“You found what?”
“We felt someone in a tan-colored van was following us as we got into Indiana. I became suspicious. I looked underneath the truck. I found this GPS tracking device. Pulled it off. Took the batteries out. I’m saving it for evidence!”
“Oh, my, Kelly.”
* * *
KELLY COCHRAN WAS SOMEONE who viewed the world differently than most. She kept a lot to herself, she later claimed to me in conversations and letters. She would go off on tangents about how all her life, those around her did not truly understand her “truth.”
“Everyone thinks they know the truth, when, in actuality, only I do,” she said. “Throughout a lot of this, I have shared pieces of the truth. But when you lived in ‘my world’ so long, you know that ‘normal people’ can’t handle the truth.”
Kelly explained her “world” as a place the general public had “never [been] exposed to.” Most people, she added, have never had to “watch life leave someone, in ways that I had to.” As for what happens to the soul after: “Life doesn’t go on after that, regardless of what you do.”
She made a point to say that the “entire truth will hurt too many people. After all, as humans, one of our defense mechanisms is to hide or bury the truth or reality.”
Kelly talked about her “past” as a part of her life she was still trying to make “sense” of. She claimed to have a “great upbringing, great education.” She called herself “too smart for my own good.” She described her parents as “normal, loving” people. She admitted she’d never “been happy as a child.” She recalled “only being content.” She once told her mother that for as long as she could remember, she was “homicidal.” She had never been “scared” as a child. She concluded, “I was just not one to be emotional or one to express emotions like most.”
With all the men she was juggling at the same time—Chris, Tim, Jason—Kelly said, “They were busy days. Go to work. Go to Chris’s—and then I’d go hang out with Tim.”
I brought up the subject of Kelly being someone who “needed lots of stimulation to feel alive.”
“I don’t know if I am any particular type,” she said. “I’ve had so many people try to profile me. I don’t believe there is anybody like me. I don’t think you’ll ever meet anybody like me.”
41
TWO TRACK
FRIZZO FELT THE COCHRANS MIGHT HAVE DUMPED EVIDENCE TYING them to killing Chris Regan near their Lawrence Street home. Jason walked a lot. He fished at the Caspian Pit. The burn barrel was still missing. Thus, if the chief was working under the assumption that Chris Regan had been murdered, the most important question still loomed: Where was his body?
During the week of March 16, 2015, as she worked on a second search warrant to go back into the Cochran house, specifically the basement, garage, and upstairs, Frizzo walked the area, woods, and trails around the Cochran house.
The idea that they’d taken off after that search warrant stuck in the back of Frizzo’s mind. It said something. She wondered if she could have done more to keep tabs on their whereabouts at all times.
“Honestly, my first thought when I heard they’d taken off was fear for my fourteen-year-old son’s safety. Then, when I saw their location and direction of travel”—toward Indiana, where they had family and once lived—“I again just thought that these silly people considered the miles between us will make me stop. But they obviously didn’t know anything about me.”
Another interesting moment Frizzo had heard about took place the day after the first warrant had been executed.
Kelly and Jason stopped at the magistrate’s office to demand a copy of the search warrant’s probable-cause affidavit. They were curious to see what evidence the IRPD had leading them into the house.
“I don’t have any of the copies back yet,” said the magistrate. “Plus, you’d have to go through a judge, anyway, to get your hands on the affidavit.”
When Frizzo heard about this, she called Melissa Powell, the prosecutor.
“I don’t want them seeing my probable-cause documents and know everything we’re doing.”
“Understood.”
A motion was filed with the judge by the prosecutor to prevent the Cochrans, or anyone else, from seeing the probable-cause affidavit connected to the warrant.
“Kelly just wanted to know exactly what I knew,” Frizzo said. “And the main reason they fled was the fear that I would be back to arrest them. They were afraid they may have missed something. That I would come back after finding, and proving, it was Chris’s blood inside their house. When they fled, I knew I had them. I didn’t care where they went. Honestly, my thought was ‘Do they really think any amount of distance will stop me?’”
* * *
THEY CALLED IT THE “Two Track,” an area on the outskirts of Lawrence Street. A dirt road, or pathway, running northwest from Lawrence Street, about three hundred yards directly northwest of the Cochran house, along the edge of the Caspian Pit. Frizzo thought Chris’s body had been dumped, along with additional evidence, somewhere within this stretch of secluded road and woods.
As she walked, looking for anything that stood out, marking specific areas where she believed an item was connected to the case, the old Caspian dump site, located in this same general area, was of particular interest to the chief. Frizzo found a set of “unusual footprints” along a cliff line, in a “very steep area,” where footprints should not have been. From there, the footprints circled a fresh mound of sand and dirt. Not a large pile, but big enough for a grave.
“It’s very unusual that a mound of sand or dirt would have been placed there,” a guy from the Department of Public Works (DPW) explained to Frizzo, who had phoned him.
There was still too much frost on the ground, a solid layer of about four inches, for the K9s to come out, have a sniff around, and be useful. So Frizzo was told to make note of the locations she wanted searched. When the ground thawed, the K9s could do their thing.
Not to be deterred, Frizzo continued looking. She came upon an old blanket partially sticking out of the ground, frozen into the soil. She got down on one knee. There were human hairs attached to the blanket. It seemed an odd place for a blanket.
Frizzo called in a backhoe.
She stood by DPW employee Jeff Andreski as he worked the controls and dug near the mound and a few areas surrounding it. By then, Frizzo had excavated the blanket from the ground, bagged it, and sent it to the lab.
As Andreski dug, Frizzo wanted to believe Chris Regan was speaking to her once again, but she wasn’t feeling it this time.
Frizzo sifted through the dirt as Andreski dug.
In the end, nothing came of it.
Within a day, Frizzo had located the owner of the blanket—it had nothing to do with her case.
42
FEELING THE PRESSURE
ON MONDAY, MARCH 16, 2015, FRIZZO SENT A LAB REQUEST TO PROCESS a specimen of Chris Regan’s DNA she had obtained from the military. Obtaining his DNA directly from the military was important to avoid possible contamination by using other sources of DNA, such as a toothbrush, touch DNA from a glass inside his apartment, or a hair from a hat. She needed to find out if Chris’s blood could be connected to any of the blood found inside the Cochran home—and be certain about it.
“We’ll jump right on it.”
Later that day, Kelly called. Frizzo was still thinking about the fruitless search at the old dump. There had to be something somewhere. There was no way the Cochrans had not utilized that wooded area, the dirt roads surrounding the Caspian Pit.
“Will you be fixing our house back up after wrecking it?” Kelly said. The resentment in her voice was obvious.
“Are you referring to the search warrant we executed back on March fifth?”
“Yes!”
“I’ve been trying to contact you since then to see if you have any questions or concerns, but you know what, Kelly, I haven’t been able to find you.”
“You took our p
hones—remember?”
“Kelly . . .”
“I went to the Iron County Courthouse to get a copy of the warrant affidavit, but we were unable to get one. Look, are you going to be fixing our house back up so it’s once again livable?”
“The ceiling tiles can be replaced. . . .”
“You cannot get those kind anymore,” Kelly lashed back before Frizzo could finish.
“We can give you back the tiles, once the lab has cleared them.”
“What about our door? You ruined it.”
“We didn’t ruin your door. We can replace whatever hardware we took from it. And listen, Kelly, that door has a hole in it, so it’s not in the best shape, to begin with.”
“The hole was there when we bought the house.”
They went back and forth about the house being in a condition Kelly considered unlivable, which Frizzo knew to be nonsense. Kelly was trying to give the IRPD an excuse for her and Jason leaving the area.
Frizzo wasn’t buying it.
“Why are you contacting me now about your concerns regarding the house? Why have you waited almost two weeks?”
“We don’t have phones!”
“You found the time to stop at the courthouse for the affidavit, but you were unable to find time to stop at the IRPD and discuss your concerns about your house?”
“You don’t treat us very well. So why would we want to come there?”
“We all treated you with respect during the search warrant, Kelly. Please. We allowed you to sit in our patrol car. We also brought you twice to the restroom at the local gas station while we searched.”
Kelly ignored the chief and asked again if they were going to put the house back into its original condition.
Frizzo repeated herself.
Kelly wondered, without being asked, if Frizzo had found blood inside the house, adding that it was from her dog, who had been “in heat.”
“Kelly, look,” the chief said, ignoring this, “I’m going to be straight with you. You might want to contact an attorney at this point.” As Frizzo talked, it was clear by Kelly’s response that she was not “able to comprehend what I was saying.” Frizzo later detailed this observation in her report about the call.
As Frizzo continued to speak, Kelly hung up on her.
Frizzo raised her eyebrows, cradling the phone.
The chief then took a call from a cellular phone company connected to the military. They had recently extracted a bit of information from Chris Regan’s cell phone, which was not yet reported.
“Go ahead,” Frizzo said.
“It appears,” the phone tech explained, “that his cell phone was turned on at nine thirty-nine on the night of October 14, 2014. . . .”
“Thank you.”
43
(RE)SEARCH
IN THE DAYS THAT FOLLOWED, THE INVESTIGATION INTO CHRIS Regan’s disappearance would become darker than anyone involved could have ever predicted. On March 27, 2015, that second search warrant was granted. Frizzo, along with officers from the MSP and Iron County Sheriff’s Office (ICSO) pulled up to 66 Lawrence Street.
As a formality, Frizzo knocked.
No answer.
She banged.
Nothing.
“I’m going in through the back.”
After letting everyone else in through the front, Frizzo stood and looked around.
“Immediately,” she recalled, “I could tell the Cochrans had been packing household items to permanently” leave the area.
Pictures had been taken off walls. Clothes and other items left on the floor. The bathroom had been “completely” cleaned out. The upstairs was barren, save for a few major pieces of furniture. It was as if whatever the Cochrans could take and carry out, they did.
Frizzo opened the basement door and walked carefully down the stairs. She could smell a heavy aroma of marijuana. There was a room with a lock on it. Frizzo popped the lock and stepped in. There were eight dead pot plants.
“This tells me they departed hastily, for sure,” Frizzo said. Jason Cochran would not have left behind that much weed if he wasn’t looking to leave in a hurry.
As Frizzo studied the basement, her concern for Chris Regan grew. The basement stairs appeared to have been removed at one point. She leaned down, looked underneath.
Fresh dirt was below the stairs.
“Look at this,” said one forensic specialist.
Frizzo looked up the top of the stairs.
After spraying luminol on the wall leading down into the basement, it glowed. Frizzo stepped up to take a look. It was an “oddly shaped” section of wall—and the only section, Frizzo noted, freshly painted.
As she rummaged through a pile of debris and odd household items in the basement, Frizzo came up with a spiral-bound notebook. She opened it.
Jason had written this particular notebook while he was in the hospital after suffering his psychological meltdown in September.
“He talked about how he was ‘going crazy’ even while on the meds he was taking, how he wished his wife would at least just call him.”
Another notebook the chief picked up was a bit more interesting. In this one, Jason described how he was working on a book about his life, describing a person who “beats his wife and has a ‘hit list.’”
Frizzo placed it in an evidence bag.
Out in back of the house, Frizzo and members of the team focused on the garage. As they entered and looked carefully around this “very unusual structure,” they noticed boards on the north side “that looked as though they had been recently placed.” Fresh wood planks nailed in between old ones.
Frizzo lifted up one of the boards.
The “dirt foundation was found to be very loose.”
Forensic techs removed a larger area’s boards to take a closer look.
They brought in tools and equipment. They dug in an area underneath the floorboards that seemed to have been previously excavated.
“The roots were freshly cut.”
They dug deeper.
“Hold up,” someone said.
“What is it?”
A set of bones.
44
RUMOR HAS IT
ARUMOR BEGAN TO CIRCULATE AROUND TOWN THAT CHRIS REGAN’S body had been found “in or near the Caspian Pit.” This prompted Kelly to become further agitated.
Kelly called the prosecutor’s office (PO) a few days after that second search. She was livid: “Who authorized a second search of our house?”
During that search, firearms ammunition was seized for a .22 pistol, .30-06, .380, twelve-gauge shotgun, and Winchester .25 automatic. No additional guns had been located, however, other than the .22 revolver and the twelve-gauge shotgun Frizzo and her team had found during the March 5 search warrant.
Since finding and studying the Where Monsters Hide notebook Frizzo found during the second warrant, she realized Chris Regan had been likely murdered by both Kelly and Jason.
As it turned out, however, those bones found in the garage, underneath the recently nailed boards and fresh dirt, were probably from a dog, skunk, or possum. And the bloody ceiling tiles, walls, and carpet had been so contaminated by chemicals—bleach and paint—that no DNA comparison could link the samples to Chris’s DNA.
Still, Kelly was under the impression that the IRPD had found Chris.
The PO explained to Kelly that the recent warrant sworn in front of the magistrate, along with the accompanying probable-cause affidavit, were sealed. It would be to the Cochrans’ best interest, the office explained, to obtain legal counsel.
Since the time of that second search, K9s had been brought out to the house to sniff around. They hit on the garage and an area in the back by the garage where it was clear a fire pit had once been located. Beyond that, the dogs led team members down to the Two Track area and the Caspian Pit, where they picked up a path leading down into the water.
Something was there. Frizzo stood by the water, staring, thinking. She could feel it. She want
ed divers and underwater camera equipment to have a look, see what the Cochrans had tossed into the water.
For weeks, Frizzo had been calling the Cochrans in Indiana. She’d left several voice mail messages for Jason’s parents. Since then, she’d also come up with a cell phone number connected to Kelly. When she called it, the voice mail message “sounded like Kelly’s voice,” so Frizzo left multiple messages.
No one ever called back.
Finally, on April 15, 2015, Kelly called. It was seven twenty-five a.m., and Kelly was angry again. The pressure Frizzo had applied was beginning to work.
“Would you and Jason be willing to submit to a DNA sample?” Frizzo asked. “We need it for investigative—”
Kelly did not allow the chief to finish. “No!”
“It’s important for us and comparative purposes regarding the case—”
“No! Jason and I have been cooperative enough.”
“In what ways have you been cooperative, Kelly?”
“We’ve given you our phones. We’ve allowed you to search our house.”
“Kelly, we had a search warrant for both,” the chief said. Did she need to explain that with or without Kelly and Jason’s consent, the searches would have been done.
“You destroyed our house. That’s why we left.”
“Kelly, you should know that we’ve switched our case file class on Chris Regan from a ‘missing person’ to a ‘homicide.’ The lab needs your DNA for comparison tests.”
The phone call ended.
Frizzo wrote a warrant for the DNA. A few days after speaking with Kelly, she contacted the local police in Hobart, Indiana, the town where Kelly and Jason were now living. The chief indicated she was going to need assistance in collecting Jason and Kelly’s DNA.
Meanwhile, the Cochrans got wind of what might be happening. Never had the vise been so tight. They could feel it. Jason had called the prosecutor’s office on April 21 to ask if any charges had been filed against him or his wife.
“Fishing” was how Frizzo later explained it. “They began to call and fish for any information they could find out.”
Frizzo had been trying to phone Jason all morning long on the same number he’d used to call the PO. Finally, that afternoon, he picked up.
Where Monsters Hide Page 17