An accused killer's surprising defense. A pharmacist on trial for poisoning. And a medical examiner's strategy for cracking cold cases.

0:01Good morning. You're listening in to Dateline's morning meeting in 30 Rockefeller Center. Also, Tex got released, Tex McIver. He's free, he's out. It's over. Our editorial team is catching up on breaking crime news around the country. And she got about a$6 million payout from the perpetrators. What was Tex's motive? Karen Reed, that dog bite testimony. It's in. Welcome to Dateline True Crime Weekly. I'm Andrea Canning. It's January 16th, and here's what's on our docket. In West Virginia, a small-town pharmacist who made national headlines after being convicted of masterminding a multi-million dollar scam is back in court for allegedly poisoning her husband.

0:45The theory is that Natalie was concerned that Michael had discovered the Ponzi scheme and was going to come forward and expose her. In Dateline Roundup, all the details from Alec Baldwin's explosive lawsuit against New Mexico prosecutors and investigators involved in the Rust trial. And Lori Vallow-Daybell, a.k.a. Mommy Doomsday, is back in court, this time defending herself. These are serious charges, and these are serious consequences for these charges. Plus, a former medical examiner tells us how hard it really is to get a cause of death from a body, especially a skeleton. It's the same when you have a dead body one day or 100 years dead.

1:26You need to know the context. But before all that, we're heading back to a Tennessee courtroom and a story we first told you about last week. 24-year-old Jason Chen is on trial, accused of stabbing his girlfriend to death two years ago. Only now, his defense team is saying she attacked him.

1:46This week, we heard opening statements in a Chattanooga courtroom for Jason Chen's murder trial. He's accused of killing 22-year-old Jasmine Pace. But the jury is from somewhere else. They've been bused in from Nashville, and it's a two-hour trip. They are sequestered for this trial. All of that is because when Jasmine went missing over Thanksgiving in 2022, her face was all over TV, including on our affiliate WRCB Local 3 News. Now take another good hard look at your screen. Jasmine is about five feet tall. She has several tattoos on her right arm and shoulder. or anyone with information on where Jasmine may be is asked to call the Chattanooga Police Department.

2:26Jasmine's body was found about a week later in a suitcase on the side of the road. By then, her boyfriend Jason had already been arrested, and his face was all over the news too. But it felt like only the prosecution's case was getting airtime. District Attorney Cody Womb argued for no bond, calling him a flight risk. And anywhere this defendant goes, we know based on proof presented today, the community is less safe. Jason Chen has pleaded not guilty to charges of first-degree murder and abuse of a corpse. And on Monday, the jury and Jasmine's mother, who was the first to point the finger at Jason, heard his side of the story for the first time.

3:03It was laid out during the defense's opening statement. Dateline producer Mario Garcia was there. Mario, thanks for coming on. Thanks for having me, Andrea. We talked on the podcast last week about this case. Remind us of the prosecution's argument. The prosecution's argument is that Jasmine disappeared the night that she went to her boyfriend's house, was never heard from again. And her boyfriend, the person she was seeing at the time, was involved. Yeah, so there were signs. They had gotten in a loud fight, you know, late at night at his apartment. Her neighbors heard a woman screaming, and then she drops a pin to her mom on her phone.

3:43Yeah, her mom didn't see it until a couple days later. And frantic family members had already gone down the road of trying to kind of self-investigate the case because they felt that police weren't helping them as much as they wanted. Yeah, investigators weren't even the first people in Jason's apartment. Her mom, Katrina, goes to the location and starts, as you said, playing detective. This family got into the apartment, maybe illegally, maybe not. But what Katrina said on the stand is Jasmine's father, Travis Pace, used the credit card to actually Jimmy open the door. And then they went in. I didn't think that actually worked.

4:19And she found Jasmine's driver's license, credit card. You know, she took some things from the apartment, including his phone. She took iPad. She took notebooks. This is not the way things usually happen. Was the prosecutor's opening statement what you expected? Were there any surprises? What do you think the tone was that they wanted to set for the jury? The prosecutors came out of the gate in a way that I have not really ever seen before. It was impressive. This is the suitcase in which Jason Chin stuffed the 98-pound body of Desmond. That's where I'm going to begin the story. The district attorney wanted to get in front of the issue of mom breaking into Jason's apartment.

5:10You know, we got to just address the elephant in the room right away. Yeah. I mean, they very craftily said this is a distraught mother and family that did what anybody else would do. The defense, they had an opening statement that I did not see coming. Well, you're not the only one, Andrew. In the early morning hours of November 23rd, 2022, Jason Chen killed Jasmine Pace. They said he's guilty of killing her, but he's not guilty of killing her the way that the state has said. He didn't do it with premeditation. The defense is saying voluntary manslaughter, a state of passion produced by provocation.

5:52What does the defense say happened? They said they were dating in a relationship. She came over and they did what they always do. They had some wine, they smoked some weed, and then they say that his phone was in the kitchen, he was in the bedroom. His phone started making that unique pinging that Tinder sounds make. She saw that he was communicating with other women on Tinder. She got really upset. A glass and a wine bottle got broken. She came at him and he was trying to defend himself. And then he blacked out. And when he came to, she was dead. And then he panicked more and he disposed of the body.

6:28The defense also indicated that Chen was worried about the shame that he would bring to his family. Jason Chen is a first-generation Chinese-American. His parents worked at a Chinese restaurant. One very hard to bring him up. Well, you know, he is the son of immigrants, and so am I. You know, there are things that happen in personal psychologies that can make somebody act in certain ways. Is that what happened here? I don't know. Jason decides that he has to cover the sun. He has to hide what he's done. Yeah. The prosecution's first witness was Katrina, Jasmine's mom. How was she handled by the prosecution and the defense?

7:14She got up there and she held her own. She was very stern and strong and answered the questions. And then what did you do? So went back in. So what? So what? to get whatever, anything that I thought I could use to help find my daughter. The defense tried to trip her up. You said the two of you or the four of you, how many was it that went in? Who actually used the credit card to break into the apartment? You said you would do anything to find your daughter? Wouldn't you? Of course. Okay. To find my daughter? Yes. Are you quiet at this? I was just trying to find my daughter. You hurt yourself, I thought.

8:01I had it hurt myself. After Katrina's testimony, who else did the prosecution call? They called the manager of the Walgreens. They called the manager of the Walmart. Places that Jason went to buy things that the prosecution says were used to cover up the crime. The law enforcement folks, the lead detective. One of the things that you're learning in Tennessee is that these jurors are able to ask questions as the trial goes along. Does the jury have any questions for an investigator, Crocker? They have been submitting questions, and then the judge calls the prosecutors and defense attorneys up. They go over what's going to be allowed, and the judge then asks the questions of the witness before they leave the stand.

8:47The receipt from Walmart shows asparagus. The video shows no asparagus was purchased. Was this investigated further and, if so, relevant to the case? It did not have relevancy in terms of the arrest of the investigation. You don't usually get to see what the jury is thinking in real time. Yeah, normally you're just kind of looking for facial expressions, emotion, you know, anything you can. Who's sleeping, who's taking notes. Right. And the judge keeps thanking them for being such a plugged-in jury. It's really fascinating. All right. This is a tough one, Mario. Thank you for coming back on the podcast and breaking it all down for us.

9:27I'm happy to be here anytime you all want me to be. Up next, the long-awaited trial of a West Virginia pharmacist accused of poisoning her husband with insulin gets underway. We've got the latest from Inside the Courtroom.

9:48For our next story, we're heading back to West Virginia for a trial many years in the making. We talked about this story on the podcast last fall. It's a complicated case where one crime, fraud, to the tune of$2.5 million, allegedly turned into another, murder. In September 2019, Natalie Cochran, a pharmacist from the small town of Daniels, West Virginia, was indicted on multiple counts of fraud. The charges came just months after her husband Michael died suddenly. The victims of the scam were primarily friends and family who thought they were investing in the Cochran's business. Natalie pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 11 years in federal prison.

10:30That wasn't the end of the story. Just two years later, Natalie was charged with a new crime, her husband's murder. Prosecutors said Natalie poisoned Michael with a vial of insulin. She has pleaded not guilty. And this week, after several delays, including multiple exhumations of Michael's body, the trial finally began. Dateline producer Jay Young was in West Virginia this week and called us from the courthouse to tell us about what went down. Jay, thanks for joining us again this week. Thanks for having me. So to start, can you just quickly remind us of the circumstances of Michael's death? Let me take you back to February of 2019.

11:08Michael Cochran suddenly becomes ill. He collapses at his home. And from all accounts, he is having a seizure. Ultimately, they get Michael to a hospital. Michael is subjected to a battery of tests. They are able to determine that he is hypoglycemic, which means his blood sugar levels are very low, dangerously low. And then five days later, after he is sent to a hospice, he tragically dies. And the state medical examiner's office, they rule it natural causes at the time? Yeah, the medical examiner ruled the cause of death was natural. Okay, but investigators weren't totally buying that ruling, and they began to suspect that there could be some foul play here with Michael.

11:58People start to scratch their heads a little bit about Michael's death. Michael was 38 years old, and he was in pretty good shape. And unrelated to Michael's death, investigators are getting wind of some problems that are associated with Michael and Natalie's business. investors are starting to complain a little bit wondering where what's happening to their investments and so authorities they start looking into this business and then ultimately get a search warrant to search michael and natalie's house and what they find was a vial of insulin in the kitchen refrigerator. And ultimately, investigators come up with a theory.

12:47Natalie poisoned Michael with insulin. Natalie was concerned that Michael had discovered that the company was actually a fraud, was a Ponzi scheme. And Natalie was concerned Michael was going to come forward and expose her. And was it, is it 100 % proven that he died from insulin? They were unable to find insulin in Michael's body when they exhumed it months later. Cut to 2023, the prosecution decides they want to exhume Michael's body again to test his remains with more sophisticated tests. And this time, the pathologist that the state hired to examine the remains ruled that Michael's manner of death was homicide.

13:38Now, the state went even further and had an endocrinologist review some of the paperwork, and she determined that the cause of death was most likely due to insulin injections. So there was no trace evidence of insulin. This case, as we said, has been going on for a long time. Jury selection was hotly anticipated. You were there, Jay, in the courtroom. You know, Andrea, you've been through this so many times. I have too. It's a very solemn occasion. Everybody's very quiet. Everyone is really deferential. The prospective jurors were sitting in the jury box, and then the prosecution enters, sits down at their desk, and then in comes Natalie Cochran.

14:20And you can see Natalie looking over at the prospective jurors. You can only wonder what's going through her mind. Yeah, you're certainly trying to win over some very important strangers in your life. And there's something really interesting that the prosecutor pointed out that we've heard about before, you know, the CSI effect with jurors that they need DNA, they need video or witnesses. You know, in this case, the prosecutor warned them that there's almost no direct evidence. Yeah, that's exactly what the prosecution said. And by and large, the prospective jurors said, no, I'm OK. I understand that you have direct evidence and you have circumstantial evidence.

15:03And one is not more important than the other. That was the general consensus on the part of the prospective panel. So opening statements began on Wednesday morning. It may be no surprise the prosecution hit hard on what they say was Natalie's motive. As many deceptions and lies as were told to her victims of the Ponzi scheme, Michael Cochran was told Justice Manning. He did not know what was going on, but he was determined to find out. There's no question that the prosecution has to work with a case that does not have direct evidence. But what they do have is a defendant who is a convicted felon serving 11 years.

15:47And if she can defraud her family, loved ones, investors, there's no telling what she can do. That's going to be their argument. This defendant is a pharmacist. She knows about medications and drugs. She knew the impact insulin would make. The defense told a very different story in their opening statement. He was involved in the Ponzi scheme. He knew about multi-million dollar purchases, the toys, the houses, trips to Paris, trips to Hawaii, expensive, lavish lifestyle. And you have to ask yourself at the end of the case, he didn't know about it? Really? They argue Michael was well aware of the fraudulent nature of the business.

16:36So Natalie would have no reason to want to kill him. Jay, thank you for staying on this and for bringing us this key information in this all around sad case. Well, thank you for having me, Andrea. I really appreciate it. Next, it's Dateline Roundup. and Alec Baldwin is on the offensive with his blockbuster lawsuit against the prosecutor who charged him in the Rust movie set shooting death. And Lori Vallow Daybell appears in court as her own defense attorney. How did she do? Plus, a veteran medical examiner on the challenge of cold case autopsies.

17:23Joining me for this week's Roundup is Dateline producer Rachel White. Hey, Rachel. Hi, Andrea. Okay, so first up, we're off to New Mexico, where actor Alec Baldwin has filed a lawsuit against a whole lot of people involved in the criminal case brought against him in connection to the shooting on his Rust movie back in 2021. Rachel, for anyone who doesn't know this story, and I think most of America does, just remind everyone what happened. Sure. So Baldwin was holding a prop gun rehearsing for a scene when somehow the gun fired and it happened to contain live ammo. And that bullet killed the film's cinematographer, Helena Hutchins.

18:04In 2024, Baldwin ended up standing trial on charges of involuntary manslaughter. Right. And I remember we covered this trial, of course, on the podcast. And there was this dramatic moment when everything just stopped and the judge ordered the jury to go home so she could investigate claims that the prosecution had deliberately withheld evidence from Baldwin's defense team. That's right. And the prosecution said that the evidence was unimportant, but the judge found otherwise and dismissed the case with prejudice. If this conduct does not rise to the level of bad faith, it certainly comes so near to bad faith as to show signs of scorching.

18:43Prejudice. Some people would just walk away, you know, after getting off of something like this. But not Alec Baldwin. He's taken action. Yeah. Last week, he filed a 73-page civil lawsuit against several members of the prosecution team, accusing them of conspiring to cause his, quote, malicious prosecution and violating his civil rights. He says the defendants were driven by ill motives, including to, quote, harass or humble him. Baldwin has asked for damages and a jury trial. Right. And we should just quickly note here that the defendants have yet to file a response in court. But one of the prosecutors, Carrie Morrissey, told NBC News that they look forward to their day in court.

19:25We will keep you posted on that one. Lori Vallow Daybell, so-called Mommy Doomsday. There is news about her. She's back in court and this time she's representing herself. Do you want me to stand, Your Honor, or can I just sit here? You can sit there. Yeah, and it was really something to watch. If you remember back in 2023, Daybell was sentenced to life in prison for the murders of her two children, JJ and Tylee, and for her involvement in the death of Tammy Daybell, who was her husband's wife. So that meant that she was arguing her case before the judge, but she was wearing an orange jumpsuit and handcuffs while doing so.

20:01And why is she back in court? So these court proceedings are for murder charges that she's facing in Arizona. So she's charged with the murder of her fourth husband, a man named Charles Vallow, and for the attempted murder of the ex-husband of her niece. I'm so curious. How did she do representing herself? Well, she was definitely confident. The state has continued to impede the defense from conducting a defense. She claimed prosecutors might be withholding evidence. This is a violation of the 14th Amendment of our great Constitution and the defense's due process rights. And she asked for all the discovery related to her extradition from Idaho to Arizona.

20:40How was her request received by the judge? The judge was pretty firm with Lori, asking her why her extradition documents have anything to do with the underlying charges against her in Arizona. And he ultimately denied this motion. Finally, we have an update in a disturbing story out of Wisconsin known as the Slender Man case. Some people may remember this story from 2014. Two tweens stabbed their friend 19 times, Rachel. That's right. They were only 12 years old when they lured their friend Peyton Lightner into the woods and attacked her. Leitner just barely survived, and she was able to tell investigators that her friends Anissa Weyer and Morgan Geyser had tried to stab her to death.

21:25Investigators caught up with her attackers, and they admitted what they'd done, but they had a bizarre reason. They told investigators they were trying to become servants of Slenderman. And Slenderman apparently is a fictional character that's become somewhat of an urban legend. They allegedly learned about this character on a horror story website. So disturbing. Both Geyser and Weyer were sent to psychiatric centers after pleading guilty to intentional homicide charges. Weyer was granted supervised release in 2021. And the big news now is that Geyser is going to be released as well. That's right.

21:59In last week's hearing, psychologists who have been working with Geyser testified about the significant progress made. Even Geyser's attorney was emotional after the ruling. I think she'll be, she's got a lot of talents. I think she's going to be a good person in the community. I think she's going to thrive. Has Peyton Leitner or her family said anything about Geyser's release? Peyton Leitner's mother listened in on last week's hearing and has opposed Geyser's several attempts to be released. Rachel, thank you so much for these updates. Thank you for having me. After learning more this week about the trial of West Virginia pharmacist Natalie Cochran accused of poisoning her husband, we got curious about the make or break role medical examiners can play in cold cases and how difficult it can be trying to figure out someone's cause of death years, sometimes decades after they've died.

22:50So for our final story this week, we asked Dr. Mary Jembelic, the former chief medical examiner of Onondaga County in New York, who has conducted thousands of autopsies in her 25-year career, to give us the basics. Mary, thank you so much for joining us again. Hello, Andrea. So, Mary, what is the first thing you do when you are asked to look into the case of someone who's been dead for a while? Well, as in any case that we evaluate as medical examiner, we consider the scene investigation along with whatever evidence we have, the body or whatever is left of the body, maybe photos we're taking. The medical examiner will consider all of that in its totality.

23:30Just like if you go into a doctor's office and you say, just figure out what's wrong with me. It's the same when you have a dead body one day or 100 years dead. You need to know the context. If you're looking at human remains, can you tell if someone has been shot or stabbed or strangled at that point? How hard is it? You have to learn how to interpret the decaying body as well as the skeletonized body. Because a gunshot wound, a stab wound, they may leave marks on the bone that you can detect. and they'll be present for many, many decades. There have been evaluations of, you know, mummies in terms of how did they die.

24:11The bones carry a lot of information. And if someone is poisoned, can the remains still carry some of that poison or is it too late? Certainly the remains can carry the poison, but it depends on the poison. There are so many drugs and chemicals and toxins in the world. So I think the first thing with the poisoning is you have to have a suspicion of it. So that you're making sure you look for the category of poison that you're suspicious about. Now, that being said, as the body decays, so does the blood, so do chemicals in the body. And so it becomes harder to test for those. We were just talking on the podcast about the trial of Natalie Cochran.

24:50She's accused of fatally poisoning her husband, Michael, with insulin back in 2019. The state medical examiner's office initially ruled that Michael died from natural causes. The prosecutor went up against that ruling by the medical examiner. Well, certainly. I mean, I've been on multiple sides of that particular dilemma where my ruling may be questioned and maybe the police and I don't agree. But the medical examiner may have a reason for that determination or may not have considered the insulin overdose because it's a very subtle thing. Yeah, and in the Natalie Cochran case, prosecutors exhumed her husband's body to run forensic tests.

25:32There must be a lot of thought that goes into that decision. How common is it for cold cases to involve exhumations? I don't think exhumations are that easy to occur, especially legally. There has to be a certain burden of proof of the need to do it to further the case. But I've been involved in those court-ordered exhumations. And sometimes if there is trauma to the skeleton, then it's very worthwhile because you can show that and document that. And you can show the absence of that if that's important as well. But I always say that it isn't so much that you can't kill someone without leaving a trace.

26:12You can. What's really hard to get rid of is your motive. And so if you have a motive to kill someone and someone suspects that, then forensics is there to figure it out. Mary Jim Bellick, thank you so much for coming back. Thank you very much, Andrea. Yeah. That's it for this episode of Dateline True Crime Weekly. Next week, we'll have tips from NBC's senior consumer investigative correspondent Vicki Wynn on how to avoid disaster-related scams. Whether you're looking for help or trying to give it, we'll tell you what to watch out for. And coming up this Friday on Dateline, Keith Morrison has a brand new story.

26:51After a wealthy Georgia man's body is found on his sprawling estate, Investigators uncover a trove of family secrets and unmask a killer. In some shape or form, Gary had close ties or disagreements with all the family members relating to money. Watch Keith's story, A Little Patch of Perfect, airing this Friday on NBC at 9, 8 central or stream it Saturday on Peacock. And if you're looking for Deadly Mirage, Josh's story, which was supposed to air last Friday but got preempted by our coverage of the wildfires in L.A., You can see it this Sunday on NBC at 9, 8 Central. To get ad-free listening for all our podcasts, subscribe to Dateline Premium.