Kelly had no response.
Another important factor was evidence transfer: If Jason and Kelly had driven Chris’s car to the park-and-ride when Kelly claimed (and driven their truck to dump his remains), there would have been blood and trace evidence inside both vehicles.
Ogden brought up this uncertainty, noting that if the basement floor was covered with blood, forensics would have found—at the least—bloody footprints or spatter somewhere.
“I changed my shoes.”
“Shirts, pants . . . come on, Kelly.”
“He and I changed shirts and pants.”
Kelly was the one to meet her lovers at the park-and-ride; so there was no question Jason followed her, not the other way around.
The walls were closing in.
“Now,” Ogden said, “you said there was a twenty-two-caliber revolver, which the IRPD found, in the house, and you knew where it was.”
“Right.”
“So you’re in fear of a man down in the basement cutting up a body, and you have this gun right there, and you do not go get that gun to defend yourself?”
Kelly stared into space.
“You don’t use that gun as protection and get into your truck and drive away?” he added.
“He’d take it away from me!”
“You just shoot him.”
No answer.
“You think you could kill Jason?”
“I could never.”
As Kelly talked through choosing the actual dump site, she used the pronoun “we” repeatedly.
“There are so many details missing here, Kelly. You’re leaving out so much. And in my experience, the only reason people leave out details in any investigation is to cover themselves.”
Kelly shrugged her shoulders. Looked away.
“What did you two do when you got home from dumping the body?”
Embarrassed, Kelly said, “We had sex.”
She laughed.
This is funny?
The following day, October 15, Kelly said they went to Walmart, then grocery shopping, and even stopped at the Peking Chinese Restaurant in town to eat.
Eventually Kelly went over to Chris’s apartment that day alone, lying to Jason about where she was going. Again, another opportunity was there for her to run to the IRPD or tell someone what was going on. But she didn’t. Instead, she went into Chris’s apartment to grab incriminating items she’d left behind—one of which included a camera with “sexually explicit” photos and videos that she and Chris had made together.
Ogden wanted to know why she did not go to the police, tell a passerby what was happening, or relay how “scared” she was.
“I just couldn’t do that to Jason.”
Kelly talked about a trip she and Jason took in the days after the murder. They drove to Ashland (two hours away) and Menominee (four hours away), Wisconsin.
Ogden knew the trip wasn’t a joyride; they’d likely dumped parts of Chris Regan in various places along the way.
“I was . . . I was drugged up. I do not recall.”
They discussed the Post-it note directions found on the front seat of Chris’s car. Ogden wasn’t buying that a veteran and avid hiker would have any trouble popping Lawrence Street into his GPS and finding the house himself.
Kelly said nothing.
“Did you cry while inside Chris’s apartment—you loved this man, you said?”
“No,” Kelly said, shaking her head.
* * *
APRIL 26, 2016, WAS Chris Regan’s birth date. Knowing this, applying a chess move, Ogden got hold of Kelly and asked if they could meet.
“Okay.”
Kelly walked into HPD later that morning. Ogden had her sit down in the interview room.
“Hi, Kelly.”
“What’s up?”
“Look, I know you’ve lied to me about lots and lots of stuff here.”
Kelly admitted to tossing that camera with all the sex photos/ videos into a lake where she and one of her boyfriends would go to have sex.
While they continued discussing the lies Kelly had told, he was able to get her to admit “she knew that [Chris Regan] was coming [to the house] to die” that night. She had been texting him, enticing him with sex (that “present” she said during the videotaped walk-and-talk). Equally important was the story about her phone being broken, which was why she claimed to have used Jason’s phone to text Chris.
“She uses Jason’s phone so what was about to occur would all fall upon Jason, not her,” Ogden said.
Kelly planned on setting Jason up for it all—then killing him.
They came to the subject of trophies. Jason kept keepsakes from all “his kills” in a Crown Royal velvet bag, Kelly said.
The detective pressed her about this.
Kelly balked, then took credit, saying they were “her kills,” not Jason’s. “I have trophies. . . . ”
On October 15, Kelly said, she spent the entire day “using gallons of bleach,” cleaning up the basement. There was no domineering husband standing over her shoulder, holding a gun to her head while she scrubbed and mopped up blood. Kelly did it because it had to be done. Jason smoked weed all day and took naps.
“You like playing chess, Kelly?”
“Not very good at it.”
“Well, look, I think you are pretty damn good at it.”
Kelly smiled. “We’ll see.”
This became a recurring theme, both routinely referring to “the moving of the pawns.”
Ogden knew nothing about chess. He’d never played.
“Let’s talk again tomorrow,” he suggested.
“Okay.”
Kelly left.
It took about twelve hours for Kelly to make the next move. On April 27, 2016, close to a prearranged time they were supposed to meet, Kelly texted. Her cell service wasn’t working so well. She was running late.
Jeremy sensed an urgency; something was up.
She’s running . . . shit.
The next day, April 28, after not seeing Kelly at all on April 27, Jeremy texted: Are you showing up?
Kelly was scheduled to be there at nine a.m.
It’s going to be around ten. Sorry. Running late.
Where? Go to the station and text me.
Ever burn?
Jeremy didn’t get it.
Pawn move?
Typo?
Ever been to the West Coast? I was driving last night.
Shit!
What’s up? Are you meeting me today? Hello?
This is fun, Kelly texted. Very interesting.
Jeremy didn’t respond right away.
A while later, Kelly sent a final text of the day.
Game on!
69
THE MONSTER
THE IDEA THAT KELLY WOULD TAKE OFF WAS ALWAYS IN THE BACK OF Ogden’s (and Frizzo’s) mind. Kelly was volatile, shaken, backed against a wall of evidence, not to mention using hard-core drugs. The iron fist of justice for not one murder, but two, was a reality—and she knew it.
Ogden texted back an answer to the “Game on” text.
LOL.
He called Frizzo. “I think she’s on the run. . . .”
“Shit. I’ve been talking to Colton, Kelly’s brother. He’s been saying he’s concerned she will take her own life.”
An arrest warrant was imminent. Now was not the time, however, to push it through and make mistakes. Frizzo and Ogden needed to be certain they had enough to hold Kelly once they dragged her in under warrant. Still, the clock was ticking: Was Kelly about to end the entire thing with a suicide? With her gone, they’d never find Chris Regan.
Ogden called Lake County dispatch. “I need an emergency ping on a cell phone.” It wouldn’t be difficult to track Kelly down if she was still using her phone.
Turned out the dispatcher was one of Jason’s cousins.
“Okay,” Ogden explained, “you have to understand that what we are doing here today, you need to maintain confidentiality, and wha
tever you do, please, you cannot share the information with any of your family members.”
“I don’t like her, anyways.”
Some time passed and the dispatcher called back.
“Anything?”
“It’s likely she’s heading to her cousin’s house. She’s had contact with him over the past few days. She might stop there.”
“Where?”
The dispatcher gave Jeremy the cousin’s address: Wingo, Kentucky.
Kelly texted Jeremy: Your move, Detective, See you soon. That’s funny. Why didn’t you just say you were out? NO more conversations?
Ogden didn’t immediately hear back. He spoke to dispatch and confirmed Kelly’s cell had been used outside Wingo. She’d turn on her phone to text, then turn it off.
I wasn’t going to make it that easy for you. I’ve worked hard, Kelly answered.
Are you going to call me? What’s the deal? No more texting. Call.
Frizzo phoned to say she was going to the prosecutor to work on the legal end of things from their end. An arrest warrant would be issued soon.
“I’ll call the Marshal’s Service,” Jeremy said.
They hung up.
Jeremy set up a conference call with the local U.S Marshal’s Service, Frizzo, and legal.
“I’m just about to swear the warrant,” Frizzo said.
The Marshals were already “rolling their team into Wingo,” setting up on a house they’d traced Kelly to.
“I’ve just been told we have her truck in sight,” a Kentucky State Police (KSP) officer on the call said.
The warrant was sworn. Faxed to Kentucky. It was time to move on Kelly Cochran. They had what they needed.
* * *
NEAR EIGHT ON THAT same night, Kelly Cochran was taken into custody without incident. She smiled. Laughed. It was clear she was amped up on something, likely meth, considering her face was full of sores from picking at it.
Ogden took the call. At home, he grabbed a beer from his fridge and walked into his garage. Took a moment. Over four beers, he talked to a lieutenant in Kentucky who said Kelly was requesting to give a statement, but wanted Ogden to take it.
Ogden phoned Detective Steve Houck.
“We got her. Can you come with me tomorrow to Kentucky and finish this case?”
“Of course, Jeremy.”
“Let’s leave soon as possible, actually.”
They drove to Kentucky through the night, arriving at the Mayfield Police Department (MPD), where Kelly was being held, near six a.m.
Kelly seemed different. Her hair was shiny, greasy, and unkempt; her skin was pale, and her face full of scabs; plus, she seemed defeated. Not happy about the way it all shook out.
“She became very serious.”
Ogden took out a piece of paper. Drew a square box on it:
Kelly looked at the page. Then up at him.
“You are in a box, Kelly. This is where you are. And this is where you will be.”
She nodded. Smiled.
“It was after I had explained that she was in a box, and that box was a jail cell, that things changed.”
Kelly became engaged in the task at hand. She even started to joke around.
“And I know at that point it’s going to be a meaningful conversation,” Ogden said later.
“Why did you allow this to happen, Kelly?” he asked.
Kelly dropped her shoulders. Twitched a bit. “Jason,” she said. “He wanted his power back.”
Ogden understood in that moment Kelly had been in control for a long time and Jason was requesting—within whatever deadly game they’d manufactured—control and power back.
“And on some level . . . he wanted his wife back, also,” Ogden commented.
Kelly admitted she knew Jason was in the basement waiting to kill Chris.
“You know, I did not choose this life, it chose me.”
It was clear that Kelly was saying she had been brought into this world “this way” and there was nothing she could do about it. So she embraced it.
“Really?”
“It wasn’t my choice. Jason wanted his wife back. I had stripped him of too much.”
“You’re a very controlling person, Kelly, a manipulator.”
“It’s how I am. I was born that way.”
“I know you loved him—loved him more than anyone,” Ogden said about Chris Regan. It was another ploy. He did not believe that Kelly Cochran could love anyone—let alone a man she dated, slept with, killed, and dismembered.
She did not respond.
“What was the plan on October fourteenth?”
“Jason wanted to go over to Chris’s apartment to kill him.”
“That would have been too sloppy, though, right?”
“[Jason] needs me. Of course, it would have been sloppy. Jason does not think.”
“So you go to work, right?” Ogden meant that she put her training in forensics and psychology into action.
“Yes.”
“Look at me,” Ogden said with authority as Kelly drifted off.
Kelly mumbled something about “planning this for a long time.” Ogden was unable to catch whether she said “we” or “I.” Still, the implication was clear: premeditation.
The “sloppy” part of the murder came up again. Kelly talked about how she and Jason fought the night before, arguing over Jason’s desire to kill Chris inside Chris’s apartment. It was stupid, Kelly explained, adding how Jason (the sociopath in the relationship) “had emotions” to contend with and could not think rationally with regard to the proper way to commit a murder and get away with it. However, she (the psychopath) did not harbor any of the emotions that would stop her from doing what needed to be done. She could think clearly about committing a murder the “right way,” without involving personal feelings or emotions.
After a brief exchange regarding Kelly not wanting to admit premeditation in fear of walking into a “fatal funnel” (Ogden’s words), a death sentence, Ogden indicated it was too late for that.
“I planned on killing Jason before he killed Chris,” Kelly said.
What stopped her? Ogden wanted to know.
“My emotions clouded my judgment.”
A complete contradiction.
They discussed her choices: Jason or Chris?
“There was no choice. I go with Jason.”
Ogden focused on Jason, asking if she was worried he would go off on his own and kill Chris. How had she managed the anxiety of Jason, in a rage, heading out when she wasn’t around and killing Chris?
“He needs me. If he were to go through with that plan on his own, he would lose. He’s . . . not as smart as I am.”
They talked about Jason needing Kelly’s “blessing to kill Chris.” No matter how much he hemmed and hawed about taking matters into his own hands, Kelly knew he didn’t have the psychological skills or guts to take it to that extreme.
“He did not get my blessing.”
Which meant what? Ogden thought.
All of Kelly’s prior talk about Jason killing other people on his own, she might have just now admitted that, more likely, it was her doing.
As they spoke, Kelly became affectless, stoic, and dark. She expressed no remorse and could not hide it. Killing and dismembering another human being did not bother this woman. Not in the least. Ogden even thought she enjoyed it.
“We had an agreement between us,” Kelly said. “Normal people—when they get married, they share agreements or vows. The two of us, our agreement was that if one of us cheated on the other, that it was that person’s obligation to kill the lover themselves. And if that person did not kill the lover, then the spouse was entitled to just kill the other spouse.”
A murder pact.
Kelly gave an example, using her and Jason.
Ogden wanted to know how Tim Huntley was still alive—that second coworker she was having sex with at the time Chris Regan was murdered.
“We thought about that. You know, but I cared abou
t him. We shared something in common.”
“What was that?”
“That [Tim] didn’t have a choice with what was given to him throughout his life, post-traumatic stress disorder.”
Kelly talked about how Jason had actually pulled up in front of Tim Huntley’s house one day and threatened to go in and kill him. But Kelly talked him out of it.
Ogden wondered how she did that.
“Jason worshipped the ground I walked on.”
“What do you get out of this ‘agreement’ between the two of you?”
“Moving the pawns. The prearrangement of what’s going to happen or what happens afterward is where the enjoyment for me lies.”
The hunt. The stalk. The fantasy of what she is about to do. The constant thought of taking a life. Playing God. Killing, by effect, made Kelly feel more alive than anything else: sex, drugs, booze, romance.
The interview bounced around. Kelly tried “misdirecting” Ogden any way she could. He kept refocusing her. He encouraged Kelly to stay on one specific aspect of the murder or cleanup, her and Jason’s roles, but she’d veer off.
“I hope for a male judge,” Kelly said at one point, a smile on her face. She obviously thought if she had manipulated the men in her world as easy as she had, why not a judge?
Ogden said it could be male or female.
“He wanted me to kill Chris,” Kelly said after another digression.
“Did you have your gun on you?”
“He wanted me to either kick him down the stairs or do whatever I needed to do.”
“What’d you think about that?”
“Couldn’t do it. So I had sex with him. I gave him a blow job and then I had sex. It occurred in the middle of sex. I knew I couldn’t kill him. I don’t know why I couldn’t. Maybe the feelings?”
As she thought about it, Kelly said the sex was also a manipulation—that is, not to manipulate Chris, but Jason. She knew if Jason saw them having sex, it would help dredge up the courage and rage to kill.
The reason Kelly pretended to extract the bullet out of Chris’s head—but didn’t really remove it—was not because she was scared of her husband. Rather, she was planning on framing Jason for the murder. It was his gun. He had shot Chris. That bullet in the head represented evidence of Jason killing her lover in a jealous rage.
She described Jason cutting Chris’s body up as “creepy.”
Where Monsters Hide Page 26