A look back at the Natalie Cochran trial as 20/20 documentary airs, attorneys file for acquittal
By Autumn Shelton, RealWV
BECKLEY, W.Va. – It has been six years since Michael Brandon Cochran died. It has been two weeks since his wife of 19-years, Natalie Cochran, was found guilty of his murder in a Raleigh County Courtroom.
To say the least, this real-life drama about a couple who, on the surface, led a life of privilege in their small community, captured nationwide attention.
Natalie Cochran’s first degree murder trial was streamed live on CourtTV beginning in mid-January. This gave many the opportunity to watch as Raleigh County Prosecuting Attorney Tom Truman and Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Ashley Acord brought their case before a jury in the courtroom of Judge H.L. Kirkpatrick.
Following weeks of testimony, the jury determined that Natalie Cochran, who had worked as a pharmacist, injected her husband with insulin on Feb. 6, 2019, leaving him unresponsive.
When he was finally taken to a local hospital, his blood glucose level was 21. He was intubated at the hospital, yet never regained consciousness. Michael passed away in hospice care on Feb. 11, 2019, at 38-years-old. The couple had two children.
Although the jury’s guilty verdict meant that Natalie would receive a sentence of life in prison, the possibility remained that they would grant her mercy.
The finale of the trial occurred on Jan. 30, when, after hearing impact statements from those in Cochran’s inner circle of friends and family, the jury decided that Natalie would have no mercy, meaning she will spend her life in prison without the possibility of parole.
One of the most powerful impact statements that day came from Michael’s mother, Donna Bolt.
“Since Michael’s murder, Natalie’s evil and sinister deeds have caused overwhelming damage . . . on our lives and so many good and decent lives – lives that will forever cast a shadow of sadness,” Bolt said. “Michael Brandon was my only son, and I loved him and so adored him.”
“Evil, for reasons only evil would know, took it upon herself to steal from us and the world,” Bolt added, saying that Natalie “only cares about herself,” and is “an evil sociopath.”
Being found guilty of murdering one’s husband can lead to big talk in a small town, but the drama surrounding the family started much earlier, and led to the first major shock for the community, when it was discovered that Natalie was involved in a multi-million dollar Ponzi-scheme surrounding her business Tactical Solutions Group (TSG).
It was the discovery of this Ponzi-scheme, which may have been the reason for Michael’s murder, according to prosecutors.
In trial testimony, jurors learned that Natalie had left her job as a pharmacist to stay at home and help conduct the business of obtaining government contracts beginning in 2017.
For all anyone knew at that time, even Michael, business was good. The couple traveled, purchased homes and cars, donated to school-based organizations and more. Meanwhile, family and friends were investing their money (about $2.5 million) into the business with the hope of getting a return.
However, the business never existed, and there were no government contracts.
According to Truman, Michael was becoming aware of this reality prior to his death.
On Feb. 6, the date of Michael’s collapse, Michael and Natalie had scheduled a chartered flight to their Lynchburg, VA, bank, to inquire about their account since they weren’t receiving any money to pay back their investors.
“They’ve got hundreds of millions of dollars, of their money, stuck in a bank in Virginia, Bank of America, that’s what she told Michael Cochran. That’s what he believed,” Truman said in his opening statement on Jan. 15.
Yet, Natalie cancelled that flight on the morning of Feb. 6, Truman continued.
“Why was that trip so important?” Truman asked. “Because Michael Cochran and everybody else would know, at that point, there is no money in the Bank of America in Virginia. There’s never been any money in the Bank of America in Virginia. There are no government contracts, which is what she was selling to most of Raleigh County, it seems like. Those were fictitious things that she set up, and bilked millions of dollars out of her victims.”
In her closing statement, Acord said that Natalie had kept making “excuse after excuse” as to why no money was coming in from government contracts, at one point even “claiming to have cancer.”
“We’ve never found anything that indicates that that was real, either,” Acord said of Natalie’s cancer diagnosis, adding that Cochran’s “motive to kill” was becoming apparent.
“He is quickly catching on,” Acord said of Michael. “It becomes very obvious who is running the company, that Michael has no idea about the Ponzi-scheme and, more importantly, we’re seeing that Michael is about to discover the truth of everything that’s been going on. So, she has two choices – she can come clean, or she can go into self-preservation, which requires that she take him out of the equation and make sure he never finds out what was happening.”
Natalie’s defense team, Matthew A. Victor and Stanley Selden, both argued that although Natalie pleaded guilty to the Ponzi-scheme after Michael’s death in March 2021, and had been sentenced to 11 years in prison, that didn’t make her a killer.
The jury felt otherwise.
On Feb. 4, Victor and Seldin filed paperwork for a Judgement of Acquittal in Raleigh County Circuit Court for their client, Natalie Cochran, and are asking for a new trial.
According to court documents, Natalie’s attorneys state that “there was insufficient evidence to convict the Defendant, beyond a reasonable doubt, of First-Degree-Murder.”
Additionally, they say that the court denied them a change of venue, denied oral motion for jury sequestration, denied their motion “to suppress the bottle of insulin seized by law enforcement officers from the Defendant’s residence,” denied to exclude from evidence the “irrelevant” bottle of insulin, erred in allowing the state to “re-litigate the federal Ponzi-scheme,” and more.
As a possible acquittal is considered for Natalie Cochran, media interest is still high. There have been numerous news articles, podcasts, and more about the case and of the Cochran’s, who, at one point in time, seemed like the perfect couple.
On Valentine’s Day, ABC aired a 20/20 documentary “Small Town, Big Con,“ where Michael’s best friend, mother, step-father and others discussed life with Michael and Natalie, the events leading up to his murder, and the Ponzi-scheme.
In this documentary, it was stated that inspiration for their government contract business TSG may have come from the 2016 movie “War Dogs,” which features two arms dealers who receive government contracts during the Iraq war.
For those who missed the documentary, it can be viewed on Hulu. A preview may be viewed here on Youtube.
