Mysterious Accident Leaves Bride Locked In Her Burning Car | A Killers Mistake | @RealCrime

it was a fairy tale wedding but for CLA Morris there would be no happy ending he decided he was going to Stage a road traffic collision and effectively set the vehicle on fire with his wife in the passenger seat incapacitated and effectively bur her to death Malcolm is a psychopath he can put himself into a bubble when he's committing a crime and he can completely detach himself from what he's doing whilst he's doing it detectives gather evidence until a picture of a suspect emerges which piece of the puzzle will reveal Malcolm Webster as guilty of murder what would be the Killer's [Music] mistake [Music] [Music] CLA Morris was a happy little girl she was close to her family we've been a close family since we lost me dad um when we were seven and nine respectively and CLA was more the practical person she'd help around the home a bit more she was Garder and that sort of thing um but she was a good sister but for the little boy who would go up to marry CLA life was less simple it does seem that Malcolm Webster had quite a strange childhood I don't think it's some it's one that we would describe as particularly normal or even functioning incredibly well his dad was in quite powerful job in the police force he he was head of the fraud Squad and and it's said by people that he was an incredibly controlling man and he ruled his family and I think Malcolm especially felt that he was at the bottom the very bottom of the the pecking order he stood out for all of the wrong reasons he was not like other boys there were some behavioral difficulties noted with Malcolm Webster from when he was a child he was known to be attention seeking he always wanted attention but he always seemed to want to get his own way as well and he would often fake illnesses and he would pretend to faint and that that probably got him the attention that that he was craving at the time there are many occasions where we've got evidence that even as a youngster again going back to his teenage years where he'd feed the fact that he had a brain tumor a life-threatening illness Webster struggled to car out a place for himself but finally settled on a career he decided that he wanted to to train to be a nurse his his mother had been a nurse and I suppose it's not that um surprising given that he was always ill himself or figing illness himself it was this career choice that brought him into contact with CLA Morris CLA was a nurse she'd been a nurse for for some years she'd done all training in London she'd put her career as an important thing and she put that in front of um relationship she wanted to get qualified as a a state registered nurse and then I think she specialized in eye uh care the pair met at a house party in London and hit it off immediately she was sharing a house in dich with um some friends and I believe that she met Malcolm at a party um after which the next day he came down and was sharing her with flowers and gifts and what have you and uh he seemed a gentleman he seemed the sort of person that CLA would be interested in and um it didn't take long for her to to fall for him the couple moved to rural Scotland and in the early '90s they married cla's brother vividly recalls the happy day it was a traditional Scottish wedding had a bit of class to it um not so much a disco afterwards as a Kaye which is good fun um all prancing about doing silly dances and um no Sor approved it the wedding day appeared perfect but Webster's vow till death as stupart masked a more Sinister motive it seems that after they got married in 199 3 that's when Webster really starts to escalate things it's like you know he's got the marriage now he's safe in that relationship it means he's got entitlements from that relationship and and we see during that time that CLA had 10 life insurance policies against her life and a big mortgage protection policy so it seems that even before before they were married and definitely after they got married he had a plan that this marriage was not going to last Malcolm suggested CLA make a will too about two years in he gets CLA to change her will and and he is the the sole beneficiary he gets absolutely everything probably didn't raise any red flags for her because that's not necessarily an unusual thing for a a committed couple to do CLA was deeply in love with Webster her brother noticed the intense hold that he had over her well there were times when Malcolm told her to take her hands out of her pockets and she did if I tell that de class you have told me to clear off he he'd managed to sort of wi this spell over her really but at the time he wound that spell over all of us by Spring 19 94 cla's Health was deteriorating on many occasions in the early months of their marriage friends family of CLA noticed indeed CLA herself was concerned that she was undergoing periods of blackouts um dizziness clearly she knew herself that that there was something wrong within her and and and Malcolm he would sideline that and he would minimize it and trivialize the symptoms that she was suffering from from but friends and family she visited our GP they thought it was perhaps epilepsy she's tired she's confused She's forgetting things and she doesn't know what's going on that's terrifying for her but there is her husband saying don't worry rely on me and I will take care of it all because you are clearly not capable there was much CLA didn't know about her new husband she had no idea he was secretly feeding her sedatives he was using a combination of epilepsy drugs and sleeping tablets whose effect of course is to make you drowsy and I don't think there's any much doubt that what he was trying to do at the very least was to cause CLA to become more malleable more confused more uncertain more under his influence but that wasn't all Malcolm was hiding his lifelong fascination with fire since his school days he'd been a pyromaniac he was known in his friendship group or with the people that knew him anyway the children that knew him for setting fires he would brag about his his skill in setting fires mid 1994 and the Websters appear a happy couple no one is suspicious of the insurance policies taken out on cla's life nobody would have guessed that cla's pyromaniac husband had hidden several cans of Petrol in the boot of their car and CLA herself would never have imagined that to Malcolm Webster she was of more value dead than alive I think that's an interesting thing this one piece will make 52 layers watch on mobile devices or the big screen all for free no sub description required Malcolm Webster had always loved acting and it seemed he didn't know when to stop his whole adult life was nothing other than a performance he was into amateur drama as a young man and I think he played that through for the rest of his days his thespian abilities were to stand him in good stead as he embarked on a plan to kill in May 1994 Webster bought a new car and began researching the local roads and on the 27th of May just 8 months after their wedding day tragedy struck the circumstances on the night where that he um enticed his wife to join him on a an unnecessary Journey from their Farmhouse to the city of Aberdine some 15 16 miles away to drop off off some paperwork to do with a project so that that created the the reason to have to be in the vehicle at that particular time of night and she came with him we don't know what was going through Webster's mind when he decided to kill CLA Morris but we do know that he had planned it carefully he had found a site where he could drive the car into a tree and he deliberately increased the dose of medication that he gave her he gave her sedatives until she was unconscious and then he carried her to the car put the seat down so that as he was driving nobody would be able to see that she was in the car one can only imagine at that point that she'd been heavily sedated because she must have fallen asleep very quickly in the prone position in the passenger seat so then at the predetermined location he drove the vehicle off the road at a very low speed did impact with a tree with the front of the vehicle Webster was not finished his Boyhood fascination with fire combined with his desire for money meant that he had one more Scene to play out and then he simply emptied pet throl fuel in the vehicle set it on fire and then passers by effectively intervened but Remar ably he maintained at least one possibly two of the first Witnesses who arrived in the scene because the question was asked is there anybody else in the vehicle and he was adamant no on two occasions he was asked if there was anybody else in the car and he denied it and it was only when the thing actually exploded into flames that he said that uh all my wife in there the man who had so recently promised to love and to cherish CLA now stood and watched while she burnt to death I have rarely heard anything more calculating in my life if she was very lucky she may have stayed unconscious as a result of those drugs if she was not then she died in agony what that did to Clare in the car was inhuman her skull was welded to the back of the chair at the front her bones were welded to the seat some wonderful fireman had to do his best to get what was left of her up into an ambulance um it's vile The Grieving Widow Up played his part well he was above suspicion even to those he was closest to up in Scotland it's actually mild members of the family that carry out the coffin and uh me and a few few of my cousins were doing that and it was when they put CLA on my shoulder that I actually cracked yeah that the sky had collapsed for me and I do remember that um feeling quite Sor for myself and then looking up at Malcolm who was on my right and thinking wow I've lost my sister but he's lost his wife and and and and as they lowered CLA into the grave I had a cord in this hand which was with several other cords low the the coffin down and with this hand I was holding on to Malcolm squeezing his hand and I looked up at him and and he was in tears as well now it was time for Webster to cash in claiming on the insurance policies he was finally a man of means but the money didn't last long having accumulated significant wealth and benefited from clear's death to the to the sum of well over £200,000 which in the '90s was was a significant this remains a significant amount of money but he he managed to squander that uh very very quickly so within six months of cla's death he found himself in a situation where he was uh pretty much uh empty in the bank but Malcolm Webster knew how to get rich quick he had a formula meet marry murder if he was to analyze how he'd conducted the murder of Clea it was a perfect plan from its Inception through execution he got away with it so why wouldn't he do the same again newly single and now Stony broke Malcolm Webster left the UK it wouldn't be long before he met a young woman and in 1996 they married all I'd heard from Mom was that um he' got married again uh he met somebody in Saudi Arabia and he got married again uh that's that's literally all I knew I didn't know who was what nationality she was or anything like that the many faces of Malcolm Webster were on display with a nurse called Felicity drum the couple set up home in her native New Zealand Webster had married now he wanted money so in the relationship with Felicity he starts to repeat the pattern almost exactly the relationship that he had with CLA he starts giving drugs to Felicity she starts feeling a again and vulnerable and tired and fatigued and after they got married practically the first day after they got married he gave her such a huge dose of sedative that she slept for 36 hours and so clearly even in the very very early stages of the relationship he was putting his plan into action this is a man who didn't just asked not care for his wife or his wives this is a man who cared for nobody and had not a shred of compassion for [Music] anybody when the unsuspecting Felicity became pregnant the couple moved to Scotland the pregnancy did little to put Webster off his stride here was a man who was prepared to feed drugs to his wife knowing as a nurse the effects they met have while she was pregnant he was prepared to continue to feed her drugs which might well affect the health of their baby once it was born and she was breastfeeding and while his wife was pregnant he almost certainly set a fire in their house planning to kill her and their unborn child in the winter of 1998 a fire broke out in the Webster's home The Blaze forced the families return to New Zealand where they stayed with felicity's parents Malcolm was growing ever more desperate for money the result another fire certainly during his marriage to Felicity he had set fire or had laid fires on one occasion with his infant son and his wife and her parents all asleep in the same house having been living with felicity's parents the Websters were Keen to move on they planned to buy a house but Webster was a worried man he knew that close scrutiny by philicity of her bank account would reveal an ugly truth he'd been stealing the solution kill [Music] Felicity on the morning that he attempted to murder Felicity they were going to the bank they were going to meet with our solists and that was going to unveil the fact that he had no money in the account he had embezzled money from her account so he knew that that was not going to be a good meeting so he was pretty much forced into that Journey being the journey where he had to do this Webster's carefully late plan was about to be undone he had to act he starts to say that the the steering has has gone funny and he can't control it and and the car seems to Veer high speed towards a pole in the road so it's the passenger side that's heading towards the pole but felic manages to grab the steering wheel and they do come to a halt incredibly Felicity survives the crash but just a week later a family Excursion and another attempt to kill his second wife a kind of long story short he' attempted to kill Felicity in the same way that he did Kill CLA and it was her mobile telephone going going off with a call from her father that woke her up out of a stuper he's shouting at her to stay in the car stay in the car he doesn't want her to get out of the car he's making his way to the boot where again he has put cans of petrol and it seems that his intention was that he was going to set fire to the car this was a man who didn't just not care for this woman he didn't care for any woman money and insurance policy was more important to him than anything the real Malcolm Webster had yet to be uncovered to the outside world for many he was simply a loving husband what mistake would it take to uncover a killer Malcolm Webster had already killed his first wife and tried to kill his second for Felicity drums family events simply didn't add up but the evidence against Webster did after the crash uh the car gets towed away it's getting taken to a garage and um Felicity sister goes to the garage and the mechanic there tells her that there's nothing wrong with the steering at all the petal cans were found in the rear of the vehicle by felicity's brother-in-law there was a cigarette lighter found in the console of the vehicle which uh was odd because neither of them smoked there were scrunched up newspapers and all of this led them to think that something really suspicious had had happened at this point Felicity started putting the pieces together and started to make sense of some of the things that had been happening to her that she was now seeing in a new light so she made a statement to the police about her suspicions and she included in that that she hadn't been feeling well so they tested her hair and as a result of those tests they found out that she had been drugged for quite a long period of time Malcolm Webster knew the game was up once the House of Cards began to Tumble in New Zealand and he realized that the game was up he he had to get out of there and that's when he returned to the UK and effectively we into phase three of his life if you [Music] like there was little police in New Zealand could do they had suspicions but with insufficient evidence there could be no arrest or extradition application however to some there was little doubt as to Webster's intentions the sister and indeed the local police believed that Webster had tried to to murder Felicity in in a staged road traffic accident but by this day Malcolm was back in the UK some years later in 2008 Felicity sister Jane visited the UK she was on a course with police officers about domestic abuse she took the opportunity to talk to One detective what Jane wanted to do while she was in the UK was seek out Webster and confront him and she was angry with him this was was you know there had been no justice at all and she wanted to go and she wanted to confront him however the police officer persuaded her that that was probably not a good idea but to her credit the police officer contacted what was then grampi and police and I I had a conversation with her and we agreed that we would send detectives down to to England to to interview felicity's sister and fool police were quickly convinced by what they' heard and they launched operation field the circumstances of the road traffic accident involving Clea his first wife were remarkable and the circumstances in New Zealand involving the road traffic accident with Felicity were remarkable but when you overlaid and put the two together they were compellingly striking in terms of the similarities and so that largely was the Catalyst for another we wave of Investigation but it needed more than that it needed something tangible something something solid to actually ignite the the second investigation if you like but records from the crash that killed CLA Morris were of little help malcol Webster effectively carried out the perfect murder because he was never a suspect because there was never a crime had there been a connection that that was a crime he would have very quickly have been in the frame and very quickly I'm sure the evidence would have been there to support it because there was a lot of circumstantial evidence and clearly the toxicology of the postmortem would have very much been focused on sedatives but at that time it was only an alcohol screening that was carried out the pathologist uh Dr James griev very highly experienced highly respected gentleman he he did have a meticulous record of what had happened in the original postmortem what the investigation needed was solid evidence something tangible that physical evidence came from another remarkable source and that was a small piece of uh liver tissue from the original postmortem of Clea back in 1994 and with the p of time and and the advance of science the toxicology around that was remarkable they found a way of testing it for unnatural substances and with this new method they found tazahan in that sample and that it was a 90 something per chance that it was tazahan and that is not something that could be naturally in there from the body generating it it would have to be planted there this tiny sliver of liver led to the remarkable outcome for us as investigators that there was indeed clear evidence scientific evidence that there was sedative in that liver tissue which then entirely changed the circumstances of an original road traffic collision because all the circumstances indicated that somehow um clear must have been incapacitated at the time of the Collision because uh there was no other way of explaining why she didn't uh escape from the vehicle herself to strengthen their case further police returned to the Collision that had killed CLA Morris they said it was an accident so you think well people have accidents you know um and that was my visualization of it he said that he'd swerved to avoid a motorcycle unless you're detached from that person and looking at it in the cold light of day it's very difficult to be suspicious when somebody has prior to that gained your trust but if I'd been a policeman or a fireman or something like that and I had no Malcolm then I might have been able to look at it with more um constructively critical [Music] eyes that critical ey was to come from specialist crash Sheen investigators who focused on the speed of the Collision investigators are pretty good at estimating a speed from the damage that's presented on the vehicle and there's lots of research papers to support that too so it would be relatively obvious standing at the scene of this Collision that you were dealing with a low speed impact as opposed to quite a High Velocity energy exchange Webster had claimed to have swerved to avoid a motorcycle a story which now appeared flawed if you're dealing with an evasive steer a case where a driver's reacting to a hazard in the road say an oncoming vehicle or an animal or something like that you would expect a significant amount of steering to be applied very quickly indeed it doesn't lose a lot of speed as it's traveling across the road so it would be slightly unusual to end up with quite a Lowe speed impact at the end of a swerve or an evasive maneuver crash investigators now turned their attention to the fire that engulfed cla's car in this case there were witnesses that described the fire took hold of the vehicle 15 or 20 minutes after the original Collision whilst fires take a while to propagate through a vehicle this would be the case when the vehicle is colder uh than it was at the time of the Collision we also look at that in conjunction with the fact that it was a very low speed impact we have a low speed impact and a late onset of a fire um that would be very unusual satisfied that cla's accident was deliberate the investigation Revisited the incident in New Zealand Webster's allegation in the second Collision was that there was a defect with the steering that caused him to Swerve across the road it's highly unlikely that a defect to any part of the steering system would cause the vehicle to Swerve across the road in the way that it did as police investigated Malcolm Webster he was in the Scottish Highlands with a woman called Simone banery who he' met in 2004 and who knew nothing of his past or what he had planned he had no care for anyone except himself every time he met somebody he was planning to get their money and kill them the net was closing in on killer Malcolm Webster Police working to bring him to justice for the murder and attempted murder of his first two wives but Webster once again is a man with a plan engaged to be married he can't allow his past to catch up with him I took a phone call from Webster who had heard that there was investigations ongoing into the the death of Clea and he was h highly indignant he was pseudo aggressive in terms of um how could you possibly think that I could be involved in anything to do with c's death very dramatic phone call definitely a determined phone call to try and for whatever reason convince somebody on the other end of a phone that that he wasn't involved and as his murder and it it struck me as being somewhat pathetic that somebody might think that they could in a phone call just doue down the the interest in a in a in a murder investigation for Malcolm Webster and his new fiance Simone banery life seemed good she did not know about his past or that he had a wife and child in New Zealand furthermore she didn't know of his history of Faking illnesses we know that he on several occasions grew red woman through sympathy in relation to a apparent terminal illnesses such as leukemia Munch Housen syndrome where people pretend or Fain illness even poison themselves in order to get medical attention is not unknown we know that Webster would have been very aware that illness brings with it attention after all he had been a nurse planning a honeymoon aboard their yacht nurse Simone banery could not have imagined her fiance's cancer was bogus and in fact he went to the extent of apparently going for chemotherapy and an absence from the family home he was actually engaging with other women but he would return home with his head shaven his eyebrows shaven apparently as part of his chemotherapy so that that was the extent that he would go to uh and again that pattern of behavior continued and again was an ingredient in the relationship that you had with the latest lady in in our where as a nurse and her friend as a nurse were convinced that he had leukemia police were watching Webster and becoming increasingly concerned for his fiance's safety if you take all of the circumstances of cla's murder and the staged accident uh and the death and the insurance he out and if you take all of the circumstances and ingredients of what he did with Felicity in New Zealand staged accident the insurance the signing over of the the house the estate all of the ingredients are there and and when you look at a relationship with the lady Simone and AR again there was a relationship building with a woman of some wealth there wasn't the insurance wrap around at that particular point in time but there was a be to signing over a house that was worth a quarter of a million P there was a a yacht that was worth a substantial amount of money that he had a half sharing so again it wouldn't be too difficult to draw some conclusions potentially of what was going to be the outcome Malcolm is supposed to to be taking on a boat for several weeks and it turned out that he'd actually damaged her life jacket this person was going to kill again when it became known that they were about to embark on a a fairly lengthy yacht trip around the canaries that's when the decision was taken that that something had to be done and so there was an intervention through what we call an Osman warning if the The Police become aware of intelligence that they believe that someone's life is in danger then you're obliged to advise and notify that individual uh you don't have to reveal the source of that suspicion or intelligence or information but there is a duty of care in terms of advising and of course that's what was done Simone was warned that there was a genuine belief that she was in a relationship with a dangerous individual who had a history that would suggest that she needed to think very carefully about continuing that relationship Malcolm Webster fled to Su where in February 2009 he was finally arrested and charged with the murder of CLA and the attempted murder of Felicity police had a dossier of circumstantial evidence but could they find something tangible that would reveal the Killer's mistake at trial a jury heard about his paramania there are so many incidents of fire that Webster was involved in two houses one in New Zealand one in Scotland went on fire that he was responsible for obviously the tragic fire involving clear but beyond that there were other incidences of fire even up until months before he was arrested in the hospital that he was working in AR there was a fire in a dust bin which he found and DED out and be became a bit of a hero because undoubtedly Webster needed to be the center of [Music] attention so the fires were a real feature of of Webster's life and there were those that were prepared to testify to that we randomly got a phone call from a police sergeant in England uh Kent sir I think um who had seen the publicity had recognized Webster and recognized them as a fellow Scout when they were 14 15 years old and he was compelled to tell us that even in those days uh young Webster had uh a reputation involving fires uh so in Scout trips things had gone on fire and Webster was never far away and and that nickname he had which there's a certain irony in and the nickname was pyro during the trial cla's brother Peter would learn of a much darker side to his brother-in-law I mean one of the things that I asked Derek H the QC at the time of the trial was that um after the supposed accident Malcolm had been picked up by an ambulance and taken to abedine Royal infirmary they tested his pulse and that was normal they tested his pupil dilation and that was normal and I said to Mr Rog how can that be because if you've been in a genuine accident your pulse and everything would be all up anyway because of the shock of what's happened and if you committed a crime surely you'd be excited as well so how could they be normal and his reply to me was astonishing he he said um Malcolm is a psychopath he can put himself into a bubble when he's committing a crime and he can completely detach himself from what he's doing whilst he's doing it which I didn't even know people like that existed prior to this that is something for me which is astonishingly scary so what was the cause of his ultimate downfall the Killer's mistake he underestimated people he was very confident of his own intelligence his own planning he thought that he had covered all the bases but actually this wasn't a clever man this was a manipulative man but when you look back most of the things he did were were quite clumsy things like telling the people who turned up at the accident there was no body in the car he didn't even think that there would be evidence in his wives bodies of the drugs that he was giving them he decided to repeat what he' done so one car crash is unusual when it kills somebody to have two and then to have a third person who's being drugged so I think that his arrogance and his overconfidence in himself underpinned all of those clumsy mistakes he made that made it easier for the police even looking back at these as historic crimes to prove that he was a liar here we have a man who cares absolutely nothing for anybody and will allow nothing to get in the way of him achieving what he wants he is a highly calculated man he's an intelligent man and he is a man who has become overconfident because he has believed that he has got away with his scribes so here is a man whose life is gradually causing him to have a higher and higher inflated view of his own ability to evade Justice an arrogant man but crucially also a greedy one of course the overriding motive in all of Webster's actions will come back to his greed his insatiable desire for wealth I think he lived his life in a complete fantasy and he was successful in many ways in terms of his goal of making money out of that until eventually his greed tripped him up Webster's mistakes would cost him dear on the 5th of July 2011 he was sentenced to life and will serve a minimum of 30 years the judge likened his case to that of a puzzle I think it was well described as being like a thousand piece jigsaw that was stwn across the floor until such time as uh the jigsa was put together not just by the police but by Family by friends there was a whole network who helped put this jigsaw together but only then did it become clear that Webster's whole life was predicated on lies fantasy um wealth driven plans to take a advantage of women uh often vulnerable women who who fell for him he was a charmer he was a quintessential English gentleman yet he felt No Remorse for his crimes he had no problem with um discarding people's lives um and um no remorse or regret for doing so no he's never shown remorse he's never admitted his his guilt he maintains his innocence to this day but that's not unusual that's not to be um you'd necessarily be surprised at that because he probably right now is sitting in a Cell in prison still feeling a little bit hard done by uh that that that's that's the reality that is Malcolm [Music] Webster Sally Lawrence impressed everyone who came across her including the man who bought the business where she worked when I bought him out he said I've got one bit of advice for you son you look after Sally and she'll look after you and it absolutely turned out to be the case she was brilliant absolutely brilliant John Boling was to introduce Sally to an airline pilot called Ian Lawrence the couple looked set for life so why w one day did Sally appear so frightened of him so in the days leading up to the event Sally had text her close friends um and her daughters um just raising some concerns around Ian's demeanor when she spoke to her friends she said she could see evil in his eyes and she was worried that one day he might kill her detectives gather evidence until a picture of a suspect emerged which piece of the puzzle will reveal Ian Lawrence as guilty of murder what would be the Killer's [Music] mistake [Music] I think it was about half past midnight so going into the 7th of October when I received a call uh from one of my detective inspectors Neil Castle was hearing news of a car crash something a murder Squad detective would usually get involved in the passenger in the vehicle um that had collided with a tree uh had died at the scene and the driver of the vehicle who was a male uh had been taken to hospital and appeared to be unconscious and had um on on the face of it some trauma and some potential brain injuries I don't think people realize how sophisticated crash scene in investigation is especially these days with all the electronics in cars one of the Collision uh investigators that had attended the scene had raised some concerns uh around whether or not it was actually an accident but they did some analysis on the treadmarks and the treadmarks show that there had been no deceleration so the car had gone into the tree and had not slowed down later on a nurse contacted us in the incident room saying she wasn't comfortable with a a patient that she treated that evening and believe that he may have been feigning some of his [Music] injuries the patient was Ian Lawrence the accident had happened on this road in Leicester the woman in the passenger seat who had died was Sally Lawrence wife Tuan a man plunged into grief was John bolting who'd introduced the couple to each other my son told me um that Sally was dead and that time I was sitting down because I had to I couldn't believe it and uh I said you know what happened and he said well all I can say Dad is that they've arrested her husband on suspicion of murder what was the truth behind death on a road who with a couple at the center of attra TR y Ian Lawrence was uh seemingly a very successful man he had been an airline pilot they he was a successful businessman the his marriage seemed to be very successful and to all intents and purposes it looked as if he had the perfect life Sally had worked her way up from um being PA to the managing director at the chemical spills company and she was doing particularly well incredible enthusiasm for life always smiling you know and uh always looked on the bright side of everything it didn't matter what it was she was always on the on the plus side you know nothing was ever half empty with Sally you and uh yeah I thought the world of he thought the world of Ian too Ian Lawrence was a pilot and so was I and I was a member of the leerer AO club and uh I actually introduced them to each other and um she was basically looking for a partner and I said well you know I know somebody who uh I thought at the time would be ideal When Sally was introduced to it and they got on really well immediately and quite soon were married in a very lavish extravagant wedding well they got married in James the Greater Church in Leicester there were somewhere around about between and 250 people it's a big church a lot of people in there so they let off 15,000 quids of the fireworks I mean the display went on for about 40 minutes something like that it was quite extraordinary I've never seen anything like it that was in the year 2000 and at first all seemed well then a setback made matters between them less than harmonious in 2007 that seems to be the beginning where things started to go wrong for Ian Lawrence and he was sacked from his job as an airline pilot and that seemed to set in motion um a kind of a downward spiral she used to confined an awful lot in me and it was it was apparent to me that things were were going really really wrong I think when he he lost his job as an airline pilot that that really did Dent his ego and maybe started to show the cracks that were in his marriage behind the scenes and it did seem that Sally and he started to have problems um that's not surprising either because he wouldn't he wouldn't have responded well to to being challenged prior to being a pilot Ian Lawrence had actually suffered setbacks in failed business losing his latest High status job seemed to alter his personality his attitude towards Sally could occasionally get ugly yeah we we we were in a local pu we gone to have a a business lunch and she was telling me that she was really frightened of him and that um you know she was frightened of what he would do quite often in some relationships that look almost perfect from the outside things are very very different behind behind the scenes and where you have this almost sometimes you might think it's like a managed vision of what the family is that usually means that there's somebody in the background who's very controlling and I think probably that Ian Lawrence was a very controlling individual I said at the time to Su I said don't worry all bullies are cowards I said the chances are he won't do anything But as time went by he did enough to convince Sally there was no future in the marriage they were living together still they were living separately so the the marriage was falling apart right in front of his eyes she told me things that were not right I knew that they were not you know sharing a room together um I knew that she was spending a lot of time away with her family in darish in 2012 Sally actually um f for divorce and it was that divorce that seems to have unsettled things at that point you know she was looking to move on and and just start a new life away from here she was happy for the first time in her life but to somebody like Ian Lawrence he wasn't going to accept this he didn't move out of the house so they had to live together even though the house was actually in her name uh and it was going to be divided up he actually wanted a greater proportion of that money and sent her a text to that effect and she was actually quite scared of him she wanted a new relationship and that would have been incur for somebody like Ian Lawrence at least at this point there was the facade that they were still together that he was still in control and in a lot of ways he did still have a lot of control over her because they were still living together but she was going to leave and that would have escalated things dramatically Sally plowed on with her plans to leave in divorce proceedings were ongoing uh we found out that the decree ni was was due to be served on Monday the 8th of October but Ian in the background was refusing absolutely refusing to let go his whole identity was tied up in this family his his whole status in the world and there was no way in his head that he was going to let her as he saw it do this to him October the 8th 2012 was the date which would bring an end to a marriage which had simply become untenable for one of the parties the couple shed a home but not alive Sally was seeing another man as she waited for the divorce to go through true but as she planned the next chapter of her life Ian Lawrence was planning how best to get the most out of the failing relationship which in his case meant the proceeds from the sale of the shared house the house um was at the time valued at probably £300,000 there's a lot of equity in it that was all in Sally's name and he had nothing and they'd agreed terms and then a couple of days before well one day before um he he changed the terms and said he wanted half of the house and she said no he wasn't getting it Sally had text her close friends um and her daughters um just raising some concerns around Ian's demeanor he was demanding more money out of the [Music] house emotions run High when a divorce is going through but almost all eventually end in a settlement Ian Lawrence had been accused by Sally of bullying her throughout their Rocky times he had urged her to think again to try to make the marriage work but Sally had moved on she refused to change her mind over the divorce and now Ian was demanding last minute changes in his favor there was a story which was on a dangerous road Ian very carefully came up with a plan that if he couldn't have his wife if he couldn't make her fall in love with him again then he would get rid of her basically [Music] as the minutes ticked away before the decree niai and the divorce of Ian and Sally Lawrence a plan was forming in Ian's mind the finalizing of the divorce would have changed Ian Lawrence's financial status within the marriage for one thing and I think he felt he was running out of time and he needed to put his plan into action criminologist Jane monton Smith has specialized in studying cases of domestic abuse it's a surprising fact but it is a fact that very often more often than not in these cases where somebody absolutely refuses to let go and their behavior starts to escalate that they may make the decision that they're going to kill the person who they see as causing all the The Angst in their life because when she spoke to her friends she said she could see evil in his eyes she was saying in some of her text messages that she felt threatened she didn't want to be alone in the house with him um one of them said she' locked herself in her bedroom she feared that he would actually kill her one day this is one of the really big red flags that we see when this kind of thing happens that the victim actually foretells what could possibly happen to them s's fears were true the airline pilot felt he had plenty of reasons to kill his wife Sally also had a life insurance and that would have given in 250,000 in life insurance so when we're looking at potential motives for murder um there aren't that many but two of the main ones are jealousy and greed and they're both motives that I would have had if he'd have found out about the relationship he wouldn't have wanted Sally to be with anybody else um and then the financial side that he would gain through Sally dying before the decree e then that was substantial to him as well Ian lawence made the decision that he was going to kill Sally and he started to plan for that and it seems that what he decided he was going to do was make her death look like an accident so that he could protect himself he devised a plan to actually crash the car into the tree um on the road near where they lived and Sally was planning to go away for the weekend on that Saturday evening um she had her overnight bag packed H she had a handbag with a purse and her phone all ready to go on the backseat of her car and that would have been around between 5 and 6:00 p.m. on that Saturday evening if Ian's plan was going to work he needed to get her into his car so at the time Ian Lawrence had a maroon red perso 406 estate I think at the time it would have been about 10 years old uh had a private number plate on it which spelled windy which um alluded to his his his flying days I think some of his friends called him that as his nickname um it was so it was a big big solid estate car but she didn't get into to her car and drive away and some of her friends thought that that was very unusual she got into his car so he must have somehow and we don't know how got her to get into his car Sally's car was very clean and tidy pristine inside very well kept Ian's car was more like a workshop uh it was full of junk full of rubbish Sally was always well-dressed and her daughters would say that she would have never got in that car voluntarily I don't know how he ever got her into that car it's an old Banger and I just bought her a new Jaguar so I don't know what happened there I never will know I don't suppose he may have frightened her into getting the car he may have told some plausible story but she did get into the car and that was the last time anyone saw her alive whether she was coerced whether she was forced we do not know only Ian Lawrence knows the answer to that question but what we do know is that she left her home address in the passenger seat of that perso and was then driven along towards the race course and then along ston road towards the [Music] airport he had a go-kart track just up the road we used to go from home to every day so that's the route that he took with Sally in the car so as he drove towards where he knew he was going to crash the car he suddenly leaned over and he unlicked Sally's seat Bel and he then put himself into the brace position and drove straight into a tree at 50 m an hour this was a um a high impact Collision uh with a motor vehicle and a very large tree um the car had had impacted almost Square on but mainly on the on the passenger side and the the hole of the front of the car had crumpled up so it it was a significant impact in a collision of a magnitude of 50 mph there's a huge amount of energy that's dispersed in a collision if you remove all of the restraint systems in a vehicle that are designed to protect you the likelihood of injury goes up in incredibly and therefore your likelihood of suffering fatal injuries without the supplementary restraint systems are increased greatly I think it's probable that Ian Lawrence had practiced this drive this you know this plan that he had to kill her because he he drove to quite an isolated area he knew where he was going to crash this this wasn't chance or random if you're not wearing a seat belt when the vehicle stops moving your inertia causes you to travel forwards in the case where a seat belt isn't being worn and there's a sudden deceleration of the vehicle the occupant moves forward and you can often see them striking the windscreen and you end up with damage to the inside of the windscreen pushing outwards precisely how S Lawrence was found by a passer by it appeared clear one of the people in the car would not be taken out alive the passenger in the vehicle um that had collided with a tree uh had died at the scene it's a highrisk strategy driving a car into a tree um with the hope that it's going to go so perfectly well that you're going to survive and the other person isn't I'm I'm thinking that perhaps he may have had some skills in that from being an airline pilot you know he he'd have thought about those kinds of things in that job but it still shows a very Reckless nature he was willing for it to go wrong he felt so strongly he was probably willing to die if that's what happened but the important thing was that she did the risk seemed to have paid off for Ian Lawrence he had survived the crash the decree niai would now not go ahead on the following Monday he stood to own the family home outright and to benefit from a 250,000 insurance payout had a killer got away with murder or had Ian Lawrence made a mistake the driver of a perso 406 Ian Lawrence had seemingly driven at speed into a tree his wife in the passenger seat was dead he was also injured but it appeared not seriously so the fire brigade had attended and had had to cut the occupants out of the vehicle cuz the doors wouldn't open that was the severity of the impact the condition that I was been told of the driver was that he was in and out of Consciousness uh was displaying signs of um trauma uh but nothing visibly physically so he had no cuts no apparent broken bones in this case there was a huge disparity in the injuries suffered by both of the occupants in the vehicle the driver suffering relatively lowlevel injuries for an impact of this type and the front seat passenger sustaining fatal injuries despite there being no apparent head injury Ian Lawrence was presenting confusing behavioral evidence it was displaying symptoms equivalent to a seven on the glasgo Coma Scale so the glasgo Coma Scale is used to um ascertain somebody's Consciousness and alertness uh when they've been involved in some kind of um trauma usually head trauma uh and they rate from 15 being fully conscious fully mobile down to three which means you'd be lying there in a coma and and and probably going to die so to be scored as a seven by medical experts at that time would put Mr Lawrence with some severe head injuries that on the face of it weren't apparent there didn't appear to be any bruising any swelling or any lacerations that would cause him to have a Glasgow Coma Scale of seven the police and the paramedics arrived at the scene and I think there were suspicions straight away especially with the paramedics because Ian Lawrence was pretending that he was unconscious but he he wasn't acting that out awfully well and the paramedics would be very used to seeing people who who really are unconscious and they told of their suspicions to the police I upon extracting Mr Lawrence from the car there were some comments uh around whether or not he was figing some of his injur and figing uh [Music] unconsciousness but he had been in an accident so Ian was taken to hospital meanwhile the news of Sally's death was broken to her family and friends I found out the next day the next morning was absolutely horrendous I was with my best friend uh blue and uh I just went into shock I think back at the hospital medical teams are also becoming skeptical about the story they were hearing from Ian Lawrence later on a nurse contacted us in the incident room saying she wasn't comfortable with a a patient that she treated that evening and belied that he may have been feigning some of his injuries so when the police started their investigation into the crash scene they were able to find out a lot of information and I don't think people realize quite how sophisticated these crash scene analysis are especially with the computerization of cars and the knowledge we have about things like tire marks from looking at the scene they weren't satisfied that this was a pure accident they noticed that the roads were dry uh the bend on which um the accident happened was not a severe Bend um in fact it would have been drivable to upwards of 70 mph in a roadworthy vehicle and that would be to remain on the same side of the carriageway crash scene investigator Mark Crouch is the kind of expert who would be brought in to help police understand in forensic detail what had gone on on the night of October the 6th when a vehicle Tire or a vehicle wheel is being breaked it's slowing on the road surface when it slows enough it will lock or if there's ABS it will lock and unlock very very quickly those kind of marks uh that can be seen on a road surface but there weren't any found on this occasion when a vehicle leaves the road and enters a muddy Road surface you would expect that point to lock out those Wheels happens much much earlier so for a lower level of braking you would expect those Wheels to lock out particularly on mud grass Verge you can get quite a distinctive Mark where the tire drags the grass drags the mud along and you would expect that to happen even with quite a low level of breaking what was found on the verge in this case was a rolling tire mark that wheel didn't lock out so the car had gone into the tree and had not slowed down on that journey and they were also able to show that there were lots of other places that the car could have come to a stop there were Escape Routes either inside of the tree uh where the that the car had collided with there was a Farm Gate entrance that would have offered Little Resistance if you'd have wanted to drive through that if your brakes had failed you'd have gone into a field and gradually just coasted to a stop so then we looked at the actual tire tracks and and the road uh that led to the point of impact and there was no apparent skid marks on the tarmac the forensic people they they did a fantastic job perso team came over from France that went through the car with a fine tooth com and um certain bits of the forensics actually that came out were rather interesting for instance I didn't realize that you drive into something and hit it um the first thing that's going to happen is the lights in the brake bolts are going to instantly shatter because they're glowing hot but they weren't shattered they were intact so he never applied any brakes and there were other anomalies the seat belt of the driver the seat belt clasp the retainer was protruding upwards and that is a sign that that has been in an impact because there's an explosive device that then pulls down on the tension and then it pulls it up and then that's how the seat belt mechanism works and there was abrasions on the uh seat belt itself consistent with it being in place at point of impact the passenger side uh the clasp retaining claps was sitting down in the normal position indicating that the seat belt had not been engaged on the passenger at the time of impact why was Sally not protected by a seat belt apparently she was fanatical about wearing a seat belt you know she probably made sure her children wore seat belts safety would have been at the the top of her mind family members were adamant that she was very very safety conscious she would never get in a car without putting on her seat belt it was second nature to her and no we had ever seen her in a vehicle without her seat belt on in the hospital that weekend Ian Lawrence had regained Consciousness sufficiently well to face questions from police it was about 4:00 in the morning um when I had a conversation with the Collision uh investigator and as a result of everything that he' relayed to me I then made a decision that Mr Lawrence would be arrested on suspicious of murder while he was in hospital um it was quite clear at that time that his injuries weren't as severe as as first portrayed to me and he could really of any time discharge himself and walked out of hospital so to prevent that and in line with what I knew he was arrested on suspition of murder Ian Lawrence's story after the accident and it had all gone perfectly well for him was a kind of a lowrisk strategy really because he pretended that he couldn't remember anything and if you can't remember anything you can't be picked up on lies he said he got no memory of it he was unconscious but the first two people to arrive on the scene uh one was a retired police officer and the other one was a retired fireman and they knew straight away that something was wrong he was figing being unconscious and uh they they knew that something was completely wrong in his first interviews Mr Lawrence claimed that he had a total loss of memory um he didn't remember anything after 5:00 on the Saturday and he regained his memory he remembers being in hospital at about 9:00 that night so there's a 4H hour Gap there where he he couldn't remember what had happened he underestimates all of the other people around him and that's probably because he's got a very high opinion of himself and he he it doesn't uh occur to him that anybody would see anything other than an accident because he said so but detectives were not about to accept that he'd lost his memory or that he'd done nothing wrong he was then released from hospital later that morning and then taken to a nearby police station um where again he was assessed for suitability for detention uh booked into the police station and then he was underwent a series of interviews what evidence if any would prove telling in the Gathering case against Ian Lawrence for the murder of his wife at a crash scene in a hospital and at a police station the events of Saturday October 6th which had led to the death of Sally Lawrence were being meticulously investigated a Killer's mistake was about to be uncovered by crash investigators who were observing a series of Curious problems specifically about those things that stop us getting hurt in a car accident we found out that within the vehicle there was a electronic control unit that controlled the deployment of the airbags vehicles are fitted with supplementary restraint systems SRS for short they control everything the the airbags the seat belts are some of the most common but in order to control those it needs to decrypt some of the signals that are going around the car for example the vehicle speed who's sitting in what seats and detecting a crash those signals are constantly going around a vehicle those messages are constantly being sent rounds but the vehicle needs to make a decision when it's going to deploy an airbag that's an electronic control module often shorted to an ACM and uh an airbag control module that is constantly listening to these signals going around the vehicle it decides when the crash is happening and decides when the parameters are met to deploy the airbag lots of those acms control and record the events of a crash so you end up with Windows snapshots of the information that that black box had at the time that the crash occurred and the snapshot was showing a glaring anomally why had Sally's airbag not deployed when the persio 406 hit the tree at 50 mph and we T that to persio and a technician there was able to read the data from that and from the data held within that box we ascertained that the passenger airback had been switched off and it been switched off some six Cycles prior to the crash that was was groundbreaking for us we could actually prove that somebody had turned that airbag off intentionally and that's why it didn't deploy turning passenger airbags off is quite an easy thing to do it's a function that's built into many vehicles because if you wanted to fit a child seat to the front of the car for example it's unsafe to have an airbag that would go off in those scenarios most of them activated on a key so you can just turn it off uh on the side of the vehicle to stop the airbag uh activating in a crash of that time in order to disable the airbag it takes a physical act you have to have the key to the vehicle insert it into a socket press down into the spring and turn it physically so it couldn't have been done accidentally it was an intentional act to turn that airbag [Music] off the crash at self was telling the real story of what had happened to Sally Lawrence in this Collision we have a number of different factors striking the tree on the passenger side the seat belt not being worn the airbag being deactivated the lack of clear braking marks as the vehicle left the Verge and the impact speed being similar to the account of the speed of travel of the vehicle down the road individually those pieces aren't that significant they're not that uncommon uh to occur one two of those in a collision but when you start looking at all of those together it starts to build quite a compelling picture that something unconventional happened in this Collision police interview Specialists were steadfastly interrogating someone who was no longer considered a grieving husband but a suspect in a murder case so Ian maintained throughout his police interview uh his Amnesia and and therefore his innocence um he denied that there was any anything wrong with the relationship um he denied that he'd intentionally crashed his car um he denied that he'd unclipped Sally's seat belt prior to the point of impact why would he his was a good relationship with Sally according to him um they they live together they've been living together for over 10 years they had a normal family life and he he didn't allude to any problems with the relationship at all so as part of our ongoing investigation throughout that next day we're in contact with Sally's family members through her sister uh her daughters uh and it becomes apparent that the relationship had broken down between Ian and Sally they'd been living separate lives for for over a year although living in the same house the relationship ship was stressful and we we then later found out that in fact Sally had commenced another relationship with another man um and had been in that relationship for about 10 months it was after first releasing Ian Lawrence as inquiries continued that the news reached detectives that the car's airbag had been tampered with together with knowing of the failing relationship the approaching divorce the fact that Ian Lawrence had not applied his break as he drove a 50 mph into a tree and that Sally was inexplicably wearing no seat belt was enough for Neil Castle to make his move so that on the face of it was fresh evidence for us it was something that we weren't aware of before while I Lawrence had been in custody um I then made policy decision that was fresh evidence um sent officers out to further arrest Lawrence he was brought back into custody a short interview and then we presented those facts to the CPS and they gave us all authorized to charge murder there was more a search of Sally's car revealed evidence against Ian Sally was planning to go away for the weekend on that Saturday evening um she had her overnight bag packed and she had a handbag with a purse and her phone all ready to go on the back seat of her car and that would have been around between 5: and 6:00 p.m. on that Saturday evening they found on the back of her Jaguar was a handbag and an overnight bag that she was taking she was going to stay away that night clearly she would not have got in that car she would not have got in that car with the in Lawrence anyway but clearly she would not have left a handbag there and keys and money to get into his car this filthy car that she'd never get into unless she'd been forced at trial Ian Lawrence pleaded not guilty the jury did not believe him by a majority verdict of 10 to one he was found guilty of murder and sentenced to life now I I had no misgiving whatsoever I knew what the verdict was going to be everybody cheered at the time I didn't Lawrence tried one more tack on appeal he remembered something that he had failed to reveal at his original trial he said he had a dream while he was in prison saying that he had a medical condition and he could prove move that um his leg spasmed Ian Lawrence eventually came up with a a version of events that while he was driving along that road he had a seizure in his leg which then pressed down on the accelerator increased speed of the vehicle um he was unable to move his leg and engage the brake but he did manage to get his foot off the accelerator but the vehicle glided uh and continued towards the tree he didn't give any explanation as to why the passenger side took the full force of the impact I mean it was just so pathetic you know there was nothing wrong with the steering wheel even if what Ian Lawrence had said about having a leg spasm were true he could still have steered the car away from the tree but what they found in the appeal was that his leg spasm would not have caused the accident as it happened he got life um with a minimum of 24 years the judge put um 3 years extra on for it being for money he put another three years on for him using the car as a weapon to kill her and then he put another 3 years on because it was premeditated I think he'd gone to a lot of planning uh around this he'd picked the location it was a location that he was aware of he'd have driven down that road probably between two and four times a day it was towards his place of work where the go-kart track was he'd have driven along that road he'd have seen that tree on numerous occasions the motive for this murder seems clear I know why he did it he did it for money he he was a failed businessman he got three small companies all of which were struggling and he had nothing they' agreed terms and then a couple of days before he changed the terms and said he wanted half of the house and she said no and um yeah that's that's why I killed her purely from for financial gain the amount of cold calculated planning that went into that accident shows what a callous cruel man in Lawrence was he took away his wife's life in that way just so that he could have that house Sally Lawrence had children from a former marriage as well as that with Ian her family continued to support the needs of her children everything we do as as police officers is for the families of the victims uh and it's a great feeling when you can look the family in the eye and you know that you've done you and your team have done everything you can to secure and preserve the evidence to then put a case together present it at court and convince a jur y that that person was guilty of that offense and that's what we did he had made many mistakes but Central to the case against Ian Lawrence was the evidence which proved he had tampered with the seat Bel and airbag to ensure maximum injuries would be caused when driving into a tree at 50 mph Ian Lawrence will not be due for parole until the year 2027 one man is dead and another is missing they have something in common both had slept with Kelly Cochran outside of work he didn't go anywhere with her they had just I guess a sex arranged relationship detectives were about to delve into a bizarre world of easy sex and a pack to kill being played out in the wilderness by a great lake he begged her non-stop to stay home be his wife stop having affairs and she just continued to belittle him if one of them Jason or Kelly ever had an affair and the other person found out the plan would be both spouses would kill the person the spouse was having an affair with detectives gather evidence until a picture of a suspect emerges which piece of the puzzle will reveal Kelly Cochran as guilty of murder what would be the Killer's mistake [Music] in 2016 an Indiana cop decides to make up a story one which might reveal the truth about a woman called kelly Cochran and her late husband Jason I had jotted down on my notes this idea of creating a fictitious letter that Jason Cochran had made up prior to his death in the event of his death so I was like throwing this idea around on paper and and I was also thrown around the idea of Walt ammerman presenting this idea on my behalf as a confidential informant he said I I have an idea and I want you to call her on a recorded call and I'd like you to tell her that Jason mailed you a letter a while back and wanted you to hold on to it in case something ever happened to him and honestly my first thought was this is never going to work you know she is too smart she knows everyone's looking at her closely right now especially with her husband dying there is no way she's going to fall for this but I you know I was willing to try anything agreement reached between detectives and a willing citizen a murder suspect gets a call I I just said I had this letter that Jason mailed me and told me to hold on to another letter and said if anything ever happened to him I needed to send this on to the police and the upper Peninsula The Sting had been set up to get to the truth about what two people Jason and Kelly Cochran had got up to shortly after moving from Indiana to the upper peninsula in Michigan they were just looking for new opportunities as my understanding uh it's a beautiful area I'm not familiar with the part of Indiana that they're from uh I've been told it's not the greatest area in the world and I think they're just looking to get a fresh start and came to an area that they thought they could get a fresh start at for 2 years a man called Chris Reagan had been missing and was thought to be somewhere out in the upper peninsula he had simply disappeared dead or alive he was proving hard to find working in those really auster environments um sometimes we have to bike or ski or hike for a day or two or three before we can even get into the area where uh we're investigating or looking for a missing person or you have to fly in or take a helicopter and those are uh extremely uh difficult cases to work very expensive the the Upper Peninsula of Michigan is very I don't want to say desolate but in in a sense it is compared to where most people live there's a lot of open land not a lot of Industry up there anymore so you could drive for you know miles and miles and not see any kind of business or or come into any towns there are plenty of places to bury a body out here or to find yourself in trouble with no one near to help Terry O'Donnell went looking for her former boyfriend Chris rigan when he went missing I searched those woods hope thinking maybe he parked there he had problems with the car and something happened to him in the woods on October 27th of 2014 I met Terry O'Donnell who came to uh the police department as I was leaving for the day she was shook up she was crying that's when she told me that something was wrong her friend was missing she came into the office and explained to me what she had what she had found she had heard from him since October 14th and then one of his co-workers spotted his vehicle parked in a parking ride just east of Iron River you know there were other details she went to his apartment things didn't look right there so you know she had concerned that something bad had happened to him Terry and Chris were just friends but had been really close childhood sweethearts their lives had gone in different directions marriages children and divorces later they got back together and so we met up and whined and dined and just had a wonderful time and just started dating again yeah it was it was awesome it was wonderful when Chris would look at me I just um just melt I mean he just had that Chris he was charismatic and he just made you feel like you were everything you know that you were the only person in the room when he looked at you apparently Chris you know made a trip to Iron River to visit Terry fell in love with the area wanted to change um you know Chris being a an avid Outdoorsman he loved it up there so he um interviewed for a job while he was in town visiting her he got the position and immediately moved um up there with her and I kept telling him we're not living here we're you're not don't look for a job here look for a job in Marquette or applon somewhere bigger and um he didn't he found work here in Iron River he was not supposed to be here we were not supposed to be an Iron River and um we ended up here he and Terry their relationship um Turned more into just a friendship they weren't they didn't really have the same ideas about their futures but they remained very good friends Chief frizo as being diplomatic Terry had ended their relationship after Chris had made a revelation about his sex life Christopher had an issue with um pornography that I found out um when him and I started talking more about why he needed a little bit more alone time and it was he was hooked on things on the internet and I didn't agree with that and that's why we broke up I still loved him and maybe that's why you know we stayed friends we kept I I kept in touch with him he would still call or text but we couldn't date we couldn't be a couple because it just wasn't right at least for me that wasn't right Chris was working at a place called Lake Shaw where he had kept a lot more secret than an addiction to pornography you know Chris he didn't really have a lot of friends there just a couple people that he really you know would associate with and there was a woman that he was allegedly having an affair with and so people told me that you know there were rumors at Lakeshore that he was hooking up with Kelly Cochran I was just astonished to be honest that Christopher was had like this second life a second life with a woman who together with her husband Jason had a colorful attitude to relationships altogether her name Kelly Cochran Kelly talked about the affair she was having with Chris and how Jason was aware of it and he was okay with it that they had an open marriage but Jason on the other hand it bothered him but he was afraid of losing his wife so he tried to allow her to basically live her life and not interfere with it but it was clearly driving him crazy I would say that their marriage was controlled by Kelly their life's together we're controlled by her she did all the cooking the financing the everything the grocery shopping uh he didn't really do much of anything he just did what he could to keep her happy you know she was very emotionally abusive to him he begged her non-stop to stay home be his wife um stop having Affairs and she just continued to belittle him obviously she wasn't happy in her marriage as she was engaging in extramarital affairs I did talk to her family members and got what information they had about Jason of course I gleaned what information I could about Jason and his relationship with Kelly from some of his own words and some of the statements that he made in his uh while being evaluated for mental health issues and in the writings that he had which were quite frankly very disturbing and and kind of made you wonder what kind of person this really [Music] was I was having dinner with Jason and Kelly at at a restaurant there in their town and oddly she asked him did you show Walt our friend I had no idea what she was talking about and he showed me a picture of a half naked woman on his phone and and Kelly said yeah I found a friend for Jason and I cuz I love him so much that I wanted to keep him happy and I that just that threw me for a loop and then Walt learns of the wedding day vow tacked on to the standard marriage ceremony by Jason and Kelly Kelly's story is they agreed on their wedding night that if either of them ever cheated they got to kill that person the story of the marriage pack came from Kelly's words or uh was it true was it not true I think only Kelly and Jason will know they allegedly was said on their wedding night and I don't think anyone was really privy to what was going on there besides besides the two of them if it was true had Chris Reagan picked the wrong woman with whom to have an affair I think Kelly's very smart and she's very manipulative and I think everything that she said and did was because she was you know hiding covering her tracks the helicopter view of The Life and Times of four people living their lives in the Iron River area of the Upper Peninsula Michigan was set up for trouble by the Autumn of 2014 Terry odonnell had found everything too bizarre to stay involved with the porn addicted Chris Reagan Chris had admitted to an affair with the allegedly abusive Kelly Cochran and Jason Cochran could rely on a wedding day vow to kill anyone who fooled around with his wife on October the 14th Chris got a call from Kelly Kelly Cochran lured Christopher Reagan to her house she lured him with the promise of a great dinner lasagna and perhaps a little something something on the side with that Christopher Reagan he set off he had to draw a map to remind himself how to get to Kelly's house in the meantime on his way over there he had been talking to his ex-girlfriend they were still very good friends she was excited for him because the very next day Chris was going to start his new life a new job in the Carolinas for his new job he had to have a physical and actually that's the last day I spoke to him as October 14th 2014 that morning it was about 6:00 a.m. in the morning he called me and told me that he um was going to be going to Marshfield the next day that was the last time I talked to him that was the last time I heard from him was that morning Terry called around to help Chris P as arranged he was not at his apartment I kept texting messaging him and I got no response and normally he would respond immediately or when you would have a break if he was at work I mean she knew that he was going somewhere that night but where is he why wouldn't he show up for his job and why wouldn't he say a last goodbye to her and a week went by and I still hadn't heard from him and I was asking I was talking to people at work and I was you know what should I do I can't get a hold of them and I went up to the apartment knocked on the door there was no one there and everyone told me that I was being paranoid and that I should just you know relax you know what we weren't dating and um maybe he you know found someone [Music] else on October 27th of 2014 I met Terry O'Donnell who came to uh the police department as I was leaving for the day um she was shook up she was crying um that's when she told me that something was wrong her friend was missing she came into the office and explained to me what she had what she had found she had heard from him since October 14th Terry had found Chris's car and inside it was a Post-It note with a map on it and there was a sticky note on the passenger's seat and it had directions written on it I said this is the last place he was this is wherever this note wherever these directions go to on this note that's the last place he ever was you know and I just remember her saying I can't make heads or Tales of these directions they were directions to Kelly Cochran's home in Old Caspian that was the last place he was so immediately I've got some red flags Iron County cops were dispatched to the address that a discarded note in his car had suggested the home of Kelly and Jason Cochran she said when they went to the door um they asked for Kelly they were met by Jason Cochran who seemed irritated and told them that K was not there um the trooper had noticed a silhouette in the upper window upstairs of the residence and actually made mention of that to the sergeant saying there's somebody upstairs and as they're talking to Jason um Kelly presents herself so they talk to her outside um she admits that she was having an affair with uh Chris um she admits that she knew he was supposed to have shown up for a medical appointment for his new job but she claims that she hadn't seen him since you know around the 12th 13th of October and when they ask Kelly about her relationship with Christopher she refers to him in the past tense they haven't said anything that he's murdered or that he's missing she's already referring to him in the past tense the first thing I did when I found out about Kelly Cochran and Christopher having this affair with her I Googled her and her husband so I could see what they look like and I'm glad I did because I was afraid I didn't know what happened to Chris and you know in my mind he was he was killed and they were the last people to see him and in my mind they did it and I didn't have any doubt what she tells them again goes in direct contradiction from what they already know she claims she hasn't seen him in a couple of weeks and the police know it's only been a couple of days so she's speaking in past tense couple of weeks and it's only been a couple of days having suspicions is one thing proving something is another they went around town like nothing happened the det detectives interviewed Kelly and Jason and they acted like nothing happened you know Kelly said oh I stopped by and he wasn't home I didn't know where he was there was no evidence of any Foul Play related to Chris Regan's sudden disappearance as days turned into weeks chief of Iron River Police frizo knew she needed help in searching for Chris there was no shortage of volunteers um I get a phone call from Mike Niger Mike Niger calls and says you know I'm retired from the state police he he gives me his whole background tells me how he wants to help me at no cost to me which was huge because you know we're we don't have a lot of finances in our department and I'll take all the help I can get so did a lot of searching for right away I came over and just rechecked the area around the parking ride where the car was found looking for evidence and you know Chris and were in that [Music] area I kept looking and searching for Christopher I would walk in the woods I would walk back behind Cochran's home trying to find something and um they had a big dog I'd hear a dog bark it scare me I I was afraid if Kelly ever found out that I was the one who missed Christopher that I was the one that reported him missing I was afraid her or her husband might come looking for me of course at this stage it was still possible that Chris had had an accident iron county is a very rugged area it's a historic area with uh a lot of old mining so we have a lot of M old mines and Mining relics and we have a lot of caving grounds where old mine shafts and stuff have caved in and then they filled in with water well I first heard about this case would have been around the time that Mr rean disappeared in the fall of 2014 it was big news in the area in fact we'd had a couple other uh people that had just kind of vanished for various other reasons and that something that the local media had picked up on and something that he kept an eye on wondering what had happened to this individual you know things happen in the woods around here people go hiking and sometimes trip or fall or have heart attacks in the woods so you really don't know what happened many thought that Chris could have had an accident or simply left without telling anyone something Laura frizo considered he doesn't want to be found Terry wasn't buying that Christopher had went to Kelly Cochran's house October 14th that night and I wonder why he went there Kelly has said several things you know like he went there for sex or she had drugs for him and I think why this time would he go to her apartment or her her house he had never been there before so why now he knew Jason he knew Kelly's husband was in Iron River Kelly always went to his place why would Christopher go to that house 6 months after he had disappeared last presumed to be at Kelly's house Iron Mountain police get permission to search the Cochran household when that search warrant is done for the day it's like 10:00 at night and we leave there and the following morning Kelly and Jason Cochran take off they completely leave um taking just what they could fit in their truck and would never return to Michigan they vanished they left in the middle of the night and went back to Indiana where they had originally come from and so as quick as they showed up they left again and what evidence had turned up from the forensic search of their home they collected a lot of evidence and we got nothing from that evidence nothing to establish Chris Reagan was in that residence and I remember that moment cuz I was so sure um you know I had these big binders these big books of my case sitting on the back table and I got off the phone and I I just wanted to take them and toss him out the window because I I was so frustrated so Jason and Kelly were on the road and the Mystery of Chris Reagan's whereabouts remained was his body somewhere out in the [Music] woods by April 2016 the Cochrans now living with Jason's parents in Hobart Indiana were back in touch with their online gaming friend Walt aiman he was wondering why they disappeared from the scene I didn't hear from him for close to a month and I guess it always bugged me that as soon as he called me he told me that they just got their phones and computers back because the police had took them and they think they're responsible for a person who's missing February 20th 2016 and in Hobart Indiana Emergency Medical Services get a call from a woman called kelly Cochran her husband Jason had died she thought that he had taken an overdose of heroin Walt gets a call too so there was a phone call on February 20th Kelly contacting me to say that Jason had died that night and immediately my wife told me well she did it and I wasn't really buying that yet and over the weekend she was very adamant about the fact that I need needed to contact somebody in law enforcement in the upper peninsula and tell them that Jason was dead cuz it's not even the same state where he died in and she knew enough about the law to know that they needed to know so I contacted the FBI and I said I knew Jason and Kelly very good and they had told me that they were being looked at for this person missing they've not told me anything about the fact that they did it or or anything like that but I feel that I needed to let you know that one of them died on Saturday and this is Monday and right away the guy said how did Jason die said I didn't even tell you it was Jason he said if one of them died it was Jason and we need to we need to get on that I answered a phone call from the FBI tip line and they said that um they had received an anonymous call and that we needed to take a closer look at Jason Cochran's death death they said that you know it was a possibility that Jason Cochran and Kelly Cochran had been involved in a a missing person's case and uh that you know they had fled to uh you know hobbert Indiana and it was within the hour they had the autopsy postponed for that day until the following day so they could get the the police there to take part in this autopsy CU they understood the the importance of it the autopsy findings made make it clear Jason's was no accidental death he had died of asfixia due to strangulation that was complicated by heroin intoxication a murder investigation is launched and I get a call from a detective in Indiana um who tells me that Jason Cochran's dead two men dead in two states the common denominator Kelly Cochran her husband Jason was a drug user who had been murdered and for Chris Reagan he had now been missing for nearly 2 years he had a former wife Terry O'Donnell and two sons who had not heard a word from him there was no way that I was ever going to have peace until you know I I could figure it out and not only that but I felt like you know I need to give closure to his boys you know his family now leading a murder investigation in Indiana detective Jeremy Ogden spots the importance of the The Disappearance of Chris Reagan to the case I contacted uh Chief frizzo and she said I can't believe this has happened and you know she was just you could tell she was she was happy that something had occurred you know she wasn't happy that somebody was dead but she was happy that there maybe new life was being put into what she was doing it was a relief to me to hear you know his thoughts on some of these things because they were my thoughts it was exactly how I thought and I had not worked with anyone to that at that point yet that was on the same track I was so it was a huge relief I I was very touched right out of the gate by the whole situation with Chris Reagan I by that time I had had really good conversations with Laura and Laura had explained to me you know the kind of man that he was and that he served his country for 20 years in the Navy and you know it was I don't know it was important it was important that somebody go the extra steps for somebody who had always gone and done the right thing for our country ogon heads over with a police photographer to where Kelly was living and where Jason had died his parents' home I'm here to investigate the death of your husband I said it's very uncommon for a man at 37 years of age to die and that's why I'm here today I kind of got it out there before she had even a reason to ask and um she says uh are you here for any other reason and I said I I don't understand the question she said did you come here for another reason did you come here to question me about something else I said should should I be questioning you about something else I go this is becoming very odd for me I said um I'm here to investigate your husband's death I said but am I supposed to talk to you about something else and she says no I just was wanting to know are you sure there's nothing else you came here to talk to me about and I said I didn't come here to talk to you about anything other than your husband's untimely death it was after Jason's funeral the detective Ogden called in Kelly cochrum for questioning a cat and mouse game over two states involving teams of investigators and two dogged detectives was about to begin as the search was underway to find a Killer's mistake [Music] you asked me if I was there to interview you about anything else and I said I really wouldn't be a good detective unless I found out what that other thing was I said so I know a little bit about that other thing I said but we're not going to talk about that today because I don't want to start a problem between you and I this way and she kind of smiled and she said uh if you want me to uh respect you at all you'll just say it like it is and I said okay I said uh you know exactly what happened to Chris Reagan and I said by the time this is all done you're going to tell me and she just sat there and I said there's no doubt in my mind you know I don't have any doubt at all I want 150% know that you know every property where the Cochrans had been was meticulously searched and researched the basement in their Upper Peninsula home retested forensically for signs of blood nothing found carpets were taken from the Indiana family home nothing conclusive hours of interviews between Cochran Ogden and chief frizo yielded no confession detective Ogden decided something creative was needed to get a break through I had to find out where Christopher Reagan was disposed of of in order for Kelly to confess to killing Jason and I knew this from the very beginning I knew that um she would never confess to killing Jason unless I somehow got her to admit what happened to Chris Reagan then he told me about his plan to you know have this phone call made regarding this fictitious letter that Jason wrote and he's telling me you know we're going to have this friend of Jason's call and say Hey you know we have this letter and Jason told me to mail this out if anything should happen to him to the iron member police department and he gives me the whole scoop on [Music] it I had written a script for the letter and Walt amberman was coming that day I was very apprehensive I didn't really think she was going to believe it he assured me that he could probably get a lawyer to do it in town a local one and say Jason contacted him but he really felt that it would be more believable coming from me I sat down with Walt and his wife I uh I talked to Walt for all of about five minutes and I said you know you are uh the kind of man that every detective hopes walks into his case and um I need you to do something for me I want you to be my confidential informant really the ball was in Jeremy's court and not knowing him that well but having that feeling that you know he was doing the right thing um I just like sat back and waited Ogden's plan was this Walt would claim to have a letter given to him by Jason Kelly cochrum would suspect that the letter would incriminate her in whatever it happened to Chris Reagan and she would then confess in a plea bargain then she would reveal the truth of what had happened to her husband Jason would the ruse's work could detectives uncover a Killer's mistake a big moment had arrived in the case against Kelly Cochran The Disappearance of her former sex partner Chris Reagan last known to have been headed to her home in Iron County Michigan remained unsolved the death of her husband Jason from a heroin overdose and asphixiation had been designated as murder to get her to confess a fictitious letter had been dreamed up by investigator Jeremy Ogden to be revealed by friend to Jason and Kelly Cochran Walt aaman the letter would imply Jason was going to tell police whatever had happened to Chris Reagan it was April 2016 if in the event something occurs to me if I were to die please forward this letter to the Iron River Police Department attention Chief Laura frizzo do not open open the letter that's contained within this manila envelope please um and I signed at Jason or whatever and he said uh okay well we have to make some changes they wanted me to just call her and tell her but I needed to write it out because I needed to act like I was reading what Jason had wrote me and if she wanted to hear it again I wanted to read it exactly like I did the first time so I wrote it out how I thought he would write it to me I said okay well what do we need to change and he said well he would never sign Jason to me he would sign quack quack he goes it's what he always called himself to me I said okay so we make it quack quack so you know we kind of fine-tuned the letter and Walt added his two cents into it made it very authentic and he got on that phone and it was incredible I'll never forget making that phone call I'll never forget hearing her answer I I just said I had this letter that Jason mailed me and told me to hold on to another letter and said if anything ever happened to him I needed to send this on to the police in the upper peninsula and as soon as he said you know Jason had sent him this letter and that in the event something happens to him to forward it to the Iron River Police Department there's this huge gasp for air by her her sigh and her cry or please don't are three things I'll never forget please don't uh if there was any doubt in my mind that she didn't have something to do with it it was all erased at that moment ultimately she says you know do whatever you got to do and within a minute she totally flipped and was like well you got to do what you got to do and the next words are like don't send it don't do that throw it away whatever it is but it's to get rid of it distance yourself from it distance me from it don't do this to me and for those 30 seconds it was like I I had the biggest fish of a Lifetime on I think that was the turning point for her to realize that she wanted to be a witness instead of a suspect but she was never a witness she was always the suspect but I think Jeremy won that game and so for me the letter worked exactly as it should have because it opened the door for future conversation about something she was unwilling to talk about and all of these situations you have to give them a reason to want to talk to you about this thing that no one else knows and to share with you the secret that they've been hiding all this time in Iron Mountain Michigan Chief Laura fro he just sent me an email and I of course right away opened the email and there's a copy of the recording in my email from this phone call and I thought uh obviously it didn't go well because he would have called and told me so I'm sitting in my you know office and I opened this recording and when I listened to it I just about fell off my chair and I thought you know he got her if even for a minute he got her many hours of painstaking interviews later Kelly Cochran's version of events is finally revealed it just got to a point where he was able to you know make her vulnerable to the point that she finally told him I mean I remember Jeremy calling me and saying well she she told me that you know Jason shot Chris she finally said it happened in her house her story was that she and Chris were making out at the top of the stairs when Jason had come across them and then killed Chris with a single rifle shot to the head so where was his body when in Jason's parents house a brief conversation with Jason's father Chad gave the investigation team an idea of what had happened to Chris Reagan's body and Chad starts telling me in the interview that Jason would always talk to him about um he called it slicing and dicing cutting people up and feeding them to the Hogs and if you fed them to the Hogs that nobody would ever be able to figure out what you did and that he told them there was this prostitute one time that they talked about slicing and dicing her and but that he didn't have any direct information that this happened but that these were conversations Chief frizzo returns to the neighbors of the [ __ ] to be told that those living nearby had heard power tools they were being used on the early morning of The Disappearance of Chris Reagan it's like 2:30 in the morning and they can hear power you know power tools running over at the Cochran residence you know describing saws and and and everything else and that was really the first time where I kind of sat back and thought you know could they possibly have you know dismembered this guy Ellie Cochran soon confirms the suspicions and agrees to take detectives to to the woods where they had buried Chris's body parts and within 10 minutes of being there locate Chris Reagan's skull you know um another thing she showed us that day was where she threw the the gun which the um Michigan State Police dive team did recover Kelly said that they buried him in different garbage bags and only the skull was found so the rest of him is there the rest of him is still missing this may have appeared to be an open and shut case but Kelly Cochran would have her day in court and a lawyer a good one so the main theme I had was Kelly was basically a liar and Kelly was seeking attention and that uh she would have said anything to get the attention that she wanted and really there was no proof there's no forensic evidence behind any of those stories the thing I'll never forget is her smirk she just showed no emotion defense was that there was really no evidence other than Kelly's word as to what happened here and Kelly was a liar the hardest part I think was when they brought his skull out as evidence just listening to how things went down luring him into their house in my mind how could anybody do that it's all like kind of hadot in my mind How could somebody be so ruthless but none were taken in by her defense Kelly Cochran was found guilty of the murder of Chris Regan some believing that it had been motivated because of the wedding day pact entered into by the Cochrans their marriage pact was that if one of them had an affair with somebody they would kill that person whether it be her or Jason so if Jason had an affair the person Jason had an affair with would get killed vice versa when the jury came back we were obviously disappointed was it surprising no there were again the hundreds of hours of confessions and the jury obviously believed that some version of that was true the moment the fictitious letter fooled Kelly Cochran into revealing that she was hiding the truth had led her to confess first to the murder of Chris Reagan and and then of the murder of a husband her story is she sat on Jason's chest and held her hands over his nose and mouth as he was trying to throw up from the heroin overdose that she gave him she wanted him to see her and know that she did that I think and I can't wrap my head around that I don't think any normal person can back in Iron Mountain the Great Outdoor still keeps its Secrets after the discovery of his skull nothing else was found of the remains of Chris Reagan these are the woods where he was buried I'm got Shivers um not because of the cold just because of where I am right now when I came out here on October 14th for Chris's 5ye anniversary of his death um I just got chills and I could I could feel him and it was just real eie and knowing that he's still parts of him are still not [Music] found in May 2017 Kelly Cochran was sentenced to life in prison without parole at a hearing in Iron County court in Michigan Cochran was found guilty of murder lony conspiracy to commit dead bodies concealing the death of an individual and lying to a police officer in May 2018 she accepted a sentence of 65 years as part of a plea deal for the 2016 murder of her husband Jason in [Music] hobot [Music]

Channel: Real Crime

Views: 205,539

Keywords: True crime, true crime documentary, law enforcement documentary, full documentary

Id: GLGZYbPjV64

Length: 128min 7sec (7687 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 05 2024