Naman Shrestha
When Air Force veteran Christopher Regan suddenly vanished in Iron River, Michigan, in October 2014, an extensive search was launched to find his whereabouts. At the time, the authorities were not aware of the fact that his lover, Kelly Marie Cochran, had a hand in his disappearance and murder. All the intricate details of the case and the investigation that followed are explored in ABC’s ’20/20: Where Monsters Hide,’ which also covers how Kelly also killed her husband, Jason Cochran.
Kelly Marie Cochran Perpetrated the Murders of Chris Regan and Jason Cochran
Born on June 5, 1982, to Melanie and Tim Gaboyan, Kelly Marie Gaboyan was raised in Lake County, Indiana, alongside her brother, Colton Gaboyan. While growing up, Kelly developed a close friendship with her next-door neighbor, Jason Cochran, with whom she also attended Purdue University. They eventually got married and ran a pool installation, repair, and cleaning service together. According to Kelly’s parents, Jason later suffered from back pain that kept him from working. After that, Kelly was the sole person responsible for running the household, according to her parents. The couple got into verbal altercations every now and then, leading to marital problems later. They eventually moved to Iron River, Michigan, where Kelly crossed paths with Christopher “Chris” Karl Regan at her new workplace, the Oldenburg Group.
Kelly soon began an extramarital affair with Chris, something she claimed her husband, Jason, knew about. For a while, she had also dated Eric Erickso, a military assembler at the Oldenburg Group. According to her, she had made a wedding pact with Jason that the cheating spouse would either have to kill the lover or get killed by the other spouse. So, the couple allegedly plotted to kill Chris. It is alleged that Kelly lured him to her Iron River home, where Jason shot him with a .22-caliber rifle from behind. As per her account, she was forced to pull the bullet out of his skull with a pair of forceps, after which she helped him dispose of the dismembered remains in a wooded area off of Pentoga Trail in Crystal Falls Township.
In the weeks and months that followed, Kelly and Jason were suspected of being involved in Chris’ disappearance. While the police zeroed in on them, they fled to the Hobart area, where they stayed at Kelly’s parents’ house. Months later, on February 20, 2016, Kelly reportedly injected her husband with a lethal amount of heroin before suffocating him with her hands and a pillow. She then called 911 and asked for an ambulance. After the paramedics rushed him to the hospital, he was pronounced dead. As the investigators believed that the two homicides were linked, they dug deeper into Kelly, trying to get her to confess. As Detective Jeremy Ogden had dozens of hours of secretly-recorded conversations with her, she gave varied accounts of what happened to Chris.
Kelly Cochran Eventually Led the Authorities to Chris Regan’s Remains
The law enforcement’s efforts came to fruition when Kelly Cochran admitted that Chris had been killed, claiming that Jason had shot him and dismembered his remains. She also showed them where the murder took place in the house. She eventually fled to Wingo, Kentucky, to avoid being apprehended. However, in May 2016, the investigators tracked her, arrested her, and held her at Graves County jail. Kelly led the police to the site where she and Jason disposed of Chris’ remains. She was charged with homicide, second-degree home invasion, conspiracy to commit mutilation of a dead body, concealing the death of an individual, lying to a peace officer during a violent crime investigation, and accessory after the fact to a felony.
After her extradition from Kentucky to Michigan, Kelly was held at the Iron County Jail on a $5 million bond. During the interviews that followed, she confessed to being a part of the plan to kill Chris. On May 23, 2016, she reportedly confessed to killing her husband, Jason. Kelly blamed her husband for “Taking the only good thing I had in my life. I still hate him (her husband), and yes, it was revenge. I evened the score.”
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Kelly Marie Cochran is Currently Incarcerated at a Michigan Prison
In October 2016, Kelly Marie Cochran pleaded not guilty to the charges against her and also rejected a plea deal offered by the prosecution that guaranteed her less prison time in January 2017. The following month, her jury trial commenced. While the prosecution presented her confession to the jury, the defense argued that her husband acted alone in the homicide. The defendant also took the stand and testified that she was abused by Jason during the marriage and had no hand in the crime.
About three weeks of hearing and testimonies later, the jury deliberated for less than three hours before reaching a final verdict. On February 28, 2017, she was found guilty on all charges against her, including first-degree premeditated murder, larceny in a building, conspiracy to commit dead bodies-disinterment and mutilation, concealing the death of an individual, and lying to a police officer. Consequently, in May 2017, she received a life imprisonment sentence without the possibility of parole.
Within a year, in May 2018, she also pleaded guilty to killing Jason, for which she was sentenced to an additional 65 years in prison. Later, her family members, including her brother, told the authorities that she had allegedly killed more people throughout the Midwest, about nine people in total. As per reports, she claimed to have killed and buried other individuals in Michigan, Indiana, Minnesota, and Tennessee. As of today, the 44-year-old killer is serving her sentence at Women’s Huron Valley Correctional Facility in Ypsilanti, Michigan.
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