Wife who poisoned husband over a $2M Ponzi scheme becomes first West Virginian woman in 3 decades denied mercy by the court

A West Virginia jury declared Natalie Cochran guilty in February of the 2019 murder of her husband, Michael Cochran, following a high-profile trial aired on CourtTV. Her motive: to cover up a $2 million Ponzi scheme she ran involving nonexistant government defense-industry contracts. Natalie has now been sentenced to life in prison for her husband’s death.

When Michael’s murder trial began, Natalie, now 44, was already serving an 11-year prison sentence after pleading guilty in 2020 for wire fraud and money laundering. Natalie’s murder charges came one year later. In addition to the CourtTV coverage, Natalie and Michael’s story has been told in a 20/20 episode, “Small Town/Big Con,” now streaming on Hulu.

As prosecutors convinced the jury at Natalie’s murder trial, Michael, who was 38 when he died, likely began to catch on to his wife’s fraud, leaving Natalie only one choice: murder him. In 2019, Michael was transported unconscious to a local hospital, where he was pronounced dead from swelling of the brain, with fatally low glucose levels.

Officials at first declared Michael died of natural causes. However, as the extent of Natalie’s financial crimes came to light, leading to Natalie’s 2020 guilty plea to financial crimes related to the Cochran family business, Tactical Solutions Group (TSG), authorities took another look, discovering evidence Natalie, a former pharmacist, purposefully injected Michael with non-prescribed insulin, killing him.

“Since Michael’s murder, Natalie’s evil and sinister deeds have caused overwhelming damage — on our lives and so many good and decent lives,” Michael’s mom, Donna Bolt, said in court at Natalie’s trial, according to TheRealWV. “Lives that will forever cast a shadow of sadness,” she added. “Michael Brandon was my only son, and I loved him and so adored him,” Bolt said.

TSG origins

Two years before Michael’s death, the Cochrans’ future seemed bright. In 2017, Natalie quit her pharmacy job to devote herself full-time to TSG. This family business ostensibly sold weapons and other goods to the U.S. government, and Michael had a minority stake.

Natalie buoyed the business with six-figure loans from friends and family, promising handsome returns, even though she and Michael didn’t have any weapons industry experience, much like the 2016 comedy War Dogs, starring Jonah Hill and Miles Teller. Never mind the fact that Hill and Teller’s characters wind up in prison.

For a time, all seemed well as the Cochrans acquired real estate, vacationed in exotic places, and otherwise lived in luxury, as bank documents estimated the value of the Cochran’s company at $500 million.

But before long, cracks appeared in the TSG facade. First, thousands disappeared from a middle school baseball team account Natalie oversaw, which she couldn’t account for, and then TSG investors questioned when those promised returns would materialize.

TSG existed only on paper

Michael Cochran's mom, Donna Bolt, asked that her son's murderer, Natalie Cochran, be given no mercy and spend life in prison. https://t.co/M0kES3owU2 pic.twitter.com/bEylsZEeQd

— Court TV (@CourtTV) January 30, 2025

Like all Ponzi schemes, those investor returns would never come because there never were government contracts: TSG only existed on paper, and prosecutors built a case that Michael was just as unaware of the fraud his wife perpetrated as everyone else. For a time, Natalie covered her tracks: The payments would come as soon as the government followed through on their commitments, she said. She even claimed to need money for cancer treatment, though according to the prosecution, Natalie’s diagnosis was never real, and Michael knew it.

According to CBS News, Michael’s body was exhumed, and tests showed he died of a lethal dose of insulin, and his death was declared a homicide. After she was found guilty, Natalie is now the first West Virginia woman convicted of murder since 1991 to not be granted mercy by the court, WVNSTV reported.

Referring to the Cochrain family before Michael’s death, Raleigh County Prosecuting Attorney Tom Truman said, “We had the traditional ‘Christian’ household, where the man is in charge, the man calls all the shots, but this defendant was so good at manipulating and deceiving people that she was calling the shots the whole time.”