“Did she suggest something like that?”
“Nothing with multiple people that I can remember.” Belanger explained how the MSP recently “discovered” Kelly had had multiple relationships going on at the same time and they were trying to find out anything unusual about each one. It was part of their investigation, the detective suggested, which could “help us find Chris.”
Tim explained how Chris’s toolbox was there in work one day, but gone the next, and everyone wondered what had happened. He said not many people on the shop floor liked Chris because of the changes he was implementing as team leader.
As Tim spoke, Detective Belanger asked, “Do you know what happened to Chris?”
“I have no idea what happened to Chris,” Tim snapped back, offended by the insinuation.
“You don’t know if he up and left town, someone hurt him, or he’s being held, or something crazy?”
“You know,” Tim said, “I remember my coworker . . . he kind of—like I said, the rumor mill flies in that place—but Chris would be on his cell phone texting or calling and everyone assumed he was trying to get hold of [Kelly] . . . and, you know, it is what it is, I don’t care. Whatever. I do not care.”
Tim mentioned a discussion he’d had with a coworker one afternoon. After Chris stopped showing up for work, Tim told his coworker it seemed “kind of odd,” Chris just disappearing.
Tim’s coworker had said, “Well, you know, maybe a jealous husband got to him?”
Bracket said, “So you can kind of see where you fit into the puzzle?”
“Yeah, I understand that.”
“We ask everyone,” Bracket added, “but what if we wanted a polygraph from you to see if your information was up to par—”
Before Bracket could finish, Tim said, “Absolutely!”
“And what if the polygraph operator asked, ‘Do you have any involvement with Chris being missing?’”
“No!”
“‘Do you know what happened to Chris?’”
“No!”
Tim wondered about the polygraph being accurate. “I know what the truth is . . .”
Belanger said, “You know the truth, do you? So what is the truth?”
“For me, the truth is I had nothing to do with him disappearing.”
15
EXCLUSION
THE ONLY OPTION MSP DETECTIVES HAD AT THIS POINT, AFTER TALK ing to Tim Huntley, was to see if Kelly and Jason would answer additional questions. Chris Bracket and Tom Rajala approached the couple on Halloween.
“Hi, Kelly, how are you?” Bracket said after Kelly opened the door.
“Cold,” she answered.
“Cold?”
“Yeah,” Kelly said, hugging herself, rubbing her biceps.
“Do you remember me? I’m Chris.”
“Yeah.”
Bracket introduced Rajala. Explained that he was from the MSP’s Calumet Post.
As they stood on the Cochran porch and talked, Kelly and Jason’s dogs barked incessantly. Kelly said she needed to quiet them down before she could come out.
That situation under control, Kelly sat inside Bracket’s MSP cruiser, rubbing her hands together, trying to stay warm, the heater blowing warm air on her.
Bracket mentioned new information had come up and they needed to clarify a few facts—namely, the dates October 14 and 15. The detective called those dates “important” within the scope of the investigation. He mentioned how it would help if Kelly could tell them where she was, what she was doing, and if she’d had contact with Chris on either of those days. The idea was to get Kelly and Jason pinned down to specific narratives.
“So, if you, basically, in your own words, kind of tell us what, from morning to night, everything you remember what you did on the fourteenth?”
Kelly didn’t seem to have a problem answering. She began by explaining how being out of work made her days run all together: “Honestly, there’s not much I do during the day, except for when I’ve been doing little projects at home. If the dates are right, I believe we were going to dinner”—she was referencing herself and Chris—“Ah, we were planning on doing dinner.”
Kelly was certain the last time she saw Chris Regan was October 13, a Monday. They had dinner at his place. She knew this because she recalled discussing a drug-screening test for his new job he was scheduled to take in “two days,” on October 15.
Yet, after a lengthy conversation, with Bracket mentioning several appointments Kelly said she’d had, Kelly clarified it must have been October 14 when they had their last dinner together.
“Lasagna,” she said. She’d made it. “Every day is a Saturday” when you’re out of work, Kelly added, trying to reason her confusion.
Bracket wanted details: what she did that night while inside the apartment, what Chris did, where Kelly parked, what time she arrived, what time she left.
Kelly said Chris played on his laptop while she cooked. They ate. Made small talk. Chris retired about eight. Kelly, out of respect for her husband, never stayed the night at Chris’s. She left soon after Chris went to bed.
She never saw him again.
As she spoke, it became clear why the oven did not appear to have been used. Kelly said she had brought the prepared, fully cooked food over and reheated it in the microwave.
Bracket wanted to know what Kelly did after leaving Chris’s apartment.
“I’m not one hundred percent sure I came home. . . .” But then, after thinking about it, “Probably tended to the dogs, took them out. Settled in for the night.” She liked to play solitaire on the computer. After she had dinner with her lover and went home and played computer games, Kelly explained, her husband was out, likely “walking or fishing.” But he did come home at some point. She just wasn’t sure if he was there when she walked in or he arrived shortly afterward.
Mr. Invisible, apparently.
“I will be honest with you,” Kelly said next.
Bracket and Rajala looked at her.
“After I talked to him, after you guys questioned Jason, you guys told him he was the primary suspect and asked him if he killed Chris or did something with him?”
“We never said—” Bracket tried to say.
“Well, I was offended,” Kelly interrupted. “He was offended!” Kelly stepped away from her usual stoic demeanor; she seemed irritated now. “So, I mean, if it’s something about my husband, I know my husband. I’m not going to answer any questions about him because of the way he was questioned or how he was questioned.”
Bracket noted to himself that Kelly’s attitude changed completely after a bit of pressure was applied. Kelly was now aggressive and abrasive.
Rajala tried to talk their way out of the situation best he could by saying they asked every source the same questions and were not pointing fingers or singling anyone out. Just gathering facts.
To that, Kelly said what truly bothered her was she did not think anything had happened to Chris. “Chris is a private person. He doesn’t make enemies. Like I said, he had run-ins with guys at work, but not something that somebody’s going to kidnap him.”
They went back to the night, October 14, and wanted additional details.
Kelly pushed back. She claimed she did not have a good memory and didn’t want to give the wrong impression.
* * *
CHIEF FRIZZO HAD UNCOVERED a piece of information that did not make much sense. An Amazon.com search warrant she had filed came through. The chief had asked for any transactions Chris Regan might have conducted on the site during the month of October. When Frizzo received the printout, sitting at her desk, studying it, the date October 28 popped out.
“I noticed Chris had a charge on his bank statement come through on October 28, 2014.”
That date did not gel with the October 14 or October 15 date everyone was certain Chris had disappeared.
“Obviously,” Frizzo said, “this date is after he went missing.”
The chief believed someone could be using
Chris Regan’s bank card.
* * *
KELLY COCHRAN CONTINUED TALKING to Bracket and Rajala inside Bracket’s car parked in front of her house. Kelly seemed more nervous than she had been—which, in and of itself, became a red flag.
As they continued, Kelly talked about how she thought Chris might have been using Match.com to meet women.
Bracket appreciated that information, then asked when Kelly had first reached out to Chris after leaving his apartment on October 14.
She texted Chris the following day, but never got a response. Because that was odd, Kelly added, she drove by his apartment.
“He always calls me back. Or, if he doesn’t call, he will text me. And if there’s a problem, he’ll say ‘fuck off’. . . .”
Kelly considered that Chris must have needed space, so she left it alone after not hearing from him. She texted a few times, drove by once more, and that was it.
The one important fact clear from this conversation was that Kelly believed she saw Chris’s car parked in the lot of his apartment complex on October 15. On that day, in fact, after not hearing from him, Kelly knocked on his door.
“When he didn’t answer, I went in—’cause I have keys.”
She thought the apartment looked “in more disarray” than it had when she’d left, so she “guessed” he had done additional packing for the move.
After that day, Kelly said she never went back.
Not hearing from him, however, “pissed” her off. It was unlike him. Chris would always return texts or calls.
They talked for another ten minutes about Chris Regan’s habits. Detectives tried to pin Kelly down as to what time she went back there, looking through his apartment by herself, but all she could recall was “later in the day.”
* * *
AS FRIZZO CONTINUED STUDYING Chris Regan’s Amazon records, she figured out the issue. Chris had ordered a book from Amazon, which wasn’t in stock at the time. So, when the book became available, Amazon shipped it. His card had been billed on the date the book shipped.
16
INCLUSION
DETECTIVES RAJALA AND BRACKET MANAGED TO GET JASON COCHRAN to sit for a second interview on the same day, October 31, 2014, inside Bracket’s cruiser. Jason seemed different. Admittedly, he’d been suffering from “high anxiety” and felt “flustered” since that first interview at the IRPD.
Jason reiterated that he knew Chris by name only, adding how he’d felt deeply depressed lately. Regarding the extramarital affairs Kelly was involved in, Jason said he “didn’t want to know about” them, so he didn’t ask questions. Lately, though, things with Kelly had been better.
“She’s been home a lot more.”
Since getting out of the psych hospital in late September, Jason said, he’d felt suicidal, but had made some “positive changes” in his life. The marijuana he grew and smoked helped.
The tone Jason expressed was one of a guy who wanted to help. Jason said he was in a lot of physical pain, probably the current weather front affecting his sciatica nerve.
They talked fishing. Jason liked to fish for bass and trout at “the [Caspian] Pit,” a body of water located about six hundred feet from the Cochran home. Standing by the pit, Jason could see what was going on back at the house. He said with all his health problems, it was a good place to sit and think. He could “hobble” there and back on most days without any problem.
Bracket focused on October 14. What had Jason done that day? Had anything in particular stood out in his memory?
“No,” Jason said. He guessed he’d gone fishing, or for a walk. Maybe he went across the street to visit the neighbor, a guy he hung out with from time to time. Other than that, he couldn’t recall anything more.
Bracket asked if Jason was truly “okay” with the various extramarital relationships Kelly had with other men.
He was getting the help he needed and hoped his wife would one day see the light and completely come back to him.
Bracket floated a hypothetical, making it clear they weren’t accusing Jason of a crime, but trying to look at every scenario possible. The detective mentioned how he and his colleagues could see that perhaps Jason would be “relieved” if Chris Regan was out of the picture and it was “over” between Chris and his wife. He wanted to know if Jason understood this dilemma they faced as investigators.
Jason agreed he was relieved. “But I’m really hoping he shows up because I, this, um . . . is just kind of awkward, or whatever. I never met the guy. And I don’t know anything about him. . . .”
Rajala asked if Jason hunted.
He hadn’t since moving to Michigan.
“So you have a rifle—a shotgun?”
“Shotgun. It’s a twelve-gauge. Single-shot.”
“That’s the only firearm you have?”
“The only gun I have.”
For the next five minutes, they talked about the various potential hunting / walking / fishing locales Jason frequented around the Cochrans’ Lawrence Street property.
Bracket asked Jason if they could take a look at his phone.
“It’s in the house.”
Bracket said they’d like him to go inside and get it.
Jason got out of the car. He had Kelly open the door because the dogs were wild and the possibility of them biting was high.
They went back and forth about the dogs and what to do. Jason seemed offended they had asked for his phone and made a point of not really wanting to go into the house and retrieve it.
Rajala explained that the MSP and IRPD were doing everything they could to find Chris Regan, and if part of the investigation offended anyone, that was just too damn bad.
Jason said nothing.
Bracket posed a potential situation where a person might be tied up inside someone’s house and they, as police, had to weigh the possibility here and check it out.
“Ah . . . ,” Jason said, understanding now where they were going with wanting his phone.
“Would you let us look to see if [Chris] is tied up inside your house?” Rajala asked. “A walk-through really quick, just to see if he’s in there? To see if he’s sitting in a chair with duct tape over his mouth?”
“Aha!”
“That’s where I am going with this.”
“Right. I can assure you he’s not inside the house or anything. And I’ve, I really don’t want to let you guys inside the house to search.... I know he’s not in the house.”
Rajala mentioned the main reason for the visit: “Right, so look. But we have a warrant to search inside your house, okay? To get that phone.... Now, if the phone is in there, we need to go get it.”
* * *
EARLIER THAT SAME DAY, Chief Frizzo had spoken to Bracket. She made a point to tell him they needed to get inside the Cochran house and take a careful look.
“Nose around,” Frizzo encouraged. “See what you can find. I am curious if you see any cement blocks lying around. Things like that.”
Bracket said he’d see what they could find out.
* * *
JASON ULTIMATELY ALLOWED RAJALA and Bracket into the house after Kelly got the dog situation under control. What choice did he have, after all?
The detectives took a quick look around.
Jason located his phone and handed it over.
Finding nothing out of the ordinary, after Jason gave up his phone, “We appreciate it,” Bracket told him. “I know it’s an inconvenience with your phone. But we will try to get it back as soon as we can.”
Frizzo contacted Bracket later, after he and Rajala left.
“The Cochrans were cooperative and let us walk through the house.”
“And?”
“Nothing. No cement blocks.”
17
QUACK-QUACK
IT WAS LATE OCTOBER. JASON SAT AT THE DINING TABLE INSIDE THE Cochran house, an empty spiral-bound notebook in front of him. On the top of the first page, he wrote, why. Underneath it, a title: Where Monsters Hide. Each word
was printed in jumbled and messy adolescent script.
Under the title, Jason sketched out a projection of a novel outline. He wrote how a person cannot truly love without knowing hate. From there, he wrote about how monsters have predators. He then applied the nature versus nurture argument, noting how “some” monsters were “born” and some were “made,” before concluding monsters have no idea their [sic] monsters at all.
As the outline continued, Jason mentioned how monsters put on a face for the world—for the general public and family. Then he described a scent and look evil has, completing the thought with how only true evil recognizes evil.
Ending the first of what would be seventeen pages, Jason explained his theory that a predator can at times be the prey, and the prey can at times be the predator.
“He wrote a book,” Kelly later explained. “I lived with him.” She laughed. “The book is about him. He was trying to make himself the good guy in the book when, in the end, he was really the bad guy.”
According to Kelly, Jason’s outline was a riff on Dexter. In Dexter, the Showtime series, a forensic blood specialist working for the police is, at night, roaming through town murdering those people in society he believes are bad: pedophiles, drug pushers, abusers.
“Jason was making the call on who is the bad guy,” Kelly added. “And you can’t. We’re all human. You cannot pick and choose who the bad guys are.”
On the second page of the outline, Jason wrote first chapter underneath the title. Then introduced his main character, someone named Jason Quack-Quack. “Uncle Quack-Quack” was a nickname, his mother-in-law later said, that Jason’s nieces and nephews called him, for reasons she did not know.
“It was just a name the kids had given him,” Kelly reiterated, “nothing more.”
Kelly noted that Jason was “very awkward and weird around kids.” He did not know how to act. Not in an abusive, creepy way; rather, more shyness and feeling uncomfortable. Kelly had dreamed of having kids.
“I did. Just not with him. I knew there was something wrong with Jason. I had seen things from the start with him. When we were first married. Things with animals and, eventually, the way he was with me. And it got worse.”
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