Where Monsters Hide (Rebroadcast)

Murder in the Heartland explores real crimes across small town America,

towns that might look a lot like your own, every week uncover shocking stories of murder and betrayal, from a suspicious hunting accident to a college student who disappears after her shift at the local bar. Here from investigators, witnesses, and family members as they share the chilling details behind each case. If you're interested in true crime with a small town twist, you might love this podcast.

Listen to Murder in the Heartland, wherever you get your podcasts.

“From the outside, it honestly looks like a dark, handsling,”

gruddle kind of house. Good dog. Okay, what do you mean?

Turn that back, friendly.

As soon as you walk into the house, the hair stands up on the back of your neck. It's pretty creepy. It really was. I've come to this remote part of Michigan's Upper Peninsula. It seems haunting, but maybe that's because this is where the mystery unfolds. There's more media attention to our missing person, Chris Reagan.

And no signs of forced entry or chaos. Absolutely not. Something happened to him. I knew that in my heart, and I knew that my gut. He had another side to him. So, immediately, this is a lover's triangle.

How many eyes have you actually been? Ten. My husband, Eric and Chris. Not a love triangle, but a love quadrangle.

“Tell me something today. What happened to Chris Reagan?”

That's the stuff of horror movies. The Upper Peninsula is kind of its own little world. The Upper Peninsula is also known as the U.P. People are Ubers. Ubers are unique people. The Upper Peninsula is separate by the Mac and Albridge from Lower Michigan.

It's in absolutely rural, forested, woodland, and kind of terrifying in its isolation. We can get wind chill, readings, 30 below zero in the winter time. It looks like the Arctic sometimes, and, you know, you can kind of feel lost. One town in the Upper Peninsula is the small town of Iron River, which was named because of the local mining. I am River, Michigan has population of about 3,000 with one stoplight in their town.

My name is Laura Frizzo, and I'm the former police chief of Iron River.

And also the first female police chief actually to serve in the entire Upper Peninsula.

It was a lot of double takes when I first started with some of the old timers who were like, what's going on here? The people of Iron River are really good-hearted people accepting,

“but I think when someone new comes to the area, they're a little skeptical at first,”

and they take their time to make sure that you're worthy of being included into their little circle. One of those outsiders who came to live in Iron River was 51-year-old Chris Reagan. We had to actually go up and buy him all new clothes, as what he called his duper clothes, because he had city clothes. Terry O'Donnell was an old flame of Chris Reagan's, and the two had recently recindled the romance.

He decided that he was going to move to Iron River so that we could be closer together. It was a whirlwind. I had I was so in love with him. Christopher and I used to come down out at the Blossom Trail and walk around the river. We'd sit listening to the water just to enjoy time together. So in Chris moved to Iron River, he got a job at a manufacturing company called the Oldenburg Group.

He was actually holding people accountable.

“Chris was former military and had a reputation as a reliable worker, so it came as a bit of a surprise”

when he didn't show up for his job. That was October 14th. I sent a message to Chris you know, we haven't heard from you is everything okay. Chris had missed two days and one of my team leaders came forward and told me, Laura just so you know, Chris had applied for another position and he's moving to North Carolina. You know, if he was doing long hours for a pretty demanding company, then maybe he just said enough of that.

Yeah, after three days, no call, no show is termination. Remarkably two whole weeks had gone by and no one had heard from Chris. That's when Terry decides to go to the police. By this time, the two had broken up, but they were main close friends and talked regularly. I saw this vehicle pull up and parking front of the police department.

And I saw this woman get out of the vehicle and she was chronic. And she said that her friend was missing. I was shaking. I had tears. What was that interaction like when you first encountered Terry O'Donnell? She was very upset. You know, clearly she knew something wasn't right because she knew him very well. Chief Fresno sends Sergeant Cindy Barrett to investigate. First off, Chris Regan's apartment.

Terry O'Donnell's parents are landlords to Chris Regan.

“So, Terry had access via key from her parents.”

This doesn't look like Chris is a accountant now. It's all just supposed that he was always very

neat. Everything was always put away. There was evident that he was in the process of packing up to move to his new job. There was packing boxes and on the bed there was suitcases. And there was papers there for his new job. He was going to resign on the 14th. He has the tweezers and the last day of work.

So not a guy who's running away. Absolutely not. And no signs of forced entry or chaos. Not at all. In fact, he had a list started, you know, things that he wanted to get ready for his move. And so she has everything that he needs to do to move. All of just notes. And on the dining table, where legal pads with to do lists like power companies shut the power up, it really started the body. I mean, that something was very, very wrong.

I was just window left open. The window left open. It appeared that he had left the apartment and full intentions of returning. Something happened. I knew that in my heart and I knew that my gut. And I said, we're going to go out and we're going to check the car. And when we're done with that, I will enter crocheting as a missing person in the national database.

From there, they went to the park and ride where the Terry had seen Chris's car abandoned for days. Christopher's Hyundai Genesis. His vehicle was there. And that was his baby. He took such a good care of it. And so it didn't make sense to me that it was at the park and ride. When Sergeant Barrett went to take a look at the car, she found, you know, a couple of things in the car. Like his knee brace that he should have been wearing.

“That knee brace? Yep. You normally wear the knee brace?”

And I understand in the car there was an intriguing post-it note. Yep. She found like a post-it note that was flipped upside down in the passenger side. We didn't know at first what was written on it and what it would come to mean later.

Christopher always wrote things down on post-its and the post-it note had directions on it.

And I told her that where those directions went to that was the last place he was.

Leading up the investigation into Reagan's disappearance is a new and experienced chief of police, Laura Frisaux.

“She is a leader in a profession in the upper peninsula where there aren't a lot of female leaders.”

How many people on the force? Four full-time. She truly cared and she truly wanted to solve this. As chief Frisaux investigates Chris Reagan's disappearance, she discovers that he had dated multiple women in his short time and iron river and some of those relationships overlapped. I dated Chris Reagan back in 2013 from her out May until the end of October for about six months.

He would always send me a text weekly. He was very swath. Very sweet, charismatic, just kind of new,

want to make you feel good. As far as Terry O'Donnell knew, she thought that she was in an exclusive relationship with Chris and this behavior came as a real shock to her. I asked him why he was doing that and he said, "Well, you're going to be gone to Europe for three weeks." What happens if I get lonely? So, sadly to say, I broke it off with him. When Chief Frisaux digs deeper into Chris's life, she discovers another woman he'd been dating,

a 33-year-old co-worker by the name of Kelly Cochrane.

Neither one of us were all in. It was never going to be because I was married. She was an

employee at Oldenburg. Chris was actually involved in her hiring. Kelly was also new to town

“and I think they bonded over that being to city folk in this small town.”

I would go over to Chris's and usually cooked and then I mean we were intimate and then usually I would leave. Hosted note found inside Chris's car at this parking ride. Could have led to any one of his girlfriend's homes. Turns out it was Kelly Cochrane's. She Frisaux had told me to go and interview Kelly Cochrane to see if she had any information asked to the wearabouts of Chris Reagan and Mankimo.

Tyson are you Kelly Cochrane's husband and he said yes. I said this Kelly home and he says,

no, Kelly's not home. I don't know where she is and shortly thereafter this woman comes out. I asked her if she was Kelly. She said yes I'm Kelly. It's not unusual for a husband or a wife to say no he's not here. That is very common. I was actually surprised to him. So I says your husband aware of your relationship with Chris Reagan. She says oh yes he's fine with it. Jason Cochrane is standing there just stoically not saying

the word just like a statue. No emotion. She says I figured Chris left for North Carolina without saying goodbye to me. So I told her I said we were wondering whether the car is at the park and ride and Kelly Cochrane said in the past tense he loved that car. And Sergeant Bear called me afterwards and said I found that to be very chilling in awe that she said past tense he loved that car. Because of her tiny department's limited resources she Frisaux

asked for help from the Michigan State Police. They sent two detectives who questioned the conference the very next day. And I'll tell you guys in advance I see a therapist for hiding anxiety and listening to Jason Cochrane's interview with the detective he immediately I mean there's no questions asked even yet and he's like I just want to let you know that I haven't been doing too well lately. I actually was institutionalized a little over a month ago so okay you know I see him like I can get him

bombed up. I can see a therapist for it. Most are close for that but it's impressive sense.

“And you're saying that's what caused all your issues. It's huge part of it. Yeah. And you're around”

knowing that my nerves felt the part. So you were very much aware of what Kelly was doing. I either had to accept that her to let her go so I decided that I could at least accept it for a little while and see if it's you know it's truly one of us to not be with me if I was going to let her go. Kelly, right? Yes. Katie, Katie, out of life. When Kelly came in for her interview the one thing I noticed

you know. A bowl of crust. I think I got pretty close for the last form up. Um like a best friend.

Did you have an intimate relationship with him? Okay. And obviously your husband knows that he knows you know. She was linked forward. She had eye contact and her voice was calm and collected a little time. One of the last time you saw a crust. I would say between the 12 and the 15 for the last time I saw

“where did you see him? I see him at his apartment. I think. What? Jason upset him all day.”

No. Kelly, who would be looking at Jason? I don't think why you live? Well I'll tell you why. Because husbands get jealous. I understand them. What do you think of her?

I'm a person. I can't even hurt him. I would like to know what happened as well. That's my

own willing to be here. I'm a good person. Despite the love triangle between the caucorons and Chris Reagan, there's still no evidence of any crime being committed. But she frizzows still suspect that Reagan's disappearance might be the result of foul play. Frizzo and her small team continued pressing on and they quickly learned that Kelly also had multiple relationships including a gentleman who also worked at the old number group. Kelly was dating another employee there by

the name of Eric Erickson. Eric's supervisor was Chris Reagan. So now police are wondering could Eric have been upset enough to have harmed Chris? How do you feel about taking a

“colleague back time to prove that he didn't have anything to do with Chris's parents?”

As Chief Laura Frizzo is investigating the disappearance of Chris Reagan, she discovers evidence of not a love triangle. But a love quadrangle, even though Kelly Cochrane is married to Jason, she is having an affair with Chris and another co-worker Eric Erickson. Eric Erickson was hired as military assembler. Eric was a good employee. He showed up. He was dependable. Eric was a suspect. Could he have done something to Chris because he was angry and jealous and outraged? So it was

important to in limiting him. There was a point with the participation of the Michigan State Police detectives where I think they wanted to take more of a lead in the case and then handle it.

There was no warning. It was just basically like, hey Laura said, they want to talk to you.

And the next thing I know, they're coming at night pulling up in my driveway. Tell him he was going to get in the car. Thanks for coming. We just got some work. Yeah, yeah. She wanted me to go all with

“her built items. Like that night, I think for me it was kind of fun. You know, at first, whatever,”

I had moved back here and I didn't know anybody. And having somebody gave me some attention was like, I like this type. There's two. I still have the full text message. I said, yeah, here, take a look at my phone. This is our conversations that we've had. When I looked at his conversations with Kelly, there was a point in time where he got very irritated with her. And it was the week before Chris wasn't missing. There was a time where we went down to the lake and

we were going to have just a couple beers. While your phone was going off, right? And I'm like, you know, somebody's really trying to get old to you. Who is it? And she said that it's Chris, you know, so maybe he was the jealous lover. Yes, and I did think that it could happen. The next step for Ericsson, a polygraph, or a so-called lie detector test. How long do you feel about taking a polygraph type to prove that you didn't have anything to do with Chris's experience? Yeah, I told him

how to do that too. I scheduled a polygraph for him. We went over everything. Yeah, I told the writer where he was dead. Also, the door goes clicked and walks in, you know, the officer, and he goes, you passed. And I was like, I did. So, and because of the alibi that he had, did check out, I was able to put him to the side and focus more on the caverns as the suspects. So, as you're doing your sort of criminal profiles, what made Jason a potential suspect in your

Four years just heard that I'm not, he wrote it for a little while. The story that I had gotten from

Kelly was that they were separated, however still living under the same roof. What I came to learn about this marriage was that it had been in trouble for a while. Kelly, you know, was living a life of a single person. She was constantly running around with different men. There were times when she came all about 130, didn't suddenly where she was at and I didn't really

“want to know. I hate to say it. Do you kind of understand why you're here?”

All right, yeah. Thanks so. You know what I mean? There's somebody that's missing. I'm going to get some on gravity to tell us how it's going to be. As police start going through Jason's text messages, they seem to reveal how Jason really feels about being cheated on.

He doesn't seem happy at all. Texting her, I cannot take it and you promised me you would stop.

Was that a lie also? There wasn't long before Chris went missing. Jason found himself down by Chris's apartment and telling her, "Don't go to those apartments again. You're a married woman." The guy in the cast says, "I was not the only guy trying to date you." Please don't go back to those apartments. You are married.

I'm a friend of you about the time he's sitting on the lock and he's trying to treat her for a favor. This is a department. Can you imagine that, yeah?

“What do you think? Do you see my character?”

Which sounds almost like stalking behavior.

Right. So I'm thinking, okay, he's now put himself on position where he's made contact with Chris Regan that I thought, you know, maybe he's not. Things had boiled over and Jason needed to go and get some help. Jason's admission to the mental hospital was two days after Mr. Regan went missing. Chief Frisot now has some serious suspicion that Jason Cochran's got something to do with Chris Regan's

disappearance. It started to get close to the holidays. Thanksgiving was approaching. And then out of the blue, Chief Frisot gets a phone call that takes her by complete surprise. And when I pick up the phone, the boy's on the other end said, "Hi, this is Chris Regan."

“And I almost had dropped the phone because I thought, okay, now where have you been?”

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You thought, maybe he's been murdered. Yeah, I decide that's something wrong. It seemed like everything was a dead end. I would stop and check with Laura and just ask her how things are going. And then she'd say, "I was thinking about you." Laura was very dedicated to the case. She knew that Chris had sons who wanted closure and she wanted to be able to get that closure for them.

I was in the office and I got a phone call. And when I picked up the phone, the voice on the other end said, "Hi, this is Chris Regan." And I almost dropped the phone because I thought, "Yeah, where have you been?" And he said, "Junior," this is his son, and it was really a sad for me to hear his voice. And it was even harder for me, meeting him in person.

Chris Jr. is on his way to Iron River with his brother to clean out their father's apartment.

not fun. I didn't know what to do or like where to start.

It just was heartbreaking. They were young. They were lost. They didn't know what to do, where to go. She knew that Chris was a veteran and that his military service was something he was really proud of. So she wanted to make sure that his son got his dog tags, which they recovered from his apartment.

“I went to hand him to him and he told me, "I think you should just keep them with you."”

I carried those dog tags in my pocket every day. This is a complicated case and the Iron River Police Department is small just for people. And as a result of that, people offered their help. Do you think these profile questions are pretty good? Jim McNeill and Molly Barron work together as private investigators and, you know, we got together

after being introduced by a high school friend of mine who's like a mutual friend. I feel that it's a tight community where everybody seems to know each other. And especially if you have a missing person, that's concerning to the community. Because of where we're from, we just don't have missing people like that. We're not doing anything when somebody is missing.

It was at this point where the prosecutor was ready to sign the search warrant for the Cochrane residents. So, Molly and Jim show up at my office and I'm like, "Oh, well, as a matter of fact, I said, I'm going to be doing a search warrant there tomorrow." On March 16th, 2015, she first goes to the Cochrane's house with the long-awaited search warrant, accompanied by those two private investigators.

The dogs were just going crazy in there, like just barking, barking, barking. We were in the home and Kelly's home is pretty creepy. It really was.

“I think Molly and I brought, you know, a lot of the experience there to her to assist her with a”

search warrant. I've never worked with a PI like that before. That was my first experience.

This is a little unorthodox. It is, and I was kind of concerned about it when it first happened, because I'm kind of a control freak and I didn't want anyone messing around, but it actually worked out to our advantage. Hi, Jason. How are you doing? I'm doing an inner hole. Okay. One of the first things you want to be very careful of is weapons. Do you have any weapons in the home? Yes, I'm not. I don't know. I've got 22 under there. Let's be able to reach right in again.

He would immediately go to these weapons and secure them. I'm told you, I don't know where I secure them. And they had all kinds of weapons that were like all over the place, but that's not illegal, you know? Jason had a fetish with knives, swords, things like that, and he had a lot of them that were found and collected during the search warrant. It was the kind of arsenal you see in a movie. He had swords, crossbows.

Everywhere you go in that home, you can put your hands on something tangible and use it as a weapon. That was a very eerie feeling. Do you want a jacket? Typically, you don't allow the residents to stay in the house. They're going to have to leave.

“You guys are going to turn the computer off, are you? No, okay. Is there something on there?”

You don't want to go? No, no, it's just working out. It happened to be one of the coldest mornings of the winter. It was like zero. It's usually walk into the home. There's like a punch hole of some sort through the door and the door frame was a ride, it was cracked or something. At that point, Laura calls the crime lab. Hey, let's get the crime lab here. And we're standing there for quite a while waiting for that crime lab. So we're just standing there waiting and I

looked up. The tire was on the ceiling. Oh, that would be fast. And something caught me eye and I looked it again and I kind of stepped the side and I looked it again. The ceiling was white

but there was these certain spots up there. So I finally said something to gem and then

Jim looked up and looked at it and immediately it was like, oh, to the private investigators, those spots on the ceiling looks suspiciously like painted over blood. It's like a splatter pattern. And she said, yeah, we've done remodeling and replaced the ceiling pile that probably would have passed off yesterday. You could have happened right here.

Okay. Well, I'm going to step in here. We got a positive reaction with the

woman all on the ceiling here. They bring in luminol, which is a chemical that detects the presence of blood. They did get a positive reaction from that area above the doorway where it looked like something happened right under the door and kind of spread as it went back on the ceiling. And they said that they got a positive reaction from that. I'm thrilled. I'm thrilled. I'm sorry. We had finished the search one at approximately 10 o'clock at night. So it's late.

Investigators think that they've uncovered a gold mine of evidence against the conference

until something shocking happens the next day. I got a phone call from one of the neighbors in

the morning and said, I just want to let you know that they totally loaded up their truck and skipped out. The conference have disappeared. How many something you guys? You found a couple areas of interest. Next one. When investigators get the warrant to search the conference home, they find a litany of disturbing items including battle axes, crossbows, daggers and knives, a shotgun, a 22 caliber pistol.

“But more important than that is what appears to be bloodspot. We got an positive reaction with the”

woman all. You're telling me that's blood, right? We haven't confirmed it yet. It was looking pretty

good that they were going to get positive results back. At this point in the investigation, Chief Frizzo feels like she's got a lot of evidence on the conference until the very next morning she gets a call from one of the neighbors. And that neighbor calls in the morning and said, I just want to let you know that they totally loaded up their truck and skipped out. So I knew this was happening. What was your reaction? I was worried a

little bit just because I was the one that was kind of the thorn in their side. And so I wanted to be sure they weren't going to look for me or come over and find me. Todd and David Sailor, the neighbors who reported the conference missing, are brought in for questioning. They tell police about another very interesting detail. They say they observed around the time of Chris Reagan's disappearance. According to David, the Cochrane started renovating their house,

but not during the day. He could hear them in their basement using power tools for multiple nights. Today's effort using these anti-chlobs that they figured out was when. Gray's a wrong heart to over. Sandy, the way Jesus your head, I said, and there is some kind of mistake. So, what else goes on? And they were doing it at I changed. You know, I like to read a morning and you heard a whole day warm-up warm-up warm-up warm-up warm-up.

“And so what went through your mind when you heard that? The worst thing imaginable and I thought,”

you know, I can't, I can't, I can't be, but at the same time with what they're telling me, it makes sense. That's the stuff of horror movies. Yeah. Also seemingly out of a horror movie, a chilling discovery, chief for so later makes, inside the Cochrane's basement, a journal written by Jason. And he had titled it "Where Monsters Hide." Then he goes on to talking about being a hunter and how the hunter hunts the prey and feels this tingle through their body.

And it's, it's kind of earing. Almost like he was writing about this situation. It's almost like a thinly veiled confession. Yes. It just, again, pointed into the direction of definitely this couple had something to do with his disappearance and definitely Jason could have snapped. Chief for so is sure that the lab results from those blood samples taken from the house will prove that Chris was brutally murdered there. But she's in for a bitter disappointment when they called me

and said, "You know, we didn't get anything." They were in good samples or had been treated

“with chemicals or whatever the case may be. And I remember just being so upset about that.”

You know, it was mentally drained a lot. With her main suspects now gone into the wind, the case seems to have hit a dead end. But then there's a break. It turns out that on the night

on the Cochrane's truck, which is legal for PIs to do in the state of Michigan.

What made you put the GPS truck around? Well, we were hoping that they would go to where the body was. That's one of the most dangerous moments in the whole investigation I feel is deploying the GPS unit because of the the risk of danger. What does that danger look like? What is that

“like somebody coming out with the shotgun and shooting us on the spot? Okay, ready?”

Right next to that spare tire is the back frame of the vehicle and as I get closer, just sucked right out of my hand and you hear the loud bang. It's an exciting moment. You can

feel your heartbeat and through your chest. There's a lot of things that could go wrong at that moment

time. I talked to Jim McNeill and he said we put a GPS device on the truck and I need to tell you that I immediately did a search warrant for their GPS information so that we knew where the patterns were and what was going on. We monitored the GPS movement all through exiting the upper peninsula of Michigan through their state of Wisconsin, the top part of Illinois, there in Indiana and then they ended up nearby within the Hobart area and sure enough, you know, relocated them,

they were back at Kelly's parents' house in Hobart. Chief Friszo wants to get DNA samples from

Kelly and Jason Cochran but they're no longer in her jurisdiction. So she contacts the Lake County

Sheriff's Department in Indiana. When I spoke with her, we made a connection on the phone.

“She gave me all the reasons that she believed that this was a criminal case and yeah, I believe”

her. We told Jason that we had a search warrant for his DNA and we needed to transport him to the Hobart Police Department. He did not say a word the entire time. He was just sitting in the back of the car shaking and sweating and like ringing his hands together. He's sitting in a room, waiting to give his DNA swab and then he gets the surprise of a lifetime. Looked up, Abby, and his face just started to turn red immediately. That was a shock to a

system, I'm sure. And my whole plan was to try and give him the opportunity to be the victim and to tell me what happened to Chris. You're a baby. You're a baby. You're a baby. I think that's exactly what she did on you. She was a little bit taller. If you ever loved me, it sounds like my life. It sounds like right in your mind. It's a sample back to those apartments. It's a very old name.

Do you know what you mean? I don't know. Do you know what you mean?

“Well, I really feel like you're doing any questions, so that's why I feel like you've”

got to teach my life so I don't know where. It's awesome to be here, baby. And in the meantime, I'm actually Kelly's just calling me. She knows something's up. She's calling Jason's phone over and over again. When Kelly, Kackeren saw Laura Frizzo, you could tell that seemed to be her nemesis. It took a while and I'm going to tell you the truth. The problem I'm detailing is that

I'm kind when somebody lied that I'm trying to be an opportunity now, which is just dating, you know, I messed up. I messed up her words. I'm done with the question. Okay, I'll find you in the DNA and I'll talk you before I'll find you in the DNA. Okay, it's good to find her. So as I started to leave the room to get to the technicians to take her DNA,

she said where's my husband? When I just kind of looked back at her, because I kind of fed her a line that, you know, Jason's already told us everything. We already know what happened. What Laura effectively does is create distrust between the couple, who comes February of 2016, that distrust is going to implode the Cochrane Household. The 911 call from Kelly Cochrane comes in that could unravel the mystery

of what happened to Chris Reagan.

It's a really heinous and atrocious crimes.

So what made you call the FBI? I found the flyer on Chris Reagan being missing. Now, in this call, my instincts were just yelling at me that something's not right to see. What makes the Casperian pit such an excellent place to hide evidence? The burn barrel was actually found by the divers just to offshore here. And back in these woods, and even more important to discover.

“I'm trying to figure out what's the best way to get somebody to tell you a secret that only they know.”

It's almost like the two of them were having a chess game. Absolutely, yeah. I think she wanted to play the game. You were basically having to convince Kelly that her dead husband was sending a message from be on the grave. And the reason this case is so engaging, it's the amount of police video that's available.

It's amazing. The Kelly Cochrane case just is the biggest case we've had, maybe ever.

With her, I was like, lie lie lie truth, lie lie truth, lie lie truth. You got to figure it out. The end of 2014, there was a missing man in the Iron River area. He wasn't found. Chris Reagan is missing, and it is a mystery.

“Police Chief Laura Frisot discovers that Reagan is romantically tied to a married co-worker,”

Kelly Cochrane. She and her husband, Jason, are brought in for questioning. Jason really had motive. You know, he was the husband who was being cheated on. But as soon as he's in front of police, he falls apart. He's shaking his fumbling over his words. When Laura and her team searched the Cochrane's home, they find a litany of weapons from battle axes to shotguns. They find this blood's fatter, and they find a manuscript.

Written by Jason called, where monsters hide. The manuscript is essentially fantasy-driven tale of a overlooked man, and it has various accounts of him and his wife killing people and includes one that almost perfectly mirrors what happened with Chris Reagan. So at this point, investigators think that they have uncovered a gold mine of evidence against the Cochrane's until something shocking happens the next day, the Cochrane's have now disappeared.

When Jason and Kelly Cochrane fled their home and Michigan's upper peninsula back in March of 2015, private investigators were already tracking their movements using a hidden GPS device. The final destination, their hometown of Hobart, Indiana. Kelly and Jason were neighbors. They lived next to each other, other lives. I was trying to do what I thought was the right thing. You go to school, you go to college,

you didn't married. Kelly wore the pants in the family, so whatever she wanted Jason did. I got bored from getting married. It was okay at the start, but I got all I did with work. She was wanting to help get their business up and running and make more money. Even though the Cochrane's are now out of her jurisdiction,

she first continues to investigate Chris Reagan's disappearance.

She's now focused on a place known as the Caspian Pit. She enlisted the help of a former police investigator,

“Michael Niagara. What makes the Caspian Pit such an excellent place to hide evidence?”

Well, it's deep and also it's within a couple hundred meters before the Cochrane's lived and be very easy to get to in the dark and drop something. Were you able to dredge up a burn peril? Was that here? Yes, a burn peril was actually found by the divers just off shore here. There was a close line attached to this burn barrel with a cement block to it to weight it down.

We found cement blocks in the backyard of Cochrane's and the actual close line, which was missing. I think the implication was that perhaps Kelly and Jason were burning Chris's body, or parts of it at least. I was wanting my garage and what an excellent smell. And I walked across the street here and she came running over a yard and met me in the middle of

shorter." I said, "Look, I lived up here in my whole life. I never smelled like that."

The Cochrane's had a fire pit and there was a burn barrel that had been there. Once we sifted through that fire pit ash, we found a oblaid, we found the components to a pair of jeans, which was quite significant. We felt confident that this was likely their burn barrel. However, there was nothing in it, obviously. It was open in the pit and anything that wasn't

“it would have washed out. Why did you need to get rid of that? So that was my”

validation, anyway, that we were on the right track.

But then, in February of 2016, back in Hobart, Indiana, there's a truly shocking development

that's about to upend the entire case, a 911 call, coming from the house where the Cochrane's are living. Wait, County 911, I'm not afraid of 17. My husband is very slow. He's breathing barely. I don't know what time he's throwing off his sweat. I need an ambulance right away. Kelly calls 911. Kelly calls 911 and says, "You know, I need the ambulance here. My husband's barely breathing." "You said he's just breathing." I'm this called my instincts. We're just

yelling at me that something's not right with the scene. She seemed to kind of conveniently getting our way a lot and she just didn't seem to have the proper reaction to finding her husband in cardiac arrest. I'm panicking. I'm trying to be as some use as much as I did one of my life. I didn't want him dead. Jason Cachrin unfortunately was pronounced dead. The emergency room at St. Mary's. After Jason died, Kelly reached out to his friend Walt to let him know that Jason had passed.

And Walt was immediately concerned. Kelly's tone was very strange. Everything about it felt abrupt and staged. And with encouragement from his wife, Walt called the FBI. So what made you call the FBI? I found the flyer on Chris Rigon being missing and it had two numbers on there. The iron river police and the FBI. So I figured somebody should know that Jason's dead.

“Do you remember what you told the FBI? I told them that I have some friends that lived in the”

UP. They told me their suspects and one of them died Saturday. The FBI routes the call to the proper jurisdiction and it lands on the desk of Hobart Detective Sergeant Jeremy Ogden. Jeremy Ogden had a reputation as an amazing investigator. Jeremy was known as a master interviewer.

I've never received a call like that before. I knew that I needed to make sure that Jason wasn't

being taken to a funeral home rather than going for an autopsy. It's not every day that a detective attends an autopsy. And so what did you learn in that particular one? I learned that, you know, Jason had particular hemorrhaging around his eyes within the whites of his pupils. And what is that point to? Pressure and suffocation. The autopsy results lead Ogden to take a deep dive into Kelly

“Cochrane's background and Chris Reagan's disappearance. So he connects with Chief Laura Furzeau”

from I at River. And then ultimately Laura sent me all of the documents and the videos. Immediately I knew that this was going to work out well because he was on the same page, his thoughts, his words. It was like, oh my gosh, somebody else gets it. He gets it. He's thinking like I do. And that's for her. What follows is a cat mouse game between detective Ogden and Kelly Cochrane. As Ogden hatches, a truly bizarre scheme to get Kelly to open up about what really happened to

Chris Reagan. He decides to make a carving on the tree that will really freak her out when she sees it. I thought maybe she would see it as a sign from the dead or maybe even something supernatural. In a sunny California in summer, one family's home is unusually quiet. When detectives walked into that house, they said that it was like time just stood still. It's 2010 and the mixed-day family is nowhere to be found. Inside the home, no clear answer where the family could have gone.

Has been wife and two children? Gone? Like, puff disappeared. The search for the mixed days, quickly captures the nation. But for years, the search for answers only brings more questions. Who's ever heard of an entire family going missing? A family of four doesn't just drop off

For maybe see audio in 2020, this is what happened to the mixed days. Coming August 11th wherever you get your podcast, or subscribe to 2020 True Crime Plus on Apple Podcasts for ad-free episodes, early access to new episodes, and so much more. Stasi is back. Most people know me for a banner pump rules. But I'm a mom of life, a podcaster. I'm traumatized by reality TV, but I can't stay away from it. It's like it's an honor and payroll. They don't get to be in your life. Wow,

reality has never been this real. Not everyone is built for this. Am I good at ice? Anyone

out when you said that? Don't cut me off. This time I get to do it on my turn. I showed up for you. What could go wrong? House of Stasi when stays at 10 on free form and now streaming on Hulu. At this point, Jeremy Ogden is now leading the investigation into the conference.

“I'm running the case, and I'm doing all the things that I think are necessary.”

Detective Ogden has what will be the first of many interrogations with Kelly Cochran

at the Hobart police station following her husband Jason's death.

Kelly has a lot to say about what happened to Jason, but when the conversation turns to Chris Reagan, not so much. I said by the time this has done, you'll tell me what happened to Chris. Detective Ogden starts talking with Kelly and building her relationship with her. That relationship building involves several conversations that Jeremy recorded undercover, including at a local restaurant. You can begin the next chapter of your life. There's only one way for you to do this, though.

I think she wanted to see whether or not I was going to be a worthy adversary, and I think she wanted to play the game. It's almost like the two of them were having a chess game.

“Absolutely, yeah. I'm trying to figure out what's the best way to get somebody to tell you”

a secret that only they know, and I come up with this idea about a fake letter. Detective Ogden calls Jason's friend Walt Amherman and tells him he wants him to be part of this plan to catch Kelly Cochran. What he wanted Walt to do was become an actor. They were going to have him call Kelly from a parked car to talk about this letter. It is March 12, 2016 at 4.38 pm. He's going to be calling Kelly Cochran.

You wanted me to call her and tell her that I had a letter that Jason had mailed me. But it's not true. There is no letter. This is all made up, made up for one purpose, to see what Kelly Cochran's reaction would be. I got a letter like January 4th or 5th or something

like that from him. You were basically having to convince Kelly that her dead husband was sending

a message from beyond the grave, that he felt or knew that she likely was going to do something to him. The note says there's something where that happened to me. Please send this in a few weeks to the hour of a police department. It's like I'm supposed to mail this, but I just wanted to tell you. Please don't. Please don't. She says please don't mail it. I don't know.

“And right then I knew like he got her. Yeah, hook line and sinker. And what did that tell you?”

Told me I did the right thing. But that wasn't your only chess boot. You had another trick up your sleeve, which was a tree and a carving? Yeah. The trees over there? Yeah, the trees

She doesn't know this. And detective Ogden knows that Kelly goes to this one park all the time

and is by a certain tree. She would just come and she would sit on that log. And there was a couple times where I thought she was even crying. So he decides to make a carving on the tree that will really freak her out when she sees it. And what he curves into the tree is Chris is here. I thought maybe she would see it as a sign from the dead or maybe even something supernatural and just generate her to talk to me even more. It's not exactly the way they teach

at the police academy. No. All I saw were her running through the woods and then all of a sudden the truck backed out and she took off. That's the night that she decides to tell me everything.

“You watched him die. Right? Where did he shoot him in his butt?”

He died. You don't know. You caught Chris and was in your arms.

This is huge. For the first time, Kelly is admitting Chris was murdered.

Chris is why in your house shot, you told me this. And then he died quickly. Correct? She says that Jason shot Chris, her portion is being forced to help clean up. I'm the victim. My husband was abusive. I had no choice. I couldn't. I couldn't tell anybody or he'd kill me too. What happened to Chris? Tell you something. What happened to Jason? What do you mean by downsides? What did he do with Chris? I don't know. I remember her words

being he downsized him. I didn't just made my stomach turn. That was the first time she admitted

not only had Chris been murdered but that he'd been dismembered. Correct. And she goes on to give a very specific detail that will come into play later. She claims that Jason forced her to pull the bullet out of Chris's body with a pair of force ups.

“Why not a restaurant? You have to understand. I put her in a position to play the victim.”

She had to do all of these things under the dress and that's how she's going to be able to disclose other information so that we can recover Chris Reagan. But you know where you put pieces. Yes, you're going to go with me, okay? We're going to go. He says we're going to miss you again. You're going to show us where the body is. Detective Ogden and Kelly drive all night. He is counting on her to help him.

But will she with her was like lie lie lie truth lie lie truth lie lie truth. It's the middle of the night. Kelly Cochrane is driving with Detective Jeremy Ogden back to the upper peninsula of Michigan to show him where she and her husband Jason buried Chris's remains. Driving up there with her it was interesting. I mean she did what most people do after they tell you their deepest darkest secret. She slept. They drive all night. They leave it like midnight.

They get tired and remember you know it like seven in the morning. It's just miles and miles of trees and rolling hills. You could literally go to a place here where nobody else had ever been. Pretty easy to hide a body. Yeah. It's weird how beautiful it is and at the same time eerie. So as I'm following them they you know go down to this one particular area. We're just like on a flat straight spot in the road and she's like right here.

And there are other police officers there to search the area.

“But they find nothing. So the question is did Kelly get the spot wrong or is Kelly lying?”

Detective Ogden then asked Kelly to show him around her house where the murder happened.

upstairs and we're going to wait out. And it felt all beyond film. She started to take me upstairs.

“This was your room Kelly? Yes. She told you basically that they had had sex upstairs.”

There were some kind of sex involved. You and him ended up up here in this room. I'm the fortunate to get it. You know it's like you can see your mind working whatever story she was going to tell me it was going to have to match the physical evidence that we may or may not discover. She takes him back downstairs and says you know actually it happened out here in the hallway in this back hallway. You're having sex right here.

Okay so she says that once they're done Chris starts to walk up the stairs into the kitchen and Jason unbeknownst to her shoots him from the basement. You're telling me that Jason shot him from behind and that Chris falls back on her and that they both tumble down the stairs. Is he still on top of you when you get to the bottom? Do you see are you actually under him? Okay. With her was like lie lie lie truth lie truth lie lie truth. You got to figure it out.

What's Jason say to you? Listen. It's time. As incriminating as all this is detective Ogden is sure she isn't telling the whole truth. You continue that conversation back in Indiana. Yeah hours and hours of conversation. Yeah there's over a hundred hours.

“What do you believe? Again it's all recorded under cover. What don't I believe?”

I'm not sure. I'm not sure with you. His communication with her really picked up speed back in Indiana because he's now determined. I'll meet her at a park. I've set down a restaurant with her. I only have one goal. It's a brain Chris home. Detective Ogden believes that the more they talk the more likely Kelly is to slip up and if she slips up she may just leave them to Chris Regan's body. It seems like Kelly kind of wanted to be playing with Detective Ogden,

the sort of cat and mouse game. You have to understand that there are things that you've said throughout this that would cause concern. Okay. It changes in variations of your story. She continues to maintain throughout all these hundreds of hours that she's the victim.

It's always my husband forced me to do this. You said that you're the victim when it comes to

Chris, that you were putting this bad decision, right? At one point you put your foot down and say stop lying. No more of this crap lying to me. If there weren't no all the fucking Indiana efforts you're with you. What brought that on? Frustration probably. Ogden thinks Kelly realizes he is losing his patience and might finally just a raster. It was all about to come to a head soon after Detective Ogden gets a misspelled tax from Kelly.

Ever been to the west coast? I was driving last night. Sure enough, she skipped town. Except she didn't head west after all. The police tracked her as she fled south to Kentucky. 33-year-old Kelly Cochrane was arrested in Graves County, Kentucky after a tip to the U.S. Marshall's Cochrane was wanted in Michigan.

And so when you interview her in Kentucky, in many ways it was a breakthrough confession.

“Yes. Thanks a different thing. Why didn't they do for me?”

I interviewed her all day that day and then I interviewed her for a portion of the day the next day. Now Kelly drops another bombshell. Her news story, she now claims she knew in advance that Jason was going to kill Chris Reagan the night she invited him to their home. It's a part of the plane of it. You allowed it to occur when you didn't have to allow it to occur.

And she tells Ogden she knew this because they had an agreement. When does that agreement occur? Right, hey. And your agreement from the time your memory was that you had a deal of error. It's your responsibility to tell about that person.

Pretty tiny. Or he would tell you, vice versa.

the cheating spouse would have to either kill their lover or be killed by this other spouse. You heard that right. And yet that bizarre, alleged wedding day pact is just the start of what she reveals.

I'm in the emotional, I can't wait one second because it still gets me every time.

Now, in jail, in Michigan, charged with murder, Kelly Cochran is taken out of herself to go on what cops are calling a field trip. Kelly had agreed that she would take me to Chris's remains where she left them. She wanted to do the right thing. She takes her a little further east than she took us on the first day.

What would the biggest pizza bomb be that you, I mean, to our phone, I was here.

“So then we should find ribs, and I think that generally...”

When your goal should be the biggest though, as she's talking, she has no guilt at all. So carefree, like no big deal. This was not exactly a somber day for her. That's most generous. She had a lot of cigarettes. And then, she asked for a cheese pizza for lunch.

While the search and continues, she phrasoed, takes her to the house. You say that, you know, she has been pulled him into here, and that's where you cut him out. And she's eating a piece of pizza, of course, when we're doing this.

“Then Kelly also is just non-challotly walking past the kitchen sink and says, "Oh, there's the four steps."”

It had been sitting there the whole time, and I said, "Are you saying you use those to try and get the bullet out of Chris's head?" And she said, "Yeah." Just like that.

It was critical evidence, matching what Kelly had said in that early interrogation,

when she first admitted that Chris had been murdered, but back in these woods, and even more important discovery. Chris Reagan's skull itself. I'm gonna get emotional, I can't wait one second, because it still gets me every time.

“I just said to myself, "I finally found you." I just literally, like said that to myself, you know?”

So... That was a very sobering moment, and the only bright spot on that is they could link Kelly Cochrane into his murder, and that got things going so that she would go to trial. The Kelly Cochrane case just is the biggest case we've had locally, maybe ever. Kelly's life was riding on the trial.

Despite all that she's admitted in those interrogations, Kelly Cochrane pleased not guilty. I was definitely afraid that she was gonna get off.

You never know how a jury's going to go.

Kase was prosecuted by Iron County Prosecutor Melissa Powell. We were pretty confident going into trial that we could convictor of being an eater in a better. Kelly Cochrane was a willing participant, and because of that, she's just as guilty as he is. Michael Shilky was the defense attorney for Kelly Cochrane. One of the evidence that the people have to get to their murder, is the word of this doctrine.

It's your new work. Why? We believe that Jason acted alone because he was not into this open marriage, and was jealous and angry that Kelly was involved with another man. The trial would last almost three weeks. She has already admitted that she knew what was going to happen. And though there were some 60 witnesses, the case pretty much boiled down to just one. Kelly Cochrane herself.

Kelly testified about the abuse that she claims she suffered in her marriage. There's a lot of things where you would grab and push me shut.

So it's tough for that to be. Kelly Cochrane testified for several days. I don't think she helped herself at all.

You never told people that he was a use of her to this case in the boundary.

Until after.

“And you never told people that he threatened you to go to this case in the mud, right?”

Until after. When I saw Kelly in person, I couldn't believe Christopher would have had a sexual relationship with her. She looked like the devil. Her eyes were blank. There's nothing that comes out of her mouth that I would ever believe.

I think the jury wanted to hear from her and how she was going to explain away hundreds of hours of previous statements. Remember her story changed in all those recorded interrogations from, I know nothing, to Jason forced me to help kill Chris. What does that agreement hurt?

We're ready tonight. To, we had a wedding pact and I was part of the murder. I also like, like, because every time I have an interview or a interrogation with him,

“every thing I said was horrible. What do you mean, and he said his room?”

He would question me until I said what was supposed to be said. What was it like watching Kelly on the stand? Excruciating. So, to your testimony today, you've had no plans to kill Chris now, Chris.

I've never wanted to do that.

And you like to be talked about when you said you was a client, right? Correct. She swears, this testimony is no lie. Today, your time on the truth, at least 12 or 14 years. With Kelly admitting so many lies, the defense asked the jury.

How can they believe one story versus any other? Why is she truthful when she says she's acting with Jason? First of the times, as she said he acted on, what makes her much truthful about it? I think at that point in time, she's overwhelmed. She's made so many statements.

She's told so many lies, it's time to tell the truth. People disclose the truth and bits and pieces when they're ready and when they're caught. The defendants in this manner were bonded in blood. Chris Reagan was bathed in it. And at this time, I'm asking you to watch a way of blood.

I'm finding a funny guilty of all kinds of things. There is reasons out here that people are fail to be the murderer.

“And if you believe that, you have to wish.”

You Kelly had made the comment before trial. You don't think I can turn just wonder. I was concerned that there might be one juror that buys her story. And as those jurors start to deliberate, there is something else. What is it that they haven't heard?

The jury deliberated for about three hours, which considering it was a two and a half week long trial, wasn't very long at all. The jury comes back in and as they're standing in the jury box, I felt confident because, you know, a couple of them did look over in smile. Just kind of give a look.

Count number one open murder guilty of first degree, premeditated murder, eating in the bedding room. Everybody just cried and Chris's family was sitting right behind me and the first thing I did is just turn around and hug them.

Kelly was just straight faceder in the reading of the verdict. I didn't notice any changes in her at all. Unfortunately, the jury bought the story that the prosecution put forth.

35 year old Kelly Cochran will never again walk free.

guilty of five total felony counts. Kelly was convicted on first degree premeditated murder, which carries mandatory life sentence in Michigan and without the possibility of parole. For me, it's not going to change anything. You know, Chris has gone and what she did is just horrible.

I hope she rats and hell. Kelly Cochran is convicted and sentenced, but there's much more to her case than what was presented in court. Dark and twisted allegations that the jurors never heard. These are some really disturbing allegations that were brought forth by the neighbors of the cochran's who said they heard these weird construction noises coming from Kelly and Jason's house late at night.

Yes, you're at our exam.

In Cochran who learned nails and everything at the same time with it.

“Kelly and Jason asked me if I want to come over for dinner one night.”

I was like, "Yeah, sure." And this was like two days after Chris was missing. It's like my body and how much meat they had. Still, you're all wondering about their one of their favorites. They're kind of people when they actually did kill the guy.

They've ambushed them up and had us over for dinner. I'm like, "Oh God, oh God, like no." When I realized that I might have ate the dude, I didn't want to believe it. It changed. It changed me one hundred percent. It was a theory that they came to a conclusion on their own.

That wasn't something that we ever even brought into the case investigation. It's not that I didn't think it could happen, but it wasn't significant at the time. But one thing investigators took very seriously was the allegation that there could be other murder victims out there. Kelly's own brother told Detective Ogden that Kelly said herself that there were more victims.

Police were recording all of Kelly Cochrane's phone conversations while she was behind bars, and you can hear her own mother asking her, "Is it true? Are there other murder victims?" What's going on, Kelly? What the hell is wrong? I mean, where did all this come from? Did you didn't see the summons?

I see this coming after it all happened, but I didn't know that you guys killed people before all this. Do you have a conscience?

“Is this right? I mean, have you always felt this right?”

I've always felt like this.

Kelly actually told me that she was born the way she is. But she's never had emotions. She's never had sympathy. There is no evidence that has been brought forth that would indicate that any stories that were told by Kelly of being involved in murders of other people are true. There are no bodies coming out of the woodwork that are tied to Kelly Cochrane.

But what does Kelly Cochrane herself now say about the allegations that she's a serial killer? You had told police that you had killed others in the past. Is there truth to that? And in a case where they uncovered so much darkness and evil, there would be a surprising light at the end of a tunnel for the two lead investigators. Following the guilty verdict, Kelly ascends to life in prison for the murder of Chris Reagan.

11 months later, Kelly pleads guilty to murdering her husband, Jason Cochrane in Indiana, and ascends to an additional 65 years in prison. I believe that the idea behind this evil and her, I mean, it's a purest form of evil that you're going to get. I spoke to Kelly Cochrane from her prison in Michigan where she's serving out her life sentence.

You told police that you had killed others in the past. Is there truth to that? Then why would you tell investigators you had and lead them on wild goose traces? They said they spoke to neighbors who lived down the street from you who were convinced that they had a barbecue that consisted of human remains.

“I heard about that. Here's the thing. I never had a barbecue with anybody.”

Nobody was ever cooked, nobody was barbecue. I've spoken to investigators Kelly who said that when they talked to you and heard your story that it made them believe in pure evil. What would you

say to that? I believe that. Because I'm not a bad person. I was raised by good people. I've never

harmed anybody. And so in your view, what did happen that night when Chris died? I was unable to manage and cut him up in front of me. And you just stood there doing nothing? What are you talking about? You didn't call the police. You didn't. I was tied up. This is the first time hearing of her ever saying she'd been tied up. This is a game.

They're probably a snout of punishment on this earth that can match what she did to Christopher.

“I could go Christopher with me when I'm around Apple Blossom Trail in a warm,”

I feel like you're happy now because it was a good place for us.

For Laura Friszo, the case had a bittersweet outcome. Although she was able to help bring

justice for Chris Reagan's murder, she was fired from her job as police chief after Kelly's

“rest. I started to have some issues with my boss at work and those issues kind of got heated.”

But while Laura may have lost her job, she found romance in an unlikely place.

I felt immediately connected to him just because of the person he was. And so you kind of made the first

move. What happened? It's one day texting and I said, "Do you want to kiss me?" I was like, "Why did I send that?" Because there was like dead air, just no response for a long time. You know, the answer was yes, right out of the gate,

“as soon as I read it. So you asked for the first kiss, who asked for the who's hand in marriage?”

Like that. How'd that go? Good guy. Went well. She accepted right away. What's the future for both of you? We've owned a piece of land that Laura picked in the UP right on a lake and one day I'm going to build her a dream house there. And of course we wish them the best as they now plan their next chapter together away from their work. That is our program for tonight. Thanks so much for watching. I've delivered your end

from all of us here at 2020 in ABC News. Good time. In 2023, a source sent me a tip. It tied baseball's biggest star to a vast, illegal sports bedding operation. But then someone surprising confessed to me, his best friend. "I'm Epemi Zahara and you do have permission to record me." From 30 for 30 podcasts, this is the betrayal of Shohail Otani. Listen now wherever you get your podcasts.