A brief history of serial killers in Oregon
PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) -- The indictment of a man in connection with the 2023 deaths of three women marks the latest chapter in Oregon's dark history regarding serial killings.
Jesse Lee Calhoun was indicted on three counts of murder in the second degree and three counts of abuse of a corpse in the second degree in the deaths of the following women: 24-year-old Charity Lynn Perry; 31-year-old Bridget Leanne Webster; and 32-year-old Joanna Speaks. However, authorities had previously announced they were exploring a possible link between Calhoun and the deaths of Kristin Smith and Ashley Real.
According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, a serial murder is "the unlawful killing of two or more victims by the same offender(s), in separate events."
Keith Hunter Jesperson: Happy Face Killer
Imprisoner at the Oregon State Penitentiary, Canadian-American Keith Hunter Jesperson's first known victim was Taunja Bennet in January 1990 near Portland. Authorities say he would go on to have a confirmed eight total killings in Washington, Oregon, California, Florida, Nebraska and Wyoming. Investigators are still working to identify his only unknown victim.
Dayton Leroy Rogers: The Molalla Forest Killer
Dayton Leroy Rogers has been tied to the 1980s slayings of at least eight women, with six of his victims found at a dump site on privately owned forest near Molalla. After his death sentence was overturned in 2021, he received another life sentence in 2023.
Randall Brent Woodfield: The I-5 Killer
Imprisoned at the Oregon State Penitentiary, Woodfield was released on parole for second-degree robbery in 1979 before he killed a female classmate in her downtown Portland apartment in October 1980 and then killing two more a month later before starting a robbery and murder spree up and down Interstate 5, according to authorities.
Cesar Francesco Barone
Cesar Barone, born Adolph James Rode, was sentenced to death in 1995 for killing four women in Hillsboro from 1991 to 1993, but died before his execution. He was an inmate in the Florida prison system before coming to Oregon, where the Oregonian reported he "bragged" about a correspondence with notorious serial killer Ted Bundy.
John Arthur Ackroyd
John Arther Ackroyd was convicted in the 1978 death of Kaye Turner, but as The Oregonian/OregonLive's 2018 investigative series "Ghosts of Highway 20" revealed, Ackroyd was tied to several other homicides. He died in prison in 2016.
Ted Bundy's Oregon connections
One of the nation's most notorious serial killers had his start in the Pacific Northwest, and while the majority of his PNW killings happened in Washington state, Ted Bundy told an FBI agent the night before his execution in Florida about his victim tally on a state-by-state basis, which including abducting an Oregon State University student and killing her in Washington.
Green River Killer Gary Ridgway's Oregon connections
Although Ridgway is believed to have killed most of his victims in the Seattle and Tacoma, Washington areas, Ridgway also confessed to bringing victims across state lines into Oregon to "throw off" law enforcement, authorities said.
Sebastian Shaw
Sebastian Shaw died in prison in 2021 after being given three life sentences in the deaths of Jay Rickbeil in 1991 and Donna Ferguson and Todd Rudiger in 1992; he was also named as a primary suspect in an unsolved California homicide.