Friend adamant: Michael Cochran needed medical care (2025)

Michael Cochran’s friends, who testified Thursday in the trial of his wife, his accused murderer, said they knew nothing of the alleged foreign supplements Michael allegedly consumed, which the defense claims were linked to his death.

To the contrary, witnesses said it was Michael’s wife, Natalie Cochran, who brought up Michael’s alleged use of Mexican supplements to friends. She is accused of first-degree murder for the 2019 death of her husband and is on trial in Raleigh County Circuit Court in Beckley.

Prosecutors have alleged that Natalie killed Michael by injecting him with insulin in order to prevent him from learning about a multi-million-dollar Ponzi scheme whose victims included the Cochrans’ immediate family and friends.

A few years after Michael’s death, Natalie pleaded guilty to crimes associated with the Ponzi scheme and was sentenced in 2021 to 11 years in federal prison.

Natalie’s appointed defense attorneys have argued that Michael was aware of and involved in the Ponzi scheme, negating the prosecution’s alleged motive.

Her defense has also placed focus on the supplements they allege Michael was taking prior to his death, which Natalie’s defense attorney, Matthew Victor, said included drugs intended for use in animals and supplements from Mexico, as well as steroids and insulin used by Michael to gain muscle mass.

Chris Davis, a well-known attorney in Beckley, who testified Thursday for the prosecution, said Michael was “one of my best friends.”

Chris said he had known Michael since 2011 and that the pair texted almost daily.

Several times during the hour that Chris testified, he had to pause to regain his composure.

However, Chris eventually broke down in tears and was then immediately released from testifying after the prosecution showed him a picture from Feb. 6, 2019, of Michael, passed out on the floor of the Cochrans’ kitchen in Daniels.

The photo, taken by Natalie around noon on Feb. 6, 2019, shows Michael hunched over on the floor of the kitchen after passing out. In the photo, one side of Michael’s face is pressed to the floor and slightly wedged under a kitchen cabinet, with his knees bent and near his chest.

The photo was introduced Wednesday during testimony by Jennifer Davis, Chris’s wife. Jennifer said Natalie sent her the photo.

Chris was one of at least half a dozen people whom Natalie texted on the day Michael passed out in their home in Daniels on Feb. 6, 2019.

Chris was also the one who insisted that Michael be taken to a hospital on the night of Feb. 6, 2019, after visiting the Cochran home sometime after 7 p.m. and finding Michael unresponsive.

“I remember a question, ‘You really think he should go?’ – Yes, he needs to go, and he’s gonna go now, and I’m going to take him,” Chris said. “And that’s exactly what I did.”

Michael would die five days later, on Feb. 11, 2019, at a Hospice facility in Raleigh County.

According to witness testimony from Wednesday and Thursday, several of Michael and Natalie’s friends urged Natalie to take Michael to a hospital throughout the day on Feb. 6, 2019.

Those requests were brushed off, with Natalie allegedly saying she was going to let Michael “sleep it off” and that Michael hated hospitals.

Chris also spoke with Michael on Feb. 6, 2019, via text messages, according to screenshots of the messages projected on a screen in the courtroom during Chris’s testimony.

“I think I’m catching what (Natalie) has gonna lay at home and watch tv,” Michael wrote to Chris in a text time-stamped around 11 a.m. Wednesday, Feb. 6, 2019.

“That sucks dude! Just let me know whatever you need,” Chris replied.

Chris had already stopped by the Cochrans’ house that morning because his wife had instructed him to drop off what he described as a “flu care package” for Natalie and Michael.

Chris said he dropped the package at the front door and left without speaking to anyone.

The care package, prepared by Jennifer, contained drinks and a vial of insulin prescribed to Chris and Jennifer’s son, who is diabetic. Natalie texted Jennifer earlier in the day requesting insulin to treat her chemotherapy symptoms.

A little before noon, Chris begins receiving texts from Natalie which state that Michael “threw up in my sink and then collapsed talking crazy all vitals are good though just out of his head.”

She then starts asking if Chris has noticed Michael being “off” recently and that Michael told other people a few days ago that he “felt high and dizzy.”

“I really haven’t. I noticed he’s stressed but nothing crazy,” Chris responds, then asks, “He hasn’t been around anything has he? No mold etc? Just maybe supplements??”

“Only those stupid supplements and I saw he used the Mexican one this am! He’s apparently been sneaking,” Natalie writes back.

When asked by Raleigh County Prosecuting Attorney Tom Truman about the “Mexican” supplements Natalie references in the texts, Chris said he knew nothing about them.

“So this is the first time I’ve ever heard of anything about a Mexican supplement was on that day,” Chris said. “I’ve never heard (Michael) talk anything about supplements from Mexico or anywhere else.”

Truman then asks, “So the sole source of that information is the defendant?”

“That is correct,” Chris said, adding that the only supplements he recalls Michael talking about were from GNC, a chain store known to sell health products and nutritional supplements.

There is a GNC in Raleigh County, where the Cochrans’ lived, at Crossroads Mall.

Chris also said he never heard of Michael taking steroids or insulin for bodybuilding.

Stephanie Hamilton, a friend of the Cochrans who also testified Thursday, said Natalie mentioned Michael taking the “supplements from Mexico” when Hamilton was at the Cochrans’ house on Feb. 6, 2019, to check on Michael.

Hamilton, who is a physician assistant, said Natalie later sent her a link to the Mexican supplements but that the supplements in the link were not from Mexico.

Chris said Natalie, a pharmacist at the time, prepared and managed Michael’s supplements and prescriptions.

Jennifer made a similar statement when she testified on Wednesday.

However, Victor, the defense attorney, alleged to Jennifer that Natalie did not have access to all of the medicine or supplements Michael was taking.

“Would it surprise you to know that Michael has his own medicine cabinet that nobody had access to?” Victor asked Jennifer.

“Yes,” Jennifer said.

While questioning Chris on Thursday, Victor spent a great deal of time asking about the two or three times that Michael was hospitalized in the fall of 2018.

Chris said he remembers Michael being hospitalized in November 2018 and diagnosed with mold exposure contracted from a home Michael was renovating.

Having some knowledge of those hospitalizations, Victor asked Chris if Michael was in the same condition on the day he passed out on Feb. 6, 2019, as when he went to the hospital in Nov. 2018.

“No, he did not,” Chris said. “Because in February of 2019, he was unresponsive. In November of 2018, he was talking to me, vomiting and participating in wanting to go to the hospital.”

Chris said the doctors treating Michael in Nov. 2018 determined that he’d been exposed to mold and, as a result, was having seizures, which they intended to treat with prescribed medication.

In text messages to friends displayed in court, Natalie alleged that Michael had stopped taking the seizure medication.

Chris was also questioned heavily by the defense regarding the administering of insulin to his son.

Questions like: Who was allowed to inject him with insulin, how often did he get insulin injections, what’s the highest amount of insulin he was injected with at one time, and had he ever passed out after receiving an insulin injection?

Chris stated that it was either himself or his wife giving their son insulin injections and that the amount depended on the situation – what their son had eaten and how his body had reacted.

To the question of whether his son had ever passed out after an insulin injection, Chris said, “Oh praise the Lord, no, he did not because (the insulin) was administered to him correctly.”

More details on the Cochrans’ planned trip to a Bank of America in Virginia on Feb. 6, 2019, were also revealed during witness testimony on Thursday.

Joshua Kearns, the pilot who was supposed to fly Michael and Natalie from Raleigh County to Lynchburg, Va., on Feb. 6, 2019, said he received a text from Natalie at around 6:30 a.m. the morning of the flight canceling the trip, which was to take place at 9 a.m.

Kearns said Natalie texted later that day about rescheduling the flight for the following day, but that trip was also canceled.

Also receiving an early morning cancellation notice on Feb. 6, 2019, was Court Nexsen, who worked for U.S. Trust, which is Bank of America’s private bank.

Nexsen said he was to meet with Natalie and Michael to set up an account with U.S. Trust and sign several documents, which had to be done in person.

He added that accounts with U.S. Trust were reserved for “high net worth individuals and families.”

While attempting to set up the account, Nexsen said he primarily dealt with Natalie through email, though Michael was cc’d on many of the exchanges.

Nexsen said he’s unsure if the Cochrans were ever able to fully establish an account with the bank, though he’s aware of “bad checks” that were written by Natalie in March 2019.

“When the bad checks were written, we stopped communicating, and we flagged it to our fraud department,” he said.

Natalie and Michael owned Tactical Solutions Group (TSG) in Beckley, which they advertised as making millions through government contracts with the U.S. Department of Defense.

However, the business never completed a single government contract and was instead funded by financial investments made by the couple’s family, friends and other local residents.

The prosecution has alleged that Natalie was the brains behind the entire scheme and that Michael believed their company was receiving funds legitimately from government contracts.

It was also revealed Thursday that Michael’s mother, Donna Bolt, will not be testifying for the prosecution.

After the lunch break on Thursday, Truman presented the court with a letter from Bolt indicating that she was aware of what was testified to on Wednesday, which is not allowed.

As a result, Truman said he did not think he could call Bolt as a witness. Not long after, Bolt appeared in the gallery of the courtroom and sat beside her husband, who had been present in the courtroom since witness testimony began on Wednesday.

Bolt and Natalie’s immediate family have all been absent from the courtroom since the trial started because they have been subpoenaed to testify.