Ep 229 : The Ponzi Scheme Murder
Mama Mystery with Kelly Evans
Kelly Evans
4.6 • 996 Ratings
🗓️ 19 February 2026
⏱️ 59 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
From the outside, Michael and Natalie Cochran looked like a successful, involved West Virginia family — youth sports, church, a growing business, and a life that seemed to be taking off.
But when millions of dollars in promised government contracts never materialized and Michael suddenly collapsed at home with critically low blood sugar, the polished image began to crack.
What started as a fraud investigation eventually turned into something far darker. In this episode, we walk through the rise of Tactical Solutions Group, the mounting financial pressure, the events of February 6, 2019, and the six-year road that led to a life-without-parole sentence.
This is the case of Michael and Natalie Cochran.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome back to Mama Mystery. I am your host, Kelly, and I am glad to be back after a week of |
| 0:06.8 | my kids being sick and then their nanny being sick. And so we were just out for the count for what |
| 0:13.3 | felt like forever. So if you were wondering where the weekly docket was, yeah, I didn't get that |
| 0:19.2 | done last week because I was with my children. And so you're just |
| 0:22.5 | going to have to deal with it. But guess what? There will be one this week. I won't let you down. |
| 0:27.2 | I'm going to record it on Thursday because obviously there is a lot going on in the world of |
| 0:30.9 | true crime this week. As far as the Nancy Guthrie case, I feel like there's really no |
| 0:36.0 | substantial update in that case. I kind of backed off on |
| 0:40.2 | covering it because it was starting to feel a little bit icky, if I'm being honest. You know, |
| 0:44.6 | from the very beginning, I thought something was off with Annie and her husband. And of course, |
| 0:50.2 | Ashley Banfield's reporting that she spoke with someone who was close to the police department, who said that the son was a, or son-in-law was a prime suspect. You know, all of this was garnering a lot of attention online. And it made a lot of sense in our minds as, you know, just observers, spectators of true crime. But there was still something in the back of my mind that was like, what if you really didn't do |
| 1:12.0 | it though? And we're all just talking about this guy as if he certainly has something to do with it. |
| 1:17.4 | And I understand it's like the natural evolution of where your mind goes. |
| 1:20.8 | You usually go to someone who's close to the victim and then you kind of go outward. |
| 1:26.2 | So I get it. |
| 1:27.3 | I totally get it. But after the |
| 1:30.8 | surveillance videos came out of the creepy guy on the front porch, you know, people were |
| 1:36.2 | speculating understandably that maybe it was one of his bandmates. But there was just so |
| 1:40.1 | much speculation that the truth was getting lost in the weeds. |
| 1:45.1 | Anything that was verifiable was getting lost in the weeds. |
| 1:47.6 | So I just kind of backed off. |
| 1:49.6 | There was obviously the first detainment out of Rio Rico where the guy was pulled over |
... |
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