The Murder of Michael Cochran (Maine)

On an ordinary winter night in 1981, danger was moving through the Bangor, Maine area in three different directions at once. A barroom dispute was followed by a deadly blaze. A drug sting was underway at a nearby apartment complex. And a few miles away, a lakeside cabin would be reduced to smoldering rubble before sunrise. None of those events appeared connected as they unfolded. But the first fire would pull investigators away from the second, some of the names in the sting later surfaced in the cabin arson, and before anyone knew what – or rather, who – was lying in the ruins, the course of a homicide case had already irrevocably changed. If you have information about Michael Cochran’s death or the fire at the cabin, contact the Maine State Police Major Crimes Unit - North at 207-973-3750 or toll-free at 1-800-432-7381. Anonymous tips can also be submitted by texting MESPTIP, followed by your information, to 847411.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Traditional home security only alerts you after a break in, and that's too late. SimpliSafe is changing that.

• 0:06Speaker 01

  Stop. This is SimpliSafe. Police are on the way.

• 0:09Speaker 00

  We don't just alert, we help stop crime before it starts. Plans starting around a dollar a day. Right now, get 60% off your new system with professional monitoring at simplisafe.com/truecrime. SimpliSafe, ahead of crime, in real time. Outdoor deterrence plans start at $49.99 a month. Visit simplisafe.com/licenses for alarm license information.

• 0:33Kylie Low?

  On an ordinary winter night in 1981, danger was moving through the Bangor main area in three different directions at once. A barroom dispute was followed by a deadly blaze. A drug sting was underway at a nearby apartment complex. And a few miles away, a lakeside cabin would be reduced to smoldering rubble before sunrise. None of those events appeared connected as they unfolded, but the first fire would pull investigators away from the second. Some of the names in the sting later surfaced in the cabin arson. And before anyone knew what, or rather, who, was lying in the ruins,

• 1:14Kylie Low?

  the course of a homicide investigation had already irrevocably changed. I'm Kylie Low, and this is the case of Michael Cochran, on Dark Down East.

• 1:36Kylie Low?

  It all started at 6:35 PM on February 17, 1981, when Bangor police were called to the tavern on Main Street. According to A.J. Higgins's reporting for the Bangor Daily News, patrons reported that an argument between a man and a woman had become physical. Police cleared the scene, only for fire crews to receive a call to the same address later that night. Someone had poured an accelerant in the hallway outside residences above the bar, and set it on fire. Firefighters began battling the blaze at 9:09 PM. Three people died from smoke inhalation that night. Jesse Edens, Donald Morell, and Patricia J. Oaks. Meanwhile, just a few miles away,

• 2:21Kylie Low?

  28-year-old Percy Cody walked out of the back door of an apartment at Greenwood Gardens in Holden, carrying a package containing a pound of pot. People waiting in the car had arranged to buy 10 pounds that night, and shortly before midnight, the remaining nine pounds were delivered. What Percy apparently did not know was that his customers were undercover narcotics agents with the Division of Special Investigations, and the deal was in fact a sting. The agents arrested Percy Cody and two others, 31-year-old David Dupre and another man also named Percy, Percy Sargent. Cut to a few hours later, at 3:51 AM on February 18,

• 3:05Kylie Low?

  and a few miles away from the scene of that sting. A woman's eyes were drawn to a cabin on Sumac Road in the Lucerne Main section of Dedham. She dialed the Dedham Fire Department as she watched the flames grow bigger and brighter by the second. Fire Chief Norman Heron reached the property by 3:55 AM, and the log cabin was already fully involved. Flames were coming through the roof, the windows were gone, and the interior was heavily burning. Chief Heron had fought other fires in Lucerne's log cabins, and this one did not behave like the accidental fires he had seen. These structures definitely burned, but they did not ordinarily become consumed this quickly.

• 3:49Kylie Low?

  As Heron surveyed the property, trying to understand what he was looking at, movement near the wood line caught his attention. Here's Chief Heron himself, in a recorded deposition.

• 4:01Speaker 03

  I caught a view of an individual departing from the rear of the fire structure. Now, that individual, it was impossible to identify the individual accurately, because after all, it's February, it was dark. The only light that was available was that from the burning camp. And I saw him moving away from the fire scene.

• 4:33Kylie Low?

  He thought it was a young man with either dark hair or something dark covering his head. The figure was moving quickly.

• 4:41Speaker 03

  He seemed to be doing something with his hands as he was moving away from the burning structure. I would liken that to an individual who is washing their hands. But again, that was a very brief view that I had.

• 4:58Kylie Low?

  Assistant Fire Chief Elmer Alto, who was also a Hancock County Deputy Sheriff, arrived at the scene, and Chief Heron sent him after the figure's tracks while the rest of the department worked to suppress the fire. Alto followed the mystery man's trail through the woods until it disappeared near Route 1A. The whole thing stunk of something suspicious. About 30 feet from the burning cabin, Chief Heron found two 5-gallon gasoline cans. One was nearly full. The other contained approximately 1 gallon and had no cap.

• 5:31Speaker 03

  Combining the gas can with the individual leaving the scene and the rapid extent of the burn of the structure, I immediately arrived at the decision that this is probably an arson fire.

• 5:48Kylie Low?

  The probable arson warranted an assessment by State Fire Inspector Wilbur Ricker, but he was already called to the fatal fire in Bangor. He stopped only briefly at the Dedham scene on his way to Bangor, arriving around 5:50 AM. He viewed the tracks through the woods, steps made by two boots, left and right foot, trailing through the snowy surface. Now, there was a growing concern that this fire was the result of arson, but no one at the scene believed the cabin had been occupied when it burned. With three confirmed deaths in Bangor, that investigation had to take priority. So, Ricker left for Bangor, and Heron secured the two gasoline cans until Ricker could take custody himself

• 6:32Kylie Low?

  and transport them for potential analysis. Inspector Ricker did return to the Dedham property after dark that same day, but could not conduct a meaningful examination. Days passed before he and another investigator were finally able to go back in daylight and began working through what remained of the cabin. By then, the fire had been out for nearly a week. What it had left behind was still waiting in the rubble.

• 6:59Kylie Low?

  On February 24, 1981, six days after the cabin in Dedham burned, Fire Inspector Wilbur Ricker returned to Sumac Road with Main State Police Corporal Alan Jamison. I have photos in the show notes at darkdowneast.com if you want to see it for yourself. The cabin itself was gone. Its walls had fallen outward, leaving behind a flattened field of burned logs, metal, ash, and debris. You can see in the photos that the stone and block fireplace is the only part that remains upright, while everything else around it is black and charred, in total ruin. While examining the area near the front entrance, Ricker saw something.

• 7:42Kylie Low?

  Here's Ricker in a recorded deposition.

• 7:45Speaker 04

  Down there, right in that corner, I'm looking below hinges when I found, when I thought first it was a dog in the fire. And I said to Alan, I said, "Do we have any reports of a dog in the south?" He turned to me, and he said, "Well, if it's a dog, he's got a human head or a skull, unless it is."

• 8:06Kylie Low?

  The remains were lying face down near what would be the front entrance, close to where the door would have swung. There was ash and metal debris over the body. He noticed that beneath the body, light-colored flooring remained clean and unburned, along with pieces of broken glass. In Ricker's opinion, the unburned floor beneath the remains indicated that the person had been lying there before the fire began. The condition of the body raised several concerns. Ricker had investigated fatal fires for decades, and he believed the remains were far more severely burned than he would ordinarily expect in a one-story building where the body was exposed to open air, rather than buried in a deep bed of burning debris.

• 8:50Kylie Low?

  Considering the extent of the burns, the gasoline found nearby on the night of the fire, and the way the cabin had burned, he believed it was more likely than not that an accelerant had been applied directly to the body. But to clarify, that was Ricker's expert interpretation of the fire damage, not a laboratory finding. Ricker remained at the property, standing guard, while Jamison was away making calls to the medical examiner. That's when Ricker heard the telltale sounds of tires on gravel and turned to see a green car coming up the road. Two men stepped out of the vehicle and began walking toward the ruins, but Ricker stepped into view and stopped them before they got too close. According to the note he made at the time,

• 9:35Kylie Low?

  they identified themselves as Percy Sargent and Lionel Clormier. Both men said they knew David Dupre, whose family owned the cabin. Lionel said he had attended parties there and left a pair of skis behind. Percy said he had done some work at the property and had been to parties there as well. Ricker later described both men as appearing startled when he emerged in uniform. He did not tell them what had just been found. He only said he was investigating the fire and that they could not approach the ruins. Six days had passed since the cabin burned, and as Ricker put it, "Their sudden appearance just didn't look right." Unfortunately, when they left, the driver backed the green car all the way down the road,

• 10:19Kylie Low?

  preventing Ricker from recording its license plate. But he had their names, and he passed those names and the details of the encounter to the investigators who arrived afterward. By late afternoon, investigators were working from the possibility that the remains were those of 24-year-old Michael Cochran. Now, what first led them to his name isn't entirely clear. A Penobscot County Sheriff's Department document referenced in the book "A Maine Murder", written by Michael's mother, Leola Cochran, indicates the District Attorney's Office had reported Michael dead by about 4:00 PM. Then, at 4:30, DEA Agent Herb Sossier contacted investigators with another lead.

• 11:03Kylie Low?

  He'd received a call from an individual named Richard Sargent, who had told him the body in the cabin was Michael Cochran. A surgical scar on the body apparently supported the initial identification, so investigators operated on the assumption that the remains did belong to Michael. However, according to records later obtained by Leola Cochran, final dental confirmation was not completed until June 15th, almost four months after the fire. Medical examiner Dr. Ronald Roy ultimately determined that Michael died from inhaling carbon monoxide and other products of combustion. Testing found a carbon monoxide saturation level of 46% in Michael's blood, supporting the conclusion that he was alive during the fire.

• 11:48Kylie Low?

  Cocaine was also detected in his system. So, Michael had died in the fire, according to the medical examiner's findings, but Michael's initial death certificate listed the investigation as pending. For a time, Leola was led to believe her son's death had been accidental. It would be months before the official record reflected what investigators had already begun to suspect: Michael's death was a homicide. The condition of the cabin and evidence at the scene suggested this was much more than someone who was simply trapped in an accidental blaze. During a full investigation at the cabin, Fire Inspector Wilbur Ricker found clean window glass outside the cabin and noted that the walls had fallen outward.

• 12:33Kylie Low?

  Because the glass had not accumulated soot before breaking, he believed the windows had been blown out early in the fire. Taken together, those conditions were consistent with a vapor explosion, rather than a slow fire spreading from one point of origin. The front entrance offered another clue. The closing apparatus on the exterior door was locked in the open position, and the hinges from the interior door were also found open. Corporal Jamison believed that the open door would have created a draft, pulling more air into the cabin and feeding the fire. There were also those two gas cans found at the scene. Ricker later found a third five-gallon can near the elevated back door.

• 13:17Kylie Low?

  It all suggested arson, that the fire was intentionally set. The arson finding and homicide ruling opened the floodgates to questions. Why was the fire set? Did whoever started it know Michael was inside? Was he the intended target? The deeper investigators looked into the circumstances of Michael's life, the more danger they found. Every small town has a local legend: the house no one drives past after dark, or the woods that hold secrets. Every October, I like to add something a little more spooky to my playlist: stories

• 14:00Kylie Low?

  that blur the line between what's imagined and what might be waiting in the dark. Full Body Chills returns with more strange coincidences, unsettling confessions, and stories where danger may be closer than it seems. Listen to Full Body Chills all October long, wherever you get your podcasts. Michael Craig Cochran was the son of Leola and Darryl Cochran Sr. In much of the reporting of this case through the years, his name is spelled M-I-C-H-E-A-L, a non-traditional spelling.

• 14:42Kylie Low?

  Leola told me that Michael himself unofficially changed the spelling in some contexts, and she chose to honor that for many years. But legally, his name is spelled M-I-C-H-A-E-L, and that's how she wishes to spell his name for this story. Michael and his siblings spent the first part of their childhood on a potato farm in Aristick County before the family moved south to the Bangor Brewer area. From the time Michael was young, Leola could see that learning came much harder for him than it did for his siblings. He was held back a grade, teased by other children, and struggled to keep pace in a time when his school offered little specialized support. Some mornings, when the school bus arrived, Michael grabbed onto his mother because he

• 15:26Kylie Low?

  wanted to stay home. Maybe because at home, he was surrounded by people who loved him and wanted to help, especially his older sister, Coralie.

• 15:36Speaker 05

  He and his sister Coralie, they were very close. I still in my mind can see the line on the hardwood flooring in the living room, the two little heads almost heading together, coloring in their coloring books. She was good with Mike, she tried to help him.

• 15:58Kylie Low?

  Michael began running away while he was still in elementary school. By his early teen years, he had also begun using drugs and stealing. At 15, he stopped attending school and started spending longer stretches on the road, hitchhiking wherever someone would take him. When he was 17, he made it all the way to California. He called home along the way, and Leola traced his progress on a map. She never knew when he might leave again, or when he would return.

• 16:25Speaker 05

  But the nights of him being on the highway were difficult. I didn't sleep much, I'd get up in the night. Some nights I'd get up and his backpack would be by the door. He'd had to come home and go to bed.

• 16:41Kylie Low?

  According to Eric Russell's 2017 reporting for The Maine Sunday Telegram, Michael's first conviction followed a residential burglary. Juvenile detention did not break his pattern, though, and further offenses involving theft, forgery, and a stolen car followed. There's no way to soften that history, but there's also no way to understand Michael exclusively through a list of charges. He had struggled since childhood, learned to escape by leaving, and increasingly relied on drugs as his world narrowed around him. In 1976, Michael stole money from someone involved in drug dealing and began receiving threats against his life.

• 17:22Kylie Low?

  He left Maine but was arrested in Nevada and returned to the state. Authorities offered him a deal if he provided information about the dealer he had stolen from, but Michael refused. He served six months, was released, re-offended, and returned to prison for another 18 months. Then in March of 1980, police seized large amounts of pot, amphetamines, and LSD from a Brewer apartment and determined that Michael was involved in selling them. After that arrest, Michael came home one night and told his mother something she'll never forget.

• 17:56Speaker 05

  He said, "You know Mama, I'm addicted to cocaine and I hate my life."

• 18:05Kylie Low?

  Leola promised that if Michael sought help, she would stand by him. She would never abandon her son, no matter what. But Michael resisted it. Leola believed that after years of falling behind, he had come to view needing or accepting help as another sign he was deficient in some way, less than his brothers, sister, or peers. Michael never felt like he measured up. In late November of 1980, Michael was convicted on two drug charges and indicted in connection with an assault from the previous month. On December 3rd, a judge sentenced him to five years in prison. The sentence scared him. He didn't want to go back to state prison, so he ran from the courthouse before he could

• 18:50Kylie Low?

  be taken into custody. While Michael was a fugitive, his girlfriend, Linda, brought Leola a letter from him. Michael wrote that he knew running had been wrong, but he could not imagine surviving five years at the state pen. He wanted to hold on to his freedom as long as he could. Leola didn't know where her son had gone during that time on the run. She later learned that he had left Maine, possibly with Linda, before eventually returning. By February of 1981, Michael was hiding at the cabin on Sumac Road in Dedham, owned by David Dupre's mother. He was avoiding prison and spending time with people connected to a local drug network. Michael admitted that he hated the life he was living.

• 19:33Kylie Low?

  Somewhere beneath the arrests, the running, and the choices that had narrowed his world, he understood that he needed a way out, but he would not have the chance to find one. On the final night of his life, the people around Michael would become central to one of the most tangled homicide investigations in Maine.

• 19:54Kylie Low?

  One of the last people known to have seen Michael before the fire was his girlfriend, Linda. Linda gave statements to police on February 24th and March 3rd, 1981. She said she arrived at the cabin between 7:00 and 7:30 on the evening of February 17th. Michael was there with two men, Percy Sargent and Paul Pollard. You've already heard Percy Sargent's name because he was arrested earlier on the same night of the fire in that drug sting in Holden. Linda told police that Percy left the cabin around 11:00 PM, apparently to take part in the deal that ended with his arrest. Shortly after Percy left, Linda said she and Michael went upstairs to the loft.

• 20:37Kylie Low?

  Michael wanted her to stay the night, but she had to work the next morning, so she decided to leave. When Linda walked out at approximately 12:30 AM, she claimed that the other guy, Paul Pollard, was still lying on the couch in the living room. She said Michael locked the door behind her. It was the last time she saw him alive. According to Linda's account, Paul was the only other person known to be inside the cabin with Michael after she drove away. Paul Pollard gave his first detailed statement to investigators on March 3rd. According to notes of the interview from the investigating officers, Paul never denied

• 21:18Kylie Low?

  being at the cabin, but he consistently denied killing Michael or setting the fire. Paul said that sometime around midnight, he moved from the living room to a sleeping bag on a lawn chair in the back bedroom. That differed from Linda's last observation of him asleep on the couch in the living room. Wherever he was sleeping, according to Paul, something woke him between 3:00 and 4:00 AM, but he fell back asleep. The next time he woke, he said he heard a buzzing noise, had trouble breathing, and saw the lights go out. He realized the cabin was on fire. Paul said he escaped barefoot through the back door of the cabin, which was missing a staircase and was at least four feet from the ground.

• 22:03Kylie Low?

  He claimed he circled around to the front and saw the cabin and nearby trees burning. With his feet hurting in the snow, he said he went back inside for his boots and socks. He said he lost one boot during his second escape, though, and the heat of the fire prevented him from turning back for it, so he tied his shirt around his bare foot instead. Paul said he hid in the woods until daylight, then used the phone at a nearby house to call his half-brother, Lionel Cormier. According to Paul, Lionel picked him up, and the two briefly returned to the cabin before driving to East Corinth and later to the home of the Sargent family in Winterport. Sargent, as in Richard Sargent, the man who reportedly contacted a DEA agent to say

• 22:47Kylie Low?

  the body in the cabin might be Michael's. This case is about to get complicated fast, so let's go over the names you've already heard and are about to hear a lot more because the same network of people keeps resurfacing around nearly every part of the case. David Dupre's mother owned the cabin that burned, and David had been arrested alongside Percy Sargent in the Holden drug operation only hours before the fire. Percy had been at the cabin earlier that night with Paul Pollard, Linda, and Mike. Paul remained there after Linda left. Lionel Cormier picked Paul up afterward, according to Paul.

• 23:32Kylie Low?

  Richard Sargent, Percy Sargent's brother, reportedly told a drug enforcement agent that the unidentified body was probably Michael's. Many of these individuals were connected through the same regional drug network. Lionel Cormier was identified as a distributor whose associates included Percy and Richard Sargent, David Dupre, Paul Pollard, and Michael Cochran. The names were all there from the beginning, but what investigators did not have was a reliable witness who could explain what happened inside the cabin after Linda drove away or why the fire was set. Still, within weeks of Michael's death, Leola says one of the investigators gave her a

• 24:17Kylie Low?

  startling theory about exactly that. According to Leola, in March of 1981, Maine State Police Detective Ralph Pinkham told her that Percy Sargent had sent a call to have Michael, quote, "taken care of." She says Pinkham also told her that he believed Lionel Cormier set the fire while Paul Pollard had narrowly escaped being killed himself. But when Leola saw Pinkham again a couple of weeks later, she says he denied ever telling her that. From then on, Leola could not shake the possibility that the people surrounding Michael that

• 24:59Kylie Low?

  night knew far more than investigators were acknowledging. For nearly four years after Michael died, Leola tried to understand his murder largely on her own. She requested records, wrote to the chief medical examiner, repeatedly contacted investigators, and tracked down Fire Inspector Wilbur Ricker herself. Ricker told her that he believed the person seen leaving the cabin and the two men who appeared when the body was found, identified in reports as Percy Sargent and Lionel Cormier, needed to be examined more closely. These were the same names that Leola claims Pinkham identified, and then later denied disclosing that information.

• 25:41Kylie Low?

  In September of 1983, Leola says Detective Barry Schuman gave her an assessment that echoed part of what Pinkham had told her two years earlier. According to Leola, Schuman said Percy Sargent had arranged Michael's killing, but that the case would probably never be solved because no one would talk. Yet when she pressed Schuman about Paul, the man who had been inside the cabin, Leola says he maintained that Paul was not involved. Leola waited for the allegations to become arrests. She hired an attorney in hopes of furthering her own search for answers, but came up short. But then, on December 6th, 1984, Leola's son Derry arrived at her workplace after midnight

• 26:26Kylie Low?

  carrying a copy of the Bangor Daily News. A grand jury had returned murder and arson indictments against three men for Michael's murder. At first, she was relieved, but then confused. She read the names. They were not the people Leola expected to see accused of killing her son.

• 26:48Speaker 00

  Traditional home security only alerts you after a break-in, and that's too late. SimpliSafe is changing that.

• 27:00Speaker 01

  Stop. This is SimpliSafe. Police are on the way.

• 27:03Speaker 00

  We don't just alert. We help stop crime before it starts. Plans starting around a dollar a day. Right now, get 60% off your new system with professional monitoring at simplisafe.com/truecrime. SimpliSafe, ahead of crime in real time.

• 27:18Kylie Low?

  Outdoor deterrence plans start at $49.99 a month. Visit simplisafe.com/licenses for alarm license information. Every small town has a local legend. The house no one drives past after dark, or the woods that hold secrets. Every October, I like to add something a little more spooky to my playlist. Stories that blur the line between what's imagined and what might be waiting in the dark. Full Body Chills returns with more strange coincidences, unsettling confessions, and stories where danger may be closer than it seems. Listen to Full Body Chills all October long, wherever you get your podcasts.

• 27:54Kylie Low?

  On December 5th, 1984, a Hancock County grand jury indicted 33-year-old Richard Sargent, 35-year-old Roger Bubba Johnson, and 34-year-old William Bill Myers on charges of murder and arson. All three later pleaded not guilty. Richard was Percy Sargent's brother. Richard had called authorities to suggest that the remains belonged to Michael, so his name had at least some connection to the people surrounding the cabin. Roger Johnson and William Myers were something else.

• 28:37Kylie Low?

  Leola had never heard either man discussed as a suspect during her conversations with investigators. Still, she believed the Attorney General's office must have evidence she had not seen. Leola later learned that the state's case rested heavily on testimony from a woman named Sharon Sargent. Tony DePaul reports for the Bangor Daily News that Sharon had once been married to Stephen Sargent, one of Percy and Richard's brothers. She later began a relationship with another sergeant brother, David, but by the time she testified before the grand jury, she and David were divorcing. In sworn testimony, Sharon said she had attended parties at Roger Johnson's home, where drugs were used and sold.

• 29:22Kylie Low?

  She claimed she was there on the night of February 17, 1981, when Percy called after his arrest in the Holden Sting. She claimed Richard, Roger, and William believed Michael had been an informant on Percy, setting up the drug sting, and they worried he might also give police information about them. Sharon said at that point, the three men left Roger's home to, quote, "take care of Mike," end quote. The next morning, she said, Richard called David. Sharon claimed she listened from another telephone as Richard said he had hit Michael in the head and that Roger and William had set the cabin on fire. According to Sharon, Richard wanted her and David to provide him with an alibi.

• 30:07Kylie Low?

  It was a direct, detailed account of the alleged circumstances that preceded Mike's murder, but it came from a witness with substantial credibility problems. Sharon acknowledged her own drug use and theft charges, and defense attorneys pointed out differences between what she told the grand jury and statements she had previously given to police. Richard himself was interviewed by detectives Barry Schuman and Ralph Pinkham on the day of his arrest. They confronted him with their theory that Percy had called from jail, accused Michael of setting him up, and asked Richard to do something about it. But Richard denied knowing Michael, denied setting the fire, and denied having anything to do with his death.

• 30:50Kylie Low?

  He repeatedly offered to take a polygraph. Richard and the other two defendants sought release while awaiting trial and were granted bail. One by one, the men posted it. And within about six weeks of their arrests, all three were free. Before the murder case could reach trial, the state's central witness changed her story yet again. In February of 1985, Sharon approached Richard's defense attorney and recanted the core of her allegations. She denied overhearing a plan to kill Michael. She said Richard wasn't even at the party that night. According to A.J. Higgins's reporting for the Bangor Daily News, Sharon said she was afraid of Detective Schuman

• 31:35Kylie Low?

  and believed he had used leading and suggestive questions during her interviews. Richard's attorney recorded and transcribed the conversation and then gave it to prosecutors. Now Detective Schuman denied doing anything improper. He was briefly removed from the investigation, then assigned back to the case under the supervision of Sergeant Pinkham. On March 1, prosecutors arranged a polygraph examination for Sharon. The result was inconclusive. The case was cracking in a major way. Without a reliable version of Sharon's story, the charges couldn't hold. In June of 1985, Assistant Attorney General Thomas Goodwin moved to dismiss the charges

• 32:18Kylie Low?

  against Richard Sargent, Roger Johnson, and William Myers, citing Sharon's inconsistent testimony and insufficient evidence to proceed. Interestingly, Richard objected to the dismissal. Because the charges were dropped without prejudice, prosecutors could theoretically bring them again, and Goodwin promised the investigation would continue. Richard's attorney argued that Richard would remain under the suspicion and stigma of an unresolved murder accusation without ever receiving the trial he said he wanted. Richard invoked his rights to a speedy trial, to confront the witnesses against him, and to obtain a final resolution. The objection was not expected to restore the indictments, and it did not.

• 33:02Kylie Low?

  But as reported by Gene Hay for the BDN, it left an unusual statement in the record. One of the men accused of Michael's murder was asking the state to put him on trial. The murder charges were gone. But many of the same names were about to surface in another case. This one involving two robberies that were brutal enough to expose just how dangerous Michael's circle had become. The cases concerned two robberies of the same man described as a drug dealer in Corinth, Maine. The first happened on November of 1980, less than three months before Michael died. The second took place in March of 1981,

• 33:45Kylie Low?

  about a month after the cabin fire. The attackers allegedly stole pot and tens of thousands of dollars, and during the second robbery, the victim was viciously assaulted. The cases implicated Lionel Cormier, Richard and Percy Sargent, Paul Pollard, and another man named Robert Smith. But Paul wouldn't be prosecuted despite his confessed involvement because he agreed to serve as state's witness in exchange for immunity. Paul started a trend with his testimony. The other individuals implicated in the robberies started turning on one another. And Michael's murder became entangled in their competing stories.

• 34:29Kylie Low?

  In recorded conversations with Richard Sargent, beginning in February of 1986, Lionel Cormier repeatedly accused Paul, his own half-brother, of burning the cabin and killing Michael Cochran. Lionel acknowledged that he had picked Paul up after the fire and said Paul had been afraid he would be arrested for murder. Some of what Lionel said sounded like direct knowledge. Other parts were clearly speculation and reconstruction, but Lionel was not an objective witness. Paul's cooperation threatened to send him to prison for decades, and it seemed Lionel was trying to negotiate favorable treatment for himself. In April of 1986,

• 35:11Kylie Low?

  Percy Sargent contacted Mike's mother from prison himself and also blamed Paul for Mike's death. Percy claimed Paul heard about the drug arrests, decided Michael must have informed on them, and killed him before setting the cabin on fire. Percy initially suggested that Lionel might also have been involved, but later changed his account and claimed Paul acted alone while Lionel only picked him up afterward. But of course, Percy also had a reason to discredit Paul for testifying against him. By the time Richard Sargent went on trial in July of 1986, Paul, Lionel, Percy, and Richard were each offering versions of events that minimized their own exposure

• 35:56Kylie Low?

  while placing someone else closer to Michael's murder. And that wasn't even the case that was on trial. Now Detective Barry Schuman testified that Paul had come forward in March of 1981 to, quote, "clear his conscience." Schuman said investigators didn't even know about the robberies before Paul disclosed them and that he was not initially promised immunity. According to Schuman, that arrangement came later, when prosecutors decided they needed Paul's testimony against the other men. Richard's defense viewed the deal differently. According to Gene Curran's trial coverage for the Bangor Daily News, Richard's attorney argued in part that Paul may have offered information about the robberies

• 36:41Kylie Low?

  in the hope of receiving protection in Michael's case. Raising testimony about Michael's case was an issue for the prosecution, but the judge allowed the defense to establish that Paul had been considered a suspect in Michael's death. The attorney could not ask whether Paul had killed Michael or whether his testimony in the robbery case had protected him from being charged with it. So Paul admitted, under oath, that he had been inside the cabin when the fire began. He also acknowledged that he was the person Fire Chief Norman Heron saw leaving through the woods. Still, Paul continued to deny killing Michael or setting the fire.

• 37:26Kylie Low?

  With the help of Paul's testimony, Richard was convicted and later sentenced to 14 years in prison. Then came Lionel Cormier's trial the following month. Robert Smith, one of the other defendants, had already pleaded guilty and agreed to testify against Lionel in exchange for a reduced sentence. Paul was also a key witness for the state. Now Robert told the jury that during the second robbery, he saw Lionel cut off the victim's ear, lift it on the tip of a knife, and throw it at the man as he lay bleeding. Lionel already had a reputation for brutality and violence, and this testimony only further supported it. But when it came to Paul's testimony,

• 38:09Kylie Low?

  Lionel's attorney raised the same issue Richard's defense had. That Paul's possible involvement in Michael's murder gave him a powerful reason to cooperate with prosecutors. Once again, the judge limited how far the defense could go. The jury could hear that Paul had been considered a suspect, and only that. Lionel was ultimately convicted of two counts of robbery with a firearm and aggravated assault. He received a combined sentence of 23 years. After the trials, Richard's attorney argued that Detective Schuman's testimony about when investigators first learned of the robberies was false. Leola also came to believe the record showed police had known about the crimes before Paul supposedly volunteered the information,

• 38:54Kylie Low?

  and that investigators stopped treating him as a viable murder suspect in Mike's case because they needed his cooperation against Lionel and Richard. Richard sought a new trial on those grounds, but the request was denied. Leola had attended many of the court dates for the robbery cases, listening for any information about her son's murder within the testimony. During Richard's trial, she encountered Roger Johnson and William Myers outside the courtroom. These were two of the men she had once feared as her son's killers. They'd been indicted, but their charges were dismissed without prejudice. When she spoke with them that day,

• 39:38Kylie Low?

  they claimed they had never met Michael, or even several of the other people who had supposedly connected them to his death before their arrests. Roger and William then made Leola a surprising offer. They told her she could have what they retained from the discovery materials in the since-dismissed murder case. So, over the following days, Leola collected boxes and envelopes from the men once accused of her son's murder. She received fire reports, witness statements, police records, interview transcripts, and Michael's complete autopsy report, a document the medical examiner's office had previously refused to give her. For the first time, Leola could read the case herself

• 40:21Kylie Low?

  rather than relying on what investigators or suspects chose to tell her. What she found convinced her that the state had accused the wrong men and that information pointing toward another suspect had been sitting in those files for years.

• 40:38Speaker 05

  All this information, I look at that sometimes and think to myself, how could they disregard you?

• 40:47Kylie Low?

  If prosecutors were not going to bring a case against the person she believed was responsible for her son's death, Leola decided she would try another way.

• 41:01Speaker 00

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• 41:05Speaker 01

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• 41:08Speaker 00

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• 41:24Speaker 01

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• 41:32Kylie Low?

  Every small town has a local legend. The house no one drives past after dark, or the woods that hold secrets. Every October, I like to add something a little more spooky to my playlist. Stories that blur the line between what's imagined and what might be waiting in the dark. Full Body Chills returns with more strange coincidences, unsettling confessions, and stories where danger may be closer than it seems. Listen to Full Body Chills all October long, wherever you get your podcasts.

• 42:12Kylie Low?

  In the late 1980s, Leola filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Paul Pollard. A civil verdict could not send anyone to prison, but the case allowed her to question Paul, investigators, and fire officials under oath. The clips from the depositions you heard earlier in this episode are from the civil proceedings. Leola has kept and carefully cataloged every piece of her own effort to find answers since day one, including uploading the full depositions to YouTube. I'll link them in the show notes for you. The lawsuit eventually forced Paul Pollard's account and the fire investigators' conclusions into the same courtroom, but it ended without anyone being held responsible for Michael's death.

• 42:56Kylie Low?

  The civil jury ultimately found Paul Pollard not liable. Leola requested a new trial, but that request was denied. By the early 2000s, Michael's case was placed in the hands of Maine State Police Detective Gerald Coleman. Coleman began reviewing the old investigation and speaking with Leola and her family. According to Leola, he believed that there was still work to be done on the case and at one point, considered bringing evidence before a grand jury. He also questioned Lionel Cormier about Michael's death. Lionel had served approximately 15 years for the earlier armed robberies before being released in 2002. Within a short time, he was involved in another violent criminal case

• 43:40Kylie Low?

  that ultimately brought him before a federal judge in 2005. Leola and several members of Michael's family attended Lionel's trial and returned for his sentencing on June 28, 2005. By then, Lionel's alleged involvement in Michael's death had followed the case for years, but it had never resulted in a charge against him. At Lionel's federal sentencing, Assistant US Attorney Gail Maloney raised Michael's murder while describing Lionel's history of violence. She told the judge that one of the witnesses in the federal case said Lionel had threatened him by discussing a homicide he claimed to have been involved in. According to Maloney,

• 44:24Kylie Low?

  Lionel told that man he had killed Michael Cochrane by burning the cabin down. It was the most direct allegation against Lionel to surface publicly in years, but it was still an allegation attributed to another person, not a confession made in court, and not evidence that had resulted in a murder charge. Lionel immediately denied it when he addressed the court himself. Quote, "You know, charging me with the Cochrane murder when I have not been charged with it, or even indicted, or even questioned about it except by Mr. Coleman himself? I've been caught for everything I have done, so if I would have done this Cochrane issue, obviously I would have been convicted and sentenced to life." End quote.

• 45:08Kylie Low?

  Lionel was sentenced to 411 months, more than 34 years, in federal prison for the unrelated case. Given his serious health problems, even his own attorney acknowledged that it would likely amount to a life sentence. For Leola, seeing Lionel imprisoned offered some measure of satisfaction. But it was not a conviction for Michael's murder, and it still did not answer the question she had been asking since 1981. So she tried once more to get an answer from Lionel herself. In February of 2007, Leola had wrote to him at a federal medical prison in Missouri. Leola asked Lionel to tell her what happened to Michael and why.

• 45:52Kylie Low?

  She included some of the accusations Percy and Richard Sargent had made over the years and appealed to Lionel to give her peace of mind before he died. He never answered. Lionel Cormier died in federal prison in 2009. He had never been charged in connection with Michael's death, and despite what federal prosecutors said had been attributed to him in 2005, he never publicly accepted responsibility for Michael's killing. By then, Leola had spent nearly three decades trying to get someone, an investigator, a prosecutor, a witness, or one of the men she believed knew the truth, to finally tell her what happened. She is 90 years old now, and that drive has never left her.

• 46:38Kylie Low?

  I asked Leola what keeps her going after all this time.

• 46:42Speaker 05

  I think the fight for what was done to Mike. I know he's been gone, and like I said, I just pray to God that he's at peace. I believe in the hereafter.

• 46:58Speaker 05

  And I just... It's the fight. It's to know what they did and what they got away with.

• 47:08Kylie Low?

  The problems with Michael's case began before investigators even knew there was a homicide to solve. For six days, authorities did not know Michael was beneath the charred rubble. Two gasoline cans found on the morning of the fire were collected and tested, and while their contents were confirmed to be gasoline, no usable fingerprints were recovered. The third can was photographed, and the contents were believed to be an accelerant of some kind, but it was never collected or submitted for laboratory testing. Percy Sargent and Lionel Cormier arrived at the cabin only minutes after Michael's remains were found, yet neither man was questioned during the initial investigation, despite their connections to the cabin, the drug network, and the people who had been there on the night of the fire.

• 47:54Kylie Low?

  For years, a theory persisted that Michael had informed on Percy Sargent and caused the Holden drug bust that allegedly put the entire series of events that led to Michael's death into motion. Michael's family repeatedly asked the state to publicly clear his name, believing that whoever spread the informant accusation had helped put him in danger. Police at least gave the Cochrans that and later stated that Michael had never served as an informant. In September of 2006, long after the dismissed indictments and failed civil proceedings, Leola received a letter from William Stokes, then-chief of the Criminal Division in the Maine Attorney General's Office.

• 48:37Kylie Low?

  His assessment confirmed what she had understood for years. Prosecuting Michael's case would be extraordinarily difficult, in part because the cabin had not been treated as a homicide scene for a significant period after the fire. By the time investigators understood that someone had died there, evidence had likely been destroyed, contaminated, moved, or tampered with. The letter did not tell Leola who killed her son. It did not explain why Paul Pollard's account seemed to be accepted as truth, why Percy Sargent and Lionel Cormier were not initially questioned, or why so much potentially relevant information surfaced through unrelated criminal cases instead of Michael's murder investigation.

• 49:21Speaker 05

  It's a mess. It's a dirty mess.

• 49:27Kylie Low?

  For more than four decades, Michael's name has been surrounded by fire reports, drug cases, witness statements, court transcripts, and competing accusations. But behind all of that was Michael, who will always be Leola's little boy.

• 49:41Speaker 05

  The one thing I do remember, him in his crib. And when I'd go to pick him up, my hair was long. Little hand would come up and grab a tissue folder to hang my hair in.

• 49:57Kylie Low?

  As Michael grew older, life with him became unpredictable. He ran away often, but even when Michael disappeared for weeks or traveled thousands of miles away, Leola could believe his heart was still out there beating somewhere. His murder took that from her.

• 50:13Speaker 05

  Losing him forever was, I always knew he was somewhere on earth. But when I found out that he killed him, and I didn't know why, that was the hardest thing for me, was why? Why did they kill him?

• 50:32Kylie Low?

  Leola has never denied any of Michael's challenges, crimes, or convictions. She also never accepted the idea that those choices made his life disposable.

• 50:43Speaker 05

  What did he do that he deserved a death sentence?

• 50:48Kylie Low?

  Michael was 24 years old when he died. Leola has now lived with his absence for nearly twice as long as he was alive. The legal system has never given Leola the answer she spent half of her own life seeking. But Leola's definition of justice is no longer limited to an arrest or a courtroom. Is there a version of closure or justice for you in this lifetime? What would that look like?

• 51:16Speaker 05

  Tell what happened. Tell it. Expose it before I die.

• 51:27Kylie Low?

  Paul Pollard, Lionel Cormier, and Percy Sargent were never charged in connection with Michael Cochrane's death. Pollard denied killing Michael or setting the fire, and a civil jury found him not liable. Richard Sargent, Roger Johnson, and William Myers were indicted for murder and arson in 1984, but those charges were dismissed before trial. No one has ever been convicted of killing Michael Cochrane. If you have information about Michael Cochrane's death or the fire at the cabin, contact the Maine State Police Major Crimes Unit North at 207-973-3750, or toll-free at 1-800-432-7381.

• 52:11Kylie Low?

  Anonymous tips can also be submitted by texting M-E-S-P-T-I-P, followed by your information, to 847411. Even a detail that seemed insignificant at the time could help investigators understand what happened inside that cabin on February 18, 1981. Thank you for listening to Dark Down East. You can find all source material for this case at darkdowneast.com. Be sure to follow the show on Instagram, @darkdowneast.

• 52:53Kylie Low?

  This platform is for the families and friends who have lost their loved ones and for those who are still searching for answers. I'm not about to let those names or their stories get lost with time. I'm Kylie Low, and this is Dark Down East. Dark Down East is a production of Kylie Media and AudioChuck. I think Chuck would approve.

• 53:20Speaker 06

  If anyone wanted to commit a murder, up here would be the greatest place in the world to hide the body. But soon they'll find it.

• 53:34Speaker 01

  He acted friendly. He talked friendly. He sounded friendly. They all knew that I did the scary boogie stuff, and they said, maybe she'll

• 53:44Speaker 05

  find out where this girl is. I saw him violent. Backhanded her. Pow!

• 53:52Speaker 01

  Listen to The Devil's Quarry, Season Two, in the Bone Valley feed on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.