The place Are the Bakersfield 3 Moms Now? All About Their Lives

The moms of the Bakersfield 3 are nonetheless trying to find solutions.

Baylee Despot, Micah Holsonbake and James Kulstad make up the Bakersfield 3 — three associates from Bakersfield, Calif., who went lacking or had been murdered inside one month of each other within the spring of 2018.

Over time, the trio’s moms — Baylee’s mother Jane Parrent, Micah’s mother Cheryl Holsonbake and James’ mother Diane “Di” Byrne — have all been doing their very own investigating. After making connections between their kids, the ladies banded collectively to share leads and lift consideration for the instances.

The Bakersfield 3 and their moms grew to become the topics of the 2023 podcast The Bakersfield Three. On Could 11, the three-part Investigation Discovery true crime docuseries The Bakersfield 3: A Story of Homicide and Motherhood (which is predicated on Marie Claire’s 2022 characteristic, “Of Homicide and Motherhood”) debuted on Max.

Right here’s all the pieces to know in regards to the Bakersfield 3 and the place their households at the moment are.

Who’re the Bakersfield 3?

The Bakersfield 3 is made up of associates Baylee Despot (a.ok.a. Baylee Cheyanne Parrent), Micah Holsonbake and James Kulstad.

Micah, then 34, went lacking in March 2018, and Baylee, then 20, disappeared in April, per Marie Claire. On April 8, James, 38, was shot to demise in a driveway in South Bakersfield. No suspects or leads have been named in that open case.

James was a surfer and inventor dwelling in San Diego when he was hit by a automotive in 2007. He grew to become hooked on opioids, then Fentanyl and heroin, and moved again to Bakersfield. He had two daughters, Camryn and Autumn.

“James was a vivid mild, the second he walked within the room,” his mother informed 23ABC, including, “He was an incredible father and an ideal pal.”

Micah was a veteran who grew to become hooked on opioids after a 2003 surgical procedure to take away a benign development in his throat, per Marie Claire. He misplaced a banking job and commenced constructing weapons in a storage with associates for further earnings.

Baylee — who continues to be lacking — received married in Las Vegas after highschool. She was concerned in a automotive accident in 2017 — the identical 12 months her husband filed for divorce and he or she was arrested twice. She recognized with bipolar dysfunction at age 20.

In Could 2020, Baylee and her ex-boyfriend Matthew Queen had been charged with dozens of crimes, together with the homicide and torture of Micah. In 2022, Queen was sentenced to 30 years to life in jail, plus 56 years, KGET reported.

When had been Micah Holsonbake and Baylee Despot final seen?

Micah was final seen on March 23, 2018, per KBAK. His arm was present in a bag within the Kern River in August 2018, and his cranium was found within the river in August 2021, based on Marie Claire.

Baylee was final seen on April 24, 2018, and reported lacking quickly after.

About one month after she went lacking, a few of Baylee’s belongings had been situated by a pal’s entrance door with a word studying, “Inform Baylee that I like her, however I can’t be together with her.” From safety footage, Jane recognized Queen as having dropped them off, based on The Bakersfield Three podcast.

The Kern Secret Witness program has supplied a $16,000 reward for data on Baylee’s disappearance and a reward of $10,000 every for data on James’ demise and Micah’s disappearance and demise.

What had been Matthew Queen and Baylee Despot charged with?

In Could 2020, Baylee — who continues to be lacking — and her ex-boyfriend Queen had been charged with greater than two dozen crimes, together with homicide and torture. The duo had been accused of torturing and killing Micah in March 2018 within the storage of Queen’s pal Matthew Vandecasteele over a lacking gun dispute, then dismembering Micah and disposing of his physique elements.

“Though Baylee Despot has been reported lacking since 2018, there is no such thing as a identified bodily proof that definitively confirms her doable demise,” prosecutors stated, reported KGET. “Because of the submitting of costs, an arrest warrant will probably be issued for Baylee Despot’s arrest.”

Vandecasteele was charged with kidnapping and conspiracy, amongst different costs. On March 27, 2018, Vandecasteele searched “how lengthy does it take to dissolve a human physique?”, Marie Claire reported. Vandecasteele took a plea deal in 2021, accepting a four-year jail time period in change for testifying.

In Could 2021, Queen was ordered to face trial on 34 costs, together with homicide and torture, per KGET.

In accordance with KGET, Queen “admitted to chopping up a physique and scattering the stays throughout Kern County, illegally placing collectively AR-15 rifles with elements he purchased on-line and sending macabre messages he handed off as jokes or exaggerations.”

Is Matthew Queen in jail?

In Could 2022, Queen was discovered responsible on 24 of 35 counts, together with second-degree homicide for Micah’s demise, reported 23ABC.

Throughout his trial, Queen’s protection crew claimed Micah had initially threatened Queen and a success from Baylee was the one which killed Micah.

“As [Prosecutor] Eric Smith commented to us, it is homicide. It’s important and it is homicide, and we stated that we’d get him for that, and we did,” Micah’s mother Cheryl informed 23ABC after Queen was discovered responsible. “There’s a sense of aid that any individual is being compelled to take the accountability for the half they performed in his demise and the kidnapping of the opposite people that is somebody who traumatized lots of people.”

In June 2022, Queen was sentenced to 30 years to life in jail, plus 56 years, KGET reported.

“I can by no means make your loved ones entire once more, and I’m sorry,” Queen stated in an announcement forward of his sentencing, based on the outlet. “Not a day goes by that I don’t take into consideration that day, and the way I ought to have completed issues otherwise.”

Queen has lengthy maintained that he didn’t kill Micah and was not concerned in Baylee’s disappearance.

Why did the moms of the Bakersfield 3 be part of forces?

After their kids’s disappearances or deaths, the moms of the Bakersfield 3 started their very own investigations.

“We simply knew — our mama intestine and intuition informed us that one thing wasn’t fairly proper,” Di informed 23ABC in 2022.

James’ mother Di was the primary to hyperlink James and Micah, since she heard the 2 would hang around now and again, Marie Claire reported. The mothers later heard about Baylee’s disappearance from a few of Micah’s associates.

Annoyed with attempting to get the police to take the disappearances of their grownup kids significantly, the three in contrast notes, leaned on one another and uncovered leads, going so far as to lift their very own cash to fund new tools for search and rescue efforts, based on Marie Claire.

“Early on, we realized, that every one the names we had been getting, after we had been reaching out to our grownup kids’s associates, quite a lot of the names had been the identical names,” she informed 23ABC. “So, we knew that there was this huge circle of acquaintances and we would have liked to attach the dots. And we nonetheless have quite a lot of dots to attach.”

Jane informed Marie Claire that the three had been “stronger collectively.”

The place are the mothers of the Bakersfield 3 now?

Since their kids’s disappearances or demise, the mothers of the Bakersfield 3 remained enthusiastic about fixing their instances — and people prefer it. In April 2019, the moms based the Bakersfield 3 Charity, a nonprofit that helps households seek for lacking kids and helps crime-solving efforts in Kern County. Proceeds profit the Kern Secret Witness Program.

Di died on April 23, 2024, of ovarian most cancers, per KGET. She was 68. The Bakersfield native left behind her husband, six kids, 5 grandchildren and one great-grandchild.

On the time of her demise, Di didn’t know who killed her son, James. Throughout an April 2025 look on The Tamron Corridor Present, Baylee’s mother Jane shared that she promised Di “on her deathbed” that she “wouldn’t cease combating for justice for James.”

Jane and Micah’s mother Cheryl proceed to hunt solutions. The Bakersfield 3 Fb web page is recurrently up to date by Jane: On April 25, 2025, she captioned a video from 2018, “At the moment is 7 years! I’m nonetheless trying to find Baylee.”

Cheryl nonetheless lives in Kern County and stays concerned with sharing data on lacking individual instances.