Oregon prosecutors have announced the indictment of a suspected serial killer in connection with three murders in the Portland area just weeks before he would have been released from prison on unrelated charges.
Jesse Lee Calhoun, 39, an ex-con who was released from prison early in 2021, is accused of killing at least three women and suspected of causing at least two more deaths, according to authorities.
Police arrested him last year after women kept turning up dead within a 100-mile radius of the city. Now he faces three counts of second-degree murder and three counts of abuse of a corpse after a large-scale investigation involving law enforcement agencies in multiple counties and the FBI across two states.
Suspected Portland serial killer Jesse Lee Calhoun, 39, has been indicted in the murders of Kristin Smith, 22, Charity Lynn Perry, 24, and Bridget Leann Webster, 31. (Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office)
Police named Calhoun, a career criminal, a person of interest in five Portland-area murders that took place between February and May.
Joanna Speaks, 32, Kristin Smith, 22, Charity Lynn Perry, 24, Bridget Leann Webster, 31, and Ashley Real, 22, were all discovered in wooded areas in Washington or Oregon.
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The remains of Joanna Speaks, Charity Perry, Kristin Smith, Bridget Webster, Ashley Real and a sixth, unidentified woman, have all been discovered within 100 miles of the Portland area over the past five months. (Fox News Digital, Google Maps)
Multnomah County prosecutors announced an indictment Friday in the deaths of Perry, Webster and Speaks.
Perry was homeless and last living out of a tent in Vancouver, Washington, her mother previously told Fox News Digital, about nine miles north of Portland. However, her remains were discovered in a culvert at Ainsworth State Park – 35 miles to the east.
Charity Perry, after she won an award in a chili competition. Her body was found on April 24, 2023, near a state park alongside the Columbia River, east of Portland, Oregon. (Diana Allen/AP)
Police found Speaks’ remains near an abandoned barn in Ridgefield, Washington, on April 8, 2023, according to the Clark County Sheriff’s Office. That’s about 23 miles north of Portland.
“There are indications the body was moved to this location,” the sheriff’s office said at the time. She showed signs of blunt force trauma to the head and neck, authorities said.
Deputies in Clark County, Washington, launched a homicide investigation into the death of Joanna Speaks after her remains were found at an abandoned barn in Ridgefield, Washington. (Clark County Sheriff’s Office)
Webster’s remains were found on April 30, 2023, in Polk County. She was originally from Milwaukie, Oregon.
Bridget Webster, of Milwaukie, was discovered dead on April 30 in Polk County. (Polk County Sheriff’s Office)
The deaths of Real and Smith remain under investigation. Prosecutors are asking anyone with information to contact Portland Police Bureau Detective Jeff Pontius at Jeffery.pontius@police.portlandoregon.gov or Detective Stephen Gandy at Stephen.gandy@police.portlandoregon.gov.
Real was last seen at a fast-food restaurant in Portland on March 27. Police found her remains on May 7 in Eagle Creek, about 25 miles southeast of Portland.
Smith went missing on Dec. 22, 2022. Police found her remains in the woods in the Pleasant Valley neighborhood on Feb. 19.
Kristin Smith and Ashley Real were found dead in February and May, respectively. Portland police initially said they had “no reason to believe” their deaths were connected. (Portland Police Bureau)
Calhoun received a light punishment for his prior convictions, including car theft, burglary and fighting with arresting officers. In 2021, then-Gov. Kate Brown commuted his 2018 sentence on drug and weapons charges as part of a program offering leniency for prisoners who volunteered to fight wildfires.
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That was not his first release from prison – he had also served about two years on an assault conviction between 2009 and 2011.
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Although the grand jury just handed down the indictment, he has been in custody since last year after Brown’s successor, Gov. Tina Kotek, revoked his clemency.
He was nearing the end of his original sentence when authorities announced the new case against him. He is expected to be transferred from the Snake River Correctional Institution to the Multnomah County jail ahead of his arraignment.
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Fox News’ Michael Lee and The Associated Press contributed to this report.