20/20 on ABC: Who is Natalie Cochran and what did she do?

On the latest episode of 20/20 titled The Natalie Cochran Trial, airing on February 14, 2025, the ABC true crime show will be showing the case of Natalie Cochran, a pharmacist from West Virginia, who was accused and later proven guilty of poisoning her husband so that he did not discover the Ponzi scheme she had been running.

Michael Cochran, Natalie’s husband, died out of nowhere in February 2019. The sudden and unexpected death of a seemingly healthy man had naturally sparked concerns and eventually Natalie’s involvement with her husband’s death came to light.

Ultimately, in February 2025, Natalie was proven to be guilty of killing her husband by injecting him with insulin, which was not prescribed by any medical authority. As the latest 20/20 episode, co-anchored by Deborah Roberts provided detailed insight on this case, let us now explore Natalie Cochran’s identity and her crime in detail.

Also Read: 20/20 on ABC: What happened to Michael Shaver?

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Natalie Cochran poisoned her husband to kill him as shown on 20/20

Natalie and Michael Cochran had been together since high school and married each other in college. They seemed to have the perfect lover story, from high school sweethearts to life partners.

After they both completed graduation, Michael started his professional life as a computer specialist and Natalie went on to become a pharmacist. Till this point, things were going rather smoothly. However, after the couple got into a business that seemed to flourish extremely well, things took a dark turn.

With the money coming in, the lifestyle change was evidently visible in the lives of the Cochran’s. However, after one point, Michael grew suspicious of all the cash flow and that alarmed Natalie who was actually involved in a Ponzi scheme worth $2 million and defrauded not only Michael’s family members but also other investors.

When confronted by Michael, Natalie took a rather drastic decision. Not wanting to face the aftermath of what she had been doing, she decided to kill Michael. It took five days for Michael to die and on the day he died Natalie did not take him to the doctors even though he was seriously sick.

Prosecutors of the case revealed that Natalie had injected insulin in Michael’s system to murder him. She had also admitted that she did run that Ponzi scheme for two years, starting from 2017 and going till 2019 and her main motivation behind killing her husband was to prevent him from finding the truth.

Natalie being given a life sentence for first degree murder comes as a huge closure for Michael’s family. After the final verdict was announced by the Raleigh County jurors, Michael’s mother Donna mentioned,

“It’s been a long time coming. February the 11th of 2025 will be six years that Michael Brandon has been murdered. This has been a very long, hard battle and we just thank everybody. God’s plan has been fulfilled today. Justice is done for Michael Brandon.”

The verdict made Natalie have a breakdown as was shown on Court TV, which was live streaming the whole session.

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20/20 can be streamed on Hulu.