November 6, 2025 • 46 mins
The sudden passing of husband and father, Michael Cochran, in 2019, was initially a medical mystery. But when his widow, Natalie Cochran was convicted of fraud, a web of lies and a possible motive were revealed. By 2025 Natalie Cochran stood trial for his murder. Forensic Pathologist Dr. Paul Uribe walks us through the results of the autopsy he conducted on Michael Cochran’s remains and the role of his findings in Natalie Cochran’s shocking murder trial.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This story contains adult content and language. Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
It was my opinion that there was nothing else that
could have killed him. There is no other explanation that
makes even a shred of sense in this case.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
Welcome to the Knife.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
I'm Patia Eton, I'm Hannah Smith, and today we have
an interview for you with a forensic pathologist who worked
on a murder trial. But before we get into the interview,
we're going to give you some information about this case
because it's winding and intriguing and we've both been following
(00:52):
it for a couple of years now. Yeah, so we're
going to start the story. On March eighteenth, twenty twenty one,
a woman named Natalie Cochrane from Beckley, West Virginia was
sentenced to one hundred and thirty five months in federal prison,
which is over eleven years. And the reason that she's
sentenced to prison, she's charged with wire of fraud and
(01:12):
money laundry. She's been running a Ponzi scheme. She orchestrated
this scheme that defrauded victims over two million dollars and
she was ordered to pay two point five million dollars
in restitution and She would also serve a term of
three years of supervis released after the eleven year sentence.
You know, but this is actually just the beginning of
(01:35):
Natalie's problems, right, Like she sent to prison she was
caught for this Ponzi scheme. But once she's already been
charged and convicted, other things start to come out. So
she was arrested in October of twenty nineteen on this
indictment for her Ponzi scheme. But earlier that year, in
February of twenty nineteen, her husband Michael died suddenly. He
(01:56):
was only thirty eight years old, and his death was
very confusing and heartbreaking for his friends and family because
he had been this healthy young guy and then he
suddenly died.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
Yeah, and Natalie and Michael had been married since the
early two thousands. They had two children. Natalie worked as
a pharmacist, Michael as a computer specialist. I even read
that they were actually childhood's sweethearts.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
Yeah, So they'd made this life for themselves in a
small town where you truly feel like you know everyone.
And when Michael passed, the community really rallied around Natalie
because she was suddenly this widow in her thirties, But
leading up to Michael's death in February of twenty nineteen,
there was a lot going on for Natalie and Michael.
(02:40):
Natalie had left her career as a pharmacist. She and
Michael had registered a company called Tactical Solutions Group or TSG,
and this idea for the company was that it would
been on contracts to sell weapons and other goods to
the US government. She needed to race capital, so she's
bringing on investors. Now, this was a company that they
(03:01):
jointly owned, but Natalie had the majority stake and she
was definitely the person at the wheel, and Michael trusted
her implicitly. So she leaves her career as a pharmacist
and she goes all in on TSG. They also opened
another company, TMG, which is Technology Management Systems, similarly working
(03:22):
with the US government. So both of these companies were fraudulent,
and Natalie would later admit in court that she never
invested any of the money and she instead spent that
investor money on things like, you know, real estate of
fancy car, personal items, classic classic. So Michael was totally
(03:42):
unaware of this, which I'm going to get into, which
was revealed later in text messages.
Speaker 3 (03:48):
He thought that these companies that they'd started were legitimate
and probably thought they were doing really well. Yeah, or
he would have never consented to them having their friends
and family invest right.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
So in the meantime, Natalie's living this high life, buying
real estate, jewelry, a sports car. Michael is unaware that
all of this is a Ponzi scheme. But in twenty nineteen,
the walls are starting to close in. You have to
imagine there's probably an investigation starting to happen behind the scenes.
And in February of twenty nineteen, Michael collapsed. He had
(04:23):
a seizure, and Natalie told a friend who had been
present that day that she was going to let Michael
sleep it off. So her friend said Michael should go
see a doctor, and Natalie and her sister were both there.
You know, Michael is unresponsive. He had fallen on the floor,
and there's an account that Nataline and her sister changed
(04:44):
his clothes because he'd lost muscle control. So hours go by.
By the time they took Michael to the hospital, he
was unresponsive, and then he died in hospice a few
days later, and the first cause of death was quick natural.
It was a termine to be a natural death. Natalie
cochrane was then arrested for the Ponzi scheme months later
(05:06):
in October of twenty nineteen. She pled guilty to the
charges against her in September of twenty twenty. She was
ready to serve this eleven year sentence, but as the
investigation unfolded, Michael's death became more and more suspicious to
law enforcement as they started to look at all of
the events that led up to his death and that
eventually led to her murder trial. One of the things
(05:29):
that came out through this investigation is that Michael had
been totally unaware that either of these businesses were actually
Ponzi's schemes, and this was revealed during the trial and
text messages that were exchanged between Natalie and Michael. Natalie
was the majority owner, as you said, with the fifty
one percent stake in TSG, and she secured the startup
capital through mostly friends and family, many of whom made
(05:52):
investments repeatedly and then just never saw a return, which
is heartbreaking, but not as heartbreaking as his death. Obviously,
it just gets worse and worse. So first she got
all of the startup capital from friends and family, and
then she got it through loans, which were designed to
help companies in trouble, so she portrayed her company was
in trouble. She secured all of these loans. Michael knew
(06:14):
about the investors and about the loans, but Natalie told
him that the loans were grants that they wouldn't have
to repay. Michael was being extremely generous, thinking that they
had been making a lot of money and that their
companies were like thriving financially, because that's what Natalie had
told him, And so he donated a weight room to
a local middle school. He bought a house for a
(06:34):
local youth pastor. Like he was just like very generous,
which was really sweet.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
Yeah, I mean, he truly had no idea. So that
changes in August of twenty eighteen when Michael gets into
Natalie's phone and reads her text messages and starts to
see the extent of the investors and the promises she's
making to people about the returns on those investments, and
he could tell that something was not right. So Natalie
(07:01):
and Michael gets together and they put their heads together
about this and try to come up with a way
to pay people back. And at this point, the more
that they discuss it, the more Michael realizes we will
never be able to pay these people back. But Natalie
has a solution. She tells Michael that they are just
on the cusp of receiving millions of dollars in grants
and bonds and government contracts. So Michael's like, okay, well great,
(07:25):
let's make sure that happens and let's get these people
paid back. And this is becoming very stressful for him
because he doesn't want to, you know, have taken money
from friends and family fraudulently or even not fraudulently, and
then not being able to pay them back. Both options
horrible feeling, I imagine horrible feelings. So Natalie comes up
(07:46):
with this grand plan and tells him that the money
is on the way, but in September of twenty eighteen,
so in August he sees the text in her phone.
He has this little bit of a reckoning with her
in September. Michael's noticing that Natalie's continuing to lie to
people and tell them the money's coming in when he's
never seen any proof of that. So Natalie then tells him, well,
(08:09):
this is actually because of a government audit. So they're
auditing the company and it's just going to be a
while before they can pay us out. But the amount
is huge. Michael believes they're waiting on two hundred and
forty eight million dollars.
Speaker 3 (08:22):
That's wild.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
It's a lot of money. And so Natalie says, this
is all going to be in our account by October
twenty ninth. Okay, great things are looking up, thank god.
Well then it doesn't happen on October twenty ninth. She
has some reason for it. This is super stressful for Michael,
and on October thirty first, he actually gets really sick
(08:46):
and goes to the hospital. Now that's a hospital. They're
not sure what's going on, but he's sick and he
gets sent home. Then he goes back to the hospital
on November second. Natalie tells the hospital staff that Michael
has a history of seizures, but no one else in
Michael's life knows this about him, which you know, probably
means it's not true. They all now think, in hindsight,
(09:09):
this was Natalie laying the groundwork for Michael's murder, because
he was starting to ask more and more questions.
Speaker 3 (09:15):
Trying to create this history of medical problems exactly.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
So in the fall, in November and into December, more lies,
more lies, and then in December there's a federal government
shut down. Great, they can't pay us, So sorry, Michael,
We're going to have to wait. Michael's really upset and
stressed in not acting like himself. He's easily angerd he's irritable.
But I think anyone who thinks they're waiting on hundreds
(09:40):
of millions of dollars and has investors that want to
be paid back, it is nerve wracking and it would
be very stressful.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
Sure.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
And so they get through December and the federal government
is going to open back up and release funds the
sol according to Natalie, in February. So they're going to
get everything in February of twenty nineteen, which we now
know is the month that Michael was murdered. So there's
an incident at the bank. When Michael believes that the
funds are supposed to be released. He goes to the
(10:09):
bank where they have their business accounts and he finds
out they're closing these accounts because these accounts don't have
any money in them, and they don't know what's going on,
and they're going to close the accounts. Well, this is
very upsetting for Michael because he's like, well, if you
close the accounts, where are they going to put all
of this money that they're going to pay us. So
he actually becomes so distressed by this and so angry
about this that he gets really upset and the police
(10:32):
are nearly called to sort of subdue him.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
Yeah, and he's not like a violent person. He was
just extremely stressed out about this and visibly angry that
the bank was going to close these accounts. Well, of
course that's because there was never any money in the accounts.
Natalie had lied about everything. So Michael goes home and
he's very upset, and they have this heated text exchange
and Natalie knows he's about to find this out. So
(10:58):
in the early days of February, Natalie goes to the doctor.
She says she's not feeling well. She thinks she has
the flu. The doctor says, you don't have the flu.
She picks up her prescription that I believe was an
anti histamine, but it was a prescription anti histamine, something
that Michael was known to be allergic to. And by
February sixth, Michael is unconscious, and Natalie sees that he's
(11:22):
unconscious and does not immediately seek medical care for him.
She has people move him to the sofa and lets
him lay there for six to seven hours until one
of his friends says he needs to go to the hospital.
So Michael officially passes away February eleventh, twenty nineteen, on hospice.
And we're going to talk today to doctor pauli Rebe,
(11:44):
a forensic pathologist who did the second autopsy on Michael
Cochrane's remains for Natalie Cochrane's murder trial.
Speaker 3 (11:52):
Let's get into it today. We're speaking with doctor Paul
Eurebe about his work as a forensic pathologist and his
role in a murder triald that was years in the making,
(12:15):
the murder of Michael Cochrane and Beckley West Virginia, back
in twenty nineteen. Paul, Hi, can you please start by
introducing yourself.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
Hi. My name is doctor Paul Eurebe. I am the
current Deputy Chief Medical Examiner at the Fort Benk County
Medical Examiner's Office, which is located southwest of Houston. I
also work as a locum Tenans forensic pathologist, which is
a part time forensic pathologist and a couple of jurisdictions,
namely Clark County, Nevada, which incorporates Las Vegas and southern
(12:48):
Nevada as well as the state of Mississippi. And as
a third part time job, I have my own forensic
consulting company PMH Forensics or dead Man's Hand and Forensics WOW.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
And So for people who might not be familiar, what
is the sort of brief explanation of what a forensic
pathologist does?
Speaker 2 (13:11):
So how I explain it in court? For juries is well,
pathology is the study of disease. Forensic pathology is the
specialization that studies unnatural, unexpected or violent death. So, in
a nutshell, we study death and see what we can
learn from it, and we do that, namely by performing autopsies.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
And so we're going to get into Natalie Cochrane's trial,
the death of Michael Cochrane. When you were brought onto
this case, you know, before we get into your involvement specifically,
how that happened, What did you know, like what had
happened with the case so far, What was this sort
of understanding of yours at that time of what this
case was all about.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
So I was contacted by the Rawleigh County prosecutor who
heard of me from my involvement in another high profile
insulin case in West Virginia, which was the prosecution of
Rita Mays. She was a nursing assistant who was accused
(14:13):
of essentially poisoning VA patients at the Clarksburg VA with insulin.
And this was a case that I did while active
duty in the military with the Armed Forces Medical Examiner's Office,
and because of my involvement in that case, which was
relatively high profile, they reached out to me because I
(14:34):
had done a lot of research and testimony in terms
of insulin homicides, and they reached out to me saying, hey,
can you help out with this. We think that she
may have poisoned her husband with insulin, but we're not
sure we can prove it. So I got involved probably
two to three years I think it was over three
(14:55):
years after Michael's death, and they brought me in to
take a look at everything that had been done at
that point. The first autopsy was already done and they
just wanted me to take a look at it to
essentially see what I could see well, can.
Speaker 3 (15:11):
You tell us about that first autopsy, you know, as
you opened it and looked at what had been done,
kind of walk us through what you saw there.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
So the first autopsy was not done by me. And
there's a little bit of a backstory here because when
Michael died, he was technically on hospice care already, and
because he was on hospice care, that did not generate
a flag for the West Virginia State Medical Examiner's Office. Now,
(15:42):
once again, I know a lot of the docks at
West Virginia. I'm not saying this to throw shade at
them or anything, but I do think the case was missed.
When you have a thirty eight year old male on
hospice for reasons that aren't really clear. It's different if
someone has like ALS, which is amiotrific lateral loleurosis, the
same disease that Stephen Hawking had, or Huntington's disease, or
(16:04):
like some progressive neurologic condition that causes someone of relatively
young age to die when they're younger. That's a legitimate
reason for a younger person to be on hospice. But
he didn't really have a great diagnosis. But anyway, regardless
of how that was missed. The prosecutors started looking into
it in the months after his death, and they found
(16:27):
his death really, really suspicious because at that point she
was being investigated for the Ponzi scheme and so forth.
So I believe about seven months after Michael's death, the
state office in West Virginia went back and they exhumed Michael,
and they did an initial autopsy of him, and they
(16:48):
found nothing particularly significant. The medical examiner of record who
did it there wasn't really good sample to check for
insulin or seapeptide. We'll talk about the importance of those
two things later, and he didn't really look for insulin
injection sites either. Now, whether or not you can find
(17:11):
insulin injection sites and someone who's been essentially buried for
seven months, it's very tough.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
That actually prompts a question for me, which is, you know,
this is all pretty morbid, but after seven months, because
the initial autopsy happened after he was buried, so his
remains were exhumed, is that correct?
Speaker 2 (17:36):
Yes, Okay, I don't think he was buried in the ground.
I think he was interred in a mausoleum. Oh, Okay,
basically above ground.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
Okay, and so seven months after his death, what state
or someone's remains in It depends.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
It depends on the level of embalming. It depends on
the environmental temperatures. It depends on if it's an above
ground mausoleum or you know, below ground and under the earth.
It depends on the humidity, It depends on the temperature,
It depends on lots of things. From my review of
the first autopsy, he seemed to be in pretty decent shape.
There was some decomposition, which naturally you would expect, but
(18:13):
it wasn't terrible. So there was some information that could
be obtained from the primary autopsy, which, once again, any
information is helpful in a case like this. But once again,
if you have a body that's not embalmbed and is
in the ground and then you have water that leaks
into the casket and everything, that just accelerates decomposition.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
In this case, for the first autopsy in Michael Cochrane,
they had remains that were in a state they felt
like they could conduct an autopsy on and get strong
results or decent results.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
Yes, And when it comes to post mortem detection of insulin,
that's where things get really really tricky because insulin levels
in blood are not stable. Insulin levels, just normally in humans, vary,
like you know, it varies on what you eat, it
varies with your circadium rhythm. Sometimes you're pancreas secretes insulin.
(19:11):
When you wake up in the morning, you have an
insulin spike. So there is no like really tight, nice
normal range of insulin because if you have a couple
donuts in the morning, then guess why your insulin's going
to spike after that. If you wake up in the morning,
your insulin's going to spike. So there's no real good
range for normal.
Speaker 3 (19:30):
I want to go back actually to something that you
talked about before, where he was on hospice. Can you
kind of explain what was going on, because when I
had read about the case, it seemed like he was healthy,
and then there was an incident where he collapsed, he
wasn't responding. It took a while for his wife, Natalie
to actually call you know, naimon one or to bring
(19:52):
him into a hospital, way too late, some would say,
and it was suspicious that he was this supposedly overall
healthy thirty eight year old who died. So I'm curious
if you can explain a little more about what the
circumstances were of him being on hospice, as well as
how this idea of insulin ever arose in the first place.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
So how we got on the hospice. So going back
to the circumstances that I understood that and once again,
these circumstances, when you look at them retrospectively, are incredibly suspicious.
Let's put it that way. The history that I received
was that Michael was found down around eleven thirty noonish
(20:37):
in the morning one day Natalie. She was the only
one home at the time. Natalie suspected that he either
had a seizure or hid his head on the counter
on the way down, and she found him unconscious on
the kitchen floor. Then she took pictures of his unconscious
(20:58):
body and sent it to friends and family, which is
sort of bizarre and strange, very weird. She had some
contractors who happened to be doing some work at the house.
I'm not sure when the contractors got there, I can't
remember that detail, but she had them move him to
the couch where he stayed there for approximately seven hours.
(21:22):
The only medical intervention that she testified to was she
reported checking his blood sugar twice and reported that those
levels were normal even though he's unconscious on the couch.
She had one family friend who was in healthcare come
(21:43):
by and or that friend came by anyway and said,
you really need to take him to the hospital. This
is not well, and she's like, oh, he'll sleep it off,
that's fine. And then apparently one of Michael's friends who
couldn't get a hold of him, came by the house,
found him unresponsible on the couch. Coach basically ordered, Natalie,
you know, we are taking him to the hospital right now.
(22:06):
So he loaded him up in the car, got him
to the hospital. When he got to the hospital, his
blood glucose was under thirty milligrams per desolader. Now, normal
blood glucose ranges from like eighty to one hundred. So
a blood glucose in someone, especially someone who's not a diabetic,
anything below sixty in an otherwise healthy person, there's usually
(22:31):
something going on, like you know, hey, there might be
septic or something like that, or have an overwhelming bacterial infection.
There's a couple natural disease processes that cause that, but
he wasn't demonstrating any of those. And one of the
first imaging studies that they did. When they did do
an MRI, they saw no evidence of trauma. But the
(22:52):
radiologist called it, and this is a really interesting term,
he called it diffuse hypoglycemic encephalopathy, meaning he was having
cerebral edema, likely related to the low blood glucose. So
when you have blood glucose that's too low for too long,
your brain starts to freak out and it starts to swell.
(23:13):
And that's exactly what was happening. And when Natalie got
to the hospital, I think it was probably within a
matter of hours where she wanted him put on hospice care.
Oh wow, which once again, your husband comes into the hospital,
if you're not entirely sure why he's there, you just
walk in and be like, yeah, we want to put
him on hospice, even though we don't know exactly what's
(23:35):
going on. That whole situation just seems really weird.
Speaker 3 (23:49):
So I imagine when you're getting this information, you're assessing
her behavior, Michael's blood glucose level when he died, the
request from now to put her thirty eight year old husband, who,
you know whatever, a day two days before was completely healthy.
That seems super weird, like you would think you would
be like save his life, please, but she requests for
(24:11):
him to be put on hospice. And so are you
looking at all of these factors plus the medical autopsy
when you're looking at the case.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
Yes, absolutely, because autopsy is only one part of the equation.
There's the scene investigation, there's medical history. All of that
goes into it. Like the autopsy is just one part
of it. We also have post mortem samples that we
can send out, like toxicology. We can look at tissue
under the microscope for histology. And it's our job as
(24:40):
forensic pathologists to take the autopsy and the scene investigation
and the ancillary studies and put it all together to
figure out what happened. So I had a lot of
that history. Now once again, you have to be careful
and not let the history bias you too much. Right,
you know, the whole topic of cognitive bias. That's a
(25:03):
whole separate thing that I lecture on, but that's outside
the scope of this. But you don't want to let
the scene investigation bias you too much, if you know
what I mean, Because you have to look at the
big picture, and you know, like an example of it
is relying on someone's confession. If you're rely on someone's
confession that they smothered someone, but you have no other
findings to go against that, then if they recant their confession,
(25:26):
you're left with nothing and you're just like, Okay, what
do I do with this? The bottom line is you
have to look at the big picture, right So in
this one of the things that I suggested to the
district attorney was to take a second look at Michael,
which meant a second exhamation, because my thought process here
(25:47):
is there are some things that they did not look
at in the first autopsy, like they didn't do soft
tissue dissections of the arms and abdomen and legs to
look for possible injection sites. Once again, is it low
ye or not? I don't know. I mean my opinion
also is you don't know if you don't look. So
we had to exhaust all the options there. Yeah, I'm
(26:07):
pretty sure that's the point in time when we decided, Okay,
I'm going to go out to West Virginia and we're
going to do a second autopsy and a second exhamation.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
So, as you mentioned, the first autopsy was done seven
months after Michael died and at that point the cause
of death was listed as undetermined. So I was reading
about how the case was actually dropped by the Raleigh
County DA's office the first time around, because it's really
hard to bring homicide charges against someone when you don't
have the cause of death listed as a homicide, let
(26:37):
alone any cause of death. But then two years later
the case was refiled when you were brought in to
take a second look. You've explained how difficult it is
to get physical evidence of someone being killed by insulin
injections during an autopsy. So what were you hoping to
find in the second autopsy that might have been missed
the first time around.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
So I don't mean this to like, once again throw
shade at the West Virginia office, because post mortem detection
of insulin it's been problematic for forensic pathologists ever since
the discovery of insulin over sixty years ago. So figuring
out post mortem insulin levels and whether or not it's
an insulin suicide or homicide, it's such a tricky issue.
(27:21):
So one of the things they did not do in
the first autopsy was they didn't do a soft tissue dissection,
basically cutting into the skin looking for subcutaneous hemorrhage that
could be consistent with a insulin injection, because that's how
insulin is administered. It's administered subcutaneously. It's not administered orally.
(27:45):
It's not administered by IV generally, but when you inject insulin,
you inject it under the skin and then it creates
a little pocketive insulin that acts as a depot and
it's sort of released over time and usually works for
like four to six So there are ways where you
can do soft tissue dissection to look for that, and
(28:07):
if you see a possible injection site, then you can
take that tissue, look at it under a microscope and
do a process called aminohistochemistry where you can stain the
slide for insulin. Now, this is the technique that we
did in the Rida May's investigation, and we actually had
(28:29):
some success with it, even in patients who were exhumed
a year and a half after the fact. So that
is a pretty decent way to do it if you
can find a suspected insulin injection site. But that was
not done in the first autopsy, and they also did
not send out special testing for insulin or cepeptide, just
(28:51):
because I don't think the West Virginia office, and actually
most medical examiner offices just don't have access to that.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
Yeah, the second autopsy that you end up doing, you
have to exhume his remains. I'm curious if you heard
anything about how has family felt about a second autopsy.
How did they feel about it?
Speaker 2 (29:10):
Did you ever hear They were absolutely on board with it,
and they suspected pretty much from the beginning that she
did something to Michael and they wanted to prove it.
So could we have done it without the family consent? Yes,
but generally when you do exhamations, it's usually good to
have the family permission and consent on board. Yeah. I
(29:33):
really like providing reasonable expectations to family members too, because
exhumations are incredibly traumatic, and I want them to be like, look,
this is why we're doing this, this is what I
hope to gain from this, this is what we're specifically
looking for, just so they are on the same page
with what we're doing and why. But they were absolutely
(29:55):
on board with this.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
Yeah, that's really good to know. So Michael, the that
he actually passed, and you mentioned he was on hospice
was February eleventh, twenty nineteen, and you performed your autopsy
in July of twenty twenty three, so you know, there's
a pretty significant passage of time between his death and
the second autopsy. You told us a little bit about
(30:17):
what the state of their remains were for the first autopsy.
What was the state of his remains by the time
you did your autopsy.
Speaker 2 (30:26):
There were significant amounts of decomposition, and really the only
soft tissue left was in a form that we call
it adipis here, which is when skin and soft tissue
turn into like a white, waxy soap like substance, And
(30:47):
there wasn't much to be gained from it. There wasn't
much to analyze. It was largely skeletonized remains with some
adipis here type soft tissue, so was not able to
get that much information from it. But once again, if
we're looking for something that wasn't done in the first autopsy,
I'm generally of the opinion if you're going to exhaust
(31:08):
all options, exhaust all options if you don't know, if
you don't look right.
Speaker 1 (31:12):
And so you did look, you did test the remains
for insulin, and what did you find?
Speaker 2 (31:19):
I did not test the remains for insult. You did
not test the remains, did not that there was there
was there was nothing useful to.
Speaker 3 (31:25):
Test, Okay.
Speaker 1 (31:26):
So then in that case, because the prosecutor had called
you and said we suspect that you know, he was
given insulin and that led to his death. So what
do you do with the remains then? Since you couldn't
test for insulin at that point.
Speaker 2 (31:39):
So the remains got sent, they got reintered, and you know,
at some point the prosecutor changed, so we had a
different prosecutor. So once again I worked on this case
with both prosecutors and just to make sure we're on
the same page. And the question that we had to
answer was, well, we have a lot of circumstantial evidence,
(32:03):
but do we have enough to get a conviction because
we don't have the proverbial smoking gun, we don't have
evidence of an insulin injection site. But we have really
good medical history where you have someone who's thirty eight
year old male, otherwise healthy, not taking insulin, who comes
(32:24):
in after being unconscious for seven hours, coming into the
hospital with the blood glucose level of less than thirty.
There is not a whole lot of other things that
can do that, and unfortunately, there was no samples that
we could retrospectively send out for testing. All of the
(32:45):
stuff that was collected from the West Virginia Medical Examiner
Office from the first autopsy that was already destroyed because
we were already a couple of years out. So we
realize this is a circumstantial case. Question is do you
have enough circumstantial evidence to even try for a conviction
(33:05):
in this case?
Speaker 1 (33:06):
Yeah? And so given that, how did that impact what
you were able to testify about as a forensic pathologist
that looked at his remains.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
So going back a step in the Rita May's case,
we consulted with a clinical endocrinologist, doctor Dian Krieger, who
specializes in the treatment of diabetic patients. Her help in
that case and this case as well was absolutely essential
because she understands the clinical aspects of treating diabetics, the
(33:41):
clinical aspects of hypoglycemia and what causes this profound hypoglycemia
in someone which I don't necessarily see as a forensic
pathologist because all my patients are dead. So we recruited
her on this case too and got her opinion, and
she was of opinion that yeah, this is likely insulin related, right,
(34:05):
And going back another step, because one of the questions
that you asked is, well, how was insulin brought up
to begin with? In talking with one of the main
investigators about this, the first time insulin was even put
on his radar was in one of his interviews with Natalie.
(34:27):
She just brought up insulin sort of out of the blue, really,
and it kind of struck him as really odd because
he wasn't thinking about that beforehand.
Speaker 1 (34:40):
Do you know what she said about it?
Speaker 2 (34:41):
I don't remember exactly.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
Yeah, okay, So that's interesting. So the first time investigators
ever even took note of insulin was just from an
interview with Natalie Cochrane that she had brought it up, okay,
and then that is what got on their radar.
Speaker 3 (34:56):
Is like a potential cause of death?
Speaker 2 (34:58):
Potentially, yes, And I believe it was a couple months
after Michael's death they finally got a search warrant for
the house. Now, once again you can argue, you know, well,
how useful is the search warrant a couple months after
the fact, and if that is what it is. But
in the search of the house, in the refrigerator, ironically
(35:23):
under a candy bar. They found a vial of insulin Wow,
with one hole punched in the top of it, and
you could tell It's hard to tell exactly how much
was missing, but it was not a full bump.
Speaker 3 (35:41):
And was Natalie taking insulin.
Speaker 2 (35:44):
So the story how this goes is her her testimony.
In her statements, she said that she got the insulin
vile from her neighbor. Her neighbor had a child who
was a Type one diabetic and was prescribed insulin. She
had asked the neighbor, Hey, do you have any insulin?
(36:05):
I ran out because I need the insulin for side
effects of my chemotherapy for my treatment of breast cancer.
Her neighbor says, oh, yeah, of course she can borrow
one of these. That was I believe the day before
Michael died.
Speaker 3 (36:22):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (36:23):
And it turns out she was not on chemotherapy for
breast cancer, she was not prescribed insulin, and she did
not have breast cancer. So once again, just red flags
all over the place. And it's circumstantial evidence, But circumstantial
evidence in the right context can be incredibly powerful.
Speaker 1 (36:44):
Yeah, and you know something that in the child the
defense was really at least from my perspective leaning on
is that Michael cochrane was really into fitness and bodybuilding,
and he took a lot of supplements and also supposedly
took steroids. Did you take that into account when you
(37:06):
were conducting the autopsy or speaking with the endocinologist you mentioned.
Speaker 2 (37:12):
Absolutely, And the substances that Michael was taking, they were tested,
you know, by the FBI. It turns out they were
other medications, not what he was supposedly taking. But I
don't know. I think it was more inert substances than
when he was prescribed, but I did take that into consideration. Now,
(37:34):
one of the things that I have learned since the
trial is that if you are on heavy anabolic steroids
and actively bodybuilding, like actively building muscle bodybuilders who are
in that sort of cycling phase, they consume enormous amounts
(37:57):
of calibers, like we're talking eight to ten thousand plus
calories a day. And those higher end bodybuilders can take
insulin to help with their insulin spikes or things like that,
because you know, when you're eating like three full plates
aposta at a time to get the calories that you
need to build the type of mass that you're talking
(38:18):
about that is a consideration. Michael, it doesn't seem like
he was that type. He was never prescribed insulin, he
wasn't doing heavy anabolic steroids. I believe he was on
testosterine supplementation and got some other supplements from Mexico. One
of them, I believe was something called enclomaphene or clomid,
which you know bodybuilders do use, but they use that
(38:41):
to sort of kick in natural testoster and production. But
to my knowledge, he was not a heavy anabolic steroid user.
There was no evidence that he had used insulin before,
and this sort of played into I guess one of
the games that the defense was playing was that, oh, yeah,
well Michael was you know, now sick and had a
(39:01):
bad heart and was very ill. But then on the
other hand, he was actively health conscious and taking lots
of supplements to take care of himself in actively bodybuilding.
So it's like, Okay, which one is it? Is he
on the sick side and could have died at any time,
or is he actively health conscious and doing what he
(39:23):
can to take care of himself and actively health not bodybuilder,
So it's like which one? And I remember during the trial,
the defense couldn't really make up their mind in terms
of which way they wanted to go with that, so
they were trying to play both of those cards at
the same time.
Speaker 1 (39:37):
Yeah, and there's probably a more elegant way for me
to ask this question. But given that you were not
able to test for insulin because of the state of
his remains and your role here as you're a forensic pathologist,
why does the state then still bring you in to
testify if you essentially couldn't come to a definitive like, hey,
(39:58):
I tested for this, it's here.
Speaker 2 (40:01):
Because there was enough circumstantial evidence to go forward with it,
even though you did not have the proverbial smoking gun,
which is, you know, obviously the best smoking gun would
be video of her injecting him. I mean, of course
we're not going to have that. The next one would be, well,
if there were samples that were taken and we can
(40:23):
test for that and they would show evidence of insulin
poisoning something like that. In that case, we didn't have
that either. So my testimony was, well, this is what
they could have done to look into it, namely on
the clinical side, which is it is very tricky to
pick up insulin intoxication or insulin overdose on the clinical side,
(40:48):
because you have to suspect it immediately. You have to
suspect it, like right when the person walks in to
the emergency room and they're crashing in front of you.
That's when you have to test for it. I see,
and that didn't happen, which is not terribly surprising. At
autopsy from when he collapsed to when he died was
(41:09):
several days, so post mortem insulin testing three to five
days after the hypoglycemic event, so after your blood sugar tanks.
It's very very low yield. With that, your best option
would probably be to try and find an insulin injection site.
That wasn't done either. But even though you don't have
(41:32):
the smoking gun. My testimony was, well, there's nothing else
that really explains this, because when you have a blood
glucose level of less than thirty in an otherwise healthy person,
there's only a couple things that can do that, and
some of them were able to rule out, like he
(41:54):
was not rampagingly septic, he didn't have a huge bacterial infection.
That was overwhelming as there was no evidence that he
was taking other drugs like you know, some of the
oral hypoglycemic agents. There was no history of that. But
we have this weird history of insulin and how Natalie
got it, and there was a used insulin vile in
(42:17):
the house even though no one was using insulin, And
you have no other viable explanation for why a healthy
male comes in with a blood glucose of less than
thirty And based on that circumstantial evidence, I want to
say that circumstantial evidence alone, because we didn't have the
smoking gun evidence from autopsy. It was my opinion that
(42:40):
there was nothing else that could have killed him. There
is no other explanation that makes even a shred of
sense in this case.
Speaker 3 (42:47):
Yeah, that's a pretty strong assessment. And I imagine that
was impactful in the courtroom. And do you recall how
long the jury deliberated and what was the outcome.
Speaker 2 (42:58):
I don't recall how long they deliberated, but they found
her guilty.
Speaker 1 (43:03):
Yeah. So she was found guilty of first degree murder
from the murder of her husband, Michael cochrane, and she
was sentenced to life in prison without pearl.
Speaker 2 (43:12):
Yep. That sounds about right.
Speaker 3 (43:14):
Was there anything else about the case that stood out
to you as strange, unusual or notable from a forensic
pathologists standpoint.
Speaker 2 (43:21):
I think the most significant thing about this case in particular,
and how it differs from the riad A Maze investigation,
is we got a successful prosecution for murder using insulin
on just circumstantial information. Now, circumstantial evidence can be just
(43:45):
as powerful as objective autopsy evidence if it's in the
right context, and in this particular case, there was literally
mountains of circumstantial evidence, like literally so many things that
didn't make sense, Like, you know, you find your husband
down in the kitchen. You know, what do you do?
Oh well, let's just leave him there. It's like, wait, no,
(44:05):
that's not a normal reaction. You go to the hospital
and be like, yeah, we don't know what's wrong, but
we just want to put on hospice and you know,
oh yeah, I got this insulin vile from the neighbor
for the chemotherapy and breast cancer that I don't have.
And ironically, the thing that astounds me the most is
even months after Michael's death, when they searched the house,
(44:29):
the insulin vile was still there.
Speaker 3 (44:32):
That is bananas.
Speaker 1 (44:33):
That is like someone who is so confident that they
are just so smart that they can get away with anything.
Speaker 3 (44:39):
Or like dumb like why don't know? Right, Yeah, what
in what world would you not get rid of that?
Speaker 2 (44:45):
I don't know, I really don't. But that's one of
the little factoids about this case that just it blows
me away.
Speaker 3 (44:53):
She was not careful to like cover her track. She
really wasn't texting, going to the neighbors. And I guess fortunately,
right that all of that happened so that she was
able to be found guilty for killing her husband.
Speaker 1 (45:05):
Yeah, which I'm sure Michael Cochrane's family was just like
so relieved by that verdict.
Speaker 2 (45:11):
Yeah, I think so. I've not spoken with the Cochran family,
but I can imagine it's relief on all fronts from them.
Once again, it's not going to bring Michael back, but
at least it provides some type of closure.
Speaker 1 (45:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (45:26):
Well, this has been really interesting. We really appreciate you
joining us and walking us through all the technical aspects
of this case and your involvement in the trial.
Speaker 1 (45:35):
Yeah, thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (45:37):
Well, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (45:40):
If you have a story for us, we would love
to hear it. Our email is the Knife at exactly
rightmedia dot com, or you can follow us on Instagram
at the Knife Podcast or a Blue Sky at the
Knife Podcast.
Speaker 3 (45:51):
This has been an exactly right production, hosted and produced
by me Hannah Smith.
Speaker 1 (45:55):
And me Patia Eating. Our producers are Tom Bria Bogel
and Alexis Amorosi.
Speaker 3 (46:00):
This episode was mixed by Tom Bryfogel. Our associate producer
is Christina Chamberlain. Our theme music is by Birds in
the Airport, artwork.
Speaker 1 (46:07):
By Vanessa Lilac.
Speaker 3 (46:09):
Executive produced by Karen Kilgarriff, Georgia Hardstark and Danielle Kramer.
This story contains adult content and language. Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
It was my opinion that there was nothing else that
could have killed him. There is no other explanation that
makes even a shred of sense in this case.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
Welcome to the Knife.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
I'm Patia Eton, I'm Hannah Smith, and today we have
an interview for you with a forensic pathologist who worked
on a murder trial. But before we get into the interview,
we're going to give you some information about this case
because it's winding and intriguing and we've both been following
(00:52):
it for a couple of years now. Yeah, so we're
going to start the story. On March eighteenth, twenty twenty one,
a woman named Natalie Cochrane from Beckley, West Virginia was
sentenced to one hundred and thirty five months in federal prison,
which is over eleven years. And the reason that she's
sentenced to prison, she's charged with wire of fraud and
(01:12):
money laundry. She's been running a Ponzi scheme. She orchestrated
this scheme that defrauded victims over two million dollars and
she was ordered to pay two point five million dollars
in restitution and She would also serve a term of
three years of supervis released after the eleven year sentence.
You know, but this is actually just the beginning of
(01:35):
Natalie's problems, right, Like she sent to prison she was
caught for this Ponzi scheme. But once she's already been
charged and convicted, other things start to come out. So
she was arrested in October of twenty nineteen on this
indictment for her Ponzi scheme. But earlier that year, in
February of twenty nineteen, her husband Michael died suddenly. He
(01:56):
was only thirty eight years old, and his death was
very confusing and heartbreaking for his friends and family because
he had been this healthy young guy and then he
suddenly died.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
Yeah, and Natalie and Michael had been married since the
early two thousands. They had two children. Natalie worked as
a pharmacist, Michael as a computer specialist. I even read
that they were actually childhood's sweethearts.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
Yeah, So they'd made this life for themselves in a
small town where you truly feel like you know everyone.
And when Michael passed, the community really rallied around Natalie
because she was suddenly this widow in her thirties, But
leading up to Michael's death in February of twenty nineteen,
there was a lot going on for Natalie and Michael.
(02:40):
Natalie had left her career as a pharmacist. She and
Michael had registered a company called Tactical Solutions Group or TSG,
and this idea for the company was that it would
been on contracts to sell weapons and other goods to
the US government. She needed to race capital, so she's
bringing on investors. Now, this was a company that they
(03:01):
jointly owned, but Natalie had the majority stake and she
was definitely the person at the wheel, and Michael trusted
her implicitly. So she leaves her career as a pharmacist
and she goes all in on TSG. They also opened
another company, TMG, which is Technology Management Systems, similarly working
(03:22):
with the US government. So both of these companies were fraudulent,
and Natalie would later admit in court that she never
invested any of the money and she instead spent that
investor money on things like, you know, real estate of
fancy car, personal items, classic classic. So Michael was totally
(03:42):
unaware of this, which I'm going to get into, which
was revealed later in text messages.
Speaker 3 (03:48):
He thought that these companies that they'd started were legitimate
and probably thought they were doing really well. Yeah, or
he would have never consented to them having their friends
and family invest right.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
So in the meantime, Natalie's living this high life, buying
real estate, jewelry, a sports car. Michael is unaware that
all of this is a Ponzi scheme. But in twenty nineteen,
the walls are starting to close in. You have to
imagine there's probably an investigation starting to happen behind the scenes.
And in February of twenty nineteen, Michael collapsed. He had
(04:23):
a seizure, and Natalie told a friend who had been
present that day that she was going to let Michael
sleep it off. So her friend said Michael should go
see a doctor, and Natalie and her sister were both there.
You know, Michael is unresponsive. He had fallen on the floor,
and there's an account that Nataline and her sister changed
(04:44):
his clothes because he'd lost muscle control. So hours go by.
By the time they took Michael to the hospital, he
was unresponsive, and then he died in hospice a few
days later, and the first cause of death was quick natural.
It was a termine to be a natural death. Natalie
cochrane was then arrested for the Ponzi scheme months later
(05:06):
in October of twenty nineteen. She pled guilty to the
charges against her in September of twenty twenty. She was
ready to serve this eleven year sentence, but as the
investigation unfolded, Michael's death became more and more suspicious to
law enforcement as they started to look at all of
the events that led up to his death and that
eventually led to her murder trial. One of the things
(05:29):
that came out through this investigation is that Michael had
been totally unaware that either of these businesses were actually
Ponzi's schemes, and this was revealed during the trial and
text messages that were exchanged between Natalie and Michael. Natalie
was the majority owner, as you said, with the fifty
one percent stake in TSG, and she secured the startup
capital through mostly friends and family, many of whom made
(05:52):
investments repeatedly and then just never saw a return, which
is heartbreaking, but not as heartbreaking as his death. Obviously,
it just gets worse and worse. So first she got
all of the startup capital from friends and family, and
then she got it through loans, which were designed to
help companies in trouble, so she portrayed her company was
in trouble. She secured all of these loans. Michael knew
(06:14):
about the investors and about the loans, but Natalie told
him that the loans were grants that they wouldn't have
to repay. Michael was being extremely generous, thinking that they
had been making a lot of money and that their
companies were like thriving financially, because that's what Natalie had
told him, And so he donated a weight room to
a local middle school. He bought a house for a
(06:34):
local youth pastor. Like he was just like very generous,
which was really sweet.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
Yeah, I mean, he truly had no idea. So that
changes in August of twenty eighteen when Michael gets into
Natalie's phone and reads her text messages and starts to
see the extent of the investors and the promises she's
making to people about the returns on those investments, and
he could tell that something was not right. So Natalie
(07:01):
and Michael gets together and they put their heads together
about this and try to come up with a way
to pay people back. And at this point, the more
that they discuss it, the more Michael realizes we will
never be able to pay these people back. But Natalie
has a solution. She tells Michael that they are just
on the cusp of receiving millions of dollars in grants
and bonds and government contracts. So Michael's like, okay, well great,
(07:25):
let's make sure that happens and let's get these people
paid back. And this is becoming very stressful for him
because he doesn't want to, you know, have taken money
from friends and family fraudulently or even not fraudulently, and
then not being able to pay them back. Both options
horrible feeling, I imagine horrible feelings. So Natalie comes up
(07:46):
with this grand plan and tells him that the money
is on the way, but in September of twenty eighteen,
so in August he sees the text in her phone.
He has this little bit of a reckoning with her
in September. Michael's noticing that Natalie's continuing to lie to
people and tell them the money's coming in when he's
never seen any proof of that. So Natalie then tells him, well,
(08:09):
this is actually because of a government audit. So they're
auditing the company and it's just going to be a
while before they can pay us out. But the amount
is huge. Michael believes they're waiting on two hundred and
forty eight million dollars.
Speaker 3 (08:22):
That's wild.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
It's a lot of money. And so Natalie says, this
is all going to be in our account by October
twenty ninth. Okay, great things are looking up, thank god.
Well then it doesn't happen on October twenty ninth. She
has some reason for it. This is super stressful for Michael,
and on October thirty first, he actually gets really sick
(08:46):
and goes to the hospital. Now that's a hospital. They're
not sure what's going on, but he's sick and he
gets sent home. Then he goes back to the hospital
on November second. Natalie tells the hospital staff that Michael
has a history of seizures, but no one else in
Michael's life knows this about him, which you know, probably
means it's not true. They all now think, in hindsight,
(09:09):
this was Natalie laying the groundwork for Michael's murder, because
he was starting to ask more and more questions.
Speaker 3 (09:15):
Trying to create this history of medical problems exactly.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
So in the fall, in November and into December, more lies,
more lies, and then in December there's a federal government
shut down. Great, they can't pay us, So sorry, Michael,
We're going to have to wait. Michael's really upset and
stressed in not acting like himself. He's easily angerd he's irritable.
But I think anyone who thinks they're waiting on hundreds
(09:40):
of millions of dollars and has investors that want to
be paid back, it is nerve wracking and it would
be very stressful.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
Sure.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
And so they get through December and the federal government
is going to open back up and release funds the
sol according to Natalie, in February. So they're going to
get everything in February of twenty nineteen, which we now
know is the month that Michael was murdered. So there's
an incident at the bank. When Michael believes that the
funds are supposed to be released. He goes to the
(10:09):
bank where they have their business accounts and he finds
out they're closing these accounts because these accounts don't have
any money in them, and they don't know what's going on,
and they're going to close the accounts. Well, this is
very upsetting for Michael because he's like, well, if you
close the accounts, where are they going to put all
of this money that they're going to pay us. So
he actually becomes so distressed by this and so angry
about this that he gets really upset and the police
(10:32):
are nearly called to sort of subdue him.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
Yeah, and he's not like a violent person. He was
just extremely stressed out about this and visibly angry that
the bank was going to close these accounts. Well, of
course that's because there was never any money in the accounts.
Natalie had lied about everything. So Michael goes home and
he's very upset, and they have this heated text exchange
and Natalie knows he's about to find this out. So
(10:58):
in the early days of February, Natalie goes to the doctor.
She says she's not feeling well. She thinks she has
the flu. The doctor says, you don't have the flu.
She picks up her prescription that I believe was an
anti histamine, but it was a prescription anti histamine, something
that Michael was known to be allergic to. And by
February sixth, Michael is unconscious, and Natalie sees that he's
(11:22):
unconscious and does not immediately seek medical care for him.
She has people move him to the sofa and lets
him lay there for six to seven hours until one
of his friends says he needs to go to the hospital.
So Michael officially passes away February eleventh, twenty nineteen, on hospice.
And we're going to talk today to doctor pauli Rebe,
(11:44):
a forensic pathologist who did the second autopsy on Michael
Cochrane's remains for Natalie Cochrane's murder trial.
Speaker 3 (11:52):
Let's get into it today. We're speaking with doctor Paul
Eurebe about his work as a forensic pathologist and his
role in a murder triald that was years in the making,
(12:15):
the murder of Michael Cochrane and Beckley West Virginia, back
in twenty nineteen. Paul, Hi, can you please start by
introducing yourself.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
Hi. My name is doctor Paul Eurebe. I am the
current Deputy Chief Medical Examiner at the Fort Benk County
Medical Examiner's Office, which is located southwest of Houston. I
also work as a locum Tenans forensic pathologist, which is
a part time forensic pathologist and a couple of jurisdictions,
namely Clark County, Nevada, which incorporates Las Vegas and southern
(12:48):
Nevada as well as the state of Mississippi. And as
a third part time job, I have my own forensic
consulting company PMH Forensics or dead Man's Hand and Forensics WOW.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
And So for people who might not be familiar, what
is the sort of brief explanation of what a forensic
pathologist does?
Speaker 2 (13:11):
So how I explain it in court? For juries is well,
pathology is the study of disease. Forensic pathology is the
specialization that studies unnatural, unexpected or violent death. So, in
a nutshell, we study death and see what we can
learn from it, and we do that, namely by performing autopsies.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
And so we're going to get into Natalie Cochrane's trial,
the death of Michael Cochrane. When you were brought onto
this case, you know, before we get into your involvement specifically,
how that happened, What did you know, like what had
happened with the case so far, What was this sort
of understanding of yours at that time of what this
case was all about.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
So I was contacted by the Rawleigh County prosecutor who
heard of me from my involvement in another high profile
insulin case in West Virginia, which was the prosecution of
Rita Mays. She was a nursing assistant who was accused
(14:13):
of essentially poisoning VA patients at the Clarksburg VA with insulin.
And this was a case that I did while active
duty in the military with the Armed Forces Medical Examiner's Office,
and because of my involvement in that case, which was
relatively high profile, they reached out to me because I
(14:34):
had done a lot of research and testimony in terms
of insulin homicides, and they reached out to me saying, hey,
can you help out with this. We think that she
may have poisoned her husband with insulin, but we're not
sure we can prove it. So I got involved probably
two to three years I think it was over three
(14:55):
years after Michael's death, and they brought me in to
take a look at everything that had been done at
that point. The first autopsy was already done and they
just wanted me to take a look at it to
essentially see what I could see well, can.
Speaker 3 (15:11):
You tell us about that first autopsy, you know, as
you opened it and looked at what had been done,
kind of walk us through what you saw there.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
So the first autopsy was not done by me. And
there's a little bit of a backstory here because when
Michael died, he was technically on hospice care already, and
because he was on hospice care, that did not generate
a flag for the West Virginia State Medical Examiner's Office. Now,
(15:42):
once again, I know a lot of the docks at
West Virginia. I'm not saying this to throw shade at
them or anything, but I do think the case was missed.
When you have a thirty eight year old male on
hospice for reasons that aren't really clear. It's different if
someone has like ALS, which is amiotrific lateral loleurosis, the
same disease that Stephen Hawking had, or Huntington's disease, or
(16:04):
like some progressive neurologic condition that causes someone of relatively
young age to die when they're younger. That's a legitimate
reason for a younger person to be on hospice. But
he didn't really have a great diagnosis. But anyway, regardless
of how that was missed. The prosecutors started looking into
it in the months after his death, and they found
(16:27):
his death really, really suspicious because at that point she
was being investigated for the Ponzi scheme and so forth.
So I believe about seven months after Michael's death, the
state office in West Virginia went back and they exhumed Michael,
and they did an initial autopsy of him, and they
(16:48):
found nothing particularly significant. The medical examiner of record who
did it there wasn't really good sample to check for
insulin or seapeptide. We'll talk about the importance of those
two things later, and he didn't really look for insulin
injection sites either. Now, whether or not you can find
(17:11):
insulin injection sites and someone who's been essentially buried for
seven months, it's very tough.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
That actually prompts a question for me, which is, you know,
this is all pretty morbid, but after seven months, because
the initial autopsy happened after he was buried, so his
remains were exhumed, is that correct?
Speaker 2 (17:36):
Yes, Okay, I don't think he was buried in the ground.
I think he was interred in a mausoleum. Oh, Okay,
basically above ground.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
Okay, and so seven months after his death, what state
or someone's remains in It depends.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
It depends on the level of embalming. It depends on
the environmental temperatures. It depends on if it's an above
ground mausoleum or you know, below ground and under the earth.
It depends on the humidity, It depends on the temperature,
It depends on lots of things. From my review of
the first autopsy, he seemed to be in pretty decent shape.
There was some decomposition, which naturally you would expect, but
(18:13):
it wasn't terrible. So there was some information that could
be obtained from the primary autopsy, which, once again, any
information is helpful in a case like this. But once again,
if you have a body that's not embalmbed and is
in the ground and then you have water that leaks
into the casket and everything, that just accelerates decomposition.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
In this case, for the first autopsy in Michael Cochrane,
they had remains that were in a state they felt
like they could conduct an autopsy on and get strong
results or decent results.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
Yes, And when it comes to post mortem detection of insulin,
that's where things get really really tricky because insulin levels
in blood are not stable. Insulin levels, just normally in humans, vary,
like you know, it varies on what you eat, it
varies with your circadium rhythm. Sometimes you're pancreas secretes insulin.
(19:11):
When you wake up in the morning, you have an
insulin spike. So there is no like really tight, nice
normal range of insulin because if you have a couple
donuts in the morning, then guess why your insulin's going
to spike after that. If you wake up in the morning,
your insulin's going to spike. So there's no real good
range for normal.
Speaker 3 (19:30):
I want to go back actually to something that you
talked about before, where he was on hospice. Can you
kind of explain what was going on, because when I
had read about the case, it seemed like he was healthy,
and then there was an incident where he collapsed, he
wasn't responding. It took a while for his wife, Natalie
to actually call you know, naimon one or to bring
(19:52):
him into a hospital, way too late, some would say,
and it was suspicious that he was this supposedly overall
healthy thirty eight year old who died. So I'm curious
if you can explain a little more about what the
circumstances were of him being on hospice, as well as
how this idea of insulin ever arose in the first place.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
So how we got on the hospice. So going back
to the circumstances that I understood that and once again,
these circumstances, when you look at them retrospectively, are incredibly suspicious.
Let's put it that way. The history that I received
was that Michael was found down around eleven thirty noonish
(20:37):
in the morning one day Natalie. She was the only
one home at the time. Natalie suspected that he either
had a seizure or hid his head on the counter
on the way down, and she found him unconscious on
the kitchen floor. Then she took pictures of his unconscious
(20:58):
body and sent it to friends and family, which is
sort of bizarre and strange, very weird. She had some
contractors who happened to be doing some work at the house.
I'm not sure when the contractors got there, I can't
remember that detail, but she had them move him to
the couch where he stayed there for approximately seven hours.
(21:22):
The only medical intervention that she testified to was she
reported checking his blood sugar twice and reported that those
levels were normal even though he's unconscious on the couch.
She had one family friend who was in healthcare come
(21:43):
by and or that friend came by anyway and said,
you really need to take him to the hospital. This
is not well, and she's like, oh, he'll sleep it off,
that's fine. And then apparently one of Michael's friends who
couldn't get a hold of him, came by the house,
found him unresponsible on the couch. Coach basically ordered, Natalie,
you know, we are taking him to the hospital right now.
(22:06):
So he loaded him up in the car, got him
to the hospital. When he got to the hospital, his
blood glucose was under thirty milligrams per desolader. Now, normal
blood glucose ranges from like eighty to one hundred. So
a blood glucose in someone, especially someone who's not a diabetic,
anything below sixty in an otherwise healthy person, there's usually
(22:31):
something going on, like you know, hey, there might be
septic or something like that, or have an overwhelming bacterial infection.
There's a couple natural disease processes that cause that, but
he wasn't demonstrating any of those. And one of the
first imaging studies that they did. When they did do
an MRI, they saw no evidence of trauma. But the
(22:52):
radiologist called it, and this is a really interesting term,
he called it diffuse hypoglycemic encephalopathy, meaning he was having
cerebral edema, likely related to the low blood glucose. So
when you have blood glucose that's too low for too long,
your brain starts to freak out and it starts to swell.
(23:13):
And that's exactly what was happening. And when Natalie got
to the hospital, I think it was probably within a
matter of hours where she wanted him put on hospice care.
Oh wow, which once again, your husband comes into the hospital,
if you're not entirely sure why he's there, you just
walk in and be like, yeah, we want to put
him on hospice, even though we don't know exactly what's
(23:35):
going on. That whole situation just seems really weird.
Speaker 3 (23:49):
So I imagine when you're getting this information, you're assessing
her behavior, Michael's blood glucose level when he died, the
request from now to put her thirty eight year old husband, who,
you know whatever, a day two days before was completely healthy.
That seems super weird, like you would think you would
be like save his life, please, but she requests for
(24:11):
him to be put on hospice. And so are you
looking at all of these factors plus the medical autopsy
when you're looking at the case.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
Yes, absolutely, because autopsy is only one part of the equation.
There's the scene investigation, there's medical history. All of that
goes into it. Like the autopsy is just one part
of it. We also have post mortem samples that we
can send out, like toxicology. We can look at tissue
under the microscope for histology. And it's our job as
(24:40):
forensic pathologists to take the autopsy and the scene investigation
and the ancillary studies and put it all together to
figure out what happened. So I had a lot of
that history. Now once again, you have to be careful
and not let the history bias you too much. Right,
you know, the whole topic of cognitive bias. That's a
(25:03):
whole separate thing that I lecture on, but that's outside
the scope of this. But you don't want to let
the scene investigation bias you too much, if you know
what I mean, Because you have to look at the
big picture, and you know, like an example of it
is relying on someone's confession. If you're rely on someone's
confession that they smothered someone, but you have no other
findings to go against that, then if they recant their confession,
(25:26):
you're left with nothing and you're just like, Okay, what
do I do with this? The bottom line is you
have to look at the big picture, right So in
this one of the things that I suggested to the
district attorney was to take a second look at Michael,
which meant a second exhamation, because my thought process here
(25:47):
is there are some things that they did not look
at in the first autopsy, like they didn't do soft
tissue dissections of the arms and abdomen and legs to
look for possible injection sites. Once again, is it low
ye or not? I don't know. I mean my opinion
also is you don't know if you don't look. So
we had to exhaust all the options there. Yeah, I'm
(26:07):
pretty sure that's the point in time when we decided, Okay,
I'm going to go out to West Virginia and we're
going to do a second autopsy and a second exhamation.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
So, as you mentioned, the first autopsy was done seven
months after Michael died and at that point the cause
of death was listed as undetermined. So I was reading
about how the case was actually dropped by the Raleigh
County DA's office the first time around, because it's really
hard to bring homicide charges against someone when you don't
have the cause of death listed as a homicide, let
(26:37):
alone any cause of death. But then two years later
the case was refiled when you were brought in to
take a second look. You've explained how difficult it is
to get physical evidence of someone being killed by insulin
injections during an autopsy. So what were you hoping to
find in the second autopsy that might have been missed
the first time around.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
So I don't mean this to like, once again throw
shade at the West Virginia office, because post mortem detection
of insulin it's been problematic for forensic pathologists ever since
the discovery of insulin over sixty years ago. So figuring
out post mortem insulin levels and whether or not it's
an insulin suicide or homicide, it's such a tricky issue.
(27:21):
So one of the things they did not do in
the first autopsy was they didn't do a soft tissue dissection,
basically cutting into the skin looking for subcutaneous hemorrhage that
could be consistent with a insulin injection, because that's how
insulin is administered. It's administered subcutaneously. It's not administered orally.
(27:45):
It's not administered by IV generally, but when you inject insulin,
you inject it under the skin and then it creates
a little pocketive insulin that acts as a depot and
it's sort of released over time and usually works for
like four to six So there are ways where you
can do soft tissue dissection to look for that, and
(28:07):
if you see a possible injection site, then you can
take that tissue, look at it under a microscope and
do a process called aminohistochemistry where you can stain the
slide for insulin. Now, this is the technique that we
did in the Rida May's investigation, and we actually had
(28:29):
some success with it, even in patients who were exhumed
a year and a half after the fact. So that
is a pretty decent way to do it if you
can find a suspected insulin injection site. But that was
not done in the first autopsy, and they also did
not send out special testing for insulin or cepeptide, just
(28:51):
because I don't think the West Virginia office, and actually
most medical examiner offices just don't have access to that.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
Yeah, the second autopsy that you end up doing, you
have to exhume his remains. I'm curious if you heard
anything about how has family felt about a second autopsy.
How did they feel about it?
Speaker 2 (29:10):
Did you ever hear They were absolutely on board with it,
and they suspected pretty much from the beginning that she
did something to Michael and they wanted to prove it.
So could we have done it without the family consent? Yes,
but generally when you do exhamations, it's usually good to
have the family permission and consent on board. Yeah. I
(29:33):
really like providing reasonable expectations to family members too, because
exhumations are incredibly traumatic, and I want them to be like, look,
this is why we're doing this, this is what I
hope to gain from this, this is what we're specifically
looking for, just so they are on the same page
with what we're doing and why. But they were absolutely
(29:55):
on board with this.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
Yeah, that's really good to know. So Michael, the that
he actually passed, and you mentioned he was on hospice
was February eleventh, twenty nineteen, and you performed your autopsy
in July of twenty twenty three, so you know, there's
a pretty significant passage of time between his death and
the second autopsy. You told us a little bit about
(30:17):
what the state of their remains were for the first autopsy.
What was the state of his remains by the time
you did your autopsy.
Speaker 2 (30:26):
There were significant amounts of decomposition, and really the only
soft tissue left was in a form that we call
it adipis here, which is when skin and soft tissue
turn into like a white, waxy soap like substance, And
(30:47):
there wasn't much to be gained from it. There wasn't
much to analyze. It was largely skeletonized remains with some
adipis here type soft tissue, so was not able to
get that much information from it. But once again, if
we're looking for something that wasn't done in the first autopsy,
I'm generally of the opinion if you're going to exhaust
(31:08):
all options, exhaust all options if you don't know, if
you don't look right.
Speaker 1 (31:12):
And so you did look, you did test the remains
for insulin, and what did you find?
Speaker 2 (31:19):
I did not test the remains for insult. You did
not test the remains, did not that there was there
was there was nothing useful to.
Speaker 3 (31:25):
Test, Okay.
Speaker 1 (31:26):
So then in that case, because the prosecutor had called
you and said we suspect that you know, he was
given insulin and that led to his death. So what
do you do with the remains then? Since you couldn't
test for insulin at that point.
Speaker 2 (31:39):
So the remains got sent, they got reintered, and you know,
at some point the prosecutor changed, so we had a
different prosecutor. So once again I worked on this case
with both prosecutors and just to make sure we're on
the same page. And the question that we had to
answer was, well, we have a lot of circumstantial evidence,
(32:03):
but do we have enough to get a conviction because
we don't have the proverbial smoking gun, we don't have
evidence of an insulin injection site. But we have really
good medical history where you have someone who's thirty eight
year old male, otherwise healthy, not taking insulin, who comes
(32:24):
in after being unconscious for seven hours, coming into the
hospital with the blood glucose level of less than thirty.
There is not a whole lot of other things that
can do that, and unfortunately, there was no samples that
we could retrospectively send out for testing. All of the
(32:45):
stuff that was collected from the West Virginia Medical Examiner
Office from the first autopsy that was already destroyed because
we were already a couple of years out. So we
realize this is a circumstantial case. Question is do you
have enough circumstantial evidence to even try for a conviction
(33:05):
in this case?
Speaker 1 (33:06):
Yeah? And so given that, how did that impact what
you were able to testify about as a forensic pathologist
that looked at his remains.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
So going back a step in the Rita May's case,
we consulted with a clinical endocrinologist, doctor Dian Krieger, who
specializes in the treatment of diabetic patients. Her help in
that case and this case as well was absolutely essential
because she understands the clinical aspects of treating diabetics, the
(33:41):
clinical aspects of hypoglycemia and what causes this profound hypoglycemia
in someone which I don't necessarily see as a forensic
pathologist because all my patients are dead. So we recruited
her on this case too and got her opinion, and
she was of opinion that yeah, this is likely insulin related, right,
(34:05):
And going back another step, because one of the questions
that you asked is, well, how was insulin brought up
to begin with? In talking with one of the main
investigators about this, the first time insulin was even put
on his radar was in one of his interviews with Natalie.
(34:27):
She just brought up insulin sort of out of the blue, really,
and it kind of struck him as really odd because
he wasn't thinking about that beforehand.
Speaker 1 (34:40):
Do you know what she said about it?
Speaker 2 (34:41):
I don't remember exactly.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
Yeah, okay, So that's interesting. So the first time investigators
ever even took note of insulin was just from an
interview with Natalie Cochrane that she had brought it up, okay,
and then that is what got on their radar.
Speaker 3 (34:56):
Is like a potential cause of death?
Speaker 2 (34:58):
Potentially, yes, And I believe it was a couple months
after Michael's death they finally got a search warrant for
the house. Now, once again you can argue, you know, well,
how useful is the search warrant a couple months after
the fact, and if that is what it is. But
in the search of the house, in the refrigerator, ironically
(35:23):
under a candy bar. They found a vial of insulin Wow,
with one hole punched in the top of it, and
you could tell It's hard to tell exactly how much
was missing, but it was not a full bump.
Speaker 3 (35:41):
And was Natalie taking insulin.
Speaker 2 (35:44):
So the story how this goes is her her testimony.
In her statements, she said that she got the insulin
vile from her neighbor. Her neighbor had a child who
was a Type one diabetic and was prescribed insulin. She
had asked the neighbor, Hey, do you have any insulin?
(36:05):
I ran out because I need the insulin for side
effects of my chemotherapy for my treatment of breast cancer.
Her neighbor says, oh, yeah, of course she can borrow
one of these. That was I believe the day before
Michael died.
Speaker 3 (36:22):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (36:23):
And it turns out she was not on chemotherapy for
breast cancer, she was not prescribed insulin, and she did
not have breast cancer. So once again, just red flags
all over the place. And it's circumstantial evidence, But circumstantial
evidence in the right context can be incredibly powerful.
Speaker 1 (36:44):
Yeah, and you know something that in the child the
defense was really at least from my perspective leaning on
is that Michael cochrane was really into fitness and bodybuilding,
and he took a lot of supplements and also supposedly
took steroids. Did you take that into account when you
(37:06):
were conducting the autopsy or speaking with the endocinologist you mentioned.
Speaker 2 (37:12):
Absolutely, And the substances that Michael was taking, they were tested,
you know, by the FBI. It turns out they were
other medications, not what he was supposedly taking. But I
don't know. I think it was more inert substances than
when he was prescribed, but I did take that into consideration. Now,
(37:34):
one of the things that I have learned since the
trial is that if you are on heavy anabolic steroids
and actively bodybuilding, like actively building muscle bodybuilders who are
in that sort of cycling phase, they consume enormous amounts
(37:57):
of calibers, like we're talking eight to ten thousand plus
calories a day. And those higher end bodybuilders can take
insulin to help with their insulin spikes or things like that,
because you know, when you're eating like three full plates
aposta at a time to get the calories that you
need to build the type of mass that you're talking
(38:18):
about that is a consideration. Michael, it doesn't seem like
he was that type. He was never prescribed insulin, he
wasn't doing heavy anabolic steroids. I believe he was on
testosterine supplementation and got some other supplements from Mexico. One
of them, I believe was something called enclomaphene or clomid,
which you know bodybuilders do use, but they use that
(38:41):
to sort of kick in natural testoster and production. But
to my knowledge, he was not a heavy anabolic steroid user.
There was no evidence that he had used insulin before,
and this sort of played into I guess one of
the games that the defense was playing was that, oh, yeah,
well Michael was you know, now sick and had a
(39:01):
bad heart and was very ill. But then on the
other hand, he was actively health conscious and taking lots
of supplements to take care of himself in actively bodybuilding.
So it's like, Okay, which one is it? Is he
on the sick side and could have died at any time,
or is he actively health conscious and doing what he
(39:23):
can to take care of himself and actively health not bodybuilder,
So it's like which one? And I remember during the trial,
the defense couldn't really make up their mind in terms
of which way they wanted to go with that, so
they were trying to play both of those cards at
the same time.
Speaker 1 (39:37):
Yeah, and there's probably a more elegant way for me
to ask this question. But given that you were not
able to test for insulin because of the state of
his remains and your role here as you're a forensic pathologist,
why does the state then still bring you in to
testify if you essentially couldn't come to a definitive like, hey,
(39:58):
I tested for this, it's here.
Speaker 2 (40:01):
Because there was enough circumstantial evidence to go forward with it,
even though you did not have the proverbial smoking gun,
which is, you know, obviously the best smoking gun would
be video of her injecting him. I mean, of course
we're not going to have that. The next one would be, well,
if there were samples that were taken and we can
(40:23):
test for that and they would show evidence of insulin
poisoning something like that. In that case, we didn't have
that either. So my testimony was, well, this is what
they could have done to look into it, namely on
the clinical side, which is it is very tricky to
pick up insulin intoxication or insulin overdose on the clinical side,
(40:48):
because you have to suspect it immediately. You have to
suspect it, like right when the person walks in to
the emergency room and they're crashing in front of you.
That's when you have to test for it. I see,
and that didn't happen, which is not terribly surprising. At
autopsy from when he collapsed to when he died was
(41:09):
several days, so post mortem insulin testing three to five
days after the hypoglycemic event, so after your blood sugar tanks.
It's very very low yield. With that, your best option
would probably be to try and find an insulin injection site.
That wasn't done either. But even though you don't have
(41:32):
the smoking gun. My testimony was, well, there's nothing else
that really explains this, because when you have a blood
glucose level of less than thirty in an otherwise healthy person,
there's only a couple things that can do that, and
some of them were able to rule out, like he
(41:54):
was not rampagingly septic, he didn't have a huge bacterial infection.
That was overwhelming as there was no evidence that he
was taking other drugs like you know, some of the
oral hypoglycemic agents. There was no history of that. But
we have this weird history of insulin and how Natalie
got it, and there was a used insulin vile in
(42:17):
the house even though no one was using insulin, And
you have no other viable explanation for why a healthy
male comes in with a blood glucose of less than
thirty And based on that circumstantial evidence, I want to
say that circumstantial evidence alone, because we didn't have the
smoking gun evidence from autopsy. It was my opinion that
(42:40):
there was nothing else that could have killed him. There
is no other explanation that makes even a shred of
sense in this case.
Speaker 3 (42:47):
Yeah, that's a pretty strong assessment. And I imagine that
was impactful in the courtroom. And do you recall how
long the jury deliberated and what was the outcome.
Speaker 2 (42:58):
I don't recall how long they deliberated, but they found
her guilty.
Speaker 1 (43:03):
Yeah. So she was found guilty of first degree murder
from the murder of her husband, Michael cochrane, and she
was sentenced to life in prison without pearl.
Speaker 2 (43:12):
Yep. That sounds about right.
Speaker 3 (43:14):
Was there anything else about the case that stood out
to you as strange, unusual or notable from a forensic
pathologists standpoint.
Speaker 2 (43:21):
I think the most significant thing about this case in particular,
and how it differs from the riad A Maze investigation,
is we got a successful prosecution for murder using insulin
on just circumstantial information. Now, circumstantial evidence can be just
(43:45):
as powerful as objective autopsy evidence if it's in the
right context, and in this particular case, there was literally
mountains of circumstantial evidence, like literally so many things that
didn't make sense, Like, you know, you find your husband
down in the kitchen. You know, what do you do?
Oh well, let's just leave him there. It's like, wait, no,
(44:05):
that's not a normal reaction. You go to the hospital
and be like, yeah, we don't know what's wrong, but
we just want to put on hospice and you know,
oh yeah, I got this insulin vile from the neighbor
for the chemotherapy and breast cancer that I don't have.
And ironically, the thing that astounds me the most is
even months after Michael's death, when they searched the house,
(44:29):
the insulin vile was still there.
Speaker 3 (44:32):
That is bananas.
Speaker 1 (44:33):
That is like someone who is so confident that they
are just so smart that they can get away with anything.
Speaker 3 (44:39):
Or like dumb like why don't know? Right, Yeah, what
in what world would you not get rid of that?
Speaker 2 (44:45):
I don't know, I really don't. But that's one of
the little factoids about this case that just it blows
me away.
Speaker 3 (44:53):
She was not careful to like cover her track. She
really wasn't texting, going to the neighbors. And I guess fortunately,
right that all of that happened so that she was
able to be found guilty for killing her husband.
Speaker 1 (45:05):
Yeah, which I'm sure Michael Cochrane's family was just like
so relieved by that verdict.
Speaker 2 (45:11):
Yeah, I think so. I've not spoken with the Cochran family,
but I can imagine it's relief on all fronts from them.
Once again, it's not going to bring Michael back, but
at least it provides some type of closure.
Speaker 1 (45:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (45:26):
Well, this has been really interesting. We really appreciate you
joining us and walking us through all the technical aspects
of this case and your involvement in the trial.
Speaker 1 (45:35):
Yeah, thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (45:37):
Well, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (45:40):
If you have a story for us, we would love
to hear it. Our email is the Knife at exactly
rightmedia dot com, or you can follow us on Instagram
at the Knife Podcast or a Blue Sky at the
Knife Podcast.
Speaker 3 (45:51):
This has been an exactly right production, hosted and produced
by me Hannah Smith.
Speaker 1 (45:55):
And me Patia Eating. Our producers are Tom Bria Bogel
and Alexis Amorosi.
Speaker 3 (46:00):
This episode was mixed by Tom Bryfogel. Our associate producer
is Christina Chamberlain. Our theme music is by Birds in
the Airport, artwork.
Speaker 1 (46:07):
By Vanessa Lilac.
Speaker 3 (46:09):
Executive produced by Karen Kilgarriff, Georgia Hardstark and Danielle Kramer.
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Are You A Charlotte?
In 1997, actress Kristin Davis’ life was forever changed when she took on the role of Charlotte York in Sex and the City. As we watched Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte navigate relationships in NYC, the show helped push once unacceptable conversation topics out of the shadows and altered the narrative around women and sex. We all saw ourselves in them as they searched for fulfillment in life, sex and friendships. Now, Kristin Davis wants to connect with you, the fans, and share untold stories and all the behind the scenes. Together, with Kristin and special guests, what will begin with Sex and the City will evolve into talks about themes that are still so relevant today. "Are you a Charlotte?" is much more than just rewatching this beloved show, it brings the past and the present together as we talk with heart, humor and of course some optimism.