PORTLAND, OREGON – A guy has entered a not guilty plea to all counts after it was alleged that he killed three women in the Portland, Oregon, area last year and dumped their remains.
According to press reports, Jesse Lee Calhoun’s legal representative pleaded guilty on Thursday to three counts of second-degree murder and three counts of abusing a body in relation to the murders of Charity Lynn Perry, 24, Bridget Leanne Webster, 31, and Joanna Speaks, 32. At his arraignment in Multnomah County Circuit Court, he remained silent.
Speaks was discovered in an abandoned barn in southwest Washington, while Perry and Webster were discovered in Oregon.
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Concerns were raised that a serial murderer might be targeting young women in the area when their remains were discovered over many months beginning in February 2023 in forested areas, under a bridge, and in a culvert, all within a radius of around 100 miles (160 kilometers). Although Speaks’s body was discovered in southwest Washington in April 2023, authorities have stated that they think she was murdered close to Portland.
What proof the police and prosecutors have that connects Calhoun to the deaths is unknown. The Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office has stated that investigations are still ongoing into the deaths of two additional women that occurred during that time.
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Reporters were informed by the families of the three women that they suffered from mental health problems or addiction.
Calhoun, 39, was detained at the Snake River Correctional Center in eastern Oregon in June 2023 after being apprehended on unrelated parole warrants. In May, he was charged with the women’s deaths. Calhoun was moved to Portland as per the Multnomah County jail’s roster, which was updated on Wednesday.
Weeks before Calhoun was about to be freed from state prison, where he had been sent to serve out a four-year sentence for a variety of offenses included attacking a police officer and attempting to strangle a police dog, an indictment was made against him.
He was first freed in 2021, a year ahead of schedule, as part of a group of inmates who assisted in putting out destructive wildfires in 2020. The commutation was granted by her predecessor, Kate Brown, but was rescinded by Gov. Tina Kotek after police started looking into his involvement in the fatalities last year.
Calhoun would have been freed prior to the deaths even if Brown hadn’t lowered the sentence.