Transcript of True Crime Vault: Where Monsters Hide New

In the suburbs of DC, a woman fails to show up for work and is found brutally murdered. 911, which emergency? We just walked in the door and there's blood in the foyer. For the next 2 decades, the case remained unsolved until new technology allowed investigators to do what had once been impossible. A new series from ABC Audio in 2020, Blood and Water.

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From the outside, it honestly looks like a dark Hansel and Gretel kind of house. Your dogs? Okay, are they mean? They're not friendly. As soon as you walk into the house, the hair stands up on the back of your neck.

It's Pretty creepy. It really was. I've come to this remote part of Michigan's Upper Peninsula. It seems haunting, but maybe that's because this is where the mystery unfolds.

There's more media attention to our missing person, Chris Regan. This doesn't look like Chris's apartment at all. It's all disheveled. He was always very neat. Everything was always put away.

The suitcase is out, cart cracking.

And no signs of forced entry or chaos? Absolutely not. Something happened to him. I knew that in my heart, and I knew that my gut— he had another side to him. So immediately, this is a lover's triangle.

How many guys were you actually seeing at the same time? My husband, Eric, and Chris. Not a love triangle, but a love quadrangle. Tell me something, you guys. What happened to Chris Reagan?

That's the stuff of horror movies.

The Upper Peninsula is kind of its own little world.

The Upper Peninsula is also known as the UP. People are Yoopers.

Yoopers are unique people. The Upper Peninsula is separated by the Mackinac Bridge from lower Michigan.

It's in absolute rural forested woodland and kind of terrifying in its isolation.

We can get wind chill readings 30 below zero in the wintertime. It looks like the Arctic sometimes, and, you know, you can kind of feel lost.

One town in the Upper Peninsula is the small town of Iron River, which was named because of the local mining. Iron River, Michigan has Population of about 3,000 with one stoplight in their town.

My name is Laura Frizzo, and I'm the former police chief of Iron River and also the first female police chief actually to serve in the entire Upper Peninsula. It was a lot of double takes when I first started with some of the old-timers who were like, "What's going on here?" The people of Iron River are really good-hearted people. Accepting. But I think when someone new comes to the area, they're a little skeptical at first, and they take their time to make sure that you're worthy of being included into their little circle. One of those outsiders who came to live in Iron River was 51-year-old Chris Reagan.

We had to actually go up and buy him all new clothes, his— what he called his duper clothes, because he had city clothes. Terri O'Donnell was an old flame of Chris Regan's, and the two had recently rekindled their romance.

He decided that he was going to move to Iron River so that we could be closer together. It was a whirlwind. God, I was so in love with him. Christopher and I used to come down out Apple Blossom Trail and then walk around the river. We'd sit listening to the water, just enjoy time together.

So when Chris moved to Iron River, he got a job at a manufacturing company called the Oldenburg Group.

Chris was very meticulous about things. Probably one of our best team leaders that we had. He was actually holding people accountable. Chris was former military and had a reputation as a reliable worker, so it came as a bit of a surprise when he didn't show up for his job. That was October 14th.

I sent a message to, to Chris You know, we haven't heard from you. Is everything okay?

Chris had missed 2 days, and one of my team leaders came forward and told me, "Laura, just so you know, Chris had applied for another position, and he's moving to North Carolina." You know, if he was doing long hours for a pretty demanding company, then maybe he just said, "Enough of that." After 3 days, no call, no show is termination.

Remarkably, 2 whole weeks had gone by and no one had heard from Chris. That's when Terri decides to go to the police.

By this time, the 2 had broken up, but they remained close friends and talked regularly.

I saw this vehicle pull up. And park in front of the police department. And I saw this woman get out of the vehicle and she was crying. And she said that her friend was missing. I was shaking.

I had tears.

What was that interaction like when you first encountered Terry O'Donnell? She was very upset. You know, clearly she knew something wasn't right because She knew him very well. Chief Frizzo sends Sergeant Cindy Barrett to investigate. First stop, Chris Reagan's apartment.

Terry O'Donnell's parents are landlords to Chris Reagan, so Terry had access via key from her parents.

This doesn't look like Chris's apartment at all. It's all disheveled. He was always very neat. Everything was always put away. It was evident that he was in the process of packing up to move to his new job.

There was packing boxes, and on the bed there were suitcases.

And there was papers there for his new job. This is his paperwork to accept the position. It's not even sent yet. His calendar shows that he was going to resign on the 14th. He has the 23rd as his last day of work.

So not a guy who's running away? Absolutely not. And no signs of forced entry or chaos? Not at all. In fact, he had a list started, you know, things that he wanted to get ready for his move.

It says he has everything that he needs to do to move, all of his notes. And on the dining room table were legal pads with to-do lists, like call the power company to shut the power off. It really started to bother me that something was very, very wrong. Now, was this window left open? The windows were left open.

It appeared that he had Left the apartment with full intentions of returning. Something happened to him. I knew that in my heart, and I knew that in my gut.

And I said, we're going to go out, and we're going to check the car. And when we're done with that, I will enter Chris Reagan as a missing person in the national database.

From there, They went to the park and ride where Terri had seen Chris's car abandoned for days. [SPEAKING SPANISH] Christopher's Hyundai Genesis, his vehicle, was there. And that was his baby. He took such good care of it. And so it didn't make sense to me that it was at the park and ride.

When Sergeant Barrett went to take a look at the car. She found, you know, a couple things in the car, like his knee brace that he should have been wearing. That his knee brace? Yep. Does he normally wear the knee brace?

Yep. Okay. And I understand in the car there was an intriguing Post-it note. Yeah, she found, like, a Post-it note that was flipped upside down on the passenger side. We didn't know at first what was written on it and what it would come to mean later.

Christopher always wrote things down on Post-its, and the Post-it note had directions on it. And I told her that wherever those directions went to, that was the last place he was. This is believed to be the last known video of Chris Regan. He's caught on a surveillance camera at a gas station on the afternoon of October 14th, 2014.

Leading up the investigation into Regan's disappearance is a new, inexperienced chief of police, Laura Frizzo. She is a leader in a profession in the Upper Peninsula where there aren't a lot of female leaders. How many people on the force? For full-time. She truly cared and she truly wanted to solve this.

As Chief Frizzo investigates Chris Regan's disappearance, she discovers that he had dated multiple women in his short time in Iron River, and some of those relationships overlapped. I dated Chris Regan back in 2013 from around May till the end of October for about 6 months. He would always send me a text weekly. He was very suave, very sweet, charismatic, just kind of knew how to make you feel good. As far as Terry O'Donnell knew, she thought that she was in an exclusive relationship with Chris, and this behavior came as a real shock to her.

I asked him why, you know, he was doing that, and he said, well, you're going to be gone to Europe for 3 weeks. What happens if I get lonely? So, um, sadly to say, I broke it off with him.

When Chief Frizzo digs deeper into Chris's life, she discovers another woman he'd been dating, a 33-year-old coworker by the name of Kelly Cochran. Neither one of us were all in. It was never going to be because I was married. She was an employee at Oldenburg. Chris was actually involved in her hiring.

Kelly was also new to town, and I think they bonded over that, being two city folk in this small town. I would go over to Chris's and usually cook, and then, I mean, we were intimate, and then usually I would leave. That Post-it note found inside Chris's car at this park and ride could have led to any one of his girlfriend's homes. Turns out it was Kelly Cochran's. Chief Frizzo had told me to go and interview Kelly Cochran to see if she had any information as to the whereabouts of Chris Reagan.

And man came out. So I said, are you Kelly Cochran's husband? And he said, yes. I said, is Kelly home? And he says, no, Kelly's not home.

I don't know where she is. And shortly thereafter, this woman comes out. I asked her if she was Kelly. She said, "Yes, I'm Kelly." It's not unusual for a husband or a wife to say, "No, he's not here." That is very common. I was actually surprised she came out.

So I says, "Is your husband aware of your relationship with Chris Reagan?" She says, "Oh, yes, he's fine with it." fine with it.

Jason Cochran is standing there just stoically, not saying a word, just like a statue, no emotion. She says, I figured Chris left for North Carolina without saying goodbye to me. So I told her, I said, we were wondering why the car was at the Park and Ride. And Kelly Cochran said, in the past tense, He loved that car. And Sergeant Barrett called me afterwards and said, I found that to be very chilling and odd that she said past tense, he loved that car.

Because of her tiny department's limited resources, Chief Frizzo asked for help from the Michigan State Police. They sent two detectives who questioned the Cochrans the very next day. Uh, and I'll tell you guys in advance, I see a therapist for high anxiety. I'm listening to Jason Cochran's interview with the detective. He immediately— I mean, there's no questions asked even yet, and he's like, I just want to let you know that I haven't been doing too well lately.

I actually was institutionalized a little over a month ago, so, okay, you know, I seem like I'm getting wound up. I do see a therapist for it. Lost a close friend, and I've been depressed ever since. Did you think that's what caused um, all your issues, a huge part of it. Yeah.

And don't get me wrong, knowing that my marriage has fallen apart— so you were very much aware of what Kelly was doing.

I either had to accept it or to let her go. So I decided that I could at least accept it for a little while and see if it's, you know, that's what she really wanted was to not be with me, then I was gonna let her go. Kelly, right? Yes. K-E-L-L-Y.

When Kelly came in for her interview, the one thing I noticed about her right out of the gate was her ability to control her body language. Tell us everything you know about Chris. We actually got pretty close in the last 4 months. Okay. Like a best friend.

Did you have an intimate relationship? Yes, we did. Okay. And obviously your husband knows.

She was leaning forward, she had eye contact, and her voice was calm and collected the whole time. When was the last time you saw Chris? I would say between the 12th and the 15th was the last time I saw him. Where did you see him? Um, I seen him at his apartment, I think.

Was, um, Jason upset about that? No. Kelly, she would be looking at Jason. I don't see why you would. Well, I'll tell you why.

Because husbands get jealous. I understand that.

Who do you think would have hurt Chris? I don't think anybody would hurt him. I would like to know what happened as well. That's why I'm willing to be here. I'm a good person.

Despite the love triangle between the Cochrans and Chris Reagan, there's still no evidence of any crime being committed, but Chief Frizzo She still suspects that Reagan's disappearance might be the result of foul play. Frizzo and her small team continued pressing on, and they quickly learned that Kelly also had multiple relationships, including a gentleman who also worked at the Oldenburg Group. Kelly was dating another employee there by the name of Erik Erikson. Erik's supervisor was Chris Reagan. So now police are wondering, could Eric have been upset enough to have harmed Chris?

How would you feel about taking a polygraph test just to prove that you didn't have anything to do with Chris's disappearance?

As Chief Laura Frizzo is investigating the disappearance of Chris Reagan, she discovers evidence of not a love triangle, but a love quadrangle. Even though Kelly Cochran is married to Jason, she is having an affair with Chris and another coworker, Erik Erikson. Erik Erikson was hired as military assembler. Erik was a good employee. He showed up.

He was dependable. Erik was a suspect. Could he have done something to Chris? Because he was angry and jealous and outraged. So it was important to eliminate him.

There was a point with the participation of the Michigan State Police detectives where I think they wanted to take more of a lead in the case and handle it. There was no warning. It was just basically like, hey, Laura said they want to talk to you. And the next thing I know, they're coming at night, pulling up in my driveway, telling me, get in the car. Thanks for coming.

Did you also just got done with work? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. She wanted me to go out with her a couple times, um, like at night.

I think for me it was kind of fun, you know, at first, whatever. I had moved back here and I didn't know anybody, and having somebody give me some attention was kind of like— I liked it. Right. This too, I still have the full text messages. I said, yeah, here, take a look at my phone.

This is our conversations that we've had. So when I looked at his conversations with Kelly, there was a point in time where he got very irritated with her, and it was the week before Chris went missing.

There was a time where we went down to the lake and we were going to have just a couple beers while her phone was going off. Right? And I'm like, you know, somebody's really trying to get a hold of you. Who's— who is it? And she said that it's Chris, you know.

So maybe he was the jealous lover. Yes. And I did think that it could happen. The next step for Erickson, a polygraph or a so-called lie detector test. How would you feel about taking a polygraph test just to prove that you didn't have anything to do with Kristin's disappearance?

Yep, I told him I would do that too. I scheduled a polygraph for him. We went over everything. Yeah, I totally— I totally understand that. All of a sudden, the door goes click.

In walks the officer, and he goes, you passed. And I was like, I did? So— And because of the alibi that he had did check out, I was able to put him to the side and focus more on the Cochrans as the suspects. So as you're doing your sort of criminal profiles, what made Jason a potential suspect in your mind? Jason really had motive.

You know, he was the husband who was being cheated on. Our marriage has kind of been on rocky roads for a little while. The story that I had gotten from Kelly was that they were separated, however, still living under the same Rough. What I came to learn about this marriage was that it had been in trouble for a while. Kelly, you know, was living a life of a single person.

She was constantly running around with different men. There were times when she came home about 1:30, didn't even tell me where she was at, and I didn't really want to know. I hate to say it. Do you kind of understand why you're here? All right, yeah, I think so.

You know what I mean? There's somebody that's missing. I'm gonna guess that I'm probably the jealous husband. As police start going through Jason's text messages, they seem to reveal how Jason really feels about being cheated on. He doesn't seem happy at all, texting her, "I cannot take it," and, "You promised me you would stop." Was that a lie also?

It wasn't long before Chris went missing. Jason found himself down by Chris's his apartment and telling her, "Don't go to those apartments again. You're a married woman." The guy in the cast says, "I was not the only guy trying to date you. Please don't go back to those apartments. You are married." Your husband, did he confront you about the time when he said he was on a walk and he saw your truck parked by Chris's apartment?

He had mentioned it, yeah. What did he say? He had seen my truck there. Which sounds almost like stalking behavior, right? So I'm thinking, okay, he's now put himself in a position where he's made contact with Chris Regan.

I thought, you know, maybe he snapped. Things had boiled over and Jason needed to go and get some help. Jason's admission to the mental hospital was 2 days after Mr. Regan went missing. Chief Frizzo now has some serious suspicion that Jason Cochran's got something to do with Chris Reagan's disappearance.

It started to get close to the holidays. Thanksgiving was approaching. And then out of the blue, Chief Frizzo gets a phone call that takes her by complete surprise. And when I pick up the phone, the voice on the other end said, "Hi, this is Chris Reagan." And I almost dropped the phone, said, "Oh, yeah, where have you been?" This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. May is Mental Health Awareness Month, and that means it's a good time to check in on yourself.

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Winter is coming to the Upper Peninsula, and Chris Reagan is still missing. The investigation into his disappearance looks like it's growing cold too, but Iron River Police Chief Laura Frizzo remains convinced that Reagan was the victim of foul play. You thought maybe he's been murdered? Yeah, I just thought something's wrong. It seemed like everything was a dead end.

I would stop in and check with Laura and just ask her how things are going, and then she'd say, "I was thinking about you." Laura was very dedicated to the case. She knew that Chris had sons who wanted closure, and she wanted to be able to get that closure for them.

I was in the office and I got a phone call, and when I picked up the phone, the voice on the other end said, "Hi, this is Chris Reagan." And I almost dropped the phone because I thought, "Well, yeah, where have you been?" And he said, "Junior." This is his son. And it was really sad for me to hear his voice, and it was even harder for me meeting him in person. Chris Jr. Is on his way to Iron River with his brother to clean out their father's apartment. The first time I went to Iron River to clean out his apartment and stuff like that was not fun.

I didn't know what to do or like where to start. It just was heartbreaking. They were young. They were lost. They didn't know what to do, where to go.

She knew that Chris was a veteran and that his military service was something he was really proud of. So she wanted to make sure that his son got his dog tags, which they recovered from his apartment. I went to hand them to him, and he told me, I think you should just keep them with you.

I carried those dog tags in my pocket every day.

This is a complicated case, and the Iron River The police department is small, just 4 people.

And as a result of that, people offered their help. So you think these profile questions are pretty good? Jim McNeil and Molly Barron worked together as private investigators. And, you know, we got together after being introduced by a high school friend of mine. It was like a mutual friend.

I feel it is a tight community where everybody seems to know each other. And especially if you have a missing person, that's concerning to the community. Because of where we're from, we just don't have missing people like that. We're not gonna not do anything when somebody is missing.

It was at this point where the prosecutor was ready to sign the search warrant for the Cochran residence. So Molly and Jim show up at my office. And I'm like, oh, well, as a matter of fact, I said, I'm going to be doing a search warrant there tomorrow.

On March 16, 2015, Chief Frizzo goes to the Cochran's house with the long-awaited search warrant, accompanied by those two private investigators.

Hi. Here's my little crazy dog. The dogs were just going crazy in there, like, just barking, barking, barking. You have 2 dogs? Mm-hmm.

OK, are they mean? They're not friendly.

We were in the home, and Kelly's home is pretty creepy. It really was. Stop. And what I have, Kelly, is I have a search warrant. I think Molly and I brought, you know, a lot of experience there.

To her to assist her with a search warrant. I've never worked with a PI like that before. That was my first experience. This is a little unorthodox. It is, and I was kind of concerned about it when it first happened because I'm kind of a control freak and I didn't want anyone messing around, but it actually worked out to our advantage.

Hi, Jason. How you doing? I'm hanging in there. How are you? Okay.

One of the first things you want to be very careful of is weapons. Do you have any weapons in the home? Not on us, but I wouldn't have weapons in the house. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] I've got a.22 under there. You should be able to reach right in and get it.

And you immediately go to these weapons and secure them. Central 200, we're secure. And they had all kinds of weapons that were, like, all over the place. But that's not illegal, you know? Jason had a fetish with knives, swords, things like that.

And he had a lot of them that were found and collected during the search warrant. It was the kind of arsenal you see in a movie. He had swords, crossbows. Everywhere you go in that home, you can put your hands on something tangible and use it as a weapon. That was a very eerie feeling.

Do you want a jacket or something? Actually, typically you don't allow the residents to stay in the house. They're going to have to leave. You guys aren't going to turn the computer off, are you? No.

Okay. Is there something on there you don't want us to see? No, no. He's working on something. OK.

It happened to be one of the coldest mornings of the winter. It was like zero. As soon as you walk into the home, there's like a punch hole of some sort through the door. And the door frame was awry. It was cracked or something.

At that point, Laura calls the crime lab. Hey, let's get the crime lab here. And we're standing there for quite a while waiting for that crime lab. So we're just standing there waiting, and I looked up. The tiles on the ceiling.

Is that what you said? Yeah. And something caught my eye, and I looked at it again, and I kind of stepped to the side and looked at it again. The ceiling was white, but there was these certain spots up there. So I finally said something to Jim, and then Jim looked up and looked at it and immediately was like, ooh.

To the private investigators. Those spots on the ceiling look suspiciously like painted-over blood. It's like a splatter pattern. And she said, yeah, we've done remodeling and replaced some ceiling tiles. That's probably where the cast-off is.

It could have happened right here. It's already dark by the time the crime lab unit gets there. Tell me something, you guys. Okay, well, I'm gonna step in here. Um, we got a positive reaction with the luminol on the ceiling here.

They bring in luminol, which is a chemical that detects the presence of blood. Right here. And then there was something over here in this general area. They did get a positive reaction from that area above the doorway where it looked like something happened right under the door and kind of spread as it went back on the ceiling. And they said that they got a positive reaction from that.

I'm thrilled. I'm thrilled. I'm sorry. We had finished the search warrant at approximately like 10 o'clock at night, so it's late. Investigators think that they have uncovered a gold mine of evidence against the Cochrans until something shocking happens the next day.

I got a phone call from one of the neighbors in the morning and said, I just want to let you know that they They totally loaded up their truck and skipped town. The Cochrans have disappeared. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] Tell me something, you guys. We found a couple areas of interest. Excellent.

When investigators get the warrant to search the Cochran's home, they find a litany of of disturbing items, including battle axes, crossbows, daggers and knives, a shotgun, a.22 caliber pistol. But more important than that is what appears to be blood spatter. We got a positive reaction with the luminol. You're telling me that's blood, right? We haven't confirmed it yet.

It was looking pretty good that they were gonna get some positive results back. At this point in the investigation, Chief Frizzo feels like she's got a lot of evidence on the Cochrans until the very next morning she gets a call from one of the neighbors. And that neighbor calls in the morning and said, I just want to let you know that they totally loaded up their truck and skipped town. So I knew this was happening. What was your reaction?

I was worried a little bit just because I was the one that was kind of the thorn in their side. And so I wanted to be sure they weren't gonna, you know, look for me or come over and find me.

Todd and David Saylor, the neighbors who reported the Cochrans missing, are brought in for questioning. They tell police about another very interesting detail they say they observed around the time of Chris Regan's disappearance. According to David, the Cochrans started renovating their house. But not during the day. He could hear them in their basement using power tools for multiple nights.

You guys had heard them using these sanding tools and stuff, and you figured that was when? Right around October. Sanding away. Just grinding and sanding. Reciprocating saws.

Skilsaws. They were doing it at odd times? Real odd, like 2, 3 in the morning. You heard them all night. [SPEAKING CHINESE] And so what went through your mind when you heard that?

The worst thing imaginable. And I thought, you know, I can't— that can't be. But at the same time, with what they're telling me, it makes sense. That's the stuff of horror movies. Yeah.

Also seemingly out of a horror movie, a chilling discovery Chief Frizzo later makes inside the Cochran's basement: a journal written by Jason. And he had titled it Where Monsters Hide. Then he goes on to talking about being a hunter and how the hunter hunts the prey and feels this tingle through their body. And it's, it's kind of eerie. Almost like he was writing about this situation.

It's almost like a thinly veiled confession. Yes, it just again pointed in the direction of definitely this couple had something to do with his disappearance, and definitely Jason could have snapped. Chief Frizzo is sure that the lab results from those blood samples taken from the house will prove that Chris was brutally murdered there.

But she's in for a bitter disappointment. When they called me and said, you know, we didn't get anything, they weren't good samples or had been treated with chemicals or whatever the case may be.

And I remember just being so upset about that. You know, I was mentally drained a lot. With her main suspects now gone into the wind, the case seems to have hit a dead end. But then there's a break. It turns out that on the night before the Cochrans left town, those private investigators had put a tracking device on the Cochrans' truck, which is legal for PIs to do in the state of Michigan.

What made you put the GPS tracker on? Well, we were hoping that they would go to where the body was. That's one of the most dangerous moments. In the whole investigation, I feel, is deploying the GPS unit because of the risk of danger. What does that danger look like?

What does that feel like? It's like somebody coming out with a shotgun and shooting us on the spot. OK. Ready? Yeah.

Right next to that spare tire is the back frame of the vehicle. And as I get closer, it just sucked it right out of my hand. And you know, you hear the loud bang. It's an exciting moment. You know, you can feel your heart beating through your chest.

There's a lot of things that could go wrong at that moment in time.

I talked to Jim McNeil, and he said, we put a GPS device on the truck, and I need to tell you that. I immediately did a search warrant for their GPS information so that we knew where the Cochrans were and what was going on. We monitored the GPS movement all through exiting the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, through the state of Wisconsin, the top part of Illinois, there in Indiana. And then they ended up nearby within the Hobart area. And sure enough, you know, we located them.

They were back at Kelly's parents' house in Hobart. Chief Frizzo wants to get DNA samples from Kelly and Jason Cochran, but they're no longer in her jurisdiction. So she contacts the Lake County Sheriff's Department in Indiana. When I spoke with her, um, we made a connection on the phone. She gave me all the reasons that she believed that this was a criminal case, and yeah, I believed her.

We told Jason that we had a search warrant for his DNA and we needed to transport him to the Hobart Police Department. He did not say a word the entire time. He was just sitting in the back of the car shaking and sweating and, like, wringing his hands together.

He's sitting in a room waiting to give his DNA swab, and then he gets the surprise of a lifetime.

Jason, how are you doing? I'm doing good. Nice seeing you in Indiana. Looked up at me and his face just started to turn red immediately. That was a shock to his system, I'm sure.

And my whole plan was to try and give him the opportunity to be the victim and to tell me what happened to Chris. You're a baby. Baby, you're white. I just found you. She cheated on you.

Do you remember telling her, uh, if you ever loved me, you'd act like my wife? It says right in your messages, don't go back to those apartments. They're married women. Do you remember saying that? Okay.

Do you remember saying that? Um, I don't really feel like answering any questions, so I feel like you've violated my constitutional rights and I want a lawyer.

Awesome. I'm coming to get your DNA. In the meantime, actually, Kelly is just calling. She knows something's up. She's calling Jason's phone over and over again.

When Kelly Cochran saw Laura Frizzo, you could tell that seemed to be her nemesis. So Jason was here for quite a while, and, uh, it took a while. But Jason told us to stop. The problem with you, Kelly, is that, you know, I've caught you in so many lies that I'm trying to give you an opportunity now to just say, hey, you know, I fucked up. I am asking for a lawyer.

I'm done with the questions. Okay. I am fine doing the DNA. I told you before I was fine doing the DNA. Okay, let's get this done.

So as I started we started to leave the room to get the technicians to take her DNA, she said, "Where's my husband?" Where's my husband at? And I just kind of looked back at her because I had kind of fed her a line that, you know, Jason's already told us everything. We already know what happened. Yep. We'll be right back.

What Laura effectively does is create distrust between the couple. And come February of 2016, That distrust is going to implode the Cochran household. Wake County 911, operator 17. A 911 call from Kelly Cochran comes in that could unravel the mystery of what happened to Chris Regan. Yeah, my husband's not breathing.

His face is like this. Well, he's breathing barely. I don't know what's wrong. I need an ambulance right away.

Here we have one of the most sensational murders, but very few people have actually heard about this case. Some really heinous and atrocious crimes. So what made you call the FBI? I found the flyer on Chris Regan being missing. On this call, my instincts were just yelling at me that something's not right with the scene.

What makes the Caspian Pit such an excellent place to hide evidence. A burn barrel was actually found by the divers just offshore here. And back in these woods, an even more important discovery.

I'm trying to figure out what's the best way to get somebody to tell you a secret that only they know. I told you before, you can be a witness, you can be a suspect. It's almost like the two of them were having a chess game. Absolutely. Yeah, I think she wanted to play the game.

You were basically having to convince Kelly that her dead husband was sending a message from beyond the grave. I'm not sure. I'm not sure with you. And the reason this case is so engaging, it's the amount of police video that's available. It's amazing.

The Kelly Cochran Case just— it's the biggest case we've had maybe ever. With her, it was like, lie, lie, lie, truth, lie, truth, lie, lie, lie, truth. You gotta figure it out.

The end of 2014, there was a missing man in the Iron River area. He wasn't found.

Chris Reagan is missing, and it is a mystery. Police Chief Laura Frizzo discovers that Reagan is romantically tied to a married coworker, Kelly Cochran. She and her husband Jason are brought in for questioning. Jason really had motive. You know, he was the husband who was being cheated on.

But as soon as he's in front of police, he falls apart. He's shaking. He's fumbling over his words. I actually was institutionalized. A little over a month ago, where I get— I just really flustered in that.

So— Okay. When Laura and her team search the Cochran's home, they find a litany of weapons from battle axes to shotguns. They find this blood spatter and they find a manuscript written by Jason called Where Monsters Hide. The manuscript is this essentially fantasy-driven tale of an overlooked man And it has various accounts of him and his wife killing people and includes one that almost perfectly mirrors what happened with Chris Regan. So at this point, investigators think that they have uncovered a gold mine of evidence against the Cochrans until something shocking happens the next day.

The Cochrans have now disappeared. When Jason and Kelly Cochran fled their home in Michigan's Upper Peninsula back in March of 2015, private investigators were already tracking their movements. Using a hidden GPS device. The final destination, their hometown of Hobart, Indiana.

Kelly and Jason were neighbors. They lived next door to each other all their lives. I was trying to do what I thought was the right thing. You go to school, you go to college, you get married. Kelly wore the pants in the family, so whatever she wanted, Jason did.

I got bored from getting married. It was okay in the start, but like all I did was work. She was wanting to help get their business, you know, up and running and make more money. Even though the Cochrans are now out of her jurisdiction, Chief Frizzo continues to investigate Chris Reagan's disappearance. She's now focused on a place known as the Caspian Pit.

She enlists the help of a former police investigator. Michael Nyger. What makes the Caspian Pit such an excellent place to hide evidence? Well, it's, it's deep, and also it's within a couple hundred meters of where the Cochranes lived and be very easy to get to in the dark and drop something.

Were you able to dredge up a burn barrel? Was that here? Yes, a burn barrel was actually found by the divers just offshore here. There was a clothesline attached to this burn barrel with a cement block to it to weight it down. We found cement blocks in the backyard of Cochran's and the actual clothesline, which was missing.

I think the implication was that perhaps Kelly and Jason were burning Chris's body, or parts of it at least. I was out in my garage and, uh, what in the heck's that smell? I walked across the street here, and she came running out of her yard and met me in the middle of the street. And I said, what the hell are you burning? And she's there, I'm burning some brush out there.

I said, look, I lived up here my whole life, and I've never smelled nothing like that. The Cochrans had a fire pit, and there was a burn barrel that had been there. Once we sifted through that fire pit ash, we found a saw blade. We found the components to a pair of jeans. Which was quite significant.

We felt confident that this was likely their burn barrel. However, there was nothing in it, obviously. I mean, it was open in the pit, and anything that was in it would have washed out. Why did you need to get rid of it? So that was my validation anyway that we were on the right track.

But then in February of 2016, back in Hobart, Indiana, there's a truly shocking discovery. Development that's about to upend the entire case. A 911 call coming from the house where the Cochrans are living. Wake County 911, Operator 17. My husband, he's— this is like— well, he's breathing barely.

I don't know what's wrong. He's throwing up these sweats. I need an ambulance right away. Kelly calls 911. Kelly calls 911 and says, you know, I need the ambulance here.

My husband's Barely breathing. You said he's breathing? Difficulty breathing? Really? On this call, my instincts were just yelling at me that something's not right with this scene.

She seemed to kind of conveniently get in our way a lot, and she just didn't seem to have the proper reaction to finding her husband, you know, in cardiac arrest. I'm panicking. Like, I'm trying to— to, you know, be of some use. As much as I didn't want him in my life, I didn't want him dead. Jason Cochran unfortunately was pronounced dead in the emergency room at St.

Mary's.

After Jason died, Kelly reached out to his friend Walt to let him know that Jason had passed. And Walt was immediately concerned. Kelly's tone was very strange. Everything about it felt abrupt and staged. And with encouragement from his wife, Walt called the FBI.

So what made you call the FBI? I found the flyer on Chris Regan being missing, and it had two numbers on there, the Iron River Police and the FBI. So I figured somebody should know that Jason's dead. Do you remember what you told the FBI? I told them that I have some friends that lived in the UP.

They told me they're suspects, and one of them died Saturday. The FBI routes the call to the proper jurisdiction, and it lands on the desk of Hobart Detective Sergeant Jeremy Ogden. Jeremy Ogden had a reputation as an amazing investigator. Jeremy was known as a master interviewer. I've never received a call like that before.

I, I knew that I needed to make sure that Jason wasn't being taken to a funeral home. Rather than going for an autopsy. It's not every day that a detective attends an autopsy. And so what did you learn in that particular one? I learned that, you know, Jason had petechial hemorrhaging around his eyes within his— the whites of his pupils.

And what does that point to? Pressure and suffocation. The autopsy results lead Ogden to take a deep dive into Kelly Cochran's background. And Chris Reagan's disappearance. So he connects with Chief Laura Frizzo from Iron River.

And then ultimately, Laura sent me all of the documents and the videos. Immediately I knew that this was going to work out well because he was on the same page. His thoughts, his words, it was like, oh my gosh, somebody else gets it. He gets it. He's thinking like I do.

And that That's for her. What follows is a cat-and-mouse game between Detective Ogden and Kelly Cochran. I didn't say you did anything. As Ogden hatches a truly bizarre scheme to get Kelly to open up about what really happened to Chris Regan, he decides to make a carving on the tree that will really freak her out when she sees it. I thought maybe she would see it as a sign from the dead, or maybe even something supernatural.

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At this point, Jeremy Ogden is now leading the investigation into the Cochrans. I'm running the case and I'm doing all the things that I think are necessary.

Detective Ogden has what will be the first of many interrogations with Kelly Cochran at the Hobart Police Station following her husband Jason's death. How you doing? It's not an easy thing to go through. Kelly has a lot to to say about what happened to Jason, but when the conversation turns to Chris Reagan, not so much. I'm not trying to push you.

I'm not, not at all. I just don't think— I just pushed me to say something I didn't do. I didn't say you did anything. I said, by the time this is done, you'll tell me what happened to Chris.

Detective Ogden starts talking with Kelly and building a relationship with her. That relationship building involves several conversations that Jeremy recorded undercover, including at a local restaurant.

You can begin the next chapter of your life. There's only one way for you to do this though, and that's 100% honest.

I think she wanted to see whether or not I was going to be a worthy adversary, and I think she wanted to play the game. And I don't want to make a permanent decision on that temporary thought feeling, like on the way I feel now, because that's not fair to me or whoever else it would have been. It's almost like the two of them were having a chess game. Absolutely. Yeah.

I'm trying to figure out what's the best way to get somebody to tell you a secret that only they know, and I come up with this idea about a fake letter.

Detective Ogden calls Jason's friend Walt Ammerman and tells him he wants him to be Walt was a part of this plan to catch Kelly Cochran.

What he wanted Walt to do was become an actor. They were gonna have him call Kelly from a parked car to talk about this letter.

It is, uh, March 12th, 2016, at 4:38 PM. He's gonna be calling Kelly Cochran. [SPEAKING SPANISH] her and tell her that I had a letter that Jason had mailed me.

But it's not true. There is no letter. This is all made up, made up for one purpose: to see what Kelly Cochran's reaction would be. I got a letter like January 4th or 5th or something like that from him. You were basically having to convince Kelly that her dead husband was sending a message from beyond the grave that he felt or knew that she likely was going to do something to him.

The note says, if something were to happen to me, please send this in a few weeks to the Iron River Police Department. It's like I'm supposed to mail this, but I just wanted to tell you, please don't. 'Please don't.' She says, 'Please don't mail it.' I don't know. Yeah, she has to go. And right then I knew, like, he got her.

Yeah, hook, line, and sinker. And what did that tell you? Told me I did the right thing.

But that wasn't your only chess move. You had another trick up your sleeve, which was A tree and a carving. Yeah. The tree's over there. Yeah, the tree's right over there.

And I had watched her several times there. He's actually been following Kelly Cochran. She doesn't know this. And Detective Ogden knows that Kelly goes to this one park all the time and is by a certain tree.

She would just come and she would sit on that log. And there was a couple times where I thought she was even crying. So he decides to make a carving on the tree that will really freak her out when she sees it.

And what he carves into the tree is, Chris is here. I thought maybe she would see it as a sign from the dead or maybe even something supernatural and just generate her to talk to me even more. It's not exactly the way they teach at the police academy. No.

All I saw were her running through the woods, and then all of a sudden the truck backed out and she took off. That's the night that she decides to tell me everything. You watched him die.

Right? Where did he shoot him in his body? Mean, bad, bad. You don't know? Not really.

You caught Chris in his— in your arms?

This is huge. For the first time, Kelly is admitting Chris was murdered. Chris is lying in your house, shot. You told me this and that he died quickly, correct? She says that Jason shot Chris.

Her portion is being forced to help clean up. I'm the victim. My husband was abusive. I had no choice. I couldn't— I couldn't tell anybody or he'd kill me too.

What happened to Chris? What? Downsize him. What do you mean by downsize? What did he do with Chris?

Cut him up. I remember her words being, he downsized him, and it just made my stomach turn. That was the first time she admitted not only had Chris been murdered, but that he'd been dismembered. Correct.

And she goes on to give a very specific detail that will come into play later. She claims that Jason forced her to pull the bullet out of Chris's body with a pair of forceps. Why not arrest her? You have to understand, I've put her in a position to play the victim. She had to do all of these things under duress, and that's how she's going to be able to to disclose other information so that we can recover Chris Reagan.

But you know where he put peace? Yes. You're gonna go with me, okay? We're gonna go. He says we're going to Michigan.

You're going to show us where the body is.

Detective Ogden and Kelly drive all night. He is counting on her to help him, but will she? With her, it was like lie, lie, lie, truth, lie, truth, lie, lie, lie, truth. It's the middle of the night. Kelly Cochran is driving with Detective Jeremy Ogden back to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan to show him where she she and her husband Jason buried Chris's remains.

Driving up there with her, it was interesting. I mean, she did what most people do after they tell you their deepest, darkest secret. She slept.

They drive all night. They leave at like midnight. They get to Iron River, you know, at like 7 in the morning.

It's just miles and miles of trees and rolling hills.

You could literally go to a place here where nobody else had ever been. Pretty easy to hide a body. Yeah. It's weird how beautiful it is and at the same time eerie.

So as I'm following them, they, you know, go down to this one particular area. We're just like kind of flat, straight spot in the road, and she's like, it's right here. And there are other police officers there to search the area, but they find nothing. So the question is, did Kelly get the spot wrong, or is Kelly lying?

Detective Ogden then asked Kelly to show him around her house where the murder happened.

I wanted her to explain to me what happened to Chris and how he died. And then we'll go upstairs and we're going to work our way down. All right. And for it to all be on film, she started to take me upstairs. This was your room, Kellen?

Yes. She told you basically that they had had Sex upstairs, right? There was some kind of sex involved. You and him ended up up here in this room. Isn't that right, man?

On the 14th, you did. You know, it's like you can see her mind working. Whatever story she was going to tell me was going to have to match the physical evidence that we may or may not discover.

She takes him back downstairs and says, you know, actually, it happened out here in the hallway, in this back hallway. You were having sex right here. Okay. So she says that once they're done, Chris starts to walk up the stairs into the kitchen, and Jason, unbeknownst to her, shoots him from the basement. You're telling me that Jason shot him from behind and that Chris falls back on her and that they both tumble down the stairs?

Is he still on top of you when you get to the bottom? Is he— are you actually under him? Yeah, okay. With her, it was like lie, lie, lie, truth, lie, truth, lie, lie, lie, truth. You got to figure it out.

What's Jason say to you? Nothing.

He's so tired.

As incriminating as all this is, Detective Ogden is sure she isn't telling the whole truth. You continue that conversation back back in Indiana. Yeah, hours and hours of conversation. Yeah, there's over 100 hours. What don't you believe?

Again, it's all recorded undercover. What don't I believe? Um, I'm not sure. I'm not sure with you. His communication with her really picked up speed back in Indiana because he's now determined.

I'll meet her at a park. I've sat down at a restaurant with her.

I only have one goal. It's to bring Chris home. Detective Ogden believes that the more they talk, the more likely Kelly is to slip up. And if she slips up, she may just lead them to Chris Regan's body. Honestly, I don't care if you believe me or not.

He's not in the ground. I know he's not in the ground. I give you my word. It seems like Kelly kind of wanted to be playing with Detective Ogden, this sort of cat-and-mouse game. You have to understand that there are things that you've said throughout this that would cause concern, okay?

And changes and variations of your story.

She continues to maintain throughout all these hundreds of hours that she's the victim. It's always, "My husband forced me to do this." You have said— that you're the victim when it comes to Chris, that you were put in this bad position, right? Yes. At one point, you put your foot down and say, stop lying. No more of this crap lying to me.

No more. No. All the [MASKED] I've been back and forth with you. All. What brought that on?

Frustration, probably. Ogden thinks Kelly realizes he is Ogden was losing his patience and might finally just arrest her. It was all about to come to a head. Soon after, Detective Ogden gets a misspelled text from Kelly. "Ever been to the West Coast?

I was driving last night." Sure enough, she skipped town. Except she didn't head west after all. The police tracked her as she fled south to Kentucky. 33-Year-old Kelly Cochran was arrested in Graves County, Kentucky, after a tip to the US Marshals. Cochran was wanted in Michigan.

And so when you interview her in Kentucky, in many ways it was a breakthrough confession. Yes. Things are different. Why are they different? I'm here.

I interviewed her all day that day. And then I interviewed her for a portion of the day the next day. Now Kelly drops another bombshell. If I cheated, be my responsibility, regardless if he helped or not. Her new story?

She now claims she knew in advance that Jason was going to kill Chris Regan the night she invited him to their home. You took part in the planning of it. You allowed it to occur when you didn't have to allow it to occur. And she tells Ogden she knew this because they had an agreement. When does that agreement occur?

The wedding night. And your agreement from the time you were married was that you had the affair, it's your responsibility to kill off that person. Or he'd kill me. Or he would kill you. Vice versa.

Right.

If either spouse were to cheat during the course of the marriage, the cheating spouse would have to either kill their lover or be killed by this other spouse. You heard that right. And yet that bizarre alleged wedding day pact is just the start of what she reveals. I'm gonna get emotional. I can't— I— wait one second, because it still gets me every time.

Now in jail in Michigan, charged with murder, Kelly Cochran is taken out of her cell to go on what cops are calling a field trip. This is just, you know, giving consent to what you're about to do. Kelly had agreed that she would take me to Chris's remains where she left them. She wanted to do the right thing.

There's the curve to the left. I'd park there.

She takes her a little further east than she took us on the first day. Thank you. What would the biggest piece of bone be that you— I mean, torso. And that was here, so then we should find ribs And I think that generally— The skull should be the biggest, though. As she's talking, she has no guilt at all.

So carefree, like, no big deal. This was not exactly a somber day for her. Can I smoke dinner? Yeah. She had a lot of cigarettes.

And then she asked for a cheese pizza for lunch. Cheese pizza. Just cheese. Maybe a soda. Can you bring pizza?

While the searching continues, Chief Frizzo takes her to the house. You say that, you know, he— Jason pulled him into here and that's where he cut him up. And she's eating a piece of pizza, of course, when we're doing this. And then Kelly also is just nonchalantly walking past the kitchen the sink and says, oh, there's the forceps. You said something about forceps.

Yeah, is that what you're talking about? Yeah, there you go. You're saying you use those? Yep. It had been sitting there the whole time.

And I said, are you saying you use those to try and get the bullet out of Chris's head? And she said, yep, just like that. It was critical evidence matching what Kelly had said in that early interrogation when she first admitted that Chris had been murdered. But back in these woods, an even more important discovery.

Chris Regan's skull itself. I'm gonna get emotional. I can't— I— wait one second, because it still gets me every time.

I just said to myself, I finally found you. I just literally, like, I said that to myself, you know? So— That was a very sobering moment. And the only bright spot on that is they could link Kelly Cochran into his murder. And that got things going so that she would go to trial.

The Kelly Cochran case just is the biggest case we've had locally maybe ever. Kelli's life was riding on the trial. Despite all that she's admitted in those interrogations, Kelli Cochran pleads not guilty. I was definitely afraid that she was going to get off. You never know how a jury's going to go.

Ladies and gentlemen, Kelli and Jason Cochran were bonded in blood. Case was prosecuted by Iron County Prosecutor Melissa Powell. We were pretty confident going into trial that we could convict her of being an aider and abettor. Kelli Cochran was a willing participant, and because of that, she's just as guilty as he is. Michael Schulke was the defense attorney for Kelli Cochran.

The only evidence that the people have to get to their burden is the word of Ms. Cochran. What's her word worth? She's a liar. We believe that Jason acted alone because he was not into this open marriage.

And was jealous and angry that Kelly was involved with another man. Please be seated. The trial would last almost 3 weeks. She has already admitted that she knew what was going to happen. And though there were some 60 witnesses, the case pretty much boiled down to just one— Kelly Cochran herself.

Kelly testified about the abuse that she claims she suffered in her marriage. There was a lot of times where he would grab me and push me, shove me. He became very jealous, very angry. There was times where he had threatened me in the house, outside of the house, throwing stuff at me. Kelly Cochran testified for several days.

I don't think she helped herself at all. You never told people that he was abusive until this case came about, did you? Until after. And you never told people that he threatened you until this case came about, right? Until after.

When I saw Kelly in person, I couldn't believe Christopher would have had a sexual relationship with her.

She looked like the devil. Her eyes were blank. I don't know if I would have been capable to shoot him or— even do anything about it. There's nothing that comes out of her mouth that I would ever believe. I think the jury wanted to hear from her and how she was going to explain away hundreds of hours of previous statements.

Remember, her story changed in all those recorded interrogations, from I know nothing to Jason forced me to help help kill Chris. When does that agreement occur? The wedding night. To, we had a wedding pact and I was part of the murder. Because every time I had an interview or an interrogation with him, everything I said was wrong.

What do you mean everything you said was wrong? He would question me until I said what was supposed to be said. What was it like watching Kelly on the stand?

Excruciating. So it's your testimony today that you've had no plans to kill Chris at all, correct? I've never wanted him dead. And you lied to Detective Wagner when you said there was a plan, correct? Correct.

She swears this testimony is no lie. Today you're telling the truth to these 12 or 14 strangers. Yes, ma'am. With Kelly admitting so many lies, the defense asked the jury how can they believe one story versus any other. Why is she truthful when she says she is acting with Jason versus times that she said he acted alone?

What makes her more truthful then? I think at that point in time she's overwhelmed. She's made so many statements, she's told so many lies, it's time to tell the truth. People disclose the truth in bits and pieces when they're ready and when they're caught. The defendants in this matter were bonded in blood Chris Regan was bathed in it.

And at this time, I'm asking you to wash away the blood and find the defendant guilty of all counts.

There is reasonable doubt here. People have failed to meet their burden. And if you believe that, you have to acquit. Kelly had made the comment before trial, "You don't think I can turn just one juror?" I was concerned that there might be one juror that buys her story. And as those jurors start to deliberate, there is something else.

What is it that they haven't heard?

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All rise. The jury deliberated for about 3 hours, which considering it was a 2-and-a-half-week-long trial wasn't very long at all. The jury comes back in, and as they're standing in the jury box, I felt confident because, you know, a couple of them did look over and smile, just kind of give a look. Count number 1, open murder, guilty of first-degree premeditated murder, aiding and abetting.

Everybody just cried and Chris's family was sitting right behind me and the first thing I did is just turn around and hug them. Kelly was just straight-faced during the reading of the verdict. I didn't notice any changes in her at all. Unfortunately, the jury bought the story that the prosecution put forth. 35-Year-old Kelly Cochran will never again walk free.

Guilty of —5 total felony counts. Kelly was convicted on first-degree premeditated murder, which carries a mandatory life sentence in Michigan and without the possibility of parole. For me, it's not going to change anything. You know, Kris is gone. And what she did is just horrible.

I hope she rots in hell.

Kelly Cochran is convicted and sentenced, but there's much more to her case than what was presented in court. Dark and twisted allegations that the jurors never heard. These are some really disturbing allegations that were brought forth by the neighbors of the Cochrans, who said they heard these weird construction noises coming from Kelly and Jason's house late at night. It's a— [SPEAKING NATIVE LANGUAGE] —reciprocating saw. The one with the real long blade goes back and forth.

You can cut through wood and nails and everything at the same time with it. Kelly and Jason asked me if I want to come over for dinner one night. I was like, yeah, sure. And this was like 2 days after Chris was missing. It's like mind-boggling how much meat they had.

So we were always wondering about that. What if they were that kind of people and actually did kill a guy and then butchered him up and had us over for dinner? I think they hacked him up and fed food to us. Don't even say that. I'm like, oh, God.

Oh, God. Like, no. When I realized that I might have ate the dude, I didn't want to believe it. It changed me. It changed me 100%.

It was a theory that they came to a conclusion on their own. That wasn't something that we ever even brought into the case investigation. It's not that I didn't think it could happen. But it wasn't significant at the time. But one thing investigators took very seriously was the allegation that there could be other murder victims out there.

Kelly's own brother told Detective Ogden that Kelly said herself that there were more victims. And the more is coming from her. She's telling you guys the correct— And how many more bodies did she tell you? Supposedly there was 9 total. Police were recording all of Kelly Cochran's phone conversations while she was behind bars, and you can hear her own mother asking her, is it true?

Are there other murder victims? Hi, Kev.

What's going on, Kelly? What the hell is wrong? I mean, where did all this come from. You didn't see this coming? I see this coming after it all happened, but I didn't know that you guys killed people before all this.

Do you have a conscience? Is this like— I mean, have you always felt this way? I've always been like this, ma'am. Kelly actually told me that she was born the way she is. She's never had emotions.

She's never had sympathy. There is no evidence that has been brought forth that would indicate that any stories that were told by Kelly of being involved in murders of other people are true. There are no bodies coming out of the woodwork that are tied to Kelly Cochran. But what does Kelly Cochran herself now say about the allegations that she's a serial killer? You had told police that you had killed others in the past.

Is there truth to that? And in a case where they uncovered so much darkness and evil, there would be a surprising light at the end of the tunnel for the two lead investigators. Following the guilty verdict, Kelly is sentenced to life in prison for the murder of Chris Regan. 11 months later, Kelly pleads guilty to murdering her husband Jason Cochran in Indiana and is sentenced to an additional 65 years in prison. I believe that the idea behind this evil in her— I mean, it's the purest form of evil that you're going to get.

I spoke to Kelly Cochran from her prison in Michigan where she's serving out her life sentence. You told police that you had killed others in the past. Is there truth to that? No, I've never killed anybody. Then why would you tell investigators you had and lead them on wild goose chases?

I don't know. They said they spoke to neighbors who lived down the street from you who were convinced that they had a barbecue that consisted of human remains. I heard about that. Here's the thing, I never had a barbecue with anybody Nobody was ever cooked. Nobody was barbecued.

I've spoken to investigators, Kelly, who said that when they talked to you and heard your story, that it made them believe in pure evil. What would you say to that? I believe that's bullshit, because I'm not a bad person. I was raised by good people. I've never harmed anybody.

And so in your view, what did happen that night when Chris died. My husband's disabled the man and cut him up in front of me. And you just stood there doing nothing? What are you talking about? You didn't call the police?

You didn't— I was tied up. This is the first I'm hearing of her ever saying she'd been tied up. This is a game. She's going to continue this game as long as she can, and she's not done with it yet.

There probably is not a punishment on this earth that can match what she did to Christopher.

I can feel Christopher with me when I'm around Apple Blossom Trail. Feel a warmth, a joy, a happiness, because it was a good place for us. For Laura Frizzo, The case had a bittersweet outcome. Although she was able to help bring justice for Chris Regan's murder, she was fired from her job as police chief after Kelly's arrest. I started to have some issues with my boss at work, and those issues kind of got heated.

But while Laura may have lost her job, she found romance in an unlikely place. I felt immediately connected. Attracted to him just because of the person he was. And so you kind of made the first move. What happened?

One day texted him and I said, "Do you want to kiss me?" I was like, "Why did I send that?" Because there was, like, dead air, just no response for a long time. You know, the answer was yes right out of the gate as soon as I read it. So you asked for the first kiss. Who asked for whose hand in marriage? I did.

How'd that go, big guy? It went well. She accepted right away. What's the future for both of you? We own a piece of land that Laura picked in the UP, right on a lake, and one day I'm going to build her a dream house there.

And of course, we wish them the best in as they now plan their next chapter together away from their work. That is our program for tonight. Thanks so much for watching. I'm David Muir, and from all of us here at 20/20 and ABC News, good night.

Thanks for listening to the 20/20 True Crime Vault. We hope you'll join us Friday nights at 9 on ABC for all new broadcast episodes. See you then.

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