A mother of one of the women whose remains were found across the Portland metro area accused Oregon officials on Sunday of failing victims after a man released early from prison has been indicted in multiple killings.
Melissa Smith, whose daughter Kristin Smith was identified among the victims, told an audience at CrimeCon 2025 that then-Governor Kate Brown’s office "did us dirty" and owed the families an apology for granting clemency to Jesse Lee Calhoun, who prosecutors have charged in the deaths of four women. She said she would not call the decision the direct cause of her daughter’s death but that the families deserved an explanation and an apology.
Calhoun, 40, has been indicted on second-degree murder and second-degree abuse of a corpse charges in connection with the deaths of Kristin Smith, 22; Joanna Speaks, 32; Charity Lynn Perry, 24; and Bridget Leanne Webster, 31. Authorities are still investigating the death of a fifth woman, 22-year-old Ashley Real, and Calhoun has not been charged in Real’s death, according to court records and statements from prosecutors.
Prosecutors and county officials have said the victims were homeless and struggling with substance abuse when they disappeared between late 2022 and spring 2023. Their remains were recovered between February and May 2023 in locations across Multnomah, Polk and Clackamas counties and in Ridgefield, Washington. Multnomah County District Attorney Nathan Vasquez has said the four charged deaths are believed to have occurred between March and April 2023. Of the four charged cases, only Speaks has a confirmed cause of death: blunt force trauma to the head.
The families say they formed a support group known as the Portland Five and pressed police to consider links between the cases after investigators initially downplayed the prospect that a single suspect was responsible. Calhoun was named a person of interest in 2023. He was indicted in May 2024 on charges related to the deaths of Speaks, Perry and Webster, and prosecutors re-indicted him on Aug. 11, 2025, to add charges in Kristin Smith’s death, Melissa Smith said.
Court records and public records reviewed by media outlets show Calhoun had an extensive criminal history before the alleged killings, with more than 60 charges between August 2013 and April 2019, including convictions in 2019 for assaulting an officer and other offenses. He was sentenced in 2019 to four years and two months in prison.
Calhoun was among 41 inmates selected to participate in Oregon’s prison firefighter program that responded to the 2020 wildfire season, and he was released early in 2021 after being granted clemency, court documents and state statements show. The program, which places incarcerated people in firefighting crews, has been defended by state officials as a critical supplement to emergency response capacity; it has also faced scrutiny in some quarters after high-profile incidents involving participants.
At CrimeCon, Melissa Smith described the impact of her daughter's disappearance on her family and recounted the period between Kristin Smith’s disappearance in December 2022 and the discovery and identification of partial remains in February and May 2023. "Part of me died right there at that moment," she said of learning prosecutors had charged Calhoun in her daughter's case, describing months of grief and frustration.
Calhoun remains in custody and is expected to face trial in 2027, according to court filings. Multnomah County prosecutors have not disclosed whether they will seek additional charges as the investigation continues. State officials, including representatives of the former governor's office, have not issued new public statements tied to the families' comments at CrimeCon; past statements during the clemency and release process noted the use of the firefighter program during an acute emergency.
The case has prompted renewed attention to policies that allow sentence reductions linked to emergency response programs and to how prosecutors and law enforcement assess patterns in missing-person cases involving vulnerable populations. Families and advocates have criticized investigators' early handling of the disappearances and have repeatedly called for greater coordination and transparency. Prosecutors have said they continue to build their cases and to work with multiple jurisdictions as evidence is processed and additional forensic testing is completed.