PORTLAND, Ore. (TCD) — A grand jury indicted a 39-year-old man on several charges for allegedly killing three women who were found dead “under suspicious circumstances.”
The Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office announced Friday, May 17, that Jesse Lee Calhoun is being charged with three counts of second-degree murder and three counts of second-degree abuse of a corpse for the deaths of Charity Lynn Perry, Bridget Leanne Webster, and Joanna Speaks.
The district attorney’s office identified Calhoun as a person of interest in July, saying there were “links between” the cases, as well as with two other victims, Ashley Real and Kristin Smith. District Attorney Mike Schmidt said in a press conference those cases “continue to be investigated.”
Smith, 22, was reported missing to the Gresham Police Department Dec. 22, 2022, and was found deceased in Portland on Feb. 19, 2023. The other victims were discovered within the span of about two weeks.
Twenty-four-year-old Perry was found dead April 24, 2023, 31-year-old Webster on April 30, 2023, and 22-year-year-old Real on May 7, 2023. They had all been reported missing to different law enforcement agencies. Speaks was found dead April 8, 2023, in an abandoned barn in Washington.
According to The Oregonian/Oregon Live, Calhoun was sentenced in 2019 to four years in prison for burglary, but his sentence was commuted in 2021 because he worked as a volunteer firefighter. In July 2023, District Attorney Mike Schmidt told Gov. Tina Kotek to rescind Calhoun’s commutation and put him back in custody.
On July 6, 2023, a Clackamas County SWAT team conducted a traffic stop on Calhoun at a gas station, but he fled and jumped in a river. He was arrested once he got to shore.
Speaks reportedly died from blunt force trauma to the head, but law enforcement officials have not released causes of death for the other victims, the Oregonian/Oregon Live reports.
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