And this is the kind of thing you get when you don’t bring justice to those who violate the law, and no, prison was not justice for this individual anymore than the governor’s office was justice for a woman committing crimes against nature. Yet, it was former queer Governor Kate Brown who commuted the sentence of Jesse Lee Calhoun, who was originally charged with several counts of burglary, identity theft, assaulting a public safety officer, resisting arrest, possession of meth, assaulting a law enforcement animal, aggravated theft, criminal mischief, theft, unlawful entry into a motor vehicle, possession of stolen vehicle, and unauthorized use of a motor vehicle. Now, he’s a suspect in multiple murders.
KGW8 reports:
PORTLAND, Ore. — The man reported to be a person of interest in the deaths of four Portland women over the past six months has a lengthy criminal history and was released from prison a year early in 2021 when he received clemency from Gov. Kate Brown, multiple media outlets reported Monday. He is currently back in prison, having been arrested in early June on unrelated parole violation charges.
The Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office announced Monday that law enforcement agencies had discovered links between the cases of Kristin Smith, Charity Perry, Bridget Webster and Ashley Real, who were all found dead in mostly rural locations around Portland starting in February. Portland police previously said in early June that they had no reason to believe the cases were connected.
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The DA’s office said a person of interest had been identified in the cases, but did not release the person’s name or any further information. The Willamette Week reported Monday that the person of interest is 38-year-old Jesse Lee Calhoun, citing law enforcement sources.
Willamette Week also reported that Calhoun was released from prison early in July 2021 after being granted a “conditional commutation” by Gov. Kate Brown due to his service as an inmate wildland firefighter. He was originally scheduled to be released 12 months later, according to Willamette Week.
He was arrested again June 6 of this year for violating his conditions of his parole, Willamette Week reported, and Gov. Tina Kotek’s office confirmed Monday that it had received and granted a request from the Multnomah County DA’s Office on July 3 to revoke Calhoun’s commutation status. State records show Calhoun has been incarcerated at the Snake River Correctional Institution since July 6.
Court records show Calhoun has a lengthy criminal history stretching back to July 2003, when he was charged with two counts of assault. He was charged with assault, strangulation and harassment in December of 2007, and then kidnapping, assault and harassment in June 2008.
His record then shows more than 60 charges or citations over a period from August 2013 to April 2019 including aggravated theft, burglary, resisting arrest and assaulting a public safety officer.
His most recent listed offense — and the only one since 2019 to appear in court records as of Monday — was another driving while suspended violation in October 2022.
Here’s two reports from KGW8 on the dead women.
Calhoun, reportedly a talented artist who told booking officials he earned his living painting designs on vehicles, has a long record of felony convictions dating to 2004. After arresting him in 2018 with meth, several guns, and more than 500 rounds of ammunition, the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office called him a “prolific thief and career criminal.” Calhoun’s most recent convictions came in November 2019, when he pleaded guilty in separate cases to a raft of felonies, including burglary, unauthorized possession of a stolen vehicle, and injuring a police officer and a police dog when they attempted to arrest him.
Those convictions earned Calhoun four concurrent sentences, the longest of which was 50 months, which included the nearly nine months he’d already served. His projected release date, after a 20% reduction due to good behavior, was June 30, 2022, according to the Oregon Department of Corrections.
But another 11 months were shaved off after he joined a group of inmates fighting wildfires. He was released on July 22, 2021.
During the pandemic, Gov. Brown began a process of granting mass commutations—early release to prisoners who were well behaved, nearing the end of their sentences, and particularly vulnerable to COVID-19.
When the Labor Day fires in 2020 that would burn 700,000 acres exhausted firefighting resources, the Oregon Department of Corrections deployed some inmates to join the fire lines. Records show that Calhoun was one of them. On March 5, 2021, Brown issued a “conditional commutation” for 41 of the inmate firefighters, knocking the last 12 months off their sentences. That sent Calhoun back to the streets of Multnomah County in July 2021.
Nearly two years later, on June 1, 2023, The Oregonian reported the discovery of the bodies of six young women: Kristin Smith, found Feb. 19 in Southeast Portland; Joanna Speaks, found April 11 in Ridgefield, Wash.; Charity Perry, found April 24 at Ainsworth State Park in east Multnomah County; an unidentified woman, also found April 24, in Lents, although the Portland Police Bureau said it did not suspect foul play; Bridget Webster, found April 30 in Polk County; and Ashley Real, found May 7 in Clackamas County.
Online sleuths ran with that information, raising questions about whether the six deaths were linked. On June 4, the Portland Police Bureau issued a statement in response to widespread speculation, saying, “PPB has no reason to believe these 6 cases are connected.” It is unclear whether the Police Bureau was deliberately withholding information or if new information has emerged since then.
On June 6, officers from agencies that included the Multnomah and Clackamas county sheriff’s offices and the U.S. Marshals Service moved to arrest Calhoun on a parole violation.
When officers contacted Calhoun, who records show is 6-foot-4 and 266 pounds and has a history of resisting arrest, he plunged into the Willamette River in Milwaukie and tried to escape. Officers subdued him and initially booked him on a parole violation on June 6 in Clackamas County (where one of the six women’s bodies was found), transferred him to Multnomah County (where three women were found) the next day, and then moved him to Snake River, a state prison near the Idaho border. (The lawyer who most recently represented Calhoun says he no longer does. It is unclear whether Calhoun has an attorney currently.)
Cross-posted with Sons of Liberty Media
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