Portland authorities: On second thought, those death are connected (suspect had sentence reduced by former Gov. Brown)

About six weeks ago Portland police released a statement saying that, contrary to “rumors” circulating online, there was no evidence that the deaths of six women in the region were connected.

The Portland Police Bureau (PPB) has been hearing widespread questions and concerns about the death investigations of 6 women throughout the region, especially after widely distributed social media posts and news media articles appeared to suggest a connection between them. 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 offices, PPB has no reason to believe these 6 cases are connected.

But in this case the rumors turned out to be true, or at least partly true. Today, Portland authorities announced that the deaths of at least four of the women are connected.

After months of probing and multiple investigations, authorities in northwestern Oregon now believe the mysterious deaths of four young women are connected, the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office announced Monday.

The bodies of the four women, ranging from 22 to 31 years old, were all discovered earlier this year, and the cause and manner of their deaths has yet to be determined by the state’s medical examiner, the district attorney’s office said in a news release.

The women were identified as 22-year-old Kristin Smith, 22-year-old Ashley Real, 24-year-old Charity Lynn Perry and 31-year-old Bridget Leann (Ramsay) Webster, according to the release. All four have ties to Portland.

Authorities have interviewed multiple people in connection with the cases and have identified “at least one person of interest” who is linked to all four women, the release said.

So who is the mystery man linked to the four women. According to Willamette Week his name is Jesse Lee Calhoun, a Portland resident who was released early from prison by Gov. Kate Brown.

Calhoun, 38, is among the more than 1,000 inmates whom former Gov. Kate Brown granted clemency, allowing them to leave prison early. Of those Brown released early, officials believe Calhoun is the only one whose clemency has since been revoked…

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.

So this career criminal pleaded guilty to multiple felonies in Nov. 2019 including injuring a police officer and was released in July 2021 having served 20 months. When the decision to commute the sentences of convicts who’d fought wildfires was made, the corrections department claimed they had been carefully screened so as not to pose a risk to the community.

Gov. Brown was praised on the left for her eagerness to use her clemency powers. She was a featured speaker at an ACLU backed panel held at Princeton last December. When contacted about the murders connected to Jesse Lee Calhoun, former Gov. Brown said, “I’m absolutely horrified for the victims, their families, and all those who have experienced this loss.”

There are still two more deaths which haven’t been publicly connected to the others yet. But as this local news report about the story explains, one of the four linked victims was friends with one of the as-yet unlinked victims. So it seems likely more deaths will eventually be linked to Calhoun.