Transcript of An accused killer's surprising defense. A pharmacist on trial for poisoning. And a medical examiner's strategy for cracking cold cases.

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It's in. Welcome to Dateland True Crime Weekly. I'm Andrea Canning. It's January 16th, and here's what's on our docket. In West Virginia, a small town pharmacist who made national headlines after being convicted of mastermind finding a multimillion dollar scam is back in court for allegedly poisoning her husband.

The theory is that Natalie was concerned that Michael had discovered the Ponzi scheme and was going to come forward and expose her.

In Dateland Roundup, all the details from Alec Baldwin's explosive lawsuit against New Mexico prosecutors and investigators involved in the Rust trial. And Laurie Vallaud-Dabel, a. K. A. Mommy Doomsday, is back in court, this time defending herself. These are serious charges, and these are serious consequences for these charges. Plus, a former medical examiner tells us how hard it really is to get a cause of death from a body, especially a skeleton.

It's the same when you have a dead body one day or 100 years dead. You need to know the context.

But before all that, we're heading back to a Tennessee courtroom and a story we first told you about last week. 24-year-old Jason Chen is on trial, accused of stabbing his girlfriend to death two years ago. Only now, his defense team is saying she attacked him. This week, we heard opening statements in a Chattanooga courtroom for Jason Chen's murder trial. He's accused of killing 22-year-old Jasmine Pace. But the jury is from somewhere else. They've been bused in from Nashville, and it's a two-hour trip. They are sequestered for this trial. All of that is because when Jasmine went missing over Thanksgiving in 2022, her face was all over TV, including on our affiliate WRCb Local 3 News. Now take another good hard look at your screen. Jasmine is about 5 feet tall. She has several tattoos on her right arm and shoulder. Anyone with information on where Jasmine Jasmine may be is asked to call the Chattanooga Police Department. Jasmine's body was found about a week later in a suitcase on the side of the road. By then, her boyfriend Jason had already been arrested, and his face was all over the news, too. But it felt like only the prosecution Jason's case was getting air time.

District attorney, Cody Wamb, argued for no bond, calling him a flight risk.

And anywhere this defendant goes, we know based on proof presented today, the community is less safe.

Jason Chen has pleaded not guilty to charges of first-degree murder and abuse of a corpse. On Monday, the jury and Jasmine's mother, who was the first to point the finger at Jason, heard his side of the story for the first time. It was laid out during the defense's opening statement. Dateline producer, Mario Garcia was there. Mario, thanks for coming on.

Thanks for having me, Andrea.

We talked on the podcast last week about this case. Remind us of the prosecution's argument.

The prosecution's argument is that Jasmine disappeared the night that she went to her boyfriend's house, was never heard from again, and her boyfriend, the person she was seeing at the time, was involved.

Yeah. There were signs. They had gotten in a loud fight late at night at his apartment. Her members heard a woman screaming, and then she drops a pin to her mom on her phone.

Yeah, her mom didn't see it until a couple of days later. Frantic family members had already gone down the road of trying to self-investigate the case because they felt that police weren't helping them as much as they wanted.

Yeah, investigators weren't even the first people in Jason's apartment. Her mom, Katrina, goes to the location and starts, as you said, playing detective.

This family got into the apartment, maybe at Legally, maybe not. What Katrina said on the stand is Jasmine's father, Travis Pace, used the credit card to actually Jimmy opened the door, and then they went in.

I didn't think that actually worked. She found Jasmine's driver's license credit card. She took some things from the apartment, including his phone.

She took iPad, she took notebooks. This is not the way things usually happen.

Was the prosecutor's opening statement what you expected? Were there any surprises? What do you think the tone was that they wanted to set for the jury?

The prosecutors came out of the gate in a way that I have not really ever seen before. It was impressive.

This is the suitcase in which Jason Chin stuffed the 98-pound body of desinates.

That's where I'm going to begin the story. The district attorney wanted to get in front of the issue of mom breaking into Jason's apartment. We got to just address the elephant in the room right away.

Yeah. I mean, they very craftily said, This is a distraught mother and family that did what anybody else would do.

The defense, they had an opening statement that I did not see coming.

Well, you're not the only one, Andrew. In the early morning hours of November 23, 2022, Jason Chen killed Jasmine in pace. They said he's guilty of killing her, but he's not guilty of killing her the way that the state has said. He didn't do it with premeditation.

The defense is saying voluntary manslaughter, a state of passion, produced by provocation. What does defense say happened?

They said they were dating in a relationship. She came over and they did what they always do. They had some wine, they smoked some weed. Then they say that his phone was in the kitchen, he was in the bedroom. His phone started making that unique pinging that Tinder sounds make. She saw that he was communicating with other women on Tinder. She got really upset. A glass and a wine bottle got broken. She came at him and he was trying to defend himself. Then he blocked out, and when he came to, she was dead, and then he panicked more, and he disposed of the body.

The defense also indicated that Chen was worried about the shame that he would bring to his family. Jason Chen is a first-generation Chinese American. His parents ordered a Chinese restaurant. It was a very hard break.

Well, he is the son of immigrants, and so am I. There are things that happen in personal psychologies that can make somebody act in certain ways. Is that what happened here? I don't know.

Jason decides that he has to cover his son. He has to hide what he's done. The prosecution's first witness was Katrina, Jasmine's mom. How was she handled by the prosecution and the defense?

She got up there and she held her own. She was very stern and strong and answered the questions. And then what did you do?

She went back in. To his apartment. To what? To get whatever, anything that I thought I could use to help find my daughter.

The defense tried to trip her up. You said the two of you or the four of you, how many was it that went in? Who actually used the credit card to break into the apartment? You said you would you ever buy your daughter?

Wouldn't you?

Of course. Okay.

She would break into the apartment.

Is that not my daughter? Yes. I was just trying to find my daughter.

You've heard yourself, I think.

I had it for her to myself.

After Katrina's testimony, who else did the prosecution call?

They called the manager of the Walgreens. They called the manager of the Walmart. Places that Jason went to buy things that the prosecution says were used to cover up the crime. The law enforcement folks, the lead detective.

One of the things that you're learning in Tennessee is that these jurors are able to ask questions as the trial goes along. Does the jury have any questions for Investigator Crocker?

They have been submitting questions, and then the judge calls the prosecutors and the defense attorneys up. They go over what's going to be allowed, and the judge then asks the questions of the witness before they leave the stand.

The receipt from Walmart shows asperitus. The video shows no asperitus was purchased.

Was this investigated further?

And if so, relevant to the case? It did not have relevancy in terms of the arrest, the investigation.

You don't usually get to see what the jury is thinking in real-time.

Yeah, Normally, you're just looking for facial expressions, emotion, anything you can.

Who's sleeping, who's taking notes. The judge keeps thanking them for being such a plugged-in jury. It's really fascinating.

All right. This is a tough one, Mario. Thank for coming back on the podcast and breaking it all down for us.

I'm happy to be here anytime you all want me to be.

Up next, the long-awaited trial of a West Virginia pharmacist accused of poisoning her husband with insulin gets underway. We've got the latest from inside the Courtroom. Kick off the New Year in style with the Metropole Hotel Cork's New Year Room sale. For a limited time only, enjoy 20% off our a room only and bed and breakfast rates. Treat yourself to a city escape in the heart of Cork, where comfort meets charm. Whether it's a romantic getaway or a break with friends, we've got the perfect stay waiting for you. But hurry, this exclusive offer ends January first. Book your stay now at metropolehotel. Ie and start your 2025 with a touch of luxury.

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For our next story, we're heading back to West Virginia for a trial many years in the making. We talked about this story on the podcast last fall. It's a complicated case where one crime, fraud, to the tune of two and a half million dollars, allegedly turned into another murder. In September 2019, Natalie Cochrane, a pharmacist from the small town of Daniels, West Virginia, was indicted on multiple counts of fraud. The charges came just months after her husband, Michael died suddenly. The victims of the scam were primarily friends and family who thought they were investing in the Cochrane's business. Natalie pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 11 years in federal prison. That wasn't the end of the story. Just two years later, Natalie was charged with a new crime, her husband's murder. Prosecutor said Natalie poisoned Michael with a vial of insulin. She has pleaded not guilty. And this week, after several delays, including multiple exhumations Michael's body, the trial finally began. Dateline producer Jay Young was in West Virginia this week and called us from the courthouse to tell us about what went down. Jay, thanks for joining us again this week. Thanks for having me.

To start, can you just quickly remind us of the circumstances of Michael's death?

Let me take you back to February of 2019. Michael Cochrane suddenly becomes ill. He collapses at his home, and from all accounts, he is having a seizure. Ultimately, they get Michael to a hospital. Michael is subjected to a battery test. They are able to determine that he is hypoglycemic, which means his blood sugar levels are very low, dangerously low. And then five days later, after he is sent to a hospice, he tragically dies.

The state medical examiner's office, they rule it natural causes at the time?

Yeah, the medical examiner ruled the cause of death was natural.

Okay, but investigators weren't totally buying that ruling, and they began to suspect that there could be some foul play here with Michael.

People start to scratch their heads a little bit about Michael's death. Michael was 38 years old, and he was in pretty good shape. And unrelated to Michael's death, investigators are getting wind of some problems that are associated with Michael and Natalie's business. In Investors are starting to complain a little bit, wondering what's happening to their investments. And so authorities, they start looking into this business and then ultimately get a search warrant to search Michael and Natalie's house, and what they find was a vial of insulin in the kitchen refrigerator. And ultimately, investigators come up with a theory. Natalie poisoned Michael with insulin. Natalie was concerned that Michael had discovered that the company was actually a fraud, was a Ponzi scheme. And Natalie was concerned Michael was going to come forward and expose her.

Is Is it 100% proven that he died from insulin?

They were unable to find insulin in Michael's body when they exhumed it. Months later, cut to 2023, the prosecution decides they want to exhume Michael's body again to test his remains with more sophisticated tests. And this time, the pathologist that the state hired to examine the remains ruled that Michael's manner of death was homicide. Now, the state went even further and had an endocrineologist review some of the paperwork, and she determined that the cause of death was most likely due to insulin injections. So there was no trace evidence of insulin.

This case, as we said, has been going on for a long time. Jury selection was hotly anticipated. You were there, Jay, in the courtroom.

You know, Andrew, you've been through this so many times. I have, too. It's a very solemn occasion. Everybody's very quiet. Everyone is really deferential. The prospective jurors were sitting in the jury box, and then the prosecution enters, sits down at their desk. Then in comes Natalie Cochrane. You can see Natalie looking over at the prospective jurors. You can only wonder what's going through her mind.

You're certainly trying to win over some very important strange jurors in your life. There's something really interesting that the prosecutor pointed out that we've heard about before, this CSI effect with jurors, that they need DNA, they need video or witnesses. In In this case, the prosecutor warned them that there's almost no direct evidence.

Yeah, that's exactly what the prosecution said. And by and large, the prospective jurors said, No, I'm okay. I understand that you have direct evidence and you have circumstantial evidence, and one is not more important than the other. That was the general consensus on the part of the prospective panel.

So opening statements began on Wednesday morning. It may be no surprise the prosecution hit hard on what they say was Natalie's motive.

As many deceptions and lies as were told to her victims of the Ponzi scheme, Michael Cochrane was told justice, man. He did not know what was going on, but he was determined to find out. There's no question that the prosecution has to work with a case that does not have direct evidence. But what they do have is a defendant who is a convicted felon serving 11 years. If she can defraud her family, loved ones, investors, there's no telling what she can do. That's going to be their argument. This defendant is a pharmacist. She knows about medications and drugs. She knew the impact insulin would make.

The defense told a very different story in their opening statement. He was involved in the Ponzi scheme. He knew about multimillion dollar purchases, the toys, the houses, trips to Paris, trips to Hawaii, expensive, lavish lifestyle. You have to ask yourself at the end of the case, he didn't know about it?

Really? They argue Michael was well aware of the fraudulent nature of the business. So Natalie would have no reason to want to kill him.

Jay, thank you for staying on this and for bringing us this key information in this all Brown's sad case.

Well, thank you for having me, Andrea. Really appreciate it.

Next, it's Dateline Roundup, and Alec Baldwin is on the offensive with his blockbuster lawsuit against the prosecutor who charged him in the Rust movie set, Shooting Death. And Laurie Valodebel appears in court as her own defense attorney. How did she do? Plus, a veteran medical examiner on the challenge of cold case autopsies. Hey, guys. Willy Geist here, reminding you to check out the Sunday Sit Down podcast.

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Joining me for this week's Roundup is Dateline producer, Rachel White. Hey, Rachel.

Hi, Andrea.

Okay, so first up, we're off to New Mexico, where actor Alec Baldwin has filed a lawsuit against a whole lot of people involved in the criminal case brought against him in connection to the shooting on his Rust movie back in 2021. Rachel, for anyone who doesn't know this story, and I think most of America does, just remind everyone what happened.

Sure. So, Baldwin was holding a prop gun, rehearsing for a scene when somehow the gun fired and it happened to contain live ammo, and that bullet killed the film's cinematographer, Helena Hutchins. In 2024, Baldwin ended up standing trial on charges of involuntary manslutter. Right.

I remember we covered this trial, of course, on the podcast. There was this dramatic moment when everything just stopped and the judge ordered the jury to go home so she could investigate claims that the prosecution had deliberately withheld evidence from Baldwin's defense team.

That's right. The prosecution said that the evidence was unimportant, but the judge found otherwise and dismissed the case with prejudice.

If this conduct does not rise to the level of bad faith, it certainly comes so near to bad faith as to show signs of scorching.

Prejudice. Some people would just walk away after getting off of something like this, but not Alec Baldwin. He's taken action. Yeah.

Last week, he filed a 73-page civil lawsuit against several members of the prosecution team, accusing them of conspiring to cause his malicious prosecution and violating his civil rights. He says the defendants were driven by ill motives including to harass or humble him.

Baldwin has asked for damages and a jury trial.

Right. We should just quickly note here that the defendants have yet to file a response in court. But one of the prosecutors, Kari Morrissey, told and BBC news that they look forward to their day in court.

We will keep you posted on that one. Laurie Vallaud-Dabel, so-called Mommy Doomsday. There is news about her. She's back in court, and this time she's representing herself. Do you want me to Can I stand, Your Honor, or can I just sit here? You can sit there.

Yeah, and it was really something to watch. If you remember back in 2023, Dabel was sentenced to life in prison for the murders of her two children, JJ and Tilly, and for her involvement in the death of Tammy Dabel, who was her husband's wife. That meant that she was arguing her case before the judge, but she was wearing an orange jumpsuit and handcuffs while doing so.

Why is she back in court?

These court proceedings are for murder charges that she's facing in Arizona. She's charged with the murder of her fourth husband, a man named Charles Vallaud, and for the attempted murder of the ex-husband of her niece.

I'm so curious. How did she do representing herself?

Well, she was definitely confident.

The state has continued to impede the defense from conducting a defense.

She claimed prosecutors might be withholding evidence.

This is a violation of the 14th Amendment of our Great Constitution and the defense's due process rights.

She asked for all the discovery related related to her extradition from Idaho to Arizona.

How was her request received by the judge?

The judge was pretty firm with Laurie, asking her why her extradition documents have anything to do with the underlying charges against her in Arizona, and he ultimately denied this motion.

Finally, we have an update in a disturbing story out of Wisconsin known as the Slender Man case. Some people may remember this story from 2014. Two tweens stabbed their friend 19 times, Rachel.

That's right. They were only 12 years old when they lured their friend, Payton Leightner, into the woods and attacked her. Leightner just barely survived, and she was able to tell investigators that her friends Anissa Wire and Morgan Geyser had tried to stab her to death.

Investigators caught up with her attackers, and they admitted what they'd done, but they had a bizarre reason.

They told investigators they were trying to become servants of Slenderman. And Slenderman, apparently, is a fictional character that's become somewhat of an urban legend. They allegedly learned about this character on a horror story website.

So disturbing. Both Geyser and Wire were sent to psychiatric centers after pleading guilty to intentional homicide charges. Wire was granted supervised release in 2021, and the big news now is that Geyser is going to be released as well.

That's right. In last week's hearing, psychologists who have been working with Geyser testified about the significant progress made. Even Geyser's attorney was emotional after the ruling. I think she'll be...

She got a lot of talent.

I think she's going to be a good person in the community.

I think she's going to thrive.

Has Payton Leitner or her family said anything about Geyser's release?

Payton Leitner's mother listened in on last week's hearing and has opposed Geyser's several attempts to be released.

Rachel, thank you so much for these updates.

Thank you for having me.

After learning more this week about the trial of West Virginia pharmacist Natalie Cochrane, accused of poisoning her husband, we curious about the make or break role medical examiners can play in cold cases, and how difficult it can be trying to figure out someone's cause of death years, sometimes decades after they've died. For our final story this week, we asked Dr. Mary Jimbellick, the former Chief Medical Examiner of Onondaga County in New York, who has conducted thousands of autopsies in her 25-year career, to give us the basics. Mary, thank you so much for joining us again.

Hello, Andrea.

Mary, what is the first thing you do when you are asked to look into the case of someone who's been dead for a while?

Well, as in any case that we evaluate as medical examiner, we consider the scene investigation, along with whatever evidence we have, the body or whatever is left of the body, maybe photos we're taking. The medical examiner will consider all of that in its totality. Just like if you go into a doctor's office and you say, Just figure out what's wrong with me. It's the same when you have a dead body one day or 100 years dead. You need to know the context.

If you're looking at human remains, can you tell if someone has been shot or stabbed or strangled at that point? How hard is it?

You have to learn how to interpret the decaying body as well as the skeletonized body. Because a gunshot won't stab when they may leave marks on the bone that you can detect, and they'll be present for many, many decades. There have been evaluations of mummies in terms of how did they die. The bones carry a lot of information.

If someone is poisoned, can the remains still carry some of that poison, or is it too late?

Certainly, the remains can carry the poison, but it depends on the poison. There are so many drugs and chemicals and toxins in the world. I think the first thing with the poisoning is you have to have a suspicion of it so that you're making sure you look for the category of poison that you're suspicious about. Now, that being said, as the body decays, so does the blood, so do chemicals in the body, and so it becomes harder to test for those.

We were just talking on the podcast about the trial of Natalie Cochrane. She's accused of fatally poisoning her husband, Michael, with insulin back in 2019. The state medical examiner's office initially ruled that Michael died from natural causes. The prosecutor went up against that ruling by the medical examiner.

Well, certainly. I I've been on multiple sides of that particular dilemma where my ruling may be questioned and maybe the police and I don't agree. But the medical examiner may have a reason for that determination or may not have considered the insulin overdose because it's a very subtle thing.

Yeah. In the Natalie Cochrane case, prosecutors exhumed her husband's body to run forensic tests. There must be a lot of thought that goes into that decision. How common is it for cold cases to involve exhumations?

I don't think exhumations are that easy to occur, especially legally. There has to be a certain burden of proof of the need to do it, to further the case. But I've been involved in those court-ordered exhumations. Sometimes if there is trauma to the skeleton, then it's very worthwhile because you can show that and document that, and you can show the absence of that if that's important as well. But I always say that it isn't so much that you can't kill someone without leaving a trace. You can. What's really hard to get rid of is your motive. Do you have a motive to kill someone and someone suspects that, then forensics is there to figure it out.

Mary Jimbellick, thank you so much for coming back.

Thank you very much, Andrea.

That's it for this episode of Dateland True Crime Weekly. Next week, we'll have tips from NBC's Senior Consumer Investigative respondent Vicky Wyn on how to avoid disaster-related scams. Whether you're looking for help or trying to give it, we'll tell you what to watch out for. Coming up this Friday on Dateland, Keith Morison has a brand new story. After a wealthy Georgia Man's body is found on his sprawling estate. Investigators uncover a trove of family secrets and unmask a killer.

In some shape or form, Gary had close ties or disagreements with all the family members relating to money.

Watch Keith's story, A Little Patch of Perfect, airing this Friday on NBC at 9:8 Central or stream at Saturday on Peacock. If you're looking for Deadly Mirage, Josh's story, which was supposed to air last Friday but got preempted by our coverage of the wildfires in LA, you can see it this Sunday on NBC at 9:8 Central. To get ad-free listening for all our podcasts, subscribe to Dateline Premium. Thanks for listening. Dateline True Crime Weekly is produced by Frannie Kelly and Katie Ferguson. Our associate producers are Carson Cummins and Caroline Casey. Our senior producer is Liz Brown-Kurloff. Production and fact-checking, helped by Sara Kadeer. Veronica Mzeca is our digital producer. Rick Kwan is our sound designer. Original music by Jesse McGinty. Bryson Barnes is head of audio production. Paul Ryan is executive producer, and Liz Cole is senior executive producer of Dateland. Have a great day, everybody.

Everyone, I'll be careful.

Bye.

Bye.