Inside the mystery of The Bakersfield 3 as disappearances and murders put under the spotlight in new docuseries

A chilling new documentary series is to lay bare the mysterious real-life story of The Bakersfield 3 – three friends who either went missing or were murdered within a month of each other in spring of 2018.

Over the course of just 34 days, James Kulstad was shot dead, while Micah Holsonbake and Baylee Despot went missing in Bakersfield, California.

At first, it was thought that the cases were tragic yet unconnected events, until a string of coincidences unearthed by the victims’ mothers revealed that these three cases were entangled with one another.

Hellbent on searching for the truth of what happened to their children, the mothers came together to find answers.

Investigation Discovery’s new three-part docuseries – titled The Bakersfield 3 – charts their journey as they navigate through a labyrinth of clues, dead ends, and unexpected revelations to find out what really happened – and how exactly they were connected.

Ahead of the docuseries’ premiere, DailyMail.com takes a closer look at the victims and their cases.

Who are The Bakersfield 3?

Micah Holsonbake was the first out of The Bakersfield 3 to disappear. He was reported missing by his parents, Cheryl and Lance, on April 4, 2018.

Days later, James Kulstad was shot dead on April 8, 2018. And lastly, on April 25, 2018, Baylee Despot was reported missing by her mother.

Before his disappearance, Holsonbake’s life had derailed following a divorce and losing his job.

Around this time, he had started using prescription drugs and he also started hanging out with a man named Matt Queen, who he built guns with in his garage.

‘He just had such easy access to them, and I think when things weren’t going well in his relationship that he began leaning on those things, like many people do,’ Micah’s mother Cheryl shared of his drug use.

‘Micah told us to get some extra money together he was helping someone in his garage put guns together.

‘We had trouble at first connecting the drug use to the gun building. That’s when somebody said that Micah was trying to sell to support his habit.

‘We got information from them about Matt Queen…’

Cheryl described her son as being ‘erratic’ and ‘paranoid’ during this time.

Despot was reported missing by her mother, Jane Parrent, on April 24, 2018.

At the time of her disappearance, she had been in a relationship with Queen and the pair had been living together, along with his mother, ex-wife, and children.

Speaking in the documentary, mom Jane said: ‘I think he moved her over there so he could keep her close.

‘He didn’t want her talking to anybody because she would tell me, “Mom I can’t talk about the rest, you need to stop asking me about it.”

‘I never really got to talk to her much after that. She couldn’t come and see me; she’d barely talk to me. He got her in his grasp and didn’t let her go.’

Twenty-four hours before her disappearance, Despot had a court appearance with Queen for gun charges against them from the previous December.

In the hearing, Despot pleaded no contest and was given a fine and probation while Queen faced a jury trial and a prison sentence if found guilty.

That evening, she was due to see her mom for dinner.

‘When I texted her, she did say “mom I can’t come to dinner, court went real bad,”‘ Jane revealed.

‘I even went over there that night with a pie as an excuse to see Baylee and met Queen’s oldest son, who answered the door,’ she continued.

‘The son said that she wasn’t there.’

When she tried to get in contact with her daughter over the phone, she got no response.

‘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.’

Kulstad was 38 when someone fired into his vehicle as he drove down a cul-de-sac in Bakersfield on April 8.

While trying to investigate his death herself, his mother Di Byrne remembered how he had been friends with Holsonbake, who had gone missing just days before.

She convinced herself that her son was linked to the Bakersfield 3.

‘I knew that my son and James and Micah had been hanging out together because Micah was an executive at Wells Fargo Bank,’ Di said.

‘He and Micah met when James banked there. James had helped him move and they were hanging out, so I was able to get Micah’s mom’s phone number.’

At the time of his murder, Kulstad had been battling an addiction to drugs which had begun almost 11 years earlier.

‘In 2007, after a surgery on his leg, he began an addiction to prescription medicine,’ Di explained.

‘As the laws changed, the doctors weren’t prescribing as many and James then graduated from the prescription drugs to finding what he could out on the streets.’

What happened to the Bakersfield 3?

The mothers only began to get real answers on their children in August 2018, when Holsonbake’s severed arm was found in the Kern River.

There was a zip tie around the wrist, as well as marks which were consistent with it being sawed off.

Three years later, on August 21, 2021, his skull was found in Lake Ming, two miles from where his arm was located.

In June 2022, it was determined that Holsonbake was tortured and killed in March of 2018.

Queen, 45, was sentenced to 30 years to life in prison, plus 56 years, for his role in the death.

But, in a shocking twist in the story, prosecutors determined that Queen and missing person Despot tortured and killed Holsonbake at Vandecasteele’s garage.

As part of a plea deal, Vandecasteele testified during the trial.

He said he never saw Holsonbake on the night in question, but Queen and Despot asked to use his garage and Despot had come into his home and helped herself to a knife.

The following day, Vandecasteele said he went into his garage and found a large reddish stain on a shelf.

He said Queen showed up and asked for help disposing of something.

While Queen didn’t specify what he needed help with, Vandecasteele said that there was a large trunk in the back of his car.

Vandecasteele pled no contest to false imprisonment with violence, possession of a firearm by a felon and an accessary charge. He was sentenced to four years in prison.

During his testimony, Queen accused Despot of Holsonbake’s death.

He said that said Holsonbake had entered his garage and had become angry over a joke and pulled a gun on him.

Queen went on to claim that Despot entered the room and Holsonbake then pointed the gun at her.

After distracting Holsonbake, he claimed that Despot dropped a dumbbell on his head, killing him.

He added that they then tried to get rid of the body and used Vandecasteele’s garage to dismember him.

During the trial, Queen told Holsonbake’s parents: ‘I can never make your family whole again, and I’m sorry.

‘Not a day goes by that I don’t think about that day, and how I should have done things differently.’

Despot disappeared shortly after Holsonbake was reported missing.

Queen has always maintained that when Despot left his house that he did not know exactly where she was going, all he knew was that she was leaving.

She has not been found. She remains charged with torture and murder, among other offenses.

As for Kulstad, to this date there have been no arrests in connection with the shooting.

In the documentary, Di voiced upset over not yet having received answers relating to her son’s murder.

‘I always thought that James’s case of the three cases would be the one that was solved first and that hasn’t been the case,’ she said.

‘I always felt, specifically with James’s case, that nobody wants to talk. A lot of people were fearful of their life and didn’t want to get caught up in something.

‘It’s hard knowing there’s a killer on the loose, thinking of the safety of other people in our community.’

The Bakerfield 3 premieres on Sunday, May 11, at 8/7c on ID.