A former West Virginia pharmacist already jailed on federal fraud charges was found guilty of murdering her husband nearly six years after his death.
A jury in Raleigh County took less than two hours to convict Natalie Paige Cochran of poisoning Michael Brandon Cochran to death so that he wouldn’t find out about a $2-million Ponzi scheme she was running.
“This has been a very long, hard battle,” Donna Bolt, the mother of the victim, told ABC affiliate WOAY.
She has had to deal with court delays, rescheduled hearings, dropped indictments and new charges, changes in prosecutors leading the case, and two exhumations of her son’s body.
“We would just like to say we thank everybody for your prayers,” she said. “It’s been a long time coming. February the eleventh of 2025 will be six years since Michael Brandon had been murdered.”
A court hearing that began Thursday will determine if Natalie Cochran will be eligible for parole or if she will spend the rest of her life in prison.
State prosecutors said, at some point on Feb. 6, 2019, Michael Cochran’s wife injected him with insulin. His health deteriorated to the point that his friend urged him to seek medical attention.
By the time he was taken to the hospital, his blood sugar level was 21. The normal range is between 70 and 100 milligrams of glucose per decilitre.
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He died five days later at the age of 38.
Natalie Cochran is already serving an 11-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to federal wire fraud and money laundering charges in September 2020.
Prosecutors in that case said she admitted that from June 2017 through at least August 2019 she knowingly defrauded and took money and property from individuals, a financial institution and several other companies.
She also admitted that she convinced at least 11 people to invest approximately $2.5 million in alleged government contracts.