March 22, 2023 • 39 mins
Phone records, discrepancies in Kelly Cochran's statements, search warrants, and several interviews lead to some shocking revelations surrounding Chris Regan's disappearance. Plus, criminal psychologist, Joni Johnston, discusses female psychopaths.
This is a Studio BOTH/AND production:
www.pactpodcast.com / www.bothand.fyi
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Written, researched, edited, and produced by Josh Hallmark.
Music by William Hellfire, Chris Zabriskie, Whithe, Sergey Cheremisinov, Radical Face, and The Bird & The Bee.
Sources: Dead North, Psychology Today, and Where Monsters Hide: Sex, Murder and Madness in the Midwest by M. William Phelps
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.
Music by William Hellfire, Chris Zabriskie, Whithe, Sergey Cheremisinov, Radical Face, and The Bird & The Bee.
Sources: Dead North, Psychology Today, and Where Monsters Hide: Sex, Murder and Madness in the Midwest by M. William Phelps
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:09):
This is a studio both and production. There is some interesting research or there's
I read an article recently that Ithink had some some merit to it,
although I think it was an overexaggeration. It was written by an evolutionary
psychologist, and her whole theory wasthat, you know, we used to
(00:31):
live in hunter gatherer societies, andmen were the hunters and women were the
gatherers. And so when you lookat how women and men kill in a
planned way, men tend to goout and hunt and women tend to gather
people around them and then kill peopleclose to them. And I think that
that is an exaggeration in terms ofyou know, I don't think we're stuck
(00:51):
in this evolutionary time war, butI do think there's some carry over to
that, and that when you lookat patterns of serial killing between men and
I mean, you do see that. On the morning of October twenty eighth,
twenty fourteen, exactly two weeks afterChris Regan was last seen, Kelly
and Jason Cochrane were interviewed separately bySergeant Barrett at the Iron River Police Department.
(01:17):
Kelly met with Sergeant Barrett first andmostly discussed her relationship with Chris.
She confirmed that they did in facthave a relationship and that Jason was aware
of it. She went on tosay that her relationship with Chris had gotten
so serious that he'd even asked herto move to North Carolina with him,
(01:38):
and yet she would also confirm,with some hesitation, that she was also
seeing Chris's subordinate at Oldenburg, EricEricson. Kelly told Sergeant Barrett that she
and Chris met at work and werefast friends, but that their friendship quickly
progressed to a more intimate relationship bymid July of twenty fourteen. What started
(02:01):
out as hikes kayaking in the occasionalromp in the woods evolved into dinners at
Chris's apartment. When asked if Kellyand Chris ever went to the park and
ride, Kelly looked confused and saidshe didn't know what the park and ride
was. She then told Sergeant Barrettthat she had last seen Chris sometime between
(02:24):
October twelfth and fifteenth, when thetwo had a dinner date at his apartment.
Later in that same interview, KellyWood specify that she last saw Chris
on October fourteenth, when she broughthomemade lasagna to his apartment for a dinner
date. Kelly went on to saythat all three men she was seeing knew
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about each other and that there wasno way Jason would hurt Reagan or could
in any way be involved in hisdisappearance. Tell us about that. I
first met him on the Daylight interview, which was the twenty second. He
(03:07):
was in one of six that didto hire. Think that was first time
I had him. But I wouldsee him passing. He was in the
military assembly, so that was thesection right behind the electrical assembly, so
you know, he passed through.We made small talk through that. We
ended up talking more in honestly asall right at some point did you see
(03:32):
him all the side of work?Yeah, we had actually planned before before
we had ended up meeting up.We had planned a few times to get
together. I was wearied, Iwas trying to I knew it was wrong
to be dating somebody at work.I felt uncomfortable. Some of the things
he was my relationship made everything atmy relationship at homely things worse. But
(03:57):
eventually every we mow each up.A few times we did. He ended
up calming next at the car wash. One day we talked for her,
going to say forty five minutes toa number. We made plans to meet
the next day, which was theweekend, and we were going to go
hiking Lake out of To be sure, Chris wasn't the only John I you
were talking about. Do you getthat time that the Thursday, right before
(04:21):
Chris, I had talked to aguy named Ken. There was no relationship
with me and him, and wedid go out to eat, We did
go to the park and hang out. There was no intimacy at all.
Um right after I want to say, in September, Midstember being Ericson started
talking, calm and hangout. Eventuallyhe came into her. Following Kelly's interview
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with Sergeant Barrett, was Jason.As I mentioned last episode, Jason was
a wreck right off the bat.He began crying almost immediately. He told
investigators he suffered from severe depression andanxiety, and he admitted that he had
been institutionalized in nearby Rhinelander, Wisconsinfor both just a little over a month
(05:12):
ago. In the same interview,he'd later tell Barrett that he checked back
into the same hospital for five dayson October sixteenth, after suffering from suicidal
ideations. Sergeant Barrett first asked himabout his relationship with Kelly, and specifically
how he felt about her seeing othermen. This is when Jason discussed his
(05:38):
health issues, mental and physical,and essentially said that it was his fault
that Kelly was engaging in relationships withother people that he couldn't fulfill her and
so he either had to accept herbehavior or let her go. That Kelly
stayed with him out of pity.He went on to confirm that he was
(05:58):
in fact aware of Kelly's relationships withboth Chris Regan and Eric Rickson, although
he'd never met either nor could hepick them out of a lineup. He
denied any involvement in Chris's disappearance.Later that afternoon, Chief Frizzo interviewed Eric
Ericsson from the Jump. Eric wasincredibly calm and cooperative. He told Frizzo
(06:25):
that he had PTSD after serving inmultiple military tours in the Middle East,
and that's why he moved to theUpper Peninsula. He wanted a calmer,
quieter life. He said that hemet Kelly shortly after he started working at
Oldenburg. He told Frizzo that whatstarted out as a friendship quickly developed into
(06:46):
a casual sexual relationship in the middleof September. Citing that Kelly had been
the aggressor. During the interview,Eric voluntarily showed Chief Frizzo his entire text
chain with Kelly, going as farback as October fifth. He noted that
he and Kelly exchanged multiple texts almostevery single day in early October until October
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thirteenth, when all communications stopped forfour days. On the sixteenth, she
texted that she had been unavailable andwas helping a friend with a very big
problem. It should be noted thatOctober sixteenth is also when Jason checked himself
back into the mental health facility,according to what he told investigators. However,
(07:36):
it was what Ericsson told for hisown next that rang alarm bells for
her. When asked where he andKelly engaged in sexual encounters, he said
that in mid September, early intotheir relationship, he took Kelly to a
secluded park and ride in nearby BatesTownship, and from thereafter that's where they
(07:59):
most frequently rendezvous. That same day, Eric took and passed a polygraph test,
and Chief Frizzo cleared him as asuspect, immediately making Kelly and Jason
Cochrane, her prime and only suspectsin the disappearance of Chris Regan. It
(08:22):
would seem that Kelly well fucked up. Not only had she placed herself as
the last person to see Chris beforehe disappeared, she made multiple statements that
were either contradicted or confirmed to beflat out lies. First, she told
investigators that she had last seen Chriswhen she brought homemade lasagna to his apartment
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on October fourteenth. However, thesearch of his apartment previously conducted by Sergeant
Barrett found evidence that Chris had orderedand paid for take out that night,
and fact there was no sign oflasagna anywhere in his messy house, which
was full of dishes and takeout containers. Then there was the whole matter of
(09:09):
the park and ride. Kelly toldinvestigators she didn't know what a park and
ride was, while Eric Ericsson toldinvestigators that he and Kelly had sex on
multiple occasions at the very park andride where Chris Regan's abandoned car had been
found. On October twenty ninth,Chief Frizzo was able to file for warrants
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for Chris's, Kelly's and Jason's cellphone records, and those records would be
illuminating. In early November, IronRiver Police Department and the Michigan State Police
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received the Cochranes and Chris Regans phonerecords records for all text messages, phone
calls, and voice messages made betweenMay fifteenth, twenty fourteen, and October
twenty fifth, twenty fourteen. Inthis period, Kelly sent and received an
average of forty text messages per day, and also based on averages, generally
(10:18):
fourteen of those exchanges were with ChrisReagan and five were with Jason until October
twelfth, when her communication with Jasondoubled. Then, on the thirteenth,
they exchanged thirty text messages in asingle day. Things got significantly weirder on
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the fourteenth, the day Chris Regandisappeared. That morning, Kelly and Jason
exchanged five rapid fire text messages andthen didn't text or call each other again
until October seventeenth. However, therewas a lot of communication with Chris Reagan's
phone. Notably, most of thatcommunication was between Chris's phone and Jason's phone.
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Prior to the fourteenth, the twohad no records of ever telephonically communicating.
On October fourteenth, Chris Regan textedKelly at three fifty seven PM.
Fourteen minutes later, Jason Cochrane's phonetexted Chris Regans and Chris's phone immediately responded.
(11:30):
Then just minutes later there was acall placed from Chris's phone to Jason's,
a call that lasted seven minutes.An hour later, Chris's phone again
texted Jason's. This would be thelast outgoing communication from Chris's phone ever,
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and at eight fifty seven that night, Kelly made a one second phone call
to Chris's phone. On October fifteenth, Kelly didn't send or receive any text
messages or phone calls, which isincredibly odd considering her daily average of forty
text exchanges and twenty four phone calls. Jason received two incoming calls from an
(12:16):
unknown number and placed two outgoing texts, one of which was to Chris Reagan's
phone at eight twenty one in themorning. On the sixteenth, Jason's phone
texted Chris's again at five thirty twoPM, and then all communication between the
Cochrane's phones and Chris's phone ceased.Cell towers painted an even grimmer picture all
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pings on all three phones on Octoberfifteenth and sixteenth, pinged cell towers and
caspin near the Cochrane's house. Whatstood out most to Frizzo is that during
Iron River P's initial interview with Kelly, she stated that her phone had been
broken on October fourteenth, but shehad clearly received a text from Chris that
(13:09):
afternoon and then used her phone tocall Chris's phone that one second call that
occurred later that night. So whywas she using Jason's phone to communicate with
Chris if her phone wasn't broken.It was clear to Frizzo that at some
point on the night of October fourteenth, Jason was at the Cochrane's house and
(13:33):
that as phone stayed there for atleast forty eight hours before going dead,
and that was enough to file fora search warrant on Kelly and Jason's house
at sixty six Lawrence Street. Unfortunately, that warrant would take several months to
get signed off. On On Novembertenth, Chief Frizzo made an unexpected visit
(13:58):
to the cochran house. She askedJason if he would accompany her to the
police department for a quick chat andrequested that Kelly had down in thirty minutes.
The couple agreed. In this secondinterview with Iron River Police, Jason
told Frizzo that in early September,he began hearing voices, voices that were
(14:22):
telling him to kill himself, andthen he started having visions. He was
seeing things that weren't there. Boththe visions and the voices became so unrelenting
that he checked himself into a mentalhealth facility in Rhinelander. When asked if
he ever would or did harm Kelly, he said that he'd only ever wanted
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to hurt himself, that he figuredeveryone would be better off without him.
When Frizzo changed the subject from Jason'smental health to Chris Regan's disappearance, Jason
went from being pitiful and earnest toodefensive and kg and as quickly as she
changed the subject, he asked fora lawyer, and with that the interview
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was over. Kelly's interview was evenshorter than Jason's. She repeated her story
from her interview with Sergeant Barrett onthe twenty eighth, mostly discussing how she
juggled her relationships with Chris, Jasonand Eric in September and October. She
also told Chief Frizzo that in midSeptember, Jason started hearing and seeing things
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that weren't there, and when ChiefFrizzo asked if she was willing to take
a polygraph, Kelly declined and thenasked for her lawyers. Three, sorry,
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what'd you do? This was?Well? Jason was getting a little
worse. He was the very thingyou see things and told me he was
talking to somebody that had never beenthere, more crazy things, things that
you know. He wasn't there allthe way when he was snackings, hearing
(16:22):
things or telling you what the voiceswere saying to hipp yes, to kill
me, could kill himself. Heheard other people. He said, he
heard these voices all the time,and a little bit to him seeing someone
who wasn't there could tell us alittle bit more about that if you know
a lot, if you didn't knowa lot of it. There's a couple
of times that he had seen peoplem one time he had told me walk
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from one of the gentlemen testified thathe was there and they were talking and
they were playing games, and wonderedwhy I wasn't there, and wal to
think of a norn Hoouse. Ithink he was just stating, so thought
Nan loses. It took four monthsfor Chief Frizzo search warrant to get signed,
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and on the morning of March fifth, she and a team of investigators
from both Iron River Pete and theMichigan State Police served the Cochranes. Kelly
and Jason spent the twelve hour searchacross the street with their friend and neighbor,
David Sailor, and during the search, investigators found the following inside the
(17:34):
Cochrane home six swords, one battleaxe, one crossbow, seventeen daggers and
knives, a baseball bat, ahammer, a rifle, a shotgun,
and an unregistered twenty two handgun.They also discovered what appeared to be cast
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off blood spatter on the living roomceiling. Frizzo noted that since her first
visit to the Cochrane home, theyhad painted the living room, including the
ceiling. The blood spatter was detectedvia luminole swabbed and then immediately sent for
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testing, and sometime between nine pmthat night, when the search concluded,
and eight am the following morning,the Cochranes fled. On the morning of
March sixth, the day after thesearch of the cochrane home, David Sailor
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took his uncle and grandmother to theIron River Police Department to discuss the Cochrane's
behavior during the search and in thedays following Chris Regan's disappearance. David said
that he'd never seen Kelly or Jasonupset or nervous, but throughout the search
of their house, they were overtlyanxious, paranoid and uneasy, he told
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investigators. At once the search wasover, the Cochranes said they were going
to take a look at the houseand would be back shortly. He never
saw them again and heard their carpulling out of the driveway early the next
morning. But it was his statementsregarding the Cochrane's behaviors and activities in mid
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October that were the most damning.You may remember that when David Sailor initially
spoke with the police, he reportedthat the Cochranes had been uncharacteristically busy in
the day surrounding Chris Regan's disappearance.They had a barbecue, they began renovating
their house, they had a bonfire. Well, in this interview he was
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able to speak more specifically about thoseactivities. He said the construction work to
their house began on the night ofOctober fourteenth, late that night, like
two am late, and it wenton for several nights after. Each night
that week David Sailor awoke to thesounds of power tools coming from the Cochrane's
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basement, and David's grandmother reported thaton the night of the fourteenth, she
heard a gunshot. Following the gunshot, she could hear a male female couple
arguing, and then eventually two carspulling out of the Cochrane's driveway. David
also elaborated on the barbecue the Cochraneshosted that week. He said it occurred
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on either October fifteenth or sixteenth,and that it was the only time the
Cochranes had ever invited him and hisfamily over for food. He reported that
the invite wasn't the only weird thingabout this barbecue. He said the Cochranes
were serving an absurd amount of meat, which he estimated would have been about
(20:59):
two hundred dollersworth, which is aconsiderable amount seeing as how Kelly was working
multiple jobs just to keep the pairafloat. Based on eyewitness statements, phone
records and the Cochrane's timeline. Thisbarbecue most likely would have taken place on
the afternoon of October sixteenth, justhours before Jason allegedly checked himself in for
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a second time in six weeks tothe Rhinelander Mental Health Facility. In follow
up interviews, David would state thathe'd never tasted anything like the meat that
the Cochrane served that day. Herecalled it as being translucent and smelling strange.
When he asked Jason about it,Jason only said that he used to
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work as a butcher, selling exoticmeats that he liked barbecuing exotic wildlife.
Jason never worked as or even fora butcher, let alone one who sold
exotic meat. On March twenty seventh, Chief Frizzo and the MSP returned to
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the Cochranes now abandoned home to conducta second search. The warrant for this
search allowed the Maxus to the basementusing luminol again, they found more blood
evidence on walls and doors throughout thehouse, and in the basement they found
a manuscript that Jason had written duringhis first stay at the mental health facility.
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The visit that occurred before Chris Reganwent missing. The manuscript was titled
Where Monsters Hide, and it's amanuscript we'll deep dive in a later episode,
but for now, here's the premise. The protagonist is a married,
not quite middle aged man and whosuffers from anxiety and chronic pain, named
(23:04):
you guessed it, Jason. ThisJason describes himself as a predator who has
a hit list, who will killany prey that enters his home. The
manuscript ends eerily and ambiguously with Jason'swife saving the day and then a backyard
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cookout. Sound familiar now. Therewere a lot of obstacles in the investigation
into the Cochranes, from bad DNAto political issues to a department shake up,
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all of which we'll get into,but there was also some amazing,
extraordinary dumb luck and goodwill. Sometimestime after Chris Regan's disappearance was made public,
an unnamed concerned citizen hired a privateinvestigator to look into Kelly and Jason,
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and, as a luck would haveit, or perhaps intel, at
four am on the very morning thesearch warrant was served, this PI put
a tracking device on Kelly Cochrane's car, so when the Cochranes fled the Upper
Peninsula. This investigator tracked their entiredrive south to Hobert, Indiana, and
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then reported it to Iron River PD. While DNA from the second search of
sixty six Lawrence was being tested,Frizzo worked with the Lake County Sheriff's office
in Indiana to secure a warrant forthe cochrans DNA, and on July twenty
fourth, Hobert PD rolled up onJason, who was watering pla aunts at
(25:00):
Kelly Cochrane's mother's house, and servedhim and eventually Kelly, with their warrants.
When they were escorted to the HobertPolice Department after almost five months on
the run, they found themselves faceto face with Chief Frizzo. It had
become apparent to Frizzo during her firsttwo interviews with the Cochrans that Jason was
(25:25):
the weak link, and she utilizedthat in a new strategy to take them
on while in Indiana. First shemet with Jason, and she told him
exactly what she thought. That hewas the victim, that Kelly was taking
advantage of him, that Kelly wasthe aggressor, not just in her relationships,
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but also in the murder of ChrisRegan, but her attempt to get
Jason to turn on Kelly didn't work, and because no charges had been filed
against him or Kelly, he submittedto the court ordered DNA test, but
refused to answer any questions without alawyer present and was dismissed. Kelly was
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ushered in shortly thereafter, at whichpoint investigators were able to inform Frizzo that
while she was talking with Jason,Jason's phone, which sat on a nearby
desk, was called and texted repeatedlyby Kelly. It was clear that she
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was rattled, and even clear toFrizzo at least that Kelly was worried about
what Jason might say to investigators duringthis surprise interrogation. While interviewing Kelly,
Frizzo asked again about the park andride, and again Kelly said she didn't
know anything about a park and ride. This time, however, Frizzo was
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prepared. She pulled out a transcriptof her interview with Eric Ericsson, detailing
their many hookups at the park andride. Kelly was, in a word,
pissed, and she too told Frizzoshe wouldn't say another word without a
fucking lawyer, and as she wastaken for her DNA submission, Frizzo smiled
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and told Kelly that Jason had alot to talk about. Kelly shook her
head and said, I figured hewould. In a piece you wrote about
Kelly Cochrane for Psychology Today, youmentioned that we don't know a lot about
(27:45):
female psychopaths. Why do you thinkthere's such a disparity in what we know
about male versus female psychopaths and whatare some of the distinctions in the two.
I think one of the reasons wedon't know so much about female psychopaths
one is the test were validated initiallyon men, so what we use to
diagnose psychopathy was developed. The actualconcept was pretty much developed about men,
(28:10):
and so there wasn't much attention.Of course, this unfortunately is true for
a lot of areas of psychology wherewomen kind of lag behind in terms of
looking at how a certain disorder mightmanifest itself, and a lot of times
there is no difference between the genders. This is doctor Joni Johnston, a
forensic psychologist, private investigator and crimewriter who studied female psychopathy and recently published
(28:33):
an op ed on Kelly Cochrane inPsychology Today titled what we Know and Don't
Know about Female Psychopaths, And Ithink the other thing is because the test
and our ideas about psychopathy were basedupon men. What we're finding is that
while the experience of psychopathy is probablyvery similar between men and women, the
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way it expresses itself can be different. And because of that, there are
some hypothesis that while I think mostof us would agree that the overall rate
of psychopathy is lower in women thanmen, in addition to that, it
may be that women can kind offly under the radar more easily because they
don't necessarily tend to demonstrate some ofthe more shocking or overt symptoms, like,
(29:26):
for example, a lot of physicalviolence necessarily, and so I think
they oftentimes aren't as likely to bein the criminal justice system. And so
because of that, I think thatthere are probably more than we think,
we just don't know who they are. Well. That is a great lead
into another question I had, whichis, we've made household names out of
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a lot of male serial killers,but when I try to think of female
serial killers, Eileen Warrenos is usuallythe only one that comes to mind.
Do you think that that's reflective ofa disparity, and serial killers cress gender,
media bias, higher apprehension rates,or some combination of all of those
factors. Well, again, Ithink the initial idea of serial killing came
(30:10):
about when we were looking at particularlysexually motivated series of homicides. And so
when we all think about serial killers, we think about Ted Bundy or we
think about John Wayne Gacy. Wehad this idea in our minds about men
who are out there looking to preyon women's sexually over long period of time,
than of course kill them afterwards.So that's our model of what a
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serial killer is. And so againthe answer I think is twofold number one
is we do know that there arefar fewer women who have killed for sexual
motives, and yet at the sametime, there are plenty of female serial
killers who have killed for other reasons, primarily financial for example. So we
have to, I think, expandour idea of what a serial killer is
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if we want to really look andkind of go, yeah, there definitely
are a lot more male serial killers, but let's not overlook the female serial
killers because they tend to operate longerand to be more successful. And I
put that quotation marks because we're talkingabout body count here. They tend to
be more successful over a longer periodof time because they aren't most likely to
(31:18):
be captured. After spending years studyingIsrael Keys, I have a hard time
divorcing my ideas on how psychopathy manifestsin serial killers from how it manifested in
Israel Keys, and whether I mighthave some implicit biases regarding psychopathy and how
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it relates to gender or sex.To me, a psychopathic killer is one
who kills at random, and intrying to understand Kelly Cochrane, I found
myself overlooking that it could present differentlyalong gender lines, gray as they may
be, and instead I focused onthe huge difference and Kelly's end, Keys's
(32:00):
childhoods, which brought me back toSo you asked me about nature versus nurture,
So we don't really know. There'sreally no research that I'm aware of
that looks at nature versus nurture froma female psychopath versus a male psychopath,
because that would be so difficult todo. I'm not even sure that we
could. It's hard to do itwith just one person. When you look
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at psychopathy. What we certainly thinkis because there's been a lot of brain
imaging studies over the past five toten years that really do show some structural
and functional differences in the brains atleast of adults who have been diagnosed with
psychopathy. There clearly seems to besome genetic components and some biological components to
psychopathy. However, it appears thatthese genetic and structural components tend to get
(32:47):
activated by environment. So it's almostlike this perfect storm for a lot of
people who are psychopaths. They havethis genetic predisposition, and if they are
lucky enough to be in a very, very nurturing home, in a very
supportive environment, then that predisposition maynot express itself. The reverse, you
(33:12):
might have somebody who has a lessof a predisposition and that are in a
horrendous environment, and that they maybecome a psychopath as an adult. Now,
having said that, we also knowthat there are some people who clearly
have a stronger genetic component than others. And when you're talking about Kelly,
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it certainly appears at least some ofthe conversations that she's had with her mom
that she at least believes that shewas born that way, and there is
some evidence again to suggest that somepeople do have a strong kind of biological
predisposition or genetic predisposition of that.The hard part of it is, I
think, is that anybody who's beena parent knows that there is this interaction
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that occurs from birth. So forexample, if you have a child who's
three or four or five, andyou're noticing, man, this kid just
doesn't act the same way that myother kids do in terms of you know,
if somebody gets hurt, this kidstarts laughing. This kid isn't afraid
of anything. I spank this kid, or discipline this kid, this kid
just laughs in my face. Nothingseems to work. I mean, these
(34:19):
are difficult children for you know,for their parents, and so what can
happen sometimes is even the most wellintentioned parents, if you have a kid
with this predisposition to a lack offear, a lack of empathy, kind
of this emotional disconnection, parents sometimeswill begin to discipline more because they're thinking,
you know, again, what's wrongwith this kid. And then you
get this really vicious cycle going.Because we do know that children there are
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no child psychopaths, because we don'tdiagnose that until age eighteen, but you
can recognize these kind of callous,unemotional traits and children as early as you
know three to six. We doknow that these children in particular don't respond
to punishment and don't respond to fearbased kind of consequences, and so what
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is intended to kind of curb whathas seen as misbehavior actually tends to have
the opposite effect. Kelly had apretty normal childhood by all accounts, and
yet she was an incredibly troubled teenager. She ran away multiple times, began
(35:28):
abusing drugs in high school, andwas even put into a girl's home.
Her mother has said repeatedly that nomatter what she tried, Kelly continued to
act out. And while Kelly hadmostly evaded police intervention throughout her adult life,
now under the pressure of Chief Frizzo, she was once again acting out.
(35:54):
The woman who claims to have gottenaway with anywhere between nine and twenty
one murders was now making the targeton her back bigger and bigger. There
was more and more pressure, andit was clear she didn't trust that Jason
(36:15):
could keep it together. On Februarytwentieth of twenty sixteen, a call came
into Indiana's Lake County nine one onedispatch. He's I don't know what trump
he's throwing up the sweaty. Okay, are you in a hotel? At
(36:39):
a hotel? No, I'm I'ma home. Okay, and hold that
the person now okay with me?Okay? He said, he's okay,
(37:00):
I didn't understand what you're saying.Difficult, Okay, I need an ambulance.
You're right away, Okay. Iknow they have been dispatched, but
I need you to stand the one. Jason Cochrane was pronounced dead on the
(37:24):
scene of an apparent heroine overdose.First of all, I think that most
women who kill in their premeditated way. So let me make that distinction.
First of all, because most homicides, as you know, are impulsive,
their result of an argument. Somebodygets mad and then bam. So when
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we're talking about somebody who kills ina premeditated way, they're already kind of
in a different category for them,you know, But they're already in a
different category. Women who kill inthat way tend to kill for different reasons
than men. They tend to killfor money, they tend to kill for
some advantage that is different again frommale Killers. I think that is one
(38:07):
of the reasons why you see womenkill people closest to them. They're killing
them to marry somebody else. They'rekilling somebody to get them out of the
way because they don't want to bea mom anymore. They're killing somebody for
insurance money. So they tend tobe killing people who are close to them
(38:28):
because those are the people that canget them what they want. You will
come out and die lean and hungry. Time love and new seeing here ful.
(38:52):
This episode was written, produced,and researched by Me Your Host Josh
Hallmark, with rear ch assistance fromStephanie Sabin. Special thanks to Joni Johnston
for providing her expertise on female psychopaths. Research sources include Dead North, Psychology
Today, and Where Monsters Hide,Sex, Murder and Madness in the Midwest
(39:16):
by m William Phelps. This episodefeatured music by William Hellfire, Chris Zabrisky,
Wife Saragei Chera, Missanov Stax,Radical Face, and The Bird and
the Beach. She's Ma
This is a studio both and production. There is some interesting research or there's
I read an article recently that Ithink had some some merit to it,
although I think it was an overexaggeration. It was written by an evolutionary
psychologist, and her whole theory wasthat, you know, we used to
(00:31):
live in hunter gatherer societies, andmen were the hunters and women were the
gatherers. And so when you lookat how women and men kill in a
planned way, men tend to goout and hunt and women tend to gather
people around them and then kill peopleclose to them. And I think that
that is an exaggeration in terms ofyou know, I don't think we're stuck
(00:51):
in this evolutionary time war, butI do think there's some carry over to
that, and that when you lookat patterns of serial killing between men and
I mean, you do see that. On the morning of October twenty eighth,
twenty fourteen, exactly two weeks afterChris Regan was last seen, Kelly
and Jason Cochrane were interviewed separately bySergeant Barrett at the Iron River Police Department.
(01:17):
Kelly met with Sergeant Barrett first andmostly discussed her relationship with Chris.
She confirmed that they did in facthave a relationship and that Jason was aware
of it. She went on tosay that her relationship with Chris had gotten
so serious that he'd even asked herto move to North Carolina with him,
(01:38):
and yet she would also confirm,with some hesitation, that she was also
seeing Chris's subordinate at Oldenburg, EricEricson. Kelly told Sergeant Barrett that she
and Chris met at work and werefast friends, but that their friendship quickly
progressed to a more intimate relationship bymid July of twenty fourteen. What started
(02:01):
out as hikes kayaking in the occasionalromp in the woods evolved into dinners at
Chris's apartment. When asked if Kellyand Chris ever went to the park and
ride, Kelly looked confused and saidshe didn't know what the park and ride
was. She then told Sergeant Barrettthat she had last seen Chris sometime between
(02:24):
October twelfth and fifteenth, when thetwo had a dinner date at his apartment.
Later in that same interview, KellyWood specify that she last saw Chris
on October fourteenth, when she broughthomemade lasagna to his apartment for a dinner
date. Kelly went on to saythat all three men she was seeing knew
(02:46):
about each other and that there wasno way Jason would hurt Reagan or could
in any way be involved in hisdisappearance. Tell us about that. I
first met him on the Daylight interview, which was the twenty second. He
(03:07):
was in one of six that didto hire. Think that was first time
I had him. But I wouldsee him passing. He was in the
military assembly, so that was thesection right behind the electrical assembly, so
you know, he passed through.We made small talk through that. We
ended up talking more in honestly asall right at some point did you see
(03:32):
him all the side of work?Yeah, we had actually planned before before
we had ended up meeting up.We had planned a few times to get
together. I was wearied, Iwas trying to I knew it was wrong
to be dating somebody at work.I felt uncomfortable. Some of the things
he was my relationship made everything atmy relationship at homely things worse. But
(03:57):
eventually every we mow each up.A few times we did. He ended
up calming next at the car wash. One day we talked for her,
going to say forty five minutes toa number. We made plans to meet
the next day, which was theweekend, and we were going to go
hiking Lake out of To be sure, Chris wasn't the only John I you
were talking about. Do you getthat time that the Thursday, right before
(04:21):
Chris, I had talked to aguy named Ken. There was no relationship
with me and him, and wedid go out to eat, We did
go to the park and hang out. There was no intimacy at all.
Um right after I want to say, in September, Midstember being Ericson started
talking, calm and hangout. Eventuallyhe came into her. Following Kelly's interview
(04:47):
with Sergeant Barrett, was Jason.As I mentioned last episode, Jason was
a wreck right off the bat.He began crying almost immediately. He told
investigators he suffered from severe depression andanxiety, and he admitted that he had
been institutionalized in nearby Rhinelander, Wisconsinfor both just a little over a month
(05:12):
ago. In the same interview,he'd later tell Barrett that he checked back
into the same hospital for five dayson October sixteenth, after suffering from suicidal
ideations. Sergeant Barrett first asked himabout his relationship with Kelly, and specifically
how he felt about her seeing othermen. This is when Jason discussed his
(05:38):
health issues, mental and physical,and essentially said that it was his fault
that Kelly was engaging in relationships withother people that he couldn't fulfill her and
so he either had to accept herbehavior or let her go. That Kelly
stayed with him out of pity.He went on to confirm that he was
(05:58):
in fact aware of Kelly's relationships withboth Chris Regan and Eric Rickson, although
he'd never met either nor could hepick them out of a lineup. He
denied any involvement in Chris's disappearance.Later that afternoon, Chief Frizzo interviewed Eric
Ericsson from the Jump. Eric wasincredibly calm and cooperative. He told Frizzo
(06:25):
that he had PTSD after serving inmultiple military tours in the Middle East,
and that's why he moved to theUpper Peninsula. He wanted a calmer,
quieter life. He said that hemet Kelly shortly after he started working at
Oldenburg. He told Frizzo that whatstarted out as a friendship quickly developed into
(06:46):
a casual sexual relationship in the middleof September. Citing that Kelly had been
the aggressor. During the interview,Eric voluntarily showed Chief Frizzo his entire text
chain with Kelly, going as farback as October fifth. He noted that
he and Kelly exchanged multiple texts almostevery single day in early October until October
(07:11):
thirteenth, when all communications stopped forfour days. On the sixteenth, she
texted that she had been unavailable andwas helping a friend with a very big
problem. It should be noted thatOctober sixteenth is also when Jason checked himself
back into the mental health facility,according to what he told investigators. However,
(07:36):
it was what Ericsson told for hisown next that rang alarm bells for
her. When asked where he andKelly engaged in sexual encounters, he said
that in mid September, early intotheir relationship, he took Kelly to a
secluded park and ride in nearby BatesTownship, and from thereafter that's where they
(07:59):
most frequently rendezvous. That same day, Eric took and passed a polygraph test,
and Chief Frizzo cleared him as asuspect, immediately making Kelly and Jason
Cochrane, her prime and only suspectsin the disappearance of Chris Regan. It
(08:22):
would seem that Kelly well fucked up. Not only had she placed herself as
the last person to see Chris beforehe disappeared, she made multiple statements that
were either contradicted or confirmed to beflat out lies. First, she told
investigators that she had last seen Chriswhen she brought homemade lasagna to his apartment
(08:46):
on October fourteenth. However, thesearch of his apartment previously conducted by Sergeant
Barrett found evidence that Chris had orderedand paid for take out that night,
and fact there was no sign oflasagna anywhere in his messy house, which
was full of dishes and takeout containers. Then there was the whole matter of
(09:09):
the park and ride. Kelly toldinvestigators she didn't know what a park and
ride was, while Eric Ericsson toldinvestigators that he and Kelly had sex on
multiple occasions at the very park andride where Chris Regan's abandoned car had been
found. On October twenty ninth,Chief Frizzo was able to file for warrants
(09:33):
for Chris's, Kelly's and Jason's cellphone records, and those records would be
illuminating. In early November, IronRiver Police Department and the Michigan State Police
(09:54):
received the Cochranes and Chris Regans phonerecords records for all text messages, phone
calls, and voice messages made betweenMay fifteenth, twenty fourteen, and October
twenty fifth, twenty fourteen. Inthis period, Kelly sent and received an
average of forty text messages per day, and also based on averages, generally
(10:18):
fourteen of those exchanges were with ChrisReagan and five were with Jason until October
twelfth, when her communication with Jasondoubled. Then, on the thirteenth,
they exchanged thirty text messages in asingle day. Things got significantly weirder on
(10:41):
the fourteenth, the day Chris Regandisappeared. That morning, Kelly and Jason
exchanged five rapid fire text messages andthen didn't text or call each other again
until October seventeenth. However, therewas a lot of communication with Chris Reagan's
phone. Notably, most of thatcommunication was between Chris's phone and Jason's phone.
(11:09):
Prior to the fourteenth, the twohad no records of ever telephonically communicating.
On October fourteenth, Chris Regan textedKelly at three fifty seven PM.
Fourteen minutes later, Jason Cochrane's phonetexted Chris Regans and Chris's phone immediately responded.
(11:30):
Then just minutes later there was acall placed from Chris's phone to Jason's,
a call that lasted seven minutes.An hour later, Chris's phone again
texted Jason's. This would be thelast outgoing communication from Chris's phone ever,
(11:52):
and at eight fifty seven that night, Kelly made a one second phone call
to Chris's phone. On October fifteenth, Kelly didn't send or receive any text
messages or phone calls, which isincredibly odd considering her daily average of forty
text exchanges and twenty four phone calls. Jason received two incoming calls from an
(12:16):
unknown number and placed two outgoing texts, one of which was to Chris Reagan's
phone at eight twenty one in themorning. On the sixteenth, Jason's phone
texted Chris's again at five thirty twoPM, and then all communication between the
Cochrane's phones and Chris's phone ceased.Cell towers painted an even grimmer picture all
(12:45):
pings on all three phones on Octoberfifteenth and sixteenth, pinged cell towers and
caspin near the Cochrane's house. Whatstood out most to Frizzo is that during
Iron River P's initial interview with Kelly, she stated that her phone had been
broken on October fourteenth, but shehad clearly received a text from Chris that
(13:09):
afternoon and then used her phone tocall Chris's phone that one second call that
occurred later that night. So whywas she using Jason's phone to communicate with
Chris if her phone wasn't broken.It was clear to Frizzo that at some
point on the night of October fourteenth, Jason was at the Cochrane's house and
(13:33):
that as phone stayed there for atleast forty eight hours before going dead,
and that was enough to file fora search warrant on Kelly and Jason's house
at sixty six Lawrence Street. Unfortunately, that warrant would take several months to
get signed off. On On Novembertenth, Chief Frizzo made an unexpected visit
(13:58):
to the cochran house. She askedJason if he would accompany her to the
police department for a quick chat andrequested that Kelly had down in thirty minutes.
The couple agreed. In this secondinterview with Iron River Police, Jason
told Frizzo that in early September,he began hearing voices, voices that were
(14:22):
telling him to kill himself, andthen he started having visions. He was
seeing things that weren't there. Boththe visions and the voices became so unrelenting
that he checked himself into a mentalhealth facility in Rhinelander. When asked if
he ever would or did harm Kelly, he said that he'd only ever wanted
(14:46):
to hurt himself, that he figuredeveryone would be better off without him.
When Frizzo changed the subject from Jason'smental health to Chris Regan's disappearance, Jason
went from being pitiful and earnest toodefensive and kg and as quickly as she
changed the subject, he asked fora lawyer, and with that the interview
(15:11):
was over. Kelly's interview was evenshorter than Jason's. She repeated her story
from her interview with Sergeant Barrett onthe twenty eighth, mostly discussing how she
juggled her relationships with Chris, Jasonand Eric in September and October. She
also told Chief Frizzo that in midSeptember, Jason started hearing and seeing things
(15:35):
that weren't there, and when ChiefFrizzo asked if she was willing to take
a polygraph, Kelly declined and thenasked for her lawyers. Three, sorry,
(15:58):
what'd you do? This was?Well? Jason was getting a little
worse. He was the very thingyou see things and told me he was
talking to somebody that had never beenthere, more crazy things, things that
you know. He wasn't there allthe way when he was snackings, hearing
(16:22):
things or telling you what the voiceswere saying to hipp yes, to kill
me, could kill himself. Heheard other people. He said, he
heard these voices all the time,and a little bit to him seeing someone
who wasn't there could tell us alittle bit more about that if you know
a lot, if you didn't knowa lot of it. There's a couple
of times that he had seen peoplem one time he had told me walk
(16:45):
from one of the gentlemen testified thathe was there and they were talking and
they were playing games, and wonderedwhy I wasn't there, and wal to
think of a norn Hoouse. Ithink he was just stating, so thought
Nan loses. It took four monthsfor Chief Frizzo search warrant to get signed,
(17:12):
and on the morning of March fifth, she and a team of investigators
from both Iron River Pete and theMichigan State Police served the Cochranes. Kelly
and Jason spent the twelve hour searchacross the street with their friend and neighbor,
David Sailor, and during the search, investigators found the following inside the
(17:34):
Cochrane home six swords, one battleaxe, one crossbow, seventeen daggers and
knives, a baseball bat, ahammer, a rifle, a shotgun,
and an unregistered twenty two handgun.They also discovered what appeared to be cast
(17:57):
off blood spatter on the living roomceiling. Frizzo noted that since her first
visit to the Cochrane home, theyhad painted the living room, including the
ceiling. The blood spatter was detectedvia luminole swabbed and then immediately sent for
(18:18):
testing, and sometime between nine pmthat night, when the search concluded,
and eight am the following morning,the Cochranes fled. On the morning of
March sixth, the day after thesearch of the cochrane home, David Sailor
(18:41):
took his uncle and grandmother to theIron River Police Department to discuss the Cochrane's
behavior during the search and in thedays following Chris Regan's disappearance. David said
that he'd never seen Kelly or Jasonupset or nervous, but throughout the search
of their house, they were overtlyanxious, paranoid and uneasy, he told
(19:04):
investigators. At once the search wasover, the Cochranes said they were going
to take a look at the houseand would be back shortly. He never
saw them again and heard their carpulling out of the driveway early the next
morning. But it was his statementsregarding the Cochrane's behaviors and activities in mid
(19:25):
October that were the most damning.You may remember that when David Sailor initially
spoke with the police, he reportedthat the Cochranes had been uncharacteristically busy in
the day surrounding Chris Regan's disappearance.They had a barbecue, they began renovating
their house, they had a bonfire. Well, in this interview he was
(19:48):
able to speak more specifically about thoseactivities. He said the construction work to
their house began on the night ofOctober fourteenth, late that night, like
two am late, and it wenton for several nights after. Each night
that week David Sailor awoke to thesounds of power tools coming from the Cochrane's
(20:12):
basement, and David's grandmother reported thaton the night of the fourteenth, she
heard a gunshot. Following the gunshot, she could hear a male female couple
arguing, and then eventually two carspulling out of the Cochrane's driveway. David
also elaborated on the barbecue the Cochraneshosted that week. He said it occurred
(20:37):
on either October fifteenth or sixteenth,and that it was the only time the
Cochranes had ever invited him and hisfamily over for food. He reported that
the invite wasn't the only weird thingabout this barbecue. He said the Cochranes
were serving an absurd amount of meat, which he estimated would have been about
(20:59):
two hundred dollersworth, which is aconsiderable amount seeing as how Kelly was working
multiple jobs just to keep the pairafloat. Based on eyewitness statements, phone
records and the Cochrane's timeline. Thisbarbecue most likely would have taken place on
the afternoon of October sixteenth, justhours before Jason allegedly checked himself in for
(21:23):
a second time in six weeks tothe Rhinelander Mental Health Facility. In follow
up interviews, David would state thathe'd never tasted anything like the meat that
the Cochrane served that day. Herecalled it as being translucent and smelling strange.
When he asked Jason about it,Jason only said that he used to
(21:48):
work as a butcher, selling exoticmeats that he liked barbecuing exotic wildlife.
Jason never worked as or even fora butcher, let alone one who sold
exotic meat. On March twenty seventh, Chief Frizzo and the MSP returned to
(22:15):
the Cochranes now abandoned home to conducta second search. The warrant for this
search allowed the Maxus to the basementusing luminol again, they found more blood
evidence on walls and doors throughout thehouse, and in the basement they found
a manuscript that Jason had written duringhis first stay at the mental health facility.
(22:37):
The visit that occurred before Chris Reganwent missing. The manuscript was titled
Where Monsters Hide, and it's amanuscript we'll deep dive in a later episode,
but for now, here's the premise. The protagonist is a married,
not quite middle aged man and whosuffers from anxiety and chronic pain, named
(23:04):
you guessed it, Jason. ThisJason describes himself as a predator who has
a hit list, who will killany prey that enters his home. The
manuscript ends eerily and ambiguously with Jason'swife saving the day and then a backyard
(23:26):
cookout. Sound familiar now. Therewere a lot of obstacles in the investigation
into the Cochranes, from bad DNAto political issues to a department shake up,
(23:48):
all of which we'll get into,but there was also some amazing,
extraordinary dumb luck and goodwill. Sometimestime after Chris Regan's disappearance was made public,
an unnamed concerned citizen hired a privateinvestigator to look into Kelly and Jason,
(24:11):
and, as a luck would haveit, or perhaps intel, at
four am on the very morning thesearch warrant was served, this PI put
a tracking device on Kelly Cochrane's car, so when the Cochranes fled the Upper
Peninsula. This investigator tracked their entiredrive south to Hobert, Indiana, and
(24:37):
then reported it to Iron River PD. While DNA from the second search of
sixty six Lawrence was being tested,Frizzo worked with the Lake County Sheriff's office
in Indiana to secure a warrant forthe cochrans DNA, and on July twenty
fourth, Hobert PD rolled up onJason, who was watering pla aunts at
(25:00):
Kelly Cochrane's mother's house, and servedhim and eventually Kelly, with their warrants.
When they were escorted to the HobertPolice Department after almost five months on
the run, they found themselves faceto face with Chief Frizzo. It had
become apparent to Frizzo during her firsttwo interviews with the Cochrans that Jason was
(25:25):
the weak link, and she utilizedthat in a new strategy to take them
on while in Indiana. First shemet with Jason, and she told him
exactly what she thought. That hewas the victim, that Kelly was taking
advantage of him, that Kelly wasthe aggressor, not just in her relationships,
(25:51):
but also in the murder of ChrisRegan, but her attempt to get
Jason to turn on Kelly didn't work, and because no charges had been filed
against him or Kelly, he submittedto the court ordered DNA test, but
refused to answer any questions without alawyer present and was dismissed. Kelly was
(26:11):
ushered in shortly thereafter, at whichpoint investigators were able to inform Frizzo that
while she was talking with Jason,Jason's phone, which sat on a nearby
desk, was called and texted repeatedlyby Kelly. It was clear that she
(26:32):
was rattled, and even clear toFrizzo at least that Kelly was worried about
what Jason might say to investigators duringthis surprise interrogation. While interviewing Kelly,
Frizzo asked again about the park andride, and again Kelly said she didn't
know anything about a park and ride. This time, however, Frizzo was
(26:59):
prepared. She pulled out a transcriptof her interview with Eric Ericsson, detailing
their many hookups at the park andride. Kelly was, in a word,
pissed, and she too told Frizzoshe wouldn't say another word without a
fucking lawyer, and as she wastaken for her DNA submission, Frizzo smiled
(27:23):
and told Kelly that Jason had alot to talk about. Kelly shook her
head and said, I figured hewould. In a piece you wrote about
Kelly Cochrane for Psychology Today, youmentioned that we don't know a lot about
(27:45):
female psychopaths. Why do you thinkthere's such a disparity in what we know
about male versus female psychopaths and whatare some of the distinctions in the two.
I think one of the reasons wedon't know so much about female psychopaths
one is the test were validated initiallyon men, so what we use to
diagnose psychopathy was developed. The actualconcept was pretty much developed about men,
(28:10):
and so there wasn't much attention.Of course, this unfortunately is true for
a lot of areas of psychology wherewomen kind of lag behind in terms of
looking at how a certain disorder mightmanifest itself, and a lot of times
there is no difference between the genders. This is doctor Joni Johnston, a
forensic psychologist, private investigator and crimewriter who studied female psychopathy and recently published
(28:33):
an op ed on Kelly Cochrane inPsychology Today titled what we Know and Don't
Know about Female Psychopaths, And Ithink the other thing is because the test
and our ideas about psychopathy were basedupon men. What we're finding is that
while the experience of psychopathy is probablyvery similar between men and women, the
(29:00):
way it expresses itself can be different. And because of that, there are
some hypothesis that while I think mostof us would agree that the overall rate
of psychopathy is lower in women thanmen, in addition to that, it
may be that women can kind offly under the radar more easily because they
don't necessarily tend to demonstrate some ofthe more shocking or overt symptoms, like,
(29:26):
for example, a lot of physicalviolence necessarily, and so I think
they oftentimes aren't as likely to bein the criminal justice system. And so
because of that, I think thatthere are probably more than we think,
we just don't know who they are. Well. That is a great lead
into another question I had, whichis, we've made household names out of
(29:48):
a lot of male serial killers,but when I try to think of female
serial killers, Eileen Warrenos is usuallythe only one that comes to mind.
Do you think that that's reflective ofa disparity, and serial killers cress gender,
media bias, higher apprehension rates,or some combination of all of those
factors. Well, again, Ithink the initial idea of serial killing came
(30:10):
about when we were looking at particularlysexually motivated series of homicides. And so
when we all think about serial killers, we think about Ted Bundy or we
think about John Wayne Gacy. Wehad this idea in our minds about men
who are out there looking to preyon women's sexually over long period of time,
than of course kill them afterwards.So that's our model of what a
(30:33):
serial killer is. And so againthe answer I think is twofold number one
is we do know that there arefar fewer women who have killed for sexual
motives, and yet at the sametime, there are plenty of female serial
killers who have killed for other reasons, primarily financial for example. So we
have to, I think, expandour idea of what a serial killer is
(30:56):
if we want to really look andkind of go, yeah, there definitely
are a lot more male serial killers, but let's not overlook the female serial
killers because they tend to operate longerand to be more successful. And I
put that quotation marks because we're talkingabout body count here. They tend to
be more successful over a longer periodof time because they aren't most likely to
(31:18):
be captured. After spending years studyingIsrael Keys, I have a hard time
divorcing my ideas on how psychopathy manifestsin serial killers from how it manifested in
Israel Keys, and whether I mighthave some implicit biases regarding psychopathy and how
(31:38):
it relates to gender or sex.To me, a psychopathic killer is one
who kills at random, and intrying to understand Kelly Cochrane, I found
myself overlooking that it could present differentlyalong gender lines, gray as they may
be, and instead I focused onthe huge difference and Kelly's end, Keys's
(32:00):
childhoods, which brought me back toSo you asked me about nature versus nurture,
So we don't really know. There'sreally no research that I'm aware of
that looks at nature versus nurture froma female psychopath versus a male psychopath,
because that would be so difficult todo. I'm not even sure that we
could. It's hard to do itwith just one person. When you look
(32:21):
at psychopathy. What we certainly thinkis because there's been a lot of brain
imaging studies over the past five toten years that really do show some structural
and functional differences in the brains atleast of adults who have been diagnosed with
psychopathy. There clearly seems to besome genetic components and some biological components to
psychopathy. However, it appears thatthese genetic and structural components tend to get
(32:47):
activated by environment. So it's almostlike this perfect storm for a lot of
people who are psychopaths. They havethis genetic predisposition, and if they are
lucky enough to be in a very, very nurturing home, in a very
supportive environment, then that predisposition maynot express itself. The reverse, you
(33:12):
might have somebody who has a lessof a predisposition and that are in a
horrendous environment, and that they maybecome a psychopath as an adult. Now,
having said that, we also knowthat there are some people who clearly
have a stronger genetic component than others. And when you're talking about Kelly,
(33:32):
it certainly appears at least some ofthe conversations that she's had with her mom
that she at least believes that shewas born that way, and there is
some evidence again to suggest that somepeople do have a strong kind of biological
predisposition or genetic predisposition of that.The hard part of it is, I
think, is that anybody who's beena parent knows that there is this interaction
(33:57):
that occurs from birth. So forexample, if you have a child who's
three or four or five, andyou're noticing, man, this kid just
doesn't act the same way that myother kids do in terms of you know,
if somebody gets hurt, this kidstarts laughing. This kid isn't afraid
of anything. I spank this kid, or discipline this kid, this kid
just laughs in my face. Nothingseems to work. I mean, these
(34:19):
are difficult children for you know,for their parents, and so what can
happen sometimes is even the most wellintentioned parents, if you have a kid
with this predisposition to a lack offear, a lack of empathy, kind
of this emotional disconnection, parents sometimeswill begin to discipline more because they're thinking,
you know, again, what's wrongwith this kid. And then you
get this really vicious cycle going.Because we do know that children there are
(34:45):
no child psychopaths, because we don'tdiagnose that until age eighteen, but you
can recognize these kind of callous,unemotional traits and children as early as you
know three to six. We doknow that these children in particular don't respond
to punishment and don't respond to fearbased kind of consequences, and so what
(35:06):
is intended to kind of curb whathas seen as misbehavior actually tends to have
the opposite effect. Kelly had apretty normal childhood by all accounts, and
yet she was an incredibly troubled teenager. She ran away multiple times, began
(35:28):
abusing drugs in high school, andwas even put into a girl's home.
Her mother has said repeatedly that nomatter what she tried, Kelly continued to
act out. And while Kelly hadmostly evaded police intervention throughout her adult life,
now under the pressure of Chief Frizzo, she was once again acting out.
(35:54):
The woman who claims to have gottenaway with anywhere between nine and twenty
one murders was now making the targeton her back bigger and bigger. There
was more and more pressure, andit was clear she didn't trust that Jason
(36:15):
could keep it together. On Februarytwentieth of twenty sixteen, a call came
into Indiana's Lake County nine one onedispatch. He's I don't know what trump
he's throwing up the sweaty. Okay, are you in a hotel? At
(36:39):
a hotel? No, I'm I'ma home. Okay, and hold that
the person now okay with me?Okay? He said, he's okay,
(37:00):
I didn't understand what you're saying.Difficult, Okay, I need an ambulance.
You're right away, Okay. Iknow they have been dispatched, but
I need you to stand the one. Jason Cochrane was pronounced dead on the
(37:24):
scene of an apparent heroine overdose.First of all, I think that most
women who kill in their premeditated way. So let me make that distinction.
First of all, because most homicides, as you know, are impulsive,
their result of an argument. Somebodygets mad and then bam. So when
(37:45):
we're talking about somebody who kills ina premeditated way, they're already kind of
in a different category for them,you know, But they're already in a
different category. Women who kill inthat way tend to kill for different reasons
than men. They tend to killfor money, they tend to kill for
some advantage that is different again frommale Killers. I think that is one
(38:07):
of the reasons why you see womenkill people closest to them. They're killing
them to marry somebody else. They'rekilling somebody to get them out of the
way because they don't want to bea mom anymore. They're killing somebody for
insurance money. So they tend tobe killing people who are close to them
(38:28):
because those are the people that canget them what they want. You will
come out and die lean and hungry. Time love and new seeing here ful.
(38:52):
This episode was written, produced,and researched by Me Your Host Josh
Hallmark, with rear ch assistance fromStephanie Sabin. Special thanks to Joni Johnston
for providing her expertise on female psychopaths. Research sources include Dead North, Psychology
Today, and Where Monsters Hide,Sex, Murder and Madness in the Midwest
(39:16):
by m William Phelps. This episodefeatured music by William Hellfire, Chris Zabrisky,
Wife Saragei Chera, Missanov Stax,Radical Face, and The Bird and
the Beach. She's Ma
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