Jesse Calhoun Indicted for Sixth Oregon Victim

0:00Are you tired of confusing bait and switch pricing on GLP ones? Then visit HappyGLP.com where it's always $99 a month. At HappyGLP, whether you're brand new or renewing, it's $99 every time. No teaser price, no switch up. Getting started this fast, convenient, and happens virtually with a licensed provider. Check it out for yourself at HappyGLP.com. Compound and medications are not FDA approved. Eligibility required and determined by a licensed provider. Individual results may vary. See website for details. So on September 18th, 2026, a man was indicted for taking a woman's life. Right. The thing is, he wasn't charged with murder. Which is a huge detail. Yeah, and today we're looking at a case where well, where the deeper investigators dig, the further back in time, the horror actually goes. Yeah, it really does. Because usually, you know, when we look at a criminal investigation that's finally bringing charges, there's this expectation of clarity. Right? You want closure. Exactly. You expect the final piece to just click into place, the picture to be complete, and the file to be closed.

1:01But you step into the reality of a multi-year multi-victim investigation. And suddenly that comforting resolution is just completely upended. It really is. It forces a total recalibration of what we think we know. Right. It requires us to challenge our basic assumptions about how justice operates. And not just in theory, but in real time, you know, over years of this painstaking, often really frustrating work. And that is exactly our mission for this deep dive today. We are unpacking a very recent, really grim update regarding a story that has cast just a massive shadow over the Pacific Northwest. A very long shadow. Yeah, we're examining a report and it's dated September 18th, 2026, focusing on accused Oregon serial killer, Jesse Calhoun. He has just been indicted for a sixth death. Which fundamentally changes the entire architecture of the case. Wow. I mean, it alters the timeline, it alters the legal strategy,

2:01and it obviously significantly deepens the tragedy. So the source material we have in front of us is just a single news report. It is pretty concise. Yeah, it's short. It's the kind of thing you might just, you know, scroll past on your phone during a commute. But it is incredibly dense. Very dim. It's packed with all this legal maneuvering, heart breaking quotes from families, and a timeline that I mean, when you actually map it out, it's deeply unsettled. Yeah, absolutely. So the goal today is to really read between the lines of this legal jargon. We're going to map out the true timeline of this tragedy. And we're going to look closely at the profound human impact of an investigation that has just stretched on for years. And we'll also be analyzing the very precise language used by the district attorney and the grand jury. Right. Because words matter here. Exactly. Right. Because to understand exactly where this case stands ahead of the upcoming Monday arraignment, we have to look at the exact words chosen by the legal system. Yeah. They tell a story that, um, well, the broader headlines often miss.

3:02Let's start right there because my natural curiosity just immediately goes to the mechanics of this. Like, how does a case expand years after the fact? Right. It's not like TV. Exactly. How do investigators suddenly add a whole new chapter, like a prequel, essentially to a story that we all thought was already written and stoned? Well, to answer that, we really have to look intimately at this newest development, which, you know, it centers entirely on the sixth victim. Let's introduce the core information then, just so we are all on the same page. Sounds good. So Jesse Kellhoon is 41 years old. And he has now been indicted for the death of a 32 year old woman named Elizabeth Gibson. She went by Libby. Right. Libby. And the text tells us Libby was a homeless woman who vanished nearly four years ago in late November of 2022, which is a huge time gap. Yeah, a massive gap. And here is where it gets highly specific, legally speaking. Kellhoon has already been charged in relation to five other women. Correct. But all five of those previous charges were for second-degree murder.

4:03For Libby Gibson, the charge is different. It's first-degree manslaughter. And that is a crucial distinction. I mean, it is not a typo and it is definitely not an accident. So why do they do that? Well, when a grand jury hands down an indictment, every single syllable is weighed, debated, and chosen based on the precise evidence the prosecution presents. Oh, right. They don't just throw darts at a board of legal terms. There is a massive, massive gulf between murder and manslaughter in the eyes of the law. Well, let's look at the exact phrasing from the grand jury because it is really striking. It is. They indicted Kellhoon for first-degree manslaughter. And I'm quoting the text here, for unlawfully and recklessly under circumstances manifesting extreme indifference to the value of human life, causing Gibson's death. Yeah. Extreme indifference to the value of human life. I mean, that is such a heavy haunting phrase. It really is haunting. And to understand why they used it, we have to look at the legal concept of mens rea. Ines rea.

5:03Yeah, it basically means the state of mind of the accused. You see, murder generally requires a specific intent to kill. Okay. Or at least like a conscious objective to cause death or really grievous bodily harm. You have to prove what was in the person's head at that exact moment. Which is hard to do. Very hard. But manslaughter, particularly with this extreme indifference clause we're seeing here, it paints a totally different legal picture. How so? Like, what's the practical difference? Well, it suggests a behavior that is so incredibly reckless, so utterly devoid of basic human care that resulted in death. The classic textbook example of extreme indifference is, well, imagine someone firing a gun into a crowded room. Okay. Yeah. Or driving a car at 100 miles an hour right through a busy pedestrian crosswalk. So they aren't necessarily trying to kill one specific person. Exactly. They might not have formulated a premeditated plan to hit a specific pedestrian. But their actions were so reckless

6:03that the law says they're indifference is essentially as culpable as intent. Wow. Okay. So in this case, the prosecution isn't asserting that he formulated a specific premeditated plan to end her life. They were asserting that his actions showed a total lethal disregard for whether she lived or died. Wait, let me push back on this a little bit. So as I was reading through this source material, one specific sentence just jumped out at me like a flashing red light. What was it? The text explicitly states, investigators have not revealed how Gibson died. So if they have literally zero known cause of death, how can they even prove to grand jury that it was a homicide? I mean, how do they prove it wasn't exposure or an accidental overdose or just a tragic accident out in the elements? That's a great point. How does the state secure a manslaughter indictment with no physical mechanism of death to point to? And that is the pivotal question of this entire indictment. It really highlights the difference between the mechanism of death and the manner of death. Okay, break that down for me.

7:04So it is incredibly difficult to prove homicide without a physical cause of death, but it is not impossible. It relies heavily on circumstantial evidence and, well, a totality of the circumstances. Walk me through what that actually means in a courtroom, though. Think about it this way. If a victim has been missing since November 2022, the physical evidence is going to be severely degraded by time and the elements. Right, almost four years outdoors. Exactly. They might not have the soft tissue required to prove strangulation or the specific forensic markers needed to prove blunt force trauma, especially if it didn't affect the skeletal structure. So they have no smoking gun on the body itself? Right, but what they might have is context. Where were the remains found? Were they concealed? Oh, I see. Was the victim's property found in the possession of the suspect? Is there a digital footprint showing they were together right when she vanished? So they are basically building a cage of evidence around the missing information?

8:04Exactly. A cage of context. So that, even without knowing the precise mechanical failure of the body, the cause of death, a grand jury can look at the surrounding behavioral and circumstantial evidence. If someone hides a body in a remote woodland, that action speaks volumes about the manner of death. Yeah, innocent people don't generally do that. Exactly. It speaks directly to that extreme indifference. The prosecution is essentially saying, look, we might not be able to tell you exactly what physical action caused her heart to stop. But we can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that this suspect is reckless actions and extreme indifference were the catalyst for her death. It makes me think of trying to read an ancient text where all the elements have washed away the ink. Oh, that's a good comparison. Like, investigators can see the shape of the book. They know it's a book. They can see the binding, which represents the circumstances of her disappearance and her links to the suspect. Right. But the specific words on the page, the exact mechanical cause of death, those are washed away forever. So they have to prosecute based on the binding.

9:05That is a phenomenal way to visualize it. They are prosecuting the shape of the crime. Yeah. And in doing so, they have to use the tool of manslaughter rather than murder. Because murder requires reading those washed away words. It requires proving specific intent. This is why the specific language of the law shapes the reality of justice so much. Completely. We read a headline that says a suspected serial killer is charged with a sixth death. And our minds just automatically fill in the word murder. Of course they do. But the law is an instrument of precision. Every word and an indictment is forced by the reality of the available evidence. It is. And it also underscores the really agonizing reality of investigating cold cases. Yeah. You know, especially those involving vulnerable populations. Yeah. The text notes, Libby Gibson was a homeless woman. Exactly. When a vulnerable person goes missing, the initial response, the tracking, the preservation of early evidence, it's all often delayed or complicated. Because they might not have a fixed address

10:06or someone reporting them missing immediately. Right. And the simple passage of time is the absolute enemy of forensic evidence. Which makes the fact that they secured this indictment at all a massive, massive development. That's huge. Because as the authorities point out, this new charge for Libby Gibson in November 2022 doesn't just add a name to a list. No, it doesn't. It actually makes her his first alleged victim chronologically. It completely redraws the map. It does. It requires us to completely re-evaluate the timeline of these events. We are no longer starting in the spring of 2023. We're pushed way back. Right. Push back into the winter of the previous year. Right. And that transition from discussing this one isolated charge to looking at the broader context, that is where this situation takes a truly dark turn. Very dark. When you map out the chronological timeline of these six victims, based strictly on the dates provided in our source material, you start to see a pattern that is profoundly disturbing. Yeah. The pacing of these alleged crimes tells the story all its own.

11:06It's crucial we walk through it. Let's construct this map. Okay. So it starts as we just discussed in late November of 2022. That is when Libby Gibson, 32 years old, vanishes. She is victim one chronologically. Then just a few weeks later, in December of 2022, 22-year-old Kristen Smith is reported missing. And we should note a tragic detail here from the text. Yeah. The text says Smith was reported missing in December, but she was eventually found dead on February 19th, 2023 in a woodland area in Southeast Portland. Oh, wow. So you have a window of almost three months where her whereabouts are a total mystery. Then we move into March of 2023. And this is where things accelerate in a way that is just hard to even comprehend. It really is. On March 8th, 2023, 24-year-old charity Perry is allegedly killed. Okay. March 8th. And then just 10 days later, on March 18th, 2023, 32-year-old Joanna Speaks is murdered. 10 days. We really need to pause on that. We will. I definitely want to talk about that. Let's finish the map first, though.

12:07Okay. Sure. So we moved April, April 26th, 2023, 31-year-old Bridget Webster is murdered. And finally, on May 7th, 2023, the body of 22-year-old Ashley Reel is found. When you lay it out like that month by month, the chronological clustering is just unavoidable. I was trying to think of how to describe this acceleration and the best analogy I can come up with is like a massive, heavy industrial flywheel. Okay, a flywheel. Yeah, like when a flywheel first starts to turn, it takes a tremendous amount of effort, right? It moves slowly, one revolution, then a long heavy pause, then another revolution. Right, it takes time to build energy. Exactly. And that's as November and December of 2022, a disappearance here, a disappearance a few weeks later. But as the momentum builds, the wheel spins faster and faster, feeding on its own energy until it is completely out of control. By March and April of 2023, the velocity of these alleged crimes is absolutely terrifying. That flywheel analogy is incredibly apt for behavioral escalation.

13:08It really feels like that looking at the dates. It does. Because what is fascinating and horrifying, honestly here is the mathematical compression within that timeline. Right. Let's synthesize these dates. You have the initial disappearances in late 2022. But then you hit the spring of 2023. March 8th, March 18th, April 26th. Yeah, they're so close together. If we look closely at that horribly brief 10-day window between charity, Perry, and Joanna Speaks, that is a massive red flag in any kind of behavioral analysis. 10 days. I mean, imagine a normal 10-day span in your life. It goes by in a flash. Exactly. You can barely process a busy week at work in 10 days, let alone the immense psychological and physical weight of what is being alleged here. Precisely. In the study of serial offenses, analysts look very closely at what they call the cooling off period, the time between incidents. Right. The cooling off period. A long cooling off period suggests a methodical approach. It suggests someone who is calculating, controlled,

14:08perhaps carefully selecting targets and managing their normal everyday life in between. Like they're flying under the radar. Exactly. But a decreasing cooling off period. When that gap shrinks from months to weeks, and then to just 10 days. That's a huge shift. It suggests an escalation in compulsion. It suggests a complete loss of control, a rapidly unraveling psychology, or maybe even a deeply dangerous feeling of invincibility. The flywheel spinning so fast is just shaking the machine apart. Exactly that. The fact that the gap narrowed to just 10 days between Perian's peaks suggests a situation that was spiraling rapidly out of control in the spring of 2023. It paints a picture of a profound, localized crisis, which brings us to the final victim on this timeline, Ashley Reel. Yes, Ashley Reel. Because the text notes something about her that really caught my eye. It says her body was found on May 7, but it explicitly states that it remains unclear when she was allegedly killed. And this is a vital point. It raises a significant question about the investigative hurdles in a case like this.

15:10Yeah, because it stands out from the rest. Right. Ashley Reel is an anomaly in this specific text because, for the others, Perry speaks Webster. The authorities seem to have a relatively firm grasp on the dates of death, citing specific days in March and April. Like March 8th and 18th. Exactly. But for real, they only have the data discovery, which is May 7. So why does that happen? Why do they know the exact day in March for one victim, but for a victim found in May, they have this gaping chronological blind spot? Well, if we connect this to the bigger picture and we look at the detail we have about Kristen Smith who went missing in December, but was found in a woodland in Southeast Portland in February, we can start to infer the immense environmental challenges investigators are facing. Ah, so the geography itself is fighting the investigation. Completely. Think about the Pacific Northwest. Yeah, lots of rain. Right. Think about a woodland area in the winter and early spring. It is wet. It is cold. There is immense biological activity.

16:11Lots of scavengers and insects. Exactly. When remains are left in the elements, establishing an accurate timeline of death becomes a forensic nightmare. I can imagine. Normally medical examiners rely on biological clocks, things like body temperature, rigor mortis, or levity, but out there, those clocks expire rapidly. Right. Within hours or maybe a few days. Yeah. After that, you were relying on forensic entomology, which is the study of insect activity on remains or taffonomy. Taffonomy. Yeah, taffonomy is the study of how organisms decay in specific environments. But think about it. Heavy rain can wash away insect evidence. Oh, wow. Right. Javagers can alter the scene. The natural decomposition process in a damp wooded environment rapidly erases the precise markers of time. It's just a stark reminder that nature doesn't preserve crime scenes. It reclaims them. That's a great way to put it. And that makes the job of law enforcement exponentially harder. They find Ashley Reel on May 7, which gives them a solid data point on a calendar.

17:14Right. But working backwards through that environmental degradation to figure out exactly when she intercepted with Calhoun, that is clearly still an active massive challenge for the state. It leaves an open variable in their timeline. I mean, knowing this cluster timeline explains when these tragedies occurred. But it leaves us with the agonizing question of how the authorities finally began putting the puzzle pieces together, you know. Right. How did they stop that flywheel from spinning completely out of control? Exactly. Which brings us to the turning point of this entire saga. And this is where we have to look at the links, the charges, and frankly the agonizing pace of the justice system. Yeah. The timeline of the investigation itself is fascinating. The breakthrough is detailed very specifically in our source text. It is. The text tells us that Jesse Calhoun, whose criminal history stretches all the way back to 2003, was finally identified as a person of interest in July of 2023. It's July 2023. And this happened after investigators found what they describe as links between the four cases. Specifically, they're talking about the cases

18:16of real Smith, Perry, and Webster. So by July 2023, law enforcement has connected the dots on at least four of these women, and they have Calhoun's name on a whiteboard. Right. They have their guy. They know who they're looking at. But this is where the timeline of the legal process gets incredibly complex. And I really need you to help unpack this. I'll do my best. Because Calhoun wasn't just scooped up and charged with six crimes all at once in July of 2023. It has been this staggered, methodical rollout. Let's break it down based on the text. The pacing is critical here. So let's look at it carefully. So he was identified as a person of interest in July 2023. But he wasn't charged with the murders of Perry, Webster, and speaks until 2024. Over a year after being named a person of interest. Exactly. Then he is charged with Smith's death the following year in 2025. Then he is charged with Reels Murder the year after that in May of 2026. And now finally, Libby Gibson in September of 2026. So my question is, why the drip feed?

19:18I mean, imagine the immense political and public pressure the district attorney must have been under in July 2023. Oh, it must have been crushing. The community is terrified. The press is demanding answers. Why charge is suspended in 2024, but wait until 2025 and 2026 to add the other victims if investigators were already finding links between them back in the summer of 2023? It feels incredibly slow from the outside. It does feel slow and it is undoubtedly agonizing for the community. But if we look at this through the lens of legal strategy, it actually makes perfect sense. Really? Yeah. In fact, it shows a district attorney exercising immense necessary restraint. Oh, so this is the reality of grand juries and complex multi-victim indictments. We talked earlier about the burden of proof, right? About prosecuting the shape of a crime. Yeah, the binding of the book without the pages. Right. Building an airtight homicide case, especially when relying on circumstantial links or degraded evidence from woodland scenes, it takes years. Years of what forensic testing, digital forensics,

20:18mapping cell phone towers? All of that, interviewing hundreds of witnesses, retesting DNA, prosecutors have a massive strategic decision to make when dealing with a suspected serial offender. Do they wait to package all six victims together into one massive comprehensive indictment? I assume the risk there is that while you are waiting for the final piece of evidence on victim number six, the suspect is still out there. That is definitely one risk. The other risk involves speedy trial rights. Oh, right. Once you charge someone, the clock starts ticking. You have to be ready to go to trial. Okay, I see where this is going. If you charge all six cases at once, but the forensic evidence for victim number five isn't fully processed, the defense can attack that weak link. And that ruins the whole case? In a massive joint trial, a weak link in one case can introduce reasonable doubt that poses the jury's perception of the other five cases. Wow. Okay, I never thought of it that way. You don't want to bring a B minus case into the same courtroom as your A plus cases because it just drags the whole average down.

21:21Precisely. So instead of one massive indictment, they secure indictments as the specific evidence for each individual victim reaches the required legal threshold. That makes a lot of sense. They get them off the streets with the 2024 charges for Perry, Webster, and Speaks. They secure him in the system. Which protects the public? Exactly. Once that pressure is relieved, knowing the public is safe, they continue quietly building the complex cases for Smith, real, and now Gibson. Wow. They bring those charges forward only when the grand jury has enough to indict. It is a slow, methodical layering of accountability. It is brilliant strategically, but man, it requires so much patience from the public. And most importantly, from the families who are just waiting for their loved ones named to be called. Could say agonizing weight. And speaking of the specific charges, there is another detail buried in this text that I found deeply perplexing. It's a numerical disparity that I want your take on. What did you notice? The text states that Calhoun faces, and I'm quoting here, two charges of four counts of second degree abuse of a corpse.

22:24That is a very specific, very haunting line of text. It really is. Let's do the math. We are talking about six alleged victims, six women who tragically lost their lives. Right. But there are only four counts of abuse of a corpse across two charges. The math doesn't add up to a one-to-one ratio. Six victims, but only four counts. What does this numerical disparity suggest to you about the realities of this case? What's fascinating and honestly deeply tragic here is that this disparity tells us the circumstances in which these victims were found varied wildly. Really? How so? Well, the charge of abuse of a corpse in many jurisdictions usually relates to how a body is treated, hidden, or desecrated after death. Okay. It's distinct criminal act, and terribly separate from the homicide itself. Right. Killing someone is one charge, what you do after is another. Exactly. The fact that the prosecution is only bringing four counts despite six victims, suggests that in at least two of these cases, the evidence simply did not support that specific charge. What would cause that, though?

23:25Does it mean the suspect changed his behavior? It could be behavioral, or it could be environmental. Behaviorally, it might point to a difference in the post-mortem actions of the suspect. Like maybe he didn't have time. Yes. Perhaps in two of the cases he was rushed. Perhaps he was interrupted. Or perhaps his methodology shifted as that flywheel we talked about spun faster and he lost control. So in two cases, he might have just fled the scene immediately. Whereas in four cases, he took time to interact with or conceal the remains in a way that meets the legal definition of abuse. That is highly possible. And you mentioned environmental factors too. Right. The other alternative is environmental degradation. Remember our discussion about the woodland areas in Tafonomi? Yeah, the rain and the scavengers destroying evidence. It is entirely possible that the prosecution strongly suspects the other two victims were subjected to the same post-mortem abuse. But because of weather, wildlife, or just the passage time, they cannot empirically prove it. And we are back to the clinical nature of the law.

24:25Yes. They can only charge what they can prove to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt down to the exact number of counts. Right. If the elements erase the evidence of how the remains were handled, the DA cannot bring the charge even if common sense suggests it happened. It is just so called the law is a machine. It really is. And that clinical, mechanical nature of a legal system is such a jarring contrast to the reality of what this case actually represents. Because behind all of these dates, these staggered prosecutorial strategies, these complex, grand jury indictments are devastated families. Absolutely. Real people who have been waiting years in agonizing limbo for answers. Which brings us to the most vital part of our analysis today. The human element. Absolutely. Because when you read a dense news report like this, it is so easy to get lost in the dates, the locations, and the legal jargon, you know. Yeah, it becomes a logic puzzle. Exactly. A logic puzzle. But the authors of this piece made a very deliberate crucial choice to include the voices

25:26of the victims, families, and the district attorney. Which grounds the whole story. Right. Yeah. We need to spend time there. Let's start with Libby Gibson's family. They released his statement directly responding to this new man slaughter charge, didn't they? Yes, they did. They said they're grateful for a definitive step toward justice. But what really resonated with me was how they chose to describe Libby. What did they say? They didn't focus on her struggles or how she died. They said, Libby was kind, creative, and silly. She welcomed everyone with love and acceptance. Her future was tragically taken from her way too soon. Wow. If we contrast that statement with the legal language we analyzed earlier, the dissonance is just deafening. It takes your breath away. On one side, you have the cold, detached machinery of the state, defining her end as the result of an extreme indifference to the value of human life. It is clinical. It is devoid of warmth. Completely. And on the other side, you have the people who loved her, reminding the world that her life had immense, irreplaceable value that she was silly,

26:27that she was creative, that she was kind. It is the ultimate push and pull of the justice system. Yeah. The law has to strip away the emotion to be objective. It has to reduce a complex human life into statutory elements that can be proven in a courtroom. Right. But the families are there to ensure the victim is not reduced to just a name on a legal docket or a piece of circumstantial evidence. They restore the humanity, that the legal process inevitably strips away. And we see that exact same dynamic, that same pursuit of humanity with Ashley Reel's humanity. The text includes a profound quote from her father, Jose. Yeah, that quote stood out to me too. And this was provided through an interpreter back when Calhoun was charged with Ashley's murder in May of 2026. Jose said, I never thought or imagined that my family would experience something like this. I am still really grateful with God, because now there's someone responsible. He's named for what happened to my daughter. He's named. That is an incredibly powerful phrase from a psychological standpoint.

27:28I want to linger on that for a second. The psychological power of naming the accused. They're massive. Imagine waiting for years, not knowing who took your daughter. For years, the person who harmed her is just a ghost, a terrifying faceless unknown that could be anyone you pass on the street. Is an abstract monster? Exactly. But the moment a name is attached, Jesse Calhoun, it shifts the entire paradigm of the nightmare. It doesn't make the reality any less painful, but it takes this abstract terror and turns it into a tangible, flawed, real human being. Right. Someone with a birth date, a criminal record, a physical presence. Someone who can be handcuffed, sat in a courtroom, and pursued by the justice system. It gives the grief of focal point. It transitions the family state of being from helpless, agonizing waiting into active participation in the pursuit of accountability. They know who the state is fighting. And leading that fight on behalf of the state is the district attorney, Nathan Vasquez. His rhetoric in this article is very striking,

28:28and it perfectly encapsulates the dual role he has to play. He is preparing for this Monday arraignment, and he is clearly utilizing the media to send a message. Oh, absolutely. He labels Gibson's death a profound and horrific tragedy. He says, we will not stop. And he explicitly states that his office will do everything in their power to see justice done, remaining committed for as long as it takes. A district attorney in a high profile, multi-year serial case like this, is walking a very precarious tightrope. How do you mean? Well, we discussed his legal strategy earlier, staggering the charges, protecting the grand jury process, ensuring the burden of proof is met. Right, the methodical approach. In that realm, he's a legal administrator. He has to be cautious, clinical, and patient, but publicly. Yeah. Publicly, he has to be the avatar of vengeance and closure for a traumatized community. That makes total sense. The public doesn't want to hear about the nuances of speedy trial rights or forensic degradation.

29:30No, they don't care about that. They want to hear that the monster is caught and the state is going to crush him. Precisely. Because, as the text notes at the very end, Jesse Calhoun has pleaded not guilty to the previous murder charge. Right, he hasn't confessed. So this isn't a case where the suspect has confessed and the upcoming trial is just a sentencing formality. This is shaping up to be a fiercely contested, complex legal battle. That's going to be a long fight. Exactly. So when DA Vasquez uses phrases like, we will not stop. And for as long as it takes, that is a deliberate rhetorical strategy. He is drawing a line in the sand. He is reassuring the families, absolutely. But he is also signaling directly to the defense council and to the public at large that the state's resolve will not fracture under the weight of a four-year timeline or the complexities of a multi-victim indictment. Right. He is projecting absolute unwavering certainty. It's a public vow of accountability and it sets the stage for what is going to be a monumental legal reckoning in the state of Oregon.

30:31And that brings us full circle to where we began today. It really does. Because when we step back and look at the massive scope of this case, it is truly overwhelming. It is. We are talking about six women, Libby Gibson, Kristen Smith, Charity Perry, Joanna Speaks, Bridget Webster, and Ashley Real, six women who were lost. We are looking at a timeline that stretches all the way back to a disappearance in late November of 2022, winding its way to an arrangement in late September of 2026. Almost four full years. And we have witnessed an investigation that didn't just neatly solve a puzzle, but methodically, painstakingly layered charges of manslaughter, murder, and the abuse of corpse year after agonizing year. It is a profound demonstration of the slow grinding machinery of justice. And it's a vital reminder of the reality of our legal system, you know? When we are scrolling through our feeds, consuming the news, our modern brains are conditioned to want instant resolution. We want the 60-minute television procedural ending. Exactly. Where the bad guys caught the confession assigned and the credits roll.

31:35But this case demonstrates how true accountability is often built agonizingly slowly. It's not a sprint. No, it is a marathon. It's built year by year, indictment by indictment, forensic test by forensic test. And the finish line for these families is still a long way off. It is. Which leaves us with a lingering thought to consider. We started this conversation talking about the expectation of a closed case versus the chilling reality of a timeline that keeps expanding backwards into the past. Right, we saw it expand all the way back to the winter of 2022 with this latest manslaughter charge. Right. So here is what I want you to mull over as you go about your day. Think about that chronological gap. The silence. Think about the years-long silence between the first disappearance of Libby Gibson and this latest indictment with haunting when an alleged serial killer's crimes are only recognized in hindsight and the wheels of justice take nearly four years to secure a single indictment for the very first victim. Does a community ever truly feel safe again?

32:35That's a heavy question. Or did they just learn to live with the permanent quiet shadow of what went unnoticed right in their own backyard? It changes the psychological landscape of the city forever. It really does. Well, thank you so much for joining us today. For this deep dive, we appreciate your time, your curiosity, and your willingness to look closely at the hard realities behind the headlines. Keep asking questions, keep reading between the lines, and we will see you next time.