A convicted felon now accused of killing multiple women in the Pacific Northwest was released from an Oregon prison nearly a year early after assisting with the state's devastating 2020 wildfires, according to court records and state officials.
Prosecutors say 41-year-old Jesse Lee Calhoun is charged with murdering five women in Oregon and Washington in cases that unfolded over several months beginning in 2022.
Authorities allege the victims, sometimes referred to as the "Portland Five," were attacked and their bodies later found in rural or semi-rural locations around the Portland metropolitan area, though Calhoun has entered not-guilty pleas to the charges.
A Multnomah County grand jury has returned multiple indictments that include counts of second-degree murder and abuse of a corpse, according to People.
Before the homicide cases, Calhoun was serving time for a series of felony convictions that included burglary, car theft, injuring a police officer, and choking a police dog during a prior arrest. He was sentenced in 2019 to a prison term that was expected to keep him in custody until June 2022.
In 2021, then-Gov. Kate Brown commuted his sentence after he volunteered to work on prison wildfire crews during Oregon's 2020 fire season, which officials described as one of the most destructive in state history.
State records and prior news reports show Calhoun was among 41 incarcerated people who received up to a one-year reduction for joining firefighting efforts as wildfires burned across large parts of Oregon, the Independent reported.
A spokesperson for Brown's office at the time said the group "bravely fought" the fires alongside civilian firefighters and helped prevent further destruction and loss of life, and Calhoun's release was moved up by about 11 months.
Separate clemency reviews that year also considered factors such as behavior in custody and medical vulnerability during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Calhoun's legal status changed again in 2023, when he was arrested on parole violations and returned to state prison. As Portland-area law enforcement agencies coordinated investigations into several women's deaths, they identified Calhoun as a person of interest linked to multiple cases.
At the request of the Multnomah County District Attorney's Office, Gov. Tina Kotek revoked his earlier commutation, and he remained in custody as homicide indictments were filed through 2024 and 2025, as per Radar Online.
