Between February and May 2023, six women went missing or were found dead across the Portland metro area. For months, investigators denied any connection between the cases. They were wrong.

In this episode, we tell the story of Kristin Smith, Charity Perry, Joanna Speaks, Bridget Webster, and Ashley Real — five women whose deaths are now tied to one man, Jesse Lee Calhoun, currently awaiting trial on five counts of second-degree murder. We trace how a wildfire-clemency program put him back on the street, how one victim’s assault report vanished into a jurisdictional gap months before she was killed, and how five families found each other across years of waiting for answers.

This is not a story about the accused. It’s about the women he’s charged with killing, and the families still fighting for them.

Content warning: this episode discusses violence against women and may be difficult for some listeners.

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A two-year-old vanishes from a remote Oregon ranch in broad daylight.

Hundreds search.

No one finds him.

Then, after a freezing night alone in the wilderness, he’s discovered miles away… alive.

Tonight on Twisted Mysteries, we investigate the incredible survival story of Keith Parkins—a case that has inspired legends, sparked Missing 411 comparisons, and left investigators asking one haunting question:

How did a toddler survive the impossible?

Case Sources:

• Reddit.com
• Squatchable.com
• Abcnews.com
• insideedition.com
• locationsunknown.org episode 22
• Missing 411, by David Paulides
• newspapers.com
• TripAdvisor.com

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Five Cayuse men rode away from the Blue Mountains in 1850 and never came home. Their execution ended a war, but their bodies vanished into unmarked graves. Nearly two centuries later, local legends tell of five silent horsemen still riding the mountain trails, searching for home. In this premium episode of Twisted Mysteries, we investigate the true history of the Cayuse Five, the haunting lore of the Spirit Riders, and the ongoing search to finally bring them home.

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Sources for today’s story include:

ctuir.org

ictnews.org

opb.org

Wikipedia

historylink.org

oregonencyclopedia.org

reddit.com

native-languages.org

Eastoregonian.com

oregonhistoryproject.org

scholarsarchive.byu.edu Ghostlore in Oregon

traveloregon.com

yalebooks.yale.edu

legendsofamerica.com

How does a seemingly ordinary teenager decide to kill the people closest to him?

In 2012, Jake Evans murdered his mother and younger sister before calling 911 to confess. His explanations would leave investigators, psychologists, and the public searching for answers that may never come.

This episode explores the crime itself, the handwritten confession, the infamous 911 call, and the difficult questions surrounding violence, fantasy, and the human mind.

Jake Evans 911 call

Jake Evans Written Confession

Two sisters.

One shared terror.

A motorway filled with speeding cars.

A warning that “they’re going to steal your organs.”

And a stranger whose simple act of kindness would cost him his life.

The story of Sabina and Ursula Eriksson isn’t just one of true crime—it’s one of the most disturbing psychological mysteries ever recorded. Was this a rare case of shared madness, an unexplained psychotic break, or something investigators still don’t understand?

This week on Twisted Mysteries, we follow the Eriksson twins from their quiet lives in Sweden to the terrifying events of May 2008, uncovering a case where reality itself seemed to fracture.

Because sometimes the scariest mysteries aren’t the ones hiding in the dark… they’re the ones hiding inside the human mind.

Case Sources include:

Wikipedia

Mental Health General

Everything.explained.today

vice.com

content.time.com

horrorbound.net

The malestrom

news.translogistics.net

reference.org

the-express.com

greennwhite.org

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

ovid.com

vocabulary.com

sciencedirect.com

journals.lww.com

and

msdmanuals.com

In this episode, Twisted Mysteries dives into the legend of Bigfoot, retelling three of the most compelling Bigfoot encounters in history. A 1924 cabin siege at Ape Canyon. A former Marine stalked through the Cascade Mountains. And chilling audio captured in the Sierra Nevada. Across a century of sightings, one question remains: what is really out there?

A young family heads into the Oregon wilderness for a Labor Day camping trip—and never comes home.

When searchers arrive at their campsite, everything appears untouched: clothes neatly folded, a wallet left behind… and a carton of milk still sitting on the picnic table.

Richard and Belinda Cowden, their five-year-old son David, and five-month-old baby Melissa have vanished.

Seven months later, the horrifying truth is discovered deep in the Siskiyou Mountains.

In this episode, we investigate one of the Pacific Northwest’s most haunting unsolved mysteries: the Cowden Family Murders.

What happened in those woods?

And who got away with killing an entire family?

On March 6th, 1981, inside a courtroom in Lübeck, a grieving mother pulled a gun and fired eight shots at the man accused of murdering her daughter.

The world remembers the gunshots.

But few know the story of Anna.

In this episode, we uncover the life of a seven-year-old girl whose murder devastated Germany—and the mother whose grief became one of the most controversial acts of revenge in modern history.

This is not just a true crime story.

It’s a story about love, loss, rage… and what grief can make a person do.

Case Sources include:

Murderpedia.org

wikipedia.org

historyback.com

grunge.com

thescreenlight.com

allchronology.com

utterlyinteresting.com

x.com

historianet.nl

syri.net

in-online.de