7. Laura

Episode Transcript
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(00:09):
This is a studio both and production. I think there's some really great ironies
in this which makes this case sofascinating because it could almost be written.
But one thing I appreciate is thatit seemed like Kelly was really trying to
pit you and Jeremy against each other. Oh yes, and instead what happened

(00:34):
is you got together and are gettingmarried, right right. I mean we've
actually we've been engaged for you know, three and a half years. I'm
just I want to be at apoint, you know, for us both
where we're like peaceful, you know, just like ready. And I think
that Kelly. You know, Kellyhas said it to both of us on

(00:57):
more than one occasion. Well,you can thank me for you two being
together. I mean, it's reallythe relationship we have with there is crazy,
to be honest with you, Imean, because she thinks that,
you know, we're her friends,and in some kind of a weird way,
we are, but that doesn't meanwe like her. When season two

(01:22):
of True Crime Bullshit wrapped, therewere a handful of cases I was considering
for this third season, several thathad fascinated and mystified me for almost as
long as the Keys case. Had. But the story that stood out to
me the most, that made theKelly Cochran case so compelling, was the
story of these two often underestimated womenon both sides of the law, who

(01:47):
threw a year's long pursuit involving interviews, searches, mind games, trauma,
and sexism, would be forever linkedto one another in more ways than I
ever could have initially anticipated. Andthrough that pursuit and Kelly's double life,
it was arguably Laura Frizzo who knewKelly best. That is, after Kelly

(02:10):
murdered her husband Jason. Like Keys, no one who knew Kelly actually knew
Kelly, but Laura Frizzo. Shebasically lived inside Kelly's head for years.
She read her text messages, Shesearched every corner of her home, She

(02:31):
read Jason's book. She sat inon Kelly's darkest and ugliest confessions. She
spent over forty hours interviewing Kelly andthen even more interviewing everyone considered close to
Kelly. If there's anyone who canspeak to who Kelly is and what she's
capable of, it's Laura Frizzo,Which is why it was important to me

(02:55):
as I set out on my owninvestigation into the Cochranes to talk with Laura,
and yesterday I did. For severalhours. We talked about sexism,
David Thayer, the investigation into theCochran's mistakes, she made, mistakes I've
made, and her strange relationship withKelly Cochrane. Now, Hi, Josh,

(03:25):
how are you. I'm good?How are you good? I'm sorry?
It was kind of hard to connect. But I'm working still, you
know, a couple days a weekin the office and still remotely from home.
So less than a year after Lauralost her wrongful termination case against Styron
River and David Thayre and her subsequentappeal, she left the Upper Peninsula and

(03:46):
Olive Garden for Indiana, where shenow works as a criminal intelligence analyst for
the Indiana High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area, a relatively new agency created to reduce
drug availability and usage by creating intelligencedriven drug task forces aimed at eliminating or
reducing domestic drug trafficking. Throughout theinvestigation into the Cochranes, in the ensuing

(04:14):
trial, Laura and Hobert detective JeremyOgden became quite close. They eventually started
dating and after the trial, Lauraand Jeremy moved in together in Indiana,
just six miles from the Cochrane's oldhome on Mississippi Street, and last October,
almost five years to the date afterChris Regan's investigation began, they got

(04:39):
engaged. And while Kelly likes toclaim responsibility for their relationship, I think
it had more to do with Laura'swillingness to work across jurisdictions, her openness
to new ideas, her humility,and her dogged pursuit of the Cochranes through
an incredible amount of adversity that actuallycultivated her bond with Ogden. And it

(05:03):
was those qualities, unfortunately often rarein local law enforcement. But I wanted
to get to the core of howdid Frizzo's career help form her into the
woman she is today, the womanwho could simultaneously take on both a corrupt
city manager and a serial killer.Well, why don't we get started on

(05:28):
the easier end of things, andjust what inspired you to become a police
officer and what was it like becomingthe first female police officer in Iron River.
You know, my uncle was apolice officer in Glendale, Wisconsin,
and it's a suburb of Milwaukee backin the seventies. He was killed while
affecting an arrest while off duty,and he was actually killed by some Milwaukee

(05:55):
police officers. It was a caseof mistaken identity. Unfortunately, I was
only six years old when that happened, so, you know, I have
scattered memories of that situation. Itwas my mom's only family and they were
very close. You know, wewere still in the Upper Peninsula when that
took place, and I just,you know, my memories are are just

(06:16):
you know, getting in the carin the middle of the night driving to
Milwaukee and seeing my aunts on thetelevision, my uncle's wife walking up and
down the hospital halls and crying,and you know, going to the funeral.
I remember being at the at thefuneral and seeing just hundreds of police
officers there. I remember looking inhis casket at him in his uniform and

(06:41):
not really sure what, you know, what happened, what's all going on.
You're just a kid, you know. But he was a great guy,
fabulous person. He was liked byeveryone in the town that he worked
in because he was good to everyone. He treated everyone fairly. He treated
every one the same, and that'skind of you know, how I looked

(07:02):
at ideally what a police officer shouldbe. He didn't pass judgment on people
who were going through hard times.I mean, he put just as much
respect into his relationship with those peopleas he did with someone who might be
considered, you know, an upstandingcitizen. Ultimately, my oldest brother had

(07:25):
had become a police officer in UpperMichigan, and he put the thought in
my head, you know, hesaid, you're you're good with people,
You're athletic, you know, whenyou have to have some athletic ability,
and I just decided, you know, to check into it. So at

(07:45):
that time, I had two younggirls. You know, my daughters were
three and my youngest daughter was noteven a year old. She was like
eight months old when I went throughthe police academy, and as a single
mom doing that, it was very, very difficult in trying. But one
thing I've learned is that you know, the more difficult things you go through
in your life, the stronger youbecome. And there's always lessons, you

(08:09):
know, Like when I started outin law enforcement, I realized that everything
I had been through in my lifewas going to help me understand what other
people are going through, you know, people who are down in their luck
or whatever, and it's going toyou know, give me the ability to
communicate with them at their level andreally understand them. And that's something that
is strongly lacking in law enforcement.So it was I would say a little

(08:37):
more difficult for me. I mean, in my academy there were three females
total. I think I say that, you know, it was a little
harder for me being that I wasa single mom at the time and living
in a place that I'm nine hoursaway from my family. So I had
to kind of figure it all out. And when I finished the academy,
I ended up you know, movingback to the Upper Peninsula to be near

(08:58):
my parents, knowing, you knowthat I'm going to need some help with
the kids, you know, whileI enter this career, and knowing that
I needed this career as a meansto support my kids, you know,
because I was it. I wasall they had. I was mom and
dad. So when I got hiredin Iron River, I guess I didn't
even really realize the impact of beingthe first female that they'd ever hired there.

(09:22):
But you know, soon after Istarted, I would realize that just
the double takes, the head turns, you know, seeing a woman driving
the police car being able to getout and unlock a car door faster than
any of the guys could was prettyawesome. I remember. I mean there's
certain things you remember. I mean, I remember rolling up on calls with

(09:46):
you know, older men in thecommunity and they you know, you see
them kind of grin and shake theirhead leg what's she going to do?
And and you know, I rightfrom the get go, I was always
had that attitude of you know,I'm going to show you what I'm going
to do. And so yeah,I mean I think it took a little
longer than it probably would if Ihadn't been a female to earn the respect

(10:07):
and trust of the community, butbeing a small community like it was,
you know, it happened pretty fast. I mean the more families I worked
with and and dealt with and helpedsupported, you know, the more people
trusted me. From that aspect,I think the community was was happy with
my service. I mean, there'salways those that, you know, you're

(10:28):
always going to have haters in theworld, and I did always being looked
at differently than the guys that youwork with. Um, I remember my
interview actually, and we had apretty progressive city manager at the time,
and in that community, the citymanager had the ultimate authority where it's a
little behind the times, the charterneeds to be updated, has for a

(10:50):
long time. So the mayor isusually in most jurisdictions, is the person
that has the supreme with already forthe city, and in my city,
it was the city manager. Soat the time when I was interviewed,
we had a progressive city manager fromLower Michigan who wanted to hire me due

(11:11):
to the fact that I was easyto communicate with and he liked my values,
he liked what, you know,what I was looking to achieve in
my job. They were hiring twoofficers at the time, so he wanted
to hire me, and the policechief at the time wanted to hire a
man, you know, a maleover me that was also applient. But

(11:33):
because there were two positions, theyhired both of us and he actually they
made sure that, you know,they started him a week before me,
so he actually had seniority over me. Yea, which was fine. You
know, that would just be oneof things, you know, many things
to come. You got to workharder, a little bit. I say
that with a giggle, because youdo have to work quite a bit harder

(11:56):
to earn the same respect you couldhave solved, you know, one hundred
of your cases successfully and you're andthe and the male you know, hasn't
had even half of that, Butthey're just going to be looked at differently.

(12:18):
I think it was my second yearthere, and the narcotics team from
the Upper Peninsula had come to mychief and and inquired about me joining their
team, and you know, theydesperately needed a female officer, and I
was I was, you know,really happy that they had invited me in
and I was looking forward to itand it would have been great for my
career, but the sheriff has toalso approve that. I remember time going

(12:45):
by and my chiefs is like,you know, I submitted for you,
Our city manager submitted for you,and I'm waiting and waiting and wondering why
I'm not going, And my chiefsaid, you know, go talk to
the city manager. So I wentup to his office and said, you
know, what's going on. They'rewondering what's happening, what's the hold up?
And the city manager at the timejust told me flat out he said,

(13:05):
well, the sheriff thinks you needto be home taking care of your
children. Honestly, looking back now, I was only, you know,
probably twenty four years old, twentyfive years old at the time, and
I was mad, I mean Iwas. I looked at him and I
thought, I can't believe you honestlyjust told me this like that, like
I mean, you would think thathe wouldn't have said it just so like

(13:28):
point blank, but he did.And the first thing I did is get
in my car and drive over tothe Sheriff's department and going to the sheriff
and asked him, you know,I said, who do you think you
are to determine my future? Andof course he denied that he ever said
it, and nothing ever came ofit. I never joined the team.
They ended up putting a guy fromthe sheriff's department in there, and so

(13:48):
that was just, you know,one of the one of the hurdles.
So basically I took pride in myown investigations. I did them to the
best of my ability, and sothere were no cases that I had that
I didn't put everything I had into, because you know, the way I

(14:09):
looked at it was everybody's case,everybody's investigation is important to them. Am
I not be important to me oryou? But that's what we're doing here.
We're here for them. So itdidn't matter what the case was or
how insignificant it might seem to others, it was significant to somebody. I
took pride in that. You know, I became forensically trained in two thousand

(14:33):
and I ended up doing hundreds offriends and interviews with children victims of like
sexual assaults and things like that.And although they were hard to do,
it was also very worth it tome because you know, that's a big
problem and someone needs to be ableto communicate with these kids that are easy

(14:56):
targets. And so that's really whatI did most of my career. You
know, the sad irony in allof this is that just to be treated
as an equal, you had towork twice as hard and face twice as
much adversity, when hard work andadversity are what generally make you better than
your peers, right, and thatand that's the truth. I'm not looking

(15:18):
for any kind of oh, sympathyor you know, pat on the back.
It's just the way it is.And I'm you know, as time
went on, you know, myco workers, the guys that in my
department came to respect me and cameto I mean, they acknowledge that I
was good at what I did,and we're very respectful to me. So
I can't say any anything negative aboutthe guys that I worked with, And

(15:43):
there's no doubt. I mean,I'm not going to disagree on on the
topic that men are physically stronger thanwomen. They are there, you know,
women will never be are there Womenstronger physically than some men, of
course, but in general, youknow, women are not as physically strong.
However, I will tell you thatwithout a doubt, in most cases,

(16:07):
women are definitely more mentally strong.I imagine. Then it's a huge
sense of pride when you are promotedto chief and become the first female chief
in the up, especially considering howhard you had to work and all the
adversity you faced early in your career. Yeah, I mean that was a
struggle. I mean, I youknow, I never ever would have expected

(16:30):
that because I was so not interestedin political the political aspect of that at
all. And in fact, youknow, there was a sergeant's position that
came up when I was had beenan officer for a while, and I
was like not interested. You know, I just wanted to do my job.
And I would get frustrated. Imean, I would get frustrated when

(16:51):
I would watch other people do theirjobs and I'd be frustrated with how they
were doing it or well I shouldsay how they weren't doing it. And
I'd watch cases and investigations sit andit would just drive me crazy. And
I mean, so yeah, Imean, and I'm not gonna, you
know, try and cover up thefact that I too, you know,

(17:14):
through my many years, had myown personal problems in my own personal life.
Everybody does, but when you're afemale and you have personal issues,
they are magnified times one thousand andso, you know. I mean there
and there definitely were officers from youknow, other jurisdictions that didn't get along.

(17:36):
We didn't get along real well.I mean there was one in particular
that I didn't like the way hetreated people on it when if we'd have
to like respond to a call togetherand be backup or they'd be my backup,
and I had it, you know, I had a way that I
wanted to treat the public and communicatewith them, and for me, it
worked because it built trust and that'swhat I wanted. Some of these guys

(17:59):
would show up and be so disrespectfulto someone I am trying to be the
opposite with, and it would justmake me so mad. You know.
Um, I definitely had my issuesin my background, just like everyone else.
And again, you know, youcould look at these issues. Um,

(18:22):
I had an impaired driving, youknow, while I was an officer
back in two thousand and five.And it's interesting because it was a mistake
that I fully owned up to andI ended up you know, off of
work for a little a little whilebecause of that and in counseling and everything

(18:45):
else that you have to do whenyou get an impaired driving And honestly,
it was probably the best thing thatever happened in my life because I learned
a lot. And I think officerstend to, um, you know,
drink a little too much to maybewhat they whatever the reason is, if
it relieves some of the tensions ofthings they've seen or done or gone through.

(19:07):
But for me, definitely, drinkingwas something that I needed to eliminate
from my life and I did.I totally stopped drinking, not knowing if
I'd ever work in law enforcement again, and I did. I mean,
I went through an arbitration with myunion and ended up going back to work

(19:29):
nine months later, and that wastough too, going back to work and
having to face the same people.You know, know, everyone knows the
small community, everyone knows what happened. And I thought, you know,
I know I'm going to face somebodyon an arrest that's going to throw it
up in my face and people aregoing to have lost respect for me because
of it, and so you know, I'm just kind of throwing right back

(19:52):
out on the road. And tomy surprise, it never happened. It
never happened. I people were happyto see me back, and I just
felt like, you know, ifyou change your life and you go through
these things and you can be maybea positive or an inspiration to others that
are going through things and bring themup, and that's what you're in that

(20:12):
job for, and you can dothat, then it's a winning situation.
It's you know, I'm not goingto look back on that situation and look
down on myself for what happened.I actually talked to new new recruits out
of the academy out of training andshared my story and tried to warn them

(20:34):
because I watch it happen on aregular basis with law enforcement, and unfortunately
it's law enforcement can destroy family,lives and people, and so I tried
to be more make more of apositive out of a negative, and I
did so. I guess the wholereason for me even going there is because

(20:56):
I say, that was in twothousand and five, and I would go
on to become the chief. Youknow, however many years later in twenty
thirteen, and I would have neverthought that would have happened. Looking back,
you know, when you think,wow, that's you know, it
was a long time ago, butit seems like it wasn't. And I
guess it just goes to show thatyou know, no matter what you go

(21:17):
through, good things can happen fromit, and good things will happen if
you believe they will. Well,I think there's a humility there that I'm
sure that experience bestowed upon you,which from an outside perspective seems severely lacking
in the general law enforcement, butalso like specific to this story, I

(21:41):
think made you the best person totake this on because you were so willing
to work across jurisdictions, and youwere so responsive, you know, with
Chris Reagan, he went missing,and literally that day, you guys are
taking action. And so often youhear about missing persons cases where law enforcement
doesn't respond right away, you know, they want to wait or they don't

(22:03):
take it seriously right And looking backon Chris Brigan in particular, and I
think about, you know, askingfor that help right away, knowing we're
a small department, we don't havedetectives, and I have to go in
about a million different directions because weneed to act quickly. So I'm asking
for the help of a couple ofdetectives from the you know, State Police,
which where they were provided to me. But and I, you know,

(22:26):
I don't have that ego issue ofOkay, they're going to come in
now, they think they're taking thiscase over and blah blah blah, And
I just kind of like try topush that to the side, work with
them, even though I could seeit was very clear that I obviously to
them, didn't know what I wastalking about, because there's no way I
even had a tenth of the trainingthat they did, which training means zero

(22:47):
if you if you aren't receptive tothe job, and you're not, you
know, if you don't have theability to even you know what you're doing
or understand it. You know.So it's interesting because I had our he
had a theory right out of thegate, within you know, forty eight
hours. I had a theory.And you know, I as far as
when the last time I think hewas seen, last time he was you

(23:11):
know, an iron river, Ihad this theory. I put out a
press release stating, so, youknow, last scene on October fourteenth of
twenty fourteen, blah blah blah.And literally I that first week I allowed
them to change that, you know, And and this is it's it's a
very long story, of course,but UM basically talking to a neighbor who

(23:36):
said, well, you know,I might have seen him on October sixteenth
when we went four wheeling. Thisis a neighbor and this, you know,
I'm looking at the video of whenI see these people from the from
the cameras all back of Chris Reagan'sapartment going on their four whaling trip,
and it's clearly the fourteenth. Um. But I allowed that, and I

(24:00):
changed my press reliefs that day sayinglast scene on the sixteenth, and I
immediately, within a couple of weeks, went right back to my theory.
But there was that brief, youknow, period where I kind of backed
down and thought, maybe I'm wrong, and maybe I'm being to you know,
bullheaded or whatever. But you know, as time went on, and

(24:23):
as you know, my intuition waswhat it was, and it was so
strong that I thought, I haveto believe in myself. I've always believed
in myself, and I'm not goingto stop now. I'm not going to
let anybody, you know, determe from what I think is actually going
on here. And literally, thesedetectives did not think that Kelly and Jason

(24:44):
Cochrane were even suspects. Thankfully,Laura stayed convicted in her intuition, intuition
that would, for better or worse, bring her to Kelly Cochrane's doorstep.
App But first let's hear from thisweek's sponsors. It's funny because your intuition,

(25:18):
you know, and again, Imy research and what I've seen and
read is like a very distilled versionof what actually happened. But it seems
that your intuition was pretty spot onwhen it came to Kelly and I wonder
how much of the resistance to otherslooking at Kelly as a suspect had to
do with sexism. Oh, definitely, definitely. I mean the you know,

(25:45):
I really didn't and I shouldn't saythat, because yes I did.
You know, there were definitely otherofficers from other jurisdictions through my career,
not just on the rigging Kelly Cochrancase, but where if I had a
theory or if I you know,I tended to speak loud and clearly about
what my thoughts were on a lotof things. And I only did that

(26:08):
when I honestly felt like I've doneenough research on this, I you know,
seen enough to know. And again, I think to make a good
officer or a good detective, whatever, you have to have that instinctive nature.
It's not a lot of law enforcementpersonnel that do have that. There's
a lot of good cops out there, there's just not a lot of good

(26:30):
investigators out there. So I thinkfor me, I was very because I
also had that personality of not allowingmyself to be walked on that then I'm
really considered the B word, youknow, and maybe even difficult to work
with because I'm sticking to my guns. Never because I didn't feel like I

(26:52):
was being you know, rude ordisrespectful, just that I want to be
respected, so you know, Iwant to I want what my theory is
to be respected as well. Andyou do, I mean, you do
get pushed into a corner. Youget pushed into or I should say,
outside of the circle when you're awoman in a lot of cases. Again,

(27:18):
let's just remind everybody everybody that it'snot I am not at all labeling
all men in law enforcement to bethat way. It's just, you know,
certain situations that I was involved in. And what was your initial interview
with Kelly and Jason, Like thevery first night that I took the complaint

(27:41):
from you know, Terry O'Donnell regardinghim missing, and I went by.
I had driven by the Park andRide on my way home from work,
and my sergeant was going to takeTerry to his apartment check into things,
and I drove by the Park andRide on my way home. I looked
at the vehicle and I got onmy phone and I made a phone call
to the HR person at where ChrisReagan had worked because I knew her on

(28:03):
a personal level. And I justyou know, this is after hours,
so I'm calling her on her personalcell phone and I'm just saying, you
know, I don't what can youtell me about this Chris Reagan? What
can you tell me about his friends? Where he could have gone? And
this is what all kind of startedit, And you know, was her
saying, you know, he wasa really good worker, very nice person,

(28:26):
very responsible, very good at whathe did. So there was some
of the other employees that didn't reallylike him, they were resentable, whatever,
because he got promoted very quickly oversome of these others that had been
there a long time. And thenyou know, she went on to say,
and you know, I heard thathe was having an affair with this
woman, married woman here, andI had never heard of Kelly Cochrane.

(28:48):
I'd never had met her. Ihad never met Chris Reagan. So she
goes on to tell me, yeah, you know, this woman started working
for us a few months back,and she's had some merrile problems. She's
come to me, you know beforein the past, saying that her husband
was abusive. And then she said, you know, remember I called you
that one day to go do awell beam check on her because she didn't

(29:11):
show up for work, and Idid remember, and it was about a
month prior, and she had calledme and said, you know, this
employee of mine, Kelly Cochrane.She said that, you know, had
been just telling me how her husbandwas abusive and she was afraid of him,
and then she didn't show up forwork and she's not answering her phone.
So we're concerned about her, socan someone check on her? And

(29:34):
I had actually called the Sheriff's departmentbecause their home is in Caspian and that's
out of my jurisdiction, so Iturned it over to them. At any
rate, I wanted to make contactwith this Kelly Cochrane, you know,
after this discussion with the HR personfrom where they worked, and because you

(30:02):
know the HR person was not ather office, she didn't know Kelly's address.
So I said, I'm going tojust give a call to that deputy
that I know went on that wellbeing check and see if he can tell
me where she lived. So Icall the deputy who's also optivity at the
time, and on his cell phone, and he said, you know,
I can't remember the address, butI can give you directions. I can

(30:22):
tell you how to get there,and so I'm writing down the directions and
we get off the phone. Andas we get off the phone that my
sergeant calls me and she said,you know, we just had the car
towed in and the only thing hehad on his front seat of his card,
there was like his knee berries andthere's this piece of paper flipped upside

(30:44):
down. And she said, Ican't make hazer tails of this. It's
like directions. So she starts readingme the directions and I'm like, you
know, holy shit, it's thedirections to Kelly Cochran's house. So this
all happened and how an unfolded wasso really crazy and quickly, and in
my opinion, it was like,I think, right at that point when

(31:06):
she read me those directions that hehad in his car, I honestly knew
a couple of things. I knewthat Kelly and Jason Cochrane were involved in
his disappearance. And I also believedone hundred percent that he did not drive
his car to that parking ride.So those were two things that I knew
right away. You know what happenedis I sent the sergeant to that address

(31:30):
right after we got off the phone, or while we're on the phone,
and she's read me that the directions, and I said, that's Kelly's house.
I said, you know, takesomeone with you. Go up there,
try to make contact with her andask her when it's the last time
you saw Chris Reagan, asked herif she knows of any friends he could
be with, or why his carwould be at the park and ride.

(31:52):
So she goes up there, andthen she calls me. And after she
makes contact with Kelly and calls me, she says, you know, something's
not right. Her husband, Jason, comes to the door, says Kelly's
not there. He's very uncooperative rightfrom the get go. You know,
my sergeant tells me though, youknow, as we're walking up to the
door, we see a silhouette ofa woman in an upstairs window, so

(32:15):
we know someone else is in thehouse. The husband says, she's not
here. She didn't do anything wrong. Those were his first words out of
his mouth. She didn't do anythingwrong. And as the sergeant is talking
him saying, look, we're justtrying to find somebody who's missing. We're
wondering if Kelly might know where heis. While all of the sudden,
Kelly pops pops up in the background. She comes downstairs. You know,
she says, yes, I knowhim, and I haven't seen him in

(32:38):
you know. She ultimately said shethinks she might have seen him around the
thirteenth or fourteen of October, andthis is the twenty seventh. At that
point I told her to ask themto come in the next day for an
interview, and they both agreed tocome down to our office. So,
however, I'm already you know,that night, calling the sheaf, of

(33:00):
calling the Michigan State Police, tryingto get people in bodies in come and
help me. I knew I wantedto immediately do search warrants or Chris's car,
his apartment, phone records, debitcard, credit cards. And so
when we have our meeting in themorning and the detectives are there and I'm
there and I'm saying they're coming infor an interview. I mean, I

(33:20):
personally wanted to do the interviews rightout of the gate, but you know,
apparently no one else wanted to dothese search warrants, and these were
very very important to get done rightaway. So I sat in the back
room. I agreed to the Statepolice doing the initial interviews, and I
was able to you know, asI'm doing these search warrants at the computer,

(33:42):
I'm watching on the monitor and listeningto the interview with Kelly and Jason.
Kelly cup Course comes in. She'sgot herself very well managed, her
body language, everything is very controlled. She ad missed that she had a
relationship with Reagan. She says herhusband knew about it, and she'll do

(34:04):
anything to help out. You know, she's willing to take a polygraph at
this point, or she's going tothink about it. Didn't bring her cell
phone in because you know, ofcourse we would have liked to have seen
that right away, but she didn'tbring it in. But then moving on
to Jason Cochrane, you know,he comes in to the interview room and
I'm telling you, it's within threeminutes that he's crying. And I just

(34:25):
remember stopping what i was doing becauseI'm listening while I'm typing, and I
hear him talking about his medical issuesand blah blah blah, and all of
a sudden, he's bawling, andI just stopped I'm doing. I looked
up at the monitor and I thought, oh my god, this guy is
totally involved. I'm you're crying.You're in an interview crying about Sai Edica

(34:47):
and you know, all these otherhealth issues and we're just looking for a
missing person and it's just not normalfor this to be happening. That was
my feeling right away. So theinterviews ended, and they left, the
Cochranes left, and the detectives comeinto the back room where I am,
and I'm waiting. You know,I'm kind of excited to see if they

(35:09):
feel, you know, the sameway I do, and if they got
the same feeling I did. AndI looked at one of the detectives and
said, would you think and shesaid, I don't think they're capable,
you know, I mean, Jason'sgot all these issues, health issues and
whatever, and I just, Imean, my jamas is dropped. And

(35:30):
I looked at her and I said, all right, thank you, and
I just got on the phone andI called her supervisor and there's you know,
supervisor and said, I don't Idon't need their help anymore, I
mean, And that was it.So I ended up interviewing them, reinterviewing
them a few days later. Itmight have been like ten days actually,

(35:54):
because in the meantime, we're doingall these search warrants and we're collecting all
this evidence and going oh, herphone records and going over credit card statements.
And then you know, I rewatchedthe interviews that they had done and
decided it was time for me tocall him in into an interview. And
how did that go? I thinkthat m Kelly m definitely thought, you

(36:19):
know, that she had them convinced, which she did, that she had
no part in it, that theyyou know, she's being so forthcoming about
their relationship and and I mean,I'm I when I rewatched the interviews that
were done with the state Police detectives, I was able to pick up things
where I would have been, like, you know, she says she has
no idea where the parking ride isshe you know, and she's you know,

(36:43):
there's all these little hints in therethat were never sought out, that
were never questioned. And so shedefinitely felt like she pulled one over.
And so when I appeared at herdoor and said, you know, hey,
I'm wondering if maybe I could talkwith you. I never got to
meet you guys yet, I'm handlingthis case, and would it be okay?

(37:05):
She was like, you know,yeah, sure, you know,
it was fine, and so shecame willingly down to the department. Now,
once we started the interview and onceI started hitting on some of these
points that should have been hit onduring the first interviews, and she didn't
really have an answer for I mean, she she got a little angry,

(37:27):
and then that was it, Imean, the cooperation was over. She
ended up she ended up contacting thedetectives from the first interview saying I don't
want to talk to her ever again. You know, she's trying to accuse
my husband or me or whatever,and basically telling them, you guys are
right,'re on the right track. She's harassing us, you know,
and we don't want to talk towherever again. So that was that was

(37:47):
really the beginning of our relationship thatcontinued for probably another year and a half
of her dislike for me, youknow, like I say, there's so
many twists and turns to this case. It's really amazing for me. I
think from a viewer of the storyand a participant in it, A lot

(38:08):
happens the day you serve the searchwarrant well as time goes on, you
know, in the case, andI backed off from the assistant stuff the
State Police detectives. Um, therewas a lot more that came out,
you know. I she had alsobeen having a relationship with another guy at
work named Eric Ericson. He camein for an interview with me. I

(38:30):
went through his cell phone because heleft me and he still had messages with
her from you know, back beforeChris's death, and I was you know,
this is one just one incident whereOkay, the state Police interviewed him
before I did. Eric Errickson,they went out and did an interview with
him. He tells me, Laura, I showed them my phone on his

(38:52):
phone or messages with Kelly, andin his messages, Kelly and him are
meeting at the parking ride. Andto me, even though it's not a
significant thing that they met at thepark and Right, it is because in
her interview she says, I don'tknow where the park and Right is.
I've never been there, which rememberI knew Chris Reagan did not drive that
car to the park and ride andleave it there. I knew that.

(39:15):
And why would she say she doesn'tknow where it is because she's the one
that drove it there and then goingback to Eric Ericson's messages where they're talking
about meeting there and that's where theymet, and the state police knowing that
and seeing that message and not evenpicking up on the fact that this is
where his car was abandoned and thisis where she's denying the heavy knowledge of

(39:37):
and those are important things as thecase goes on and all these little things
are happening. That's just one ofmany different, you know, little things.
You know, there was an incidentwhere one of the detectives called me
and said, hey, Kelly Cochranecalled me and said that you know,
she wants you to stop harassing her, that that you had someone following her
around in Chris Reagan's truck. AndI was like, what you know,

(40:00):
what are you talking about? AndI realized very quickly what had happened.
Chris Reagan's sons had come into townand I had helped them move some of
their dad's stuff out of his apartmentand needed to be cleaned out, and
they didn't know anybody. So I'mthere helping them, and I also turned
over their dad's truck to them,and so they're using his truck to move

(40:22):
his belongings to a storage unit whichis up near Kelly's house. And just
so happens that they followed Kelly allthe way from Iron River up to Caspian,
the entire way to her house.And these boys had no idea that
they were following their dad's killer.They had no idea. But to me,

(40:42):
I thought that it was awfully ironic. I wanted to do a search
warrant right out of the gate,and of course was tracked out of that.
But now that I'm moving in myown direction, I finally go to
the prosecutor and I say, let'slook at look at my probable cause.
So she looks at my probable causeand she says, why haven't you done

(41:05):
this? Why why didn't you dothis, you know, a couple of
weeks ago. And I explained toher why at any rate, she gave
me her blessing, and then youknow, we go ahead and we did
that for a search warrant. Yeah, she was quite shocked because I think
that she thought that we were justwe had there, We had nothing,
we could do nothing, we didn'thave enough information, and all of this

(41:27):
was just going to go away.Anyhow, I show we show up to
do the search warrant and Kelly comesto the door, and of course she's
shocked, but they have to letus in. And it's it's a cold
day, it's like zero, andI tell her, you, you can't
be in the house when we dothe search warrant, so you can either
go to the neighbors or sit inthe car. And we actually offered to

(41:50):
let him sit in our car ifthey wanted to, which they did for
a short time. And of courseI had, you know, my officer
leave his body camera on in thecar. I just was very curious to
see what they would discuss, ifanything, while they sat in there,
and it was it was just eerielooking back now with Jason Bean dead and
and even the music that was playingon the radio while they were talking.

(42:10):
And you know, I mean,they were very smart. Kelly was,
she's a very smart woman, andshe just said, you know, the
only thing she said at all washow the hell did they get a search
warrant? And then that was it. The rest of the time, there
was no discussion. It was justyou know, the eerie blue Oyster Cult

(42:31):
Reaper music planking in the background.That's exactly what was playing. You know.
Basically they sat in our car fora few hours, and then they
did end up eventually going over.It's in the neighbor's house, and we
ended up getting done around ten o'clockat night with the search warrant. When
we left, one of the neighborssaid, you know, hey, when

(42:52):
you guys left last night. Theycalled me the next day and said,
you know, she was out therewith a flashlight looking around the under the
porch on the by the front doorfor a while. And then they bailed.
And so they did. I mean, they they didn't take all their
belongings, obviously, they took theirdogs, they took um I'm assuming some

(43:13):
clothing, and they left everything behind. In fact, Jason had like nine
very healthy marijuana plans. They justleft everything. No one does that if
they're not, you know, guilty. The lab wanted some DNA from them
for comparison purposes, and originally Kellyagreed to give DNA. This was,

(43:36):
you know, way back in thebeginning. All of a sudden, She's
like, you know, I don'tthink I don't think we're going to give
you our DNA anymore. You know, we've done enough to help you destroyed
our house, you know. Blah, blah blah, and I said,
well, I'll just come and getit from you then, you know,
and she said, we're not evenin the state anymore. I said yeah,
I said, I know exactly whereyou are. And I knew where
they were because they had a GPSunit attached to their truck that was placed

(44:00):
there by a private detective that Iwas working with. So she did find
that. She did find that GPSquickly, and we knew that she found
it because it stopped moving obviously,and she told that to I had like
an informant that it was kind ofyou know, communicating with her and coming
back to me, so I knewthat she had told him she found the

(44:23):
GPS unit. So I did endup making the trip down to Indiana to
collect DNA. I went with theFBI at that time. I was working
pretty closely with them, which isamazing. The FBI was amazing. And
once we collected that DNA for youknow, we had it on file,

(44:43):
we were kind of had a littlebit of a stand still at that point
because I mean I knew that theway that they were living, and this
is coming from people close to her, you know, her brother, her
own brother. I ended up connectingwith him, and he was speaking to
me very confidentially at the time,and because I think in a way he
was kind of afraid of her,you know. I mean, he wanted

(45:06):
me to write a letter and everythingsaying that I wouldn't disclose to anyone that
you know, I were discussing anything, because he was afraid. But he
is the one that came to meand said, you know, when they
came back here from Michigan, theyjust showed up out of the blue and
they told the family, Michigan's justthe cops are giving us too much of
a hard time. We had toget out of there. They destroyed our

(45:27):
house. And then it was somethinghe said next that it's one of those
things where you just let people talksometimes and something they might not think is
significant is significant. And so she'stalking about us doing the search warrant on
the house and how he ruined thehouse, and how we think we're going
to find Chris Riggan's blood in thehouse, and she tells her family and

(45:49):
they might find his blood in thetruck because one time when we went hiking,
he cut his ankle and he gotsome blood in the truck, and
I thought there you go. Imean, that little bit of info was
huge to me because now she's admittingwe might find blood in the truck,
you know, And do I thinkChris Reagan caught his ankle? And no,

(46:14):
I mean, but she's she's,you know, trying to set the
stage for what if they find blood? It seemed, and I feel like
this might be a little divergent,but it seems that she was constantly setting
the stage. The thing that alwayspops up in my head is that meeting
she had with hr right, Andyou know, I know they're differing opinions

(46:35):
on this, but I don't believethat Jason was as abusive as she's painted
him to be. Now, yougotta remember that I look at phone records
for probably at least a two yearperiod prior to them moving Iron River,
just because I wanted to know thisrelationship and how was Jason. You know,
I wanted to know them. AndI did that even with Chris Reagan
and by going through his records andand thinks he had written and not,

(47:00):
just because I wanted to know him. And so with Jason it was easy.
Jason was a victim of Kelly,and Jason was afraid of Kelly,
and Jason tried so hard to pleaseKelly, and she was very mentally abusive
to Jason, and he would havedone anything for her. And I read

(47:22):
Jason's text messages and I saw howtroubled he was. Like when I went
down to collect DNA in Indiana andthis is it was almost to the day,
a year after they killed Chris.He's in an interview room waiting to
have a CNA and I knew itwas driving him crazy because we set him
up. He had no idea wewere coming. And then I took away
his ability to communicate with Kelly andeven tell her, because you know,

(47:43):
we said we need to. Jasonwas easy to manipulate. Jason was easy.
And unfortunately I can say that becauseI saw it from a personal level.
You know, I need your phone, blah blah blah, take the
phone. In the meantime, Iknow what's going on. He is completely
losing his mind, thinking that he'sI mean, he's saying, I don't
want to spend the rest of mylife in jail. I can't handle this,

(48:04):
you know. And Kelly keeps tryingto reassure him that they're fine.
I don't have shit you know,they're gonna get an attorney and they're going
to assume me. And in themeantime, it's not working. He needs
to go back to the psychiatrist.That's what he keeps saying over and over
again. So then it gets toa point where, guess what, you
know, Kelly walks into the garageand overhears Jason talking to his brother about

(48:30):
what they did in Michigan, andnot any details came out, but Kelly
overheard it. And I'm telling youthat was a week before she killed him.
So I think that they kept everythingbetween them. Everything they did you
can talk to nobody about. Shehad this thing. It was you don't
tell anyone anything in that way,no one can know. And once you

(48:52):
do that, once you bring someoneelse into the equation, you're gonna get
caught. Jason was that other person, and he was getting you know,
he was losing his ship, andshe wasn't going to go down because of
him losing his ship. So shewas going to eliminate that problem, and
she did. You know, hedefinitely did these things for her at her

(49:16):
request, and he did it becausehe loved her that much and he wanted
to keep her that you know,he was willing to do it, but
again, mentally, it destroyed him. So I mean, I think from
the jump you can tell he's unstable, and you can tell that she does
not want him to be alone withanyone, right, you know, from

(49:37):
day one, So it doesn't surpriseme. And that was my gut reaction
when he did die. It waslike, oh, she was under the
impression he was talking, because eventhe last thing you say to her in
that interview and Hobert is you know, Jason had a lot to say,
and then he's dead four months later, right, And that's why the letter
thing was so effective. And I'llbe honest, I didn't think it was.

(50:00):
So I'm going to correct you,Josh okay, because that was one
part of the podcast that was alittle incorrect, the FBI thing and Walda
Ammermann's involvement actually was Jeremy's doing.And I didn't think this was going to
work because I've been working with Kellyfor a year and a half and I'm
saying, this woman will never fallfor this. But when she did,
it was huge because it showed methat she knew that Jason believed that she

(50:23):
could kill him. That's that paintedthat picture immediately. So Jeremy calls.
He says, I got an idea. You know, I'm gonna Walton and
it was really Jason's only friend ora good friend, and I'm going to
have Jason or have Walt called Kellyand tell her that Jason left this letter
behind saying, you know, ifanything should happen to me, send this

(50:44):
letter to Iron River Police. AndI remember telling Jeremy, you know,
let me know how it goes,just call me right away. And I
happened to look at the clock.It was like, I think the call
was supposed to happen at nine inthe morning, and I remember looking at
the clock. It was like eleveno'clock. I'm like, oh, you
never called me. It must havenot gone well. And it was just

(51:04):
like ash shit, you know.Um. But all of a sudden,
I get an email and from Jeremy, and I opened the email and it's
just the recording of the call,and I was like, I don't even
want to listen to this, youknow. So I play the call and
I hear it, and I hearher response, and I just like the
hair stood up on my arms,and I thought, oh my god,

(51:27):
you got her, and even ifjust for a minute, because she right,
you know, right out of thegate, she was like, please
don't send it. And then aminute later she was like, you know,
her light bulb must have gone off, and she was like, well,
you gotta do what you gotta do. And so for a minute,
though, just for a minute,she thought and and and in my mind

(51:49):
again knowing she's thinking, Jason,Jason could have written this letter and you
know, knew that this is real. You know, he wrote this letter
because he knew that I could possiblybe thinking about killing him. And she
clearly, you know, thought thathe had been thinking that just for that

(52:09):
moment, and that spoke volumes tome. I think that, and then,
you know, and the second,as far as I can tell,
search you did of their home anda laundry list of things that paint a
picture of how messed up these twowere. There are three items that I
think really demonstrate what they were capableof that turned up, which is Jason's

(52:32):
manuscript, the staples and the basementwalls, and the blood above the door
frame, which later on is determinednot to be Chris's, Jason's or Kelly's
blood. Well, well, that'sbecause I mean, there was some blood,
so there just wasn't enough of asample, so they knew it was

(52:53):
human blood, but they didn't knowwho. So there was a spot I
believe it was Kelly's. Then therewas a spot that they determined was possibly
a family member of Kelly, soit could have been like her brother or
whoever. And then there was thisundetermined blood because the sample was too insignificant.
So um, it's crazy, youknow, there was there was other

(53:15):
spots in the house too like that, Like you know, going down the
basement stairs, you could see clearlywhere Kelly or Jason had painted just one
certain area of this wall on thecement, which you know had been bleached,
had chemical on it and everything else, but just painted this one spot
where he had fallen down the stairs. Supposedly, so many things were done

(53:37):
that that indicated that this was noway a first time that these two people
had done this, because there's noway they could have done it so well.
Yeah, and I think, youknow, the manuscript is wild what
I've seen of it, and obviouslynot entirely grounded in reality, But you
mean the book, yeah, youknow, I was still at that point

(54:00):
where I thought. You know,Kelly's definitely the stronger, the smarter,
but Jason's pretty messed up in thehead. And I'm reading this book going
could he have planned this? Andis he writing the story about his own,
you know, life, or maybejust his mental stability. He's writing

(54:21):
about that or things that he processes. Who knows, right? So this
was all again reminding you, Imean, I'm a small town cop.
I mean, I deal with alot of things. I've seen a lot
of tragedies. I've seen, youknow, a lot of suicides and fatalities
and whatever, but I've never dealtwith anything like this. So I'm still

(54:42):
trying to kind of grasp who thesepeople are and what I'm dealing with and
the reality of it. So it'sa lot to process. And reading the
book, which wasn't finished, itdid make me turn my head a little
more towards back towards Jason, like, you know, maybe he is,
you know, this horrible, homicidalmaniac. So I did waiver a little

(55:06):
at that point, just from readingthe book. We'll talk more about that
book plus David Thayer's arrival in justa minute, but first let's hear from
some more sponsors. It's interesting there. You know, initially it seems like

(55:29):
mostly fantasy or fantasy derived from fromreality. But there were two things that
jumped out at me in the book. And the first was, you know,
quack Quack is a pedophile, andI thought, you know, well,
obviously that's not real. But Idid some digging and Jason and Kelly
lived with a convicted sex offender whowas a pedophile that I didn't know.

(55:54):
Yeah, I only found it becauseit was on the sex offender registry and
he was registered at the house onMississippi Street at the time that they lived
there, which made alarm bells gooff so well, of course, because
you know, when I'm reading ittoo, you're thinking about all the people
that he's encountered in his life thatI truly believe that he's describing people that

(56:16):
he's either encountered, you know,and just like had a strong hatred for,
or that he is, you know, like a couple of these people.
I'm thinking he's describing himself, andI mean he I do think that
he suffered from schizophrenia, you know, probably more severe than what they actually

(56:37):
thought it was. But I thinkthat he saw himself as being different people
for different reasons at different times,and maybe not controlled. You know,
Kelly's brother had told me about conversationthat Jason had and apparently Kelly's dad didn't
ever really care for Jason because hewas just weird or whatever. I think

(57:00):
he got weirder athlete as a relationshipwent on because he was losing it.
But this would have been after theymoved back from Michigan, and apparently they
were having a discussion and Jason saidto Kelly's dad, you know, doesn't
everybody hear voices in their head?I thought everybody heard voices, And Kelly's
brother said, you know, itjust was like you could hear a pin

(57:22):
drop because everyone was kind of likelooking at him. I mean that was
the end of the conversation, butjust goes to show that, you know,
he was pretty messed up. Yeah, and the other thing in the
book. And I almost hate toeven bring it up because it's become such
a spectacle and you know, there'sno proof that it happened. But the
barbecue, What are your feelings onthat? Because I can't really make heads

(57:47):
or tails of it. It wouldn'tsurprise me, but it also just seems
in a case that's very wild,too wild. We decided not to even
spend much time on that topic.And the reason we decided to not spend
much time on that topic is because, I guess for protection of Chris's boys

(58:13):
and family. Um, because whatwere we going to do with that.
Um. Kelly was never going toadmit that that actually happened. She still
won't admit that that happened. Andso for us to bring it up and
even you know, go into it, there was no purpose and all it
was going to do was hurt people. So that's why it was never brought

(58:34):
up in the courtroom. UM.It was brought up during my interview of
course, with the neighbors who feltthat that it was a possibility, and
you know, just in listening tothem describe things, and you know,
it would come up later with Kelly'sbrother that you know, hey, and
and and again, yeah, Kelly'sbrother didn't know about this conversation with the

(58:57):
neighbors where they said we think wemight aid him, you know, But
so he didn't know anything about that. But he had told me, you
know, when they lived in Indiana, they had this pig farm and they
told me that they fed victims tothese pigs and then we ate the pigs.
So obviously the family didn't know thatuntil much after, Like obviously they

(59:22):
didn't know prior to eating the pigthat they were feeding potential victims to these
pigs. But that is what shetold her own family, and she in
fact, while in the jail,I think she wrote it in a letter
to Colton, her brother. Soif you if you come, you know,
put that pair that with you know, the neighbors saying, you know,

(59:42):
this was so weird because this washappening. They didn't have any money,
they didn't have any food. Wewere having them over for dinner just
to help them out, and allof a sudden they had this whole week
of you know, tons of meat. And so I mean putting that into
respective with the fact that we neverfound any other body, part body,

(01:00:04):
any other bones, for any bypart. And we we searched that area
where we found the skull so wellthat we actually found part of the cheek,
you know, a little part ofthe cheek that was maybe one hundred
yards say, from where the skullwas resting. So to not find any
of the even like any of theother bones, for you know, is

(01:00:28):
very odd. So is it possiblethat there's some truth to that. I
I can't look at it and say, oh, no way, these people
couldn't have done something like that,because they could have. But do we
know that no, I mean,does it make sense that it could have

(01:00:49):
happened? Yes, While all thisis happening, and really the case it
is starting to heat up, IronRiver hires David there right, and he
has a literal rap sheet, andI just like that in and of itself.

(01:01:13):
Let alone what that rap sheet consistsof and what happens thereafter, it's
just appalling to me. What wasyour initial reaction when they announced he was
hired? Well prior? Okay,so I just when I became the chief,
I had to work really hard toget that. And so chiefs prior
at our department were just basically officersthat have been there for a long time

(01:01:37):
and it's time for a new chief. So the city manager and the board
are going to say so. Andso, you know, wants to be
chief. He's been here a longtime. We like him, he's a
good guy, community likes him.So we're gonna go ahead and make him
cheap. There was no job postings, you know, for my at least
the chief that I had prior tome becoming chief. And so for me

(01:01:57):
though, it was a whole newball game because I put I had in
you know, it had had tobe posted. People applied. I believe
there were twenty five applicants, whichfor a small town, that's a lot.
I mean, it was a lotof applicants. And now they're going
to have a panel and which consistedof Marquette's chief of police, which you

(01:02:19):
know, Marquete's probably the biggest townin the Upper Peninsula, I want to
say, and it's a college town. It's probably forty five thousand, maybe
forty thousand people, and then Escanabamaybe thirty five forty thousand people. I'm
guessing I could be off a littlebit. So they take the two chiefs
from these bigger departments and they andthey have a panel those two plus the

(01:02:40):
city manager at the time, andthey're they're the interviewing committee, and they're
going to make the decision on whothe chief should be. But at any
rate, they picked me. Abouta year and a half after Laura was
promoted to chief, Iron Rivers citymanager resigned following several whistleblower complaints. Regarding

(01:03:00):
ethics and alleged alcoholism. One ofthose whistleblowers was Laura, and as the
city council began looking for a replacement, Frizzo got a call from the Esconaba
chief of Police, who recommended herfor her promotion. I get a phone
call from the chief of Escanaba Policewho says, hey, I just wanted

(01:03:22):
to let you know that someone toldme they're looking at hiring this stated there.
Do you know him at all?And if you ever heard of him?
And I said no, And hesaid, well, this is not
good for you. He said.The guy that called me said that he's
been fired from the last, youknow, almost every job he's ever had,
and that he hates cops and hehates women, and he hates women

(01:03:44):
in the authority positions. So hesaid, you're going to have issues.
And he was so passionate about tellingme this. And this guy was this
chief, he was very kept hisnose clean and was never got involved in,
you know, any kind of shitlike this. What was really surprising
that he said, I think youshould call your mayor And I said,
after what we just went through thelast manager, I said, I'm not

(01:04:04):
calling my mayor. Because they're goingto think I'm a problem. I said,
but if you want to call himand tell him what you know,
you can call him, and sohe did. He hung up and he
called the mayor and told him,you know, this guy is not good.
He's been arrested, he's anti lawenforcement, he's anti female. And

(01:04:26):
he called me back. He said, well, that was, you know,
a waste of my time. AndI said, well, what happened?
And he said the mayor just saidyou know that he thought it was
an appropriate for him to call himand hung up on him. So I
thought, well that's great. Youknow, they hired him. So at
that point I had an agreement withthe police union because being the chief there,

(01:04:49):
you're typically you're at will employee.You don't have any kind of union
protection. Because I was afraid of, you know, my role and what
could happen, because it's happened overthe you know, over the years.
I asked them if they wouldn't mind, you know, if I had this
agreement with the union and the policeofficers for my department agreed to it,
that if something should happen and I'mnot happy or they're not happy with me,

(01:05:13):
I'll just bounce back to my unionposition because I had loved my job.
I loved working with the community,and they knew I was good at
my job and I was a valuableofficer. So they agreed with without hesitancy,
to allow me to have that agreement. So David Thayer comes in,
I still have my agreement. Sayoh, there was hired the end of
October twenty fifteen. My agreement wasto be renewed in December, and there

(01:05:40):
would renew it right out of thegate. Right out of the gate.
He comes in, you know,and he's not a nice guy. I
mean, he's There's two women workingupstairs in the office with him. One
of them, the treasurer, wasin tears every single day because he treated
her so horribly and she had endedup quitting. As time goes on,

(01:06:00):
you know, he's turning his stuffon me pretty hardcore, and he you
know, he's setting me up.Right from the beginning. I could see
it, especially when it came time, like I started getting concerned about my
contract being renewed and my agreement withthe union. So I went to him
and I said, you know,you know, if you're not going to
renew my contract with the union.I'm going to take a hard look at
just going back to my union jobbecause I can't afford to lose my job

(01:06:24):
and I don't want to lose myjob. And I don't trust you.
I don't I don't trust you.And this is right after because the first
thing he did is cut off myability to communicate with the council or the
mayor. I wasn't allowed to dothat anymore. And of course that's a
huge red flag for me. Ifthey don't want if he doesn't want me
talking to them, there's a reasonfor it. So this man also knew,

(01:06:45):
I mean, Thayer knew that Iwas well liked by the community and
I did a good job, andthat I was a threat to him,
and so he this. We havethis big meeting around December, first two
and a half hour meeting where I'msaying, I'm not sure if i want
to work as the chief if you'renot going to renew this. He's not

(01:07:08):
giving me a proper explanation as towhy he won't renew it. And ultimately
this meeting would come back in mylawsuit to turn on me, where he
says this was a meeting where hewas telling me that if I didn't,
you know, improve my ways oryou know, be more respectful or do
whatever. He says that he basicallysaying he was going to fire me,

(01:07:29):
and I want and that I saidI wanted to keep my job. And
this is the kind of manipulation thisman did. And I there's nothing you
can do about it. You canjust sit there and like I did,
my jaw drops and I listened tothese these lies that he tells, and
I realize that this is how thisman has lived his whole life, because
he's done it too many other women. You know, When that happened in

(01:07:54):
December, I had to make adecision. You know, am I going
to bounce back? Am I goingto stay the chief? If I would
bounce back to my union position,I would have one of the officers would
have been laid off. And Ijust thought, you know what, I
can do this, I can Ican keep this job without that agreement because
I work. I work, youknow, eighty plus hours a week.
I'm devoted to my job. I'mdedicated, I work hard, and there's

(01:08:17):
nothing he can do to me.And I was very, very wrong,
very wrong. He hated me.I mean, he really had that strong
of a dislike for me that Ifeel like he hated me. And you
know, if I wasn't up there, you know, filling him on it
and everything that was going on,and and doing everything he said, if

(01:08:42):
I argued or disagreed with something hetold me to do because it was completely
wrong, and I refused to dosomething that wasn't correct with you know,
I had I had to follow themdirection of the prosecuting attorney for our county.
She's the head elie. He wantedto be the head eliot. He
wanted me to take a direction fromhim. I couldn't do that, and

(01:09:05):
I wasn't going to. And maybeit's the way I presented myself, you
know, by telling him I'm notdoing that, it's wrong, instead of
sugarcoating anything. So you know,there were times where he screwed over my
officers, took away hours from themon their time sheets. He was changing
numbers on time sheets after I reviewedthem. I you know, would call

(01:09:29):
and confront him about these issues becausethe officers will come to me. And
that was the incident where he calledme the bitch, you know, and
my officer actually hurt him. Ofcourse, he tried to deny that initially
because he didn't think he was heard. Then once he realized he was heard,
he says, oh, no,I called her a bitch after I
hung up the phone. She didn'thear me. It was just this is
just the kind of shit that youknow, that that started taking place a

(01:09:53):
month after month being told you know, women don't belong in men's occupations with
a little chuckle like, oh,is that a joke or you know,
no, of course it's not ajoke, but you know that's what he
said. So and then a coupleof months after that, you know,
as soon as Kelly Cochrane's arrested andit's all over the news, Stade,
It's all over the TV, andit's you know, I remember telling my

(01:10:15):
assistant, you know, the morepeople talk about me and I'm on the
news or whatever, the more hehates me, the more I can feel
it, you know, the wayhe looks at me, he's confrontational with
me. I tried to avoid him, but I knew it was coming to
a head. Two weeks after,we have the preliminary hearing for Kelly Cochrane,
which is all over the news,and he calls me up to his

(01:10:38):
office, and he gets confrontational withme, tells me everyone wants to fire
me on the council, The mayorwants to fire me, which I knew
was a lie. The mayor hadjust been down in my office, like,
you know, three weeks prior totelling me how proud he was.
And but of course when the mayoris proud of me, it's I'm overshadowing
there. I have other names forthere. Keep that to myself. So

(01:11:03):
I knew he was lying, andI just honestly looked at him that day
and I said, you know what, I was exhausted at that point.
I had had a day off intwo weeks, and I just looked at
miss I'm not going to listen toany more of this today. And when
I got up to walk out,he literally came over his desk and he
took both of his hands to tryand grab my shoulders. And when he

(01:11:24):
did that, I backed up,and do I wish I wouldn't have and
I would have let him. Youknow, sometimes you know, I go
back and forth, like I wishI would have done this. I wish
I would have done that, butI backed up, so he you know,
he didn't actually get my shoulders,and when I did that, he
ran around the side of his deskand he literally came nose to nose with
me and was screaming, spitting inmy face, sit down in the fucking

(01:11:47):
chair, blah blah blah. AndI looked at him and I said,
what are you gonna do, David? Are you going to hit me?
And he just stood there and that'swhen I walked out. And that was
the last day I ever worked,because you know, I went down to
my office. I told my assistantwhat happened. I said, I gotta

(01:12:10):
get out of here for a littlewhile. I mean, I am mentally
exhausted to have that just happened.And I'm thinking, what do I do?
Do I go report this to theSheriff's Department. Do I report it
to the state police? Do I? If I do that, I'm two
weeks from my trial. What isthat going to do to my case or
my What is that going to doto my my jury panel and what their

(01:12:31):
opinion of me and my integrity isbecause this could backfire on me, which
it did, and I didn't wantany of those things to happen. So
I was stuck in a really badposition, and I just said, you
know, I'm going off on sicklyfor a few days. I'm taking arrest
and we'll try to sort it outwhen I come back again. I think

(01:12:53):
I just kind of was hoping thatit would just blow over, and it
didn't. And I think his thoughtswhen I walked out of that office where
he was, he got, youknow, what is she going to do?
I'm screwed, She's gonna you know, And so he prepared himself and
he he had to just start buildingup a case against me, and I

(01:13:14):
wasn't doing that. I mean,I wish I would have when I look
back now, because if I wouldhave worried more about myself and protecting myself
and protecting the case for the youknow. I mean, I'm protecting the
case because I'm looking out for myvictim and my victim's family and how hard
I worked on bringing justice to him. But in the meantime, I think

(01:13:35):
I let my own justice down.So it's sad that you had to make
a choice. I think that's kindof the crux of a lot of this

(01:13:57):
is whom I have to make choiceswhere most men don't. Most men get
the privilege of choosing themselves first withoutbeing painted a certain way, and they
get the flexibility to take care ofboth things. I agree. And it's
just like, you know, theshitty, humiliating, disrespectful way that things

(01:14:20):
happened from that point forward. Andyou know, and I still had to
go through this trial and get throughit and win it because I mean,
I needed to win this trial formy victim, right And I'm thinking,
how is my head going to staystraight through all of this? After this?
This is like the most unjust thingI can't even imagine could happen to

(01:14:44):
somebody. And like I said,I mean, I probably could have done
things a lot differently, but ultimatelythe end result was all going to be
the same because that was his planfrom the get go. And so I
need to just you know, I'vespent a long time, a lot of
time trying to just kind of getthrough that mentally and realize that there was

(01:15:08):
nothing I could have done to makethe outcome any different. And I need
to take pride in the fact thatI still held it together and was able
to get through that through that trialand testify as well as I did,
and hold it together and recall everythingthe way I did, and I do
give myself credit for that, andI need to give myself more credit for

(01:15:29):
it because I was so hung upon, you know, having my job
stripped my relationship with that community andwhat I was for so many people you
know there, I felt like,I don't know, it's just it's something
that is very, very hard todescribe. What I have found is active

(01:15:53):
police officers have a lot of stuffthey shelved, they put it aside to
get through each day, and itseems like when they stop working and if
it's abruptly stopped or you know,it's out of their control, it's almost
like, you know, that wholething opens up on them and everything everything

(01:16:16):
comes in at once. And soit's to me, and I'm not talking
specifically about myself, but I'm talkingabout law enforcement in general. What I
have seen is not working in thejob itself, and everything you have to
see on a day to day basis, suicide's fatalities, everything that's so traumatic
for an officer to have to gothrough and see visually emotionally, but then

(01:16:42):
have to deal with the political aspectof people that don't give a shit about
these people out there making you know, shit for money, but doing it
because they genuinely want to help peopleand make a difference. And then some
asshole comes in there and just decidesthat, you know, they're going to

(01:17:03):
ruin their life even more for them. So I think that I've had to
I have a very strong faith inGod, and I also have wonderful kids
and family, my parents and Jeremy. Honestly, if Jeremy hadn't come into

(01:17:23):
my life when he did, andI truly believe he was put there for
a reason, I probably wouldn't haveeven made it through this very well.
I mean I didn't make it throughit very well, but I think I
think that without him being here andbeing able to coach me through so many
dark days, things might be alot different than they are for me.

(01:17:45):
I mean really, so I needto be thankful for all of that.
I think there's some really great ironiesin this which makes this case so fascinating
because it could almost be written butwhy. Thing I appreciate is that it
seemed like Kelly was really trying topit you and Jeremy against each other.

(01:18:05):
Oh yes, and instead what happenedis you got together and are getting married,
right right. I mean, we'veActually we've been engaged for you know,
three and a half years. I'mjust I want to be at a
point, you know, for usboth where we're like peaceful, you know,
just like ready. And I thinkthat Kelly. You know, Kelly

(01:18:30):
has said it to both of uson more than one occasion. Well,
you can thank me for you twobeing together. I mean, it's really
the relationship we have where there's crazy, to be honest with you, I
mean, because she thinks that,you know, we're her friends and it's
some kind of a weird way weare, But that doesn't mean we like

(01:18:51):
her. Does that make sense?Oh? I know, I yeah,
I spent three years before doing thiscase studying Israel Keys and I'd never even
met him. But there is thisstrange when you spend that much time so
deep in someone's life, there isa weird connection, right Like we went
to see her at the prison onMarch sixth, and she had been asking

(01:19:13):
for months, and she wanted,you know, I wanted to of course,
let's go into the interview room andblah blah blah. And she didn't
want that. She wanted the show. She wanted everyone in there to see
me, to see me coming into talk to her, so that I
mean she likes that. I mean, she wants that kind of attention,

(01:19:34):
you know, that kind of sheneeds it. So I so I worked
it out with the prison. Theywere great that the warden's assistant was awesome
to work with. And I wentin and I met her in the visitor
room with all the other people,and of course all the other inmates are
Kelly's queen shit at the prison.And let me tell you, she had

(01:19:55):
her hair done, she had hermakeup done. She looked awesome. She
I mean, some of these picturesas you see on social media of her,
she looks horrible, right, andshe could really fix herself up and
look pretty attractive. You know,I'm not gonna lie. And so she
had lost some weight and she hadher hair done, like I said,
in her makeup, and I toldher, you look pretty darn good,
you know. And it was likesitting down and catching up with an old

(01:20:19):
friend. But I mean we talkedfor about probably about an hour and a
half just about life, and thenwe went into stuff about you know,
the case and other victims. Andthen finally we went into the interview room.
And of course it's a different atmospherefor her. Going into a close

(01:20:40):
room, you're going to get adifferent Kelly in the clothes room than you
are just speaking to her. Likewhen I went and saw her in the
jail and I sat outside on thefloor outside of her cell and talked to
her. That's where she divulged everythingto me about where the soul was,
where the gun was, and everythingwas accurate. And you get her into

(01:21:00):
a closed room or a box thatshe likes to call it, and she's
different. It's um not as easyto get the truth out of her.
She's not as quab if. It'salmost like a part of her brain like
switches off. And anyhow, youknow, she talks about these other victims,
and she wants this deal, youknow, and she would like to

(01:21:24):
be moved to another facility in exchangefor a victim information. And I think
the prosecutor was willing to do thatdeal and make that happen for all of
the other victims. And Kelly,of course, we're in this room and
she's saying and Jeremy actually picked upon and of course way before I did.
I'm like, no way, she'snot thinking that. But sure enough

(01:21:45):
she's thinking, you know, I'llgive you one victim, and you're gonna
move me here, and then maybein a year, I'll give you another
victim if I want to move somewhereelse. And I'm just going to keep
getting these favors for victims. AndJeremy, you know, he pretty much
said that is absolutely not happening,and you can put it, you know,
right out of your mind, andthen her wheels are turning. With

(01:22:05):
Jeremy, there's a difference she doesplay us. It's almost like playing mom
and dad against the kid, youknow, against each other for the kid.
And that's what she does with us, because I am more of a
motherly instinctive person and Jeremy is morea no nonsense kind of person. And
there were times where I thought hisnonsense approach might be hindering, and but

(01:22:27):
I'm sure I'm wrong. You know, he did it correctly, and and
he did it. He did itcorrectly because I would have never been able
to get from her what he didbecause I'm not an effective interviewer that way.
I am definitely you know, I'mgoing to say, quit lying to
me. You know, I knowexactly what you did, and here's the
evidence where you know he's more strategicin what he says and is able to

(01:22:53):
pull out of someone because of hisyou know, strategy. So anyway,
we left there on that no,and she was, you know, going
to call us when she made adecision, and we haven't heard from her
since then, and that was Marchsix. Now, I know the prison's
been under you know, they've hada lot of the COVID stuff going on
in the prison, and she mighteven be one of the ones affected by

(01:23:17):
it. But there will come atime she'll contact us and want and want
to play some more. You know. Right now, we're we haven't heard
anything. So so Kelly lies alot, and she's made a lot of
contradicting claims. So there's the feedingpeople to pigs, there's the butterfly tattoos

(01:23:38):
that represent her victims, and soon. How much credence do you think
should be paid to any of theseclaims she's made. I remember sitting in
the interview room with the neighbors whenthey were talking about the saws and everything
going off in the middle of thenight, and you know, and I'm
just letting them talk and I'm listeningand running this through my mind, thinking,

(01:24:00):
Okay, there's no way this happened, you know what I mean,
Like I had a hard time believingthat they could have Encaspian Michigan cut this
guy up into little pieces. Okay, I had a hard time believing that.
And it was true, it happened, and other things that happened that
you know, there's not enough timeto talk about. But so when you
talk about, well that might havehappened, But do you really think they

(01:24:25):
fed their victims to pigs? Yes, I do. I think that's true.
And especially because Kelly is, youknow, the way that she does
come out with things. Sometimes Ithink that sometimes she just does it because
it's like a fucking I'm just gonnasay it, you know, and then
she might want to retract it orsay, wow, that didn't really happen.

(01:24:47):
But you know, one thing withJeremy and I's we both learned from
the hours and hours and hours oftalking to her that she'll throw out ten
lies with one truth, and youhave to know and be able to distinguish
which one is the truth that comesout of her mouth. And we both

(01:25:09):
learned, and it's kind of toohard to put into words. When she's
talking, you can almost pick itup. You know, you know,
she's bullshitting right now, and we'regoing to entertain it and let her think
that we believe her, and wedon't really know the truth, but we
know that this isn't it, youknow, just by the way she's saying
it, or her composure, oreven just the chemistry in the air.
You just know. So the reason, you know, with the pig thing

(01:25:32):
is she presented this to her brother, to her family. Her mom was
devastated, her brother was devastated,and that's not something Kelly cochrane would do
if it actually didn't happen. Sowe believe the pit that definitely. You
know, when she says that theysaid a victim or victims to their pigs,
I believe that one hundred percent thesepeople are. Jason, of course

(01:25:55):
is not alive anymore, but theywere a very dark couple that She described
it as saying, you know,when we walk in a room, we
can look around that room and wecan spot people just like us. You
see them, you see each other, you make eye contact, you can
feel their chemistry. And I believethat. So the pigs, I believe

(01:26:18):
the butterflies, I do. Ibelieve that her butterfly tattoos definitely signify possible
victims. When I asked her whatbutterflies meant to her, you know,
early on in our interviews, andthis is while she was incarcerated and we
were on better terms, she toldme that, you know, I told

(01:26:39):
her, you know, butterflies tome are our symbol of new life.
And you know, she said thata butterfly to her signified death. And
I said, you know, I'venever heard anyone say that about a butterfly.
And she said, well, shesaid, look it up. I
mean, haven't you ever noticed ifyou have decomposition on a body or you
know, body or animal or whatever, she said, you'll see maggots and

(01:27:00):
stuff, but she'll also see butterflies. And that's true. And I did
research it, and I also talkedto the head of the Michigan Conservation Department
regarding that, and they said thatit was also true finding that a lot
of people didn't really talk about becausethe one wants to really associate butterflies with
that. But she knew that,and she did. I know that this

(01:27:25):
investigation has been, for better andworse, probably a little career defining for
you, and is unavoidable in yourlife, but on a personal level,
is it something you carry around withyou? Like, is Kelly kind of
with you day in and day out? Well, I mean when her letter
writing and now I haven't had aletter from her in a couple of months,

(01:27:45):
and of course I saw her inMarch, but yeah, I mean,
I do think that it was kindof like a dark cloud following me
all the time, and especially whenI continued communication with her. And that's
why, you know, I toldJeremy, We're going to meet with her
on March sixth, and that's thelast time I'm going to meet with her.
I'm not going to play the gameswith her anymore. I'm I got

(01:28:08):
to forget her. I want toforget her. You know, you get
to a plant where you're sick ofhearing your name and because she is really
a bad, bad person and shedoesn't deserve my friendship or my time,
and I you know, just think, like you know, I would have
done anything to help other families withyou know, victims that are that want

(01:28:30):
closure. I'd do anything to helpthem. But I can't, you know,
I can't continue on with her theway, you know, the way
that it is the way that it'sbeen because I do think she has some
kind of hold on people that arein her life where I just think bad
things happen to people that are inher life. So if that makes sense,

(01:28:54):
Yeah, I'm glad you're choosing yourselfthis time. Yeah. She was
calling to Fine four. She wanttrying to mind, so she's here to

(01:29:30):
wait Stiles, that's fine, Soto tree to lie, so shree shree

(01:30:21):
thro every breaths could harbor. Detectivedaughter calling, Please don't be mean.

(01:30:59):
There are so many skirts, butsons are the teeth, long legs are
mine. She calls around, findsme cry. Wish I were capable of
li an sometimes scan to be,She's crawl to fly hur She'll always have

(01:32:51):
play mu was. She's gone moretime as she wants more. But I'm

(01:33:13):
allowed to two say true, saytrue, to say the truth to

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