Chapter 1: What mysterious events led to the disappearance of Chris Reagan?
In the suburbs of D.C., a woman fails to show up for work and is found brutally murdered.
I wonder which emergency. We just walked in the door and there's blood in the foyer.
For the next two 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. Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts.
Step into the 2020 True Crime Vault. Listen to our most gripping stories. From the outside, it honestly looks like a dark Hansel and Gretel kind of house.
What?
Your dog. OK, you know what I mean? You'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 Reagan.
And no signs of forced entry or chaos? Absolutely not. Something happened to him. I knew that in my heart, and I knew that in 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 Yupers.
Yupers are unique people. The Upper Peninsula is separated by the Mackinac Bridge from Lower Michigan.
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Chapter 2: How did the investigation into Chris Reagan's case begin?
Remarkably, two whole weeks had gone by and no one had heard from Chris. That's when Terry decides to go to the police. By this time, the two 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. Oh, it's 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's 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 the 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. I said 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 up. 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.
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Chapter 3: What was the significance of the relationships in Chris Reagan's life?
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 Terry had seen Chris's car abandoned for days.
An old friend of mine.
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?
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 reagan he's caught on a surveillance camera at a gas station on the afternoon of october 14 2014. leading up the investigation into reagan'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?
Four full time. She truly cared, and she truly wanted to solve this. As Chief Frizzo investigates Chris Reagan'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 six 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 he was doing that, and he said, well, you're going to be gone to Europe for three weeks. What happens if I get lonely? So sadly to say, I broke it off with him.
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Chapter 4: What evidence did police find in the Cochran's home?
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?
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Chapter 5: How did Kelly Cochran's confession change the direction of the investigation?
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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 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.
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Chapter 6: What shocking claims did Kelly make about her marriage and Chris's murder?
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. Is that what she said? Yeah, I painted it. And something caught my eye and I looked at it again and I kind of stepped to the side and I 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 going to step in here. 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. 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 10 o'clock at night, so it's late. Investigators think that they have uncovered a goldmine 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 totally loaded up their truck and skipped town.
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Chapter 7: What were the key moments during Kelly Cochran's trial?
So she contacts the Lake County Sheriff's Department in Indiana. When I spoke with her, we made a connection on the phone. She gave me all the reasons that she believed that this was a criminal case and 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. 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 were begging me, begging your wife to stop cheating, cheating on you. Do you remember telling her, if you ever loved me, you'd act like my wife? It says right in your messages, don't go back to those apartments. You're a married woman. Do you remember saying that?
Okay. Do you remember saying that? I don't really feel like answering any questions. I feel like you've violated my constitutional rights and I'm a lawyer.
And 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 it seemed to be her nemesis. So Jason was here for quite a while. And, uh... It took a while, but Jason told us some stuff.
The problem with you, Kelly, is that, you know, I've caught you in so many lies that I'm trying to get an opportunity now to just say, hey, you know, I f***ed up. I am asking for a lawyer. I'm done with the question. 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 to leave the room to get to the technicians to take her DNA, she said, where's my husband? And I just kind of looked back at her because I kind of fed her a line that, you know, Jason's already told us everything. We already know what happened. 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 Reagan.
Yeah, my husband's not breathing. His face is like, well, he's breathing barely. I don't know what's wrong. I need an ambulance right away.
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Chapter 8: What were the final outcomes for Kelly Cochran and the investigation?
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 what in the heck's that smell? And 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 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 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, his face is like, well, he's bleeding barely.
I don't know what's wrong. He's throwing up. He's sweating. 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?
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.
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