car park.
In the following days, weeks and months, the young mum’s phone would be discovered in the drain of a strip club, Ketamine found in her system, a man arrested and released and a key stranger never brought in for questioning.
What happened that night in Portsmouth last year is something Julie has been fighting to get the bottom of ever since, in an investigation she says was totally bungled by Hampshire Constabulary from the start.
Speaking from her home in Petersfield, Hampshire, Julie told MailOnline: ‘It’s a cover up. Someone out there knows what happened to my daughter. She never did it herself.
Julie Stephenson has been fighting for the truth about her daughter Jamie’s death
Mum-of-one Jamie Smith, 23, fell to her death from a multi-storey car park last year
Ketamine was found in the young mother’s system following her death, an inquest heard
Ms Stephenson is now fighting for answers and has accused police of giving up on the hunt for her daughter’s alleged killers
‘She deserves justice and she is going to get it.’
Jamie lived in the Southsea area of Portsmouth in a ‘tiny’ room and was a carer for her father in nearby Havant.
One of eight siblings, she loved crafts, walks on the beach and sunflowers.
‘She would help all her friends, so many say she was the light in their darkness’, Julie said.
At around 6pm on Wednesday November 23, she met her boyfriend for a beer and a burger at the Gunwharf Quays outlet shopping centre, which sits next to the iconic Spinnaker Tower overlooking the Solent.
It is thought the pair had an argument before CCTV showed Jamie leaving the centre at 10.44pm and arriving at Portsmouth Guildhall 45 minutes later.
It was here where she met three men, who Julie says were strangers, before continuing with one of them to Wiggle strip club on Surrey Street, a five minute walk.
‘They [police] didn’t even tell us that Jamie was with anyone until two days before seeing the CCTV, they kept saying she was alone’, Julie, 61, revealed.
The CCTV shown to Jamie’s family shows how the pair arrived at 12.16am and at this point Jamie appeared ‘sober’.
She added: ‘We know that when she went in there, she was pretty much sober.
‘We are her family, we know Jamie, her facial expressions. The girls in there said she only had a couple inside.’
What exactly happened inside the club remains unclear.
But Julie says CCTV shows Jamie ‘in and out’ of the smoking area and at one point she called her nephew ‘really distressed’ and ‘scared’.
She added: ‘She’s on the phone to my nephew at 1.20am crying and getting all upset saying that this bloke is getting weird.
‘In the next half an hour her phone is down the drain, she’s left the club and she’s dead.’
Jamie’s iPhone would be discovered in the tiny drain of the smoking area several days later.
‘My Jamie wouldn’t have thrown it down there’, Julie says, adding: ‘She was always on that thing.’
Jamie lived in the Southsea area of Portsmouth in a ‘tiny’ room and was a carer for her father in nearby Havant
In the months following her death, Julie has erected a tribute to her daughter in her garden
The police have allegedly told Julie the phone fell out of Jamie’s jacket pocket but she is not convinced.
‘Apparently the police said the CCTV in the smoking room was too grainy and no good, you can’t see anything’, she said.
At 2.02am, Jamie was seen ‘falling’ out of Wiggle, despite only appearing to have a couple of drinks, staff at the club told Julie.
A man followed her out but police say he travelled a different but parallel route.
At 2.40am, around 35 minutes after leaving the club, CCTV showed Jamie dragging herself up the stairs of the Crasswell Street NCP car park, a 5 minute walk from Wiggle.
Seven minutes later, Jamie plunged to her death from the first level of the carpark onto Buckingham Street – she was found around an hour later.
Julie was at home in Petersfield at around 5am when police called her to say her daughter had been found with serious injuries and rushed to Southampton General Hospital where she met up with Jamie’s dad and sister.
Recalling the events, Julie said: ‘I didn’t even know what had happened, they said it may cost her her life.
‘I couldn’t take it in, we were driving so fast. It was so surreal.’
Jamie was taken for emergency surgery to try and stop internal bleeding in her chest but it was too late.
‘A group of them came in, they said Jamie’s dead’.
It was a day before her daughter Autumn’s fourth birthday.
‘We had a party here the day after she had died. All the family came over and we had to do cake and sing happy birthday, we did it’, Julie explained.
‘The police even went down to pick up the presents that she’d wrapped for her. It was horrendous.
‘Jamie was supposed to be coming here that day, we were going to blow up all the balloons. It never happened.’
Tragically Jamie died just a day before her daughter Autumn’s fourth birthday
Ms Stephenson has told Autumn that her mother has has an accident as she can’t bring herself to tell her the truth
Aged just four, Autumn is still unaware of what happened to her mum.
‘She knows mummy is in heaven and I told her mummy had her accident, that is all I can say. She misses her terribly’.
A 24-year-old man from Havant was arrested on suspicion of murder but was later released with no further action against him.
Seven months on from Jamie’s death, her family are no closer to understanding what happened to her, and no further arrests have been made.
Incredibly, the man seen in CCTV entering and leaving Wiggle with Jamie has never been questioned or even identified by police.
‘They’ve completely eliminated this bloke, they don’t want him as a witness, he’s never been a suspect, he was the last person to speak to her’, Julie says.
She added: ‘Why are they not bringing him forward, why has he not come forward? Why have his two friends not come forward?’
The questions only deepened when a toxicology report showed Jamie had Ketamine in her system when she died.
The presence of the Class A drug, an anaesthetic used recreationally, has left Julie believing her daughter was spiked.
She said: ‘Jamie is a scaredy cat, she wouldn’t have done Ketamine with a complete stranger the night before her daughter’s birthday, there is just no way.
‘They [the police] are trying to say they took that herself.
‘I know someone’s done something to my baby in that club that night, I know they did.’
The report could not tell how the drug got into her system.
It is also a mystery as to what Jamie was doing at the carpark in the minutes before she died.
‘Why did she go in there?’ Julie asks, ‘there is no reason for her to be in that car park.’
Jamie’s post-mortem said her injuries, which included several broken bones and fractures, were ‘consistent’ with having been sustained in a fall
The fact her daughter fell from a carpark in such unusual circumstances has left Julie fearing there was someone in the car park that night. Pictured, Jamie Smith
A post-mortem report said her injuries, which included several broken bones and fractures, were ‘consistent’ with having been sustained in a fall.
But it added: ‘In any fall, it is not possible to exclude an open handed push or shove by a third party as this will leave no trace at a post-mortem.’
The fact her daughter fell from a carpark in such unusual circumstances has left Julie fearing there was someone in the car park that night.
The errors continued to pile up and the family were left appalled when police told them Jamie had died round the corner from where they had laid flowers and tributes.
The mum feels Hampshire Constabulary’s investigation was flawed throughout, with delays to evidence collection.
She also accuses the force of a lack of transparency, inaction and not answering her phone calls.
More than half a year on, Jamie’s death has devastated her family.
‘My kids are broken, our family, we are not the same’, Julie admits.
‘It sounds horrible, but sometimes I wish she was run over, because at least we would’ve known.’
Julie has been left so disillusioned by the police’s efforts that she has launched a GoFundMe to raise £10,000 for a private investigator.
She said: ‘None of it fits.
‘Someone out there knows what happened to my daughter.’
Ms Stephenson feels Hampshire Constabulary’s investigation was flawed throughout, with delays to evidence collection
Hampshire Police insist they are continuing to carry out a thorough investigation and maintain Jamie’s death was unexpected but not suspicious.
A spokesperson for Hampshire Constabulary told MailOnline: ‘We were called at 4.04am on Thursday 23 November by our colleagues at South Central Ambulance Service to a report that a 23 year-old woman had been located with serious injuries on Buckingham Street in Portsmouth.
‘She was taken to hospital in a critical condition and subsequently died from her injuries.
‘Her family has been informed.
‘We are continuing to carry out a thorough investigation into the circumstances of the woman’s death, but it is not currently being treated as suspicious. A file will be prepared for the Coroner in due course.
‘A 24 year-old man from Havant arrested on suspicion of murder as part of our investigation has been released from custody without charge and will face no further action in relation to this arrest.’
A spokesperson for Wiggle Portsmouth said: ‘Wiggle Portsmouth fully cooperated with the police investigation. Following their enquiries, no evidence of spiking was found at our premises.’
A formal inquest scheduled for November will determine how Jamie died.
