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CAUTION___ This Case Made ME Question HUMANITY - True Crime Documentary · The Mind of a Man

• 0:15
  Speaker 1: On the morning of February 6th, 2019, a private plane
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: was scheduled to take off from West Virginia, headed for
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: a bank in Lynchburg, Virginia. On board was supposed to
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: be a 38-year-old father of two named Michael Cochran. He
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: believed he was finally about to see the money, money
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: from government contracts his wife had told him about for years,
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: money that would prove the business was real. That flight
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: never happened. His wife canceled it that morning. By that afternoon,
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: Michael was lying unconscious on his kitchen floor. By February 11th,
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: he was dead. It would take federal agents, a Ponzi
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: scheme worth $ 2. 5 million, an exhumed body, and a forensic
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: pathologist willing to call it murder to finally answer the question,
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: that haunted his family for six years. What really happened
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: to Michael Cochran? This is not just a murder case.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: This is the story of a man who spent 19
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: years building a life with a woman who was, underneath everything,
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: lying to him the entire time. And by the end
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: of this video, you will understand exactly how far she
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: was willing to go to keep that lie alive. Unreal
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: True Crime launches its new book, Unreal True Crime, Latin Edition.
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: 35 shocking true murder cases from across Latin America. Buy
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: it now on Amazon. Michael Brandon Cochran was born on
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: December 23, 1980, in Beckley, West Virginia, to Michael Edward
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: Cochran and Donna Bolt. He grew up in Raleigh County,
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: in the heart of Appalachia, the kind of region where
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: everybody seems to know everybody and reputation matters as much
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: as money. Raised primarily as an only child, his stepfather
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: Ed Bolt entered his life when Michael was around eight,
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: and the two formed a bond that would last the
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: rest of Michael's life. From boyhood, Michael was defined by
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: physical activity. He played baseball, basketball, and football, got his
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: first set of weights around age 10 or 11, and
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: by high school had won first place in a powerlifting competition.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: Fitness and sport were part of his identity from childhood.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: a detail that will matter later, because it becomes a
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: central argument in his own murder trial. When Michael was
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: around 17, he met a girl named Natalie Jessup, reportedly
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: at a sporting goods store where she worked. Both eventually
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: enrolled at West Virginia University. Michael in information technology, Natalie
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: in pharmacy. In November of 1999, During their first semester,
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: they got engaged. They married in May of 2000. After
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: the wedding, Michael and Natalie settled in Daniels, West Virginia,
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: and began building the kind of life that looks, from
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: the outside, completely ordinary and good. Michael worked in information technology,
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: doing work connected to cable and coaxial systems. Natalie became
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: a licensed pharmacist. a profession that carried real weight in
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: their community, giving her instant credibility everywhere she went. The
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: couple had two children, a daughter named Nicole and a
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: son named Ashton. But if you ask the people who
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: actually knew Michael, the truest part of his identity was
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: not his job. It was fatherhood and youth sports. Michael
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: coached football and baseball. And he was the kind of
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: man other parents wanted on the sidelines, present and invested,
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: not just for his own children, but for other kids too.
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: One family friend described how, after a young boy in
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: their community lost his father, Michael stepped in, taking him
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: fishing and bringing him to practices, giving that child a
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: steady male presence he no longer had at home. That
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: is the Michael Cochran who existed before any of this began.
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: A husband, a father, a coach. For 17 years, this
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: was simply Michael's life. Nothing suggested tragedy was coming. That
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: began to change in 2017. In 2017, Michael and Natalie
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: became connected to a new company, Tactical Solutions Group. often
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: referred to as TSG. On paper, and especially on its
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: own website, TSG presented itself as a serious government contracting business,
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: claiming to be a supplier to the United States Department
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: of Defense. A second company, Technology Management Solutions, operated alongside it.
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: Natalie quit her job as a pharmacist to run the
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: business full-time. becoming majority owner while Michael held a minority stake.
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: To the family and the wider community, it looked like
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: an exciting new chapter. Natalie, the trusted local pharmacist, stepping
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: into government contracting and entrepreneurship. What nobody knew yet was that,
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: according to investigators, Tactical Solutions Group had never actually been
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: awarded a single federal grant or state government contract. Technology
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: Management Solutions had secured two state contracts, but West Virginia
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: ended up canceling both due to repeated delays. The grand
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: image of a defense supplying company was built on almost nothing,
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: but Natalie did not present it that way. She told
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: friends and family the business model was inspired by the
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: movie War Dogs. a story about young entrepreneurs who made
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: fortunes navigating loopholes in military contracting. To people who had
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: known Natalie and Michael for years and trusted them completely,
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: it sounded like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. So they invested. Natalie
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: persuaded at least 11 people to put a combined total
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: of approximately $ 2. 5 million into the business. To make the
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: promises look credible, prosecutors later said, she allegedly used stolen
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: identifying information belonging to people connected to government and banking institutions,
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: sending investors emails that appeared to come from those legitimate sources.
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: This was not just verbal deception. It was an entire
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: false paper trail. The lifestyle that followed made the lie
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: even more convincing. The Cochrans eventually owned three homes, bought
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: motorcycles and an antique 1965 Shelby Cobra, and took vacations
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: to Paris and Hawaii. On one loan application for $ 100, 000,
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: Natalie and Michael reportedly claimed business assets exceeding $ 500 million.
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: Before the larger fraud became public, there was an earlier
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: warning sign few people connected at the time. Natalie had
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: served as treasurer for a Youth Baseball League account, and
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: members began to suspect money was missing after a fundraiser.
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: A private investigator named James Cuisinberry found purchases at places
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: like TJ Maxx and Olive Garden, made with funds meant
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: for the kids' programs. Natalie was never criminally charged over
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: the baseball league money, but the suspicion planted a seed.
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: And there is one detail that matters enormously for understanding
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: Michael's role in everything that follows. According to former investigators,
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: Michael Cochran did not know the business was a fraud.
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: He participated in looking for contracts to bid on. But that,
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: according to one investigator's testimony, was about the extent of
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: his involvement. The same false information Natalie was feeding to investors.
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: She was also feeding to her own husband. By 2018
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: and into early 2019, cracks were forming. Investors who had
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: handed over their life savings or retirement funds wanted to
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: know where their returns were. And so did Michael. Text
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: messages later examined by investigators showed Michael beginning to realize
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: there were things about the business he did not understand,
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: particularly the gap between how much money investors said they
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: had put in and what Natalie had actually told him.
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: He was not asking these questions as an outsider. He
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: was asking them as a husband and business partner who
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: believed completely, that the company was real and that the
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: money existed somewhere. He simply could not understand why it
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: kept being delayed. Natalie's solution, according to the prosecution's later theory,
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: was to schedule a trip. Michael and Natalie were supposedly
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: going to fly to Lynchburg, Virginia, to meet with bank
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: executives and finally access funds connected to the supposed government contracts.
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: a pilot was booked. Michael, according to a close friend
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: named Christopher Davis, who later testified about it, was genuinely excited.
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: He believed this was the day he would finally get answers,
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: finally see proof, finally understand that the business his wife
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: had built really was as successful as she always said.
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: The flight was scheduled for the morning of February 6th, 2019.
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: That same morning, Natalie texted the pilot and canceled it.
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: On the same day that flight to Lynchburg was supposed
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: to happen, something else was unfolding inside the Cochran home,
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: something that would take years to fully understand. A neighbor
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: named Jennifer Davis later testified that Natalie had complained she
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: was feeling ill and needed insulin. Davis packed insulin into
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: a bag and had her husband drop it off, and
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: the Cochran house that morning on his way to work.
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: Natalie reportedly told Davis she needed it for herself. At 12.21
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: in the afternoon, Natalie texted a contractor named Jason Bowen
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: and asked him to come to the house because Michael
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: was sick. When Bowen arrived, he found Michael lying on
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: the kitchen floor. Natalie asked him to help move Michael
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: to the couch. Bowen would later testify that Michael did
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: not respond when people spoke to him, and that even
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: a sternum rub, a hard knuckle pressed into the chest,
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: meant to wake an unconscious person through pain, produced no reaction.
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: After the insulin had been dropped off, Natalie reportedly sent
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: Jennifer Davis a photograph of Michael unconscious on the kitchen floor.
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: Davis described the image as shocking. More people began arriving
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: at the house. Stephanie Hamilton, a physician assistant and close
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: family friend, came and found Michael completely unresponsive. She told
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: Natalie that he needed to be checked by a medical
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: professional and offered to go with her to get him
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: help immediately. According to Hamilton's later testimony, Natalie's response was
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: that Michael needed to sleep it off. Christopher Davis, the
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: same friend who had spoken with Michael about the Lynchburg trip,
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: also came to the house. He found Michael on the couch,
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: not talking, not responding to anything around him. Davis insisted
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: that Michael be taken to the hospital. Hours hadn't passed
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: since Michael first collapsed. Multiple people had seen him unconscious.
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: Multiple people had urged that he receive emergency medical care immediately.
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: And yet, it was not until later that day that
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: Michael finally arrived at the hospital. When he did, his
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: blood glucose level was 21. To put that number in context,
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: a blood sugar level that low is not just dangerous.
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: It is close to fatal on its own. A physician
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: assistant who saw the case later explained it plainly. Nobody
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: should have a blood sugar level of 21. A person
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: at that level is typically in a coma, fighting for
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: their life. By the time doctors examined Michael, the damage
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: had already begun. He had developed cerebral edema, severe swelling
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: of the brain caused by the prolonged, catastrophic drop in
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: his blood sugar. He never regained consciousness. Michael was transferred
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: into hospice care. There would be no recovery. The swelling
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: in his brain was too severe. The window for intervention
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: long since closed by the time anyone had gotten him
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: real medical help. On February 11, 2019, Michael Brandon Cochran died.
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: He was 38 years old. At the time, His death looked,
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: to almost everyone outside the immediate investigation, like a sudden
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: and devastating medical tragedy. A relatively healthy man, a husband,
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: a father, a coach, had inexplicably suffered a catastrophic drop
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: in blood sugar and died. There was grief. There was
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: an obituary that spoke of a man who loved life
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: and loved coaching youth sports, in lieu of flowers. The
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: family asked for donations to Shady Spring Middle School Baseball,
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: a final tribute to the role youth sports had played
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: in Michael's entire life. Nobody, at that point, was calling
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: it murder. In the months after Michael's death, the financial
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: side of the investigation that had quietly been building around
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: Natalie's business continued to develop. Investors who had never received
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: their promised returns kept pushing for answers. and eventually their
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: complaints reached federal authorities. In June of 2019, police executed
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: a search warrant on the Cochran home connected specifically to
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: the financial fraud investigation. While searching the house, they found insulin.
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: At the time, that discovery did not immediately reopen Michael's
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: cause of death, but it was logged. It was documented.
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: and it would not be forgotten. In September of 2019,
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: Natalie was formally indicted on federal charges connected to wire fraud,
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: bank fraud, bankruptcy fraud, and money laundering. The investigation revealed
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: the true scale of what she had built, a scheme
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: that ran from approximately June 2017 through at least August
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: of 2019. persuading at least 11 people to invest roughly $ 2. 5
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: million into contracts that, according to federal prosecutors, were either
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: grossly exaggerated or did not exist at all. A retired
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: West Virginia state trooper named Timothy Bledsoe later testified to
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: something especially disturbing. Natalie had continued looking for new investors,
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: to fund the fake military contracting business even after Michael
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: had died. The scheme had not stopped with her husband's death.
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: It had kept going. In 2020, Natalie pleaded guilty to
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: wire fraud and money laundering. As part of the plea agreement,
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: she agreed to pay nearly $ 2. 6 million in restitution and
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: to forfeit assets that included two pieces of real estate,
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: the 1965 Shelby Cobra, multiple other vehicles, jewelry, and roughly $ 45, 000
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: from a business account. In March of 2021, she was
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: sentenced to 135 months in federal prison, more than 11 years,
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: and ordered to pay over $ 2. 5 million in restitution. For
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: the public, This looked like the end of the story.
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: A pharmacist turned fraudster, caught, convicted, sentenced. But investigators had
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: not stopped looking at the insulin found in that house
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: two years earlier. And in November of 2021, while Natalie
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: was already serving her federal sentence for fraud, she was
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: indicted on a new and far more serious charge, first-degree
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: murder for the death of her husband, Michael Cochran. The
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: murder case moved slowly through the legal system, delayed by
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: exhumation procedures, additional forensic testing, and pretrial motions. Michael's body
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: had to be exhumed seven months after his original burial
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: so that a new autopsy could be performed. Medical examiner Dr.
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: Piotr Kubicek conducted that exhumation autopsy and testified that he
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: could not determine a clear cause of death. Decomposition over
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: those seven months was had made it impossible to identify
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: potential injection sites or confirm insulin use directly from the tissue.
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: That inconclusive result became one of the strongest tools in
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: the defense's arsenal once the case finally reached trial in
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: January of 2025 in Raleigh County Circuit Court. Prosecutors Tom
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: Truman and Ashley Accord built their case around a central argument.
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: Natalie killed Michael because he was getting too close to
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: discovering the Ponzi scheme, and the canceled Lynchburg flight was
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: the breaking point. If Michael had gone to that bank
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: and found no money waiting for him, the entire fraud
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: and Natalie's freedom would have collapsed. The medical testimony at
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: trial became the battlefield. Endocrinologist Dr. Diane Krieger testified that
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: the brain swelling had already begun, By the time Michael
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: reached the hospital, and that insulin was, in her professional opinion,
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: the only explanation that made medical sense, forensic pathologist Dr.
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: Paul Uribe went even further, testifying that Michael's blood glucose
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: level of 21 was, in his words, profound, and concluding
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: that Michael had been administered insulin and that his death
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: was a homicide. Uribe acknowledged there was no direct physical
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: evidence of insulin found in Michael's body, since the exhumation
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: autopsy happened years after death, but he maintained that there
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: was simply no other reasonable medical explanation for such a
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: severe and persistent hypoglycemic state in an otherwise healthy, non-diabetic man.
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: FBI forensic examiner Earl Gleam testified about an insulin vial
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: recovered from the Cochran home, stating that the rubber top
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: appeared to have been punctured. Another FBI chemist confirmed that
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: two of three liquid bottles recovered from the house matched
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: their labels, insulin and a steroid, while a third did
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: not match what it claimed to contain. Investigators also revealed
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: that Natalie had given conflicting accounts of what happened that day.
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: In one version, She said she and Michael were sitting
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: together when he walked into the kitchen, fell, and hit
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: his head on the counter. In another version given the
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: very next day, she said Michael had been asleep on
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: the couch, later walked into the kitchen, and collapsed there.
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: And she also claimed Michael had been injecting himself with
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: insulin in his back. Prosecutors pointed to these shifting stories
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: as evidence of consciousness of guilt. The defense, led by
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: attorneys Matthew Victor and Stanley Seldon, did not deny the
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: financial crimes. Their argument was that Natalie was, in their words,
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: perhaps dishonest in her financial dealings. But that dishonesty did
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: not make her a murderer. They leaned heavily into Michael's
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: relationship with fitness and supplements. Natalie's own daughter, Nicole... testified
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: that her father was obsessed with his physique and took
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: enormous quantities of supplements daily, describing pills laid out on
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: the counter in a circle the size of a dinner plate.
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: Both children testified about alleged steroid use, including claims of
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: oral steroids obtained from Mexico and anabolic steroid injections. The
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: defense argument was straightforward. Maybe Michael's death came from supplement
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: use or an underlying health issue that had nothing to
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: do with Natalie at all. The jury did not find
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: that argument convincing. On January 29, 2025, the jury found
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: Natalie Cochran guilty of first-degree murder. They had deliberated for
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: less than two hours. a remarkably short window that both
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: prosecutors and Michael's family interpreted as a sign of just
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: how compelling the state's case had been. The next phase
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: determined whether Natalie would have any possibility of parole. In
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: West Virginia, a first-degree murder conviction allows the jury to
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: grant mercy, opening the door to eventual parole eligibility, or
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: deny mercy, resulting in life without any possibility of release.
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: The mercy phase split the family in two directions. Natalie's mother,
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: Daphne Jessop, pleaded with the jury, telling them that Natalie's
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: children needed their mother, and that she and her husband
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: Larry might not live long enough to see Natalie again
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: if mercy was denied. Natalie's daughter, Nicole, called her mother
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: her best friend, and said she wanted her present for
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: future milestones like birthdays and the births of her own
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: children someday. Natalie's son also asked the jury for mercy,
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: reminding them that their decision would shape the rest of
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: the children's lives, not just Natalie's. The jury began deliberating
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: the mercy decision at 3.53 in the afternoon. They returned
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: at 5.18 with their answer, no mercy, Natalie Cochran was
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: Her attorneys later filed motions seeking acquittal or a new trial,
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: arguing the case should have been moved to a different
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: venue and that certain evidence should never have been admitted.
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: Judge H.L. Kirkpatrick denied those motions, finding that the jury
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: had acted fairly throughout. Michael Cochran spent 19 years trusting
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: the person closest to him, right up until the day
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: that trust cost him everything. If this case affected you
• 26:34
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• 26:38
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