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Tonight on Dateline. We receive a text message. He's collapsed, hit his head on the counter, and he's had a seizure.
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I don't really know what is going on, but I know it's bad. He was my only son. It's really hard to bury a child.
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You must have been worried about Natalie. She has two children. Her husband's gone.
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Yes. She was strong, stoic. They were very close. They did everything together. She starts saying he was taking supplements from Mexico.
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That's what had caused the seizures. We found a bottle of insulin in the refrigerator.
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He's not a diabetic. Why is it beneath a pile of chocolate bars? They're asking very personal questions about me and my husband's relationship.
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The money's gone. Yeah, there was a tremendous amount of money. The circumstances became more and more suspicious.
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Some really dark secrets were about to tumble out. Yes, everything has been a lie.
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You know, the saying is devil's in the details. Well, the devil was all in this.
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A young husband and father dead in a heartbreaking medical mystery. Was it murder?
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I'm Lester Holt and this is Dateline. Here's Andrea Canning with the devil's in the details.
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Beckley, West Virginia. A quiet city tucked into the foothills of Appalachia. The kind of place where neighbors become family and trust runs deep.
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We've got so many good people here in this community. Weekends meant barbecues and Little League games.
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At the center of it all, a beautiful couple, Natalie and Michael Cochran. On the outside looking in, they looked like a storybook relationship.
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Children, friends, success, a life that seemed perfect. But beneath it all, a secret.
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One so cold-blooded it would leave them all reeling. Your reaction when you learn it was all smoke and mirrors.
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It took all the breath out of me. I just sank. It was absolutely crushing. I was lucky to have him. He's a good guy. Good friend.
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I just couldn't believe it. This is what movies are made of, you know, and here we are.
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We're living it. February 6, 2019. Contractor Jason Bowen had just picked up supplies for a job when he got a text.
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It was Natalie Cochran with bad news about her husband, Michael. Mike is sick. He's laying on the kitchen floor and I can't get him to the couch.
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Can you come help? Jason had done a number of renovation projects for the Cochranes.
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They'd become good friends. And, of course, we responded, yeah, we're on our way.
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We'll be right there. We kind of walked through here to find Natalie standing over here to the left-hand side.
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When it came around the corner, we could see Mike laying over here in a fetal position.
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And he was just kind of curled up with his head right here in the corner, just laying.
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She's like, can you help get him to the couch? We kind of rolled him over real gentle and picked him up and carried him to the couch.
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Other friends went over as well. John Hamilton is a state trooper and his wife, Stephanie, a physician's assistant.
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Natalie told them Michael had a seizure, then fell to the floor. And then I asked Natalie, how do you want to get him to the hospital?
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I said, you know, it's like just however you want to take him there. She said, well, no, I'm just going to let him sleep it off right now.
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She's like, well, this is just always what he does. This is what he always does when this happens.
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After a seizure. Just lays in sleep. And a lot of people do do that. Natalie said Michael was prone to seizures.
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He'd landed in the hospital months earlier. He hated it there. So she was reluctant to take him back.
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And she was a pharmacist. So instead, she monitored his blood pressure and pulse as he lay on the couch.
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Yeah, like all of his vitals are good. Close friends Chris and Jennifer Davis also heard that Michael was ill.
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How do you get word that something has happened to him? We receive a text message saying that he's collapsed, hit his head on the counter, and he's had a seizure.
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For me personally at the moment, it was really like, what does he need? Like, what do you need me to do?
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Do you rush over there? No, no, because she says the contractors are here and they've got him on the couch.
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He's resting. By nightfall, he was still out cold. Chris came to check on him. And he's snoring.
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So that's the other thing. He's not laboring when he's breathing, but he's not responding.
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He's not responding, but he's snoring. Yeah, I don't really know what is going on, but I know it's bad.
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I go to him, and I'm now standing over him, and I'm talking to him. I'm like, hey, man, hey, bud, you need to wake up.
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You got to give me something, buddy. You got to give me something. And so I'm kind of pushing him, nuzzing him a little bit.
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Are you getting anything? I'm getting nothing. So are you thinking we need to be calling 911?
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Yes. Well, what I'm thinking is even quicker than calling 911. I'm going to take him to the hospital now.
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I promise you. I'll have him there quicker than an ambulance, you know. Do you end up taking him?
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Absolutely. At nearby Raleigh General Hospital, things went from bad to worse. They take him in to the emergency room and they go down to almost the last room on the left and they go in there.
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And so they pull the curtain To me it seemed like maybe five or ten minutes later they pull back the curtain and he on a ventilator Oh my wow And that what I knew like what is going on That fast
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Yeah, I mean, he was... That's such a shocking scene. Well, it is. To go from...
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Like, what in the world? Natalie was by Michael's bedside, conferring with doctors and working her phone.
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Michael's mom, Donna Bolt, got a text from her about 10.30 that night. And I just remember screaming on text message, you know, what happened? What happened?
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The answers would come in time. You end up finding something that you didn't even know you were looking for.
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Yes. And when they did. I'm going to need you to say that one more time. What did you say?
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It would tear their world apart. Very hurt. Very betrayed. Just in disbelief. You know, the saying is, devil's in the details.
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Well, the devil was all in this. Michael Cochran lay in a place he loathed in a condition that was dire, hooked up to a ventilator.
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His friends Chris and Jennifer prayed for him and supported his wife Natalie as best they could.
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How was Natalie doing through all of this? She was strong, stoic, had it all under control.
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She's trying to be strong for everyone else, taking care of business. You know, I'm taking care of his medical situation.
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Yes, she's going to take care of what has to happen. It's what Natalie always did, take care of things.
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As a pharmacist, she stepped up when the Davises learned their son had diabetes.
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he was diagnosed at seven and a half and she was a certified diabetic educator. Wow. So to have a friend like that.
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Yes. Must have been incredible. Yes. So we went to the pharmacy to pick up his medicine and everything.
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She took us in a room and just explained everything to us. And from then on, you know, we just became close.
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Chris and Michael bonded over baseball, coaching their sons together, becoming best friends.
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And so, you know, we usually had the same focus and desires for the outcomes of the sporting events we were at.
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You know, we wanted to win and that's probably the connection. So fun. So you're building memories together as families.
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Absolutely. I mean, it's life developing and memories being made. And it's so great when the kids are all at the center of that.
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Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Natalie and Michael's love story began in high school in 1998,
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after a chance meeting at a Dick's sporting goods store near Beckley, where Natalie worked.
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Michael's mother, Donna, remembers it fondly. I told Michael as we were leaving the store, I said, she's flirting with you, Michael.
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He said, oh, no, she's not, Mom. I said, yes, she is, Michael. So Michael keeps finding a reason to go back to Dick's?
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Yes, and they started dating. I found out later that they had started dating. What did you think of the relationship?
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Well, I mean, she was a nice girl, you know, a pretty girl. And, you know, the only thing we didn't like about it was they started dating so young
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because, you know, he was getting ready to go to college. They did end up going to college together.
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Yes, ma'am. Natalie was supposed to went to Concord College, but she changed schooling and went to WVU.
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They were so in love that Natalie followed Michael to West Virginia University. Yes.
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They got married in the spring of 2000. Then they got their degrees. Michael in IT, Natalie in pharmacy.
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Two kids, Nicole and Ashton, and a move back home to the Beckley area followed. While Michael was working with computers and coaching,
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Natalie became treasurer of their son's baseball team and worked as a pharmacist.
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Stephanie, the physician's assistant, quickly found a lot in common with Natalie.
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We would, you know, talk back and forth about medications and things like that. She always would send me like a scripture every day, like a Bible verse.
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That's thoughtful. So it was, you know, kind of like positivity for your day. In 2017, Natalie and Michael did something daring.
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They started their own company called Tactical Solutions Group, bidding on contracts to sell weapons and medical supplies to the government.
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The business took off. She was, you know, getting to do a lot that she'd wanted to do, and I was happy for him.
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What does Michael say to you about their good fortune? He's excited about it as well.
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The Cochranes wanted to share their success with friends. Natalie and Michael say, hey, would you like to get involved in this too, these contracts?
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Absolutely. So they were doing Department of Defense. All their contracts are Department of Defense.
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When Michael wasn't on the job, he was working out. Staying in shape meant everything to him.
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He was known to take lots of supplements to improve his performance. Mike was a very athletic person. He liked his appearance to be perfect. It wasn't about, oh, I'm the biggest guy in the world. It was more of, I look good. I feel good.
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But then in early 2019, the Cochran's charmed life began to fray. Natalie has some really sad news to share with you.
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Yes. She tells you that she's very sick. Yeah, she texted me in January and says,
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I just found out that I have leukemia. Natalie was fighting back. She told friends her treatments were aggressive.
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But now it was Michael who was fighting for his life. Doctors at the local hospital couldn't figure out why he was sick.
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They sent him to a larger facility where he was admitted to the ICU and given more tests.
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During one Donna and Michael stepdad Ed saw a glimmer of hope The young male nurse came in and he started to check the reaction and the alertness of an unconscious patient And he took his fist and rubbed it into Michael chest
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It's called a sternal rub. And Michael raised up in the bed and opened up his eyes.
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Really? Yes. Did that give you hope? Yes. Yes, it did. Where there's life, there's hope.
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It wasn't to be. Natalie told friends Michael continued to decline. And then it was kind of like, like I got to make a decision.
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I'm like, what are you talking about? Like whether he lives or dies? Yeah. Like we're going to have to pull him off the vent.
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And I'm like, how do we get to this? The next thing the friends heard, Michael had been moved to hospice.
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How do you say your final words to Michael? He knew faith was important. He knew it was important to me.
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And so my goodbye is more about I'll see you again. I'll see you in heaven. It's all in God's will.
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Yeah, we should all be so lucky to have friends like you who care this much. Jennifer, that must have been so hard for you to watch Chris.
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It's very hard. Knowing how close they were. Yeah. It's very hard. Michael's mother watched her son fighting to breathe.
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I, of course, kissed him and told him that I loved him. It's heartbreaking. Yes.
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And then he was gone. Then he passed away, yes. Five days after he collapsed on the kitchen floor, Michael Cochran was dead.
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What on earth had happened? It was a medical mystery. Investigators would soon wonder if it was something more.
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Let's look into this and see where it goes. Michael Cochran, active, full of life, was gone.
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Dead at just 38. No warning, no explanation. To his friends and family, none of it made any sense.
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Mike had general health problems that we all have as we age, per se, but Mike was healthy.
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Mike was, he was fit. He's coaching. He's out there. He's doing everything that I'm doing.
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Nobody knew what was wrong. Nobody knew what happened. It was just gone. Why did he leave this world so fast, so sudden? There was no rhyme or reason for it.
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It all happened so suddenly. Yes, it did. Yes, it did. He was too young. We're supposed to go before he goes.
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It's really hard to bury a child. Doctors were just as baffled. They'd found that Michael had extremely low blood sugar and that he died from brain swelling.
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But they couldn't say what caused any of it. They listed the manner of death as natural for now.
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All Michael's loved ones could do was comfort his widow, Natalie. You must have been worried about Natalie, given everything that's going on.
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She has two children. Her husband's gone. Yes. We would go down and take food down to her and to the kids.
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And she would say, oh, I'm upstairs. I'm too sick to come down. They sympathized as she described her ongoing cancer battle.
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She sent me pictures one day that she was losing her hair from the chemo, and she had cut her hair.
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She said that she would have a triple chemotherapy treatment and a triple radiation treatment all at the same time at the same day.
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Did the community really support her during this difficult time? I mean, you know, that's what you do in Beckley.
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You help each other, right? Yes, the community reached around them and stuff and, you know, tried to give them as much compassion that they could give.
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We all tried to, you know, help her as much as we could. Then, two months after Michael died, Natalie finally shared some good news with her friend Stephanie.
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My cancer is gone. It's a remission. Were you so happy for her? I was like, oh my gosh, that is awesome.
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Natalie seemed to rebound. She found ways to keep Michael's spirit alive. Natalie set up a scholarship fund in Michael's name that must have made you feel good.
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Absolutely, yeah. We just thought, well, you know, this is really, really something.
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a good way to honor Michael. Life for Natalie and her children slowly returned to normal.
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But a few months later, friends like Chris Davis started wondering about the Cochran's business
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and when he might see some returns on the big investment he'd made. But he didn't want to push.
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It's an awkward time to be asking about money. It wasn't, her excuses wasn't, you know, the dog ate my homework
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or that, you know, the cookie monster or something. Her husband has died. Yeah, and so these facts kind of laid out with each other.
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You know, you're like, oh, OK. Before long, murmurs about the Cochran's business landed on the desk of investigator Bob Hinesman of the West Virginia State Police.
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He got wind of a complaint from a gun collector who'd done business with Michael and Natalie's company.
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He had received approximately $40,000 worth of guns, but he had yet to receive the remaining $40,000 in firearms that he purchased.
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Hinesman, an experienced financial crimes investigator, looked into it. Was this gun collector the only person who was owed money?
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Through the gun collector, we were given another name of an individual who ended up being an investor in Natalie and Michael Cochran's company.
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And we spoke to that individual next. That man said he invested in the company but he too was getting the runaround Heinsman looped in his partner Lieutenant Tim Bledsoe What do you do with this complaint
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The priority was, let's look into this and see where it goes, you know. What do you learn about Michael and Natalie's business?
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Initially, everything we learned about the business was through the first two individuals who provided information.
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and what was on the TSG, Tactical Solutions Group website. I don't remember verbatim, but basically that they fulfilled government contracts
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and that they were a leading supplier to the Department of Defense for firearms, pharmaceuticals.
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Natalie and Michael had different roles. He found the contracts. She was to bid on them.
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It was an idea straight out of Hollywood. How does this all happen? From a pharmacist in a small town and someone who's in IT, where did they get this idea to do this?
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I don't know where they got the idea. I know that they referenced the movie War Dogs, which dealt with government contracting.
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War Dogs is based on a true story of two ordinary guys who ran a government contracting business and became international arms dealers, securing contracts for hundreds of millions of dollars.
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It was crazy. The government had a public website containing every military contract currently up for bidding.
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It was a crazy idea that seemed to pay off. Natalie quit her job as a pharmacist, and the two focused on the company full time.
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They told Michael's parents about their success. You must have been so proud of them to see how well they were doing.
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We were very happy, very happy for them. As the business soared, so did their spending.
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They went to Europe, Hawaii, the Baseball World Series, College World Series. What did you find when you started to look into their lifestyle?
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They were traveling. They were making pretty regular purchases of items that were fairly expensive.
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They were trying to negotiate some real estate transactions. Properties? Yes. Do you know how many?
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I know of at least three. And just like the characters in War Dogs, Michael bought a sports car with custom plates.
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It said gun runner on the back of it. And he thought it was the best thing ever because he was a gun runner.
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I sell guns to the government. They'd even considered purchasing a hangar at the airport.
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He was in the market for a helicopter and had Natalie looking everywhere for this particular helicopter that he wanted.
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So their lifestyle is getting, is on the up and up and up. Oh, yeah. They had everything.
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But now there were questions about the company. And there was only one person who could answer them.
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Natalie. With Michael deceased, she was still the only one linked to the business.
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And she was still running that business. What would she have to say? Hello, Mrs. Cochran.
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Hi. Hi, this is Lieutenant Bledsoe from the state police. That phone call would lead to even more questions, and not just about the Cochran's finances.
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Chris Davis, the friend who'd invested in Michael and Natalie's contracting business, still hadn't seen a dime.
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As you go through March and you get into April and you start questioning her more about, hey, I don't understand.
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Why is this return not coming? Just a year before, the business seemed like a runaway success.
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Did it seem like a good opportunity? Sure. How much did you invest? We invested $511,000.
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That's a lot of money. Yes. Chris wasn't the only one of their friends who put money into the company.
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John and Stephanie had as well. Their son had recently become sick, and they were facing mounting medical bills.
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So she's saying, I can ease your load for you, and you can focus more on your son.
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Yes, and you can make a lot of money, and you can be home with him. Natalie's parents and Michael's came on board, too.
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How much money are we talking about? Almost a quarter of a million dollars. Was that your retirement, your life savings?
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It was our retirement savings. We trusted Natalie and we loved her and said, why not?
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Knowing that so many family and friends of the Cochran's and people you knew were involved in this investment, did that kind of make it just even easier to say yes?
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It did. It made it feel a lot more secure because it was family. Family and friends around here blends a lot.
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So, you know, it was very comfortable. it wasn't a business transaction. Now, a month after Michael's death,
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detectives were secretly checking out complaints against the business. With Michael gone,
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they could only question Natalie. She was still running that business. We didn't want to take the chance
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of her destroying records. So they decided not to ask Natalie about the money, not at first anyway.
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Instead, they'd see what she could tell them about Michael's unusual death. We learned that Michael
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did not go for autopsy. He had some type of accident or a fall at home, suffered a head
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injury, and then died shortly thereafter. Hello, Mrs. Cochran. Hi. Hi, this is Lieutenant Bledsoe
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from the state police. And I hate to, you know, bring up a subject about your husband's passing,
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but he should have went to the medical examiner's office and they're reviewing that and they
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They just ask us to talk to people. Anything you can shed some light on and what led to his illness.
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This is more like, let's have an initial conversation with Natalie just to start feeling her out.
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Yes. Natalie talked with Bledsoe a few times over the course of a month about the day Michael collapsed.
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Could you give me some detail on Michael's morning background stuff about his overall morning?
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I took the kids to school and I had the flu. And he was like, well, I think I might have a touch of the flu too because I'm not feeling very good.
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and I was like, do you want to go to the doctor? And he was like, no, you know me, I'll be fine.
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So he fell asleep on the couch for about 45 minutes to an hour maybe, woke up, and then all of a sudden he went right into the kitchen
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and he started throwing up in our kitchen sink. And then he started to have a seizure and he fell and collapsed.
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He hit his head, but it didn't seem that bad. He would mumble a little bit, but he didn't seem to be in any distress.
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and then that evening when he still wasn't, you know, arousing, we decided to take him to the hospital.
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She said she later found a bottle of supplements, part of his bodybuilding regimen.
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I pulled all the stuff out of his cabinet and it fell out. He had it hidden in the bottom of a vitamin box.
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The bottle contained a testosterone-boosting drug, which Natalie referred to as a supplement.
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She said it was from Mexico and suspected it caused Michael's seizures. You felt like the problems he was having were a result of this supplement.
00:25:27
Right. I think you called it enclomaphane. Enclomaphane. FDA was never able to get it approved in the United States.
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But it can double your testosterone levels. At one point I said, you know, if there's a substance that's available in this country that could potentially kill other people, that's a public safety issue.
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You know, your husband may have been a victim of that. I even filled out a complaint form after he passed away that they wouldn't give back to me.
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Bloodso wondered if there could be other reasons for Michael's sudden death. I did ask, do you think Michael would have wanted to intentionally harm himself?
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Suicide. Sometimes people, yes, when they get into predicaments that they see no other way out of,
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they take drastic measures. And her comment was, well, Michael loved himself too much.
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So, you know, that pretty much eliminated that. What about, did you have to give it a thought that what if someone they possibly wronged from the business could have wanted revenge?
00:26:39
It's always a possibility. You don't ever want to rule anything out until you can rule it out.
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One thing bothered Bledsoe about Natalie's story, why it had taken so long to get Michael to the hospital.
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He wanted to find out more, so he spoke to some friends who were there that day.
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He asked them about Michael's health and about his relationship with Natalie. When word of those conversations got back to her, Natalie fired off a call to Bledsoe's boss.
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I'm having, I'm just having a very difficult time dealing with the loss of my husband,
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and it just seems like it keeps driving out. I don't understand. They're just trying to determine what actually your husband died from.
00:27:27
Well, they're asking people very personal questions about me and my husband's relationship.
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The next day, she told Bledsoe she felt personally attacked. Where are all these questions coming from?
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Some community members are, you know, starting to post things and talk. And one of them said, well, there's going to be an investigation.
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To Bloodsoe, it seemed like an overreaction. Why was Natalie so defensive? Was she hiding something?
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His attention would soon pivot from fraud to Michael's death. Was it kind of like untangling a bunch of yarn at that point?
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It's the same as pulling on a ball of string. You know, you just keep pulling and it just keeps unraveling.
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Investigators were peeling back the layers of what had once seemed like a sure bet,
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the Cochran's contracting business. So you start talking to more investors and things aren't adding up.
00:28:37
Yes. Many of them had quite a bit of documentation. They had obviously kept track of this because we're talking about a substantial amount of money, some of them life savings.
00:28:48
So you're looking at possible fraud here. Oh, absolutely. Yes. Was it kind of like untangling a bunch of yarn at that point?
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It's the same as pulling on a ball string. You know, you just keep pulling and it just keeps unraveling.
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More and more investors were demanding answers, including Michael's parents. Natalie would send me text messages and say,
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your money will be arriving in your bank account within 24 hours or 48 hours. And when that time came around, nothing was ever there.
00:29:21
No, ma'am, nothing was there. Stephanie Hamilton did receive a check. For how much?
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For $10,000. Did that make you feel like, okay, things are moving? Um, yeah. And then it bounced.
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Oh my gosh. Are you starting to get worried now about your finances? Yeah, because I said to Dawn then, I said,
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I don't think we're getting our money back. There's something wrong here. Around the same time,
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authorities learned that Natalie was the subject of another investigation. This one on a much smaller scale had to do with money missing from the community youth baseball league Remember Natalie was league treasurer and had direct access to the funds
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The league asked private investigator James Questenberry to look into it. At the time I started looking at this, there should have been around $20,000 in the account,
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but it was down to $30-some and some change. I immediately noticed that there were issues with what the money was being spent on.
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Different personal stuff that appeared to be stuff that had nothing to do with baseball.
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TJ Maxx, Olive Garden, various different ATM withdrawals in the neighborhood of $500, $600 apiece.
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For investigators looking into the Cochran's business, it was yet another red flag.
00:30:44
By now, they'd brought in federal authorities. Four months after Michael's death, they'd gathered enough evidence for a search warrant.
00:30:52
In June 2019, local, state, and federal law enforcement moved in. We had a team that was going to execute search at our house.
00:31:01
We had a team that was simultaneously going to a business. Natalie was caught off guard when she saw investigators at her door.
00:31:09
She called her friend, John Hamilton, the state trooper. She said, hey, the state police are here with a search warrant.
00:31:16
She said, what am I supposed to do? I was like, well, you better let them search.
00:31:19
Investigators went room by room, documenting everything. They collected computers, hard drives, files and cell phones.
00:31:29
Word traveled quickly. The federal government doesn't come knock on your door just because they're not busy.
00:31:36
This is serious. There's something seriously going on, seriously wrong, and this is not good.
00:31:43
Stephanie rushed over to Natalie's house. Her mom and dad's standing there, and I'm like, I want to talk to her.
00:31:50
They're like, well, I don't know if she can talk to you, but she comes out. And I'm like, what's going on here?
00:31:56
And she's like, I don't know. They took everything. She won't look at me. Back at the office, Bledsoe and Heinsman poured over the digital and physical evidence
00:32:05
they'd taken from the Cochran's house and business. The business began as a pretty legitimate business model.
00:32:12
They were in a position to where they could have legitimately bid on government contracts.
00:32:18
The only problem was they never bid on any contract with the federal government.
00:32:23
The record showed the money coming into the company was mainly from investors. And that money was nowhere to be found.
00:32:30
Detectives met with those investors and broke the news. What are you told? Basically, as I'm looking at you, they go, there were no contracts.
00:32:40
Oh, my. And you kind of look back and I'm going to need you to say that one more time.
00:32:46
What did you say? There were no contracts. Oh, wow. Like you couldn't find any or they don't exist.
00:32:55
They never existed. That's like one giant gut punch. It is. I didn't believe what I was hearing from this investigator.
00:33:05
I hear what you're saying to me that everything was fake. But I said, I just, I don't believe that.
00:33:13
But once the reality set in, other questions started bubbling up about Natalie and about Michael's death.
00:33:20
Once you get away from that initial shock, you start putting the puzzle pieces together.
00:33:26
So you're immediately thinking, oh, maybe he didn't die of natural causes. It all really came together at really kind of one moment.
00:33:36
But not only was she lying about money, oh my goodness, this is not a coincidence.
00:33:47
And so it all kind of hit us at once. This is the kind of thing that hits you like a freight train when everything in your world is not what it seems at all.
00:34:00
Exactly. Who was Natalie Cochran, this woman they'd once trusted so much? Investigators were determined to find out.
00:34:22
The tight-knit community of Beckley, West Virginia, was shaken. First came news that the money investors had poured into the Cochran's company was gone.
00:34:31
Oh, I just couldn't believe it. We're crushed. Yeah, I just couldn't believe it.
00:34:35
I'm just thinking, what is going on here? And then there were suspicions that Michael Cochran's death might have been foul play.
00:34:43
As the police investigation continued, many people in town were focused on one person, Natalie Cochran.
00:34:50
Including private investigator James Questenberry. He'd been looking into allegations that she had stolen funds from the Youth Baseball League.
00:34:58
Now he was hearing about possible fraud within her company, and maybe even an investigation into her husband's death.
00:35:05
When he learned that Natalie was having a garage sale, he saw an opportunity. This was an attempt to find out if she had kept any of that money or spent it on something that nobody knew about, and she was going to try to sell it.
00:35:17
It was the fishing expedition to see what we could find. He rigged up his guy with a hidden camera. That's Natalie in her garage.
00:35:27
Do you have any other type of wiring or anything like that? Just that cable. This is security camera cable and then this is ethernet cable.
00:35:37
And the full boxes are $5 and the security camera cable is $2. She was selling some stuff that, you know, belonged to Mike, wire and stuff from his business.
00:35:48
There was just miscellaneous dolls, different stuff around. My husband used to have a technology business and that what he did He ran cable Did you have anything good Just a bunch of his cable testing equipment like that
00:36:06
His technology stuff. You don't want silver rest to anything else? Not really. I'm going to keep those for my son.
00:36:14
My husband passed away, so my dad helped me get through it. He kept things that my son might use when he grows up.
00:36:22
Okay. Sorry about your loss. Thank you. The video didn't show Natalie selling anything that would help his or law enforcement's investigation.
00:36:32
And no charges were ever filed concerning the Youth Baseball League. But Quessenberry believed he saw something else.
00:36:39
She's got somebody there that's possibly buying the stuff that she has out there.
00:36:43
She just speaks nice to him while he's looking at him. As soon as she turns around, she looks like it's killing her to talk to him and makes these faces.
00:36:50
And it's just very strange. By this point, authorities had finished their seven-month investigation into the Cochran's business.
00:36:59
All those fake contracts, doctored figures, and bogus spreadsheets added up to nothing short of a $2.5 million Ponzi scheme.
00:37:07
Explain how that worked within Natalie and Michael's business. As money comes in, if you're investor A, let's say, and I already have your money.
00:37:17
Well, when investor B comes in, I give you a little bit back from investor B and then try to build off.
00:37:24
And it's just a pyramid, really. But it's not sustainable because eventually you can't keep up.
00:37:34
Chris Davis went back and looked at all the paperwork the Cochran's had given him.
00:37:38
This is a spreadsheet to represent what the company was doing and the success of the company.
00:37:45
This whole document is fake. Total expense, profit, payouts, the factory fees, none of it's true.
00:37:53
You know, the saying is devil's in the details. Well, the devil was all in this.
00:37:58
Three months after that raid on the Cochran house, authorities returned, this time with a warrant for Natalie's arrest.
00:38:05
We had several other officers there with us, troopers. Also had a female trooper there to transport Natalie.
00:38:11
She opens the door? She did. I said, Natalie, you're under arrest, and I'm going to explain to you exactly why and what the charges are.
00:38:22
And she says, it took all of y'all for little old me. Natalie Cochran was charged with 26 counts, including wire fraud and money laundering.
00:38:34
She stole from her own family. We just hugged each other and cried because it was just so awful.
00:38:40
It was really hard. It's still really hard, except what she's done. Like, this really is happening, and we have been schemed.
00:38:53
You know, like, you don't get arrested for no reason. Then it became real, and then I was just angry.
00:39:01
Did you ever think in your wildest dreams that something like this would happen to you?
00:39:06
No. You know, there's people in my life now that are friends that I would never think they would ever do this.
00:39:11
And she would have been in that category for us. This is the ultimate betrayal. Sure, yeah.
00:39:17
Very hurt, very betrayed, just in disbelief. And there were even more victims, high school students.
00:39:27
Those scholarships Natalie set up in Michael's memory? Well, they didn't exist. And so basically, therefore, nothing.
00:39:35
The people who were given scholarships received nothing. Natalie Cochran was in big trouble, and it was about to get worse,
00:39:46
because detectives were now laser-focused on something else, something they found in Natalie's kitchen during that raid.
00:39:53
You just had no idea what was going to be hidden in the chocolate. I sure did not expect to find that, though.
00:40:00
This is a big, big turn in this case. Very big. I mean, I just get chills thinking about you putting all this together.
00:40:08
That was the most shocking nightmare. It moves from a mystery novel to a horror flick.
00:40:25
One year after Natalie Cochran was arrested for running a Ponzi scheme, she pleaded guilty to wire fraud and money laundering charges.
00:40:33
She was sentenced to 11 years in federal prison. In court, Natalie offered apologies and regret.
00:40:39
She also deflected blame on Michael, saying his supplement abuse made him angry and money was the one thing that kept him happy.
00:40:47
Did you buy any of what she was saying that day? That contract is the last thing I'll ever buy from her.
00:40:53
At this point in time, she's a total fraud. So now I question everything. And so did Lieutenant Bledsoe.
00:41:04
Like the Cochran's friends and family, he believed Michael had nothing to do with the Ponzi scheme.
00:41:08
Any time he would question why they didn't have their money, why the contracts weren't being paid, he got the same exact excuses that the investors were getting.
00:41:20
Now, with his financial investigation over, Bledsoe turned his full attention to the death of Michael Cochran.
00:41:26
You had a good old-fashioned medical mystery on your hands. Yes, absolutely. When he first spoke with Natalie, she was cooperative, presented herself as a sympathetic widow.
00:41:38
but he wasn't convinced for long. What changed it? Her actions changed that. The
00:41:44
questions she would ask, why are you investigating me? Remember, she even called
00:41:51
Bledsoe supervisor to complain Yes sir I was just calling to see if you knew when everything surrounding the investigation of me is going to be over Controlling Yes absolutely I don think you can control the state police
00:42:07
In her mind, she could. That was probably one of the most concerning things that I heard,
00:42:12
was how someone whose spouse had only been dead for, at that point, two months. and they're concerned over somebody trying to explain why it happened.
00:42:27
Natalie stuck to her story that Michael got sick from that so-called supplement he was taking.
00:42:33
You believed it was from Mexico. What makes you think that? Because the company told us it was manufactured in Mexico.
00:42:39
We never found any evidence of Mexico. The farthest that we traced it was to an address in Florida.
00:42:46
It's just the pieces that just keep adding up that just don't make sense. One of those pieces was something curious they stumbled on during the house raid.
00:42:59
I learned a long, long time ago that anywhere that you're allowed to look, you better look while you're there.
00:43:04
You end up finding something that you didn't even know you were looking for. Yes.
00:43:10
Inside the fridge was a vial of insulin. Why is that insulin beneath a pile of chocolate bars?
00:43:18
No one in the home was diabetic. At the time, Natalie had a perfectly good explanation.
00:43:23
She said it was for Chris and Jennifer's son, who was diabetic. They said not so fast.
00:43:29
We had never given her insulin for Gavin. She had no reason to keep it. We never gave it to anyone.
00:43:34
Like, it stayed at our house because he wore a pump. According to Jennifer, Natalie did ask for insulin the morning Michael fell ill.
00:43:41
For herself. She had the flu and the norovirus, and the doctor had given her steroids.
00:43:49
And because of the cancer, she needed some insulin because the steroids had made her blood sugar go up.
00:43:56
Okay, so that can help. Yes. And so I had got a bag together for her with some drinks, and I'd put the bottle of insulin in there for her.
00:44:07
That got Lieutenant Bledsoe thinking. Medical records showed that when Michael was admitted to the hospital,
00:44:13
his blood sugar was extremely low, and low blood sugar can lean to brain swelling,
00:44:18
the very thing that caused Michael's death. What does that do to someone to have a level like that?
00:44:23
Oh, it's critical. I mean, they have to get medical treatment for that immediately.
00:44:28
Bloodso knew that insulin is used to lower blood sugar, so he wondered if the vial in the fridge could have been used on Michael.
00:44:35
You believe that it's possible that this vial of insulin, now in your possession is a possible murder weapon.
00:44:43
Yes. Yes, very possible at that point. This may have just cracked the case. This could be a quote-unquote smoking gun, so to speak.
00:44:52
The detective set out to find proof that Michael died from an insulin overdose. But that would be difficult with no autopsy report.
00:45:00
So seven months after Michael was laid to rest, investigators exhumed his body. For the first time, a medical examiner was brought in.
00:45:08
What did they find? Michael's remains were pretty advanced in decomposition, so it made it very difficult for the medical examiner.
00:45:18
So nothing, nothing that shed any light on what might have happened to Michael. Correct.
00:45:23
The Emmy ruled the manner of death undetermined. Michael's remains would not give up the secret to his death, but would Natalie?
00:45:32
You want me to say I heard him and I didn't hear him? No, I'm not saying that. I know you did. That's what I'm telling you.
00:45:37
No, you don't. Yes, I do. authorities investigating the death of michael cochran were determined to see it through
00:45:55
the whole reason i got into law enforcement in the first place was to help people
00:45:59
especially people who could not help themselves so we were there to speak for michael by now
00:46:06
Lieutenant Bledsoe was convinced that Michael had nothing to do with the Ponzi scheme.
00:46:11
He also believed he'd found the murder weapon, the insulin found in Natalie's fridge.
00:46:16
But he didn't have the evidence to prove she used it, so he turned up the pressure.
00:46:20
In May of 2021, he traveled to Hazleton Federal Prison in West Virginia, Natalie's home since her guilty plea in the Ponzi scheme.
00:46:28
We've been conducting an investigation into Michael's death for some time now. Her story, said Bledsoe, didn't add up.
00:46:35
You brought up the enclomiphene was possibly some way related to Michael's death.
00:46:41
Okay. We now know that that's not true. So we need to clear that up. I don't know how you can know that's not true.
00:46:51
Natalie denied having anything to do with Michael's death. I did not do anything to him and it's just been over and over.
00:46:58
And I am telling you the truth. What you're saying is it was nothing at your hand.
00:47:02
No, it was not at my hand. And that's what I'm saying is not true. And that not only did you then allow him to lay there all day without medical treatment.
00:47:12
I didn't hurt Michael. Bledsoe accused her of calling friends instead of an ambulance.
00:47:18
You called an alibi is what you did. No, I did not. Yeah. Absolutely did not. You made sure that you had somebody else to blame.
00:47:24
Absolutely did not. Who you... I think I knew we were done. Because, I mean, you want me to say I hurt him and I didn't hurt him.
00:47:30
No, I'm not saying that. I know you did. That's what I'm telling you. No, you don't.
00:47:33
Yes, I do. Natalie never confessed, but Bledsoe was now more convinced than ever that she killed
00:47:39
Michael. To him, all the circumstantial evidence was adding up. There was her delay in getting
00:47:45
Michael help, that call she made trying to shut down the investigation, and her story about how
00:47:50
she got the vial of insulin. When you put all those circumstances together, not just the insulin,
00:47:55
it paints a very clear picture. The DA agreed, and in November, of 2021, Natalie was arrested for murder. Friends, still reeling from her Ponzi scheme,
00:48:05
now had an even darker possibility to consider. And now, possibly murder? Yeah, that was the most shocking.
00:48:14
It moves from a mystery novel to a horror flick. You don't want to believe that can happen to
00:48:20
what you thought was a perfect couple. But as prosecutors prepared for trial, a key detail was missing.
00:48:28
This is a homicide case without a ruling of homicide from the medical examiner. If you don't have the medical examiner saying homicide, you've got a big problem.
00:48:39
Current Raleigh County prosecuting attorney Tom Truman says that in spite of the circumstantial evidence against Natalie,
00:48:45
his predecessor simply could not get around the undetermined ruling and had to make a difficult decision.
00:48:51
A year and a half after Natalie was indicted for murder. The charges dropped. Yes.
00:48:57
That, I guess, is just the team getting together and saying, as much as we want to go to trial, we just don't have it still.
00:49:04
I think that's a fair assessment. It seemed Michael's death might never be solved.
00:49:09
But investigators had another card to play. This man, a medical examiner who worked for the armed forces, Dr. Paul Uribe.
00:49:18
He'd cracked a complicated case in West Virginia two years earlier. Seven elderly veterans died mysteriously in a VA hospital.
00:49:25
Dr. Uribe discovered they all had low blood sugar, just like Michael. But they died with a very, very certain pattern.
00:49:33
The pattern they had was very, very severe hypoglycemia, which is very low glucose levels.
00:49:39
Dr. Uribe suspected the men may have been poisoned with insulin, but that would be hard to prove.
00:49:44
Insulin as a murder weapon is a tough one because it disappears, correct, from the system?
00:49:49
Yes, insulin is metabolized or broken down by the body very, very quickly. You're not going to stumble across an insulin homicide.
00:50:00
If you're not looking for it, you're not going to find it. He had the bodies exhumed and with state-of-the-art testing,
00:50:07
he found evidence of needle marks on several of the men and tissue samples revealed traces of insulin.
00:50:13
Investigators were able to zero in on a suspect. They arrested nursing assistant Rita Mays, who pleaded guilty to seven counts of murder.
00:50:21
They were there so that she could provide them aid and assistance and comfort. And instead, she coldly and callously murdered them.
00:50:31
Now investigators were hoping Dr. Uribe could help solve Michael's case. The pathologist asked for his body to be exhumed again.
00:50:39
You might be able to find evidence that something was injected into the body in a particular location.
00:50:45
Was there a tissue test you could do to see if there was any evidence in that? We tried to do that, but there wasn't a lot to look at.
00:50:53
There was no way I could evaluate for injection sites just because there was so much decomposition.
00:50:59
But Dr. Uribe wasn't done yet. You, as a medical examiner, need to look at the whole picture.
00:51:06
Absolutely. The autopsy is just one part of the equation. What were the circumstances? What were the results of the investigation?
00:51:15
He went through every other possible reason for Michael's blood sugar to plummet.
00:51:20
What could cause the level to go that low for someone who is not a diabetic? They could have a rampant infection, something like sepsis.
00:51:31
They can have a drug or medication reaction. Did he have any of those things that you could tell?
00:51:38
Not from the medical record review and hospital records. No. Leaving the doctor with one conclusion.
00:51:45
This was an insulin homicide. This puts the case over the top for the prosecutor's office.
00:51:52
This new, new reveal of homicide. That was a big part of it. Now we have a medical examiner that says it caused a manner of death and it fit the bill for a first degree murder.
00:52:04
Since Dr. Uribe was not the state medical examiner, the official cause of death remained undetermined.
00:52:10
But prosecutors thought his expert analysis could sway a jury. In October 2023, Natalie Cochran was again charged with her husband's murder.
00:52:20
This time, could prosecutors make it stick? Some people maybe thought you couldn't win.
00:52:24
A lot of people thought that. Now, a jury was about to hear the state's theory of why Natalie did it.
00:52:30
You learn something big. You learn that there is a ticking clock and there's a plane waiting.
00:52:36
That was the motive. January 2025, almost six years after Michael Cochran's death, his wife Natalie went on trial for his murder.
00:52:59
There were not a lot of bets that said we would get a conviction. Prosecutors Tom Truman and Ashley Akard knew they were in for a fight.
00:53:07
This was a problem child case from the beginning. It was certainly long in the tooth by the time we got it.
00:53:14
And some people maybe thought you couldn't win. A lot of people thought that. The trial began in a small courtroom in Beckley, West Virginia.
00:53:22
The family sat up front, Natalie's behind the defense and Michael's behind the prosecution.
00:53:28
We were there as Michael's voice, as his advocate. We needed to be there every day.
00:53:33
What was it like seeing Natalie in court? Didn't affect me a bit. I call her the evil one.
00:53:39
She's able. In his opening statement, prosecutor Tom Truman didn't shy away from his imperfect case.
00:53:46
There is no DNA. There is no evidence of fingerprints. But he argued they could prove Natalie had the means the opportunity and the motive to murder her husband They started with the means Your Honor the state calls Dr Paul Uribe to the stand The pathologist told jurors after looking at all of the evidence
00:54:07
the only plausible explanation for Michael's death was insulin poisoning. I came to the conclusion that the cause of death was exogenous insulin administration.
00:54:18
Dr. Diane Krieger, an endocrinologist, backed up that testimony, saying there were 13 things that could cause an extremely low blood glucose level.
00:54:28
In Michael's case, she ruled out all but one, insulin. It's the only credible explanation since none of the other explanations work.
00:54:37
To show the jury how Natalie got insulin, the state called Natalie's former friend and neighbor.
00:54:43
Could you please state your name for the record? Jennifer Davis. She told the jury she and Natalie had texted the morning Michael collapsed.
00:54:50
Jennifer said she offered to drop off some of her son's insulin. That text exchange between Natalie and Jennifer about the insulin was so important.
00:54:59
There it is in writing. Very important. Yes. Connecting Natalie to a bottle of insulin.
00:55:08
Yes. Jennifer testified that she gave Natalie the insulin because Natalie said she needed it to ease the effects of her cancer treatments.
00:55:16
The prosecution claimed that was yet another one of her lies, a diabolical one. It's determined that Natalie did not have cancer, despite telling everyone.
00:55:30
Yes. Imagine that. A defendant that's not forthright and truthful. He said Natalie made up the cancer to get sympathy and distract investors.
00:55:41
Prosecutors then laid out their theory of how she carried out the killing, her opportunity.
00:55:46
They believe on the morning Michael collapsed, Natalie sedated him with an anti-anxiety medication.
00:55:52
There were benzodiazepines in his system. She had a prescription for them. How could she administer that without him knowing? Could that be put in a drink?
00:56:00
Oh, yeah. It could have been in his cereal, could have been in his drink. Once he was knocked out, prosecutors believe, Natalie injected him with insulin throughout the day.
00:56:09
You just couldn't definitively connect the dots. Natalie got the vial of insulin, but then there's no evidence of her injecting Michael.
00:56:21
The vial had been punctured with a single puncture. Can we say it was the bottle that was delivered by the Davises? No. But again, his blood glucose level showed that he had been injected with insulin. So circumstantially, there's a lot of arrows pointing to that.
00:56:39
And the prosecution floated the idea that Natalie had been poisoning Michael for a while.
00:56:44
Michael's friend Jason testified that in the months before Michael died, he told him he felt sick.
00:56:49
He would complain about just not feeling right, just feeling dizzy. He said he felt like he'd been poisoned.
00:56:58
Prosecutors wanted the jury to hear about how Natalie delayed getting Michael to the hospital for hours.
00:57:03
They called Chris Davis, Michael's best friend. You swear or firm to tell the truth, the whole truth.
00:57:08
He told jurors when he got to the Cochran house, about seven hours after Michael collapsed, Michael was still unresponsive.
00:57:15
It was clear that something was wrong. And I was like, he's got to go to the hospital.
00:57:22
I remember a question is, you really think he should go? Yes, he needs to go and he's going to go now.
00:57:28
And I'm going to take him. And that's exactly what I did. To show just how dire it was, the prosecutor displayed a photo of Michael that Natalie had taken shortly after he collapsed.
00:57:39
Natalie had sent this photo around to friends, including Chris's wife. She sent this picture to a whole bunch of people, including Jennifer Davis, correct?
00:57:50
Correct. She sent that picture to like 17 people. Why would you do that? I just think she had, she got some sort of sick satisfaction out of it, I think.
00:58:01
And I think she wanted to be able to continue to look at it. And she wanted people to see what she had done.
00:58:05
But the most crucial question remained. What was her motive? Prosecutors said it was all about the Ponzi scheme and told jurors, even though Michael was an equal partner in the company, he had no idea it was all a scam.
00:58:18
What evidence did you have that you feel proves Michael did not know about the fraud?
00:58:24
Text messages, pages and pages of text messages. They were the exact same lies she was telling to the investors she was telling to Michael.
00:58:35
She would even have wire transfer dates, wire transfer authorization numbers. Natalie even created a fake government worker named Betsy Britlin.
00:58:45
She would tell Michael Betsy was on the phone. And when they tried to third party Michael in, the call would drop.
00:58:51
It was just one of those perpetual lie machines that just kept cranking out lies.
00:58:58
And they said Michael was about to find out the whole company was a lie. Two days before his death, Michael texted Natalie asking why a government transfer of more than $2.8 million hadn't hit their account yet.
00:59:11
He texted her, I don't understand why it's taking so long. It's Bank of America to Bank of America.
00:59:18
Natalie responded, just verifying funds because of large amounts and new account.
00:59:22
Doesn't make sense to me, Michael wrote back. Michael got so frustrated, he chartered a private plane.
00:59:29
He and Natalie were to fly to Virginia to meet with bank representatives the day he collapsed.
00:59:35
That was the meeting that was to take place that could never take place. Because she knew.
00:59:39
She knew. If they got on that plane and they went to meet with the bank in Virginia, all of the secrets would tumble out.
00:59:47
Correct. There is a ticking clock and there's a plane waiting. That was the motive.
00:59:52
One argument to that is even if Michael dies it doesn change the mess that she in with the fraud There an answer to that too She was in the process of selling half the business
01:00:06
According to the prosecutor, Natalie had convinced a well-to-do business person to buy into the company for half a million dollars.
01:00:14
Could she not have put off Michael, though, and said, look, the money is coming in.
01:00:18
Everything's going to be fine. Let me take care of it. Oh, she had been. Yeah, that was her line.
01:00:23
Okay, so this was a ticking time bomb. Oh, absolutely. Prosecutors wrapped up their case,
01:00:30
arguing Natalie murdered her husband to keep him and everybody else from uncovering
01:00:35
that their company was a house of cards. Now, Natalie's attorneys would have their turn.
01:00:40
They agreed she was a fraud and a liar, but a killer? Absolutely not, and they could prove it.
01:00:46
This isn't a whodunit mystery. This is a medical mystery. Correct. I did not believe this was a murder.
01:01:06
Natalie Cochran's defense team was convinced the case against their client was riddled with holes,
01:01:11
including the fact, they said, that there was no proof Michael died of anything but natural causes.
01:01:17
This isn't a whodunit mystery. This is a medical mystery. And that was the crux of your defense.
01:01:24
It was. Their case was flimsy. Their case was not about the murder. But bottom line is that they had no why, when, and how.
01:01:35
Natalie's defense attorney, Matthew Victor, didn't waste any time. He addressed the elephant in the room in his opening statement.
01:01:42
She defrauded friends, relatives, investors. She was involved in a Ponzi scheme.
01:01:49
The fact that she is perhaps a fraud and perhaps a cheat does not translate into being a murderer.
01:02:00
The defense went after the state's key piece of evidence, that insulin vial found in the fridge.
01:02:06
That bottle to me appeared to be full. Chad Jones investigated the case for the defense.
01:02:10
Did you look into how much insulin you would need from a vial to cause a death like that?
01:02:17
Their expert testified it would take a fair amount. Natalie's attorneys also argued it made no sense that she would use that vial of insulin to kill Michael and then keep it after his death.
01:02:28
Is Natalie the world's dumbest criminal for leaving the murder weapon in the fridge under the candy?
01:02:34
I mean, and to say that that would be the dumbest criminal, I mean, this is an intelligent woman.
01:02:40
So really, those two things don't equate. They said she kept the insulin for her neighbor Jennifer's son, the one with diabetes.
01:02:48
It had been there for a while. For the son? Yes, for Jennifer's son. Her attorneys also asked the question, if Natalie had injected her husband with insulin,
01:02:58
why didn't Michael fight back or call for help? I think any reasonable person would think that if they're jabbed with a needle
01:03:05
and the person doing the jabbing doesn't advise you of what is in that syringe, I would call for help.
01:03:11
The prosecutors say he wasn't able to call for help because he was already unconscious when she stabbed him with the needle.
01:03:20
I don't think there was any evidence to prove that. Instead, they floated the idea that Michael, a weightlifter, may have injected himself.
01:03:28
When cross-examining Dr. Uribe, they asked him if he was aware that bodybuilders sometimes use insulin.
01:03:34
To my knowledge, bodybuilders don't use insulin. Really? The defense told jurors the doctor was wrong.
01:03:41
Bodybuilders do take insulin, some for gaining muscle mass and burning carbohydrates.
01:03:47
There was some innuendo that he may have been injecting insulin at some point. Defense attorneys called forensic experts of their own,
01:03:54
who said there wasn't enough evidence to rule this a homicide. A cause of death is undetermined, in my opinion, as well as the manner of death.
01:04:02
The defense then zeroed in on what it called the state's biggest blind spot, the motive.
01:04:07
Nobody was able to present any evidence to suggest that Natalie Cochran had a motive to kill her husband.
01:04:19
The prosecution says the walls were closing in, that the jig was up and he finally, Michael finally realized and they were going to go have this meeting and then everything was going to just collapse.
01:04:29
So it was going to be what? A preemptive killing? Are they, are you kidding me? That's the prosecution's theory.
01:04:35
That's absolutely absurd. Absurd, because they argued Michael was in on it from day one.
01:04:41
I firmly believe that if he were alive, he would be sitting in prison as well. Michael was up to his eyeballs in the business that he and Natalie have created.
01:04:56
The state says there's proof that Michael didn't know about the Ponzi scheme. You say there's proof he did know.
01:05:02
It's overwhelming proof, ranging from his actions, writing contracts, signing checks, to enjoying the harvest of their business.
01:05:16
The defense presented a different theory about how Michael Cochran could have died, arguing he was in poor health.
01:05:22
Something very important was that Michael had been admitted to the hospital a few months before he died.
01:05:29
that really paints a picture of someone with health problems. In October of 2018, stayed in the hospital for one day, was released.
01:05:42
A couple of days later, he was back in the hospital and stayed for five days. He was prescribed an anticonvulsive by a physician.
01:05:50
Were there actual medical records that said that Michael was having seizures Yes And is this based on what Michael was telling the doctors what Natalie was telling the doctors I think it was in concert of everything But at the end of
01:06:05
the day, a physician prescribed him an anticonvulsive, which Natalie says he refused to take.
01:06:11
So he's not taking his seizure medication. Correct. Though the prosecution said Natalie
01:06:17
was the one making Michael sick by poisoning him for months, the defense argued he was making
01:06:22
himself sick, claiming he not only took supplements, but steroids and possibly even insulin,
01:06:29
a potentially dangerous mix. This is very important to your defense to show a pattern
01:06:35
of seizures, health problems. Absolutely. Absolutely. It's certainly possible all these
01:06:41
substances that he was taking could have had a neurologic effect that caused him to develop a
01:06:47
seizure disorder. When they called Natalie's sister Penny to the stand, she testified that
01:06:52
she saw Michael inject himself. They were at the beach with us and I came out of my bedroom and he
01:06:58
was in the kitchen and I saw him do an injection. Did you ever see him take insulin? I don't know
01:07:06
what he took. She said whatever he was taking, she tried to get him to stop. I said, you please
01:07:12
stop that. You've got to stop that. It's not good for you. And he would just, he would always just
01:07:16
laugh. The defense argued Michael's bodybuilding cocktail added up to a medical crisis. He had a
01:07:22
seizure that day, and that's what caused his blood sugar to drop. Do seizures contribute to glucose
01:07:29
levels? They can. It can cause the blood glucose to drop. Natalie's attorneys weren't done. They had
01:07:36
two more key witnesses to call. The people who knew Michael and Natalie the best, the Cochran
01:07:41
children. What would they tell the jury? Would you state your name for the record?
01:07:46
Nicole Cochran. Inside the courthouse in Beckley, both sides grilled witnesses trying to prove
01:08:07
whether or not Natalie Cochran killed her husband Michael. The defense's star witnesses were about to take the stand,
01:08:14
Michael and Natalie's children. They were only 13 and 11 years old when their father died.
01:08:19
The kids are really put in this precarious position where, you know, their father is dead.
01:08:23
They're testifying for their mom who's on trial for dad's murder. What all went into that with the children and the decision to put them up there?
01:08:32
Well, they wanted to testify. They wanted to, yes. They wanted to clarify some of the issues that were before the court.
01:08:39
Up first, the Cochran's son, who's now 17. He looked a lot like Michael, just a younger version.
01:08:47
Court TV legal reporter Kelly Craft was in the courtroom. As he's walking up, he looks at his mother.
01:08:53
They touched one another, and he made his way to the stand. Natalie appeared to beam with pride.
01:08:59
Because he was a minor, he didn't give his first name, and the camera didn't record his face.
01:09:03
Would you tell the jury the initials of your name? M-A-C. He began by giving the jury a peek into life inside the Cochran home.
01:09:17
He shared that he and his dad had a special bond. What did you do together? All types of stuff.
01:09:23
He was my baseball coach, my football coach, led me through several sports, went shooting together, went hunting together.
01:09:32
We just always did stuff together. When the defense asked him about his father's daily routine, he said he took large amounts of supplements and other medications.
01:09:40
He would take his supplements, which was 30 pills a day every morning, and then his anabolics, which are steroids.
01:09:51
Did he ever inject anything? Definitely steroids. Where was he getting all that stuff?
01:09:59
He did shop at GNC a lot, but that was only for his supplements. And then he used to brag all the time about him getting his steroids from Mexico.
01:10:08
When Nicole, their 20-year-old daughter, took the stand, she described a similar routine.
01:10:14
He would lay all of his pills out on the counter, and there would be so many of them that they would just sit in a whole circle and it looked like the size of a dinner plate.
01:10:24
And then he would take the steroids as well. Both children recalled that their father's behavior started to change after he was hospitalized for seizures, about three months before he died.
01:10:34
How did he start to change, sir? just forgetting stuff all the time. And he was more aggressive, more aggressive for sure.
01:10:47
Towards whom? Aggressive. Towards everybody. Everybody. The defense implied that behavior might have been caused by steroid use.
01:10:56
In January of 2019, shortly before his death, how did he behave? He was kind of acting crazy.
01:11:05
All right. He was very upset and angry all the time. She said he suffered from headaches, had balance issues, and slept a lot.
01:11:15
When asked if his condition improved before his death. I would say as time went by, it continued to worsen.
01:11:22
And was there a suggestion that he go to the hospital? I'm not sure, but I remember several people wanted him to stop taking his steroids.
01:11:32
The children's testimony backed key defense claims. They saw their dad being angry, agitated.
01:11:40
His health is not so perfect as one might have thought. His memory was fading. He was agitated.
01:11:47
And they both testified that their dad hated hospitals. So that was very helpful to the defense case
01:11:55
as to why Natalie did not rush him to the hospital when he collapsed. On the stand, Nicole revealed something else about Michael's health.
01:12:04
It happened a few months before he died. He had this conversation with his daughter, which was, I mean, it was almost poignant.
01:12:13
This was like a farewell to life. Nicole told the jury the conversation happened when her father was in the hospital.
01:12:20
He seemed kind of out of it, but he was actually really nice. He said some kind things to my brother and I because he didn't think he would get another chance to.
01:12:31
Is that what he told you? He told me that he always appreciated my intelligence and that he never told me that,
01:12:43
but he wanted me to know it now just in case he never got to say it again. I've always considered that to be kind of like my goodbye.
01:12:49
The children's testimony was especially emotional for Michael's parents. They believed their son was in excellent health.
01:12:57
Your grandchildren took the stand for the defense, supporting their mother in that courtroom,
01:13:02
supporting that theory that he was in poor health. Very different views from you.
01:13:11
Yes. It's a tragedy. They've lost their dad. We've lost a son. and our views are our views.
01:13:22
It's just heartbreaking. Natalie's attorneys had one more point they wanted the children to get across to the jury,
01:13:28
that their mom loved their dad and had no reason to kill him. The prosecution's theory
01:13:34
that the walls were closing in on Natalie, that Michael was about to discover the Ponzi scheme,
01:13:39
didn't match what they knew about their parents' business and who was really in charge.
01:13:43
I think we all know who wore the pants in the situation, he definitely ran it way more than she did.
01:13:53
Your father was a dominant figure. Of course. Who was working on the contracts? My dad.
01:14:00
During cross-examination, the prosecution reminded the jury how young the children were
01:14:05
at the time of Michael's death and implied the defense investigator had coached them.
01:14:10
When you heard him testify, they sounded so coached. I don't think they made that great
01:14:16
of an impression. Throughout her children's testimony, Natalie displayed a range of emotions,
01:14:21
sometimes teary, sometimes smiley. At one point, Natalie made a heart sign with her hands and
01:14:27
mouthed to her daughter, I love you. They had an extremely close bond, a very close relationship.
01:14:33
The defense had one more witness to take the stand, Natalie Cochran herself. A lot of times,
01:14:40
defense attorneys don't want their client to take the stand. But in this particular case,
01:14:45
you felt she should Yes There also conventional wisdom that the jury wants to hear the defendant say I didn do it And that carries a lot of weight
01:14:57
Jurors were ready to hear from Natalie, but there was a surprise coming. And finally, a verdict that would leave both families in tears.
01:15:06
Either they didn't believe anything we said and they're going to quit this lady, or she's a duster.
01:15:16
It was the moment everyone had been waiting for. Natalie Cochran was about to testify.
01:15:30
She had already informed the judge that she was going to take the stand. Natalie and her attorneys met with the judge behind closed doors.
01:15:39
When they returned, the judge made an announcement. The defendant has now elected not to testify in her own behalf.
01:15:48
Smart move on her part. She would have had to answer for some things that I don't know that she was prepared to do.
01:15:55
I believe Natalie Cochran has thought about the implications of testifying and may have consulted the parents, perhaps friends.
01:16:06
During closing arguments, the prosecution walked the jury through its theory of how Natalie killed Michael
01:16:11
and said that despite what the defense said, the prosecution's expert determined
01:16:16
that Michael's low blood sugar couldn't have been caused by supplements or steroids.
01:16:21
Dr. Krieger had 13 likely causes of low blood sugar, hypoglycemia. She eliminated all but insulin.
01:16:34
And as for Michael having seizures, the prosecution said that all came from Natalie.
01:16:38
You heard experts testify that the seizure activity in the records was reported by the defendant.
01:16:44
Prosecutors wrapped up by saying it's been six years since Michael's murder, and it was time Natalie was held accountable.
01:16:51
Michael has waited long enough for justice. Natalie's defense attorney argued that the prosecution's theory made no sense for so many reasons.
01:16:59
And he pointed out Natalie's behavior was the exact opposite of a killer's. You have just decided to kill your husband.
01:17:06
He is unconscious, let's assume. And you want him dead, well, let him die then. Don't do anything.
01:17:17
He reminded the jurors Natalie did do something. She called multiple people to the house.
01:17:22
Is that the action of a killer who wants to get away with murder? No. And he said a murderer would have cremated Michael,
01:17:36
destroying evidence but Natalie didn do that He also hammered at the idea that Natalie had no reason to kill her husband nothing to gain from his death Because he Michael Cochran was as involved in this conspiracy as she was
01:17:54
He left jurors with a final thought. If you cannot answer these three questions,
01:17:59
what, how, and first of all and foremost, why, then the state fails to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt.
01:18:15
The jury goes out to deliberate. How are you feeling? We're feeling like we've left it all out there. We've done everything that we could possibly do.
01:18:22
You never know what a jury's going to do, but I felt strong about the defense position.
01:18:27
You're thinking, man, I don't know. Everything is circumstantial. You're sitting there in just pure suspense waiting for that verdict.
01:18:37
And then, quicker than anyone imagined, the jury had a verdict. Two hours? Yes. Right around, yes.
01:18:46
Usually a good sign? Are you thinking that? Well, it was one of those chicken or feathers things.
01:18:51
Either they didn't believe anything we said and they're going to acquit this lady, or she's a duster.
01:18:56
I'll expect no outbursts when I read the verdict. The judge told Natalie to stand.
01:19:04
We, the jury on the issues, joined unanimously find the following. The defendant is guilty of murder in the first degree.
01:19:16
Take us to that very moment in that courtroom as you're listening to those words that Natalie Cochran is being held responsible for your son's murder.
01:19:26
Being held accountable. Yes. There's a feeling that comes over you. I don't know if I can put it to words or not.
01:19:31
But it is justice. It is justice. And I could just see Michael saying, you hung in there for me.
01:19:40
You hung in there for me. And we did. We did. You felt like he was with you in that moment?
01:19:47
Yes, ma'am. But it wasn't over. In West Virginia, they have what's called a mercy phase.
01:19:54
As Natalie quietly shed tears, the judge explained to the jury it was up to them to decide her sentence.
01:19:59
If she receives mercy, she will be eligible for parole in 15 years. If not, she would spend the rest of her life in prison.
01:20:10
He asked the jury to return the next morning to hear from both sides. First, Natalie's.
01:20:15
One by one, members of her family spoke glowingly about her, including her dad and mom.
01:20:21
Please give mercy to her. It won't be for me, probably, but it will be for her and her children and grandchildren.
01:20:26
And once again Natalie children took the stand A lot of us really want our mom back Really want her back And I just beg beg you give her mercy She a great woman I always kind of considered her to be my best
01:20:45
friend. I missed her at my high school graduation and I missed her on the day I moved into college.
01:20:50
I'm begging you to give her mercy so that I don't have to miss more. For the prosecution, several of Michael's friends spoke, including Chris Davis.
01:21:08
Mike was a very strong man. He's a good man. He wasn't sick. He wasn't ready to die.
01:21:16
He had a message for the jury. I thank you. I know Mike would thank you. Finally, Michael's parents had a chance to say what was in their hearts.
01:21:26
They had loved Natalie, but not anymore. Evil must be held accountable. Natalie Cochran must be held accountable.
01:21:35
We ask that you please, please, no mercy. She never gave Michael any mercy. Less than two hours later, jurors had made a decision.
01:21:47
We, the jury, unanimously do not recommend mercy. They sentence Natalie Cochran to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
01:21:57
She's appealing the verdict. Michael's parents say even though there was justice for Michael, there were no winners.
01:22:03
Not only did they lose their son, their family has been torn apart. They haven't spoken to Michael's children in six years.
01:22:11
If they ever see this, what would you say to your grandchildren? Well, hopefully one day, you know, maybe they'll come and want to talk to us.
01:22:19
Maybe they want to come and ask us some questions about their dad. There's things about their dad that we would like to share with them.
01:22:27
He was just a tremendous young man. He had the biggest heart and the biggest smile.
01:22:32
And he was so handsome. He had a lot of friends out there. And so, you know, we just love to keep his story alive and keep it out there and keep his memory alive.
01:22:43
With your faith, you know you'll be together again someday. Yes, we will. Yes. Looking forward to that day.
01:22:54
That's all for this edition of Dateline. And check out our Talking Dateline podcast.
01:23:00
Andrea Canning and Blaine Alexander will go behind the scenes of tonight's episode.
01:23:04
Available Wednesday in the Dateline feed wherever you get your podcasts. We'll see you again Sunday at 10, 9 central.
01:23:12
I'm Lester Holt for all of us at NBC News. Good night.