9. Inside

Josh goes inside the investigation into Kelly Cochran, revealing new information, new links, and a possible timeline. And the investigation itself raises some important questions about what authorities do and don't know.
Next episode: 24 May 2023

This is a Studio BOTH/AND production:
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Written, researched, edited, and produced by Josh Hallmark

Music by William Hellfire, Whithe, Sergey Cheremisinov, Lee Rosevere, Radical Face, The Inner Shore

Episode Transcript

(00:09):
This is a studio both and production. The first thing that comes to mind
is what's in it for her?And I think the answer may be that
simple. If there's no clear rewardfor her, I would think in her

(00:31):
mind she would be like, whywho wou am I doing this for?
If it's not for me? Idon't need feeling to help anybody else.
Yeah, And I guess you can'tappeal emotionally to a psychopath exactly exactly.
I mean I think that, youknow, law enforcement, I think is
becoming increasingly sophisticated in terms of understandingthat if you think the person that you're

(00:53):
interviewing is a psychopath, and youthink by appealing to their conscience or guilt
or the pain of a parent orthe pain of a spouse is going to
get you anywhere, it's not goingto. Now, you may be able
to appeal to that person's ego.You may be able to convince that person

(01:14):
that they're so much smarter than youthat you need their help and you know,
getting more information, and maybe ifsomebody developed a relationship with her over
time and had some of those strategies, she may eventually start talking about other
things. But appealing to appealing toempathy or remorse or anything I think would
probably get you absolutely nowhere. Thereare a lot of similarities between the Israel

(01:42):
Keys case and the case of KellyCochriton. Most notably is that each case
has two confirmed homicide events. Inthe case of Keys, the couriers being
a single event with two homicides,and then one very likely but unconfirmed homicide.
In the case of Kelly Cochrane,Andrew Fugate is our Deborah Feldman.

(02:06):
Of course, the FBI statements onwhether Feldman is a confirmed Keys victim have
been fluid at best, and it'shighly likely that the Cochranes murdered Andrew Fugate.
Before moving to the up of Michigan. He worked for a company that
sold grass fed organic pork. TheCochranes raised grass fed organic pork. And

(02:30):
I say that with quotes because it'svery likely that that pork was fed more
than just grass. Fugate worked andwas murdered two miles from the cochrane home
on Mississippi Street. Fugate was shotwith the same off brand ammunition used to
kill Chris Regan less than a yearlater. The car scene on surveillance footage

(02:53):
at and around Pietech Meets at thetime of fugates murder was a white suv.
The cock Grins drove a white Fordextended cab pickup which they had a
camping shell four, and there weretwo people seen entering pie at Tech Meets
on surveillance the morning Fugate was murdered. And while I hate to turn speculation

(03:19):
or theory into fact or precedence incases like Keys and Cochrane, it's the
third known victim that differentiates pattern fromcoincidence, which is what makes Feldman and
Fugates so critical in their respective investigations. So let's take a quick look at
what Kelly's two confirmed and one likelyvictim say about her EMO and victimology.

(03:45):
All three were straight, white men, ranging in age from twenty seven Andrew
Fugate to fifty three Chris Reagan.Chris and Jason were men she had sexual
relationships with, and while it's likelythat Kelly knew or had crossed paths with
Fugate, as yet there's no actualevidence to support that assumption. Fugate and

(04:06):
Regan were both shot with the sameOff Brand thirty eight caliber ammunition. Jason
was smothered and well, you know, Andrew was shot in the early morning
hours at his place of work,Jason was smothered in the early morning hours
at his parents' house where he andKelly were living. And Regan was shot

(04:28):
at around eight pm at the Cochrane'shome in Caspian. Fugate's body was left
at the scene. Jason's death wasreported immediately as an overdose, and Chris
Regan was dismembered in the Cochrane's basementand then either burned or cannibalized before the
remaining bone fragments were scattered in nearbywoods. Most importantly, though, and

(04:50):
unlike keys, all three of thesevictims and crimes could easily be linked to
Kelly Cochrane. All three homis sideshappened either in her home or within several
miles from her home. She washaving sexual relationships with at least two of
the victims, and the third ata minimum was working in the same industry

(05:11):
in the same small town as Kelly. So that's what we know for certain.
But there's additional evidence and information thatsheds light on how the Cochranes were
committing and covering up their crimes,which takes us back to the basement on
sixty six Lawrence Street and Caspian,Michigan. The first search warrant we did

(05:32):
was the fifth and I really thoughtwe had enough student and sort the lab
personnel. I mean, we reallythought we had them. However, they
didn't finish the whole house. Andthat's that's. You know, there's many
mistakes that people make in law enforcementduring an investigation that they really don't want
to bring to light and say,you know, because other detectives are watching

(05:55):
or listening, they're analyzing, andthey're saying, man, they screwed that
up. They screwed that up.You know, everyone thinks she did such
a good job, but they reallymade a lot of mistakes, and we
did. And I think that probablyevery investigation, at least one that's this
in depth, you're going to havea lot of mistakes, and especially being
a small department without a lot ofresources, and you just you know,

(06:17):
but that's one mistake that was made. And I can't even really say it
was my mistake. I mean,could I have demanded, you know,
no, we're going to stay hereovernight and protect this house and finish it.
Yeah, I probably should have,but Unfortunately we didn't, and so
I had gotten called back, youknow, probably a week after or so

(06:39):
within that week of doing it,because they did rush the analyzation at the
lab and they said, you know, they didn't have anything. And I
remember calling the lab and saying,we need to come and finish this house,
you know, we need to finishthis. And I remember the lab
director calling me from the state policeand being very irritated with me and saying,

(07:03):
what what can we do to makeyou happy? Like they did not
want to come back, and Isaid, I want you to come back
and finish the house, you know. So they did come back, and
that second search warrant was done inMarch twenty seventh, and that is when
we were in the basement and Ifound the book that Jason had been writing,

(07:24):
and I just, you know,I was still at that point where
I thought, you know, Kelly'sdefinitely the stronger, the smarter, but
Jason's pretty messed up in the head. And I'm reading this book going could
he have planned this? And ishe writing a story about his own,
you know life. The second searchof the Cochrane home delivered two of the

(07:47):
most eye opening pieces of information whenit comes to investigating the Cochrane's previous crimes.
Jason's manuscript obviously, and this bitof previously unreleased information. Staples,
lots of them, and the joistsof the basement walls, ceiling, and

(08:11):
floor. Investigators found heavy duty staples, and in the days following Chris Reagan's
disappearance, neighbors complained that the Cochraneswere burning something in their backyard, burned
barrel that smelled like plastic. Additionally, in another room during that same second
search, investigators found two rolls ofviscuen plastic. In several interviews, Kelly

(08:39):
noted that Dexter was Jason's favorite TVshow and that Jason likened himself to a
Dexter style serial killer. And thisis something that's actually quite evident in much
of Jason's book. So it's probablethat there was no DNA recovered from the
Cochrane basement because they had essentially setup a murder room down there, lining

(09:05):
the floors, walls, and ceilingin plastic. Meaning everything about the murder
of Chris Regan was premeditated, andwhen compared to the murder of Fugate,
the homicide at Pie Attack meets seemsso hasty. With Regan, the Cochranes
took careful time to wrap their basementin plastic before murdering him somewhere they could

(09:31):
spend several days thereafter dismembering him,cleaning up and disappearing his remains, And
in Kelly's case, she made surethat any evidence linking them to the crime
could be squarely directed at Jason,her jealous and abusive husband with Fugate.
However, their surveillance footage the murdertook place at a meat plant where other

(09:56):
people could show up at any time. His body. He was abandoned on
the scene and discovered within two hoursof the murder. Unlike with Regan,
there was no sense of control inthis murder. Is the lack of control
a sign that the Cochranes weren't involvedand there's just a plethora of inconvenient coincidences,

(10:18):
or does it mean that something happenedsomething that forced the Cochranes to act
so carelessly and with such haste.And if it was the Cochranes who murdered
Andrew Fugate, why did it haveto be that morning at that place.
If they were able to get fugateto invite them into the meat plant,

(10:39):
As reports indicate, he likely unlockedand opened the door for whoever killed him,
Why couldn't they just get him togo to their home two miles away
on Mississippi Street. Their home wherethey had all those pigs that they were
allegedly feeding their victims too, andtheir home where they had a partially finished

(11:01):
basement. Well, I'm looking intoa few theories on that. While Jason
and Kelly didn't have extensive travel recordsthat might point us to potential criminal activity,
they did leave behind two possible guidepostsfor what and when exactly they were

(11:24):
up to no good, Jason's bookand Kelly's Facebook page. There are three
notable murder scenarios that take place inJason's book. One involves a fourteen year
old boy who was abducted four daysbefore Easter by two strangers pretending to be
Mormon missionaries. Another is the murderwhere Quack's wife helps to kill a man

(11:50):
who enters their home just several daysbefore they host a barbecue. And the
third is the murder of a femalesex worker slash stripper who was a home
wrecker. At first, I completelydisregarded the teenage boy until I learned that
the Cochranes were living with a pedophilewhile in Indiana, Because you know,

(12:13):
when I'm reading it too, you'rethinking about all the people that he's encountered
in his life that I truly believethat he's describing people that he's either encountered,
you know, and just had astrong hatred for, or that he
is, you know, like acouple of these people. I'm thinking he's
describing himself. And as it turnsout, there are a handful of teenagers

(12:41):
who went missing from places the Cochraneswere known to spend time during the week
of Easter. Coincidentally, even onewho appears on the Name is forty four
list. The same can be saidfor missing and murdered strippers and sex workers
in these areas. There are dozens. Then, of course, there's the

(13:01):
drug dealer who Kelly was having anaffair with, who Jason bragged about threatening
in the same conversation where he braggedabout knowing how to get rid of a
body. And while there is onenotable drug dealer whose disappearance lines up with
the Cochrane's m O victimology and timeline, There are, of course, dozens
of missing drug dealers in these areasas well, so if Jason's book sheds

(13:26):
light on who they might have killed, Kelly's Facebook page may just highlight when
they might have killed people. Forthe five and a half years that Kelly
cochrane was active on her Facebook page, the majority of her posts are random

(13:46):
selfies, posts about Battle Pirates,the online game she and Jason played with
Walt Ammerman, her bragging about variousincidences of road rage, and me generally
about self empowerment. However, sprinkledamong all that are some seemingly random photos

(14:07):
and comments about two things pigs andbutterflies, you know, the two things
Kelly admittedly associates with death. Theserandom references are on September twenty first of
twenty twelve, when she writes aboutfeeding her pigs, then jokes about cannibalism

(14:31):
in the comments of that post,which is an odd thing for someone who
would two years later be accused ofcannibalism to joke about. On October twelfth,
she posts pictures of the pigs,then comments about feeding them and eventually
eating them. On November twenty fifththat year, she posts a picture of

(14:52):
a butterfly ring with no comment orcontext. On January third of twenty thirteen,
she asks if anyone wants some free, fresh raised pork. On February
twenty second, she posts another pictureof a butterfly, with no comment or
context. In March and May,she vague books about not taking people for

(15:16):
granted because you never know when theymight be gone for good. It should
be noted that no one in Kelly'slife that we know of died in the
spring of twenty thirteen. In August, she posts about a serial killer in
California who kidnapped several teenagers. OnAugust twenty ninth, another butterfly picture.

(15:41):
On November first, three days beforeAndrew Fugate was murdered, Kelly posts several
photos of Jason and refers to himas the love of her life. This
is something she did in the daysproceeding and following the murder of Chris Regan,
and again following the murder of Jasonhimself. In fact, these three

(16:03):
times are the only time she everposted anything positive about Jason on her Facebook
page. Speaking of Chris Regan,two weeks after his death, Kelly changed
her profile picture to an old photoof herself taken in the same doorway Chris
was murdered in. That's nine randomreferences to death. Kelly claims there are

(16:30):
nine victims, so we have possibleallusions to the what and when? What
about the where? Kelly claims tohave killed people in Indiana, Michigan,
Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Tennessee.Obviously, she lived in Indiana and Michigan.

(16:52):
Caspian is less than five miles fromthe Wisconsin state line and about two
hundred miles from the Minnesota state line, a state where Kelly has made several
odd claims about murder and car accidents, and Kelly and Jason visited Tennessee many
times while scouting out potential places tolive and on visits to the Tennessee Body

(17:17):
Farm. She can also be placedin Kentucky many times leading up to her
eventual arrest there, including but notlimited to her trips through the state en
route to Tennessee, but it's alsowhere she was arrested. Kelly was arrested
in Wingo, Kentucky, which isnot on a major highway and is not

(17:41):
a place she seems to have anyconnection to. Do you know why she
was there? Yes? So whathappened is she was supposed to go in
for an aterview with Jeremy and shedidn't show up, and show up and
show up, and he kind andthen her phone was off, and he
kind of figured she's running somewhere,and she had talked to him before.
In fact, the West Post shetalked to him about that before, and

(18:02):
then that is actually where she wantsto be moved to right now, like
for in exchange for a victim.So there's something attraction to the West Coast
for her, or whether it's aperson or whatever, if it's just the
place itself, we don't know.But she didn't answer her phone, didn't
answer her phone. She knew Jeremywas waiting. A couple hours later,
she sends turns her phone on andsays, you know you're a move detective.

(18:23):
You know, because they were talkingabout a chess game earlier during one
of their discussions, and she said, your move the West Coast looks good
this time of year. And thenshe turned her phone back off. So
Jeremy goes to dispatch and he says, I need to ping her phone.
I know she's got it turned off, but she keeps you know, sporadically
turning it on, and we wantto get a ping when she does that.

(18:45):
Well, this is crazy. Theypicked up a ping in Kentucky and
one of the dispatcher says, Jasonhas a cousin that lives in Wingo's in
Kentucky, and that's where she is. I think she said something to Jeremy
like, Jason's my cousin, butwe don't really associate with them, but
he's my cousin, and this isyou know where she's at in Kentucky or

(19:08):
this is probably or could be whereshe's at. Well, then they had
local law enforcement to a drive bythat residence that was this family member of
Jason's, and sure enough the truckwas there, and at that point Jeremy
called the Marshall's and then they wentin and got her. That's right.
Not only was Kelly trace to Jason'scousin's house in Wingo, but it was

(19:30):
an entirely different cousin of Jason's whowas the dispatcher that traced her there.
And the quote I read from thatcousin was a bit more terse than Frizzo's
recollection. It went something like,don't worry, we all hate the bitch.

(19:51):
Anyhow, the Cochrane spent a significantamount of time visiting Jason's cousin in
Wingo, Kentucky over the years.Interesting Caspian, Merylville, and Wingo all
sit within ten miles of state lines, and we know Kelly has a history
of fleeing jurisdictions following her crimes.But like with Keys's investigation, often the

(20:19):
most interesting details are those found behindthe scenes, on the periphery of the
investigation into Kelly. For example,there's that weird plea agreement. You know,
a good friend of mine is aprosecutor in New York and there's a
clause in the plea deal that shewas like, I've never seen this in

(20:41):
my life, which is that Kellywas willing to plea out as long as
she was immune from any future convictionson murders in Indiana. And the reason
is, I think, you know, obviously Indiana has the death penalty,
so Michigan does not. So youknow, her thing was, you know,

(21:07):
we all agree, you know thatshe's that there are other victims out
there, you know, and wedon't just agree it because we think it.
We agree because we've done enough researchon everything to know it, and
so I was actually in the courtroomwhen she when she was sentenced, and

(21:30):
you know, the reason behind itwas, of course, we would rather
put give closure to other victims familiesthan worry about her being put to death
or convicting her of more homicides,because what's the point, right, I
mean, she's going to do therest of her life in jail right now,
no matter what, She's not gettingout whatever, So why not bring

(21:52):
some closure if we can to otherfamilies and give her that deal so we
can provide that closure. That wasmore important to us. So prosecutors were
on board with it. The judgewas, of course, when he heard
that deal, you know, theday of sentencing, he almost didn't agree
to it. He was pissed,you know, he had Yeah, I
can't remember what his exact words werein the courtroom, but it was like,

(22:17):
I don't even understand why this isbeing offered, you know, and
this should not be He referred toKelly as a monster in the courtroom,
and the prosecutor and her attorney approachedthe bench and I believe explained, you
know, this is why, andand then he did agree to it,
but he was very hesitant, buthe was not happy, but he did
he did go along with it.So there's that, and then there's the

(22:45):
interesting case of my Freedom of InformationAct requests in Michigan. What's been so
challenging about this season versus the keyseasons is with Keys, I had all
of the files more than six monthsbefore the show even started. With Kelly,
I've only received about ten percent ofthe files to date. All three

(23:06):
of my foyas with the various Michiganagencies have been approved and finished, but
still haven't quite made it to meyet. In fact, they've been promised
each week after each week for overtwo months, and just this week I
learned that all three foyas had beenfinished, but then at the last minute,

(23:27):
were turned over to the Iron CountyProsecutor's office for review and additional redaction,
where they've been bottlenecked for close totwo months now. What's interesting about
that is Kelly has exhausted her appeals, and generally a prosecutor steps in for
one of three reasons the case isup for appeal, which it is not,

(23:52):
or because there's new evidence in thecase that could be caused for Kelly
to file a motion with the state, which seems likely or most likely,
because they're looking into other possible crimescommitted by Kelly in Michigan, not Indiana,
Michigan, where she and Jason livedfor just fourteen months. And then

(24:18):
there's the ID special on Kelly DeadNorth. The initial press release for the
miniseries stated that it would link Kellyto crimes in Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota,
and Tennessee. Subsequent releases omitted thiscomment, and the final production didn't
link Kelly to any crimes in Minnesotaor Tennessee. So what happened and who

(24:45):
stepped in between that first press releaseand the final edit of the series and
why? The eriest thing about theIsrael Keys arrest and investigation is that it
happened without any of us noticing.The general public didn't even know that this
prolific and meticulous serial killer who traveledall across the country to almost every single

(25:11):
state even existed until nine months afterhis arrest when he died. And even
now the investigators have omitted and deniedrelevant information to the case. Information we
know they have the most interesting componentsof the recent forty eight hours special on

(25:33):
Keys, where the things investigators liedabout neglected to state and breezed right past.
One of the most important questions forme when someone lies is what's the
utility of the lie? And itappears the same thing has happened and continues
to happen in the Kelly Cochrane case, especially when you consider that the two

(25:57):
lead investigators for his and Ogden,who were responsible for her arrest, were
respectively fired and essentially demoted following herconviction. If there's anything this episode lays
bare, it's that the crimes ofKelly Cochrane are solvable. She was neither

(26:19):
as meticulous nor mysterious as israel Keys. She murdered people she knew, She
murdered close to home. So whyhas this serial killer only been positively linked
to two murders? Considering the pleadeal and the fact that every investigating agency

(26:40):
admits she's killed more, there area lot of loose ends in this case.
And while I waited for those damnedfoil files, an entire terabytes worth,
which our due next week, Istarted investigating those loose ends. I

(27:02):
reached out to friends and family ofAndrew Fugate. I started cross referencing Kelly's
random Facebook posts with stories from Jason'sbook against Missing Persons Cases and Unsolved Murders,
and I became obsessed with understanding andgetting to the bottom of all of
Kelly's lies, which brought me backto that conversation I had with Jonie Johnston.

(27:27):
Now, you may be able toappeal to that person's ego. You
may be able to convince that personthat they're so much smarter than you that
you need their help in getting moreinformation. And maybe if somebody developed a
relationship with her overtime and had someof those strategies, she may eventually start
talking about other things but appealing toAnd so I sent Kelly a letter