Where Monsters Hide

by M. William Phelps

  Frizzo already had a photo of Chris Regan that his family had provided. She placed Chris’s photo underneath the date of October 14 on a calendar tacked to the wall in her office, directly in front of her desk. She took the Cochran photo and tacked it just underneath.

  “I wanted to keep my mind on them all during the day,” Frizzo later said. “I guess I wanted my subconscious to see them constantly. It’s hard to explain. No matter what else I was doing or working on, just glancing at them, even if I didn’t realize it was happening, kept me driven to find out what had happened to Chris. They never left my thoughts. I wasn’t going to stop.”

  48

  SAGE ADVICE

  ON FRIDAY, JULY 24, 2015, FRIZZO DROVE TO HOBART TO WITNESS THE DNA extraction and, with any luck, get another crack at talking to Jason and Kelly.

  When she arrived, the chief was greeted by Detective Steve Houck and a lieutenant. Houck had prepared a room for the DNA extraction. HPD had a solid lead on the Cochrans, knew they were staying at Kelly’s parents’ house, a rock toss southwest of Hobart. It was decided two cops would head out and bring them in under the warrant. Frizzo waited at HPD with Houck. They talked about the case, Frizzo noting her frustration at not being able to get much information out of Jason or Kelly.

  “I wish Jeremy was here,” Houck said. “He’d know what to say. He could get them to talk.”

  Frizzo confided she was chasing two murderers and was not, as she put it, “a seasoned homicide detective.”

  “I can’t get either of them to give me what I want.”

  Jeremy Ogden, the detective Houck referred to, was out on a work-related injury. Ogden, a rugged, experienced, tenacious detective, had been torn apart by a K9 while clearing a house. He was at home recuperating.

  “I can take a ride over and see Jeremy, if you want,” Houck suggested.

  “Any help would be greatly appreciated.”

  * * *

  TWO HPD COPS KNOCKED on the door of Kelly’s parents’ house.

  Jason answered.

  They explained why they were there and asked if he was prepared to go downtown.

  Jason didn’t have a choice.

  “I had a feeling this was related to the Iron River case,” Jason said. He seemed terrified. “Sure, I can go with you.” As he said it, Jason began to “shake uncontrollably,” both cops noted.

  “Kelly here?”

  “No. She’s working.”

  They walked Jason to the car. “You have anything in your pockets?” one cop asked.

  Jason looked at them. Reached into his pocket and took out a knife.

  He sat down in the backseat of the cruiser.

  The knife was “suspicious” to the cop because of what the officer later described as “discoloration,” a reddish tint, on the blade.

  Frizzo walked into the room where Jason was waiting. She had a notebook. Not the Where Monsters Hide outline, but a second notebook she’d recovered from the Caspian house. Work-related stuff from Jason’s time as a pool installer. By then, the LCSD had taken DNA from inside Jason’s cheek, and HPD had a warrant to have the knife forensically tested for blood.

  “That your handwriting?” Frizzo asked Jason, pointing at the notebook on the table in front of them.

  “Yes, it is.”

  Frizzo asked about Chris Regan.

  Jason became agitated and nervous. His face “reddened and he continued to take large gulps, but would not offer information other than [saying] he had never met Chris Regan.”

  “Come on, Jason. . . .”

  “I want an attorney.”

  “Would you be willing to talk to me if I was able to get you an attorney?”

  Jason laughed. “Uh, no way.”

  Frizzo left the room. By then, two HPD cops had located Kelly at work and brought her in.

  After the LCSD CSI unit took a DNA extraction from Kelly’s inner cheek, Frizzo greeted her.

  Kelly smiled. “Detective?”

  “Hi, Kelly. Listen, I was wondering if you’d still like to be on record as saying that you have no idea where that park-and-ride is located?” This was a carefully thought-out path the chief believed might help lead her into a more productive conversation. Frizzo had direct proof Kelly had lied about this.

  “I do not know where it is, Detective.”

  “Would you like to have a look at your own text messages, where you’re making plans to meet up with other individuals at the park-and-ride?”

  Kelly dropped her head. Shook it back and forth. It was clear Kelly knew she had made—among many others—a mistake. She had no idea how to get out of it.

  “Kelly, can you answer me?”

  “I want an attorney.”

  * * *

  DETECTIVE STEVE HOUCK SAT with Detective Jeremy Ogden at Ogden’s house and talked over the case the HPD had become involved in. Both Ogden and Houck understood the chief had been trying to break Jason, the weaker link, since October 2014 and could use some guidance.

  Before leaving for Iron River, while she’d waited that day, Frizzo had heard a bit about Jeremy Ogden and realized the guy was a first-rate detective who had been involved with scores of cases. He had a “gift” for questioning suspects and getting them to open up, Frizzo was told. People trusted the guy for some reason. He was revered for his investigatory tactics and overall knowledge of murder investigations. As Frizzo walked around HPD and ran into photos of Jeremy Ogden, she thought he was cute, too.

  As Houck and Ogden talked, Ogden offered some advice.

  “Steve, someone needs to follow Jason Cochran for a day and, when he’s alone, approach him and tell him it’s our duty as police officers investigating a murder to let him know that through our investigation we believe his wife is planning to kill him. We offer him an out to come forward and tell the truth.”

  “Right,” Houck said.

  “Or take his chances.”

  49

  SINK OR SWIM

  FRIZZO LATCHED ONTO A LEAD POINTING HER IN THE DIRECTION OF A local landfill in Iron River. Several town workers and a Dumpster company employee had reported a smell—the like of which they had never come across—radiating from one particular Dumpster in town back in October. To these guys, rotten meat and putrid food smells were the norm—they were used to raunchy odors out on the road every day. But this was the smell of death, they said. Not an animal. Not a discarded deer carcass tossed by a local hunter. This smelled of a rotting human being. It had taken quite a while to zero in on the site where that particular Dumpster had been unloaded, but through an intense search, Frizzo and her team located it. Frizzo made a call to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, specifically the FBI’s Emergency Response Team (ERT). The landfill was in Wisconsin.

  Frizzo felt a resurgence of confidence after a meeting she attended with the FBI, including special agents from several different field offices. She had e-mailed a narrative of the case thus far. After reading it, they agreed and “felt this case had powerful and condemning circumstantial evidence” against the Cochrans.

  Finally, Frizzo thought, someone on my side. Someone is listening to me.

  * * *

  THE CHIEF DEVELOPED an informant who had been routinely communicating with the Cochrans since they’d taken off from town. Randy (pseudonym) called Frizzo and recounted a conversation with Kelly back in late July, just after the Hobart DNA extraction. Randy had been hanging around Jason and Kelly. Kelly, especially, was feeling the pressure after the DNA extraction.

  “What did she tell you?” Frizzo asked.

  “Well, she said, ‘They haven’t found a body yet or we would have been arrested.’”

  Randy described how defiant Kelly sounded on this particular day. How determined and willing she was to continue playing cat and mouse with Frizzo and the IRPD. By the end of the call, Randy said, Kelly had gotten straight to her main point.

  “What was that?” Frizzo asked.

  “She said, ‘They’re never going to find a body.’” />
  “You stay in touch with her, okay?”

  “I will.”

  * * *

  THE FBI WANTED TO conduct its own search at the Cochran house. Everyone felt there was more to be learned from that scene. They could not be certain the Cochrans had not buried Chris Regan somewhere on the property, or that the police had exhausted the inside of the residence for evidence. On August 31, 2015, the Detroit Division of the FBI’s ERT went to work processing 66 Lawrence Street for a third time.

  Frizzo observed. There was serious money behind the case now, not to mention the backing of the nation’s top investigative division. She felt a bit of momentum. Prior to this, she had called the MSP to ask for assistance in extracting the DNA in Hobart. According to Frizzo, she was told, “Look, we don’t have the time or money to be helping you with this case anymore.” She was on her own.

  The FBI took dozens of items from the Cochran house: wooden planks and sections of drywall, doors and carpeting, shower and drain traps, garden hoses, a second baseball bat, the bathroom sink, and a good-luck charm.

  Frizzo found the rabbit’s foot interesting. The FBI had located the “trinket” or “good luck charm,” as they called it, in an odd place: under the west entryway porch, beneath a board with a corner of it chipped away, like perhaps it was marked.

  Had it fallen and landed there without anyone knowing?

  After placing the good-luck rabbit’s foot in a ziplock evidence bag, Frizzo made a call to Terri O’Donnell, Chris Regan’s ex-girlfriend.

  “Terri, listen, I have something I want to ask you. Did Chris ever have, like, a rabbit’s foot charm you might keep for good luck’s sake? Do you recall anything like that?”

  It was white, with a cotton-candy-like blue tint to the fur.

  “Yes, as a matter of fact, he did. I remember distinctly seeing it when he lived in Suttons Bay and then again in Iron River, on his kitchen table.”

  “No kidding?” Frizzo wondered how Terri recalled such a detail.

  “Well, we had a discussion about it one night. Chris was a very superstitious person. He would carry that rabbit’s foot in his pocket whenever he was feeling worried or was hoping for good news or good luck.” Terri went on to describe how “unique” it was, since it was a “real rabbit’s foot . . . with a brass or silver top to attach to the keys. . . .”

  Further, Frizzo learned, the area of boards where the rabbit’s foot had been found “tested positive” for the presence of blood.

  * * *

  FRIZZO TOOK A CALL from her informant, Randy, near the end of August. Randy had more information.

  “What’s going on?”

  Randy explained he’d gone up to Hobart to spend some time with Kelly and Jason at Kelly’s parents’ house. The conversations they’d had were chilling.

  There was one night when they got talking about the IRPD and the search warrants.

  “They’re going to find Chris Regan’s blood in our truck,” Kelly said. “Yup. It’s gonna be there. He cut his foot one day while we were hiking. He bled in the truck.”

  Frizzo was curious.

  “Jason often talks about the different ways in which to kill someone,” Randy added. “He’s homicidal. And Kelly, before they even moved up here from Michigan, she started an affair with someone in Indiana she was getting drugs from. Jason found the guy. He went to his house and told him, ‘If I ever see you with my wife again, I will kill you.’”

  “Anything else?”

  “After you guys left, you know, when you took their DNA, Kelly told me that if they are arrested, to grab money from their safe and put their dog to sleep. Kelly is also heavily involved with a guy she works with—and very much deeply into meth. I think Jason might be having an affair, too, and he seems ‘doped up’ most days. He asked me one night, ‘Doesn’t everyone hear voices in their heads?’”

  * * *

  DURING THE SPRING OF 2018, Kelly sent me a letter. We’d been talking periodically for nearly a year by then. She hadn’t said much of anything significant. Small talk, mainly. The same sort of runaround and rhetoric she’d displayed with Frizzo and the MSP. By then, I knew more about her life than she thought—especially her and Jason’s secrets.

  “I hate germs,” Kelly explained.

  After what she would reveal in this letter, I thought that was ironic.

  She wrote of so much pain and loss I have never had a chance to grieve. She talked about “many people” not understanding her—or my heart or my decisions and that’s okay.

  She claimed that out of all the losses in her life, Chris was the “biggest.”

  Then an incredible statement tossed into a letter that seemed to jump all over the place.

  I still hear [Chris’s] screams while Jason was cutting him up with me tied to a chair. I can still taste his blood.... I begged for Jason to kill me.

  She claimed Jason said he was going to “keep” her alive: to let me remember all of the horrors [I’d] just witnessed.

  Kelly tried suicide three times before the year 2016, she claimed.

  Jason had at least three girlfriends that Kelly knew of, she said: I actually hoped he’d leave me for one of them someday, but they bored him.

  Jason was only with these women, according to Kelly, because of a mutual interest in S and M, which she referred to as “torture,” noting that Jason was into inflicting pain during sex: He loved to choke me. He loved to tell me that I loved it, too.

  Kelly said she’s not afraid to die: Living is the hard part.

  Regarding the Saylor neighbors and Jason feeding them Chris’s body parts, Kelly said no, it never happened. That wasn’t Jason’s MO.

  His history spoke of something equally horrific, however.

  The thought of Jason cooking Chris’s body parts and feeding them to neighbors was “ironic,” Kelly concluded. Because in the past, she maintained, Jason had murdered scores of people and fed those body parts to the pigs the Cochrans then raised—that is, before selling the human-flesh-fed pork as local, organic, fresh local meat.

  50

  CLOSING IN

  THE NEXT FEW MONTHS INVOLVED LOTS OF TEDIOUS PAPERWORK, studying and sifting through reports and cellular phone records, on top of those seemingly mundane tasks consuming an investigation of this scope. All of it, however, was an essential part of the case for Frizzo. She needed to detail and map every move the Cochrans had made during the times in question. The investigation was inching toward the one-year mark. The IRPD had made progress, of course, but in many ways, the chief was right back where she’d started.

  No body.

  No arrests.

  The FBI wanted to dredge the Caspian Pit more carefully to see if divers could turn up anything. (They didn’t.) Frizzo and the FBI also went back to that Honeybee Lane / U.S. 2 section of highway in Wisconsin, where the Cochrans had sat for eight minutes. Law enforcement wanted to see if they could find anything there. (They didn’t.) A case was building, no doubt about it. But without a body, it was going to be difficult to convince a magistrate that an arrest warrant for one or both was prudent. Prosecutor Melissa Powell encouraged Frizzo to keep pressing, keep digging, keep the faith. Utilize the FBI. These things take time. There were murder investigations that were ten, fifteen, and twenty years old. Meanwhile, Frizzo had a solid informant in touch with the Cochrans on a regular basis. Maybe it was a matter of patience— allowing the Cochrans, both of whom seemed now to be actively involved in heavy drugs, to make a mistake. Sooner or later, Frizzo was confident, they were going to reveal themselves.

  As Frizzo focused on the case involving a baby homicide she’d been working on since June 2014, months before Chris Regan went missing, she could have never known how prophetic HPD detective Jeremy Ogden’s piece of advice to Steve Houck had been: “Let [Jason] know that through our investigation we believe his wife is planning to kill him. . . .” Or how far a turn the disappearance of Chris Regan was about to take.

  “I had a strange, spiritual-like feel
ing,” Frizzo later explained, “that something was going to happen to Jason, Kelly, or both. I can’t explain it.”

  Arguably, and hotly debated, human beings have six basic emotions: fear, anger, disgust, surprise, happiness and sadness. A cop’s instinct, no doubt about it, should be seven.

  PART 4

  MURDER PACT

  51

  THE SOUNDS OF SILENCE

  HE WAS BARELY BREATHING. WITH THEIR EARS UP TO HIS MOUTH, paramedics could hear a faint “breathy” sound coming from his lungs. Yet no “epigastric” noises were present—the upper central region of his abdomen, in other words, was not moving.

  If he wasn’t dead yet, it was a matter of minutes, maybe seconds. His body was shutting down.

  The call came in as an “unresponsive male” on February 20, 2016, near seven p.m.

  “He’s barely breathing,” the woman told the 911 operator. She sounded shaky, rather angry, at times mumbling, at others clear as cellophane, with several inaudible moments throughout. Still, within it all, she displayed no panic—as if, perhaps, calling was more of a nuisance. “I don’t know . . . he’s throwing up. He’s sweating. I need an ambulance. Right away.”

  “Okay, are you in a hotel—is that a hotel?” dispatch asked.

  “No,” she said. “I’m in a home.” At this point, she sounded out of breath.

  “And how old is the person?”

  “Thirty-seven—just get an ambulance here. Right now!”

  “Okay . . . You said ‘difficulty breathing’?”

  “Barely . . .” She called out his name. Her desperation counterfeit, like she was putting on a performance. She then took a few quick breaths in, as if gasping for air herself. “He is still breathing.. . .”

  The caller said a number of things next. Most of it hard to make out. Then became focused, clear, and direct: “I need an ambulance here, right away.... I gotta tend to him.”