Three Words Carved in a Tree: The Kelly Cochran Case

1
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:07,960
There's a tree in a public park in Hobart, Indiana, with three words carved into the

2
00:00:07,960 --> 00:00:08,960
bark.

3
00:00:08,960 --> 00:00:14,280
A detective put them there on purpose because he had run out of every other option.

4
00:00:14,280 --> 00:00:19,440
And because the woman he was watching kept coming back to that exact spot, she read those

5
00:00:19,440 --> 00:00:22,040
three words and took off.

6
00:00:22,040 --> 00:00:48,200
By the end of that same night, she started finally telling the truth.

7
00:00:48,200 --> 00:00:53,120
Kelly and Jason grew up next door to each other in Hobart, Indiana, a working town on

8
00:00:53,120 --> 00:00:58,000
the edge of Chicago's sprawl where the yards run together and everybody's mother knows

9
00:00:58,000 --> 00:01:00,120
everybody else's business.

10
00:01:00,120 --> 00:01:03,320
They were high school sweethearts in the most literal way.

11
00:01:03,320 --> 00:01:08,480
Two kids whose families were tangled up with each other before either of them could drive.

12
00:01:08,480 --> 00:01:13,440
Friends remembered Kelly as the talker, the one who ran the conversation, the one you noticed

13
00:01:13,440 --> 00:01:15,520
when she came through a door.

14
00:01:15,520 --> 00:01:20,480
Jason was quiet to the point where people had to pull words out of him with a crowbar.

15
00:01:20,480 --> 00:01:25,000
Kelly and Jason got married in 2002, right after Kelly finished high school.

16
00:01:25,000 --> 00:01:27,760
And they built a life servicing swimming pools.

17
00:01:27,760 --> 00:01:32,920
According to Kelly herself, on their wedding night, the two of them made each other a promise.

18
00:01:32,920 --> 00:01:39,320
If either one ever had an affair, the cheater had to kill the person they cheated with.

19
00:01:39,320 --> 00:01:43,320
If the cheater couldn't do it, the other spouse would handle it.

20
00:01:43,320 --> 00:01:47,040
And handling it included handling the spouse.

21
00:01:47,040 --> 00:01:51,760
Two people barely out of high school say a lot of things at two in the morning.

22
00:01:51,760 --> 00:01:55,240
Kelly would later tell a courtroom the whole thing was just a joke.

23
00:01:55,240 --> 00:01:57,280
She never took it seriously.

24
00:01:57,280 --> 00:02:01,760
And I believe most couples who say something like that are being dramatic and should probably

25
00:02:01,760 --> 00:02:05,680
get some sleep to stop drinking or whatever you're doing because that's crazy.

26
00:02:05,680 --> 00:02:11,800
The promise came back around 12 years later and when it did, it came back as a plan.

27
00:02:11,800 --> 00:02:17,080
The swimming pool business ran on Jason's back and his back eventually quit.

28
00:02:17,080 --> 00:02:21,520
Years of hauling equipment left him in chronic pain and reporting on this case indicates that

29
00:02:21,520 --> 00:02:24,520
he became dependent on opioids.

30
00:02:24,520 --> 00:02:25,760
Money got thin.

31
00:02:25,760 --> 00:02:31,320
Around 2013, they packed up partly chasing legal marijuana and partly chasing a reset and

32
00:02:31,320 --> 00:02:34,760
landed in Caspian, Michigan up in iron County.

33
00:02:34,760 --> 00:02:36,880
It's up in the upper peninsula.

34
00:02:36,880 --> 00:02:41,880
This is a stretch of country where the nearest anything is like 45 minutes away.

35
00:02:41,880 --> 00:02:45,720
Kelly took a factory job making parts for naval ships.

36
00:02:45,720 --> 00:02:48,000
Chris Regan worked at that factory.

37
00:02:48,000 --> 00:02:53,640
He was 53 years old, divorced, a father of two, and Air Force veteran from Detroit who

38
00:02:53,640 --> 00:02:56,560
had come north for his own fresh start.

39
00:02:56,560 --> 00:02:58,120
People at work seemed like him.

40
00:02:58,120 --> 00:03:02,600
He was steady and easy to be around and he was seeing a woman named Terry O'Donnell on

41
00:03:02,600 --> 00:03:06,280
and off throughout that same time that he was seeing Kelly.

42
00:03:06,280 --> 00:03:07,280
He also had plans.

43
00:03:07,280 --> 00:03:12,000
He was talking about moving to Asheville, North Carolina and starting the next chapter of

44
00:03:12,000 --> 00:03:14,760
his life somewhere warmer.

45
00:03:14,760 --> 00:03:18,400
Investigators later came to believe that Kelly figured out that whatever she and Chris

46
00:03:18,400 --> 00:03:22,280
had, he had no intentions of making it permanent.

47
00:03:22,280 --> 00:03:26,960
Oh, by the way, Kelly was cheating on Jason with this Chris Regan guy.

48
00:03:26,960 --> 00:03:33,040
On October 14, 2014, Kelly invited Chris over to the house in Caspian and told him Jason

49
00:03:33,040 --> 00:03:34,920
was gone for the evening.

50
00:03:34,920 --> 00:03:36,760
Jason was in the house.

51
00:03:36,760 --> 00:03:40,040
He shot Chris with a 22 caliber rifle.

52
00:03:40,040 --> 00:03:42,400
The two of them took him to the basement.

53
00:03:42,400 --> 00:03:47,680
They used a reciprocating saw and scattered what was left of him across Iron County, including

54
00:03:47,680 --> 00:03:53,240
a burn barrel and a stretch of woods off Pintoga Trail in Crystal Falls Township.

55
00:03:53,240 --> 00:03:55,320
You may have heard about the barbecue story.

56
00:03:55,320 --> 00:03:59,080
The claim that went around the neighborhood and then later went around the internet.

57
00:03:59,080 --> 00:04:03,840
It's that the Cochran's hosted a cookout soon after this happened and served meat that

58
00:04:03,840 --> 00:04:06,920
the guests found strangely chewy.

59
00:04:06,920 --> 00:04:08,640
That claim was never proven.

60
00:04:08,640 --> 00:04:13,520
The chief said that the theory came from the neighbors themselves rather than her investigation

61
00:04:13,520 --> 00:04:15,680
and no evidence ever supported it.

62
00:04:15,680 --> 00:04:19,920
It remains the single most repeated detail about this case where the confirmed facts the

63
00:04:19,920 --> 00:04:24,200
things that we do know about are already super strange.

64
00:04:24,200 --> 00:04:26,760
Chris obviously did not show up for work.

65
00:04:26,760 --> 00:04:31,840
Terry noticed that something was off because Chris was a man who answered his phone and when

66
00:04:31,840 --> 00:04:36,600
she reported him missing late October, his car turned up abandoned and inside it was a

67
00:04:36,600 --> 00:04:40,120
handwritten note with directions to the Cochran House.

68
00:04:40,120 --> 00:04:45,240
Iron River's police chief was Laura Frisio, the first woman to hold that job there running

69
00:04:45,240 --> 00:04:47,360
a force of four officers.

70
00:04:47,360 --> 00:04:52,760
She had a missing man, a note pointing to a specific address, a married couple who came

71
00:04:52,760 --> 00:04:57,360
across all wrong in the interviews and an apartment small enough that answering the

72
00:04:57,360 --> 00:05:01,800
phone and running the investigation were frequently the same shift.

73
00:05:01,800 --> 00:05:06,640
She searched their house in 2015 and found what appeared to be blood along with a great deal

74
00:05:06,640 --> 00:05:09,360
of evidence that someone had cleaned up.

75
00:05:09,360 --> 00:05:13,800
The biological material had degraded past the point of usable DNA.

76
00:05:13,800 --> 00:05:16,880
She had nobody, so she had no charges.

77
00:05:16,880 --> 00:05:20,560
The Cochran's left town the night after the search and went home to Hobart.

78
00:05:20,560 --> 00:05:25,160
Private investigators tracked them there while Frisio kept working on the case from 400 miles

79
00:05:25,160 --> 00:05:26,160
away.

80
00:05:26,160 --> 00:05:31,600
In December 2016, she was relieved of duty, a firing she attributed to gender bias and

81
00:05:31,600 --> 00:05:36,680
the attention that the case had brought and she later won a wrongful termination settlement.

82
00:05:36,680 --> 00:05:42,680
On February 20th, 2016, Kelly called 911 and she said Jason wasn't breathing.

83
00:05:42,680 --> 00:05:47,800
He was 37, everyone assumed heroin and for a little while that held.

84
00:05:47,800 --> 00:05:53,320
Then the autopsy came back and the medical examiner ruled the cause of death as fixation.

85
00:05:53,320 --> 00:05:57,240
Kelly had injected him with a lethal dose and then covered his nose and mouth while he

86
00:05:57,240 --> 00:05:59,200
was there dying.

87
00:05:59,200 --> 00:06:03,840
The Jeremy Ogden of the Hobart Police Department called the case and the FBI handed him an

88
00:06:03,840 --> 00:06:08,040
anonymous tip linking the Cochran's to a disappearance in Michigan.

89
00:06:08,040 --> 00:06:09,520
He called Frisio.

90
00:06:09,520 --> 00:06:13,040
Then he did something you won't find in any training manual.

91
00:06:13,040 --> 00:06:16,680
Ogden spent more than 100 hours interviewing Kelly.

92
00:06:16,680 --> 00:06:21,720
Every minute of it, non-custodial, building an actual rapport with a woman that he already

93
00:06:21,720 --> 00:06:23,960
believed had killed two people.

94
00:06:23,960 --> 00:06:28,720
He noticed that she kept driving out to Jerry Pavise Park along Lake George and that she

95
00:06:28,720 --> 00:06:31,560
would sit by one specific tree.

96
00:06:31,560 --> 00:06:34,640
He then carved three words into the bark.

97
00:06:34,640 --> 00:06:36,040
Chris is here.

98
00:06:36,040 --> 00:06:40,080
The night she read it, Ogden watched her come running out of the woods and tear out of

99
00:06:40,080 --> 00:06:41,560
the parking lot.

100
00:06:41,560 --> 00:06:47,560
At same evening, she told him for the first time that Chris Regan had been murdered.

101
00:06:47,560 --> 00:06:49,320
Her story kept moving.

102
00:06:49,320 --> 00:06:53,360
Frisio described the pattern as "ly, lie, lie, truth."

103
00:06:53,360 --> 00:06:55,560
First, Jason acted alone.

104
00:06:55,560 --> 00:06:59,080
Jason Kelly admitted that she was the one who lured Chris to the house.

105
00:06:59,080 --> 00:07:04,680
In April 2016, she ran, leaving messages meant to point everyone to the west coast.

106
00:07:04,680 --> 00:07:10,440
An investigators traced her to Wingo, Kentucky, where US marshals arrested her on April 29.

107
00:07:10,440 --> 00:07:13,440
She gave her full-est admission the following day.

108
00:07:13,440 --> 00:07:16,800
Then she took investigators to Chris.

109
00:07:16,800 --> 00:07:19,200
They recovered a skull with a bullet hole in it.

110
00:07:19,200 --> 00:07:24,000
A pair of eyeglasses appeared to be his and pieces of the rifle.

111
00:07:24,000 --> 00:07:29,240
Kelly's trial in Iron County ran nearly three weeks in February 2017.

112
00:07:29,240 --> 00:07:33,920
She testified in her own defense and told the jury Jason was the killer and that she was

113
00:07:33,920 --> 00:07:36,840
a battered wife to frighten to speak.

114
00:07:36,840 --> 00:07:40,720
The prosecutor answered with evidence that Kelly ran that marriage.

115
00:07:40,720 --> 00:07:45,880
Text messages showed Jason pleading with her to end the affair and getting back the emotional

116
00:07:45,880 --> 00:07:48,520
equivalent of a shrug.

117
00:07:48,520 --> 00:07:50,320
Then there were jailhouse statements.

118
00:07:50,320 --> 00:07:54,200
Kelly had been telling people that she was a serial killer, that she and Jason had left

119
00:07:54,200 --> 00:07:58,960
bodies in four states, that she kept a bag of trinkets taken from victims.

120
00:07:58,960 --> 00:08:01,120
The number kept sliding around.

121
00:08:01,120 --> 00:08:05,320
She told Ogden 9 at one point and 21 at another.

122
00:08:05,320 --> 00:08:09,880
Physio testified that she never found any evidence that trinket bag existed.

123
00:08:09,880 --> 00:08:15,360
And Ogden testified to the same thing and no additional victims have ever been identified.

124
00:08:15,360 --> 00:08:19,120
Prosecutors used those statements to show the jury who they were sitting across from.

125
00:08:19,120 --> 00:08:22,520
A woman running a game from inside a cell.

126
00:08:22,520 --> 00:08:27,920
The jury of eight women and four men deliberated for under three hours and convicted her on all

127
00:08:27,920 --> 00:08:29,480
five counts.

128
00:08:29,480 --> 00:08:34,920
On May 10, 2017, she was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole.

129
00:08:34,920 --> 00:08:40,960
In April 2018, she pleaded guilty in Indiana to killing Jason and took 65 more years,

130
00:08:40,960 --> 00:08:42,120
consecutive.

131
00:08:42,120 --> 00:08:47,720
She said on the record that she hated him, that it was revenge, that she evened the score.

132
00:08:47,720 --> 00:08:51,920
The Michigan Court of Appeals upheld the conviction in June 2019.

133
00:08:51,920 --> 00:08:56,480
Kelly is at Women's Huron Valley in Ibsolanti and she will die there.

134
00:08:56,480 --> 00:09:00,000
She still gives interviews and the story still changes.

135
00:09:00,000 --> 00:09:04,600
In recent years, she claimed that she was tied up while Jason killed Chris.

136
00:09:04,600 --> 00:09:10,000
A version Physio had never heard from her before and dismissed as more of the same game.

137
00:09:10,000 --> 00:09:13,680
Two other people walked out of this with something else entirely.

138
00:09:13,680 --> 00:09:19,440
Laura Frisio and Jeremy Ogden fell in love working on the case and they are now married.

139
00:09:19,440 --> 00:09:24,520
She goes by Laura Frisio Ogden now and in 2025, the two of them sat down together for a

140
00:09:24,520 --> 00:09:28,920
Fox Nation series and told the whole story side by side.

141
00:09:28,920 --> 00:09:34,240
Chris Regan's watch is wallet, his keys, his phone and his necklace have never turned

142
00:09:34,240 --> 00:09:42,200
up in any search sense.

143
00:09:42,200 --> 00:09:46,320
Thanks for listening to 10 Minute Murder, bingeable True Crime Stories.

144
00:09:46,320 --> 00:09:51,840
Hello, I'm Joe, I'm the host and here's an email, subject podcast question from a guy who

145
00:09:51,840 --> 00:09:53,840
is failing at podcasting.

146
00:09:53,840 --> 00:09:58,880
Joe, I'm 38 episodes in, averaging 11 downloads.

147
00:09:58,880 --> 00:09:59,880
11.

148
00:09:59,880 --> 00:10:02,640
I'm pretty sure four of those are my mom on different devices.

149
00:10:02,640 --> 00:10:06,880
I've read the blogs, I've watched the YouTube guys who seem to be selling a course and I

150
00:10:06,880 --> 00:10:11,600
still can't tell if my problem is the content or the fact that nobody knows I exist.

151
00:10:11,600 --> 00:10:15,760
I'm here in the top 1% of podcasters and I'm in the bottom whatever so you clearly know

152
00:10:15,760 --> 00:10:16,960
something I don't.

153
00:10:16,960 --> 00:10:21,480
Real question, if you were starting from zero today with no audience, what would you actually

154
00:10:21,480 --> 00:10:23,680
spend your first 90 days doing?

155
00:10:23,680 --> 00:10:26,000
I'm not looking for be consistent.

156
00:10:26,000 --> 00:10:30,040
I've been consistent for nine months and consistent is not working by itself.

157
00:10:30,040 --> 00:10:34,240
Also, if the honest answer is quit, I would respect that too.

158
00:10:34,240 --> 00:10:35,560
Appreciate anything you can give me.

159
00:10:35,560 --> 00:10:37,200
Marcus and Chattanooga Tennessee.

160
00:10:37,200 --> 00:10:43,760
Marcus, I feel for you man, podcasting as easy as it might sound is very difficult and I

161
00:10:43,760 --> 00:10:46,840
know that there are people listening to me right now that think what you're just talking

162
00:10:46,840 --> 00:10:48,960
and telling stories into a microphone.

163
00:10:48,960 --> 00:10:49,960
How hard could that be?

164
00:10:49,960 --> 00:10:52,000
The answer is extremely hard.

165
00:10:52,000 --> 00:10:57,640
I happen to be a person who's been in the world of media since my adult years.

166
00:10:57,640 --> 00:11:03,200
I was 18, 19 years old when I started working in radio, did that for a decade, transitioned

167
00:11:03,200 --> 00:11:07,040
into TV and so I've been doing this for a very long time.

168
00:11:07,040 --> 00:11:13,400
Podcasting was never a thing until, you know, like back when the serial podcast came out and

169
00:11:13,400 --> 00:11:15,680
then everyone decided they wanted to be a podcaster.

170
00:11:15,680 --> 00:11:19,680
It took me until like the pandemic to decide, yeah, I should probably do that.

171
00:11:19,680 --> 00:11:25,320
But my point is I've got a background, I've got an education and I've got experience talking

172
00:11:25,320 --> 00:11:26,520
into a microphone.

173
00:11:26,520 --> 00:11:31,360
I've got experience creating content, writing scripts, all of those things.

174
00:11:31,360 --> 00:11:36,400
So it's not just something you can jump into without any knowledge or any know-how.

175
00:11:36,400 --> 00:11:42,200
So let's assume, Marcus, that you do know what you're doing and when it comes to the content.

176
00:11:42,200 --> 00:11:47,520
If your content is good and you are being consistent, those would be the top two things, obviously

177
00:11:47,520 --> 00:11:49,120
I would tell anybody.

178
00:11:49,120 --> 00:11:52,640
But beyond that, I would look at how it sounds.

179
00:11:52,640 --> 00:11:54,720
Do you have a decent microphone?

180
00:11:54,720 --> 00:11:59,440
Does it sound like you're doing your podcast in a bathroom where it's all echoey?

181
00:11:59,440 --> 00:12:00,840
Nobody wants to hear that.

182
00:12:00,840 --> 00:12:04,920
If your sound is good, your content's good, you're being consistent, then think you've

183
00:12:04,920 --> 00:12:06,000
hit the nail on the head.

184
00:12:06,000 --> 00:12:07,880
It's just people don't know that you exist.

185
00:12:07,880 --> 00:12:11,160
And the way to do that is with your social media.

186
00:12:11,160 --> 00:12:14,640
You've got to push it out there to the point that you think that you're being obnoxious with

187
00:12:14,640 --> 00:12:15,640
it.

188
00:12:15,640 --> 00:12:17,440
You think, I'm putting too much stuff out there.

189
00:12:17,440 --> 00:12:19,320
People are going to get sick of me.

190
00:12:19,320 --> 00:12:21,040
I just keep posting every day.

191
00:12:21,040 --> 00:12:22,120
Keep posting every day.

192
00:12:22,120 --> 00:12:23,440
People don't get sick of you.

193
00:12:23,440 --> 00:12:25,480
And if they do, it's easy just to scroll past.

194
00:12:25,480 --> 00:12:30,360
Now, I'm telling you all of that from the perspective of a guy that doesn't do enough social

195
00:12:30,360 --> 00:12:31,360
media stuff.

196
00:12:31,360 --> 00:12:35,080
I'm very lazy when it comes to actually promoting the podcast.

197
00:12:35,080 --> 00:12:39,360
Once I create the episodes, I just kind of put it out there and let people do with it as

198
00:12:39,360 --> 00:12:40,360
they will.

199
00:12:40,360 --> 00:12:45,200
So I'm terrible at the social media part of it, but that is the key to making your podcast

200
00:12:45,200 --> 00:12:48,440
known by people that aren't listening to it or don't know that you exist.

201
00:12:48,440 --> 00:12:50,000
I hope that advice makes sense.

202
00:12:50,000 --> 00:12:54,640
And trust me, it's coming from a place of someone that knows that it is very difficult to make

203
00:12:54,640 --> 00:12:55,640
a podcast work.

204
00:12:55,640 --> 00:13:00,200
Hey, if you're a brand new listener to this podcast, 10 Minute Murder, welcome.

205
00:13:00,200 --> 00:13:01,200
Get comfortable.

206
00:13:01,200 --> 00:13:02,840
Make sure you hit subscribe right now.

207
00:13:02,840 --> 00:13:07,280
You can go to 10minutemurder.com, catch up on all there is to do with the podcast and get

208
00:13:07,280 --> 00:13:11,160
links to where you can follow 10 Minute Murder on social media.

209
00:13:11,160 --> 00:13:15,120
If you've been listening a long time, you're what I consider an OG listener.

210
00:13:15,120 --> 00:13:16,120
I love you.

211
00:13:16,120 --> 00:13:19,360
Keep doing what you're doing, sharing it with your friends and your family and rating it

212
00:13:19,360 --> 00:13:21,360
five stars wherever that's possible.

213
00:13:21,360 --> 00:13:22,680
And that's going to do it.

214
00:13:22,680 --> 00:13:23,680
That's your episode for today.

215
00:13:23,680 --> 00:13:27,120
Thank you again for listening to 10 Minute Murder.

216
00:13:27,120 --> 00:13:27,560
See you next time.

217
00:13:27,560 --> 00:13:37,560
[Music]