“We found Mr. Regan’s vehicle in Bates at the park-and-ride,” Barrette told Kelly. “But he was not with the car.”
It might have been a mistake to tell Kelly or Jason where the car was, rather than see if it could be drawn out from them. But as a cop in a fluid situation, you have to roll with what’s happening in the moment.
“He loved that car,” Kelly said.
“Ma’am?”
“He loved that car,” Kelly said again.
That one word sent a chill down the back of the sergeant’s spine.
Loved.
Past tense. Barrette made note of the grammatical choice Kelly had made, but did not question why she would make it.
Barrette reached inside her front coat pocket, pulled out a business card, handed it to Kelly: “If you have any information about his whereabouts, please contact us.”
Kelly took the card and stared at it. “Oh, sure. I will.”
Barrette drove back to the office, thinking about the conversation. Something bothered her about Jason Cochran and his wife, beyond Kelly’s use of the past tense when describing Chris Regan. For Barrette, it felt as though Jason harbored some sort of deep-seated issue with the situation. It was in his gait, his inflection, the way he seemed to turn his nose to law enforcement. Just a hunch, but there was much more to what was going on over there. The Cochrans (especially Jason) knew more than they had been willing to share with law enforcement.
“Listen,” Barrette told Terri O’Donnell over the phone later that night, “do not go back into the apartment, and do not let anyone else inside, please.”
“Understood,” Terri said.
Barrette tried calling Chris Regan’s kids, Chris Jr. and Cameron. She was unable to reach either.
Then she called Chief Frizzo.
“What’s up?” Frizzo asked.
“Look, something is really, really wrong here, Chief.”
“How so?”
“I don’t know, but Kelly Cochran kept referring to our missing man in the past tense. Thought you should know.”
Frizzo sighed.
Every internal alarm sounded.
“Let’s go ahead and get his car towed in from the park-and-ride then,” Frizzo said.
“I’m on it.”
9
ANSWERS
MOTHER OF THREE, LAURA FRIZZO SAT DOWN AT HER KITCHEN TABLE on October 28, 2014, sipping her first cup of coffee of the new day. It was four-thirty in the morning, Frizzo’s regular wake-up time. After some time to herself, she made her son breakfast. Then, same as she did most workday mornings, Frizzo put pen to paper: Have a great day! I love you. Her youngest was fourteen. She needed the boy to wake up every single day before she left that house for work and know that she thought of nothing else besides him, his older siblings, and her two grandkids.
“My world, those kids,” Frizzo said.
By six-thirty, Frizzo was on her way out the door. Not a fan of eating breakfast, the chief routinely stopped at the McDonald’s in town and ordered her favorite: peppermint mocha. They knew the chief so well, the local chain restaurant actually stashed some of the peppermint mixture during the off-season specifically for Frizzo.
“It was one of the highlights of my morning,” she said.
By seven, Frizzo was at the office going through the previous night’s work to see where she could be of service. She was more certain than ever that Chris Regan’s vanishing act was not going to yield the type of results everyone who loved the man wanted. Frizzo went right to work, determined to find answers for Terri O’Donnell and Chris’s family.
“I was supposed to be available twenty-four / seven and there were times I would put in one hundred hours a week,” Frizzo said of the job. “Go two weeks without a day off and on one occasion was awake for forty-two hours straight.”
Frizzo wasn’t complaining, but rather explaining that when you signed up for law enforcement work, you did what was needed, expected, and asked, or you turned in the badge.
The chief searched through the in-house database, but wasn’t able to dig up much information about Chris Regan on the local law enforcement network. Main task for Frizzo right then was finding out who Chris Regan was, what he did, where he’d lived, info about family and friends. She needed phone numbers and contact information. People have two sides: the one they display in front of family, friends, and coworkers (and the public), and the one they keep secret.
Striking out on the in-house computer network, Frizzo phoned the local sheriff.
“Yeah, I’ll be in Iron River soon.”
Waiting for the sheriff to arrive, Frizzo looked at the body-cam videos Cindy Barrette had recorded the previous night while going through Chris’s apartment. She also studied the documentation from Chris’s doctor found inside that file on the floor Terri O’Donnell had stepped over to first get inside.
Immediately Frizzo noticed Chris’s doctor had given him a script for pain pills and he’d just had knee surgery.
And yet, that knee brace was on the front seat of his car?
Looking through the documents further, Frizzo discovered Chris had gotten a letter from his doctor, dated October 14, which explained he’d had knee surgery and any drug screening he’d undergo for his new job would show the pain meds he was on, namely Percocet.
He wanted to prove why that narcotic was in his system, Frizzo knew, putting the letter down. Why would a guy go through such trouble if he’d planned on suicide?
Didn’t make sense.
Frizzo also considered one nagging issue with regard to the Percocet: Among all those medications inside Chris’s apartment, the Percocet was nowhere to be found.
The local sheriff Frizzo had called in for support brought a report on Chris Regan with him to the IRPD. Frizzo now had her hands on Chris’s last-known vehicles and addresses, family contact information, any arrests (zero), and so on.
“I need to start talking to people he knows,” Frizzo said.
The one plus for Laura Frizzo was that she had nearly two decades behind the badge, the respect of law enforcement agencies all over the state, and personally knew many different experts from various law enforcement fields. When Frizzo ran into a case she felt was growing beyond the small field of full-time officers she had on staff, as this one certainly was beginning to show signs of, the chief leaned on former colleagues and friends.
“Oh, you know it, Chief Frizzo took this case and ran with it,” Cindy Barrette said later. “Excellent police officer. I’ve worked with her for twenty years. She is one of these people who never lets anything drop. I hate to say it, but she’s like a hound dog—she does not let go.”
* * *
LAURA FRIZZO BEGAN her public service career in Grand Rapids (1991), where she worked as an emergency communications operator at the Grand Rapids PD. Her second daughter was born in 1993. When that child was four months old, Frizzo put herself through the police academy in Kalamazoo. After graduation, she moved back to Upper Michigan.
By the time Frizzo was twenty-four, she found herself twice divorced.
“I married my high-school sweetheart the first time and left him for this awesome [guy], who beat the shit out of me on a regular basis, so that wasn’t going to work out. After graduating the academy, I was offered and accepted a job with the Marquette County Sheriff’s Department, but before my start date, I received a job offer from Iron River Police. Although I would have preferred the job in Marquette, I took Iron River so that my parents would be able to help with the kids.”
Her first day in Iron River was April 12, 1995. Five years later, she married again and had a son. That marriage lasted nearly seventeen years.
“The last five years he traveled for work much of the time and I’d see him once every five weeks. Being alone changed me, work changed me, so we parted ways. No doubt I regret many things. But my kids are the greatest accomplishment of my whole life and they give my life purpose.”
All those years in law enforcement had gi
ven Frizzo access to resources throughout the state of Michigan—many of whom were going to wind up helping her more than she knew on this second day of looking into the disappearance of Chris Regan.
* * *
MISSING-PERSON CASES INVOLVE intricate knowledge behind the matrix of cell phone usage and how the telematics of cell phone use works, how cell phones store information, where cell towers are located, and how to obtain pinging information from a particular cell number / tower. Law enforcement can track movements of cell phones if investigators know what information to look for. Most people carry around a personal GPS unit and computer in their pockets, unknowingly recording their movements in life and online. Still, that information is only useful if, as a cop, you can get your hands on it in a timely fashion and understand what it all means.
Later that same morning, October 28, Frizzo met with the MSP to ask for assistance in a case she and her sergeant believed was much more than an adult male making himself disappear. The meds, the messy apartment, the abandoned vehicle, the now-confirmed affair with coworker Kelly Cochran, Kelly’s sketchy husband, not to mention a note with directions to the lover’s house, all spoke of what could possibly be a deadly love triangle—a jealous husband letting loose and getting rid of a problem.
“We had many directions to go in,” Frizzo said. “I needed assistance in preparation of either search warrants or interviews.”
The more people she spoke to within Chris Regan’s circle, a better picture of his recent life emerged. For example, Frizzo found out Chris did not want anyone to know he was spending time with Kelly Cochran.
“Something happened at work where a comment had been made about their relationship and Chris became very irate,” Frizzo said.
This piqued the cop’s interest. She wanted to know more about the relationship.
“On a mission” was how Frizzo described her attitude that morning as the case expanded.
Something else bothered the IRPD’s lead investigator. Frizzo had called Public Services Incorporated in North Carolina and spoke to the man who had hired Chris. The chief could not overlook the strong possibility that Chris Regan had gotten into an argument with Kelly, and maybe Jason, and decided to take off to North Carolina early. He could always send for his personal belongings. Anger can make decisions for people, Frizzo was fully aware. She wasn’t naive, either; she knew that inadvertently left-behind medications, a married girlfriend, a note, and an abandoned vehicle in a park-and-ride could appear to be suspicious, but in today’s world, until you had answers to pending questions, what did it actually mean?
“Have you had any communication with Mr. Regan recently?” Frizzo asked Jimmy Torres, Chris’s contact person in North Carolina. “We were thinking he might have gone down early to find an apartment or something.”
“No,” Torres said. “He has not shown up. We were actually wondering what was going on ourselves.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“We’re surprised and wondering because Chris was so excited and anxious to come down. We’ve been talking to him and communicating daily, and, suddenly, about two weeks ago, we stopped hearing from him.”
The chief paused. Reflected. Nodded in the affirmative on her end of the call.
“We had even discussed internally here that maybe Chris didn’t want the job and was avoiding my calls,” Torres continued.
Frizzo confirmed Chris’s actual work starting date to be November 10, not November 1. Terri O’Donnell had it wrong. This made his disappearance even more suspicious.
“Thanks,” Frizzo said. “If you hear anything, please give us a call.”
“Will do, Detective.”
Frizzo phoned the lab where Chris was scheduled to get his drug screening for the new job. According to the paperwork found inside that folder on the floor of his apartment, Chris would have gotten that test done already.
“Nope,” the lab said. “He never showed up.”
Frizzo’s next call at ten-fifteen that morning was to Chris’s oldest boy, Chris Jr., who described a close relationship with his dad, which they’d recently rekindled after a few years of losing touch.
“We are planning to move to North Carolina together,” Chris Jr. said. “He is excited to move and start his new job, but also anxious about everything he has to do before moving.”
Frizzo asked when the last time Chris Jr. had spoken to his father.
Chris checked his cell phone.
“October thirteenth, eleven a.m.,” he said. “I haven’t heard from him since and was beginning to worry.”
They discussed whether Chris was suicidal or depressed.
Chris said he never knew his dad to be either.
Hanging up, Chris Jr. stared at his phone.
I’m never going to see Dad again.
10
SOMETHING’S NOT RIGHT
MSP DETECTIVE CHRIS BRACKET WAS ASSIGNED TOTHE IRON MOUNTAIN Post in Iron County and became the first state cop invited into the Chris Regan disappearance investigation. Described as a “very nice guy” by a colleague, Bracket was one of those high-school athletes the kids in school looked up to. Incredibly strong and solidly built, Bracket’s frame made “him a good tactical guy,” said that same colleague.
By request, Bracket and two additional MSP detectives joined Chief Frizzo on October 28 at eleven a.m. for a meeting to delegate work assignments, beyond a discussion about where to take the investigation next. Frizzo put in a call to Iron County prosecuting attorney (PA) Melissa Powell to get a bit of legal context regarding search warrants and interview protocol going into the day. The first interviews the IRPD wished to conduct were with Kelly and Jason Cochran. Start there. Get them—especially the husband—on record with a timeline and details. See where it led.
“A search warrant for the missing person’s vehicle or apartment was not needed,” Powell advised. Indeed, under the Community Caretaker Act, suspicion was enough to go into both. “But you might want to consider search warrants for the Cochran vehicles, residence, and phone records.”
“Of course. A search warrant for Chris Regan’s phone records,” Frizzo added, “is pending.”
“Good.”
Before hanging up, they discussed several additional search warrants Frizzo was thinking about—each of which was in the process of being written.
Powell said to keep her office informed.
As information became available throughout the day, one fact was clear: October 14 was the last day Chris Regan had contacted anyone. After he made various purchases on his credit cards that day, Frizzo found out, there was zero banking activity on any of his accounts and nobody had heard from him again. In addition, Frizzo got hold of CCTV footage from a local gas station dated October 14, between three-thirty and five p.m. Chris Regan’s vehicle pulled in, a man fitting Chris’s description got out and gassed up, before pulling out and going on his way.
Frizzo made a note: The gas station was located between the park-and-ride and the Cochran house, which, Frizzo Googled, was 4.5 miles.
There’s no way he left his car in that lot—unless, Frizzo thought, unless he jumped into another vehicle with [someone] and took off.
The other important detail Frizzo sensed was that Jason Cochran, Kelly Cochran, or both, knew more than they were sharing.
As the MSP prepared to reach out to Kelly and Jason Cochran and ask them to voluntarily come into the IRPD for a recorded interview, even though she didn’t need it, Frizzo drew up a search warrant for Chris’s apartment.
“Look,” Frizzo recalled, “I wanted to do those interviews with the Cochrans, but, of course, the ‘specialists’ want to conduct them. I’m very defensive about my investigations and how they’re done. I really didn’t want them [the MSP] to do the interviews, but I had to get the search warrants written up immediately.”
Priorities.
Meanwhile, word came back from bringing the dogs out to search the fields around the park-and-ride, working under the premise t
hat Chris Regan could have parked and went out into the woods to off himself.
“Nothing,” Frizzo was told.
* * *
MSP DETECTIVE CHRIS BRACKET, along with a fellow MSP detective, drove to the Cochran house and asked Kelly if she would be willing to come down to the IRPD for an interview.
Kelly said sure.
Jason also agreed.
“Great,” Bracket said.
Before they got settled in the interview suite at the IRPD, the MSP personnel decided Chief Frizzo would not be part of the interview process. She would instead monitor the interviews via a CCTV from another room, while typing out search warrants.
Frizzo felt slighted, as if they didn’t want her involved in interviewing.
Chris Bracket and MSP detective Jean Belanger sat with Kelly, who appeared relaxed, casual, willing to help, and at ease with the situation.
After a few questions and comments, Bracket, running the interview, said, “Obviously, we’d like to talk to you about Chris.”
“Chris?” Kelly said, as if confused.
It took a few moments for Kelly to admit she and Chris Regan had an intimate relationship and Jason knew about it. But again, it did not seem to faze her in the least. Nor did it feel to either detective as if she was hiding anything.
Then Kelly discussed how Jason was “okay” with the relationships she had with other men. They had an open marriage. Jason was not at all thrilled about her running around town, having sex with random men, but he knew about it, and, as far as Kelly was concerned, he didn’t bother her. They were separated and agreed seeing other people was part of that.
Bracket wondered when Kelly saw Chris last.
Kelly mentioned that the IRPD asked the same question the previous night, adding, “Probably two weeks ago from today.”
“You saw him? Or talked to him?”
“I talked to him, I think . . . I would say between the twelfth and the fifteenth was the last time I saw him. We had dinner.”
Frizzo sat: watching, listening, seething.
Why not follow up with additional questions? What did you have for dinner? Did you cook? Did Chris eat? Did you drink any liquor? Have sex? Details. Lock these two down with details.
Where Monsters Hide Page 5