Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - Her Body Count is Too Damn High // The Kelly Cochran Murder Story

Episode Date: April 1, 2026

Kelly Cochran and her husband, Jason, lived by a "marriage pact" that required them to kill anyone with whom they had an affair. In 2014, they fulfilled this vow by luring Kelly’s lover, Christopher Regan, to their Michigan home where Jason shot him; the couple then dismembered his body and allegedly served his remains to unsuspecting neighbors at a barbecue. Two years later, Kelly murdered Jason in Indiana by injecting him with a lethal dose of heroin and smothering him, claiming it was revenge for Regan's death.

On their wedding night, this couple made a really weird pact. They agreed that if either of them ever cheated, that they were then obligated to kill the person they cheated with. Well, guess what happens. So this story starts with this guy, Jason. And Jason's around 28 when all this begins and he's living in Indiana. And one day in 2009, his whole life gets screwed up. Because on that day, he's out cleaning swimming pools,

because that's his job. He's a pool technician. So he's out cleaning pools and boom, he hurts his back. Like real bad. And now he can no longer work. And to make it worse, he can no longer smash with his wife.

His wife is actually this woman, Kelly. And Kelly's 31. Now, because Jason can no longer provide for her, poor Kelly has to work multiple jobs to support them both. And I guess she starts resenting him for this because eventually she starts chival. cheating on him and hooking up with other men on the side.

Now, Jason doesn't like all this cheating one bit, but he tolerates it so that she won't divorce him. And so a few years pass, and it's now 2013, and Kelly and Jason move from Indiana about six hours away to a small town in Michigan. And there, Jason still has major back problems, so he still can't work. Well, Kelly has to get a job at a local manufacturing plan. And while she's working there, she meets this guy, Chris. And Chris is about 20 years older than her, 53, and Kelly thinks Chris is foin, and Chris thinks she is foin.

And they hit it off and they become friends, and soon they start smashing. Like a lot. Like they're getting together four or five times a week at Chris's apartment to hook up and stuff. And Jason, he knows all about this affair, and he even tells her to stop. But of course, Kelly doesn't stop.

She keeps going. In fact, over time, she and Chris start having an emotional affair as well. Like they also do coupley things, like have dinner together on most nights and go on hikes and stuff. Like they're a real couple. But here's where things get weird. It's 2014 now, and Kelly and Chris are still having their affair on the side. But at this point, it seems like maybe the fling has run its course. At least for him.

Like, he's preparing to move out of state anyway. But for some reason, that still isn't clear to me, Kelly suddenly decides that she wants Chris not just out of her life, but she wants him dead. And who does she recruit to help her kill him? Her husband, Jason. So as I said before, apparently back in the day on their wedding night, Kelly and Jason made some kind of pact.

They agreed that if either of them ever cheated, they were then obligated to kill the person they cheated with. And so now they're going to fulfill that pact. So Kelly and Jason come up with a plan. Kelly is going to lure Chris to their house, and then Jason will sneak up on him and murder him. So Kelly hits Chris up, and she invites him over. Then he comes over and they start hooking up right away, sort of in the doorway. Then suddenly, out of nowhere, boom, Jason appears, and he's got a gun.

And blam, he shoots Chris. And this kills him. him. Then they take Chris's body down to the basement, and there Jason uses an electric saw to dismember him. Then they put his parts into garbage bags, and they dispose of them in a remote wooded area. And they also take his car, and they drive it to a local parking lot, and they abandon it there. And here's the weirdest part of the story. After that, Kelly and Jason have a barbecue at their house, and they invite some of the neighbors over. And allegedly, they take some of the meat from Chris's body and they cook it into the barbecue and they serve it to

their friends and neighbors who unknowingly eat it. Now this part of the story hasn't been proven and as crazy as these people are I actually don't think they ate Chris. Like it would be much harder to do that than just to like get rid of the body. But whatever, that's just my opinion. Anyway, about 10 days after the murder people notice Chris is missing and they report him to the police. So now police are investigating. That same day that Chris has reported missing, they find his abandoned car in that parking lot. And when they search the car, they find a posted note in it with the address to Kelly and Jason's house written on it. So police bring both Kelly and Jason in and they question them and they learn all about Kelly's long time affair with Chris

and she tells police that she and Jason are actually in an open marriage. While Jason tells police, that's not true. He hated that his wife was sleeping with Chris. Regardless, police see all of this is very suspicious, like these two might be involved in Chris's disappearance. But they don't have any evidence to support that. So they can't charge them with anything, and Kelly and Jason are free to go. And about five months pass, and it's now 2015,

and Kelly and Jason decide to move again, from Michigan all the way back to Indiana. And it's here in Indiana, for whatever reason, Kelly starts getting tired of Jason, and she starts to resent him and their marriage. She even starts to blame him for Chris's death, which is extra stupid because she was involved in it. Regardless, she apparently really loved Chris and claims to miss him. Whatever. So now, as strange as this sounds, she wants to get revenge on Jason.

And she feels the best way to get revenge on him is to kill him. But she decides she needs to make his death look like an accident, otherwise she'll get caught and she'll have to go to prison and she obviously doesn't want that. And then one night in 2016, she finally gets that chance. Because that night, Jason apparently expresses interest in doing heroin. Because I guess they do heroin sometimes. So Kelly is thinking, great, I can just make it look like he overdosed. So she goes out and she buys some heroin.

And later, they're at home, and they're all ready to get high on this heroin, and Kelly offers to help him and inject it for him. And then, without him knowing, she fills the syringe with a lethal amount. And then she injects him with it. And then she waits, and she waits, and she waits. But Jason is still alive. He's just sitting there, enjoying his high. So then, while he's almost totally out of it, Kelly puts her hands over his nose and mouth. so that he can't breathe and she just holds him there. And with the drugs and the lack of oxygen,

it takes only about a minute before Jason dies. Then Kelly calls 911 and she puts on a whole show and pretends to be concerned that Jason has suddenly stopped breathing. And so paramedics come out, but unfortunately there's nothing they can do. And so pretty quickly, police start investigating this death. And Kelly tells them that he was doing heroin, for his back pain and that he accidentally overdosed. And police, they have no reason not to believe her, so they start thinking, all right, the guy overdosed. And they don't suspect Kelly of any wrongdoing.

So it looks like her crazy ass might just get away with murder. Not once, but twice. Until. Until an autopsy is done on Jason's body. And the toxicology report comes back saying that while Jason did have hair or in his system, he didn't have enough in his system to actually overdose, and that he actually died from asphyxiation from being strangled, which means that they now know that someone murdered him, and that someone would likely be the woman who was beside him at the time when he died. And so,

bam, Kelly is arrested. Here's her mugshot. And eventually, she confesses to having a role in Jason's murder and in Chris's murder, and she gets sentenced. to life in prison.