Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Suspected Portland Serial Killer Stands Silent in Court
Episode Date: June 15, 2024Jesse Lee Calhoun has been indicted on second-degree murder, charged in the death of 24-year-old Charity Lynn Perry, 31-year-old Bridget Leann Webster, and 32-year-old Joanna Speaks. Prosecutors say t...hey’re still investigating the deaths of at least two additional women, Kristin Smith and Ashley Real. He’s also facing three charges of second-degree abuse of a corpse. All three women were found dead under suspicious circumstances in wooded or secluded areas around Portland last year. Detectives have linked the murders to a man granted early release from his sentence. Jesse Lee Calhoun, 38, was granted early release after he joined a group of inmates fighting devastating wildfires. Calhoun had been sentenced to four years in prison for felonies including burglary, unauthorized possession of a stolen vehicle, and injuring a police officer and a police dog as they attempted to arrest him. Calhoun's clemency has been revoked, and he is back behind bars. Joining Nancy Grace Today: Jarrett Ferentino- Homicide Prosecutor, Facebook & Instagram: Jarrett Ferentino Caryn Stark - Psychologist- Trauma and Crime Expert; Twitter: @carnpsych Sheryl McCollum - Cold Case Investigative Research Institute Founder; Host of new podcast, "Zone 7;" Twitter: @ColdCaseTips Dr. Todd M. Barr - Board-Certified Anatomic/Clinical/Forensic Pathologist (Ohio); Testified in Shawn Grate serial killer case, and featured in "Thin Places: Essays From In Between" by Jordan Kisner Annette Newell - KXL News, Host of "Speaking Freely with Annette Newell;" Alpha Media USA (based in Portland, Oregon); Twitter: @AnnetteNewell16 See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcript
Discussion (0)
This is an iHeart Podcast.
Crime Stories with Nancy Grace.
A moment of truth in a court of law. A suspected serial killer, Jesse Lee Calhoun, comes face to
face with multiple victims' families in court as he pleads not guilty to brutally murdering three women in Oregon and Washington.
And I strongly suspect there are other victims. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. A suspected
serial killer, Jesse Lee Calhoun, seemed without emotion as he comes face-to-face in court with the victim's families.
Calhoun, 39, is facing three counts of murder, three counts of abuse of a corpse,
and the horrific slayings of 24-year-old Charity Lynn Perry, Bridget Leanne Webster, and Joanna Speaks.
And he pulled a Koberger. His lawyer pleaded not guilty for him on his behalf when he, Calhoun, refused to speak out loud in court. Oh, please.
How did the whole thing unfold? I and many others have been screaming from the get-go, there is a serial killer stalking
Portland. But police not only deny it, they come right out and say point blank, we want to address
all the quote rumors that there's a serial killer. It's absolutely not true. Now we find out what they said is what's not true.
That's kind of an outright lie.
I had to put that on the Portland PD, but it feels like a kick in the teeth when someone
in law enforcement intentionally misleads the public.
They stated that they did not want to scare Portland women.
How about saving Portland women from a serial killer? And the number one way to avoid being
a victim is having knowledge. Knowledge that there is a serial killer and this is his M.O., modus operandi,
method of operation.
These are his victims.
This is what they had in common.
What, if anything, does that have to do with me, a woman walking down the street, getting
out of my car and going into the department store in Portland?
But no, they kept it a secret.
They knew it, but they not only no comment that that
didn't happen. They outright denied it. That said, bombshell, there is a serial killer in Portland.
Take a listen to our friends at ABC and KATU. A major development in the investigation into the deaths of several
women in Oregon. Just one month after police suggested the mysterious deaths of six women
were not connected, officials now say they believe at least four killings are connected.
The victims' bodies were found in wooded and rural areas between February and May.
Nine agencies took part in the investigation, leading them to a person of
interest. And sources say a person of interest is already off the streets. And I'd like to point
out that person of interest who is, quote, off the streets, Jesse Lee Calhoun. He's 38 years old.
When they're saying he's off the streets, that's because they've just nabbed him. He was behind bars already for a long string of
arrests. He is a career criminal. He has attacked a police officer and a canine in the past.
He's committed all sorts of felonies, but he got early release under the former governor because she thought he was susceptible to COVID.
Okay, he was recently ordered picked up after. There's clear links to him and it's just got to be
DNA. But that said, he got early release and I've got copious notes that I've taken about the time.
He was released on the streets July 2021.
By June, about a year and a half later, 2023, reports emerged in the Oregonian that six young women's bodies have been found.
That was fast.
He's out less than two years on the street. Six women's
bodies are found. Right now, four of these women are being linked. I'm waiting to hear about the
other two. Now, one may have been an unintentional overdose. We're waiting to find out about that,
but I don't know that. And another thing to consider before I get to my all-star panel is this is a serial killer's
dream.
It's a no police zone.
Remember Portland?
Stop police.
Get rid of police.
Make this a police-free zone.
Well, you know what?
Here you go.
Six dead bodies and a serial killer.
That said, again, thank you for being with us.
I want to go first out of this all-star panel to Cheryl McCollum, founder and director of the Cold Case Research Institute, star of a hit new series, Zone 7.
You can find her at coldcasecrimes.org.
Cheryl, can you believe this? How long
have you and I, and many others, I can't take all the credit, been saying there is a serial killer?
I don't care what police are saying, there's a serial killer. It was pretty obvious to all of us.
So again, whatever decision they made. So maybe they think we're idiots? Well, I mean, if they
already identified this guy on their own, and they knew
he was already locked up, maybe
they just wanted to keep playing it
because they were interviewing people.
Cheryl, he was
released. Oh, yeah.
That's how all the women, well, a lot of them
got killed. And it'll be a cold
day in H-E-double-L that I believe
this is his first
rodeo. I mean Karen Stark you're the
renowned psychologist joining us out of Manhattan at karenstark.com that's Karen with a C. There's
no way these are his first murders. It's just not possible and I want to point out one more thing
in my analysis. I believe that the serial killer obviously used a car because these
women are dumped.
One was behind a barn in a rural area.
One was down a river, Riverside Parkway out in a remote area.
They're found in wooded and remote areas.
He didn't drag them there on his back.
Okay.
Now, let me tell you this detail, Karen Stark.
I understand that he has told people haven't found any verification of
it yet but he is a self-proclaimed artist that he paints individualized
unique art on cars so there you go but those cars that any car that he has used is full of forensic evidence.
But what do you say, Karen Stark?
First rodeo, yes, no?
No.
I really, I can't imagine because when you were somebody who was a serial killer the way that he is,
and it's woman after woman after woman, he had practice on doing this, Nancy. I don't know how he started or where he started,
but there are bodies somewhere that this man has definitely killed. And I'm sure they're going to
find other evidence because that's just how serial killers work. They don't all of a sudden,
most of the time, just kill someone and say, yeah, I'm going to try it. They practice.
They practice until they really know what they're doing. And then they keep going and it gets worse.
So it's a good thing they found him. And by the way, I think a thousand people were released early
when he was. Yeah. Thanks, Governor. Jackie, wasn't that Governor Brown? Yes. Governor Brown. Now we've got Kotick in.
She is the one that signed the go get him, put him behind bars order.
But it was Brown that released him as part of a giant clean out the jail, get out of jail free moment.
Back to you, Cheryl McCollum, director of the Cold Case Research Institute.
Cheryl, what convinced you there was a serial killer long before the Portland police finally
told the truth? Well, the dates. You're talking about February 19th to May 7th. You've got four
people in a, you know, small, condensed area. They all are similar in age from 22 to 31.
They look kind of similar.
Again, the area that they were last seen is critical.
So they're all in this downtown Portland area, a condensed area,
and then they're all dumped in a similar area.
That tells you right there you need to be looking at this as a connection, as links.
I want to go now to Annette Newell with KXL News.
And she's a host of Speaking Freely with Annette Newell.
Annette, thank you for being with us.
Thanks, Nancy.
What finally nudged the Portland police to admit that there's a serial killer stalking women
across the Portland area. You know, the Portland police actually have not admitted that yet. The
admission really came from the Multnomah County District Attorney because the pressure had finally
been too great for them to bear because they had been getting, basically, we've known what's going on
here. It's pretty obvious that there are links between these women. In fact, just this morning,
I see in the Oregonian that investigators have been searching a Riverview apartment
where Jesse Lee Calhoun, the suspect, lived with a girlfriend after his June 6th arrest.
And that girlfriend confirmed that he had ties
to two of these women, Ashley Real and Bridget Walker.
So they all knew each other.
We know some of these women knew each other.
Two of them were good friends growing up.
As kids, they were friends.
So we've known that there's obvious connections here.
And I think the pressure finally got so great that they had to come clean and say yes.
In the last days, a suspected serial killer in court.
Remember I told you I suspect there are other victims?
Calhoun has been named a person of interest in the deaths of Kristen Smith, just 22, and Ashley Ray at 22.
Their deaths remain under investigation, but the connections are so strong. I feel it's got to be
him. Kristen's mother, Melissa, said it was gut-wrenching when she saw Calhoun in the courtroom.
She said, and I quote, it's hard to look him in the face.
And there's a lot I'd like to say. We already feel broken. We already feel empty. Many of the
other victims' families couldn't bring themselves to even look at the suspected killer. How did Calhoun manage to kill three, and I believe at least five,
women? Jarrett Ferentino, homicide prosecutor. You can find him on Insta and Facebook at
Jarrett Ferentino. Jarrett, did you hear what Annette Newell just said, it's always shocking to me to find out a serial killer has like
a girlfriend at home and a Riverview apartment blending in with the rest of us.
You can't look at someone and tell what's going on, what's lurking behind that facade.
I mean, look at the guy arrested for the Long Island serial killings.
He has a wife and two children.
He's a respected architect in New York City.
Kind of reminds me a little bit of BTK, the dog catcher, a deacon at his church, wife, children.
He was killing women left and right and dressing up in their clothes and taking pictures.
OK, so how these people I can't say that Brian Koberger really blended in, right?
He's getting his Ph.D. there at Washington State University, and he had been up to all
sorts of freaky shenanigans before he gets charged with murder.
But aside from him, so many of these prolific killers blend in with everybody else.
Well, that's so true, Nancy.
And you raise a good point.
We talk about BTK and Kohlberger and this latest, the architect with the Jilo Beach murders.
Fuhrman.
Yes, Fuhrman.
And the reality is Calhoun is a little different than those individuals.
Calhoun is a career criminal and a violent criminal.
This is a guy who choked a dog when the SWAT team came to get him.
Okay, stop right there, Jarrett Fiorentino.
I knew that he attacked a cop and the canine.
I did not know he tried to choke the dog.
That's what was reported when the police came to get him.
So the reality is this is someone that wasn't hiding in plain sight. This is a violent criminal who has access to 500 rounds
of ammunition in one arrest. He always runs when the police come from him. He's jumped in the river.
He fights with the police. Oh, yeah. I saw where he actually jumped. And that was at the Willamette
River. The Willamette River. Oh, OK. No, I thought actually jumped. And that was at the Willamette River.
The Willamette River. Oh, okay. No, I thought it was Willamette. It's Willamette. Okay. Hold on just a moment. You know, let me just analyze that for a moment. Jarrett Ferentino, when a cop pulls
up behind me, I pull over. I turn the car off. I let the window down and I sit there and wait for them to say license registration.
This guy jumped in a river. Really? It just goes to the wiring inside of his head. You know,
that's a fight or flight scenario. And this is my 99 cent psychiatry degree. But the reality is some people react. They're compliant. They're fearful. Others want to fight and run. And you just never know. Because they're
guilty. Well, typically they're guilty or running from something else. This guy's running from
the bodies he has buried all over the community, I'm sure. Let's just say they're guilty of
something. It may not be running the stop sign. But I mean, really, Karen Stark, as I used to
tell juries many, many times, I would tell the story about how I would stop.
But when a cop comes up behind you, do you take off at 90 mph and try to get away or jump in a river?
No, you don't because you haven't done anything wrong.
When someone runs or jumps in a river or tries to strangle a canine dog. I mean, yes, they're guilty.
They're not just guilty.
They have no fear of authority.
That's somebody who,
no, I'll just turn around and fight.
So yes, they're guilty,
but he's going to fight back no matter what.
There's a reason that this guy was incarcerated.
He tried to kill the dog. How many people have
the strength to do that? So I hate to say this, but just imagine what it was like for these girls,
these women to have to deal with this guy. He's got incredible strength and no fear whatsoever.
Guys, we are talking about multiple women now dead.
Who are they?
What happened?
Let's first talk about Kristen Smith.
Take a listen to our friend Drew Moraine at KPTV.
Melissa Smith says Kristen was last seen here near Mall 205.
She has a tattoo of a red butterfly on her right hand. Each day that passes and Melissa and Haley Smith don't hear from 22-year-old Kristen Smith,
they get more concerned she's in danger.
And now, a listen to our Cut 11 KPTV.
The Portland Police Bureau says they responded to reports of human remains found in a wooded area near Southeast Deardorff Road and Flavel Street on February 19th.
Now, authorities have confirmed the remains belong to Kristen.
I think of her every moment of every day.
And her family's search has turned into one for answers.
What happened? I know she didn't just suddenly die out there. Somebody did something.
But they say closure would be finding out what happened
to Kristen. You've got to wonder how all of these victims' families are feeling
after being told for so long there was not a serial killer and now the truth coming out. And
then, of course, in addition to Kristen, there's Joanna Speaks. Take a listen to our cut 19,
our friends at CrimeOnline.com.
Joanna Speaks is part of a big blended family with three biological siblings, four step siblings, three nieces, one nephew, as well as three incredible children of her own.
Juan, 13, Braxton, 12 and Melanie, 7. In a family this big, she was still able to stand out. Her stepsister, Ariel Hamby, says as a youngster,
she was loud and vibrant. Everything that she did was like go big or go home kind of attitude.
Her older sister, Robin Speak, pointed out that she was a fighter, the wild one of all of us.
Joanna Speaks was a big kid, hilarious, sarcastic, and super witty. She defines the term one of a
kind. I'm just trying to think about Joanna Speaks'
family standing by waiting to hear the latest on her death. And as you just heard, she is a mom
leaving behind children who will grow up without mom. So far, four of the dead women have been connected, we believe, to a career criminal, Jesse Lee Calhoun.
And of course, there's more. Take a listen to Our Cut 23, Fox 12.
Just before 6 p.m., Ridgefield Police and Clark Cowlitz Fire responded to this abandoned property
and found Speaks dead near the barn. A medical examination ruled it a murderer,
and Clark County sheriffs
believe she was killed elsewhere, then moved to this location. But her killer has not been found.
There's no way that she would have gone down without a fight. So whoever did do this likely
had injuries or something like that personally as well, like from her fighting back.
How do you continue on?
I don't know.
Yeah.
Nothing is off the table as to what we're thinking could have happened. The family of Joanna Speaks is left shocked and speechless
after getting a phone call that their 32-year-old sister from Oregon City
was found near an abandoned barn in Ridgefield, Washington.
And, of course, there's Bridget.
Take a listen to our friends at KOIN.
The Polk County Sheriff's Office investigating after a Milwaukee woman's body
was found abandoned in their jurisdiction.
Deputies say Bridget Webster's body was found on Sunday near Mill Creek
in northwest Polk County.
They say Webster was last seen alive in the Portland metro area.
The Sheriff's Office asking anyone who knew her
or has information about her death to call detectives.
So far, we're not getting a clear cause of death
on all of the women.
Those are several of the women that have been found,
their bodies littering the Portland area.
Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Charged with three murders and suspected in at least two more brutal murders. The mother of one of the other women, Melissa Smith, also stated,
I'm already broken. I'm already falling, but I've got to keep going.
Oh, this mom, just ripped in half, came to court wearing a black t-shirt with pink letters that state, Justice for Kristen Smith.
This mother looked Calhoun directly in the face.
How did all of these women end up dead at the hands of one man?
Annette Newell joining us, KXL.
Why are they withholding the COD cause of death?
Now, I know one of the victims was bludgeoned, but what about the others?
Yeah, one of the family members of the one who was bludgeoned has been in communication with me.
And she said that she believed that their bodies were further along, decomposed more than her sister's was.
So that made it more difficult to identify a cause of death.
And she's been calling for the FBI to get involved because of that, because they need more,
you know, really good crime scene investigators with the tools to really investigate this.
And in fact, she just came up with a list of, she says there are 156 missing
women and female children in Oregon since January of this year. And she's even printed out a list
of who's missing by age from the state's website. So to me, that's just a phenomenal number, but
she's really gone after this.
And you spoke to her, too.
Her name is Ariel.
You talked to her before when you had her on about Joanna Speaks on your show.
Joanna was the only one of the six women who've been found where they definitively said, yes, this woman was killed and the cause was murdered.
Murdered by, you know, in this case, blunt force trauma.
The other ones, they're saying that they don't have a cause of death, at least not yet. Interesting. Joining me right now, Dr. Todd M. Barr, board certified anatomic clinical forensic
pathologist, featured in Thin Places, Essays from In Between. Dr. Barr, thank you for being with us. It would
seem to me that even if a body had been lying out behind a barn or down a ravine for some period of
time, you would still be able to tell if that body, if that victim had been bludgeoned dead because the skeleton itself is not really conducive to deteriorating out of the elements the way soft tissue is.
That's correct.
Sometimes people can obtain fractures to their skulls from various means,
but in this kind of a situation, if a body is found and there's evidence of hemorrhage,
blood on the brain, even with a decomposing body, we can still tell if there's hemorrhage within
the calvarium, within the head, and whether or not there are blunt force trauma applied
with force to any part of the body.
Yeah, there are certain things that we look for.
I had a case that I worked on for a serial killing, and his ritualistic maneuvers were to hogtie these women
after manually asphyxiating them.
So there are certain things that you can find even in decomposed bodies,
and those bodies that I was just speaking
of were also decomposed. And we were able to collect quite a bit of information.
Guys, there is also an unidentified woman. Will she be connected to Calhoun as well?
Take a listen to our cut B from KP TV. An unidentified woman between 25 and 40 years old was found dead near I-205 and Southeast Flavelle Street.
The Multnomah County Medical Examiner's Office is asking for the public's help identifying her and provided this sketch.
They say she was possibly Native American with medium-length black hair and about 5'1".
At the time, they say she was wearing a long sleeve green t-shirt,
a black and white jacket,
and black and white Adidas cleats.
She also had two tattoos,
a black music note with the letter V on her chest
and the Buddha on her back.
Back to Cheryl McCollum joining us,
founder and director of the Cold Case Research Institute.
You can find her at coldcasecrimes.org.
Cheryl, what strikes you the most about the way the women's bodies were found, and what do you interpret from that? I believe that there's some witnesses here that know this perpetrator, perhaps saw him with some of the victims, whether they knew the victims or not.
But I think law enforcement got on his radar because of a witness.
I think when you look at the bodies, again, where they were taken from and where they were disposed of, These were not people that had a drug overdose. You're not
going to take drugs on 14th Street and then walk four miles and drop dead on the side of the road
of a drug overdose. That's not how it happened. They were transported. And I think that's very
clear when you look at the distances and you look at, again, where these started and where they ended.
There's another victim, Ashley Real.
Take a listen to our cut three, KGW.
These woods off southeast Judd Road in rural Clackamas County is where deputies discovered the remains of Ashley Real.
The 22-year-old was last seen in late March at a fast food restaurant and transit center in East Portland.
She turned up dead in that heavily wooded area. Kristen Smith, age 22. Charity Perry, age 24.
Bridget Webster, age 31. Ashley Real, age 22. Joanna Speaks, age 32. And an unidentified female as young as 25.
To Dr. Todd M. Barr, how can you tell the age of someone that is unidentified?
Once they're identified, you can pull their driver's license
or get their birth certificate and get the age.
What about an unidentified female?
How do you get the age on that?
It's difficult depending on state of
decomposition. If a portion of the body is skeletonized or if it isn't, we can always do a
CT examination or radiological examination to look at the formation of the bones. We can look at the
pelvis. We can look at various the of the body that can indicate
like sutures in the head um whether or not they've fused there are certain diagnostic criteria that
we can use to sort of give an estimated age in fact we use a lot of forensic anthropology
in cases that are um unidentified and skeletonized. And they've been very, very helpful and successful with rendering drawings of what these people
may have looked like alive.
And combined with the findings of the anthropological examination, we can give a range of ages.
There's no magic wand that you can say, can oh this one's specifically 25 years old uh but
we would say uh this is a white woman between the ages of 25 and 30 say something to that effect how
what is and how does a forensic anthropologist help you well forensic forensic anthropologists
are well versed in the structure of the human body with bones. And when someone is skeletonized
and you can't even tell if the person is male or female,
they can look at various structures of the bones
that are more fitting.
And they can actually determine race many times as well
because there are differences between Caucasian features
and other races that you can see differences in.
Crime Stories with Nancy Grace.
In the last days, a suspected serial killer appears in court coming face to face with the victim's families as he pleads not guilty.
Horrific crimes.
How did one man manage to wreck so many lives?
How closely together the bodies were found since we're not being told the COD caused a death on these women.
We know one was bludgeoned.
That certainly wasn't an accident or suicide.
Then she was dumped in a remote area.
Annette Newell, how closely together were the women's bodies found?
Yeah, I think in one case it was like less than three miles from each other and all within,
you know, certainly a 70 mile radius in the greater Portland metro area. They were found
in different counties, which is interesting, too. So that's why we have Clackamas County
Sheriff's Office investigating one, Polk County, another Multnomah County, another and then the
Portland Police Bureau on the fourth one. So all four of the women who are connected to that one person of interest were found in different counties under different sheriff's jurisdictions.
It looks like he just got out of a fight and he looks mean as H-E-L-L. Let me tell you what.
I agree with both of them.
I wouldn't meet him in a dark alley unless I had a bullet.
Right. But this also goes to why the cause of death may be undetermined.
If this was a drug overdose because he's added fentanyl to something or he's got some street-level meth that's not as pure as it should be,
then somebody that might have used this drug before could, in fact, overdose, but it could be deliberate.
Okay.
Hold on just a minute.
Whoa, whoa, wait.
Can I follow through your line of thinking to its logical conclusion?
Are you actually saying that some of these women died of an OD and then he carted their
bodies away?
Okay, that didn't happen.
He murdered them.
He did not inject them with bad drugs.
Absolutely, he did.
Well, we don't know yet.
You didn't have to inject them.
Of course, we don't know yet, but didn't have to inject them. Of course we don't know yet,
but Annette Neal,
I recognize your voice.
You want to tell me
these women OD'd
and then he dragged them
on his tricycle
eight miles away
and dumped their bodies?
No, they did not die
of him OD'ing them.
And if they had OD'd,
he would have left them
laying right where they are
in one of the Portland tent cities
full of drug addicts and nobody's helping.
Nancy, Karen, the fact that he bludgeoned one of them would lead to...
Well, no, wait.
That person is not connected yet.
Are you talking about Joanna Speaks?
Joanna Speaks, the one that we know was bludgeoned.
Yeah, but I still say these women, I mean, it's not logical to think that he gave them bad drugs and they OD'd.
And so then he drags their bodies away.
That's no.
And he's connected for a reason.
There's got to be some kind of DNA, MO, something more than he knew two of them in high school.
Yeah, I want to add, Nancy, that he also, I can't imagine someone
who's a serial killer would want to just drug somebody. There's no fun in that for him. And
believe me, he had a good time killing each woman. So that would be way too easy. Okay, Cheryl, what
were you saying now that we've completely destroyed your theory of he intentionally drugged them? I
don't even, I can't believe you even said that are you having distorted let me just be clear they knew this guy
since high school how long has he been a piece of crap the whole time he was a
piece of crap in high school yeah so why are they connecting with him now because
there's a reason and I'm saying him having drugs is a plausible reason they got
together with him okay what happened after that is something different so if he gave them pills
that he knew was laced with fentanyl at a another location to do what he wanted to do they couldn't
fight back wait to do what he wanted to are you talking about raping them or killing them? Neither or. We don't
know the
information yet. I guarantee you
he did not OD them and sit
back and watch them die. I agree with Karen Stark.
I guarantee you drugs is a connection.
Okay, yes, I'm with you
on that. He may have known them.
Okay, I'll go out on a limb.
He did know them through drugs
or they're hanging out in the same area where drugs are sold.
But there's no way a serial killer ODs somebody and sits there and watches them die.
That's not going to be their COD, cause of death.
They may have drugs in their system, but that's not going to be how he killed them.
I mean, Farantino, for Pete's sake, throw me a life raft here.
Well, it's typically this guy's getting his kicks by probably bludgeoning.
Looking at his background, he has a violent background.
So I wouldn't take the leap.
He strangled a canine, people.
What's he going to do with these poor women?
Nancy, he wants to see the life go out of them. You know, that's what he's
about. Unless he's high on meth at the time, then he's out of his mind, kicking, punching, strangling,
biting, totally out of his gourd. Guys, speaking of Jesse Calhoun, now a POI in the case.
Take a listen to our cut 44, our forensic KATU.
The person of interest is 38-year-old Jesse Lee Calhoun.
He's currently booked in the Snake River Correctional Institution.
The Multnomah County Sheriff's Office has described Calhoun as a, quote, prolific thief and career criminal. He was serving a sentence for burglary when granted clemency by former Oregon Governor Kate Brown in 2021. This was for fighting the 2020 wildfires. The
clemency shaved about 12 months off his prison sentence. That sentence was set to end July 2022.
And more from our friends at KATU. This is Deborah Knapp in our Cut 45. U.S. Marshals were asked to
assist the Multnomah County Sheriff's Office in apprehending Calhoun on June 6th.
That was successful.
Oregon Governor Tina Kotak's office says she revoked the commutation for Calhoun July 3rd
at the request of the Multnomah County DA's office, and he was readmitted to the state on July 6th.
We reached out to former Governor Brown for a response on this.
She replied with a statement saying, quote, I'm absolutely horrified for the victims, their families and all of those who've experienced these losses.
Wow. See how she dodged the fact that she's the one that let this guy out.
And then about a year and a half or so, six dead bodies emerged. Four of these are being, we've been told, connected to Calhoun, and they are Kristen
Smith, Charity Lynn Perry, Bridget Leanne Ramsey Webster, and Ashley Real.
We don't know about the other two yet.
Now, we were told that these women have similar appearances, that they have similar hangouts,
similar characteristics. That's what we're being
told. Are they the same places that Calhoun hung out? We are looking now at
the possibility that his vehicle was used to transport these women. We're
trying to find out if DNA, deoxyribonucleic acid, is linking him to the
women. We're trying to determine are they last seen in the same area and we think that they are.
If a vehicle was used, can we in any way get a route, even a partial route, so traffic cams can be accessed. There are similar disposal methods
in all of the murders. Four women found dead in Oregon in less than three months. At first,
authorities insisted it was not a serial killer's work, but they were so wrong. and I predict there are many more. If you'll remember Calhoun, six foot four inches,
has a history of resisting arrest, and he actually jumped into the Willamette River in Milwaukee
and tried to escape police. He already has a 50-month sentence for assaulting a cop and trying
to strangle a police dog. Burglary and felony use of a vehicle.
What a horrible day in court for these victims' families.
We wait as justice unfolds.
Nancy Grace signing off.
Goodbye, friend. this is an iHeart podcast