Bracket continued asking about the relationship.
Kelly explained that she was “upset” with Chris around the time she last saw him because he had been texting her and calling every day before, but he had suddenly stopped.
“Did you have a falling-out?”
“No,” she said, adding how they decided not to have feelings for each other. They wanted to keep love out of the relationship because Chris was moving. He had asked her to move to North Carolina with him, but she told him Michigan was her home and she wasn’t leaving.
Under the assumed pretense of Kelly being the last person to have had contact with Chris, Bracket asked what they did that “last night.”
“Ah, we ate. That was pretty much it,” Kelly said. She explained Chris generally went to bed around seven-thirty, so she would hang out a little while, watch some television by herself, and then leave.
“You didn’t stay over?”
“I never stayed the night.”
After being asked, Kelly said the conversation centered on Asheville, Chris’s move, how excited he was to be heading south with his son and starting a new job. They also talked dates, Kelly certain it was the fourteenth, the last time she saw Chris; the actual date she believed Chris was moving (November 2); whether Kelly felt Chris suffered from depression (she didn’t); and why she believed he was moving (to get away from a “dead-end job” and be with his son).
Bracket asked if they were on good terms.
“We only fought once,” Kelly said. Two months back. Someone at work had said something about their relationship. Kelly said she believed certain people at work were badgering Chris about his relationship with her outside the job. And he hated it.
“So, Kelly, what is it you think happened to Chris?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I’ve been texting and calling for the last two weeks.”
“You have?”
“You have?” Frizzo said to herself, watching. That’s all you can come up with? “You have”!
“I’ve driven by his house a couple of times. I thought maybe he was upset because I didn’t want to go to North Carolina, but he would have called me . . .”
Bracket asked if Chris had ever been over to Kelly’s house.
“Yes.”
“Yes . . . so he knows where it is and everything?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“Even way back when you guys first met?”
“No, no. It was probably two months after . . .”
Frizzo thought: Why would Chris have directions to Kelly’s house on the front seat of his car if he had been there before? Why weren’t detectives asking this question? Why are they missing all these opportunities?
In fact, Kelly explained, the last time Chris was out at the house had been three weeks prior, adding, “Twice in the last month.”
They established Jason wasn’t there whenever Chris stopped over.
Kelly sat and endured questions, when, in truth, she did not have to answer. Forty-five minutes into the interview, she maintained her composure and seemed to have an opinion or answer for any question thrown at her. Bracket and Belanger never pressed too hard on any one issue, opting instead, perhaps, to gather any information Kelly was offering.
The focus, as the interview wound down, turned to Jason and his attitude toward his wife and the marriage—not to mention that he had once wanted to kill her and himself.
Kelly admitted Jason often took off by himself fishing and hunting and she had no idea what he was doing, where he was, or whom he was with. She never considered he’d done something to Chris.
“You’re concerned about my safety,” Kelly said at one point, after Bracket expressed as much, “but I’m . . . well, I’m not.”
“You’re not? . . . Unfortunately, most women aren’t.”
True to her tough-girl persona, Kelly said, “I’m not most women. And I’m not trying to be. I’m not trying to come off corny or anything. I’m a farm girl.”
They talked about the potential of being fooled by a manipulative, violent man who could play games with her mind, and no matter how tough Kelly thought she was, Jason was bigger, stronger, and had weapons in the home.
“I don’t think I have ever seen him think more clearer,” she said of Jason’s recent mind-set.
“Than he is now?” Bracket asked.
“Uh-huh. And, look, he didn’t threaten to kill me. Maybe that’s the misunderstanding. He told me he had a thought for that. He came to me and told me that. He told me he was severely depressed and he thought about taking his own life. He needed help.”
“And he thought about taking your life?”
“Yeah.”
“That concerns me,” Bracket said.
Kelly was asked if she’d mind taking a polygraph. The suggestion distressed her. She’d have to consult with a lawyer before agreeing to it.
During the course of the interview, Kelly mentioned another name—another man at her former job she had been sleeping with. Bracket wrote it down. Then they talked for a few minutes about whether Jason verbally abused her.
She said no.
“Did you ever tell anybody you were a victim of domestic violence?”
“Being hit?” Kelly snapped back. “No. I’ve never been hit. Never said I was hit.”
“How about mentally abused?”
“By Jason?”
“Yeah.”
“No.”
Bracket and Belanger believed Kelly Cochran was hiding things from them—perhaps how abusive and violent her husband was when they were alone.
Jason Cochran sat outside the interview room, nervous and fidgety. His eyes darting left to right. A bit of sweat beading up on his bald head.
As they concluded the interview, Kelly mentioned how living in Upper Michigan felt like being part of a community; you could actually go to sleep with the doors unlocked or open and not have to worry.
“Did you guys come to Michigan so Jason could use medical marijuana? Is that pretty much why you came here?” Jason claimed the weed helped his back pain and depression.
“No! That was one of the things he tried after being up here a bit. No. We love it up here.”
Bracket said they wanted to go back up to Caspian with her and Jason after his interview. They needed clarification as to where Jason hunted and fished, and maybe Kelly could point out some of those areas.
Kelly emerged from the interview room.
Jason stood. Took a deep breath. Pulled up his trousers. Then walked past his wife and in through the same door.
11
A COP’S COP
HE’S JUST SLEEPING,” SHE SAID.
The three-year-old boy looked up at his stepmother.
“Sleeping?”
“Yes.”
Laura Kezerle stared at the man lying in the casket. George Robert Sassan, “Bobby” to everyone in the family, had been dressed in his police uniform, hands in white gloves folded over himself, his eyes closed. As they stood looking at Uncle Bobby, Laura’s aunt explained to her stepson that his stepfather, Laura’s uncle, was taking a nap. He wasn’t dead. He hadn’t been killed by a fellow peace officer while off-duty. He had closed his eyes and gone off to another place for a while.
Laura was six years old. It was 1975.
Bobby was a handsome man, back when that term carried with it a sense of self-confidence and down-to-earth manners. So much so, Bobby had been featured in several modeling ads for Harley-Davidson motorcycles.
Glendale, Wisconsin, is a small town just outside Milwaukee. A Glendale police officer, Bobby had just turned thirty years old that past May. Hanging out at a friend’s bar one night after playing softball, a local pimp walked in and tried to solicit a prostitute drinking at the bar.
This upset Bobby. He grabbed the dude, pulled him down to the floor, and held him in a headlock.
“Call the local [cops],” Bobby said to his wife, who stood nearby, looking on.
As Bobby struggled with the pimp,
the off-duty cop drew his weapon.
“When the police arrived,” Laura later explained, one of the cops, a white guy, “came in and shot my uncle four times in the back, killing him.”
The pimp was black.
“There are many unanswered questions regarding this and it actually was a discussion on the ‘Geraldo’ show back in the eighties. It’s interesting with all the discussion going on today regarding wrongful killings by cops in this country how some think cops target a certain race or whatever . . . but here I am and that’s the profession I chose, even after having my uncle shot wrongfully.”
Laura Kezerle Frizzo came of age during the ’70s in Crystal Falls, Michigan, a small town of fewer than two thousand people, fifteen miles east of Iron River.
“I was the only girl of four kids. My parents are Emil and Linda Kezerle. My dad was raised on a farm, the only boy with four sisters. He grew up in Iron River and the family still owns the two-hundred-acre farm. My mom was born in Chicago and grew up in Milwaukee. . . . Every night there was a big home-cooked meal. We were a vocal family. Loud. Very emotional. My family will tell you I was always stubborn and would never listen or do as I was told.”
Part of that adolescent pigheadedness and independence Frizzo carried into adulthood—and, of course, into her police work. An attitude that generally served Frizzo’s professional needs well.
* * *
ON OCTOBER 28, 2014, late afternoon, after Kelly Cochran was interviewed, Chief Frizzo looked on from the CCTV monitor inside the IRPD and watched as Jason Cochran sauntered into the interview suite. No sooner did Jason settle in and open his mouth for the first time, did Frizzo feel something was off with the guy.
“I’ll tell you guys in advance,” Jason said without being asked a question, “I see a therapist for high anxiety. I’ve been institutionalized a little over a month ago where I get, like, really flustered. . . that . . . so . . .”
“Okay,” Bracket responded. Then mentioned that if the interview got “too uncomfortable” Jason should ask for a break. Bracket wanted it to be clear that Jason was under no pressure here. They were simply asking questions, having a conversation.
Frizzo listened. Something tugged at her regarding the interview Bracket and Belanger had conducted with Kelly Cochran earlier. Specifically something Kelly had said.
Frizzo repeated it to herself: “I brought lasagna over for dinner.”
Kelly claimed that on October 14, the last time she saw Chris Regan, she brought lasagna into the apartment for the two of them.
Frizzo went back to the photos Cindy Barrette had taken inside the apartment, paying particular interest to a photo of the kitchen. In front of the stove was a large box. On top of the stove were all sorts of household items. No pans or dirty dishes were in the sink, or cleaned dishes in the washer. In fact, no indication whatsoever existed in the kitchen that Chris had a meal in the apartment in recent days. Every indication, in contrast, spoke to Chris eating takeout on most nights.
As she thought about this while staring at the photos, the monitor caught Frizzo’s eye.
Jason Cochran was crying.
No way . . . , Frizzo thought. Crying?
Indeed, thirty-six-year-old Jason Cochran was sitting and sobbing like a small child. It felt pathetic. What did he have to cry about?
This guy here, Frizzo knew in that moment, he is totally involved with Chris’s disappearance.
12
ROCKY ROADS
JASON COCHRAN WAS TIMID. NOT, HOWEVER, IN AN UNCERTAIN OR SHY way. Jason came across as someone hiding deep, dark secrets. As he explained himself to the MSP, Kelly Cochran’s husband said he knew his wife had been seeing other men for the past few months, but didn’t know any of the details. He knew Chris Regan, he said, by first name only.
“I wouldn’t be able to pick him out of a lineup if I’d seen the guy,” Jason claimed.
He told Kelly some time ago he wanted the situation this way because of his high anxiety. For several months leading up to this day, his marriage had been on “rocky roads.” He mentioned several “health issues” were to blame. He’d lost a kidney. He had severe back pain and nerve damage and couldn’t move around that well. He could not perform sexually.
As Jason spoke, Bracket and Belanger allowed him to say what he wanted without interruption. Jason had no trouble talking, once he got going.
When asked if he believed Chris was the “only one,” meaning men his wife had been sleeping with, Jason said he knew of one other.
After pausing, thinking more about it, he said there could have been one more.
Jason talked down about himself, placing his position in the household as an unfit husband, always depressed, suicidal, unhealthy. Although he never did, Jason was on the verge of coming out and saying he didn’t blame Kelly for stepping out and finding other men.
“Did you ever threaten Kelly?”
“No.”
“Did you ever think about taking her life?”
“No, dear God, no. . . .”
Bracket wondered if maybe Jason had given his wife the impression that she should be afraid of him.
“Yeah,” he admitted.
They then walked Jason into a discussion about Jason ever meeting Chris. To which, Jason said, “Never physically.” He thought he’d seen Chris and Kelly together one time, but couldn’t be sure.
“Do you know where he lives?”
“I’ve seen Kelly’s truck . . . [at] an apartment building right there on the main drag.... I assume that’s where he lives.”
“Had you ever been there?”
“I’ve walked past. . . .”
They asked Jason if he considered Kelly to be “high maintenance.”
“Not usually.”
Then Bracket asked Jason if he knew why he was being interviewed.
“I, yeah . . . I think so. I know that somebody is missing. I want to guess I was probably the ‘jealous husband.’”
“Yeah, yeah,” Bracket responded.
Wait, no follow-ups? Frizzo said under her breath at the monitor. She was bewildered by this as she looked on from the other room. Why are they not pressing him?
They asked Jason if he’d be willing to take a polygraph.
After saying he had taken a forensic course in college, Jason asked what a polygraph was.
“Lie detector.”
Jason stumbled through an explanation as to why he didn’t want to. He understood those types of tests to be inaccurate and he wanted to speak with his psychiatrist first, before committing to it. Additionally, he ingested a lot of psychiatric meds on a daily basis, explaining further how one of the pills “helps me to calm the voices I have.”
Both detectives chose not to question Jason about his alleged voices, instead opting to ask: “In a delusional state . . . is there any chance you could have done something?”
“No. No. I’m . . . uh. Since I’ve been out of the hospital, I’ve been like a different person. I don’t have any lost time or anything.” He explained this further by saying there had been times when, unable to sleep at night, he might be at the dinner table the next day, doze off, and then wake up and realize he had missed an hour of his life. Time he could not account for.
Bracket asked a smart question next: “Do you know how long Chris has been missing?”
“I don’t have a clue. . . .”
Bracket wanted to know when Jason learned about Kelly’s relationship with Chris.
“July . . . ,” Jason said, adding how it had been a text message he found, tipping him off.
Bracket asked if he and Kelly were on Facebook.
They both were, Jason confirmed.
“So, Jason, how long have things been bad?”
It had been two and a half years since his “body went out,” Jason answered, blaming his marital problems on his deteriorating health, physically and mentally.
One thing Kelly had mentioned to detectives during her interview was she believed Jason, suspicio
us she was cheating, might have put a GPS unit on her truck. Detectives thought maybe Jason had ordered it through an online retailer.
After mentioning Amazon, craigslist and eBay, specifically, Bracket asked if either he or Kelly had used those Internet companies to make purchases.
Jason wasn’t sure about the others, but Amazon was a site they both had bought items from. Probably “books.”
Bracket asked Jason if he and Kelly ever swapped partners with other couples.
“No, not at all. Because of my back,” Jason said, “a lot of times I have sexual dysfunction where I don’t—even if I wanted to, you know, so much pain, I couldn’t—get hard. . . .”
“You ever have girlfriends?”
“No. I never dated outside. Kelly’s the only woman I’ve loved.... Like I said, when my body went south, it’s like the marriage started going south with it. . . .”
Bracket asked about the previous night. Why had Jason lied about Kelly being home?
Jason gave an “aw-shucks” look, as if embarrassed by his behavior. He said after Barrette and the other officer left, he felt like a “jackass” for lying.
“Is Kelly capable?” Bracket asked at one point, without referring to what.
“I don’t think so. I wouldn’t see how from her.”
“Has she ever been violent?”
“No . . .” Jason explained there was zero abuse in the house, on either part. They fought, yes. They argued heatedly, at times. But that was the extent of it.
“Jason, ah, do you know what happened to Chris?” Bracket asked.
“No, I do not.”
“Do you have any inclinations, suspicions, um, suggestions?”
“I don’t have a clue, I really don’t. . . .”
“Is there any reason your fingerprints or DNA would be in his apartment?”
Although Bracket never clarified if they had found Jason’s DNA inside Chris’s apartment, Jason’s answer would speak volumes. The IRPD had not yet received results back from forensic testing and had not finished processing the scene.
“No, none whatsoever.”
“In his vehicle?”
Where Monsters Hide Page 6