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The Killer Hiding in the Paperwork · Crime Night

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Picture this. It's late February twenty twenty three. You're in
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: this south Portland neighborhood and it's that very specific kind
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: of Pacific Northwest winter day where the cold doesn't just
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: sit on your skin, you know, it sinks right into
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: your bones.
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that damp, heavy kind of cold exactly.
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  Speaker 1: The woods out there, they're completely rain soaked. The earth
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: is just dark and heavy, and there's this suffocating gray
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: mist clinging to the trees.
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: It's incredibly quiet, unsettlingly quiet, really right.
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  Speaker 1: And it's in this chilling, isolated stretch of woods that
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: a horrifying discovery is made, the remains of a young
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  Speaker 1: woman hidden away in the damp earth, basically concealed by
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: the landscape itself.
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  Speaker 2: It's the kind of scene that just permanently alters the
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: psychological landscape of a community, you know, like the mundane
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: backdrop of a neighborhood woodland is suddenly well, it's transformed
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: into a crime scene. It completely shatters that ambient sense
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: of security people rely on just to like go about
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: their daily lives.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: It really does. And welcome to today's deep dive. This
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: one is custom tailored for you. We've pulled this massive
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: stack of case files, police reports, media transcripts, all sitting
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: right here on the desk between us.
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: It's a heavy stack too, yeah, it.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: Is, And it's all regarding what has come to be
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: known as the Portland five, or maybe even the Portland six,
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: which we'll get into. But our mission for this deep
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: dive is to figure out how a modern predator evaded
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: the most technologically advanced justice system in history.
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: Because we constantly hear about this, right, the idea that
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: we're living in this era of rapid DNA testing and
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  Speaker 2: cell phone tower triangulation.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: Ubiquitous security cameras everywhere you.
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: Look, exactly, we're told that getting away with a string
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: of homicides is virtually impossible today. But I mean, the
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: physical and digital footprints detailed in these files suggest that
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: a man in Oregon did just that. He operated completely
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: under the radar of multiple law enforcement agencies, right in
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: plain sight. Yeah. And the documents we're analyzing today they
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: exposed this really profound vulnerability in that technology logical safety net.
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: The complexity of this case forces us to look past
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: the forensic science, you know, and actually examine the dark
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  Speaker 2: systemic cracks in our justice systems.
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: Bureaucracy of it.
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  Speaker 2: All, Right, we're going to explore how a predator can
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  Speaker 2: exploit the bureaucratic gaps between different police departments, effectively hiding
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: while grieving families are basically left to do the heavy
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: lifting of the investigation themselves.
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's unpack this, Yeah, because we need to establish
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: the sequence of events first. The sheer geographical scale of
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: this mystery is well, it's staggering.
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: It really spans a massive area.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: So the timeline begins just before Christmas December twenty two,
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty two, while the rest of the region is
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: you know, wrapping gifts, getting ready for the holidays. A
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: woman named Melissa Smith is plunged into an absolute nightmare.
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: Every parent's worst fear.
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  Speaker 1: Exactly, her twenty two year old daughter Kristen just vanishes
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: without a trace. She's reported missing in Gresham, Oregon, which
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: is a city just east of Portland. And a crucial
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: detail here, Kristin had a documented history of being in
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: an abusive relationship.
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: Which is a huge red flag right.
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  Speaker 1: It immediately elevated the threat level in her mother's mind.
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: Melissa knew something was terribly wrong.
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: And Melissa, she really understood the urgency of those critical
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: first forty eight hours, an urgency that frankly, she felt
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: was not being matched by the authorities at all, not.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: Even close based on these reports.
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: No, so she essentially transformed herself into a relentless boots
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: on the ground investigator. Instead of just like waiting by
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: the phone for official updates, she mobilized her own community.
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: She really did.
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  Speaker 2: She's out there organizing grassroots search parties, distributing flyers across
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  Speaker 2: all these different neighborhoods, combing through social media profiles for
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  Speaker 2: any kind of digital clue. She was physically knocking on
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  Speaker 2: doors in areas Kristin was known to frequent.
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  Speaker 1: Just exhausting every possible avenue.
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  Speaker 2: Right because she was battling this assumption that often plagues
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  Speaker 2: cases involving young adults with complex histories, this institutional that
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  Speaker 2: labels them as runaways, you know, rather than victims in
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  Speaker 2: immediate life threatening danger.
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  Speaker 1: It's so frustrating. But despite that agonizing, round the clock
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  Speaker 1: effort from Melissa, the devastating call finally comes. On February nineteenth,
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  Speaker 1: twenty twenty three, Portland police informed her that her daughter's
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: remains were the ones found in those freezing Rainsiak Woods
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  Speaker 1: in South Portland that we described earlier.
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  Speaker 2: God just heartbreaking.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, And as tragic as that closure was for one
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  Speaker 1: family looking at the files, it signaled the beginning of
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  Speaker 1: this escalating crisis across the entire region, because as the
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  Speaker 1: winter thawed into spring, this creeping realization began to set
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: in the landscape was giving up more secrets, a lot more.
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  Speaker 1: On April twenty four, the remains of twenty four year
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  Speaker 1: old Charity Perry were discovered in a rural culvert near
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  Speaker 1: Ainsworth State Park that is roughly thll miles east of
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  Speaker 1: where Kristin was found.
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  Speaker 2: And what's fascinating here is that the discoveries then begin
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  Speaker 2: to cascade with terrifying speed. It really highlights a predator
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  Speaker 2: operating with increasing brazenness or or maybe a total loss
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  Speaker 2: of control over their disposal method right.
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  Speaker 1: Because six days later, just six days on April thirty tenth,
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  Speaker 1: the body of thirty one year old Bridget Webster is
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  Speaker 1: found seventy miles away southwest of Portland.
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  Speaker 2: Seventy miles yeah.
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  Speaker 1: And then a week after that, May seven, a fisherman
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  Speaker 1: discovers twenty two year old Ashley Reel in an isolated
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  Speaker 1: pond south of Portland. And concurrently, while all this is happening,
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  Speaker 1: authorities in Ridgefield, Washington, which is just north of the
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  Speaker 1: state line, they locate the body of thirty two year
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  Speaker 1: old Joanna speaks near an abandoned barn.
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  Speaker 2: So we're talking multiple counties, two different states exactly.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, visualize this map for a second. If you're
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  Speaker 1: a detective looking at this map, pushing red pins into
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  Speaker 1: the locations, You've got dense woods, a rural culvert, an
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  Speaker 1: isolated pond, an abandoned barn across state lines. How do
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  Speaker 1: you even begin to connect victims scattered across so many
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  Speaker 1: different jurisdictions.
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  Speaker 2: Well, imagine trying to complete a one thousand piece puzzle, right,
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  Speaker 2: but five different people are holding the pieces in five
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  Speaker 2: different locked rooms, and none of them are allowed to
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  Speaker 2: speak the same language.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: That's a great way to put it.
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  Speaker 2: That seems to be exactly what was happening with these
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  Speaker 2: local jurisdictions. It perfectly illustrates the concept of jurisdictional blindness.
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  Speaker 2: We as the public often assume law enforcement operates on
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  Speaker 2: this single interconnected.
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  Speaker 1: Grid, like they all just share one big computer system.
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  Speaker 2: Right, Like it's a TV show. But the reality is
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  Speaker 2: just a patchwork of isolated data silos. You have the
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: Portland Police Bureau, the Moltnomah County sheriff authorities in neighboring
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  Speaker 2: Clackamas County, and then state agencies in Washington.
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  Speaker 1: All totally separate completely.
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  Speaker 2: They utilize different dispatch systems, different record management software, distinct
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  Speaker 2: chains of command. A sheriff's deputy in one county cannot
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  Speaker 2: simply run a search and see the field notes of
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  Speaker 2: a city detective thirty miles away, not without initiating a formal,
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  Speaker 2: manual request.
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  Speaker 1: Which explains the baffling public stance taken by authorities in
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: the early summer of twenty twenty three. I mean, looking
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  Speaker 1: at the press clippings here. By early June, the commune
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: unity was in full panic mode. Understandably so women were
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: vanishing and turning up dead across the region. And yet
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: the Portland Police Bureau issued this definitive formal statement denying
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: any connection between these deaths.
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  Speaker 2: Just completely shutting down the rumors.
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they told the public these were five tragic, entirely
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  Speaker 1: separate incidents. They explicitly stated that while they were communicating
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: with other agencies, they were not participating in their investigations.
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  Speaker 2: And that statement, as frustrating as it is in hindsight,
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  Speaker 2: it reflects an administration looking strictly at the data housed
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  Speaker 2: within their own specific jurisdiction. If you only have one
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  Speaker 2: piece of that puzzle, it doesn't look like a pattern.
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  Speaker 2: It just looks like an isolated tragedy.
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  Speaker 1: So it took the families to figure it out exactly.
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  Speaker 2: It took the families, operating completely outside of those bureaucratic
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  Speaker 2: silos to start seeing the full picture.
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  Speaker 1: And they refused to accept the official narrative. These case
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  Speaker 1: files show the families basically acting as their own decentralized
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  Speaker 1: task force. For instance, speaks as sister Ariel. She started
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: pulling on this very specific thread. She and a friend
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  Speaker 1: thought they recognized the photo of Bridget Webster from a
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  Speaker 1: local gas.
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  Speaker 2: Station, which is such a small random detail, right, But instead.
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  Speaker 1: Of letting it go, Aeriel dug into their backgrounds and
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  Speaker 1: uncovered this crucial link. Yeah, Joanna and Bridget had gone
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: to grade school together and had recently reconnected. Wow, this
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  Speaker 1: was a tangible human connection bridging two victims found.
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  Speaker 2: Miles apart and see data algorithms in rigid police databases.
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  Speaker 2: They routinely missed those nuanced human connections. A database looks
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  Speaker 2: for shared addresses or prior co arrests. It doesn't flag
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  Speaker 2: childhood friendships rekindled years later.
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  Speaker 1: It takes a person to see that exactly.
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  Speaker 2: So the family's grassroots advocacy, armed with this newly discovered link,
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  Speaker 2: it created immense, unignorable pressure on the various law enforcement
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  Speaker 2: agencies to finally integrate their intelligence.
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  Speaker 1: And that pressure resulted in a sudden, whiplash inducing reversal.
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  Speaker 1: In July twenty twenty three, multiple agencies issued this bombshell
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  Speaker 1: joint press release. The silos were finally breached. Finally, authorities
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  Speaker 1: officially linked four of the victims, Kristen, Charity, Bridget, and Ashley,
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  Speaker 1: to a single person of interest. Now, Joanna Speaks was
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  Speaker 1: conspicuously excluded from this initial grouping, but the unified front
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  Speaker 1: was established, and almost immediately the media leaked the name
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  Speaker 1: of this POI, Jesse Lee Calhoun.
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  Speaker 2: And here's where it gets really interesting.
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  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, because the circumstances surrounding his apprehension. It gives
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  Speaker 1: us a really clear window into a psychological state.
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  Speaker 2: At the time, right, because when authorities closed in on
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  Speaker 2: him for parole, violations in June of twenty twenty three.
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  Speaker 2: He didn't just surrender. He attempted this desperate evasion by
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: actually plunging into the Willamette River.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. You don't jump into a treacherous, freezing river just
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  Speaker 1: to escape a standard parole violation check.
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  Speaker 2: No, absolutely not.
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  Speaker 1: That is the highly motivated act of someone who knows
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  Speaker 1: exactly the magnitude of what the authorities are coming for.
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  Speaker 1: He knew his digital and physical footprints had finally caught
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  Speaker 1: up to him.
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  Speaker 2: He knew it was.
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: But to understand the true intellectual horror of this case,
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  Speaker 1: we have to examine how Calhoun was out on the
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  Speaker 1: streets in the first place. I'm looking at his rapsheet
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  Speaker 1: right now, and in Oregon it dates back to two
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  Speaker 1: thousand and three. That's extensive, filled with stolen cars, burglaries,
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  Speaker 1: multiple violent felonies. But the critical juncture occurs in twenty nineteen.
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  Speaker 1: Calhoun is arrested after attempting to choke a police canine,
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  Speaker 1: and then he subsequently assaulted the human officer who's attempting
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: to serve him a warrant.
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  Speaker 2: Just brazen violence against law enforcement.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, and he is convicted and sentenced to fifty months
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: for that, which put his scheduled release date at June thirty,
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty two.
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: But he didn't serve that full sentence.
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: No, And this is where I just wait. So the
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: bureaucratic mechanism that altered that timeline, it's where public policy
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: and public safety collided with just devastating results.
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: It's incredibly frustrating to read.
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  Speaker 1: You look at this record and you have to wonder,
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: on behalf of the listener here, how does this state
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: justify releasing someone with his record, a history of severely
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: violent assaults a full year early.
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: Well, the file show that in twenty twenty, Oregon experienced
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: some of the most horrific wildfires in its history.
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the sky was literally orange, right, and.
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  Speaker 2: To combat those blazes, the state utilized inmates on firefighting cruise,
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  Speaker 2: and Calhoun was among them. So in twenty twenty one,
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: the governor commuted the sentences of forty one inmates as
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: a reward for the service, knocking about a year off
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: their time.
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: So he gets out early.
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: Jesse Calhoun was released on July twenty two, twenty twenty one,
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: a full year before his original sentence was up.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, wait, so fighting fires somehow erases a history
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: of severely violent assaults against officers, like manual strangulations of canine.
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: I know, I know, it sounds completely insane when you
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: look at it case by case, but this represents a
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: profound tension between administrative policy and granular reality. On a
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: macro level, the state was dealing with severe prison overcrowding
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: during a pandemic plus a historic environmental crisis.
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: But they just needed bodies out of the prisons.
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and the policy was designed to incentivize rehabilitation and
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: reward public service. The problem is the algorithm for clemency
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: simply looked for inmates who fought fires and met baseline criteria.
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: It did not heavily weigh the specific violent nuances of
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: an individual's history.
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: You didn't look at the details.
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: No, when blanket clemency policies are applied without rigorous individualized
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: risk assessments, a predator can just slip right through the
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: bureaucratic cracks and there essentially handed the keys to the city.
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: And the true tragedy detailed in these police reports is
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: that Calhoun was heavily on the radar of local police
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: during his killing spree.
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: This is the part that just makes your stomach drop.
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: Let's look at the timeline involving Ashley Reel's father, Jose.
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  Speaker 1: In November twenty twenty, two months before any of the
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: victims were discovered, Ashley came to her dad in a
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: state of absolute terror. She had visible choke marks on
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  Speaker 1: her throat and explicitly named Jesse Calhoun as her attacker.
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  Speaker 2: She told them exactly who it was, yes, and.
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: Jose took all the correct steps. He brought her to
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: the hospital for treatment. They filed the formal police report.
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: They did everything you're supposed to do, and.
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: If we connect this to the bigger picture, Portland police
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: did attempt to enlist Ashley's help to locate him, but
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: the psychological trauma and fear of retaliation, which is incredibly
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: common in domestic abuse cases, it kept her from cooperating further.
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: She was just too terrified right.
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: Consequently, the case was transferred to the Moltnomah County Sheriff's Office,
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: and the administrative machinery just ground to.
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  Speaker 1: A halt, complete radio silence. The files note that Jose
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: and his wife repeatedly called for updates and received nothing,
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: and then six months later Ashley was dead.
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  Speaker 2: It's devastating.
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: The information about a violent physical assault by a recently
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: paroled felon was just sitting dormant in a filing cabinet.
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: If the county sheriff and the city police had integrated
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: their data systems, if a red flag had been triggered
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: notifying the parole board of this assault report, Calhoun could
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: have been remanded immediately.
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: Right because he was on parole.
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: The failure wasn't a lack of evidence, it was a
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: total failure of the systems to communicate that evidence.
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: To each other and the digital forensics from Calhoun's own devices.
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: They further underscore this exact point. While the families were
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: fighting for transparency, Calhoun's girlfriend, the woman who was present
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: during his river escape, she came forward with crucial information.
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: This was a massive turning point.
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: Huge She confirmed that Calhoun and Ashley Reel had been
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: involved in an on and off sexual relationship from December
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: twenty twenty one to December twenty twenty two.
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: But more importantly, she provided the key to cracking the
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: digital footprint. In our interviews, she described seeing an explicit
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: video on Calhoun's phone featuring a woman she didn't recognize
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: at the time.
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: Just a random woman on his phone.
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: She thought right. It was only after seeing the widespread
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: news reports later on that she realized the woman captured
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: in that footage with bridget Webster.
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: And this is where modern investigative technology finally asserts itself,
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: albeit way too to prevent the crimes. Digital forensics experts
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: were able to extract the metadata from that video.
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: The invisible digital trail.
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: Exactly the GPS coordinates, the precise time stamps, the location
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: data embedded deep in the file. That metadata is the
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: definitive bridge connecting the suspect in Portland to a victim
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: discovered seventy miles away. It establishes possession timeline and an
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: undeniable link that totally overcomes those jurisdictional boundaries we talked about.
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: But despite the recovery of all this hard digital evidence,
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: the families were subjected to this agonizing, years long drip
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: feed of justice. It's never fast building a multi jurisdictional,
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: largely circumstantial case. It requires aligning countless witnesses, mapping intricate
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: cell tower data, and processing complex DNA evidence across all
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: these different prosecuting offices. In November twenty twenty three, authorities
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: finally acknowledged. Johanna Speak's case fell under Portland's jurisdiction, theorizing
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: she was killed there before being transported to Washington.
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: But even then the wheels moved so slowly it took.
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: Until May of twenty twenty four for a grand jury
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: to finally indict Calvoun. And get this, that indictment only
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: covered three murders, Charity Perry, Bridget Webster and Joanna Speaks.
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: Kristen Smith and Ashley Real were left out.
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: And the psychological toll of that initial partial indictment on
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: Melissa Smith and jose Rial I mean, it's difficult to
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: even quantify.
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: To sit there and hear that.
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: Right, they were the parents who raised the early alarms,
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: who filed the initial reports, and who provided the foundational
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: links to the police. To sit in a gallery and
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: hear a grand jury omit their daughters from the charges,
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: it adds an entirely new layer of trauma to their grief.
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: It highlights the agonizingly slow, meticulous nature of the legal system,
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: which always prioritizes airtight evidentiary thresholds over the immediate emotional
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: needs of the victim's families.
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: Melissa Smith attended that arrangement anyway, though, she stood in
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: solidarity with the other mothers, forming this incredible brotherhood of
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: grief that just refused to be ignored by the press
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: of the police.
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: They were such a powerful force.
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: Her resilience did pay off eventually, but the weight was staggering.
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: It wasn't until August twenty twenty five, nearly one thousand
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: days after Kristen was found, that an indictment for her
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: murder was secured one thousand days, and Ashley Reel's indictment
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: didn't arrive until May twenty twenty six, three full years
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: after her discovery. But during one of the numerous press
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: conferences over these years, Charity Perry's mother stepped up to
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: the microphone. The files note that the room packed with
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: media fell completely silent. You could hear a pin drop.
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: She had something important to say.
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: She looked directly into the camera lenses, addressing Calhoun with
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: just chilling clarity. I'm going to read this exactly as
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: it's transcribed here. She said, you are not the smartest
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: person in the room. You think that you are, and
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: maybe the day of your crime you were, but there's
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: no way you will keep going and not be caught.
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: Doesn't matter if it's two days, two weeks, two months,
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: two centuries, the world will find you.
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: Wow. It is just a profound statement of endurance. She
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: effected stripped away the perceived dominance of the perpetrator, you know,
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: asserting that the collective will power of grieving families and
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: the slow, inevitable grind of forensic science will eventually outlast
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: any attempt at evasion.
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: It gives you chills, it does.
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: However, as comprehensive as those five indictments are, the files
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: contain one final unresolved section that casts a really long
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: shadow over this entire investigation.
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the Portland five might actually be the Portland six.
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: There is a ghost lingering in these reports. In late
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: May twenty twenty three, while the discoveries of the other
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: victims were absolutely dominating the local headlines, the Moltnomah County
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: Medical Examiner issue this quiet plea to the public.
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: Almost got lost in the noise.
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: Exactly on April twenty fourth, which is the exact same
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: day Charity Perry was found in the culvert. Another woman
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: was discovered dead near Interstate two five in the Lens
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: neighborhood of Portland, and to this day she remains unidentified.
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: Her physical profile is what demands intense scrutiny when you're
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: analyzing the broader patterns of this case.
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: So what does this all mean? The files describe her
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: as Native American or Alaska native, estimated to be between
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: twenty five and forty years old. But the haunting metric
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: here is her stature. She was exactly five foot one.
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: Which fits the pattern perfectly.
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: Looking at the known victims, Kristin Smith was five foot
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: two and weighed one hundred pounds. Ashley Reeal was four
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: foot eleven and weighed just eighty five pounds, the physical similarities.
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: Are claring, they really are.
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: The fact that she is still unidentified tells me this
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: predator isn't just opportunistic. He is actively profiling women who
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: have slipped through the cracks of society's safety nets, women
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: who might not have an immediate support system to file
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: a missing person's report on day one.
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: And this raises an important question that theory aligns perfectly
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: with the behavioral profile of a serial predator. They exploit
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: societal indifference right.
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they know who won't be looked for right away.
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: They target the marginalized, the vulnerable, the transient, relying on
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: the assumption that law enforcement will dedicate fewer resources to
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: their disappearance. The existence of an unidentified victim on the
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: exact same timeline, matching the exact physical typology of the
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: known victims, forces us to question the true scope of
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: the hunting grounds, how many more are there exactly. It
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: suggests that there may be other unconnected, unknown victims hidden
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: within the blind spots of the system, which.
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: Brings us to the specific markings noted in her autopsy report.
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: She had two large scars on her lower left leg.
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: She had two highly distinct tattoos, a black music note
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: intertwined with the V on her upper chest and a
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: Buddha on her upper back near the shoulder blade. She
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: was found wearing a green long sleeved shirt, a black
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: and white jacket, blue jeans, and black and white Adidas cleats.
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: The details are so specific, somebody has to know her.
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: They have to. The families of the known victims have
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: forged this unshakable bond through this whole ordeal, forcing the
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: justice system to act through sheer willpower. They are now
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: bracing for a massive joint trial slated for twenty twenty
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: seven twenty twenty eight where they will finally demand the
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: answers they've been denied for years. But for this sixth woman,
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: there is no family sitting in the gallery demanding justice.
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: And as we close these case files today, I think
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: we really need to consider the paradox of the modern
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: criminal investigation. We comfort ourselves with the belief that technology,
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: our cell phone tower pings, our ring cameras, our rapid
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: DNA sequencing. We think it provides this impenetrable shield against
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: the monsters that haunted previous decades.
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: You think we're so safe now, yeah, right.
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: But this deep dive proves a terrifying reality. The greatest
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: asset a killer has today isn't an ability to evade forensics.
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: It is the sheer grinding bureaucracy of the justice system itself.
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: It's a paperwork.
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: When a parole board, a county sheriff, and a city
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: police department operate in isolated universes failing to communicate critical intelligence,
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: all the digital forensics in the world cannot proactively save
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: a victim. The modern predator doesn't hide in the dark.
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: He hides in the paperwork.
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: He hides in the paperwork. That is wow. I want
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: you listening to hold on to the image of that
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: unidentified sixth victim, the five foot one woman with the
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: Buddha tattoo on her back and the music note with
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: a V on her chest, Because, as this massive stack
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: of files has proven time and time again, the real
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: investigative breakthroughs rarely originate from a siloed government office or
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: a proprietary database.
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: No they don't.
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: They come from the public. They come from someone remembering
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: a face, recognizing a specific tattoo, and deciding to speak up.
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: Keep your eyes open. You never know when you might
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: be the missing piece of the puzzle that brings someone
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: out of those damp, freezing woods and finally gives them
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: a name.