Chapters
Shownotes Transcript
What is going on, true crime fans? I'm your host, Heath. And I'm your host, Daphne. And you're listening to Going West. Hello, everybody. Hope you're doing well. A bunch of you guys suggested this case about a year ago when it was all happening. And you may remember it from social media and the news because it was everywhere.
But due to how police treated the case originally, we didn't know if there really was a serial killer in Northern Oregon. But a lot has come out since then, so we are finally covering it. So thank you to everyone who sent this over social media and email at the time.
Also, before we dive into this case, I want to remind everybody that we do have bonus episodes. We have over 100 full-length ad-free bonus episodes that you guys have not heard on Going West. And last month, we came out with two both Australian cases, one of which is particularly insane about a teenager who was lured via MySpace. It's so crazy. So check that out on Apple Podcasts and patreon.com slash goingwestpodcasts.
Yeah, and we don't just cover international cases, but we like to give you guys and the listeners from all around the world, you know, just a little something extra. So sometimes we cover Canadian cases, Australian cases. Sometimes US. Last month, I weirdly just accidentally chose two Australians. So yeah, yeah, yeah. It happens. But definitely go check it out. Patreon.com slash Going West podcast, or you can subscribe on Apple. And if you're an Apple user, you can try free for seven days. So do it.
All right, guys, this is episode 378 of Going West, so let's get into it. It's that time of the year. Your vacation is coming up. You can already hear the beach waves, feel the warm breeze, and feel the breeze.
relax and think about work. You really, really want it all to work out while you're away. Monday.com gives you and the team that peace of mind. When all work is on one platform and everyone's in sync, things just flow wherever you are. Tap the banner to go to monday.com.
When it comes to weight loss, no two people are the same. That's why Noom builds personalized plans based on your unique psychology and biology. Take Brittany. After years of unsustainable diets, Noom helped her lose 20 pounds and keep it off. I was definitely in a yo-yo cycle for years of just losing weight, gaining weight, and it was exhausting. And Stephanie. She's a former D1 athlete who knew she couldn't out-train her diet, and she lost 38 pounds.
My relationship to food before Noom was never consistent. And Evan, he can't stand salads, but he still lost 50 pounds with Noom. I never really was a salad guy. That's just not who I am. Even through the pickiness, Noom taught me that building better habits builds a healthier lifestyle. I'm not doing this to get to a number. I'm doing this to feel better.
Get your personalized plan today at Noom.com. Real Noom users compensated to provide their story. In four weeks, the typical Noom user can expect to lose one to two pounds per week. Individual results may vary. In the early months of 2023, six women turned up dead in and around Portland, Oregon, sparking rumors of a serial killer.
Though police originally claimed they did not believe that the cases were connected, similarities emerged between four of the women, and one man linked them all.
These are the stories of Kristen Smith, Charity Perry, Bridget Webster, Joanna Speaks, Ashley Real, and an unidentified Native woman. It's also the story of Jesse Lee Calhoun. ♪♪
In the span of less than three months, six women were found dead in the vicinity of Portland, Oregon. All six women died under suspicious circumstances, and all of them were recovered from wooded areas. 22-year-old Kristen Smith was reported missing on December 22, 2022 by her family. So let's dive into her story first.
A resident of Gresham, Oregon, which is a city in the Portland area, weeks went by without anybody seeing or hearing from Kristen. Kristen's mom, Melissa Smith, recalled sadly, quote, Kristen originally went missing at the beginning of December. Last time I spoke to her was November 19th.
After nearly two months of search efforts from police and her family, her body was discovered in a wooded area in Pleasant Valley, Oregon, which is about 15 minutes southwest of Gresham. Though police declined to publish her cause of death, they acknowledged that foul play was possible.
Melissa called her daughter a gentle person who loved art and animals. And while recalling their final evening together, she said, quote, I had dinner with her the last time I saw her and spoke about her cat. She loved her cat very, very much. I think of her every moment of every day. What happened? I know she didn't just suddenly die out there. Somebody did something.
She also said, quote,
Following the discovery of Kristen's body on February 19th, 2023, the victims continued to pile up, which is what started this growing theory that someone in the Portland area was hunting and targeting women, and frequently. Because less than two months later, on April 8th, 2023, 32-year-old mother of three, Joanna Speaks, was discovered deceased inside an abandoned barn.
This death was an anomaly, as Joanna was actually recovered across the Oregon-Washington border in the state of Washington.
The barn was located on the 8000 block of South 5th Street in Ridgefield, Washington, which is about 30 minutes north of Portland and 40 minutes from where Kristen Smith was found deceased. And we're going to post a Google Street View for you guys to see, but this street has a few businesses like a water utility company, a distribution center, a
a solar company office, and a few others like in that same vein. But otherwise, there's just a lot of trees and large fields of grass. And right where the abandoned barn in question is, there's a field and tall trees. It's actually a really beautiful street, but a very bizarre place for her to be found. It's pretty specific. So I'd imagine that her killer would have known that street to find it and know the barn was abandoned as well.
Now, although police would not disclose why, they announced that they had, quote, reason to believe that Joanna was killed in Portland and then dumped in Washington. She's believed to have been placed inside the barn days or even weeks after her death. But based on the amount of decomposition, investigators maintain that she had been killed and held elsewhere, then transported to the barn sometime after she was murdered.
Joanna was a recovering addict who had suffered from meth addiction, and her sister claimed that she believed Joanna had started to experiment with fentanyl as well. However, though drugs may have played a role in her murder, Joanna was the only one of six women with a cause of death that was announced at the time to be a clear homicide, having sustained blunt force injuries to her head and neck.
Her family remembered that Joanna, who is described as bold, hilarious, and stubborn, had been working towards sobriety on behalf of her three children in the weeks before her death.
On April 24th, 2023, the body of 24-year-old Charity Perry was discovered inside of a culvert near the East Historic Columbia River Highway, just outside of Portland and Troutdale, which is also a very naturey area that has businesses sprinkled nearby. The specific area from which Charity was recovered was near Ainsworth State Park, which the highway dissects, and it's situated along the Columbia River, which divides Oregon and Washington.
Investigators believe that she had been deceased for as long as two weeks by the time that she was found. Charity's mom, Diana Allen, said that Charity didn't have a driver's license and was unfamiliar with that area of Multnomah County and therefore would not have been able to get herself to the remote culvert in which she was found. Which just proves that somebody put her there or somebody had transported her there either way. Exactly.
So Charity struggled with mental health issues for most of her life, having been diagnosed with schizophrenia at a young age. But her mother Diana checked in with her daughter as often as possible, though she was known to disappear for weeks at a time, often living in tents and engaging in drug use.
In January of 2023, she stopped hearing from Charity and traveled to Vancouver, Washington, where her daughter was known to camp, but she found no sign of her. So she was worried enough to go out there herself looking. But then, on March 6, 2023, she received a call from Charity at a hospital after she had overdosed and was rushed to a Portland medical center for treatment with Narcan.
Police determined that she had also been spotted at an area in downtown Portland that they referred to as an "open-air fentanyl market" before her death. Diana remarked, quote: "This hurts so bad. My daughter had such bad mental health issues, and any hope of her getting better is gone. It's gone now, and a horrid ache replaced it. She had an amazing personality when her mental health was under control."
Because of Charity's struggles with mental health and drug use, Diana didn't even realize that her daughter was in trouble until it was too late. So Charity was never reported missing. And Charity was found deceased about six or seven weeks after this incident happened where she ended up in a hospital. And remember, Heath had said that police believed that she had been dead for at least two weeks when they found her. So she only died, again, once.
Apparently from suspicious circumstances a month after this stint in the hospital. So that must have just been so traumatic for her mom. She had just been out there looking for her. And then suddenly she turns up dead before her mom even knows that she's missing again. Right. And in her mom, Diana said later, quote, she was a person and she was very loved. I think sometimes appearances and lifestyles can somehow dismiss that idea.
Well, that same day, I mean that very same day, yet another body was discovered. Sadly, this victim has yet to be identified, but this woman, believed to be between the ages of 25 and 40, was found in the Lentz neighborhood of southeast Portland inside of a tent near Interstate 205.
Standing at 5'1 and weighing about 135 pounds, she's believed to be of Native American or Alaskan Native descent with medium-length black hair. She also sported two tattoos, a Buddha and a music note with the letter V.
And to see a sketch of what she's believed to have looked like, head over to our socials. We're on Instagram at Going West Podcast. We're on Twitter at Going West Pod. And we're also on Facebook. Yes, she is the only unidentified victim of this story, but her family is probably out there somewhere looking for her. So make sure that you circulate that image and thank you in advance. Yeah, and I mean, around this time, people were really starting to get this sense, you know, as Daphne mentioned, that there was...
that these murders were connected and that there was a potential serial killer in this area. Oh yeah, especially because just six days after this, a fifth woman was found. So people are starting to get really, really worried here. Now, 31-year-old Bridget Webster hailed from Milwaukee, Oregon, which is just about 15 minutes south of Portland.
Bridget's grandfather, Tom Frood, who raised her, said of her, quote, She was fantastic. Great student, always smiling, always happy. She was my little girl. He did say, however, that in recent years, Bridget had kind of fallen out of touch with him and her late grandmother, who were her legal guardians from the time that she was four years old. So because they had fallen out of touch a bit, Bridget had also not been reported missing.
Then one week later, the sixth deceased woman in the string of gruesome discoveries was found by a fisherman in the heavily wooded area of Eagle Creek, which is about 30 minutes southeast of Portland. So everybody is being found. All these women are being discovered deceased within, you know, 30 to 40 miles of Portland or less.
22-year-old Ashley Real was last spotted on the surveillance footage of a fast food restaurant on March 27, 2023. On April 4, so after a week with no contact, she was reported missing by her family.
Then a little over a month later on May 7th, a fisherman scoping out a nearby pond in Eagle Creek came upon her discarded body. And out of all the women that we've talked about, this area is definitely the most rural. This is like a hiking area, whereas everybody else, if they were found in a more naturey spot, it was still near other businesses or a highway. But this is a little bit out there. Ashley's devastated father, Jose Real, said, quote,
Members of the victim's families teamed up to spread the word about their daughter's deaths and comfort each other in their time of grief.
Charity's mom, Diana, admitted, quote, I'm in the dark about a lot, but added, quote, the detective and I understand why this is required. We don't need anything messing up this investigation.
Understandably so, the death sent the Portland area into a frenzy with rumors of a serial killer stalking the city, especially since nearly every cause of death wasn't being released to the public, leaving people with many concerns and questions. On Sunday, June 4th, 2023, the Portland Police Bureau issued a press release indicating that investigators did not believe the six cases to be related.
It read, quote,
These discussions have led to some anxiety and fear in our community, and we want to provide reassurance that the speculation is not supported by the facts available at this point. While any premature death is concerning, and we will diligently investigate deaths that happen in our jurisdiction in collaboration with the Multnomah County and Oregon State Medical Examiner's Office,
And this is why we didn't cover the case at the time because this came out, you know, we felt, oh, maybe they know some of the causes of deaths and they're not releasing it. So, you know, obviously they don't think that these are very suspicious nor connected. So there must not really be something here. Yeah, I remember it was kind of split. There were people who really truly believed that there was a serial killer operating in Portland. And then there were people who really truly believed
And then there were other people who believed that, yeah, these cases were just not connected and they were just kind of one-off situations. However, unbeknownst to us until recently, just two days after they made this statement, the Clackamas County Sheriff arrested Jesse Lee Calhoun, whom they believe to be involved in at least four of the six deaths. ♪
If you guys are like me and Heath, one of your least favorite questions is, what are we going to have for dinner tonight? Hate that question. It is just a daily battle. So then we inevitably order takeout. But the problem with takeout is that it's rarely healthy. So how nice does it sound to enjoy a home-cooked meal without the stress of planning ahead, going to the store, and putting all the ingredients together, not to mention...
coming up with a creative idea of what you're going to eat. This is why Heath and I love Home Chef. Home Chef provides fresh ingredients and chef-designed recipes conveniently delivered to your doorstep to simplify your cooking experience. Something I love about Home Chef is that they offer 30 options a week and serve a variety of dietary needs.
which is good for vegetarians like me and beyond. And it's good for the whole family. For a limited time, Home Chef is offering Going West listeners 18 free meals plus free dessert for life. And of course, free shipping on your first box. Go to homechef.com slash going west. That's homechef.com slash going west for 18 free meals and free dessert for life. You heard that right. Homechef.com slash going west. Must be an active subscriber to receive free dessert.
So, as you guys know, we are kind of in the transition between summer and fall. And I'm sure a lot of you guys are getting ready for the fall season, trying to update your wardrobe. And luckily, Quince offers timeless and high-quality items that we adore, ensuring that our wardrobe stays fresh
And we don't blow our entire budget. Yeah, he's talking like cashmere sweaters from $50, pants for every occasion, washable silk tops, and so much more. I love how simple and elegant all their clothes are. It's so easy for anybody to wear and the quality is unmatched.
And something that is super important to me is that Quince only works with factories that use safe, ethical, and responsible manufacturing practices, plus premium fabrics and finishes. They are truly the best. Make switching seasons a breeze with Quince's high-quality closet essentials. Go to quince.com slash going west for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. That's
Q-U-I-N-C-E dot com slash going west to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince dot com slash going west.
Want to teach your kids financial literacy, but not sure where to start? Greenlight can help. With Greenlight, parents can keep an eye on kids' spending and saving, while kids and teens use a card of their own to build money confidence. As a parent, you can send instant money transfers, set up chores, automate allowance, and more. It's a convenient way to run your household, customized to your family's needs, and the easy way to raise financially smart kids. Get started with Greenlight today and get your first month free at greenlight.com slash Spotify.
Hey, it's Kaylee Cuoco for Priceline. Ready to go to your happy place for a happy price? Well, why didn't you say so? Just download the Priceline app right now and save up to 60% on hotels. So whether it's Cousin Kevin's kazoo concert in Kansas City, go Kevin! Or Becky's bachelorette bash in Bermuda, you never have to miss a trip ever again. So download the Priceline app today. Your savings are waiting. ♪ Go to your happy place for a happy price ♪
go to your happy price price line
On July 17th, 2023, the Multnomah County District Attorney's Office issued a statement that read, quote, Investigators and prosecutors from multiple law enforcement agencies have been working collaboratively on numerous death investigations in northwest Oregon, and they have determined that there are links between four cases, Kristen Smith, Charity Perry, Bridget Webster, and Ashley Rayall.
No charges have been filed against anyone in connection with any of these four death investigations. Investigators have interviewed multiple people in connection with these cases, and have identified at least one person of interest that is linked to all four of the descendants. Based on the available information to investigators, there is not believed to be any active danger to the community at this time.
No additional information, including the nature of the information that links these four cases together, is being released at this time, as these are ongoing death investigations.
The cause and manner of death in each case remains undetermined by the Oregon State Medical Examiner. And just as a recap, that means that Joanna Speaks' death, the woman who was found bludgeoned in an abandoned Washington barn, and the Native American or Alaska native Jane Doe were not believed to be connected to Jesse Calhoun.
Which is interesting to me, especially because Joanna's death was the one that they, that stood out to them as a clear homicide, and she's not believed to be connected to Jesse. But the fact that so quickly they found that all four of the other victims were connected to this man is wild. Yeah, and right after they made the statement that he was not, or that they were not connected. But let's talk about this guy. So Jesse Lee Calhoun was born in March of 1985, just outside of Portland, Oregon.
He grew up alongside a brother and sister, and was very close with both of his siblings and his parents. He eventually worked for his dad's business, and reportedly idolized his father. Though he seemed to have a stable, conventional upbringing, Jesse began committing crimes as a teenager. His first serious charge came in 2003, when at just 18 years old, he was convicted of third degree assault.
Two years later, his live-in girlfriend and mother of his young child petitioned for a protective order against him, claiming that in the two years that they resided together, he had been physically violent with her, pushing her through doorways and grabbing her so hard that he left bruises. She also noted that he had a violent temper and that he would frequently punch holes in the door.
Jesse quickly violated the restraining order and was arrested for doing so. And in addition to his assault and domestic violence charges, he was arrested for harassment, drug possession, burglary, and even kidnapping.
In 2019, while being arrested on a burglary charge, he assaulted an officer. A police canine came to the officer's rescue and Jesse became embroiled in a serious physical altercation with the dog. Like, this guy is insane. And while both Jesse and the dog were injured in this tussle, they both survived.
For these offenses, Jesse was sentenced to four years and two months in prison, set for release in June of 2022. But in 2020, summertime in Oregon brought a devastating rash of wildfires that ravaged the state.
Beginning in July of 2020, the fires raged until mid-November, killing 11 people and burning over a million acres of land. And we were living in Oregon when this all happened. We actually posted about it on our Going West Instagram because the fires were so awful. Like the air outside of our house was black and you could not go outside safely for days. It was so terrible.
Yeah, I had a Jeep Wrangler and I forgot to put the top on my car and there was like an inch layer of ash. And I remember like somebody walking their dog down the street with a gas mask on. I remember that too. It was really disturbing and it was happening all around the state and it was very much a state of emergency.
Yeah, so acting out of sheer desperation to put these awful fires out that were, you know, affecting people all across the state of Oregon, Oregon Governor Kate Brown sourced firefighters from within prisons to be placed on the front lines in an attempt to contain some of the blaze.
And among them was Jesse Lee Calhoun, who gladly accepted the role in exchange for a commuted sentence. So basically, if you volunteered to fight these fires, you could get your sentence reduced. Which is a risk in itself because you could die on the front lines, you know, but it does seem like a pretty good deal if you have a lengthy sentence or if you want to help or want to, you know, have the chance to get out early.
Yeah, and you know, the devastating thing here is that the governor basically determined that Jesse and his fellow firefighting inmates, quote, did not present unacceptable safety risks to the community. So they didn't believe that he would be capable of doing anything when he got out. So Jesse was released in July of 2021, about a year and a half before the deaths of the women that we've discussed in this episode.
Governor Brown authorized the release of about 40 other prisoners, stating, quote,
And remember, Jesse was going to be released by the next year anyway in June of 2022, so he was spared about a year in prison due to him being on the fire squad. But it does seem that within that year, connections were made that could have spared at least one life had he gotten out in 2022 when he was supposed to, but also two years later.
The whole nature of this story could have been different because of the delay. So who knows, you know, like the butterfly effect. And these are just the women that he is suspected of murdering. Yeah, so there could definitely be others. But after his release, he met and began dating 43-year-old Krista Siner. Now they met via Facebook Messenger and the timing was Kizmet for Krista, who was kind of at a low point and she was struggling with homelessness and living in hotels.
So on their first encounter, they met up at a convenience store, they hit it off, and according to Krista, they had been inseparable ever since. Krista described Jesse as a family guy, charming, impersonable, and said that he was great with her kids. She recalled, quote,
In March of 2022, after dating just a few months, the pair moved into an apartment that Krista secured for them. And though Krista recalls him being a loving and respectful partner, their relationship was not without its complications as she caught him cheating on her multiple times.
She first caught wind of his indiscretions when 22-year-old Ashley Rael, one of the victims of this story, reached out to Krista on Facebook to alert her of an ongoing affair that she was having with Jesse.
Now, according to Ashley Real, the two met on Tinder and said they started sleeping together in December of 2021. Remember, that is about six months before he was supposed to be released from prison, but about six months after he actually was. So she reached out in 2022 to tell Krista after finding out that Jesse was in a relationship.
Jesse initially denied their relationship, saying that he had not been using Tinder and he had known Ashley for years, which was not true. But Krista eventually warmed down and he admitted that he had been unfaithful to her, vowing to do better moving forward.
But according to Krista, the two continued to meet for affairs, and Jesse was carrying on multiple sexual relationships with other women as well. But aside from the fact that Jesse was sleeping with someone else, Krista was alarmed at Jesse's relationship with Ashley, saying, quote,
Jesse, who is now 38 years old, had even recorded some of his sexual encounters with 22-year-old Ashley on his phone. But Krista decided to stay with him, writing his affair with Ashley off as a fantasy of being with a younger woman.
Later, Ashley reached out to Krista and said that she was seeking treatment for drug use and was no longer being intimate with Jesse. And then, after a short while later, she disappeared.
Suspicious of other affairs, Chris did check Jesse's phone when he was asleep and saw a 10-minute video of another woman posing naked with Jesse in his car. And like his relationship with Ashley, Jesse originally denied having been with this woman.
In an interview later, Krista admitted that Jesse had sexual preferences that made her uncomfortable, but we're not sure what they are. And she claimed that she believed him to be a sex addict. But she quickly added that he didn't ever hurt her or force her to do anything that she didn't want to do.
Though he continued to have sexual relationships with other women, Jesse couldn't handle when Krista so much as spoke to another man, which obviously shows his very possessive nature. In May of 2022, Craig Wangrood, who was Krista's former partner and the father of her children, filed a stalking order against Jesse after claiming that Jesse pursued him obsessively for simply co-parenting his and Krista's children. So creepy. Yeah.
So within the complaint are multiple threatening text messages that Jesse sent to Craig, including, quote, And another, he said, quote,
A third message read, quote, Ashley Rayall herself also filed a complaint against Jesse, alleging an incident of domestic violence perpetrated against her. In addition to his violent outbursts and sexual tris, Jesse was a fentanyl dealer and kept his stash of drugs in their house, though Krista maintains that neither of them used it.
Krista described him as paranoid, always suspicious of law enforcement following and watching him. He also frequently carried guns and knives on his person. Well, on Tuesday, June 6, 2023, two days after the Portland Police Bureau announced that they did not believe that the deaths of the six women were related, Krista and Jesse departed their home to run a few errands.
Krista explained that the two were driving Jesse's car, picking up a pegboard to organize his tools inside their storage unit. And while on their way, they stopped at a gas station to put gas in the car. Jesse then noticed that they needed air in their tires and stopped at another nearby gas station to do so. While they were stopped at the air pump, Krista recalls police descending upon them suddenly.
Police cars swarmed around them, guns drawn, and demanded that Jesse put his hands up and surrender to them. Krista recalled that Jesse antagonized them until they shot him with a rubber bullet, which actually bounced off of him and hit her.
After Krista sprung from the car and was ushered to police custody for her own safety, Jesse took off on foot, diving into the nearby Willamette River across the street from where they were stopped. He tried to swim away, but a few officers pursued him and were able to detain him. They put Krista in handcuffs as they questioned her, but released her when they realized that she had no idea why they were being apprehended.
After Jesse was carted away, Krista and Jesse's apartment was raided, and Krista was forced to stay in a hotel for the next three days as police scoured the residence for evidence. Police moved meticulously through the home, cutting and removing patches from the carpet, as well as taking floor mats, shoes, pieces of their couch, sex toys, bedding, and any electronics the couple had, which included ring cameras, computers, and multiple phones.
They also admitted Krista's car into evidence, cutting out chunks of her seat for further examination, and they recovered 30 fentanyl pills. The first time the couple talked on the phone since Jesse's arrest, he reportedly said to Krista through tears, "'Baby, they got me.'"
However, Jesse swore to her that he had nothing to do with the murders and that he was going to fight the allegations against him. Okay, then why the fuck did you run off and literally swim away?
Yeah, this motherfucker thinks he's Michael Phelps. After his arrest and the subsequent discovery of his infidelities, Krista grew suspicious of his involvement with these four missing women. And through her research, she discovered that he had connections to at least two of the four women. She knew about Ashley's death already, and in fact, she had been the one to tell Jesse about it, claiming that he was saddened and shocked by it.
Krista had heard about it on the news and even cried about it, but never entertained the idea that her boyfriend may have been involved. So she revisited the video that she found of the naked woman in Jesse's car, and in it, the young woman was holding a needle, but claimed that she had, quote, "stopped shooting up." As Krista looked closer, she realized that she recognized the girl as another one of the four possible victims attributed to her boyfriend. It was Bridget Webster.
Krista said sadly, "My heart sank when I saw Bridget." Her sleuthing efforts also uncovered a Facebook conversation between Jesse and a male friend shortly before Bridget disappeared that claimed that she would exchange dates or sex for blues, which is often, you know, used as the street name for fentanyl or oxycodone.
Krista remarked, quote, When asked if she believed if he was involved in the deaths of the four women, Krista says that she hopes not, but that she's just not sure. She believes that it's possible that one or more of the girls simply overdosed in Jesse's presence, and that he panicked and attempted to hide the body.
She revealed that one of his charges was abuse of a corpse, charges which were brought against him on behalf of both Ashley and Bridget. Krista remembers that Jesse had once phoned her in a panic asking for Narcan, explaining that it was for a male friend who had overdosed. Another time he mistakenly pocket dialed her and she claimed that she could hear him talking sweetly to his companion, saying that he brought them something to eat in an attempt to make them feel better.
When Krista asked him about it later, he again said that he was just simply taking care of a male friend who had overdosed. She now believes that both of those interactions were with the victims. But what are the odds that an accidental overdose happened in Jesse's presence four separate times in the span of less than three months? Great question. When asked if she would stay with Jesse, Krista said flatly, quote, "...if he's not guilty."
On Monday, July 17th, 2023, the Multnomah County District Attorney's Office announced that they officially believe that there was a link between the four after all. They declined to elaborate on their findings, which will probably become public information only when the case goes to trial. The clemency that Jesse was granted in 2021, you know, for the firefighting, has now officially been revoked.
Multnomah County District Attorney Mike Schmidt wrote in a statement, quote,
Former Governor Kate Brown, who granted his commutation, announced, So investigators have kept their findings close to the vest. In fact, Jesse was technically arrested on charges of parole violation.
Police sought to detain him to keep him from fleeing or offending again while they build their case against him. They have not announced a cause of death for any of the four women connected to Jesse Lee Calhoun, nor have they announced why they feel that Joanna Speaks and the unidentified native woman are not connected to him, but it may just be because they haven't been able to find a concrete connection.
Kristen's mom, Melissa Smith, said, quote, She added, quote,
Bridget's grandfather agreed, saying, quote, So for now, Jesse awaits trial at the Snake River Correctional Institution in Ontario, Oregon.
The most recent update that has been shared with the media is that he was assigned a public defender on September 16th of last year, so 2023. If you have any information about the deaths of Kristen Smith, Charity Perry, Bridget Webster, Joanna Speaks, Ashley Real, or the unidentified native woman, please contact Crime Stoppers of Oregon at crimetipsatportlandoregon.gov. ♪
So
Thank you so much, everybody, for listening to this episode of Going West. Yes, thank you guys so much for listening to this episode. And on Tuesday, we'll have an all new case for you guys to dive into. So, yeah, I know we all have a lot of questions, but this case has been on our minds for about a year. And it's just crazy because after the police had made that announcement that they didn't think that the cases were connected or that there was foul play, we kind of just
read that and we're like, oh, okay, we'll see if we hear anything else. And then we didn't until a few months ago. Then it was like, boom, Jesse Lee Calhoun is arrested. Yeah, so we found out a little bit late, but still almost a year after the fact. There's still not a ton of information, but we wanted to at least cover it
because these women's stories deserve to be told. And we know a lot of you guys are probably, you know, wondering about this news as well. But we'll see whenever the trial happens. We'll definitely keep you guys updated. Yes, and please make sure that you share this episode because you never know. Someone might have more information on Jesse Calhoun.
So yeah, please share and go check out the photos that are on our socials. Again, we're on Instagram at Going West Podcast. We're on Twitter at Going West Pod. And we have a Facebook. Yes. And just a reminder, if you are all caught up on Going West and now you suddenly need more Heath and Daphne in your life, we have over 100 full-length ad-free episodes.
that we have not covered on going west over on our patreon and apple podcast subscription so head on over to apple podcast there's a free seven day trial or you can head on over to patreon.com going west podcast and subscribe all right guys so for everybody out there in the world don't be a stranger
so
Is your vehicle stopping like it should? Does it squeal or grind when you brake? Don't miss out on summer brake deals at O'Reilly Auto Parts. O, O, O, O'Reilly Auto Parts.
