This is a studio Both and production. If you'd like to support this show
and get ad free episodes for as little as two dollars a month, go
to patreon dot com slash studio both and did you realize people give me a
hard time because I am a girl? People don't look twice. Yeah,
the initial idea of serial killing came about when we were looking at particularly sexually
motivated series of homicides. And so when we all think about serial killers,
we think about Ted Bundy or we think about John Wayne Gacy. We had
this idea in our minds about men who are out there looking to prey on
women's sexually over long period of time, than of course kill them afterwards.
So that's our model of what a serial killer is. And so again the
answer I think is twofold. Number one is we do know that there are
far fewer women who have killed for sexual motives, and yet at the same
time, there are plenty of female serial killers who have killed for other reasons.
So we have to, I think, expand our idea of what a
serial killer is if we want to really look and kind of go, Yeah,
there definitely are a lot more male serial killers, but let's not overlook
the female serial killers because they tend to operate longer and to be more successful.
And I put that quotation marks because we're talking about body count deer.
They tend to be more successful over a longer period of time because they aren't
most likely to be captured. Kelly likes to talk most notably, Kelly likes
to talk about Jason's murders a lot. He only killed two women, He
targeted campers. There's eleven bodies in Indiana. He only killed two people.
He fed his victims to their pigs. He killed eleven people. Kelly kept
all of Jason's trophies. She'll tell you all about his murders and then claim
she knows nothing about them. She wasn't there, she wasn't involved. And
as we've discussed, it's her list of Jason's victims and Jason's own account of
their crimes in Where Monsters Hide that are considerably more credible than Kelly's list of
her alleged twenty one victims. For example, in his book Where Monsters Hide,
Jason writes about a female drug addict home wrecker, which sounds a lot
like Alicia. In the book, he also writes about an unwelcome man entering
q Quack's house and his wife saving the day, an ambiguous description of an
event that leads to a neighborhood barbecue, and this is a clear reference to
Chris Regan. Kelly's list of Jason's victims describes a man who looks and drives
the same unique car as Jason Ruter aka Minnesota Jason, and that list also
describes a murder that actually took place, the Tennessee Motel murder, And while
it doesn't seem like the Cochranes were involved, it is odd that Kelly knew
the details of such an unpublicized homicide hundreds of miles from their home a decade
after it occurred. My point is, if we're trying to make sense out
of all the crazy things the Cochranes have said and written, the most reliable
place to look is Jason. Things Jason wrote and things Kelly said about Chasten's
crimes, crimes she says she had nothing to do with, and that takes
us to what I believe is the major crux of this whole case, a
culture that Kelly has studied and exploited all along the ways in which gender and
sex are perceived, reported on, and investigated in crime in America, specifically
women as victims and men as invulnerable. So let's start with the most glaringly
obvious. Men are murderers, women are victims. Women don't kill. Clearly
that's not the case. I've thought a lot about and done a lot of
comparing of Kelly's crimes versus israel Keys as crimes, and I would be lying
to myself if I said there wasn't to major disparity in the ways I've told
those two stories. And look, it's not entirely black and white, nor
based solely on gender or sex. But I can't admit that the humor within
the outlandishness of Kelly's crimes might actually exist simply because she's a woman. Consider
for a moment your reaction to israel Keys throwing up in a victim's mouth.
It's a horrifying and deeply haunting idea. I would probably assume it was about
controlling and demeaning a victim. With Kelly, it's so crazy that it's funny.
It's crazy and or funny when women exert control over or demean men,
at least narratively. So I've found myself getting frustrated over or laughing at,
or some combination of the two. Many of the things Kelly has said and
done, but when Keys did similar things, he was a mystery. Keys
is calculating, enigmatic, meticulous. Kelly is ridiculous, a liar, manipulative,
and in all truth, both Keys and Kelly are all of those things.
Israel Keys has been dead for almost eight years, and I'm still terrified
of him. Kelly Cochrane is alive and well, and I'm writing her letters
without even blinking an eye. Sexism in in crime is a real thing,
and Kelly knows it and uses it. That's what makes her terrifying. I
used to think it was stupid and insane that Kelly thought she could kill multiple
men who she had relationships with and get away with it. And obviously in
the end she didn't get away with it. But it's very clear there were
victims before Chris Regan, and even in Regan's case, Jason was the suspect
long before Kelly was. In fact, at first, Kelly was viewed as
a vulnerable victim of Jason's and were it not for Chief Frizzo, probably would
have continued to be viewed that way. As you'll recall, Michigan State Police
didn't think Kelly was involved and actually refused to investigate her. Kelly thought she
could get away with it because, like she said, women are overlooked,
and like doctor Johnston said, women are generally more successful serial killers than men,
and that they tend to get away with it for much longer because they're
overlooked. Velma Barfield killed at least six people over a nine year year span.
Amy Archer Gilligan killed more than five people over a seven year span.
Bell Gunnis killed at least fourteen people over a twenty four year span. Ronda
Bell Martin killed between five and eight family members over a span of twenty plus
years. Dorothea Puente killed between nine and fifteen people over a six year span.
Jane Toppin killed more than thirty one people over a six year span.
Shirley Winters is believed to have killed upwards of ten people over a fifty year
span. I'd only heard of two of those women prior to my research.
In fact, of the sixty three female serial killers listed on Wikipedia, I'd
only heard of about ten percent of them. Now, let's take a look
at some of their male contemporaries. Ted Bundy killed more than thirty women over
a four year span. John Wayne Gacy killed at least thirty three men over
a six year span. Edmund Kemper killed ten people over a nine year span.
Jeffrey Dahmer killed seventeen men over a thirteen year span. Israel Keys is
believed to have killed at least eleven people over a fourteen year span. There
are over three hundred American male serial killers listed on Wikipedia. I knew of
about eighty five percent of them, so there's already some great disparities and how
we report on and sensationalize male versus female serial killers. And while there isn't
exact data available, after an analysis of twenty random female serial killers and twenty
random male serial killers, I found that, as an average, female serial
killers are apprehended after fourteen years of murdering, while male serial killers are apprehended
on average after five years. Additionally, most of those women were killing people
close to them, while most of those men were killing at random. Women
are overlooked, especially when it comes to killing men. The women who were
apprehended earlier in their sprees were women who were murdering children, women who were
killing, men were generally arrested much later in their sprees, which brings us
back to the perceived invulnerability of men, something else Kelly exploited. According to
Nemus, there are currently ten thousand, five hundred thirty one missing men in
America. That's more than sixty percent of their total missing persons records. This
is a trend consistent across all missing persons databases, which, and I cannot
stress this enough, do not come close to measuring the immeasurable number of actual
missing people in America. But as a trend, it's a bit eyebrow raising
considering the disparities in media coverage of missing men versus missing women, which is
already supremely unbalanced in its focus on missing white women. In this podcast,
we've talked a lot about the media's lack of reporting on missing and murdered Indigenous
women and minorities in general in America, a lack of reporting that I think
can be fairly summed up by a combination of apathy and editorialism. But why
aren't they reporting on missing men? Why aren't most Americans on a first name
basis with missing men like they are with Maura Murray Brianna Maitland, Leah Roberts,
Jennifer Kess, Lauren Speer, and so on. I don't pose this
question to insinuate that there's too much reporting on those or any missing women,
because there probably can't ever be too much reporting on any missing people, but
merely to ask why aren't we reporting equally on missing men and obviously missing minorities.
If you ask me, and this is reductive, it's sexism. We
don't want to editorialize men as vulnerable. It's a trope that's so pervasive with
an American media and storytelling. Women need to be saved, men do the
saving, and that's extended itself into true crime narratives and the way we talk
about crime in general. Until this podcast, most people who knew who Israel
Keys was had no idea that he targeted men. There are countless movies based
on male serial killers who targeted women, and they're all told through a lens
of horror and trauma. And while I'm sure there are more, the only
movie I can think of based on a female serial killer is Monster, which
tonally is both erotic and comedic. The idea of a woman killing men is
funny and that's mostly been the tone of this very podcast. We call her
crazy Kelly, not scary Kelly. And Kelly knew that she studied serial killers,
she studied forensics, she studied psychology. Kelly was a deptly aware of
how overlooked women are in the commission of violent crime. She was also aware
of how overlooked men are as victims and specifically which men. In both Kelly's
and Jason's narratives, there are three types of victims that come up over and
over again veterans, campers, and drug users and drug dealers. And I
don't think it's coincidence that these are the three groups of men who are most
likely to go missing and least likely to be reported on. Let's take a
look at veterans in America. According to the United States Department of Housing and
Urban Development, more than forty nine thousand veterans in America are reported as either
homeless or missing. It's actually so pervasive in America that legislators are working with
the VFW to implement a Green Alert, which would be a statewide ID alert
system similar to the Amber Alert, specifically for missing vets. Wisconsin is on
track to be the first state to test the green alert. But that's demonstrative
of both how often vets go missing and how frequently their disappearances are related to
or presumed to be related to homelessness, which makes them easy and vulnerable targets.
Chris Reagan and Eric Ericson were both vets, and according to Kelly,
so were at least three of her other victims, including Gary from Calumet City
and Minnesota Jason. A little less than fifty percent of Kelly's list of Jason's
victims consists of men who were camping, and as we learned from the Keys
case, when male campers go missing, it's presumed accidental or suicide. Again,
they make incredibly easy and vulnerable targets. And it's not just Kelly's list
that focuses on campers. Several people close to the Cochranes mentioned that Jason talked
about killing people while camping and in one instance referred to his murders as camping.
And then there's Colton's account of being drugged on a camping trip with Kelly
and Jason and the Cochranes. Well, they went camping a lot. Unfortunately,
because investigators didn't expend a lot of effort looking into the Cochranes beyond the
scope of Chris Regan's murder. There isn't much of a timeline for them outside
of their time in the Upper Peninsula, of course, but even in those
two years, the Cochranes went camping at least nine times, and as Colton
told investigators, even prior to their move up north, the Cochranes went on
many camping trips throughout Indiana, Michigan, Kentucky, Missouri, Illinois, and
Tennessee, all states that have come up in Kelly's conversations about locations where she's
killed people. And then there's drug users and dealers, and this is probably
the easiest and most vulnerable target for Kelly. She was a drug user who
hung around with both dealers and other users very frequently, and this group,
more than any other, are underreported when it comes to disappearances and murders.
It's choked up to homelessness or crime on crime when a drug user or dealer
goes missing or gets murdered. Deborah Feldman is a great example of this.
There was no coverage on her disappearance. Everyone in her life and local law
enforcement just assumed she'd either odeed or was a living on the streets, and
it wasn't until her name came up in the Keys investigation that anyone took her
disappearance seriously. And again, there's a precedence with drug users and dealers as
victims when it comes to the Cochranes, Jason talked about killing a drug dealer
that Kelly was sleeping with. Kelly's list of victims includes multiple men she claims
to have done drugs with. Jason rud Is alleged to have been involved in
drugs. Alicia was an addict and Kelly tried to overdose her. Kelly also
injected Jason with enough heroine to kill him prior to suffocating him. Kelly knew
she would be overlooked as a woman who killed people, and she knew exactly
who would be overlooked as murder victims. She knew she could kill people close
to her and get away with it. She knew it because there's a long
line of women who did it before her, and she knew, or at
least thought, she could reasonably make Jason look responsible for all of her murders,
even her murder of him. Sometimes there's no greater power than being underestimated
and overlooked. Now there is a fourth group of vulnerable people who the Cochranes
may have exploited, specifically because it's not one Kelly talks about much. If
ever, she repeatedly makes a point to talk about military service multiple times when
discussing hers and Jason's victims. She says things like I'm pretty sure he was
in the military. She also talks a lot about men she did drugs with
before murdering, or drug dealers she slept with behind Jason's back, and then
of course, camping is very prevalent in all of her lists and stories,
but Kelly doesn't talk much about race, specifically black men, at all,
despite it coming up with Jason. As you may remember, according to people
close to Jason, he talked a lot about killing black people and racially motivated
attacks, and Kelly's list and conversation have her killing multiple men in both Gary
and the South Side of Chicago, both areas that are over ninety percent black.
And if you look closely at both of Kelly's lists and even venture to
believe that there's any truth to them, there are two things that stand out.
One Kelly never mentions the race of any of hers or Jason's victims,
and two Jason's list, the only list with exact dates of murders, actually
includes dates and locations that match up to missing men missing black men. Take,
for example, Noah question Mark from Jason's list. Kelly wrote that Jason
murdered Noah question on May twelfth of two thousand eight and then disposed of his
remains in Robinson Lake Park near their home on Mississippi Street. Now, there
are no reports of a man named Noah who disappeared on May twelfth of two
thousand eight, or any date surrounding May twelfth of two thousand eight. There
is, however, a man named Nicholas who disappeared on that exact date from
the South side of Chicago, just thirty four miles from the Cochrane's home.
Nicholas O. Brown, a black, twenty one year old man, was
last seen on the twenty nine hundred block of South Dearborn Street in Chicago at
around seven pm on May twelfth. Nicholas was known to be involved in both
street gangs and local drug trade, and in addition to the date and location
matching, there are few other things that stand out about Nicholas's disappearance. One
Kelly's list of her alleged victims includes a Michael Marcus, who was from the
South Side of Chicago. Kelly doesn't state when this murder occurred, but her
mostly chronological list would place this murder sometime around two thousand and six. She
claimed she only met him once while doing drugs before stabbing him in the neck,
and all of her talking of her alleged victims, this is the one
she discusses the least two. According to medical records and witness interviews, Kelly
checked into a mental health facility exactly two months before Nicholas brown disappeared, and
Jason Well he checked into a mental health facility in late May of two thousand
and eight. And while the for the Cochran's being involved in Nicholas Browne's disappearance
is a lot more tenuous than say Andrew Fugates, the date, the location,
and the victim profile all match. And then there's all this talk of
Jason targeting the black community and his resentment towards the many, many drug users
in Kelly's life. When we talk about overlooked groups and true crime, missing
and murdered black men is a big one, and Chicago. Essentially, the
Cochrane's backyard is an epicenter. According to Namis and the Charlie Project, there
are at minimum thirty seven unsolved disappearances of black men in Chicago, and about
seventy five percent of all unsolved homicides in Chicago are homicides of black men.
They may be one of these most easy and vulnerable targets. Kelly knew exactly
what types of victims would be overlooked, and they all come up in her
lists, Jason's book, Kelly's Conversations with Ogden, and or Jason's Conversations with
Friends. Kelly knew exactly how and why should be overlooked as a killer,
much like her victimology. She used that to her advantage in setting Jason up,
in her storytelling and in her methods of murder and attempted murder, and
that subsists even in everything we think we know about the crimes we can connect
her to, specifically Chris Reagan. Everything we know about that murder, the
actual murder self, we've learned from Kelly. There was no physical evidence in
the Cochrane home other than Chris's DNA on the forceps used to remove the bullet
that killed him. The narrative is that Kelly lured him into their home,
where Jason shot him on the landing near their back door, then dismembered him
in their basement. In some stories, Chris and Kelly fall down the basement
stairs together after he shot, and others just Chris falls down, and in
one story the Cochranes carry him down the stairs after the shooting. But before
this story became the story, one investigator wondered aloud how Jason could shoot Chris
and the back of the head from the basement. It just didn't seem possible.
In Kelly's various stories, Chris's always engaging in some sort of sex act
with her against the wall facing the back door, which would place Chris above
and to the right of the basement steps. If Jason shot him from the
basement, he would have shot him in the side of the head. And
then there's the landing and that specific wall staples were found in the joists of
the basement walls, and there's evidence the Cochranes bought and then burned plastic sheeting,
so Chris was likely dismembered, and what was essentially a plastic wrapped room
and the Cochranes painted several rooms in their house following the murder, but they
didn't paint the room that Kelly alleges Jason killed Chris in because, as you'll
remember, Chris was allegedly murdered beneath a hand painted danced like no One's Watching
mural, and there was no blood or DNA evidence found anywhere in that room
or on that wall. The story, as we know it can't be corroborated.
The only two other people who were there are now dead. But Kelly
has made it very clear that Chris Regan was definitively murdered by Jason. He's
on Jason's list. Jason shot him at an impossible angle from the basement,
up the stairs into a room that had absolutely no DNA evidence, just like
he promised in that vow that no one can corroborate. If we're trying to
make sense out of the crazy things the Cochranes have said and written, the
most reliable place to look is Jason. Things Kelly said about Jason's crimes and
things Jason wrote, like when he wrote about an unwelcome man entering quack Quack's
home. Wife saves the day Kelly knows how to exploit he overlooked and underestimated.
Did you realize people give me a hard time because I am a girl?
But don't look twice you see. This episode was written, produced,
and researched by me your host, Josh Hallmark, with research assistants from Becca
Klein. Thank you to doctor Joni Johnston for providing insight into female serial killers.
Research resources include the Chicago Tribune, The Washington Post, Namis, and
the Charlie Project. Thank you to True Crime Bullshit's newest Patreon supporters, Becca
F. Sarah P, Joseph H, and Joe N. This episode featured
music by William Hellfire, Lee Rooseveer, Lebonne, Sergei Cheramisanov, Radical Face,
and Empress of on the outside. I'm only a figure should see my
friend. I only a figure should see my friend. Only a figures should
see my friend. First, the firest, the firest, the flame.
I want to struggle, fagget in your way. I want to struggle,
fagget in your way. I'm only a struggle fagging Where you mean the road
be the road? One way is where I'm an A woman is a word
hurt me, but burt me. I'm always coming on inside. I always
coming on the inside. I always coming on inside when you can, when
you can knock outside