An Oregon man facing charges that he murdered three women and dumped their bodies in secluded areas in 2023 has been indicted on charges that he murdered a fourth woman, prosecutors in Oregon said this week.
Those killings spread fear in the state at the time, as some worried that a serial killer was in their midst.
A grand jury in Multnomah County indicted Jesse Lee Calhoun in the November 2022 death of 22-year-old Kristin Smith, who was killed around Nov. 20, 2022, and whose partial remains were found in a field in southeast Portland on Feb. 19, 2023, the county’s district attorney, Nathan Vasquez, said at a news conference on Tuesday.
He is charged with second-degree murder and second-degree abuse of a corpse.
A lawyer for Mr. Calhoun declined to comment on the new charges.
At the news conference, Melissa Smith, Kristin Smith’s mother, thanked “every single person who didn’t give up on this case.”
“I’ve always stayed hopeful that I would get justice for Kristin,” she said.
The indictment came more than a year after, Mr. Calhoun, 40, was indicted by a grand jury on three counts of second-degree murder in the deaths of Charity Lynn Perry, 24; Bridget Leanne Webster, 31; and Joanna Speaks, 32. Their bodies were found in 2023 in the northwest part of Oregon, the authorities said.
Prosecutors said at the time that the women had been found “deceased under suspicious circumstances,” but did not say how they had been killed, how they had linked Mr. Calhoun to the killings or what the motive might have been.
Mr. Calhoun is being held in jail in Multnomah County, officials said, and his trial in the deaths of the three women is expected to be held in 2027.
At the news conference on Tuesday, Mr. Vasquez called the indictment in the death of Ms. Smith “a very important and visible step on the path as we seek justice for these victims.”
After Ms. Smith’s body was found in February 2023, the body of Ms. Speaks, an Oregon resident, was found on April 8, 2023, at an abandoned property in Ridgefield, Wash., about 20 miles north of Portland.
The authorities said there were “indications the body was moved to this location” and that they were investigating the death as a homicide.
On April 24, Ms. Perry’s body was discovered in a culvert near Ainsworth State Park, about 35 miles east of Portland. The Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office said later that it was investigating the “suspicious death,” noting that Ms. Perry had frequented downtown Portland in early March.
Six days later, on April 30, Ms. Webster’s body was found near a creek in Polk County, Ore., about 70 miles southwest of Portland. The Polk County Sheriff’s Office also described Ms. Webster’s death as “suspicious,” and said that she had also been known to visit the Portland area.
The death of another woman — Ashley Real, 22, whose body was found in May 2023 — is still being investigated, officials said.
Adeel Hassan, a New York-based reporter for The Times, covers breaking news and other topics.
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