Jesse Calhoun pleads not guilty to fifth murder charge in Oregon court

An accused serial killer in Oregon was arraigned on Wednesday for the murder of a fifth woman.

A lawyer for Jesse Calhoun, who was already facing charges in the deaths of four women whose bodies were discovered in 2022 and 2023, entered a not guilty plea for the second-degree murder of Ashley Real, a 22-year-old who previously alleged he had choked her.

Her body was found within a 100-mile radius to Calhoun’s other alleged victims, Kristin Smith, 22; Charity Perry, 24; Bridget Webster, 31; and Joanna Speaks, 32, NBC News reported.

Speaks was found in an abandoned barn in southwestern Washington, while the others were found in Oregon. Real’s body was discovered in a pond in Clackamas county in May 2023.

Prosecutors told reporters at a press briefing following Wednesday’s brief arraignment hearing in Portland that they intended to try Calhoun, until recently only a person of interest in Real’s death, for all five murders in the same proceedings next year instead of conducting separate trials, the city’s ABC4 News said.

Calhoun, 41, who did not speak during the arraignment, faces five counts of second-degree murder, and four counts of abuse of a corpse.

NBC reported that members of Real’s family were at the hearing, and spoke to the outlet afterwards.

“I think being in that courtroom today and being able to see him, and know that he is behind bars now, it takes the weight off my shoulders knowing that he isn’t around and free to cause any harm to any other women out there,” Masciell Real, the victim’s sister, said.

Her father, Jose Real, told the Associated Press last year that he had called police in November 2022 after his daughter showed up crying at his Portland home and said Calhoun choked her. He said she had marks on her throat, and that he took her to a hospital.

Melissa Smith, the mother of Kristin Smith, was also present at Wednesday’s hearing.

“We’ve all experienced the worst thing that could ever happen to you, and it’s incredibly hard to see one of the other families hurt the way we do,” she said.

Calhoun was arrested in June 2023 on unrelated parole warrants and indicted in May 2024 in the deaths of three of the women.

He was charged in August last year with the murder of Smith, two and a half years after her remains were found.

At the time, Calhoun was approaching the end of a four-year sentence in state prison for assaulting a police officer, trying to strangle a police dog, burglary and other charges.

He was initially released in 2021, a year early, because he helped fight wildfires in 2020 under a prison firefighting program.

Tina Kotek, Oregon’s Democratic governor, revoked the commutation in 2023 when police began investigating him over the deaths.