The Devil's in the Details

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Speaker 2 Tonight on Dateline, we receive a text message.

Speaker 8 He's collapsed, hit his head on the counter, and he's had a seizure.

Speaker 4 I don't really know what is going on, but I know it's bad.

Speaker 12 Here's my only son.

Speaker 13 It's really hard to bury a child.

Speaker 12 You must have been worried about Natalie. She has two children.
Her husband's gone. Yes.

Speaker 8 She was strong, stoic.

Speaker 6 They were very close.

Speaker 12 They did everything together. She starts saying he was taking supplements from Mexico.
That's what had caused the seizures.

Speaker 9 We found a bottle of insulin in the refrigerator. He's not a diabetic.
Why is it beneath a pile of chocolate bars?

Speaker 5 They're asking very personal questions about me and my husband's relationship.

Speaker 12 The money is gone.

Speaker 16 Yeah, there was a tremendous amount of money. The circumstances became more and more suspicious.

Speaker 12 Some really dark secrets were about to tumble out.

Speaker 8 Yes, everything has been a lie.

Speaker 8 You know, the saying is, devil's in the details.

Speaker 18 Well, the devil was all in this.

Speaker 2 A young husband and father dead in a heartbreaking medical mystery.

Speaker 4 Was it murder?

Speaker 2 I'm Lester Holt, and this is Dade Live.

Speaker 2 Here's Andrea Canning with The Devils in the Details.

Speaker 12 Beckley, West Virginia. A quiet city tucked into the foothills of Appalachia.
The kind of place where neighbors become family and trust runs deep.

Speaker 8 We've got so many good people here in this community.

Speaker 12 Weekends meant barbecues and little league games. At the center of it all, a beautiful couple, Natalie and Michael Cochran.

Speaker 18 On the outside looking in, they looked like a storybook relationship.

Speaker 12 Children, friends, success. A life that seemed perfect.
But beneath it all, a secret. One so cold-blooded it would leave them all reeling.

Speaker 12 Your reaction when you learn it was all smoke and mirrors.

Speaker 10 It took all the breath out of me. I just sank.

Speaker 13 It was absolutely crushing.

Speaker 8 I was lucky to have him. He's a good guy,

Speaker 6 good friend.

Speaker 12 I just couldn't believe it. This is what movies are made of, you know, and here we are.
We're living it.

Speaker 12 February 6th, 2019. Contractor Jason Bowen had just picked up supplies for a job when he got a text.
It was Natalie Cochran with bad news about her husband, Michael.

Speaker 14 Mike is sick.

Speaker 21 He's laying on the kitchen floor, and I can't get him to the couch.

Speaker 18 Can you come help?

Speaker 12 Jason had done a number of renovation projects for the Cochranes. They'd become good friends.

Speaker 21 And of course, we respond, yeah, we're on our way. We'll We'll be right there.

Speaker 23 We kind of walked through here

Speaker 21 to find Natalie standing over here to the left-hand side.

Speaker 21 When it came around the corner, we could see Mike laying over here in a fetal position. And he was just kind of curled up with his head right here in the corner, just laying.

Speaker 9 She's like, can you help

Speaker 21 get him to the couch?

Speaker 17 We kind of rolled him over real gentle and

Speaker 18 picked him up and carried him to the couch.

Speaker 12 Other friends went over as well. John Hamilton is a state trooper and his wife Stephanie, a physician's assistant.
Natalie told them Michael had a seizure, then fell to the floor.

Speaker 24 And then I asked Natalie, how do you want to get him to the hospital? I said, you know, it's like, just however you want to take him there.

Speaker 24 She said, well, no, I'm just going to let him sleep it off right now.

Speaker 12 And she's like, well, this is just always what he does. This is what he always does when this happens.
After a seizure. Just lays him and sleep.
And a lot of people do do that.

Speaker 12 Natalie said Michael was prone to seizures. He'd landed in the hospital months earlier.
He hated it there, so she was reluctant to take him back. And she was a pharmacist.

Speaker 12 So instead, she monitored his blood pressure and pulse as he lay on the couch. Yeah, like all of his vitals are good.
Close friends Chris and Jennifer Davis also heard that Michael was ill.

Speaker 12 How do you get word that something has happened to him?

Speaker 8 We receive a text message saying that he's collapsed, hit his head on the counter, and he's had a seizure. For me personally at the moment, it was really like, what does he need?

Speaker 8 Like, what do you need me to do?

Speaker 12 Do you rush over there?

Speaker 8 No, no, because she says

Speaker 8 the contractors are here and they've got him on the couch. He's resting.

Speaker 12 By nightfall, he was still out cold. Chris came to check on him.

Speaker 21 And he's snoring.

Speaker 8 So that's the other thing. It's like he's not like, he's not laboring when he's breathing, you know, but he's not responding.

Speaker 10 He's...

Speaker 12 Not responding, but he's snoring.

Speaker 4 Yeah, like, I don't really know what is going on, but I know it's bad.

Speaker 8 I go to him and I'm now standing over him and I'm talking to him.

Speaker 25 I'm like, you know, hey, man, hey, bud,

Speaker 8 you need to wake up. You got to give me something, buddy.
You got to give me something. And so I'm kind of pushing him, nudging him a little bit.

Speaker 19 Are you getting anything?

Speaker 12 I'm getting nothing. So are you thinking we need to be calling 911?

Speaker 27 Yes. Well,

Speaker 19 what I'm thinking is even quicker than calling 911.

Speaker 6 I'm going to take him to the hospital now.

Speaker 8 I promise you.

Speaker 19 I'll have him there quicker than an ambulance, you know.

Speaker 12 Do you end up taking him?

Speaker 6 Absolutely.

Speaker 12 At nearby Raleigh General Hospital, things went from bad to worse.

Speaker 8 They take him in to the emergency room and they go down to almost the last room on the left and they go in there.

Speaker 21 And so they pull the curtain.

Speaker 8 To me, it seemed like maybe five or ten minutes later, they pull back the curtain

Speaker 19 and he's on a ventilator.

Speaker 28 Oh my god.

Speaker 19 And that's what I knew. Like, no.

Speaker 6 Like, what is going?

Speaker 12 Like, what is going on? That fast.

Speaker 6 Yeah. I mean, he was...

Speaker 12 That's such a shocking scene.

Speaker 12 Well, it is. To go from...

Speaker 6 Like, what in the world?

Speaker 12 Natalie was by Michael's bedside, conferring with doctors and working her phone. Michael's mom, Donna Bolt, got a text from her about 10.30 that night.

Speaker 13 And I just remember... screaming on text message, you know, what happened? What happened?

Speaker 12 The answers would come in time. You end up finding something that you didn't even know you were looking for.

Speaker 9 Yes.

Speaker 12 And when they did.

Speaker 8 I'm going to need you to say that one more time. What did you say?

Speaker 12 It would tear their world apart. Very hurt.
Very betrayed. Just in disbelief.

Speaker 8 You know, the saying is: devil's in the details.

Speaker 18 Well, the devil was all in this.

Speaker 12 Michael Cochran lay in a place he loathed in a condition that was dire, hooked up to a ventilator. His friends, Chris and Jennifer, prayed for him and supported his wife, Natalie, as best they could.

Speaker 12 How was Natalie doing through all of this?

Speaker 8 She was

Speaker 8 strong,

Speaker 9 stoic, had it all under control.

Speaker 12 She's trying to be strong for everyone else, taking care of business. You know, I'm taking care of his medical situation.

Speaker 8 Yes, she's going to take care of

Speaker 8 what has to happen.

Speaker 12 It's what Natalie always did, take care of things. As a pharmacist, she stepped up when the Davises learned their son had diabetes.

Speaker 12 He was diagnosed at seven and a half, and she was a certified diabetic educator. Wow.
So to have a friend like that

Speaker 12 must have been incredible. Yes.
So we went to the pharmacy to pick up his medicine medicine and everything. She took us in a room and just explained everything to us.

Speaker 12 And from then on, you know, we just became close.

Speaker 12 Chris and Michael bonded over baseball, coaching their sons together, becoming best friends.

Speaker 8 And so, you know, we usually had the same focus and desires for the outcomes of the sporting events we were at. You know, we wanted to win and

Speaker 12 that's probably the connection. So fun.
So you're building memories together as families.

Speaker 19 Absolutely.

Speaker 8 I mean, it's life developing and memories being made.

Speaker 12 And it's so great when the kids are all at the center of that.

Speaker 19 Oh, absolutely. Yeah.

Speaker 12 Natalie and Michael's love story began in high school in 1998 after a chance meeting at a Dicks sporting goods store near Beckley where Natalie worked. Michael's mother Donna remembers it fondly.

Speaker 13 I told Michael as we were leaving the store, I said, she's flirting with you, Michael. He said, oh, no, she's not, mom.
I said, yes, she is, Michael.

Speaker 12 So Michael keeps finding a reason to go back to Dick's.

Speaker 13 Yes, and they started dating. You know, I found out later that they had started dating.

Speaker 12 What did you think of the relationship?

Speaker 13 Well, I mean, she was a nice girl, you know, a pretty girl.

Speaker 13 And, you know, the only thing we didn't like about it was they started dating so young because, you know, he was getting ready to go to college.

Speaker 12 They did end up going to college together. Yes, ma'am.

Speaker 13 Natalie was supposed to went to Concord College, but she changed schooling and went to WVU.

Speaker 12 They were so in love that Natalie followed Michael Michael to West Virginia University.

Speaker 13 Yes.

Speaker 12 They got married in the spring of 2000. Then they got their degrees.
Michael in I.T., Natalie in pharmacy. Two kids, Nicole and Ashton, and a move back home to the Beckley area, followed.

Speaker 12 While Michael was working with computers and coaching, Natalie became treasurer of their son's baseball team and worked as a pharmacist.

Speaker 12 Stephanie, the physician's assistant, quickly found a lot in common with Natalie. We would, you know, talk back and forth about medications and things like that.
She always would send me like

Speaker 12 a scripture every day, like a Bible verse. That's thoughtful.
So it was, you know, kind of like positivity for your day. In 2017, Natalie and Michael did something daring.

Speaker 12 They started their own company called Tactical Solutions Group. bidding on contracts to sell weapons and medical supplies to the government.
The business took off.

Speaker 12 She was, you know, getting to do a lot that she'd wanted to do, and I was happy for him. What does Michael say to you about their good fortune?

Speaker 8 He's excited about it as well.

Speaker 12 The Cochranes wanted to share their success with friends. Natalie and Michael say, hey, would you like to get involved in this too? These contracts.

Speaker 8 Absolutely. So they were doing Department of Defense, all their contracts, Department of Defense.

Speaker 12 When Michael wasn't on the job, he was working out. Staying in shape meant everything to him.
He was known to take lots of supplements to improve his performance.

Speaker 21 Mike was a very athletic person. He liked his appearance to be perfect.
It wasn't about, oh,

Speaker 18 I'm the biggest guy in the world.

Speaker 17 It was more of, I look good.

Speaker 21 I feel good.

Speaker 12 But then in early 2019, the Cochrane's charmed life began to fray. Natalie has some really sad news to share with you.
Yes. She tells you that she's very sick.
Yeah, she texted me in January and says,

Speaker 12 I just found out that I have leukemia.

Speaker 12 Natalie was fighting back. She told friends her treatments were aggressive.
But now it was Michael who was fighting for his life. Doctors at the local hospital couldn't figure out why he was sick.

Speaker 12 They sent him to a larger facility where he was admitted to the ICU and given more tests. During one, Donna and Michael's stepdad Ed saw a glimmer of hope.

Speaker 13 The young male nurse came in and he started to check the reaction and the alertness of an unconscious patient. And he took his fist and rubbed it into Michael's chest.
It's called a sternal rub.

Speaker 13 And Michael raised up in the bed and opened up his eyes.

Speaker 17 Really?

Speaker 12 Yes.

Speaker 12 Did that give you hope? That...

Speaker 17 Yes. Yes.

Speaker 10 Yes, it did. Where there's life, there's hope.

Speaker 12 It wasn't to be. Natalie told friends Michael continued to decline.

Speaker 12 And then it was kind of like, like, I got to make a decision. I'm like, what are you talking about? Like, whether he lives or dies yeah

Speaker 12 like we're gonna have to pull him off the vent

Speaker 12 and i'm hard to hear how do we get to this

Speaker 12 the next thing the friends heard michael had been moved to hospice

Speaker 6 how do you say your final words to michael he knew faith was important he knew it was important to me and so

Speaker 6 my goodbye

Speaker 6 is more about

Speaker 6 I'll see you again. I'll see you in heaven.

Speaker 6 It's all in God's will.

Speaker 12 Yeah, we should all be so lucky to have friends like you who care this much. Jennifer, that must have been so hard for you to watch Chris for you, this knowing how close they were.

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 30 It's very hard.

Speaker 12 Michael's mother watched her son fighting to breathe.

Speaker 13 Of course, I kissed him and told him that I loved him.

Speaker 30 It's heartbreaking.

Speaker 17 Yes.

Speaker 12 And then he was gone.

Speaker 12 Then he'd passed away, yes

Speaker 12 five days after he collapsed on the kitchen floor michael cochran was dead

Speaker 12 what on earth had happened it was a medical mystery

Speaker 12 investigators would soon wonder if it was something more let's look into this and see where it goes

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Speaker 12 Michael Cochran, active, full of life, was gone. Dead at just 38.
No warning, no explanation. To his friends and family, none of it made any sense.

Speaker 8 Mike had general health problems that we all have as we age, per se.

Speaker 8 But Mike was healthy. Mike was, he was fit.
He's coaching. He's out there.

Speaker 8 He's doing everything that I'm doing.

Speaker 17 Nobody knew what was wrong.

Speaker 18 Nobody knew what happened.

Speaker 4 It was just gone.

Speaker 21 Why did he leave this world so fast, so sudden? There was no rhyme or reason for it.

Speaker 12 It all happened so suddenly.

Speaker 17 Yes, it did.

Speaker 13 Yes, it did. He was too young.
We're supposed to go before he goes.

Speaker 13 It's really hard to bury a child.

Speaker 12 Doctors were just as baffled. They'd found that Michael had extremely low blood sugar and that he died from brain swelling, but they couldn't say what caused any of it.

Speaker 12 They listed the manner of death as natural for now.

Speaker 12 All Michael's loved ones could do was comfort his widow Natalie. You must have been worried about Natalie given everything that's going on.
She has two children, her husband's gone.

Speaker 13 Yes, we would go down and take food down to her and to the kids. And she would say, oh, I'm upstairs.
I'm too sick to come down.

Speaker 12 They sympathized as she described her ongoing cancer battle. She sent me pictures one day that she was losing her hair from the chemo and she had cut her hair.

Speaker 13 She said that she would have a triple chemotherapy treatment and a triple radiation treatment all at the same time at the same day.

Speaker 12 Did the community really support her during this difficult time? I mean, you know, that's what you do in Beckley. You help each other, right?

Speaker 13 Yes, the community reached around them and stuff and, you know, tried to give him as much compassion that they could give. We all tried to, you know, help her as much as we could.

Speaker 12 Then, two months after Michael died, Natalie finally shared some good news with her friend Stephanie. My cancer is gone, it's in remission.
Were you so happy for her?

Speaker 12 I was like, oh my gosh, that is awesome. Natalie seemed to rebound.
She found ways to keep Michael's spirit alive.

Speaker 12 Natalie set up a scholarship fund in Michael's name that must have made you feel good.

Speaker 17 Absolutely, yeah.

Speaker 10 We just thought, well, you know, this is really, really

Speaker 10 something, a good way to honor Michael.

Speaker 12 Life for Natalie and her children slowly returned to normal.

Speaker 12 But a few months later, friends like Chris Davis started wondering about the Cochrane's business and when he might see some returns on the big investment he'd made. But he didn't want to push.

Speaker 12 It's an awkward time to be asking about money.

Speaker 8 It wasn't

Speaker 8 her excuses, wasn't, you know, the dog ate my homework or that,

Speaker 8 you know, the cookie monster or something.

Speaker 12 Her husband has died.

Speaker 3 Yeah, and so these facts kind of laid out with each other.

Speaker 8 You know, you're like, oh, okay.

Speaker 12 Before long, murmurs about the Cochrane's business landed on the desk of investigator Bob Heinzman of the West Virginia State Police.

Speaker 12 He got wind of a complaint from a gun collector who'd done business with Michael and Natalie's company.

Speaker 48 He had received approximately $40,000 worth of guns, but he had yet to receive the remaining $40,000 in firearms that he purchased.

Speaker 12 Heinzman, an experienced financial crimes investigator, looked into it. Was this gun collector the only person who was owed money?

Speaker 48 Through the gun collector, we were given another name of an individual who ended up being an investor in Natalie and Michael Cochran's company. And we spoke to that individual next.

Speaker 12 That man said he'd invested in the company, but he too was getting the runaround. Heinzman looped in his partner, Lieutenant Tim Bledsoe.
What do you do with this complaint?

Speaker 9 The priority was: let's look into this and

Speaker 9 see where it goes, you know.

Speaker 12 What do you learn about Michael and Natalie's business?

Speaker 9 Initially, everything we learned about the business was through the first two individuals who provided information. And what was on the TSG Tactical Solutions Group website.

Speaker 9 I don't remember verbatim, but basically that they fulfilled government contracts and that they were a

Speaker 9 leading supplier to the Department of Defense for firearms, pharmaceuticals.

Speaker 12 Natalie and Michael had different roles. He found the contracts.
She was to bid on them. It was an idea straight out of Hollywood.
How does this all happen?

Speaker 12 From a pharmacist in a small town and someone who's in IT, where do they get this idea to do this?

Speaker 8 I don't know where they got the idea. I know that they'd reference the movie War Dogs, which dealt with government contracting.

Speaker 12 War Dogs is based on a true story of two ordinary guys who ran a government contracting business and became international arms dealers, securing contracts for hundreds of millions of dollars.

Speaker 49 It was crazy.

Speaker 50 The government had a public website containing every military contract currently up for bidding.

Speaker 12 It was a crazy idea that seemed to pay off. Natalie quit her job as a pharmacist and the two focused on the company full-time.
They told Michael's parents about their success.

Speaker 12 You must have been so proud of them to see how well they were doing.

Speaker 9 We were.

Speaker 13 Very happy, very happy for them.

Speaker 12 As the business soared, so did their spending.

Speaker 8 They went to Europe,

Speaker 8 Hawaii, the baseball World Series, college World Series.

Speaker 12 What did you find when you started to look into their lifestyle?

Speaker 17 They were traveling.

Speaker 6 They were...

Speaker 9 making pretty regular purchases of items that were fairly expensive. They were trying to negotiate some real estate

Speaker 12 transactions. Properties? Yes.
Do you know how many?

Speaker 10 I know of at least

Speaker 9 three.

Speaker 12 And just like the characters in War Dogs, Michael bought a sports car with custom plates.

Speaker 21 It said Gunrunner on the back of it, and he thought it was the best thing ever because he was a gun runner.

Speaker 18 I sell guns to the government.

Speaker 12 They'd even considered purchasing a hangar at the airport.

Speaker 21 He was in the market for a helicopter and had Natalie looking everywhere for this particular helicopter that he wanted.

Speaker 12 So their lifestyle is getting

Speaker 12 on the up and up and up.

Speaker 6 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 12 Had everything.

Speaker 12 But now there were questions about the company, and there was only one person who could answer them, Natalie.

Speaker 48 With Michael deceased, she was still the only one. linked to the business and she was still running that business.

Speaker 12 What would she have to say?

Speaker 22 Hello, Mrs. Cochran.

Speaker 18 Hi.

Speaker 22 Hey, this is Lieutenant Bledsoe from the State Police.

Speaker 12 That phone call would lead to even more questions, and not just about the Cochrane's finances.

Speaker 12 Chris Davis, the friend who'd invested in Michael and Natalie's contracting business, still hadn't seen a dime.

Speaker 8 As you go through March and you get into April and you start questioning her more about, hey, I don't understand, why is this return not coming?

Speaker 12 Just a year before, the business seemed like a runaway success. Did it seem like a good opportunity? Sure.
How much did you invest?

Speaker 8 We invested $511,000.

Speaker 19 It's a lot of money.

Speaker 6 Yes.

Speaker 12 Chris wasn't the only one of their friends who put money into the company. John and Stephanie had as well.
Their son had recently become sick and they were facing mounting medical bills.

Speaker 12 So she's saying I can ease your load for you and you can focus more on your son. Yes and you can make a lot of money and

Speaker 12 you can be home with him.

Speaker 12 Natalie's parents and Michael's came on board too. How much money are we talking about?

Speaker 13 Almost a quarter of a million dollars.

Speaker 12 Was that your retirement, your life savings?

Speaker 13 It was our retirement savings.

Speaker 10 We trusted Natalie and We loved her and so why not?

Speaker 12 Knowing that so many family and friends of the Cochranes and people you knew were involved in this investment, did that kind of make it just even easier to say yes?

Speaker 8 It did. It made it feel a lot more secure because it was it was family.
Family and friends around here blends a lot. So, you know, it was very comfortable.
It wasn't a business transaction.

Speaker 12 Now, a month after Michael's death, detectives were secretly checking out complaints against the business. With Michael gone, they could only question Natalie.

Speaker 48 She was still running that business. We didn't want to take the chance of her destroying records.

Speaker 12 So they decided not to ask Natalie about the money, not at first anyway. Instead, they'd see what she could tell them about Michael's unusual death.

Speaker 9 We learned that Michael did not go for autopsy. He had some type of accident or fall at home, suffered a head injury, and then died shortly thereafter.

Speaker 22 Hello, Mrs. Cochran.

Speaker 18 Hi.

Speaker 22 Hi, this is Lieutenant Bledsoe from the State Police.

Speaker 51 And I hate to, you know, bring up a subject about your husband's passing, but he should have went to the medical examiner's office

Speaker 51 and

Speaker 51 they're reviewing that and they just ask us to talk to people. Anything you can shed some light on and what led to his illness.

Speaker 12 This is more like let's have an initial conversation with Natalie just to start feeling her out.

Speaker 5 Yes.

Speaker 12 Natalie talked with Bledsoe a few times over the course of a month about the day Michael collapsed.

Speaker 22 Could you give me some detail on Michael's morning, background stuff about his overall mourning?

Speaker 52 I took the kids to school and I had the flu and he was like, well, I think I might have a touch of the flu too because I'm not feeling very good.

Speaker 52 And I was like, do you want to go to the doctor? And he was like, no, you know me, I'll be fine. So he fell asleep on the couch for about 45 minutes to an hour maybe.

Speaker 52 Woke up. And then all of a sudden he went right into the kitchen and he started throwing up in our kitchen sink.
And then he started to have a seizure and he fell and collapsed.

Speaker 52 He hit his head, but it didn't seem that bad. He would mumble a little bit, but he didn't seem to be in any distress.
And then that evening, when he still wasn't.

Speaker 52 you know, arousing, we decided to take him to the hospital.

Speaker 12 She said she later found a bottle of supplements, part of his bodybuilding regimen.

Speaker 52 I pulled all the stuff out of his cabinet and it fell out. He had it hidden in the bottom of a vitamin box.

Speaker 12 The bottle contained a testosterone-boosting drug, which Natalie referred to as a supplement. She said it was from Mexico and suspected it caused Michael's seizures.

Speaker 17 You felt like the problems he was having were a result of this supplement.

Speaker 17 Right.

Speaker 51 I think you called it enclomaphine.

Speaker 52 Does that sound like it? Enclophamine. FDA was never able to get it approved in the United States, but

Speaker 52 it can double your testosterone levels.

Speaker 9 At one point, I said, you know, if there's a substance that's available in this country that could potentially kill other people, that's a public safety issue.

Speaker 9 And, you know, your husband may have been a victim of that.

Speaker 52 I even filled out a complaint form after he... passed away that they wouldn't get back to me.

Speaker 12 Bloodso wondered if there could be other reasons for Michael's sudden death.

Speaker 9 I did ask, do you think Michael would have wanted to intentionally harm himself?

Speaker 12 Suicide.

Speaker 9 Sometimes people, yes, when they get into predicaments that they see no other way out of,

Speaker 9 you know, they take drastic measures. And her comment was, well, Michael loved himself too much.

Speaker 9 So, you know,

Speaker 9 that pretty much eliminated that.

Speaker 19 What about,

Speaker 12 did you have to give it a thought that what if someone they possibly wronged from the business could have wanted revenge?

Speaker 9 It's always a possibility. You don't ever want to rule anything out until you can rule it out.

Speaker 12 One thing bothered Bloodsoe about Natalie's story, why it had taken so long to get Michael to the hospital. He wanted to find out more, so he spoke to some friends who were there that day.

Speaker 12 He asked them about Michael's health and about his relationship with Natalie. When word of those conversations got back to her, Natalie fired off a call to Bledsoe's boss.

Speaker 12 Yes, sir. I was just calling to see if you knew when everything surrounding the investigation of me is going to be over.

Speaker 12 I'm having, um, I'm just having a very difficult time dealing with the loss of my husband, and it just seems like it keeps dragging out.

Speaker 22 I don't understand. They're just trying to determine

Speaker 4 what actually your husband died from.

Speaker 5 Well,

Speaker 5 they're asking people very personal questions about me and my husband's relationship.

Speaker 12 The next day, she told Bledsoe she felt personally attacked.

Speaker 52 Where are all these questions coming from? Some community members are, you know, starting to post things and talk. And one of them said, well, there's going to be an investigation.

Speaker 12 To Bledsoe, it seemed like an overreaction. Why was Natalie so defensive? Was she hiding something? His attention would soon pivot from fraud.
to Michael's death.

Speaker 12 Was it kind of like untangling a bunch of yarn at that point?

Speaker 9 It's the same as pulling on a ball of string. You know, you just keep pulling it, it just keeps unraveling.

Speaker 12 Investigators were peeling back the layers of what had once seemed like a sure bet, the Cochrane's contracting business.

Speaker 12 So you start talking to more investors and things aren't adding up.

Speaker 9 Yes, many of them had quite a bit of documentation.

Speaker 9 They had obviously kept track of this because we're talking about a substantial amount of money, some of them life savings.

Speaker 12 So you're looking at possible fraud here.

Speaker 9 Oh, absolutely. Yes.

Speaker 12 Was it kind of like untangling a bunch of yarn at that point?

Speaker 9 It's the same as... pulling on a ball of string.
You know, you just keep pulling and it just keeps unraveling.

Speaker 12 More and more investors were demanding answers, including Michael's parents.

Speaker 13 Natalie, they send me text messages and say, Your money will be arriving in your bank account within 24 hours or 48 hours. And when that time came around, nothing was ever there.
No, ma'am.

Speaker 13 Nothing was there.

Speaker 12 Stephanie Hamilton did receive a check for how much? For $10,000.

Speaker 12 Did that make you feel like, okay, things are moving?

Speaker 12 Um,

Speaker 12 yeah. And then it bounced.

Speaker 6 Oh my gosh.

Speaker 12 Are you starting to get worried now about your finances? That. Yeah, because I said to John then, I said, I don't think we're getting our money back.

Speaker 6 There's something wrong here.

Speaker 12 Around the same time, authorities learned that Natalie was the subject of another investigation.

Speaker 12 This one, on a much smaller scale, had to do with money missing from the community's youth baseball league.

Speaker 12 Remember, Natalie was league treasurer and had direct access to the funds the league asked private investigator james quessenberry to look into it at the time i started looking at this there should have been around

Speaker 53 twenty thousand dollars in the account but it was down to thirty some dollars and some change i immediately noticed that there were issues with what the money was being spent on different personal stuff that appeared to be stuff that had nothing to do with baseball.

Speaker 53 TJ Maxx, Olive Garden,

Speaker 53 various different ATM withdrawals in the neighborhood of $500, $600 a piece.

Speaker 12 For investigators looking into the Cochrane's business, it was yet another red flag. By now, they'd brought in federal authorities.

Speaker 12 Four months after Michael's death, they'd gathered enough evidence for a search warrant. In June 2019, local, state, and federal law enforcement moved in.

Speaker 16 We had a team that was going to execute search at her house. We had a team that was simultaneously going to business.

Speaker 12 Natalie was caught off guard when she saw investigators at her door. She called her friend, John Hamilton, the state trooper.

Speaker 24 She said, hey, the state police are here with a search warrant. She said, what am I supposed to do? I was like, well, you better let them search.

Speaker 12 Investigators went room by room, documenting everything.

Speaker 12 They collected computers, hard drives, files, and cell phones. Word traveled quickly.

Speaker 8 The federal government doesn't come knock on your door door

Speaker 8 just because they're not busy.

Speaker 12 This is serious.

Speaker 8 There's something seriously going on, seriously wrong, and

Speaker 8 this is not good.

Speaker 12 Stephanie rushed over to Natalie's house. Her mom and dad's standing there, and I'm like, I want to talk to her.
They're like, well, I don't know if she can talk to you. But she comes out.

Speaker 12 And I'm like, what's going on here? And she's like, I don't know. They took everything.
She won't look at me.

Speaker 12 Back at the office, Bledsoe and Heinzman poured over the digital and physical evidence they'd taken from the Cochrane's house and business.

Speaker 16 The business began as a pretty legitimate business model. They were in a position to where they could have legitimately bid on government contracts.

Speaker 16 The only problem was they never bid on any contract with the federal government.

Speaker 12 The record showed the money coming into the company was mainly from investors. And that money was nowhere to be found.
Detectives met with those investors and broke the news. What are you told?

Speaker 8 Basically, as I'm looking at you, they go,

Speaker 8 there were no contracts. Oh my.

Speaker 8 And you kind of look back and I'm going to need you to say that one more time. What did you say?

Speaker 8 There were no contracts. Oh, wow.
Like you couldn't find any or they don't exist.

Speaker 8 They never existed.

Speaker 12 That's like one giant gut punch.

Speaker 8 It is.

Speaker 10 I didn't believe what I was hearing from this investigator. He said, you know, I hear what you're saying to me, that everything was fake.

Speaker 10 But I said, I just, I don't believe that.

Speaker 12 But once the reality set in, other questions started bubbling up about Natalie and about Michael's death.

Speaker 21 Once you get away from that initial shock,

Speaker 21 you start putting the puzzle pieces together. So you're immediately thinking, oh,

Speaker 17 maybe he didn't die of natural causes.

Speaker 8 It all really came together at really kind of one moment. The

Speaker 8 not only was she lying about money,

Speaker 8 oh my goodness,

Speaker 8 this is just too, this is not a coincidence.

Speaker 18 And so it all kind of hit us at once.

Speaker 12 This is the kind of thing that hits you like a freight train when everything in your world is not what it seems at all.

Speaker 8 Exactly.

Speaker 12 Who was Natalie Cochrane, Cochran, this woman they'd once trusted so much? Investigators were determined to find out.

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Speaker 42 Warning, this product contains nicotine.

Speaker 43 Nicotine is an addictive chemical.

Speaker 25 A BetterHelp ad.

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Speaker 54 On the night before Halloween in 1975, 15-year-old Martha Moxley was murdered, but police failed to make an arrest. Until, in 2000, her one-time neighbor, Michael Scakel, was arrested.

Speaker 54 He was also a cousin of the Kennedys. The Kennedy connection is the reason that most people know about this case.
But the deeper I dug, the more I came to question everything I thought I knew.

Speaker 54 Search Dead Certain the Martha Moxley murder on Spotify to listen to the latest episodes each week.

Speaker 12 The tight-knit community of Beckley, West Virginia was shaken. First came news that the money investors had poured into the Cochrane's company was gone.

Speaker 24 Oh,

Speaker 11 you just couldn't believe it.

Speaker 24 Yeah, I just couldn't believe it. I'm just thinking,

Speaker 8 what is going on here?

Speaker 12 And then there were suspicions that Michael Cochran's death might have been foul play. As the police investigation continued, many people in town were focused on one person, Natalie Cochrane,

Speaker 12 including private investigator James Quessenberry. He'd been looking into allegations that she had stolen funds from the Youth Baseball League.

Speaker 12 Now he was hearing about possible fraud within her company and maybe even an investigation into her husband's death. When he learned that Natalie was having a garage sale, he saw an opportunity.

Speaker 53 This was an attempt to find out if she had kept any of that money or spent it on something that nobody knew about and she was going to try to sell it.

Speaker 53 It was to fish an expedition to see what we could find.

Speaker 12 He rigged up his guy with a hidden camera.

Speaker 12 That's Natalie in her garage.

Speaker 22 Do you have any other type of wiring or anything like that?

Speaker 55 Just that cable. This is

Speaker 55 security camera cable and then this is ethernet cable.

Speaker 55 And the pull boxes are $5 and the security camera cable is $2.

Speaker 53 She was selling some stuff that, you know, belonged to Mike, wire and stuff from his business. There was just miscellaneous dolls, different stuff around.

Speaker 55 My husband

Speaker 55 used to have a technology business and that's what he did. He ran...
cable.

Speaker 18 Did you have anything good?

Speaker 55 Just a bunch of his

Speaker 55 cable testing

Speaker 55 equipment like that, his technology stuff.

Speaker 22 You don't want to sell the rest of anything else?

Speaker 55 No, I'm going to keep those for my son.

Speaker 55 My husband passed away, so

Speaker 55 my dad helped me go through it, and

Speaker 55 we kept things that my son might use when he grows up.

Speaker 18 Okay.

Speaker 22 Sorry about your loss.

Speaker 55 Thank you.

Speaker 12 The video didn't show Natalie selling anything that would help his or law enforcement's investigation. And no charges were ever filed concerning the Youth Baseball League.

Speaker 12 But Quessenberry believed he saw something else.

Speaker 53 She's got somebody there that's possibly buying the stuff that she has out there.

Speaker 53 She just speaks nice to him while he's looking at him. As soon as she turns around, she looks like it's killing her to talk to him and makes these faces.
And it's just very strange.

Speaker 12 By this point, authorities had finished their seven-month investigation into the Cochrane's business.

Speaker 12 All those fake contracts, doctored figures, and bogus spreadsheets spreadsheets added up to nothing short of a $2.5 million Ponzi scheme. Explain how that worked within Natalie and Michael's business.

Speaker 9 As money comes in, if you're investor A, let's say,

Speaker 9 and I already have your money, well, when investor B comes in, I give you a little bit back from investor B

Speaker 9 and then try to build off. And that's, it's just a...
It's a pyramid, really, but it's not sustainable because eventually you can't keep up.

Speaker 12 Chris Davis went back and looked at all the paperwork the Cochranes had given him.

Speaker 21 This is especially

Speaker 8 to represent what the company was doing and the success of the company.

Speaker 18 This whole document is fake.

Speaker 8 Total expense, profit, payouts, the factor fees, none of it's true. You know, the saying is, devil's in the details.

Speaker 18 Well, the devil was all in this.

Speaker 12 Three months after that raid on the Cochrane house, authorities returned, this time with a warrant for Natalie's arrest.

Speaker 9 We had several other officers there with us, troopers. Also had a female trooper there to transport Natalie.

Speaker 12 She opens the door?

Speaker 9 She did. I said, Natalie, I said, you're under arrest, and I'm going to explain to you exactly why and what the charges are.

Speaker 9 And she says, it took all of y'all for little old me.

Speaker 12 Natalie Cochran was charged with 26 counts, including wire fraud and money laundering. She stole from her own family.

Speaker 13 We just hugged each other and cried because it's just so awful.

Speaker 13 It was really hard. It's still really hard to accept what she's done.
Like,

Speaker 12 this really is happening, and

Speaker 12 we have been schemed. You know, like, you don't get arrested for no reason.
Then

Speaker 12 it became real, and then I was just angry. Did you ever think in your wildest dreams that something like this would happen to you?

Speaker 6 No.

Speaker 8 There's people in my life now that are friends that I would never think they would ever do this. And she would have been in that category for us.

Speaker 12 This is the ultimate betrayal.

Speaker 8 Sure, yeah.

Speaker 12 Very hurt, very betrayed, just in disbelief.

Speaker 12 And there were even more victims, high school students. Those scholarships Natalie set up in Michael's memory?

Speaker 8 Well, they didn't exist. And so basically, therefore, nothing.

Speaker 8 The people who were given scholarships received nothing.

Speaker 12 Natalie Cochran was in big trouble, and it was about to get worse because detectives were now laser-focused on something else, something they found in Natalie's kitchen during that raid.

Speaker 12 You just had no idea what was going to be hidden in the chocolate.

Speaker 9 I sure did not expect to find that, though.

Speaker 12 This is a big, big turn in this case.

Speaker 36 Very big.

Speaker 12 I mean, I just get chills thinking about you putting all this together. That was the most shocking.

Speaker 8 A nightmare. It moves from a mystery novel to a horror flick.

Speaker 12 One year after Natalie Cochran was arrested for running a Ponzi scheme, she pleaded guilty to wire fraud and money laundering charges. She was sentenced to 11 years in federal prison.

Speaker 12 In court, Natalie offered apologies and regret. She also deflected blame on Michael, saying his supplement abuse made him angry and money was the one thing that kept him happy.

Speaker 12 Did you buy any of what she was saying that day?

Speaker 8 That contract is the last thing I'll ever buy from her. At this point in time,

Speaker 8 she's a total fraud.

Speaker 8 So now I question everything.

Speaker 12 And so did Lieutenant Bledsoe. Like the Cochrane's friends and family, he believed Michael had nothing to do with the Ponzi scheme.

Speaker 9 Anytime he would question why they didn't have their money, why the contracts weren't being paid, he got the same exact excuses that the investors were getting.

Speaker 12 Now, with his financial investigation over, Bledsoe turned his full attention to the death of Michael Cochrane. You had a good old-fashioned medical mystery on your hands.

Speaker 9 Yes, absolutely.

Speaker 12 When When he first spoke with Natalie, she was cooperative, presented herself as a sympathetic widow, but he wasn't convinced for long. What changed it?

Speaker 17 Her actions changed that.

Speaker 9 The

Speaker 9 questions she would ask,

Speaker 9 why are you investigating me?

Speaker 12 Remember, she even called Bloodsoe's supervisor to complain. Yes, sir.
I was just calling to see if you knew when everything surrounding the investigation of me is going to be over. Controlling?

Speaker 12 Yes, absolutely. I don't think you can control the state police.

Speaker 9 In her mind, she could. That was probably one of the most concerning things that I heard was how someone whose spouse had only been

Speaker 9 dead for, at that point, two months,

Speaker 9 and they're concerned over somebody trying to explain why it happened.

Speaker 12 Natalie stuck to her story that Michael got sick from that so-called supplement he was taking.

Speaker 7 You believed it was from Mexico. What makes you think that?

Speaker 52 Because the company told us it was manufactured in Mexico.

Speaker 9 We never found any evidence of Mexico. The farthest that we trace it was to

Speaker 9 an address in Florida. It's just the pieces that just keep adding up that just don't make sense.

Speaker 12 One of those pieces was something curious they stumbled on during the house raid.

Speaker 9 I learned a long, long time ago that anywhere that you're allowed to look, you you better look while you're there.

Speaker 12 You end up finding something that you didn't even know you were looking for.

Speaker 9 Yes.

Speaker 12 Inside the fridge was a vial of insulin.

Speaker 9 Why is that insulin beneath

Speaker 6 a pile of chocolate bars?

Speaker 12 No one in the home was diabetic. At the time, Natalie had a perfectly good explanation.
She said it was for Chris and Jennifer's son who was diabetic. They said not so fast.

Speaker 12 We had never given her insulin for Gavin. She had no reason to keep it.
We never gave it to anyone. Like it stayed at our house because he wore a pump.

Speaker 12 According to Jennifer, Natalie did ask for insulin the morning Michael fell ill for herself.

Speaker 12 She had the flu and the nora virus, and the doctor had given her steroids. And because of the cancer, she needed some insulin because the steroids had made her blood sugar go up.

Speaker 12 Okay, so that can help. Yes.
And so I had got a bag together for her with

Speaker 12 some drinks, and I'd put the vial of insulin in there for her. That got Lieutenant Bledsoe thinking.

Speaker 12 Medical records showed that when Michael was admitted to the hospital, his blood sugar was extremely low, and low blood sugar can lead to brain swelling, the very thing that caused Michael's death.

Speaker 12 What does that do to someone to have a level like that?

Speaker 9 Oh, it's critical. I mean, they have to get medical treatment.
for that immediately.

Speaker 12 Bledsoe knew that insulin is used to lower blood sugar, so we wondered if the vial in the fridge could have been used on Michael.

Speaker 12 You believe that it's possible that this vial of insulin now in your possession is a possible murder weapon?

Speaker 19 Yes.

Speaker 9 Yes, very possible at that point.

Speaker 12 This may have just cracked the case.

Speaker 9 This could be a quote-unquote smoking gun, so to speak.

Speaker 12 The detectives set out to find proof that Michael died from an insulin overdose. But that would be difficult with no autopsy report.

Speaker 12 So seven months after Michael was laid to rest, investigators exhumed his body. For the first time, a medical examiner was brought in.
What did they find?

Speaker 9 Michael's remains were pretty advanced in decomposition, so it made it very difficult for the medical examiner.

Speaker 12 So nothing, nothing that shed any light on what might have happened to Michael. Correct.

Speaker 12 The Emmy ruled the manner of death undetermined. Michael's remains would not give up the secret to his death.
But would Natalie...

Speaker 57 You want me to say I hurt him and I didn't hurt him?

Speaker 51 No, I'm not saying that. I know you did.
That's what I'm telling you. No, you don't.
Yes, I do.

Speaker 32 If you're a smoker or dipper ready to make a change, you really only need one good reason.

Speaker 33 But with Zen nicotine pouches, you'll discover many good reasons.

Speaker 7 Zen is America's number one nicotine pouch brand.

Speaker 36 Plus, Zen offers a robust rewards program.

Speaker 38 There are lots of options when it comes to nicotine satisfaction, but there's only one Zen.

Speaker 39 Zen.

Speaker 15 Check out Zen.com slash find to find Zen at a store near you.

Speaker 42 Warning, this product contains nicotine.

Speaker 43 Nicotine is an addictive chemical.

Speaker 25 A BetterHelp ad.

Speaker 28 This November, BetterHelp is encouraging people to reach out, grab lunch with an old friend, call your parents, or even find support in therapy.

Speaker 29 BetterHelp makes it easy with its therapist match commitment and over 12 years of online therapy experience, matching members with qualified professionals.

Speaker 44 And just like that lunch with an old friend, once you do reach out, you'll wonder, why didn't I do this sooner?

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Speaker 20 I'm Julio Vaqueiro, anchor of Noticias Telemundo. You can watch Dayline, the heat true crime series on Telemundo.
And now, you can listen to Dayton as a podcast.

Speaker 20 Stories of love and betrayal, of secrets revealed, of the men and women who stand between evil and justice. Every twist and turn can now be heard in in Spanish, with new mysteries arriving every week.

Speaker 20 Just search Deidline en Español, wherever you get your podcasts, and start listening.

Speaker 12 Authorities investigating the death of Michael Cochrane were determined to see it through.

Speaker 9 The whole reason I got into law enforcement in the first place was to help people, especially people who could not help themselves. So we were there to speak for Michael.

Speaker 12 By now, Lieutenant Bledsoe was convinced that Michael had nothing to do with the Ponzi scheme. He also believed he'd found the murder weapon, the insulin found in Natalie's fridge.

Speaker 12 But he didn't have the evidence to prove she used it, so he turned up the pressure.

Speaker 12 In May of 2021, he traveled to Hazelton Federal Prison in West Virginia, Natalie's home since her guilty plea in the Ponzi scheme.

Speaker 35 We've been conducting the investigation into Michael's death for some time now.

Speaker 12 Her story said blood soap didn't add up.

Speaker 51 You brought up thinklomophene was possibly in some way related to Michael's death. Okay.

Speaker 51 We now know that that's not true.

Speaker 35 So

Speaker 4 I don't.

Speaker 51 We need to clear that up.

Speaker 12 I don't know how you can know that's not true. Natalie denied having anything to do with Michael's death.
I did not do anything to him and it's just been over and over.

Speaker 12 And I am telling you the truth.

Speaker 35 What you're saying is it was nothing at your hand.

Speaker 12 No, it was not at my hand.

Speaker 51 And that's what I'm saying is not true. And that not only did you then allow him to lay there all day without medical treatment.

Speaker 12 I didn't.

Speaker 51 I didn't hurt Michael.

Speaker 12 Bloodsoe accused her of calling friends instead of an ambulance.

Speaker 51 You called an alibi. That's what you did.

Speaker 4 No, I did not. Yeah.

Speaker 51 You made sure that you had somebody else to blame who you...

Speaker 57 I think I think we're done. Because, I mean, you want me to say I hurt him and I didn't hurt him.

Speaker 51 No, I'm not saying that. I know you did.
That's what I'm telling you. No, you don't.
Yes, I do.

Speaker 12 Natalie never confessed. But Bledsoe was now more convinced than ever that she killed Michael.
To him, all the circumstantial evidence was adding up.

Speaker 12 There was her delay in getting Michael help, that call she made trying to shut down the investigation, and her story about how she got the vial of insulin.

Speaker 9 When you put all those circumstances together, not just the insulin, it paints a very clear picture.

Speaker 12 The DA agreed, and in November of 2021, Natalie was arrested for murder. Friends, still reeling from her Ponzi scheme, now had an even darker possibility to consider.
And now, possibly murder?

Speaker 6 Yeah.

Speaker 12 That was the most shocking.

Speaker 8 It moves from a mystery novel to a horror flick.

Speaker 21 You don't want to believe that could happen to what you thought was a perfect couple.

Speaker 12 But as prosecutors prepared for trial, a key detail was missing. This is a homicide case without a ruling of homicide.
Right. From the medical examiner.

Speaker 58 If you don't have the medical examiner saying homicide, you got a big problem.

Speaker 12 Current Raleigh County prosecuting attorney Tom Truman says that in spite of the circumstantial evidence against Natalie, his predecessor simply could not get around the undetermined ruling and had to make a difficult decision.

Speaker 12 A year and a half after Natalie was indicted for murder. The charges dropped.

Speaker 58 Yes.

Speaker 12 That, I guess, is just the team getting together and saying, as much as we want to go to trial, we just just don't have it. Still?

Speaker 58 I think that's a fair assessment.

Speaker 12 It seemed Michael's death might never be solved. But investigators had another card to play.
This man, a medical examiner who worked for the armed forces, Dr. Paul Uribe.

Speaker 12 He'd cracked a complicated case in West Virginia two years earlier. Seven elderly veterans died mysteriously in a VA hospital.
Dr. Uribe discovered they all had low blood sugar, just like Michael.

Speaker 59 But they died with a very, very certain pattern. The pattern they had was very, very severe hypoglycemia, which is very low glucose levels.

Speaker 12 Dr. Uribe suspected the men may have been poisoned with insulin, but that would be hard to prove.
Insulin as a murder weapon is a tough one because it disappears, correct, from the system?

Speaker 17 Yes.

Speaker 59 Insulin is metabolized or broken down by the body very, very quickly. You're not going to stumble across an insulin homicide.
If you're not looking for it, you're not going to find it.

Speaker 12 He had the bodies exhumed and with state-of-the-art testing, he found evidence of needle marks on several of the men and tissue samples revealed traces of insulin.

Speaker 12 Investigators were able to zero in on a suspect. They arrested nursing assistant Rita Mays, who pleaded guilty to seven counts of murder.

Speaker 56 They were there so that she could provide them aid and assistance and comfort. And instead, she coldly and callously murdered them.

Speaker 12 Now investigators were hoping Dr. Uribe could help solve Michael's case.
The pathologist asked for his body to be exhumed again.

Speaker 59 You might be able to find evidence that something was injected into the body in a particular location.

Speaker 12 Was there a tissue test you could do to see if there was any evidence in that?

Speaker 18 We tried to do that, but there wasn't a lot to look at.

Speaker 59 There was no way I could evaluate four injection sites just because there was so much decomposition.

Speaker 12 But Dr. Uribe wasn't done yet.
You, You, as a medical examiner, need to look at the whole picture.

Speaker 59 Absolutely. The autopsy is just

Speaker 59 one part of the equation. What were the circumstances? What were the results of the investigation?

Speaker 12 He went through every other possible reason for Michael's blood sugar to plummet. What could cause the level to go that low for someone who is not a diabetic?

Speaker 59 They could have a rampant infection, something like sepsis. They can have a drug or medication reaction.

Speaker 12 Did he have any of those things that you could tell?

Speaker 59 Not from the medical record review and hospital records. No.

Speaker 12 Leaving the doctor with one conclusion.

Speaker 59 This was an insulin homicide.

Speaker 12 This puts the case over the top for the prosecutor's office, this new, new reveal of homicide.

Speaker 58 That was a big part of it. Now we have a medical examiner that says the cause and manner of death, and it fit the the bill for a first-degree murder.

Speaker 12 Since Dr. Uribe was not the state medical examiner, the official cause of death remained undetermined.
But prosecutors thought his expert analysis could sway a jury.

Speaker 12 In October 2023, Natalie Cochran was again charged with her husband's murder. This time, could prosecutors make it stick? Some people maybe thought you couldn't win.

Speaker 60 A lot of people thought that.

Speaker 12 Now, a jury was about to hear the state's theory of why Natalie did it. You learned something big.
You learned that there is a ticking clock and there's a plane waiting.

Speaker 49 That was the motive.

Speaker 12 January 2025, almost six years after Michael Cochran's death, his wife Natalie went on trial for his murder.

Speaker 58 There were not a lot of bets that said we would get a conviction.

Speaker 12 Prosecutors Tom Truman and Ashley Aker knew they were in for a fight. This was a problem child case from the beginning.

Speaker 58 It was certainly long in the tooth by the time we got it.

Speaker 12 And some people maybe thought you couldn't win.

Speaker 60 A lot of people thought that.

Speaker 12 The trial began in a small courtroom in Beckley, West Virginia. The family sat up front.
Natalie's behind the defense and Michael's behind the prosecution.

Speaker 13 We were there as Michael's voice, as his advocate. We needed to be there every day.

Speaker 12 What was it like seeing Natalie in court?

Speaker 10 Didn't affect me a bit.

Speaker 13 I call her the evil one.

Speaker 13 She's evil.

Speaker 12 In his opening statement, prosecutor Tom Truman didn't shy away from his imperfect case.

Speaker 53 There is no DNA.

Speaker 20 There is no evidence of fingerprints.

Speaker 12 But he argued they could prove Natalie had the means, the opportunity, and the motive to murder her husband. They started with the means.
Your Honor, the state calls Dr. Paul Uribank to the stand.

Speaker 12 The pathologist told jurors, after looking at all of the evidence, the only plausible explanation for Michael's death was insulin poisoning.

Speaker 59 I came to the conclusion that the cause of death was exogenous insulin administration.

Speaker 12 Dr. Diane Krieger, an endocrinologist, backed up that testimony, saying there were 13 things that could cause an extremely low blood glucose level.

Speaker 12 In Michael's case, she ruled out all but one, insulin. It's the only only credible explanation since none of the other explanations work.

Speaker 12 To show the jury how Natalie got insulin, the state called Natalie's former friend and neighbor.

Speaker 30 Could you please state your name for the record?

Speaker 12 Jennifer Davis. She told the jury she and Natalie had texted the morning Michael collapsed.
Jennifer said she offered to drop off some of her son's insulin.

Speaker 12 That text exchange between Natalie and Jennifer about the insulin was so important. There it is in writing.

Speaker 58 Very important.

Speaker 58 Yes.

Speaker 12 Connecting Natalie to a bottle of insulin.

Speaker 58 Yes.

Speaker 12 Jennifer testified that she gave Natalie the insulin because Natalie said she needed it to ease the effects of her cancer treatments.

Speaker 12 The prosecution claimed that was yet another one of her lies, a diabolical one. It's determined that Natalie

Speaker 58 did not have cancer.

Speaker 12 Did not have cancer despite telling everyone.

Speaker 49 Yes.

Speaker 58 Imagine that.

Speaker 12 a defendant that's not forthright and truthful he said natalie made up the cancer to get sympathy and distract investors prosecutors then laid out their theory of how she carried out the killing her opportunity they believe on the morning michael collapsed natalie sedated him with an anti-anxiety medication there were benzodiazepines in his system she had a prescription for them How could she administer that without him knowing?

Speaker 12 Could that be put in a drink?

Speaker 6 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 58 It could have been in his cereal, could have been in his drink.

Speaker 12 Once he was knocked out, prosecutors believe, Natalie injected him with insulin throughout the day. You just couldn't definitively connect the dots.

Speaker 12 Natalie got the vial of insulin, but then there's no evidence of her injecting Michael.

Speaker 58 The vial had been punctured with a single puncture. Can we say it was the V bottle that was delivered by the Davises? No.

Speaker 58 But again, his blood glucose level showed that he had been injected with insulin. So circumstantially, there's a

Speaker 6 lot of arrows pointing to that.

Speaker 12 And the prosecution floated the idea that Natalie had been poisoning Michael for a while. Michael's friend Jason testified that in the months before Michael died, he told him he felt sick.

Speaker 23 He would complain about just not feeling right, just

Speaker 23 feeling dizzy.

Speaker 21 He said he felt like he'd been poisoned.

Speaker 12 Prosecutors wanted the jury to hear about how Natalie delayed getting Michael to the hospital for hours. They called Chris Davis, Michael's best friend.

Speaker 4 You swear or firm to tell the truth, the whole truth.

Speaker 12 He told jurors when he got to the Cochrane house about seven hours after Michael collapsed. Michael was still unresponsive.

Speaker 24 It was clear that something was wrong.

Speaker 8 And I was like, he's got to go to the hospital. I remember a question is, you really think he should go? Yes, he needs to go and he's going to go now.
And I'm going to take him.

Speaker 8 And that's exactly what I did.

Speaker 12 To show just how dire it was, the prosecutor displayed a photo of Michael that Natalie had taken shortly after he collapsed. Natalie had sent this photo around to friends, including Chris's wife.

Speaker 60 She sent this picture to a whole bunch of people, including Jennifer Davis, correct?

Speaker 60 Correct.

Speaker 58 She sent that picture to like 17 people. Why would you do that?

Speaker 12 I just think she had, she got some sort of sick satisfaction out of it, I think. And I think she wanted to be able to continue to to look at it and she wanted people to see what she had done.

Speaker 12 But the most crucial question remained. What was her motive?

Speaker 12 Prosecutors said it was all about the Ponzi scheme and told jurors, even though Michael was an equal partner in the company, he had no idea it was all a scam.

Speaker 12 What evidence did you have that you feel proves Michael did not know about the fraud?

Speaker 58 Text messages. Pages and pages of text messages.
They were the exact same lies she was telling to the investors she was telling to Michael.

Speaker 58 She would even have wire transfer dates, wire transfer authorization numbers.

Speaker 12 Natalie even created a fake government worker named Betsy Brittlin. She would tell Michael Betsy was on the phone.

Speaker 58 And when they tried to third-party Michael in, the call would drop. It was just one of those perpetual lying machines that just kept cranking out lies.

Speaker 12 And they said Michael was about to find out the whole company was a lie.

Speaker 12 Two days before his death, Michael texted Natalie asking why a government transfer of more than $2.8 million hadn't hit their account yet. He texted her, I don't understand why it's taking so long.

Speaker 12 It's Bank of America to Bank of America. Natalie responded, just verifying funds because of large amounts and new account.
Doesn't make sense to me, Michael wrote back.

Speaker 12 Michael got so frustrated, he chartered a private plane. He and Natalie were to fly to Virginia to meet with bank representatives the day he collapsed.

Speaker 58 That was the meeting that was to take place that could never take place.

Speaker 12 Because she knew

Speaker 12 if they got on that plane and they went to meet with the bank in Virginia, all of the secrets would tumble out. Correct.
There is a ticking clock and there's a plane waiting.

Speaker 49 That was the motive.

Speaker 12 One argument to that is even if Michael dies, it doesn't change the mess that she's in with the fraud.

Speaker 58 There's an answer to that, too. She was in the process of selling half the business.

Speaker 12 According to the prosecutor, Natalie had convinced a well-to-do business person to buy into the company for half a million dollars.

Speaker 12 Could she not have put off Michael though and said, look, the money's coming in. Everything's going to be fine.
Let me take care of it.

Speaker 17 Oh, she had been. Yeah, that was

Speaker 3 her life.

Speaker 12 For months. Okay, so this was a ticking time bomb.

Speaker 24 Oh, absolutely.

Speaker 12 Prosecutors wrapped up their case, arguing Natalie murdered her husband to keep him and everybody else from uncovering that their company was a house of cards.

Speaker 12 Now Natalie's attorneys would have their turn. They agreed she was a fraud and a liar, but a killer? Absolutely not.
And they could prove it. This isn't a whodunit mystery.
This is a medical mystery.

Speaker 49 Correct. I do not believe this was a murder.

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Speaker 12 I turned off news altogether. I hate to say it, but I don't trust much of anything.

Speaker 56 It's the rage bait.

Speaker 12 It feels like it's trying to divide people.

Speaker 12 We got clear facts. Maybe we could calm down a little.

Speaker 24 NBC News brings you clear reporting. Let's meet at the facts.
Let's move forward from there.

Speaker 49 NBC News, reporting for America.

Speaker 12 Natalie Cochrane's defense team was convinced the case against their client was riddled with holes, including the fact they said that there was no proof Michael died of anything but natural causes.

Speaker 12 This isn't a whodune it mystery. This is a medical mystery.
And that was the crux of your defense. It was.

Speaker 20 Their case was flimsy. Their case was not about the murder.
But bottom line is that they had no

Speaker 20 when, and how.

Speaker 12 Natalie's defense attorney Matthew Victor didn't waste any time. He addressed the elephant in the room in his opening statement.

Speaker 20 She defrauded friends, relatives,

Speaker 9 investors.

Speaker 20 She was involved in a Ponzi scheme. The fact that she is perhaps a fraud and perhaps a cheat does not translate into being a murderer.

Speaker 12 The defense went after the state's key piece of evidence, that insulin vial found in the fridge.

Speaker 49 That bottle to me appeared to be full.

Speaker 12 Chad Jones investigated the case for the defense. Did you look into how much insulin you would need from a vial

Speaker 12 to cause a death like that?

Speaker 49 Their expert testified it would take a fair amount.

Speaker 12 Natalie's attorneys also argued it made no sense that she would use that vial of insulin to kill Michael and then keep it after his death.

Speaker 12 Is Natalie the world's dumbest criminal for leaving the murder weapon in the fridge under the candy?

Speaker 49 I mean, and to say that that would be the dumbest criminal, I mean, this is an intelligent woman. So really those two things don't equate.

Speaker 12 They said she kept the insulin for her neighbor Jennifer's son, the one with diabetes.

Speaker 49 It had been there for a while.

Speaker 12 For the son. For Jennifer's son.
For Jennifer's son. Her attorneys also asked the question, if Natalie had injected her husband with insulin, why didn't Michael fight back or call for help?

Speaker 49 I think any reasonable person would think that if they're jabbed with a needle and the person doing the jabbing doesn't advise you of what is in that syringe, I would call for help.

Speaker 12 The prosecutors say he wasn't able to call for help because he was already unconscious when she stabbed him with the needle.

Speaker 49 I don't think there was any evidence to prove that.

Speaker 12 Instead, they floated the idea that Michael, a weightlifter, may have injected himself. When cross-examining Dr.
Uribe, they asked him if he was aware that bodybuilders sometimes use insulin.

Speaker 59 To my knowledge, bodybuilders don't use insulin.

Speaker 6 Really?

Speaker 12 The defense told jurors the doctor was wrong.

Speaker 49 Bodybuilders do take insulin, some for gaining muscle mass and burning carbohydrates.

Speaker 49 There was some innuendo that he may have been injecting insulin at some point.

Speaker 12 Defense attorneys called forensic experts of their own who said there wasn't enough evidence to rule this a homicide. A cause of death is undetermined, in my opinion, as well as the manner of death.

Speaker 12 The defense then zeroed in on what it called the state's biggest blind spot, the motive.

Speaker 20 Nobody was

Speaker 20 able to present any evidence to suggest that Natalie Cochran had a motive to kill her husband.

Speaker 12 The prosecution says the walls were closing in, that the jig was up and he finally, Michael finally realized and they were going to go have this meeting and then everything was going to just collapse.

Speaker 3 So it was going to be what?

Speaker 20 A preemptive killing?

Speaker 19 Are they...

Speaker 6 Are you kidding me?

Speaker 12 That's the prosecution's theory.

Speaker 9 That's absolutely absurd.

Speaker 12 Absurd, because they argued Michael was in on it from day one.

Speaker 49 I firmly believe that if he were alive, he would be sitting in prison as well.

Speaker 20 Michael was up to his eyeballs in the business that he and Natalie have created.

Speaker 12 The state says there's proof that Michael didn't know about the Ponzi scheme. You say there's proof he did did know.

Speaker 20 It's overwhelming proof, ranging from his actions,

Speaker 20 writing contracts, signing checks, to enjoying the harvest of

Speaker 20 their business.

Speaker 12 The defense presented a different theory about how Michael Cochran could have died, arguing he was in poor health.

Speaker 12 Something very important was that Michael had been admitted to the hospital a few months before he died.

Speaker 12 That really paints a picture of someone with health problems.

Speaker 20 In October of 2018, he stayed in the hospital for one day, was released.

Speaker 12 A couple of days later, he was back in the hospital and stayed for five days.

Speaker 49 He was prescribed an anticonvulsive

Speaker 12 by a physician. Were there actual medical records that said that Michael was having seizures? Yes.
And is this based on what Michael was telling the doctors, what Natalie was telling the doctors?

Speaker 49 I think it was in concert of everything, but at the end of the day, a physician prescribed him an anticonvulsive, which Natalie says he refused to take.

Speaker 12 So he's not taking his seizure medication. Correct.

Speaker 12 Though the prosecution said Natalie was the one making Michael sick by poisoning him for months, the defense argued he was making himself sick, claiming he not only took supplements, but steroids and possibly even insulin, a potentially dangerous mix.

Speaker 12 This is very very important to your defense to show a pattern of seizures, health problems.

Speaker 19 Absolutely. Absolutely.

Speaker 49 It's certainly possible all these substances that he was taking could have had a neurologic effect that caused him to develop a seizure disorder.

Speaker 12 When they called Natalie's sister Penny to the stand, she testified that she saw Michael inject himself. They were at the beach with us.

Speaker 12 And I came out of my bedroom and he was in the kitchen and I saw him do an injection.

Speaker 20 Did you ever see him take insulin?

Speaker 13 I don't know what he took.

Speaker 12 She said whatever he was taking, she tried to get him to stop. I said, you please, you please stop that.
You've got to stop that. It's not good for you.
And he would just, he would always just laugh.

Speaker 12 The defense argued Michael's bodybuilding cocktail added up to a medical crisis. He had a seizure that day and that's what caused his blood sugar to drop.
Do seizures contribute to glucose levels?

Speaker 12 They can.

Speaker 49 It can cause the blood glucose to drop.

Speaker 12 Natalie's attorneys weren't done. They had two more key witnesses to call.
The people who knew Michael and Natalie the best, the Cochrane children. What would they tell the jury?

Speaker 20 Would you state your name for the record?

Speaker 6 Nicole Cochran.

Speaker 12 Inside the courthouse in Beckley, both sides grilled witnesses trying to prove whether or not Natalie Cochrane killed her husband, Michael.

Speaker 12 The defense's star witnesses were about to take the stand, Michael and Natalie's children. They were only 13 and 11 years old when their father died.

Speaker 12 The kids are really put in this precarious position where, you know, their father is dead. They're testifying for their mom, who's on trial for dad's murder.

Speaker 12 What all went into that with the children and the decision to put them up there?

Speaker 3 Well, they wanted to testify.

Speaker 49 They wanted to, yes.

Speaker 20 They wanted to clarify some of the issues that were before the court.

Speaker 12 Up first, the Cochrane son, who's now 17.

Speaker 63 He looked a lot like Michael, just a younger version.

Speaker 12 Court TV legal reporter Kelly Kraft was in the courtroom.

Speaker 63 As he's walking up, he looks at his mother. They touched one another and he made his way to the stand.

Speaker 12 Natalie appeared to beam with pride. Because he was a minor, he didn't give his first name and the camera didn't record his face.

Speaker 20 Would you tell the jury the initials of your name?

Speaker 61 M-A-C.

Speaker 12 He began by giving the jury a peek into life inside the Cochrane home. He shared that he and his dad had a special bond.

Speaker 26 What did you do together?

Speaker 61 All types of stuff.

Speaker 61 He was my baseball coach, my football coach, led me through several sports, went shooting together, went hunting together. We just always did stuff together.

Speaker 12 When the defense asked him about his father's daily routine, he said he took large amounts of supplements and other medications.

Speaker 61 He'd take his supplements, which was

Speaker 61 30 pills a day every morning, and then his anabolics, which are steroids.

Speaker 20 Did he ever inject anything?

Speaker 61 Definitely steroids.

Speaker 20 Where was he getting all that stuff?

Speaker 61 He did shop at GNC a lot, but that was only for his supplements. And then he used to brag all the time about him getting his steroids from Mexico.

Speaker 12 When Nicole, their 20-year-old daughter, took the stand, she described a similar routine.

Speaker 30 He would lay all of his pills out on the count, like the counter, and there would be so many of them that they would just sit in a whole circle and it looked like the size of a dinner plate.

Speaker 30 And then he would take the steroids as well.

Speaker 12 Both children recalled that their father's behavior started to change after he was hospitalized for seizures about three months before he died.

Speaker 20 How did he start to change, sir?

Speaker 61 Just forgetting stuff all the time.

Speaker 41 And

Speaker 61 he was more aggressive. More aggressive, for sure.

Speaker 21 Towards whom?

Speaker 9 Aggressive.

Speaker 18 Towards everybody.

Speaker 6 Everybody.

Speaker 12 The defense implied that behavior might have been caused by steroid use.

Speaker 20 In January of 2019, shortly before his death, how did he behave?

Speaker 30 He was kind of acting crazy.

Speaker 30 He was very upset and angry all the time.

Speaker 12 She said he suffered from headaches, had balance issues, and slept a lot. When asked if his condition improved before his death,

Speaker 30 I would say as time went by, it continued to worsen.

Speaker 20 And

Speaker 26 was there a suggestion that he go to the hospital?

Speaker 30 I'm not sure, but I remember several people wanted him to stop taking his steroids.

Speaker 12 I didn't see him. The children's testimony backed key defense claims.

Speaker 12 They saw their dad being angry, agitated. His health is not so perfect as one might have thought.

Speaker 20 His memory was fading, he was agitated.

Speaker 12 And they both testified that their dad hated hospitals.

Speaker 63 So that was very helpful to the defense case. As to why Natalie did not rush him to the hospital when he collapsed.

Speaker 12 On the stand, Nicole revealed something else about Michael's health. It happened a few months before he died.

Speaker 20 He had this conversation with his daughter, which was, I mean, it was almost poignant. This was like a farewell to life.

Speaker 12 Nicole told the jury the conversation happened when her father was in the hospital.

Speaker 30 He seemed kind of out of it,

Speaker 30 but he was actually really nice.

Speaker 30 He said some kind things to my brother and I because he didn't think he would get another chance to.

Speaker 20 Is that what he told you?

Speaker 30 He told me

Speaker 30 that he always appreciated my intelligence and that he never told me that, but he wanted me to know it now just in case he never got to say it again.

Speaker 30 I've always considered that to be kind of like my goodbye.

Speaker 12 The children's testimony was especially emotional for Michael's parents. They believed their son was in excellent health.

Speaker 12 Your grandchildren took the stand for the defense, supporting their mother in that courtroom, supporting that theory that he was in poor health.

Speaker 12 Very different views from you.

Speaker 17 Yes.

Speaker 10 It's a tragedy. They've lost their dad.

Speaker 10 We've lost a son.

Speaker 51 And

Speaker 10 our views

Speaker 10 are our views. It's just heartbreaking.

Speaker 12 Natalie's attorneys had one more point they wanted the children to get across to the jury, that their mom loved their dad and had no reason to kill him.

Speaker 12 The prosecution's theory that the walls were closing in on Natalie, that Michael was about to discover the Ponzi scheme, didn't match what they knew about their parents' business and who was really in charge.

Speaker 61 I think we all know who

Speaker 61 wore the pants in the situation. He definitely ran it way more than

Speaker 6 she did.

Speaker 20 Your father was a dominant figure.

Speaker 6 Of course.

Speaker 45 Who was working on the contracts?

Speaker 49 My dad.

Speaker 12 And your mom head. During cross-examination, the prosecution reminded the jury how young the children were at the time of Michael's death and implied the defense investigator had coached them.

Speaker 58 When you heard them testify, they sounded so coached. I don't think they made that great of an impression.

Speaker 12 Throughout her children's testimony, Natalie displayed a range of emotions, sometimes teary, sometimes smiley.

Speaker 12 At one point, Natalie made a heart sign with her hands and mouthed to her daughter, I love you.

Speaker 63 They had an extremely close bond, a very close relationship.

Speaker 12 The defense had one more witness to take the stand, Natalie Cochran herself. A lot of times, defense attorneys don't want their client to take the stand.

Speaker 12 But in this particular case, you felt she should.

Speaker 9 Yes.

Speaker 20 There's also conventional wisdom that the jury wants to hear the defendant say, I didn't do it. And that carries a lot of weight.

Speaker 12 Jurors were ready to hear from Natalie, but there was a surprise coming.

Speaker 12 and finally a verdict that would leave both families in tears.

Speaker 58 Either they didn't believe anything we said and they're going to acquit this lady, or she's a duster.

Speaker 12 It was the moment everyone had been waiting for. Natalie Cochran was about to testify.

Speaker 63 She had already informed the judge that she was going to take the stand.

Speaker 12 Natalie and her attorneys met with the judge behind closed doors. When they returned, the judge made an announcement.

Speaker 62 The defendant has now elected not to testify in her own behalf.

Speaker 12 Smart move on her part.

Speaker 58 She would have had to answer for some things that I don't know that she was prepared to do.

Speaker 20 I believe Natalie Cochrane has thought about the implications of testifying and may have consulted parents,

Speaker 9 perhaps friends.

Speaker 12 During closing arguments, the prosecution walked the jury through its theory of how Natalie killed Michael and said that despite what the defense said, the prosecution's expert determined that Michael's low blood sugar couldn't have been caused by supplements or steroids.

Speaker 20 Dr. Krieger had 13

Speaker 26 likely causes of low blood sugar, hypoglycemia.

Speaker 58 She eliminated all but insulin.

Speaker 12 And as for Michael having seizures, the prosecution said that all came from Natalie. You heard experts testify that the seizure activity in the records was reported by the defendant.

Speaker 12 Prosecutors wrapped up by saying it's been six years since Michael's murder and it was time Natalie was held accountable. Michael has waited long enough for justice.

Speaker 12 Natalie's defense attorney argued that the prosecution's theory made no sense for so many reasons. And he pointed out Natalie's behavior was the exact opposite of a killer's.

Speaker 20 You have just decided to kill your husband.

Speaker 12 He is unconscious, let's assume,

Speaker 20 and you want him dead.

Speaker 12 Well, let him die then.

Speaker 20 Don't do anything.

Speaker 12 He reminded the jurors Natalie did do something. She called multiple people to the house.

Speaker 20 Is that

Speaker 20 the action of a killer? who wants to get

Speaker 35 away with murder?

Speaker 35 No.

Speaker 12 And he said a murderer would have cremated Michael, destroying evidence. But Natalie didn't do that.

Speaker 12 He also hammered at the idea that Natalie had no reason to kill her husband, nothing to gain from his death.

Speaker 20 Because he, Michael Cochrane, was as involved in this conspiracy as she was.

Speaker 12 He left jurors with a final thought.

Speaker 20 If you cannot answer these three questions,

Speaker 20 what,

Speaker 20 how,

Speaker 20 and first of all and foremost, why,

Speaker 20 then the state

Speaker 20 fails to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt.

Speaker 12 A jury goes out to deliberate. How are you feeling? We're feeling like we've left it all out there.
We've done everything that we could possibly do.

Speaker 49 You never know what a jury's going to do, but I felt strong about the defense position.

Speaker 11 You're thinking, man,

Speaker 19 I don't know.

Speaker 21 Everything is circumstantial. You're sitting there in just pure suspense, waiting for that verdict.

Speaker 12 And then, quicker than anyone imagined, the jury had a verdict.

Speaker 12 Two hours?

Speaker 24 Yes. Right around.

Speaker 12 That's usually a good sign. Are you thinking that?

Speaker 58 Well, it was one of those chicken or feathers things. Either they didn't believe anything we said and they're going to acquit this lady, or she's a duster.

Speaker 62 I'll expect no outbursts when I read the verdict.

Speaker 12 The judge told Natalie to stand.

Speaker 62 We, the jury on the issues, joined, unanimously find the following. The defendant is guilty of murder in the first degree.

Speaker 12 Take us to that very moment in that courtroom as you are listening to those words that

Speaker 12 Natalie Cochrane is being held responsible for your son's murder.

Speaker 17 I'd be. Being held accountable.
Yes.

Speaker 10 There's a feeling that comes over you. I don't know if I can put it to words or not, but it is justice.
It is justice. And I could just see

Speaker 10 Michael saying, you hung in there for me. You hung in there for me.

Speaker 10 And we did.

Speaker 10 We did.

Speaker 12 You felt like he was with you. Yeah,

Speaker 10 yes, ma'am.

Speaker 12 But it wasn't over. In West Virginia, they have what's called a mercy phase.
As Natalie quietly shed tears, the judge explained to the jury it was up to them to decide her sentence.

Speaker 62 If she receives mercy, she will be eligible for parole in 15 years.

Speaker 12 If not, she would spend the rest of her life in prison. He asked the jury to return the next morning to hear from both sides.
First, Natalie's.

Speaker 12 One by one, members of her family spoke glowingly about her, including her dad and mom. Please give mercy to her.

Speaker 13 It won't be for me, probably, but be for her and her children and grandchildren.

Speaker 12 And once again, Natalie's children took the stand.

Speaker 53 A lot of us really want our mom back.

Speaker 6 Really want her back.

Speaker 38 And I just beg,

Speaker 12 beg you give her mercy.

Speaker 17 She's a great woman.

Speaker 30 I've always kind of considered her to be my best friend. I missed her at my high school graduation.
I missed her on the day I moved into college.

Speaker 6 I'm begging you to give her mercy so that I don't have to miss more.

Speaker 12 Yes. For the prosecution, several of Michael's friends spoke,

Speaker 12 including Chris Davis.

Speaker 19 Mike was a...

Speaker 8 He was a very strong man. He's a good man.
He wasn't sick. He wasn't ready to die.

Speaker 12 He had a message for the jury.

Speaker 8 I thank you.

Speaker 8 I know Mike would thank you.

Speaker 12 Finally, Michael's parents had a chance to say what was in their hearts. They had loved Natalie, but not anymore.

Speaker 10 Evil must be held accountable. Natalie Cochrane must be held accountable.

Speaker 13 We ask that you please, please.

Speaker 13 No mercy. She never gave Michael any mercy.

Speaker 12 Less than two hours later, jurors had made a decision.

Speaker 62 We, the jury, unanimously do not recommend mercy.

Speaker 12 They sentenced Natalie Cochran to life in prison without the possibility of parole. She's appealing the verdict.
Michael's parents say even though there was justice for Michael, there were no winners.

Speaker 12 Not only did they lose their son, their family has been torn apart. They haven't spoken to Michael's children in six years.
If they ever see this, what would you say to your grandchildren?

Speaker 13 Well, hopefully one day, you know, maybe they'll come and want to talk to us. Maybe they want to come and ask us some questions about their dad.

Speaker 10 There's things about their dad that we would like to share with them.

Speaker 13 He was just a tremendous young man. He had the biggest heart and the biggest smile.
And he was so handsome. He had a lot of friends out there.

Speaker 13 And so, you know, we just love to keep his story alive and keep it out there and keep his memory alive.

Speaker 12 With your faith, you know you'll be together again someday.

Speaker 17 Yes, we will. Yes.

Speaker 13 Looking forward to that day.

Speaker 2 That's all for this edition of Dateline. And check out our Talking Dateline podcast.
Andrea Canning and Blaine Alexander will go behind the scenes of tonight's episode.

Speaker 2 Available Wednesday in the Dateline feed wherever you get your podcasts. We'll see you again Sunday at 10, 9 Central.
I'm Lester Holt for all of us at NBC News.

Speaker 19 Good night.

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