PORTLAND, Ore. — Jesse Calhoun, the man who for months was reported to be linked to the deaths of several women found in the Portland area last year, is now facing murder charges in three of the cases.
On Thursday, a grand jury indicted the 39-year-old on murder charges for the deaths of Charity Lynn Perry, 24, Bridget Leanne Webster, 31, and Joanna Speaks, 32, the Multnomah County District Attorney's Office announced Friday.
The women's bodies were all found in separate wooded or secluded areas around Portland in April of 2023. In July, the Associated Press, The Oregonian and Willamette Week all cited law enforcement sources who identified Calhoun as a person of interest in the deaths.
Calhoun had been arrested in early June 2023 on unrelated charges. Currently, he is in custody at Snake River Correctional Institution in eastern Oregon.
Charity Perry
On April 24, 2023, Charity Perry’s body was found in a culvert near Ainsworth State Park in the Columbia River Gorge. She had been last seen in early March 2023.
Her mother, Diana Allen, said that her daughter was found shoeless and that Perry struggled with schizophrenia and substance abuse for many years.
"It's been very, very frustrating for our families to not have answers," Allen said Friday at a press conference following Calhoun's indictment. She went on to thank detectives for their work on the cases.
"But I've also had to put back in my mind that these people wanted to — they cared more about justice for Charity than they did for my feelings, that I have to have a level of respect for that," she added.
Bridget Webster
Webster’s body was found in rural Polk County on April 30, 2023, about 70 miles away from Portland. Two months later, the Portland Police Bureau linked the deaths of at least four women, including Webster, to Calhoun.
She had been known to frequent the Portland area, detectives in Polk County said at the time.
The Polk County Sheriff's Office said in November that Webster’s case had been transferred to Portland police several weeks earlier.
Joanna Speaks
Speaks’ body was found near an abandoned barn along South 5th Street in Ridgefield on April 8. Investigators quickly concluded that her death was a homicide, and said they suspected that she'd been killed in Portland. According to the Clark County Medical Examiner's Office, she died of blunt head and neck injuries.
Following the news of her death, Speaks’ family spoke out about some the similarities between the cases involving the other woman and joined the family members of the other woman in calling for answers.
In November, the Portland Police Bureau took over the investigation of Speaks’ death from the Clark County Sheriff’s Office.
Family members previously told KGW that Speaks was a mother of three who had battled addiction on and off for years. They'd last heard from her in March 2023.
Other women's deaths linked to Jesse Calhoun
In August 2023, the Multnomah County District Attorney's Office said Calhoun could be linked to the deaths of potentially four women. While speculated, it wasn’t until Friday that Speaks’ death was officially linked to Calhoun.
The two women Calhoun had been reportedly linked to by detectives but not charged for is Kristin Smith and 22-year-old Ashley Real.
"For the other families, does not mean that we aren't still standing beside them," said Charity Perry's mother Diana Allen. "We're still together the whole way. Always."
Smith’s mother, Melissa, said her daughter vanished in December 2022. Smith turned up dead in mid-February 2023, her body discovered in Southeast Portland’s Pleasant Valley neighborhood.
About two months later, Real was discovered in rural Clackamas County. She had been reported missing since early April 2023. There was a sixth unidentified woman, but police later said appeared to have no connection with other five cases.
Calhoun has only been charged in connection with the deaths of Perry, Webster and Speaks, but officials said on Friday that investigators are still looking into the deaths of Smith and Real.
"Since it's still an active investigation for my daughter Kristin Smith and Ashley Real," Melissa Smith at Friday's press conference. "We just keep going. We keep waiting, we keep praying and stay hopeful."
