00:00:05
[music playing] WILL HANRAHAN: Terri
O'Donnell knows these woods like the back of her hand.
00:00:27
She's been searching for
signs of her former lover Chris Regan, who one day
in 2014 simply disappeared.
00:00:36
Terri was expecting to help
Chris move house that day. I kept texting, messaging
him, and I got no response.
00:00:45
And normally, he would respond
immediately or when he would have a break if he was at work.
00:00:50
I drove by the apartment. My parents own the
apartments, and it was behind our grocery store.
00:00:57
His truck was there
but his car was gone. So I thought he's busy. He had packing to do.
00:01:02
He had to find a place to
live down in North Carolina. He had a lot of
things to get done,
00:01:07
and I thought maybe
he just needed a little space so he could
get everything taken care of.
00:01:14
And a week went by, and I
still hadn't heard from him. On October 27 of 2014,
I met Terri O'Donnell,
00:01:23
who came to the
police department as I was leaving for the day. She was shook up.
00:01:28
She was crying. That's when she told me
that something was wrong. Her friend was missing.
00:01:35
She came into the office and
explained to me what she found. She hadn't heard from
him since October 14.
00:01:42
TERRI O'DONNELL: I was talking
to people at work and I was-- you know, what should I do?
00:01:46
I can get a hold of him. Then I went up to the
apartment, knocked on the door. There was no one there.
00:01:51
And everyone told me
that I was being paranoid and that I should just relax. We weren't dating and maybe
he found someone else.
00:02:03
She checked in with
him pretty much daily. And that's why it was
odd to her when she
00:02:08
couldn't make contact with him. TERRI O'DONNELL:
I started asking people that he worked with.
00:02:14
And one of my friends
that he works with told me he hadn't been
at work for over a week.
00:02:19
She knew that he was
going somewhere that night, but where is he? Why wouldn't he
show up for his job,
00:02:27
and why wouldn't he say
a last goodbye to her? And then I got
panicky, and then he
00:02:36
told me that he saw
Christopher's car at the park and ride in Bates. And so I drove out that
evening to the park
00:02:46
and ride and his car was there. I couldn't get in the car. And I was afraid that
he was in the trunk.
00:02:52
I knew something
happened to him. I knew he wasn't coming back. LAURA FRIZZO: Terri had told me
where Chris had been working.
00:02:59
And I happen to know the human
resource director there very well and told me that
there was a woman
00:03:05
that he was allegedly
having an affair with that also worked there. So I asked her who
that woman was.
00:03:12
This woman was Kelly Cochran. WILL HANRAHAN: Within days of
hearing that Chris Regan was
00:03:18
missing, Detective
Frizzo strongly suspected he'd been murdered. This woman, Kelly Cochran, was
someone she needed to speak to,
00:03:27
a woman who police
would one day also want to talk about the death of
her husband Jason Cochran.
00:03:33
WALT AMMERMAN III: Well,
there was a phone call on February 20, Kelly
contacting me to say
00:03:38
that Jason had died that night. And immediately, my wife
told me, well, she did it.
00:03:47
WILL HANRAHAN: But
what had she done? One man missing,
presumed murdered, another mysteriously dead
and the common denominator,
00:03:55
Kelly Cochran. Did she kill her husband Jason
to cover up the other murder? How had it come to this?
00:04:15
The then Kelly Gaboyan grew
up on Mississippi Street in Merrillville, Indiana. By the late '90s, the
eldest of three siblings
00:04:24
was living in what would soon
be officially designated Hobart. Real estate agents call
it sparse suburbia.
00:04:35
It's south of Chicago. Kelly's family raised animals
on the broad, open fields adjacent to her home.
00:04:43
But she got bored, became
quite the hell raiser. LAURA FRIZZO: I know that
Kelly had gotten into trouble.
00:04:51
And this is based on
what her mother reported. As a juvenile, she
had a lot of troubles.
00:04:56
They couldn't keep
her under control. She ended up in a
juvenile facility. WILL HANRAHAN: When
a teen, her mother
00:05:02
threatened to throw her out. She was using a lot
of drugs, heroin, and so was her boyfriend.
00:05:09
Kelly and Jason started dating
shortly after high school. WILL HANRAHAN: His
name, Jason Cochran.
00:05:15
LAURA FRIZZO: Kelly indicated
that they were neighbors. She referred to him
as the boy next door.
00:05:20
From people that knew them,
went to school with them, it sounds like Jason
was a quiet guy.
00:05:27
WILL HANRAHAN: It
was the year 2000. Graduation for Kelly was on
the horizon, an important year
00:05:32
too for she and Jason. Walt Ammerman would
one day become a friend to both Kelly and Jason.
00:05:42
High school
sweethearts and married since she got out of school. And it sounded like
any happy couple
00:05:55
is what it looked
like on the outside and what I felt I
was dealing with. WILL HANRAHAN: But from
the start of the romance,
00:06:02
there were issues. CAROLYN CANVILLE: Were
they a good match? Kelly's brother,
Colton didn't think so.
00:06:08
He thought they were
like oil and water. They just were so
opposite and never should have gotten together.
00:06:14
And he really told
them that they just never should have done it. LAURA FRIZZO: They
ended up marrying.
00:06:20
Her mother says they had a
nice church wedding for them and everything seemed normal.
00:06:23
But I think a lot of times
her mother tried to see her as normal or make her seem normal.
00:06:28
And she always knew there
was something not right. WILL HANRAHAN:
Kelly's heroin use
00:06:34
had been so bad that her mother
told friends she would only allow her daughter to
visit if she subjected
00:06:39
herself to a drugs test. But Kelly and Jason's
marriage seemed to have had a positive effect on them.
00:06:46
Maybe the marriage would
be the making of them. Kelly's parents had been
together for 40 years.
00:06:51
So she'd seen how it might work
in the event the relationship had its ups and downs.
00:06:58
She says, Jason used to
be the light of my life. It was so upbeat and
happy, easy-go-lucky.
00:07:04
But then he started
getting, kind of, dark. It's like I could see
the devil in his eyes.
00:07:09
It just wasn't the
same guy I married. MICHAEL SCHOLKE: Looking
at their relationship,
00:07:13
it did not seem to be the
strongest relationship. There were phone
calls and texts that
00:07:18
went back and forth,
somewhere rather demeaning from Jason to Kelly. WILL HANRAHAN: But as
with most marriages,
00:07:24
there were two ways of looking
at the couple's relationship. Laura Frizzo, a detective in
the Upper Peninsula Michigan,
00:07:32
would spend a long time
analyzing this marriage. It sounds like
Jason was a quiet guy
00:07:38
and Kelly was more always
a dominant, strong female. He would have dinner
ready for her in waiting,
00:07:46
begging her to come home. WILL HANRAHAN: For
Kelly, Jason became controlling, jealous,
passive, and sometimes not so
00:07:54
passive aggressive. Jason's friends sketched a
different picture of the couple as they lived out their
early married life in Hobart.
00:08:01
I would say that
their marriage was controlled by Kelly. Their lives together
were controlled by her.
00:08:08
She did all the cooking,
the financing, everything, the grocery shopping. He didn't really do
much of anything.
00:08:16
He just did what he
could to keep her happy. MICHAEL SCHOLKE:
It's really hard to say who the dominant
figure was in the relationship
00:08:22
between Kelly and Jason. Certainly, it can be
inferred that Kelly was the dominant figure.
00:08:28
That was something the
jury certainly believed. But when you look
at the evidence
00:08:31
and looking at the texts
and the tenor of some of these texts that
were sent back and forth
00:08:35
and some of the messages,
it doesn't necessarily lead me to the conclusion that
Kelly was a dominant person.
00:08:44
WILL HANRAHAN:
Getting to the truth of who ruled the roost
in the Cochran household
00:08:48
was never easy. Walt Ammerman got to
know Jason and sometimes Kelly too when they would
play online video games.
00:08:55
WALT AMMERMAN III: I think
I could use the examples of their relationship like
we would be playing the game
00:09:00
and if I was playing the
game and somebody came over, my wife or anybody
came home, I would say,
00:09:08
hey, somebody's home. I'm going to have to
go in a little bit. But with him it was,
Kelly's home, I got to go
00:09:14
and he was gone. And you might not talk
to him till the next day. It was like he didn't want to be
doing anything fun without her.
00:09:25
It would be OK if she
wanted to play the game and get online later. He would be back.
00:09:29
But he didn't really-- I don't feel he ever
really wanted to cross her. WILL HANRAHAN: The couple
did not have children
00:09:39
and in 2013 left the Hobart
area for the Upper Peninsula. They suddenly
turned up in an area
00:09:45
where they had no
friends, no family. The reasons for the move
was something of a mystery.
00:09:51
Kelly and Jason Cochran
weren't from Iron River. They were some of those
people that just showed up.
00:09:58
All of a sudden, one
day they were here. WILL HANRAHAN: The
reason they gave did not ring true with those who
knew or would get to know them.
00:10:07
LAURA FRIZZO: Through my
discussions with Kelly and Jason Cochran early on, I
inquired as to why they moved
00:10:13
to upper Michigan from Indiana. And Kelly's response
was, Jason's got medical issues and Michigan has
the medical marijuana law now
00:10:25
so that he can smoke
marijuana in Michigan legally for his medical issues. And that too was a red flag
for me being that where they
00:10:34
resided in Indiana was only 40
miles or so from the Michigan border in lower Michigan.
00:10:42
So why would you
move 6 and 1/2 hours into Michigan from Indiana? It didn't really make sense.
00:10:52
To me, they were
running from something. WALT AMMERMAN III: He really
wanted to be someplace warmer.
00:10:58
And he really wanted
someplace oddly enough that he could smoke medical
marijuana because he felt it
00:11:04
helped his back and his pain. And that was a better pain
relief than the hard Percocet
00:11:10
type drugs. So they did find a
place in Michigan which does have medical marijuana.
00:11:15
But it's not any warmer. In fact, it's much
colder up there. It seemed right for them.
00:11:20
The money was right. They had two dogs. The only downside
was the fact that it wasn't a warmer location.
00:11:27
But for something,
it worked for them. MICHAEL SCHOLKE: I
asked some statements as to why they
moved from Indiana
00:11:35
to Iron River, Michigan. And they were just looking
for new opportunities, it's my understanding.
00:11:40
It's a beautiful area. I'm not familiar with the part
of Indiana that they're from.
00:11:44
I've been told it's not the
greatest area in the world. And I think they were just
looking to get a fresh start
00:11:49
and came to an area
that they thought he could get a fresh start at. WILL HANRAHAN: Whatever or
whoever you believe, in 2013,
00:11:57
Kelly and Jason
from Hobart, Indiana were living a 9-hour drive
away in the Upper Peninsula
00:12:02
and were about to
embark on a highly unconventional lifestyle,
one not usually associated
00:12:08
with married couples. I was having dinner
with Jason and Kelly at a restaurant
there in their town.
00:12:16
And oddly, she asked him,
did you show Walt our friend? I had no idea what
she was talking about.
00:12:30
And he showed me a picture of a
half naked woman on his phone. And Kelly said, yeah, I found
a friend for Jason and I
00:12:37
because I love him so much that
I wanted to keep him happy. And that threw me for a loop.
00:12:49
WILL HANRAHAN: The
couple were indeed occasionally a throuple-- Kelly, Jason, and
whoever Kelly could
00:12:55
find for the man in her life
to share sex sessions with, not necessarily a recipe
for a happy marriage,
00:13:02
a desire to their lives,
which was not about to keep everybody in Iron River happy.
00:13:07
Kelly talked about the
affair she was having with Chris, and how
Jason was aware of it,
00:13:13
and he was OK with it that
they had an open marriage. WILL HANRAHAN: An affair
with this man, Chris Regan.
00:13:19
They had met. They had married. But had the lives of
the teenage sweethearts become so full of
worldly intrigues
00:13:25
that theirs was a story
about to end in murder? In the Upper Peninsula in
2013, Kelly and Jason Cochran
00:13:42
lived in this house. Kelly worked as a
garden pool fixer. Jason complained
that his back made
00:13:50
it impossible for him to work. Married for 12 years,
the couple revealed to friends a bizarre
pact that they
00:13:58
had made on their wedding day. If either took a lover, the
other could kill that lover.
00:14:05
JEREMY OGDEN: She
says that her and her husband entered into this
pact on their marriage night.
00:14:13
And so she tells me
about the marriage pact about killing each other's
lovers or killing the lover.
00:14:20
WILL HANRAHAN: Around
this time, Kelly did have a lover, his name, Chris Regan. He likes the Upper Peninsula.
00:14:26
It's beautiful, lots
of rivers and lakes. And actually, that's one thing
Christopher liked about Iron
00:14:32
River is he loved nature. He loved the woods. And so that part is beautiful. And the people are nice.
00:14:40
The people I work
with are very kind. WILL HANRAHAN: His relationship
with Terri O'Donnell
00:14:46
was a case of friends
being reunited. They'd first met in 1980. Both had married then divorced.
00:14:53
Terri stayed in the
UP, Chris had left. We got back together
through the internet.
00:15:00
And we started chatting. And he was divorced,
and I was divorced. And so we decided
to meet up again.
00:15:07
And so we met up
and wined and dined and just had a wonderful time
and just started dating again.
00:15:16
It was awesome. It was wonderful, yeah. When Chris would look at me, I'd
just melt. He was charismatic.
00:15:29
And he just made you feel
like you were everything, that you were the only person in
the room when he looked at you.
00:15:39
WILL HANRAHAN: Soon
after Chris moved back to the Upper Peninsula,
the old friends became an item.
00:15:44
But the relationship
stalled when Terri learned that her charming
man kept a guilty secret.
00:15:50
Christopher had an
issue with pornography that I found out afterwards
when him and I started
00:15:58
talking more about why he needed
a little bit more alone time. He was hooked on
things on the internet.
00:16:08
And I didn't agree with that. And that's why we broke up. I still loved him. And maybe that's why
we stayed friends.
00:16:19
I kept in touch with him. He would still call or
text, but we couldn't date. We couldn't be a couple
because it just wasn't right,
00:16:29
at least for me. That wasn't right. WILL HANRAHAN: It was shortly
after Terri and Chris had
00:16:34
split that she learned
how Kelly Cochran had entered the picture. TERRI O'DONNELL: That's when
him and Kelly hooked up.
00:16:41
CAROLYN CANVILLE: She winds at
meeting Chris Regan on this job at a mine equipment company.
00:16:48
TERRI O'DONNELL: I think she
gave him that part of his life, whatever he wanted to
satisfy that need because it
00:16:56
wasn't love but it was sex. CAROLYN CANVILLE: Kelly wasn't
exactly loyal to her husband.
00:17:04
She cheated on him. She'd had a number of
affairs over the course of the marriage.
00:17:09
And this was an issue for Jason. Jason would get
really depressed when she was having these affairs
and even to the point
00:17:17
where he thought about
committing suicide. It bothered him. But he was afraid
of losing his wife.
00:17:23
So he tried to allow her
to basically live her life and not interfere with it. But it was clearly
driving him crazy.
00:17:31
WALT AMMERMAN III: When
they were in the UP, I was aware that Jason had
went to a mental hospital
00:17:36
for a few weeks. I want to say it was probably
mentioned that there was a possible affair with
somebody or the marriage
00:17:44
wasn't going well. CAROLYN CANVILLE: So
Kelly's really liking this relationship with Chris.
00:17:49
She's having a good time. But Chris isn't liking the job. And he's got a
bad knee, and he's
00:17:56
not going be able to
continue this job for long. So he applies for this
office job in Asheville,
00:18:00
North Carolina and he gets it. And he's really excited
and Kelly is not. TERRI O'DONNELL: For his new
job he had to have a physical.
00:18:10
And actually, that's
the last day I spoke to him was October 14, 2014. That morning, it was about
6:00 AM in the morning,
00:18:20
he called me and told me
that he was going to be going to Marshfield the next day.
00:18:26
And as long as everything
came back OK with his physical that he would have
the job and he
00:18:34
would call me when he got back. WILL HANRAHAN: There
were now at least three people in the Cochran marriage.
00:18:42
And one of them
didn't like it, Jason. Meanwhile, the Cochran's
had their pact. Bizarre as it
seems, if they were
00:18:52
to honor their
secret wedding vow, Jason now had the right in
the eyes of Jason and Kelly
00:18:58
to kill her lover. Ahead of leaving the
UP for North Carolina, Chris Regan had asked his
old flame, Terri O'Donnell,
00:19:08
to help him. We were going to make
plans to go for and eat and then I was going to
help him pack and move
00:19:16
things and store
some of his things for him while he was
in North Carolina. CAROLYN CANVILLE: So
Chris Regan's really
00:19:31
excited about his new job. The day before he's supposed
to leave Iron River to go
00:19:35
to the Carolinas and
take this new job, Kelly invites him
over for dinner. Come on over.
00:19:40
Have some lasagna. There might be something
else in it for you too. So she figures
some farewell sex.
00:19:46
That will lure him over. BRIAN HARRIS: So off he went
to Kelly Cochran's house. When he arrived, they
had their dinner,
00:19:56
and they had their embrace. And while embraced in each
other's arms, their bodies
00:20:04
intertwined, Kelly's
husband sneaks up onto Chris while Chris is
still in the arms of Kelly.
00:20:16
And Kelly's husband pulls
the trigger, a single shotgun blast to his head. And Kelly was in on it.
00:20:28
She knew how she held him there. She could see that
shotgun being raised up and put to the head of Chris.
00:20:36
And a single loud explosion,
there would have been blood, there would have been
brains everywhere,
00:20:45
including on Kelly herself. She would have been covered
in brain matter and blood
00:20:52
from somebody that she was
just sexually intertwined with. CAROLYN CANVILLE: So
now Chris is dead.
00:20:59
What do they do? They take Chris's body. They bring it down
to the basement. They lie it on a
sheet of plastic,
00:21:07
and they take an
electric buzz saw, and they start carving
up Chris Regan's body.
00:21:14
And they're using
this electric handsaw. In fact, Kelly later admits
that she had to go out and buy
00:21:19
a cord for this handsaw. And they're cutting his body. They're sawing it into pieces.
00:21:25
And they're dumping the
parts into garbage bags. They take the garbage bags
then they get the electric saw.
00:21:33
They take the plastic,
they take it out. They have a burn pit
in their backyard.
00:21:37
All of the evidence
there and they burn it in the burn
pit in their backyard. Then they take this burn
barrel and they loaded
00:21:45
in their vehicle and
they take it to a place called the Caspian Pit. It's this big mining area.
00:21:56
And that's where they
bury the burn barrel, the evidence of their crime. Then they take the body
parts to a remote field
00:22:05
and they just dump
it in the woods. WILL HANRAHAN:
Chris had told Terri about his illicit relationship
with Kelly Cochran.
00:22:13
So Terri felt Cochran
might know something about his sudden disappearance. The Caspian Pit is
just a few yards
00:22:20
from the Cochran homestead. And in a macabre
irony, Terri would walk near to where
her former lover's
00:22:26
body had been discarded
without seeing any trace of him herself. I kept looking and
searching for Christopher.
00:22:34
I would walk back
behind Cochran's home trying to find something. I was afraid if Kelly ever
found out that I was the one who
00:22:44
reported him missing, I
was afraid her husband might come looking for me. LAURA FRIZZO: So it would be
not long after that my sergeant
00:22:53
makes contact with Chris
Regan's vehicle in the park and ride and gains entry to it
just to be sure that there's
00:23:02
not someone in the trunk
or whatever and notices on the front seat
flipped upside down
00:23:08
is a piece of paper
with directions. And I just remember her saying,
I can't make heads or tails
00:23:13
of these directions, but
this is what's laying on the front seat of his car. And as she reads
me the directions,
00:23:18
it matches the directions
to Kelly Cochran's house. So immediately I've
got some red flags.
00:23:25
WILL HANRAHAN: Laura Frizzo
became convinced Chris Regan had been killed
on the night that
00:23:29
he had gone to Kelly Cochran's. But she couldn't prove it. Meanwhile, Jason
and Kelly Cochran
00:23:34
were claiming to know nothing. They got back on with
being Mr. And Mrs. Cochran.
00:23:39
But they were suspects one
and two in what would soon become a murder investigation.
00:23:45
JEREMY OGDEN: I
tell her, so that would mean that you
were responsible to kill Chris Regan.
00:23:57
WILL HANRAHAN: Chris
Regan is missing. And suspected as
having something to do with his disappearance,
the married couple, Jason
00:24:03
and Kelly Cochran. State troopers go to
the Cochran household. LAURA FRIZZO: They were
met by Jason Cochran
00:24:11
and Kelly presents herself. They talked to her outside. She admits that she'd been
having an affair with Chris.
00:24:18
She admits that she
knew he was supposed to have shown up for a medical
appointment for his new job.
00:24:25
But she claims that she
hadn't seen him since around the 12th, 13th of October. WILL HANRAHAN:
One of the reasons
00:24:35
that the detectives had pitched
up to the Cochran household was the discovery of a yellow
Post-it note with directions
00:24:41
on it to Kelly's home in Chris
Regan's car at a park and ride. I asked Kelly
if she thought it
00:24:48
was odd that Chris's car would
be parked in the park and ride. And her response, Kelly's
response to the sergeant was,
00:24:56
yeah, I'd find that very odd. He loved that car, past tense. And she found that to
be very odd as well.
00:25:03
They haven't said
anything that he's murdered or that he's missing. She's already referring
to him in the past tense.
00:25:13
TERRI O'DONNELL: I knew that
Christopher wasn't alive anymore. I knew something's happened
to him, that somebody
00:25:21
did something to him. WILL HANRAHAN: Terri
and the detectives felt certain that
Chris had been murdered
00:25:28
and the Cochran's were
probably responsible. They were right but had
no proof and no body.
00:25:35
Enter Michael Neiger,
a former cop himself. He and colleagues
volunteer to offer
00:25:40
support in unsolved homicides
in missing person cases. I got involved
about three weeks
00:25:47
after Chris went missing and
saw that they hadn't found him. And it may be that he wasn't
around the park and ride,
00:25:52
that his body wasn't out there
and they hadn't missed him. So I do a lot of double checking
and stuff and looking at stuff.
00:25:58
By that time, the
chief, Chief Frizzo had a good handle on the case. And I became like a foot
soldier for her, doing
00:26:06
what she needed to get done. WILL HANRAHAN:
Neiger found nothing. Almost at the start
of the homicide hunt,
00:26:13
the trail had gone cold. But Jason Cochran
was feeling the heat. LAURA FRIZZO: I remember
during the interview
00:26:19
with Jason Cochran, how
he immediately entered the interview room and
immediately broke down,
00:26:25
began to cry about his
health issues and his life. And it was just my
opinion at that time
00:26:34
that people don't generally
act that way, that that to me was a sign of guilt or
nervousness or anxiety
00:26:41
or whatever it was. But to me, it wasn't normal. And to me, it was
a huge red flag.
00:26:46
WILL HANRAHAN: As agitated
as Jason was, Kelly was not. Kelly was just
so calm and cool
00:26:55
and relaxed that anyone
that would have met her for the first time would have
thought there's no way she can
00:27:02
hold it together this well if
she had taken part in something like this. The body language, she
was able to control.
00:27:08
Jason was completely
the opposite. Kelly said, oh, I stopped
by and he wasn't home.
00:27:14
I didn't know where he was just
like it was just another day. WILL HANRAHAN: Five months pass
and still no sign of a body.
00:27:28
The Post-it note and the
messed up relationship issues was all detectives
had to go on, not
00:27:33
enough to get a guilty verdict. So the Iron River
Police go for broke. It was the first week of
March and there was still
00:27:42
snow on the ground,
and we decide we're going to go ahead
and do this first search
00:27:47
warrant that I finally
have enough probable cause where I just need to do it. We conduct the search
warrant, the Michigan State
00:27:53
Police lab personnel
comes down from Marquette, collects evidence. And based on their findings,
we really felt positive
00:28:02
that we were going
to have something, we were going to have enough. WILL HANRAHAN: It
turned up nothing.
00:28:08
They set up further searches
of the Upper Peninsula. Where was Chris's body? MICHAEL NEIGER: Iron County
is a very rugged area.
00:28:16
It's a historic area
with a lot of old mining. So we have a lot of old
mines and mining relics.
00:28:23
And we have a lot
of calving grounds where old mine shafts
and stuff have caved in
00:28:28
and then they fill
them with water. So you have a lot of those types
of areas which are common often
00:28:37
very easy to conceal evidence,
to dispose of evidence, to hide evidence,
a lot of places
00:28:43
for potential
clandestine burial sites. WILL HANRAHAN: With an
investigation in full flow,
00:28:49
it became clear to the
Cochran's that it was time to leave the Upper Peninsula. Under suspicion of murder,
yes, but with no evidence
00:28:57
and no body, Frizzo
and her colleagues could do nothing to stop the
couple heading back to Hobart.
00:29:03
LAURA FRIZZO: The
following morning, Kelly and Jason Cochran take off. They completely leave,
taking just what
00:29:11
they could fit in
their truck and would never return to Michigan. WILL HANRAHAN:
But the strain was
00:29:18
beginning to show inside
the Cochran marital home. LAURA FRIZZO: And it was
very apparent that he
00:29:23
had become somewhat suicidal
at times and was falling apart. And she noticed
that was happening.
00:29:30
And I think she became
fearful that he may say things to get her in trouble. WILL HANRAHAN: To
friends hearing
00:29:40
their story for the first
time, it seemed an odd move. WALT AMMERMAN III: I didn't hear
from them for close to a month.
00:29:46
And I guess it always bugged me
that as soon as he called me, he told me that they just got
their phones and computers back
00:29:54
because the police
had took them and they think they're responsible
for a person who's missing.
00:30:00
Now, he could have called me and
told me that his internet was shut off and he didn't
pay his electric bill
00:30:06
or anything for a month and
I would have believed that. I knew they had
some money problems,
00:30:13
but that seemed really
odd to me that that would be the first thing
he would tell me,
00:30:17
openly tell me that
they're being investigated for a person that's missing. WILL HANRAHAN: By
now, Walt Ammerman
00:30:25
was noticing how controlling
of Jason that Kelly had become. WALT AMMERMAN III: I felt
like he never really wanted
00:30:30
to make Kelly mad at anything. I felt like he was
at times maybe-- I don't want to
say afraid of her,
00:30:40
but I think that there
was some apprehension there of some sort. On the other hand, Kelly
was very controlling, very
00:30:48
wanting to control everything. WILL HANRAHAN: In 2016, two
years after the disappearance
00:30:54
of Chris Regan, the relationship
of the married couple now living in this house in Hobart
had deteriorated as people
00:31:00
nearby heard of
why Jason and Kelly had left the Upper Peninsula. WALT AMMERMAN III: So the
word was out that they
00:31:06
were being investigated. And it's like the black
sheep of the town, the new people that came to
town, now somebody is missing.
00:31:15
And I think everybody
had red flags up there more so than I did. WILL HANRAHAN: Largely
friendless, with Kelly
00:31:24
working alone whilst Jason's
continued back issues meant he was unable to help in
the garden pool business,
00:31:31
carrying the burden of guilt
of having murdered Chris Regan, still under suspicion,
the Cochran marriage
00:31:38
was now in a bad place. And Kelly's behavior
towards Jason just seemed to some plain mean.
00:31:45
My wife did not like Kelly
from the minute she met her. She didn't trust her. I didn't believe it.
00:31:52
But I guess she felt
vastly different about trusting either one of
them, and especially Kelly.
00:32:01
WILL HANRAHAN: February
2016, and Kelly Cochran picks up a phone at their home. The couple was
still using drugs,
00:32:07
heroin the narcotic of choice. CAROLYN CANVILLE:
Kelly calls 911. He's not breathing.
00:32:13
His mouth, it's like he's not-- I don't know what's going on. It might be an overdose.
I don't know what's wrong.
00:32:18
She's panicking. BRIAN HARRIS: The
police arrive, and from all apparent
appearances, it
00:32:24
looks as though Jason
is a heroin user and Jason has
overdosed on heroin. WILL HANRAHAN: Indeed, that
was the preliminary conclusion.
00:32:34
Jason, like so many heroin
addicts, had killed himself. Within hours, Kelly contacted
the couple's mutual friend.
00:32:41
So there was a
phone call on February 20, Kelly contacted me to say
that Jason had died that night.
00:32:49
And immediately, my wife
told me, well, she did it. So I contacted
the FBI and I said
00:32:58
I knew Jason and Kelly
very good and they had told me that they
were being looked
00:33:04
at for this person missing. They have not told me
anything about the fact that they did it or
anything like that,
00:33:11
but my wife really
feels that I needed to let you know that one
of them died on Saturday
00:33:18
and this is Monday. And right away, the guy
said, how did Jason die? I said, I didn't even
tell you it was Jason.
00:33:25
He said, if one of them
died, it was Jason, and we need to get on that. LAURA FRIZZO: I get a call
from two the FBI agents
00:33:36
that I've been working
with will tell me they got a call
on their tip line saying that something
was not right,
00:33:43
that they feel like Kelly was
involved in Jason's death. They feel that there's something
more to this Michigan case,
00:33:51
with the missing man. WILL HANRAHAN: With Frizzo
now energized in the Upper Peninsula, a second season
detective, Jeremy Ogden,
00:33:59
was about to get involved
seven hours away in Indiana. I answered a phone call
from the FBI tip line.
00:34:06
And they said that they had
received an anonymous call. We needed to take a closer
look at Jason Cochran's death.
00:34:15
And at that time, I didn't
even know that he had died. They said that it was a
possibility that Jason Cochran
00:34:20
and Kelly Cochran had
been involved in a missing persons case up in
the UP and that they
00:34:27
fled to Hobart, Indiana. WILL HANRAHAN: Walt
Ammerman and his wife did not believe that Jason had
died from a heroin overdose
00:34:37
and neither did Laura
Frizzo or Jeremy Ogden. And Terri O'Donnell was
certain that Chris Regan
00:34:42
had been killed by
Jason or Kelly or both. The forces of law and
order were getting serious.
00:34:49
Jeremy Ogden tells Kelly he'll
pitch up to Jason's funeral. I had been standing in the
back of the room watching her
00:34:56
before I ever walked up there. And she had sat
there pretty silent and I hadn't seen
her shed a tear.
00:35:04
She was just sitting
there very quiet, and she looked angry almost. And so after I paid my
respects, I walked up to her
00:35:13
and I gave her a hug. And I think it shocked her. She acted as though she
was crying at that point.
00:35:21
She seemed like she was upset. And I just went on my way and
I sat in the back of the room.
00:35:26
And I sat there. There's a cousin to
the family who knew me from my law enforcement career.
00:35:32
And he followed
me outside and he said, what are you doing here? And I said, I'm looking
into Jason's death.
00:35:43
And he said, well, you're
going to want to pay attention. I said, OK. WILL HANRAHAN: Ogden is
told to dig deeper into what
00:35:54
had happened to Jason,
the story of the one time teenage sweethearts
who married to escape
00:35:59
the mess they'd made
of their early lives had already ended in tragedy. Would it end with the
discovery that Kelly
00:36:05
Cochran was a double killer? If so, detectives
would need a confession and made use of a bold plan
involving a fictitious letter.
00:36:15
I said, I need you
to do something for me. I want you to be my confidential
informant Walt looked at me
00:36:20
and he said, am I
going to be in danger? WILL HANRAHAN: Both Laura
Frizzo and Jeremy Ogden
00:36:33
became convinced that the key to
getting Kelly Cochran to admit to the murder of
her husband Jason
00:36:39
was to get to the bottom of
where the body of Chris Regan was. I had to find out
where Christopher
00:36:45
Regan was disposed
of in order for Kelly to confess to killing Jason. I knew this from
the very beginning.
00:36:53
And I knew that she would
never confess to killing Jason unless I somehow
got her to admit
00:37:00
what happened to Chris Regan. WILL HANRAHAN: The open
spaces of the Upper Peninsula
00:37:05
meant that searching for
the body of Chris Regan was truly like hunting for
a needle in a haystack.
00:37:11
But in early 2017, Mike
Neiger and his team got a breakthrough, what was
then a relatively new system
00:37:18
of tracing where Kelly had
been by tracking her phone proved that she had been
at the same park and ride
00:37:25
where Chris Regan's
car had been abandoned. Then by searching the
Cochran's computer
00:37:30
hard drives detectives
also discovered images of a particular
place in the UP, one
00:37:36
where satellite
imagery suggested bodies would be easy to hide. We ended up finding
a satellite image,
00:37:44
Google satellite imagery, that
zoomed right in several times focused in on the Caspian
Pit on a specific piece
00:37:53
of the bank of the Caspian Pit. WILL HANRAHAN: The pit was
near to the Cochran house.
00:37:59
Next came further
revelations from the imagery on the hard drive. In the end, we were
able to establish
00:38:05
that by looking at the date
when that was downloaded from Google, it was prior to,
in the end when we learned,
00:38:12
it was prior to when
Chris was murdered. WILL HANRAHAN: When
detectives visited the site,
00:38:17
they also discovered a
burn barrel big enough to have been used to
dispose of body parts,
00:38:22
and one whose shape
fitted exactly a space in Kelly and Jason's gone. MICHAEL NEIGER: Chief Frizzo,
using some state police divers,
00:38:31
found the barrel for the weapon
that was used to kill Chris. And that was relatively
near the Cochran's house.
00:38:42
It was just a couple
of roads away. You could basically see
that from their house almost
00:38:47
if it wasn't for some trees. WILL HANRAHAN: In Indiana,
Jeremy Ogden began probing
00:38:52
Kelly Cochran in interviews. Why had that burn barrel
turned up in the Caspian Pit?
00:38:58
Why was her car in
the same car park as Chris Regan's the
day he went missing? And then came the decision
to set up a sting operation
00:39:06
involving Walt Ammerman. JEREMY OGDEN: And I sat
down with Walt and his wife. I talked to Walt for all
of about five minutes.
00:39:12
And I said, you
are the kind of man that every detective
hopes walks into his case.
00:39:20
And I need you to
do something for me. I want you to be my
confidential informant.
00:39:26
And I said I'd do
whatever I could, but I don't know what I can do. And he said, I have an idea.
00:39:32
And I want you to call
her on a recorded call and I'd like you to tell
her that Jason mailed you
00:39:38
a letter a while back and wanted
you to hold onto it in case something ever happened to him.
00:39:42
JEREMY OGDEN: If in
the event something occurs to me, if I were to
die, please forward this letter
00:39:48
to the Iron River
Police Department Attention Chief Laura Frizzo. Do not open the letter that's
contained within this manila
00:39:56
envelope, please. And I signed it
Jason or whatever. And he said, OK, well, we
have to make some changes.
00:40:05
And I said, OK, well,
what do we need to change? And he said well he would
never sign Jason to me.
00:40:09
He would sign Quack Quack. He goes, it's what he
always called himself to me. I said, OK.
00:40:14
So we make it Quack Quack. So we fine-tune
the letter and Walt added his two cents into it
and made it very authentic.
00:40:23
And honestly, my
first thought was this is never going to work. She is too smart.
00:40:28
She knows everyone's
looking at her closely right now, especially
with her husband dying.
00:40:33
There is no way she's
going to fall for this. But I was willing
to try anything.
00:40:41
WALT AMMERMAN III: I
was very apprehensive. I didn't really think she
was going to believe it.
00:40:45
He assured me that
he could probably get a lawyer to do it
in town, a local one and say Jason contacted him.
00:40:51
But he really felt
that it would be more believable coming from me. JEREMY OGDEN: The
letter brought things
00:41:00
along quickly because Walt
Ammerman, he was so convincing. When Steve and I met with
Walt and set him up and said,
00:41:09
OK, we're going to do this
call, Walt sitting in the truck and he's shaken and he's
like, Jeremy, I don't know.
00:41:15
And I said, Walt, be yourself. Take a breath. Your friend's dead. He was your friend.
00:41:24
No matter what he did,
he was your friend I called her. And it was convenient
that she was busy so it
00:41:30
was going to be a short call. I found out later she was
at his parent's house. I just said I had this letter
that Jason mailed me and told
00:41:38
me to hold onto another letter
and said, if anything ever happened to him, I needed to
send this on to the police
00:41:44
in the Upper Peninsula. Her sigh and her cry and
her, please don't are three things I'll never forget.
00:41:51
It was incredible. I was sitting in the passenger
seat, and I was listening. And as soon as he said Jason
had sent him this letter,
00:41:58
there's this huge
gasp for air by her. And at that moment, I'm
like, OK, OK, hang on.
00:42:04
Hang on. What's coming next? And the next words are
like, don't send it. Don't do that.
00:42:11
Throw it away, whatever
it is that she uses. But it's to get rid of it. Distance yourself from it.
00:42:17
Distance me from it. Don't do this to me. And for those 30 seconds, it
was like I had the biggest fish
00:42:25
of a lifetime on
because I knew that she had taken it all the way. WILL HANRAHAN: Cochran's
murderous game was up.
00:42:33
She took the letter
as authentic. JEREMY OGDEN: They don't want to
tell you until you catch them.
00:42:39
Once you catch a
person like this, then they want to tell you. They don't want to tell
anybody because they still
00:42:47
have that survival
mode in their mind where they're
protecting themselves and they don't
want to go to jail.
00:42:55
And they don't want
to be discovered. I think after you
catch them, then they want to tell you
because they want everyone
00:43:02
to know what they really are. LAURA FRIZZO: He just
sent me an email, and I, of course, right
away opened the email
00:43:11
and there's a copy of
the recording in my email from this phone call. And I thought, oh, obviously,
it didn't go well because he
00:43:18
would have called and told me. So I'm sitting in my office
and I opened this recording.
00:43:25
And when I listened to it, I
just about fell off my chair. And I thought, you know,
he got her [chuckle]..
00:43:33
WILL HANRAHAN: Cochran was
transported up to the Pentoga Trail after admitting
that Chris Regan
00:43:38
had indeed been
murdered near her home in the Upper Peninsula. LAURA FRIZZO: In end of the day,
we go back to that marked area.
00:43:45
And it was myself
and the cadaver dog and the dog handler. And within 10 minutes
of being there,
00:43:51
we locate Chris Regan's skull. Another thing she showed
us that day was where she
00:43:57
threw the gun, which
the Michigan State Police dive team did recover. WILL HANRAHAN: Her
story was that she
00:44:04
and Chris had been
making out at the top of the stairs of the basement. Jason had come across
them and killed Chris
00:44:11
with a single rifle
shot to the head. Cochran later claimed in
court that she was angry
00:44:16
that Jason had
shot Chris and that was what fueled her
involvement in Jason's death.
00:44:22
WALT AMMERMAN III: Her story
is she sat on Jason's chest and held her hands
over his nose and mouth
00:44:27
as he was trying to throw
up from the heroin overdose that she gave him. And she wanted him
to see her and know
00:44:38
that she did that, I think. And I can't wrap my
head around that. I don't think any
normal person can.
00:44:52
WILL HANRAHAN: A juror
at Kelly Cochran's trial remembered a turning
point in her own thinking
00:44:57
about what had actually
happened to Chris Regan. The hardest part, I think, was
when they brought his skull up
00:45:04
as evidence, just listening
to how things went down, luring him into their house.
00:45:14
In my mind, how could
anybody do that? That's all I had in my mind. How could somebody
be so ruthless?
00:45:23
WILL HANRAHAN: Perhaps it was
part of the wedding day pact that the Cochran's
had entered into.
00:45:28
Their marriage pact
was that if one of them had an affair with somebody,
they would kill that person,
00:45:36
whether it be her or Jason. So if Jason had an affair,
the person just an affair with
00:45:42
would get killed and vise versa. TERRI O'DONNELL: These are the
woods where Kelly and Jason had
00:45:57
brought Christopher's remains. The marks that are
on the ground right now is where they
were searching.
00:46:07
I got shivers, not
because of the cold, just because of
where I am right now. When I came out
here on October 14
00:46:17
for Chris's five-year
anniversary of his death, I just got chills. And I could feel him, and it was
just real eerie, eerie feeling.
00:46:26
And knowing that parts of
him are still not found, only his skull has been found.
00:46:38
WILL HANRAHAN: They had met
as two troubled young people who saw each other as offering
a way out of their problems.
00:46:44
They had married with high
hopes and dreams of a lifetime together. But their complex, drug-fueled
sex lives created conflict.
00:46:52
And Kelly Cochran's cold
blooded willingness to kill had claimed the lives of
two men, one her husband.
00:47:00
In May 2017, Kelly Cochran was
sentenced to life in prison without parole at a hearing
in Iron County in Michigan.
00:47:08
She was found guilty
of murder, larceny, conspiracy to
commit dead bodies, concealing the death
of an individual,
00:47:13
and lying to a police
officer in relation to the murder of Chris Regan. She also accepted a sentence of
65 years as part of a plea deal
00:47:22
for the 2016 murder of her
husband Jason in Hobart. [music playing]