July 12, 2023 • 32 mins
An examination of the disparities surrounding the portrayals of men and women in crime, and how Kelly Cochran exploited them.
This is a Studio BOTH/AND production:
www.pactpodcast.com / www.bothand.fyi
For an ad-free experience or to support the show: www.patreon.com/studiobothand
Written, researched, edited, and produced by Josh Hallmark.
Research assistance by Becca Cline.
Resources include: The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, NAMUS, The Charley Project, and Dr. Joni Johnston.
Music by William Hellfire, LaBon, Sergey Cheremisinov, Lee Rosevere, and Empress Of.
This is a Studio BOTH/AND production:
www.pactpodcast.com / www.bothand.fyi
For an ad-free experience or to support the show: www.patreon.com/studiobothand
Written, researched, edited, and produced by Josh Hallmark.
Research assistance by Becca Cline.
Resources include: The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, NAMUS, The Charley Project, and Dr. Joni Johnston.
Music by William Hellfire, LaBon, Sergey Cheremisinov, Lee Rosevere, and Empress Of.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:09):
This is a studio Both and production. If you'd like to support this show
and get ad free episodes for aslittle as two dollars a month, go
to patreon dot com slash studio bothand did you realize people give me a
hard time because I am a girl? People don't look twice. Yeah,
(00:36):
the initial idea of serial killing cameabout when we were looking at particularly sexually
motivated series of homicides. And sowhen we all think about serial killers,
we think about Ted Bundy or wethink about John Wayne Gacy. We had
this idea in our minds about menwho are out there looking to prey on
(00:57):
women's sexually over long period of time, than of course kill them afterwards.
So that's our model of what aserial killer is. And so again the
answer I think is twofold. Numberone is we do know that there are
far fewer women who have killed forsexual motives, and yet at the same
time, there are plenty of femaleserial killers who have killed for other reasons.
(01:18):
So we have to, I think, expand our idea of what a
serial killer is if we want toreally look and kind of go, Yeah,
there definitely are a lot more maleserial killers, but let's not overlook
the female serial killers because they tendto operate longer and to be more successful.
And I put that quotation marks becausewe're talking about body count deer.
(01:40):
They tend to be more successful overa longer period of time because they aren't
most likely to be captured. Kellylikes to talk most notably, Kelly likes
to talk about Jason's murders a lot. He only killed two women, He
(02:05):
targeted campers. There's eleven bodies inIndiana. He only killed two people.
He fed his victims to their pigs. He killed eleven people. Kelly kept
all of Jason's trophies. She'll tellyou all about his murders and then claim
she knows nothing about them. Shewasn't there, she wasn't involved. And
(02:30):
as we've discussed, it's her listof Jason's victims and Jason's own account of
their crimes in Where Monsters Hide thatare considerably more credible than Kelly's list of
her alleged twenty one victims. Forexample, in his book Where Monsters Hide,
(02:50):
Jason writes about a female drug addicthome wrecker, which sounds a lot
like Alicia. In the book,he also writes about an unwelcome man entering
q Quack's house and his wife savingthe day, an ambiguous description of an
event that leads to a neighborhood barbecue, and this is a clear reference to
(03:12):
Chris Regan. Kelly's list of Jason'svictims describes a man who looks and drives
the same unique car as Jason Ruteraka Minnesota Jason, and that list also
describes a murder that actually took place, the Tennessee Motel murder, And while
it doesn't seem like the Cochranes wereinvolved, it is odd that Kelly knew
(03:35):
the details of such an unpublicized homicidehundreds of miles from their home a decade
after it occurred. My point is, if we're trying to make sense out
of all the crazy things the Cochraneshave said and written, the most reliable
place to look is Jason. ThingsJason wrote and things Kelly said about Chasten's
(04:00):
crimes, crimes she says she hadnothing to do with, and that takes
us to what I believe is themajor crux of this whole case, a
culture that Kelly has studied and exploitedall along the ways in which gender and
(04:23):
sex are perceived, reported on,and investigated in crime in America, specifically
women as victims and men as invulnerable. So let's start with the most glaringly
obvious. Men are murderers, womenare victims. Women don't kill. Clearly
(04:48):
that's not the case. I've thoughta lot about and done a lot of
comparing of Kelly's crimes versus israel Keysas crimes, and I would be lying
to myself if I said there wasn'tto major disparity in the ways I've told
those two stories. And look,it's not entirely black and white, nor
(05:08):
based solely on gender or sex.But I can't admit that the humor within
the outlandishness of Kelly's crimes might actuallyexist simply because she's a woman. Consider
for a moment your reaction to israelKeys throwing up in a victim's mouth.
It's a horrifying and deeply haunting idea. I would probably assume it was about
(05:33):
controlling and demeaning a victim. WithKelly, it's so crazy that it's funny.
It's crazy and or funny when womenexert control over or demean men,
at least narratively. So I've foundmyself getting frustrated over or laughing at,
(05:56):
or some combination of the two.Many of the things Kelly has said and
done, but when Keys did similarthings, he was a mystery. Keys
is calculating, enigmatic, meticulous.Kelly is ridiculous, a liar, manipulative,
and in all truth, both Keysand Kelly are all of those things.
(06:21):
Israel Keys has been dead for almosteight years, and I'm still terrified
of him. Kelly Cochrane is aliveand well, and I'm writing her letters
without even blinking an eye. Sexismin in crime is a real thing,
and Kelly knows it and uses it. That's what makes her terrifying. I
(06:46):
used to think it was stupid andinsane that Kelly thought she could kill multiple
men who she had relationships with andget away with it. And obviously in
the end she didn't get away withit. But it's very clear there were
victims before Chris Regan, and evenin Regan's case, Jason was the suspect
(07:08):
long before Kelly was. In fact, at first, Kelly was viewed as
a vulnerable victim of Jason's and wereit not for Chief Frizzo, probably would
have continued to be viewed that way. As you'll recall, Michigan State Police
didn't think Kelly was involved and actuallyrefused to investigate her. Kelly thought she
(07:33):
could get away with it because,like she said, women are overlooked,
and like doctor Johnston said, womenare generally more successful serial killers than men,
and that they tend to get awaywith it for much longer because they're
overlooked. Velma Barfield killed at leastsix people over a nine year year span.
(08:01):
Amy Archer Gilligan killed more than fivepeople over a seven year span.
Bell Gunnis killed at least fourteen peopleover a twenty four year span. Ronda
Bell Martin killed between five and eightfamily members over a span of twenty plus
years. Dorothea Puente killed between nineand fifteen people over a six year span.
(08:26):
Jane Toppin killed more than thirty onepeople over a six year span.
Shirley Winters is believed to have killedupwards of ten people over a fifty year
span. I'd only heard of twoof those women prior to my research.
In fact, of the sixty threefemale serial killers listed on Wikipedia, I'd
(08:48):
only heard of about ten percent ofthem. Now, let's take a look
at some of their male contemporaries.Ted Bundy killed more than thirty women over
a four year span. John WayneGacy killed at least thirty three men over
a six year span. Edmund Kemperkilled ten people over a nine year span.
(09:13):
Jeffrey Dahmer killed seventeen men over athirteen year span. Israel Keys is
believed to have killed at least elevenpeople over a fourteen year span. There
are over three hundred American male serialkillers listed on Wikipedia. I knew of
about eighty five percent of them,so there's already some great disparities and how
(09:37):
we report on and sensationalize male versusfemale serial killers. And while there isn't
exact data available, after an analysisof twenty random female serial killers and twenty
random male serial killers, I foundthat, as an average, female serial
killers are apprehended after fourteen years ofmurdering, while male serial killers are apprehended
(10:03):
on average after five years. Additionally, most of those women were killing people
close to them, while most ofthose men were killing at random. Women
are overlooked, especially when it comesto killing men. The women who were
apprehended earlier in their sprees were womenwho were murdering children, women who were
(10:28):
killing, men were generally arrested muchlater in their sprees, which brings us
back to the perceived invulnerability of men, something else Kelly exploited. According to
Nemus, there are currently ten thousand, five hundred thirty one missing men in
(10:52):
America. That's more than sixty percentof their total missing persons records. This
is a trend consistent across all missingpersons databases, which, and I cannot
stress this enough, do not comeclose to measuring the immeasurable number of actual
missing people in America. But asa trend, it's a bit eyebrow raising
(11:18):
considering the disparities in media coverage ofmissing men versus missing women, which is
already supremely unbalanced in its focus onmissing white women. In this podcast,
we've talked a lot about the media'slack of reporting on missing and murdered Indigenous
women and minorities in general in America, a lack of reporting that I think
(11:43):
can be fairly summed up by acombination of apathy and editorialism. But why
aren't they reporting on missing men?Why aren't most Americans on a first name
basis with missing men like they arewith Maura Murray Brianna Maitland, Leah Roberts,
Jennifer Kess, Lauren Speer, andso on. I don't pose this
(12:07):
question to insinuate that there's too muchreporting on those or any missing women,
because there probably can't ever be toomuch reporting on any missing people, but
merely to ask why aren't we reportingequally on missing men and obviously missing minorities.
(12:28):
If you ask me, and thisis reductive, it's sexism. We
don't want to editorialize men as vulnerable. It's a trope that's so pervasive with
an American media and storytelling. Womenneed to be saved, men do the
saving, and that's extended itself intotrue crime narratives and the way we talk
(12:50):
about crime in general. Until thispodcast, most people who knew who Israel
Keys was had no idea that hetargeted men. There are countless movies based
on male serial killers who targeted women, and they're all told through a lens
of horror and trauma. And whileI'm sure there are more, the only
(13:15):
movie I can think of based ona female serial killer is Monster, which
tonally is both erotic and comedic.The idea of a woman killing men is
funny and that's mostly been the toneof this very podcast. We call her
crazy Kelly, not scary Kelly.And Kelly knew that she studied serial killers,
(13:43):
she studied forensics, she studied psychology. Kelly was a deptly aware of
how overlooked women are in the commissionof violent crime. She was also aware
of how overlooked men are as victimsand specifically which men. In both Kelly's
(14:05):
and Jason's narratives, there are threetypes of victims that come up over and
over again veterans, campers, anddrug users and drug dealers. And I
don't think it's coincidence that these arethe three groups of men who are most
(14:26):
likely to go missing and least likelyto be reported on. Let's take a
look at veterans in America. Accordingto the United States Department of Housing and
Urban Development, more than forty ninethousand veterans in America are reported as either
homeless or missing. It's actually sopervasive in America that legislators are working with
(14:54):
the VFW to implement a Green Alert, which would be a statewide ID alert
system similar to the Amber Alert,specifically for missing vets. Wisconsin is on
track to be the first state totest the green alert. But that's demonstrative
of both how often vets go missingand how frequently their disappearances are related to
(15:20):
or presumed to be related to homelessness, which makes them easy and vulnerable targets.
Chris Reagan and Eric Ericson were bothvets, and according to Kelly,
so were at least three of herother victims, including Gary from Calumet City
and Minnesota Jason. A little lessthan fifty percent of Kelly's list of Jason's
(15:50):
victims consists of men who were camping, and as we learned from the Keys
case, when male campers go missing, it's presumed accidental or suicide. Again,
they make incredibly easy and vulnerable targets. And it's not just Kelly's list
(16:11):
that focuses on campers. Several peopleclose to the Cochranes mentioned that Jason talked
about killing people while camping and inone instance referred to his murders as camping.
And then there's Colton's account of beingdrugged on a camping trip with Kelly
(16:32):
and Jason and the Cochranes. Well, they went camping a lot. Unfortunately,
because investigators didn't expend a lot ofeffort looking into the Cochranes beyond the
scope of Chris Regan's murder. Thereisn't much of a timeline for them outside
of their time in the Upper Peninsula, of course, but even in those
(16:55):
two years, the Cochranes went campingat least nine times, and as Colton
told investigators, even prior to theirmove up north, the Cochranes went on
many camping trips throughout Indiana, Michigan, Kentucky, Missouri, Illinois, and
Tennessee, all states that have comeup in Kelly's conversations about locations where she's
(17:21):
killed people. And then there's drugusers and dealers, and this is probably
the easiest and most vulnerable target forKelly. She was a drug user who
hung around with both dealers and otherusers very frequently, and this group,
(17:42):
more than any other, are underreportedwhen it comes to disappearances and murders.
It's choked up to homelessness or crimeon crime when a drug user or dealer
goes missing or gets murdered. DeborahFeldman is a great example of this.
There was no coverage on her disappearance. Everyone in her life and local law
(18:07):
enforcement just assumed she'd either odeed orwas a living on the streets, and
it wasn't until her name came upin the Keys investigation that anyone took her
disappearance seriously. And again, there'sa precedence with drug users and dealers as
victims when it comes to the Cochranes, Jason talked about killing a drug dealer
(18:32):
that Kelly was sleeping with. Kelly'slist of victims includes multiple men she claims
to have done drugs with. Jasonrud Is alleged to have been involved in
drugs. Alicia was an addict andKelly tried to overdose her. Kelly also
injected Jason with enough heroine to killhim prior to suffocating him. Kelly knew
(18:57):
she would be overlooked as a womanwho killed people, and she knew exactly
who would be overlooked as murder victims. She knew she could kill people close
to her and get away with it. She knew it because there's a long
line of women who did it beforeher, and she knew, or at
(19:18):
least thought, she could reasonably makeJason look responsible for all of her murders,
even her murder of him. Sometimesthere's no greater power than being underestimated
and overlooked. Now there is afourth group of vulnerable people who the Cochranes
(19:52):
may have exploited, specifically because it'snot one Kelly talks about much. If
ever, she repeatedly makes a pointto talk about military service multiple times when
discussing hers and Jason's victims. Shesays things like I'm pretty sure he was
(20:14):
in the military. She also talksa lot about men she did drugs with
before murdering, or drug dealers sheslept with behind Jason's back, and then
of course, camping is very prevalentin all of her lists and stories,
but Kelly doesn't talk much about race, specifically black men, at all,
(20:42):
despite it coming up with Jason.As you may remember, according to people
close to Jason, he talked alot about killing black people and racially motivated
attacks, and Kelly's list and conversationhave her killing multiple men in both Gary
(21:03):
and the South Side of Chicago,both areas that are over ninety percent black.
And if you look closely at bothof Kelly's lists and even venture to
believe that there's any truth to them, there are two things that stand out.
(21:23):
One Kelly never mentions the race ofany of hers or Jason's victims,
and two Jason's list, the onlylist with exact dates of murders, actually
includes dates and locations that match upto missing men missing black men. Take,
(21:49):
for example, Noah question Mark fromJason's list. Kelly wrote that Jason
murdered Noah question on May twelfth oftwo thousand eight and then disposed of his
remains in Robinson Lake Park near theirhome on Mississippi Street. Now, there
(22:10):
are no reports of a man namedNoah who disappeared on May twelfth of two
thousand eight, or any date surroundingMay twelfth of two thousand eight. There
is, however, a man namedNicholas who disappeared on that exact date from
the South side of Chicago, justthirty four miles from the Cochrane's home.
(22:37):
Nicholas O. Brown, a black, twenty one year old man, was
last seen on the twenty nine hundredblock of South Dearborn Street in Chicago at
around seven pm on May twelfth.Nicholas was known to be involved in both
street gangs and local drug trade,and in addition to the date and location
(22:57):
matching, there are few other thingsthat stand out about Nicholas's disappearance. One
Kelly's list of her alleged victims includesa Michael Marcus, who was from the
South Side of Chicago. Kelly doesn'tstate when this murder occurred, but her
mostly chronological list would place this murdersometime around two thousand and six. She
(23:22):
claimed she only met him once whiledoing drugs before stabbing him in the neck,
and all of her talking of heralleged victims, this is the one
she discusses the least two. Accordingto medical records and witness interviews, Kelly
checked into a mental health facility exactlytwo months before Nicholas brown disappeared, and
(23:48):
Jason Well he checked into a mentalhealth facility in late May of two thousand
and eight. And while the forthe Cochran's being involved in Nicholas Browne's disappearance
is a lot more tenuous than sayAndrew Fugates, the date, the location,
and the victim profile all match.And then there's all this talk of
(24:15):
Jason targeting the black community and hisresentment towards the many, many drug users
in Kelly's life. When we talkabout overlooked groups and true crime, missing
and murdered black men is a bigone, and Chicago. Essentially, the
Cochrane's backyard is an epicenter. Accordingto Namis and the Charlie Project, there
(24:42):
are at minimum thirty seven unsolved disappearancesof black men in Chicago, and about
seventy five percent of all unsolved homicidesin Chicago are homicides of black men.
They may be one of these mosteasy and vulnerable targets. Kelly knew exactly
(25:08):
what types of victims would be overlooked, and they all come up in her
lists, Jason's book, Kelly's Conversationswith Ogden, and or Jason's Conversations with
Friends. Kelly knew exactly how andwhy should be overlooked as a killer,
(25:30):
much like her victimology. She usedthat to her advantage in setting Jason up,
in her storytelling and in her methodsof murder and attempted murder, and
that subsists even in everything we thinkwe know about the crimes we can connect
her to, specifically Chris Reagan.Everything we know about that murder, the
(25:57):
actual murder self, we've learned fromKelly. There was no physical evidence in
the Cochrane home other than Chris's DNAon the forceps used to remove the bullet
that killed him. The narrative isthat Kelly lured him into their home,
where Jason shot him on the landingnear their back door, then dismembered him
(26:19):
in their basement. In some stories, Chris and Kelly fall down the basement
stairs together after he shot, andothers just Chris falls down, and in
one story the Cochranes carry him downthe stairs after the shooting. But before
this story became the story, oneinvestigator wondered aloud how Jason could shoot Chris
(26:47):
and the back of the head fromthe basement. It just didn't seem possible.
In Kelly's various stories, Chris's alwaysengaging in some sort of sex act
with her against the wall facing theback door, which would place Chris above
and to the right of the basementsteps. If Jason shot him from the
(27:12):
basement, he would have shot himin the side of the head. And
then there's the landing and that specificwall staples were found in the joists of
the basement walls, and there's evidencethe Cochranes bought and then burned plastic sheeting,
(27:33):
so Chris was likely dismembered, andwhat was essentially a plastic wrapped room
and the Cochranes painted several rooms intheir house following the murder, but they
didn't paint the room that Kelly allegesJason killed Chris in because, as you'll
remember, Chris was allegedly murdered beneatha hand painted danced like no One's Watching
(28:00):
mural, and there was no bloodor DNA evidence found anywhere in that room
or on that wall. The story, as we know it can't be corroborated.
The only two other people who werethere are now dead. But Kelly
(28:22):
has made it very clear that ChrisRegan was definitively murdered by Jason. He's
on Jason's list. Jason shot himat an impossible angle from the basement,
up the stairs into a room thathad absolutely no DNA evidence, just like
(28:42):
he promised in that vow that noone can corroborate. If we're trying to
make sense out of the crazy thingsthe Cochranes have said and written, the
most reliable place to look is Jason. Things Kelly said about Jason's crimes and
(29:06):
things Jason wrote, like when hewrote about an unwelcome man entering quack Quack's
home. Wife saves the day Kellyknows how to exploit he overlooked and underestimated.
(29:32):
Did you realize people give me ahard time because I am a girl?
But don't look twice you see.This episode was written, produced,
(30:15):
and researched by me your host,Josh Hallmark, with research assistants from Becca
Klein. Thank you to doctor JoniJohnston for providing insight into female serial killers.
Research resources include the Chicago Tribune,The Washington Post, Namis, and
the Charlie Project. Thank you toTrue Crime Bullshit's newest Patreon supporters, Becca
(30:41):
F. Sarah P, Joseph H, and Joe N. This episode featured
music by William Hellfire, Lee Rooseveer, Lebonne, Sergei Cheramisanov, Radical Face,
and Empress of on the outside.I'm only a figure should see my
(31:19):
friend. I only a figure shouldsee my friend. Only a figures should
see my friend. First, thefirest, the firest, the flame.
I want to struggle, fagget inyour way. I want to struggle,
fagget in your way. I'm onlya struggle fagging Where you mean the road
(31:47):
be the road? One way iswhere I'm an A woman is a word
hurt me, but burt me.I'm always coming on inside. I always
(32:10):
coming on the inside. I alwayscoming on inside when you can, when
you can knock outside
This is a studio Both and production. If you'd like to support this show
and get ad free episodes for aslittle as two dollars a month, go
to patreon dot com slash studio bothand did you realize people give me a
hard time because I am a girl? People don't look twice. Yeah,
(00:36):
the initial idea of serial killing cameabout when we were looking at particularly sexually
motivated series of homicides. And sowhen we all think about serial killers,
we think about Ted Bundy or wethink about John Wayne Gacy. We had
this idea in our minds about menwho are out there looking to prey on
(00:57):
women's sexually over long period of time, than of course kill them afterwards.
So that's our model of what aserial killer is. And so again the
answer I think is twofold. Numberone is we do know that there are
far fewer women who have killed forsexual motives, and yet at the same
time, there are plenty of femaleserial killers who have killed for other reasons.
(01:18):
So we have to, I think, expand our idea of what a
serial killer is if we want toreally look and kind of go, Yeah,
there definitely are a lot more maleserial killers, but let's not overlook
the female serial killers because they tendto operate longer and to be more successful.
And I put that quotation marks becausewe're talking about body count deer.
(01:40):
They tend to be more successful overa longer period of time because they aren't
most likely to be captured. Kellylikes to talk most notably, Kelly likes
to talk about Jason's murders a lot. He only killed two women, He
(02:05):
targeted campers. There's eleven bodies inIndiana. He only killed two people.
He fed his victims to their pigs. He killed eleven people. Kelly kept
all of Jason's trophies. She'll tellyou all about his murders and then claim
she knows nothing about them. Shewasn't there, she wasn't involved. And
(02:30):
as we've discussed, it's her listof Jason's victims and Jason's own account of
their crimes in Where Monsters Hide thatare considerably more credible than Kelly's list of
her alleged twenty one victims. Forexample, in his book Where Monsters Hide,
(02:50):
Jason writes about a female drug addicthome wrecker, which sounds a lot
like Alicia. In the book,he also writes about an unwelcome man entering
q Quack's house and his wife savingthe day, an ambiguous description of an
event that leads to a neighborhood barbecue, and this is a clear reference to
(03:12):
Chris Regan. Kelly's list of Jason'svictims describes a man who looks and drives
the same unique car as Jason Ruteraka Minnesota Jason, and that list also
describes a murder that actually took place, the Tennessee Motel murder, And while
it doesn't seem like the Cochranes wereinvolved, it is odd that Kelly knew
(03:35):
the details of such an unpublicized homicidehundreds of miles from their home a decade
after it occurred. My point is, if we're trying to make sense out
of all the crazy things the Cochraneshave said and written, the most reliable
place to look is Jason. ThingsJason wrote and things Kelly said about Chasten's
(04:00):
crimes, crimes she says she hadnothing to do with, and that takes
us to what I believe is themajor crux of this whole case, a
culture that Kelly has studied and exploitedall along the ways in which gender and
(04:23):
sex are perceived, reported on,and investigated in crime in America, specifically
women as victims and men as invulnerable. So let's start with the most glaringly
obvious. Men are murderers, womenare victims. Women don't kill. Clearly
(04:48):
that's not the case. I've thoughta lot about and done a lot of
comparing of Kelly's crimes versus israel Keysas crimes, and I would be lying
to myself if I said there wasn'tto major disparity in the ways I've told
those two stories. And look,it's not entirely black and white, nor
(05:08):
based solely on gender or sex.But I can't admit that the humor within
the outlandishness of Kelly's crimes might actuallyexist simply because she's a woman. Consider
for a moment your reaction to israelKeys throwing up in a victim's mouth.
It's a horrifying and deeply haunting idea. I would probably assume it was about
(05:33):
controlling and demeaning a victim. WithKelly, it's so crazy that it's funny.
It's crazy and or funny when womenexert control over or demean men,
at least narratively. So I've foundmyself getting frustrated over or laughing at,
(05:56):
or some combination of the two.Many of the things Kelly has said and
done, but when Keys did similarthings, he was a mystery. Keys
is calculating, enigmatic, meticulous.Kelly is ridiculous, a liar, manipulative,
and in all truth, both Keysand Kelly are all of those things.
(06:21):
Israel Keys has been dead for almosteight years, and I'm still terrified
of him. Kelly Cochrane is aliveand well, and I'm writing her letters
without even blinking an eye. Sexismin in crime is a real thing,
and Kelly knows it and uses it. That's what makes her terrifying. I
(06:46):
used to think it was stupid andinsane that Kelly thought she could kill multiple
men who she had relationships with andget away with it. And obviously in
the end she didn't get away withit. But it's very clear there were
victims before Chris Regan, and evenin Regan's case, Jason was the suspect
(07:08):
long before Kelly was. In fact, at first, Kelly was viewed as
a vulnerable victim of Jason's and wereit not for Chief Frizzo, probably would
have continued to be viewed that way. As you'll recall, Michigan State Police
didn't think Kelly was involved and actuallyrefused to investigate her. Kelly thought she
(07:33):
could get away with it because,like she said, women are overlooked,
and like doctor Johnston said, womenare generally more successful serial killers than men,
and that they tend to get awaywith it for much longer because they're
overlooked. Velma Barfield killed at leastsix people over a nine year year span.
(08:01):
Amy Archer Gilligan killed more than fivepeople over a seven year span.
Bell Gunnis killed at least fourteen peopleover a twenty four year span. Ronda
Bell Martin killed between five and eightfamily members over a span of twenty plus
years. Dorothea Puente killed between nineand fifteen people over a six year span.
(08:26):
Jane Toppin killed more than thirty onepeople over a six year span.
Shirley Winters is believed to have killedupwards of ten people over a fifty year
span. I'd only heard of twoof those women prior to my research.
In fact, of the sixty threefemale serial killers listed on Wikipedia, I'd
(08:48):
only heard of about ten percent ofthem. Now, let's take a look
at some of their male contemporaries.Ted Bundy killed more than thirty women over
a four year span. John WayneGacy killed at least thirty three men over
a six year span. Edmund Kemperkilled ten people over a nine year span.
(09:13):
Jeffrey Dahmer killed seventeen men over athirteen year span. Israel Keys is
believed to have killed at least elevenpeople over a fourteen year span. There
are over three hundred American male serialkillers listed on Wikipedia. I knew of
about eighty five percent of them,so there's already some great disparities and how
(09:37):
we report on and sensationalize male versusfemale serial killers. And while there isn't
exact data available, after an analysisof twenty random female serial killers and twenty
random male serial killers, I foundthat, as an average, female serial
killers are apprehended after fourteen years ofmurdering, while male serial killers are apprehended
(10:03):
on average after five years. Additionally, most of those women were killing people
close to them, while most ofthose men were killing at random. Women
are overlooked, especially when it comesto killing men. The women who were
apprehended earlier in their sprees were womenwho were murdering children, women who were
(10:28):
killing, men were generally arrested muchlater in their sprees, which brings us
back to the perceived invulnerability of men, something else Kelly exploited. According to
Nemus, there are currently ten thousand, five hundred thirty one missing men in
(10:52):
America. That's more than sixty percentof their total missing persons records. This
is a trend consistent across all missingpersons databases, which, and I cannot
stress this enough, do not comeclose to measuring the immeasurable number of actual
missing people in America. But asa trend, it's a bit eyebrow raising
(11:18):
considering the disparities in media coverage ofmissing men versus missing women, which is
already supremely unbalanced in its focus onmissing white women. In this podcast,
we've talked a lot about the media'slack of reporting on missing and murdered Indigenous
women and minorities in general in America, a lack of reporting that I think
(11:43):
can be fairly summed up by acombination of apathy and editorialism. But why
aren't they reporting on missing men?Why aren't most Americans on a first name
basis with missing men like they arewith Maura Murray Brianna Maitland, Leah Roberts,
Jennifer Kess, Lauren Speer, andso on. I don't pose this
(12:07):
question to insinuate that there's too muchreporting on those or any missing women,
because there probably can't ever be toomuch reporting on any missing people, but
merely to ask why aren't we reportingequally on missing men and obviously missing minorities.
(12:28):
If you ask me, and thisis reductive, it's sexism. We
don't want to editorialize men as vulnerable. It's a trope that's so pervasive with
an American media and storytelling. Womenneed to be saved, men do the
saving, and that's extended itself intotrue crime narratives and the way we talk
(12:50):
about crime in general. Until thispodcast, most people who knew who Israel
Keys was had no idea that hetargeted men. There are countless movies based
on male serial killers who targeted women, and they're all told through a lens
of horror and trauma. And whileI'm sure there are more, the only
(13:15):
movie I can think of based ona female serial killer is Monster, which
tonally is both erotic and comedic.The idea of a woman killing men is
funny and that's mostly been the toneof this very podcast. We call her
crazy Kelly, not scary Kelly.And Kelly knew that she studied serial killers,
(13:43):
she studied forensics, she studied psychology. Kelly was a deptly aware of
how overlooked women are in the commissionof violent crime. She was also aware
of how overlooked men are as victimsand specifically which men. In both Kelly's
(14:05):
and Jason's narratives, there are threetypes of victims that come up over and
over again veterans, campers, anddrug users and drug dealers. And I
don't think it's coincidence that these arethe three groups of men who are most
(14:26):
likely to go missing and least likelyto be reported on. Let's take a
look at veterans in America. Accordingto the United States Department of Housing and
Urban Development, more than forty ninethousand veterans in America are reported as either
homeless or missing. It's actually sopervasive in America that legislators are working with
(14:54):
the VFW to implement a Green Alert, which would be a statewide ID alert
system similar to the Amber Alert,specifically for missing vets. Wisconsin is on
track to be the first state totest the green alert. But that's demonstrative
of both how often vets go missingand how frequently their disappearances are related to
(15:20):
or presumed to be related to homelessness, which makes them easy and vulnerable targets.
Chris Reagan and Eric Ericson were bothvets, and according to Kelly,
so were at least three of herother victims, including Gary from Calumet City
and Minnesota Jason. A little lessthan fifty percent of Kelly's list of Jason's
(15:50):
victims consists of men who were camping, and as we learned from the Keys
case, when male campers go missing, it's presumed accidental or suicide. Again,
they make incredibly easy and vulnerable targets. And it's not just Kelly's list
(16:11):
that focuses on campers. Several peopleclose to the Cochranes mentioned that Jason talked
about killing people while camping and inone instance referred to his murders as camping.
And then there's Colton's account of beingdrugged on a camping trip with Kelly
(16:32):
and Jason and the Cochranes. Well, they went camping a lot. Unfortunately,
because investigators didn't expend a lot ofeffort looking into the Cochranes beyond the
scope of Chris Regan's murder. Thereisn't much of a timeline for them outside
of their time in the Upper Peninsula, of course, but even in those
(16:55):
two years, the Cochranes went campingat least nine times, and as Colton
told investigators, even prior to theirmove up north, the Cochranes went on
many camping trips throughout Indiana, Michigan, Kentucky, Missouri, Illinois, and
Tennessee, all states that have comeup in Kelly's conversations about locations where she's
(17:21):
killed people. And then there's drugusers and dealers, and this is probably
the easiest and most vulnerable target forKelly. She was a drug user who
hung around with both dealers and otherusers very frequently, and this group,
(17:42):
more than any other, are underreportedwhen it comes to disappearances and murders.
It's choked up to homelessness or crimeon crime when a drug user or dealer
goes missing or gets murdered. DeborahFeldman is a great example of this.
There was no coverage on her disappearance. Everyone in her life and local law
(18:07):
enforcement just assumed she'd either odeed orwas a living on the streets, and
it wasn't until her name came upin the Keys investigation that anyone took her
disappearance seriously. And again, there'sa precedence with drug users and dealers as
victims when it comes to the Cochranes, Jason talked about killing a drug dealer
(18:32):
that Kelly was sleeping with. Kelly'slist of victims includes multiple men she claims
to have done drugs with. Jasonrud Is alleged to have been involved in
drugs. Alicia was an addict andKelly tried to overdose her. Kelly also
injected Jason with enough heroine to killhim prior to suffocating him. Kelly knew
(18:57):
she would be overlooked as a womanwho killed people, and she knew exactly
who would be overlooked as murder victims. She knew she could kill people close
to her and get away with it. She knew it because there's a long
line of women who did it beforeher, and she knew, or at
(19:18):
least thought, she could reasonably makeJason look responsible for all of her murders,
even her murder of him. Sometimesthere's no greater power than being underestimated
and overlooked. Now there is afourth group of vulnerable people who the Cochranes
(19:52):
may have exploited, specifically because it'snot one Kelly talks about much. If
ever, she repeatedly makes a pointto talk about military service multiple times when
discussing hers and Jason's victims. Shesays things like I'm pretty sure he was
(20:14):
in the military. She also talksa lot about men she did drugs with
before murdering, or drug dealers sheslept with behind Jason's back, and then
of course, camping is very prevalentin all of her lists and stories,
but Kelly doesn't talk much about race, specifically black men, at all,
(20:42):
despite it coming up with Jason.As you may remember, according to people
close to Jason, he talked alot about killing black people and racially motivated
attacks, and Kelly's list and conversationhave her killing multiple men in both Gary
(21:03):
and the South Side of Chicago,both areas that are over ninety percent black.
And if you look closely at bothof Kelly's lists and even venture to
believe that there's any truth to them, there are two things that stand out.
(21:23):
One Kelly never mentions the race ofany of hers or Jason's victims,
and two Jason's list, the onlylist with exact dates of murders, actually
includes dates and locations that match upto missing men missing black men. Take,
(21:49):
for example, Noah question Mark fromJason's list. Kelly wrote that Jason
murdered Noah question on May twelfth oftwo thousand eight and then disposed of his
remains in Robinson Lake Park near theirhome on Mississippi Street. Now, there
(22:10):
are no reports of a man namedNoah who disappeared on May twelfth of two
thousand eight, or any date surroundingMay twelfth of two thousand eight. There
is, however, a man namedNicholas who disappeared on that exact date from
the South side of Chicago, justthirty four miles from the Cochrane's home.
(22:37):
Nicholas O. Brown, a black, twenty one year old man, was
last seen on the twenty nine hundredblock of South Dearborn Street in Chicago at
around seven pm on May twelfth.Nicholas was known to be involved in both
street gangs and local drug trade,and in addition to the date and location
(22:57):
matching, there are few other thingsthat stand out about Nicholas's disappearance. One
Kelly's list of her alleged victims includesa Michael Marcus, who was from the
South Side of Chicago. Kelly doesn'tstate when this murder occurred, but her
mostly chronological list would place this murdersometime around two thousand and six. She
(23:22):
claimed she only met him once whiledoing drugs before stabbing him in the neck,
and all of her talking of heralleged victims, this is the one
she discusses the least two. Accordingto medical records and witness interviews, Kelly
checked into a mental health facility exactlytwo months before Nicholas brown disappeared, and
(23:48):
Jason Well he checked into a mentalhealth facility in late May of two thousand
and eight. And while the forthe Cochran's being involved in Nicholas Browne's disappearance
is a lot more tenuous than sayAndrew Fugates, the date, the location,
and the victim profile all match.And then there's all this talk of
(24:15):
Jason targeting the black community and hisresentment towards the many, many drug users
in Kelly's life. When we talkabout overlooked groups and true crime, missing
and murdered black men is a bigone, and Chicago. Essentially, the
Cochrane's backyard is an epicenter. Accordingto Namis and the Charlie Project, there
(24:42):
are at minimum thirty seven unsolved disappearancesof black men in Chicago, and about
seventy five percent of all unsolved homicidesin Chicago are homicides of black men.
They may be one of these mosteasy and vulnerable targets. Kelly knew exactly
(25:08):
what types of victims would be overlooked, and they all come up in her
lists, Jason's book, Kelly's Conversationswith Ogden, and or Jason's Conversations with
Friends. Kelly knew exactly how andwhy should be overlooked as a killer,
(25:30):
much like her victimology. She usedthat to her advantage in setting Jason up,
in her storytelling and in her methodsof murder and attempted murder, and
that subsists even in everything we thinkwe know about the crimes we can connect
her to, specifically Chris Reagan.Everything we know about that murder, the
(25:57):
actual murder self, we've learned fromKelly. There was no physical evidence in
the Cochrane home other than Chris's DNAon the forceps used to remove the bullet
that killed him. The narrative isthat Kelly lured him into their home,
where Jason shot him on the landingnear their back door, then dismembered him
(26:19):
in their basement. In some stories, Chris and Kelly fall down the basement
stairs together after he shot, andothers just Chris falls down, and in
one story the Cochranes carry him downthe stairs after the shooting. But before
this story became the story, oneinvestigator wondered aloud how Jason could shoot Chris
(26:47):
and the back of the head fromthe basement. It just didn't seem possible.
In Kelly's various stories, Chris's alwaysengaging in some sort of sex act
with her against the wall facing theback door, which would place Chris above
and to the right of the basementsteps. If Jason shot him from the
(27:12):
basement, he would have shot himin the side of the head. And
then there's the landing and that specificwall staples were found in the joists of
the basement walls, and there's evidencethe Cochranes bought and then burned plastic sheeting,
(27:33):
so Chris was likely dismembered, andwhat was essentially a plastic wrapped room
and the Cochranes painted several rooms intheir house following the murder, but they
didn't paint the room that Kelly allegesJason killed Chris in because, as you'll
remember, Chris was allegedly murdered beneatha hand painted danced like no One's Watching
(28:00):
mural, and there was no bloodor DNA evidence found anywhere in that room
or on that wall. The story, as we know it can't be corroborated.
The only two other people who werethere are now dead. But Kelly
(28:22):
has made it very clear that ChrisRegan was definitively murdered by Jason. He's
on Jason's list. Jason shot himat an impossible angle from the basement,
up the stairs into a room thathad absolutely no DNA evidence, just like
(28:42):
he promised in that vow that noone can corroborate. If we're trying to
make sense out of the crazy thingsthe Cochranes have said and written, the
most reliable place to look is Jason. Things Kelly said about Jason's crimes and
(29:06):
things Jason wrote, like when hewrote about an unwelcome man entering quack Quack's
home. Wife saves the day Kellyknows how to exploit he overlooked and underestimated.
(29:32):
Did you realize people give me ahard time because I am a girl?
But don't look twice you see.This episode was written, produced,
(30:15):
and researched by me your host,Josh Hallmark, with research assistants from Becca
Klein. Thank you to doctor JoniJohnston for providing insight into female serial killers.
Research resources include the Chicago Tribune,The Washington Post, Namis, and
the Charlie Project. Thank you toTrue Crime Bullshit's newest Patreon supporters, Becca
(30:41):
F. Sarah P, Joseph H, and Joe N. This episode featured
music by William Hellfire, Lee Rooseveer, Lebonne, Sergei Cheramisanov, Radical Face,
and Empress of on the outside.I'm only a figure should see my
(31:19):
friend. I only a figure shouldsee my friend. Only a figures should
see my friend. First, thefirest, the firest, the flame.
I want to struggle, fagget inyour way. I want to struggle,
fagget in your way. I'm onlya struggle fagging Where you mean the road
(31:47):
be the road? One way iswhere I'm an A woman is a word
hurt me, but burt me.I'm always coming on inside. I always
(32:10):
coming on the inside. I alwayscoming on inside when you can, when
you can knock outside
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