MAINE STATE POLICE COVER-UP MIKE COCHRAN MURDER

On Feb. 21, 2022, A NEWS CENTER in Maine made a public request for information on Mike's murder on behalf of the Maine State Police


Below is the NEWS CENTER'S  public request that says  the police are pushing for answers to help solve the 41-year-old case

Police seek justice for unsolved death of Dedham man

"Michael Cochran, 24, was found among the rubble of a burned-out cabin in Dedham on Feb. 24, 1981. Police are pushing for answers to help solve the 41-[44] year-old cold case killing of Michael Cochran of Dedham. In a Facebook post, Maine State Police detectives said the 24-year-old man’s body was discovered among the rubble of a burned-out cabin in Dedham on Feb. 24, 1981. Police said they believe the cabin was burned on Feb. 18, 1981. Police ruled his death a homicide, and the case has remained unsolved. Police are asking anyone with information about Cochran’s murder to call the Maine State Police Major Crimes Unit at 207-973-3750."
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I am Mike Cochran's mother. I was 88 years old on July 24, 2024. In 1981 when Mike was murdered I was 44. I have spent half my life trying to get justice for Mike. I was first told Mike's death was an accident. I spent years trying to find out what happened the night he was murdered while begging the Maine State Police for help, to no avail. There have been no justice for Mike and I have been told by the Attorney General's Office that there won't be any because the police bungled Mike's case. I would like help to tell what I uncovered during my many years of fighting for justice for my son, Mike.

NEWS CENTER MAINE says "the police said they believe the cabin burned on Feb. 18, 1981." And also say "the Police are asking anyone with information about Cochran’s murder" to contact them. I will give them some information concerning Cochran's murder on Feb. 18, 1981, while knowing they will just ignore all information about Mike's murder as they have done the last 43 years.  
 
But first I want to say that I received a letter on Sept. 5, 2006 (eighteen years ago) from Deputy Attorney General William Stokes telling me that Mike's murder could not be prosecuted and why.  Reporter Eric Russell in his Dec. 3, 2017 article wrote “Detective Coleman [a new and honest detective assigned Mike's murder case in 2002, 21 years after Mike's death.] has done outstanding work on this case but there remains tremendous difficulties with prosecuting this case particularly in view of the fact that the ‘homicide scene’ was not treated as such until a significant period of time after your son’s death, potentially jeopardizing important evidence in the meantime.'"
     "Twenty-five-years after Mike's murder the state's top homicide prosecutor admitted that Maine State Police had bungled Mike's murder investigation from the beginning."
     Now, the Maine State Police are  "asking anyone with information about Cochran's murder to call" them.  What would they do with the information since the Maine Attorney General's Office has said that the case cannot be prosecuted?  The Maine State Police asking for information is a false display.

I believe the murder investigation of my son, Mike, was bungled starting on the morning he was found, Feb. 24, 1981, under a six-day-old pile of fire rubble.  A cottage in Dedham where Mike was staying was set on fire on Feb. 18, 1981 at 3:30 am in the morning.  Paul Pollard was the only person in the cottage with Mike and when the fire chief arrived on the arson scene he saw Paul Pollard fleeing into the woods. The fire inspector arrived but had orders from headquarters to by-pass the Dedham arson and go to a fire out of his jurisdiction. It was the 24th before he was free to return to the Dedham arson.  He was digging through the pile of fire rubble looking for hinges to the door when he discovered Mike's body. Fire personal took Notes. The first note says "Norm [Fire Chief Norman Herrin] saw male subject running in woods wiping hands. Tracks looked like went to the main road where subject was picked up. Tracks came from building only." The second note names Lionel Cormier and Percy Sargent and says at "1200 hr - 2-24-81 - roped off - Fire scene awaiting D.A. [David Cox] and 952 (CID III) to follow up investigation relative to this being a homicide." I believe this note disputes Deputy AG Stokes information that "the 'homicide scene' was not treated as such until a significant period of time after your son's death."
    When Det. Shuman, lead detective on the case, arrived on the murder scene he said there was no need for the crime lab to respond." I believe this was the beginning of the cover-up.
     The Maine State Police had a "Crime Laboratory [that] served Maine since 1926. "Our services are offered to all law enforcement agencies operating within the borders of Maine. The Crime Laboratory employs some of the most state-of-the-art equipment and instrumentation available to the scientific community?" 
     Why was Shuman's order of "no need for the crime lab to respond allowed to stand when Maine had "some of the most state-of-the-art equipment to test the tissues for gasoline?
    Feb. 25, 1981, the day after Mike was found Shuman visited Mike's father at his work place at 9:50 am requesting dental records. They had found a body but wasn't sure if it was our son. He was given the information but he never came back. On the same day at 10:40 am an autopsy was also done on Michael Cochran by Maine Deputy Chief Ronald Roy at 10:40 am. 
     I was called home by my husband. Derald told me that a coworker who also worked part-time at a local funeral home offered to help us. He told Derald that the body had been identified as Mike (the body hadn’t actually been identified at that time, but we didn’t know it) and that he was informed that the fire was an accident and Mike just didn’t make it out. Mike was in the wrong place at the wrong time. We believed what we were told. Charles Thomas made arrangements to have Mike's body transported to Clark & Mitchell Funeral Home where he worked. He suggested a cremation since Mike's body was burned beyond recognition. We took his advise not knowing Mike was murdered.
    Later, I received Mike's death certificate. It states that Mike was "trapped in house fire" verifying what we were told. So, we were in the dark when it was suggested to us that a cremation was best.  We didn't know that the tissues or blood had not been tested for gasoline. We didn't know that Mike's body had not been identified when his body was returned to his family. We didn't know that Mike's jaw bones had been kept at the medical examiner's office for "further dental identification" (returned to Mike's family 21 years later) We didn't know that on February 26, 1981 (2 days after Mike was found) a medical examiner signed a permit stating "no further examination or judicial inquiry concerning this death is necessary. Permission is hereby granted to cremate the dead body of the person named hereon." Could this also have helped jeopardize important evidence? We didn't know that a medical examiner stated in his autopsy report that a scar was found on Mike's chest and that it was part of the identification of Mike. Chief Medical Examiner Henry Ryan also referred to the scar in a letter I received from him in 1981 saying the scar was "very strong corroborating evidence for identification."  Dr. Ryan wrote to AG LaRochelle in 1988 in reference to a letter I wrote Ryan and again referred to the scar as part of their identification of Mike.
     Mike's scar was on his neck from an biopsy and a January 1977 hospital records prove this. It states “With the patient under general anesthesia the skin of the neck was prepared and suitable drapes were applied. A transverse (cross ways) incision was made just above the suprasternal notch.”  Photo of Mike showing scar on his neck. While we were being told Mike's death was an accident  lab reports state arson-murder.

Mike's family was not aware in 1984 that the state had decided Mike's accidental death was arson/murder. December 6, 1984, we read in our local newspaper that three men had been indicted for Mike's murder. March 1985, three months later, the state's only witness (A drug addict with a criminal record) withdrew her testimony and said Det. Shuman, the lead detective on Mike's murder, fed her the story and she feared him. June 1985, the state was forced to dismiss the indictments. 
    
July of 1986, I met the three men when I attended an armed robbery trial for Richard Sargent in Bangor. He was one of the three men indicted for Mike's murder. The state was now prosecuting Richard for armed robberies along with Paul Pollard's half-brother, Lionel Cormier. Pollard also was involved in the armed robberies but he was the state's only witness against Richard and Cormier. Det. Shuman testified and committed perjury when he tried to cover-up Pollard's crimes. I talked with the men during breaks in the trial. They told me that Shuman tried to frame them for Mike's murder. They offered me their discovery.
    Their discovery included many documents and a wealth of information. Included was Fire Inspector Wilbur Ricker and MSP Allen Jamison's 1981 fire marshal reports;  Det. Shuman's 1981 homicide investigation report with statements and Det. Ralph Pinkham's' 1981 homicide investigation report with statements and many other reports, autopsy, death certificate, and lab reports. There was also a statement Shuman had taken from Pollard (all Shuman and Pinkham's statements were typed up from what they said they were told) in Massachusetts in Feb. 12, 1985. There was also documents from when the three men were arrested and indicted in 1984. None of the people who were with Mike the night he was murdered were mentioned in 1984, not even Ricker or Jamison the fire investigators. 
     The men's documents answered many questions I couldn't get answers to for 5 years. And showed how the Maine State Police had lied to me.
    I also attended Lionel Cormier's trial in August. There were two witnesses against Cormier, his half-brother Paul Pollard and Robert Smith. Smith was Pollard's good friend who helped with the second armed robbery. He was given a reduced sentence to testifying against Cormier. Pollard again was given complete immunity for his testimony.
     I heard Pollard testify that he had a .357 pistol on him the morning he ran from the murder scene and that he had another firearm charge (drive-by shooting) against him. He also said he fled the state after Mike's murder. I heard Pollard's attorney testify that he helped Pollard dispose of shotguns, rifles and dynamite stolen during burglaries. Shuman was allowed to testify to Pollard's credible character and he also committed perjury to try cover for Pollard's crimes. In November 1986 the local newspaper reported that a Maine State Police detective (Shuman)  perjured himself during a trial. Cormier's attorney argued Shuman's perjury before the Maine Supreme Court but the appeal was denied.

     After Cormier's trial was over I started searching for information on Paul Pollard. I found a record of serious crimes he had committed and information on how the crimes were taken care of by DA David Cox. The crimes included: a forgery, 2 armed robberies, reckless conduct and a stash of rifles, shotguns and dynamite from burglaries stored in his apartment in Massachusetts.

On Feb. 5, 1979, Paul Pollard committed forgery. An Affidavit and Request for Warrant of Arrest was issued by Det. Richard A. Tompkins, a Waterville PD officer.  He was arrested on Feb. 24, 1981, two years later and on the same day Mike's body was found. He paid a fine of $250 in payments. 
   
 On Nov. 26, 1980, Paul Pollard committed armed robbery. He drove the get-away car and was armed with a Smith and Wesson .357 pistol. His half-brother and 2 other men were all armed. The victim testified the men got about $20,000. Pollard was given complete immunity by the Penobscot DA.

On Jan. 23, 1981, Paul Pollard committed Reckless conduct ( He fired 5 bullets into a family residence as he drove by. He was indicted  on March 2. And on March 3, Shuman arrested him (which he denied under oath) and transported him to Bangor, where he was jailed in the Penobscot County Jail and segregated from other prisoners. On Oct. 19, 1981, Penobscot County DA David Cox with help from Assistant Attorney General Pat Perrino the indictment was dismissed.. 

*********************************On February 18, 1981, Paul Pollard murdered Mike along with his half-brother, Lionel Cormier.  At 3:51 am the fire chief received a call that a cottage near his home was on fire. The fire chief arrived at 3:55 am and saw a man fleeing into the woods away from the arson scene. Mike and Pollard were the only two people in the cottage. Pollard was followed to the highway where he was picked up. Approximately 5 hours after Pollard and Lionel Cormier killed Mike they arrived at the Sargent residence. They told the Sargents that Pollard escaped a fire and that the police would be finding a body.
     April of 1986, Percy Sargent sent me a letter from Maine State Prison. He was serving time for drug trafficking and rape. His letter said that Paul Pollard and Lionel Cormier were suspects in Mike's murder. He would know he was Paul and Cormier's buddy in armed robberies and other crimes and he sent a call to have Mike taken care of  3-4 hours before Mike was murdered. He believed Mike was responsible for his drug arrest. The reason he was writing me now was because he had found out Paul was going to testify against him on one of their armed robberies and he was going rat on Pollard and Cormier.
    July of 1986, Shuman testified that he had to "talk with the Penobscot County District Attorney "before any type of bargain was made" for Pollard to be "free from prosecution in Mike's murder."
   August of 1986, Pollard testified that he had a Smith & Wesson .357 gun o on him when he fled the arson/murder scene. 

 March  27, 1981, Paul Pollard along with his half brother, Lionel Cormier, armed robbed the same victim they had robbed in November 1980. This was only one month after he and Cormier murdered Mike. 
     During the 1986 arm robbery trial the victim testified that he was armed robbed again on March 27, 1981 when men wearing ski masks and carrying guns attacked him. Dolan said the intruders bound his feet, handcuffed him with police-issue handcuffs, kicked him and jumped on him, beating him severely, fracturing ribs and facial bones. He said when he asked the men to stop hitting him, one of them got a knife and slashed off his left ear. “I felt blood running down my face and eyes and I knew he had cut me.” He said that he didn’t know his ear had been cut until, “he threw the ear in front of me—I screamed in horror.”
    He said the robbers took $31,000 from him in the second robbery. This made a total of $51,000 the armed robbers had stolen from Charles Dolan within a span of four months. Pollard again was given complete immunity.

On January 28, 1982, Paul Pollard transported a cache of rifles, shotguns and dynamite stolen during burglaries from his apartment in Boston Massachusetts to Bangor, Maine travelling across the State of New Hampshire and 178 miles across Maine before reaching his attorney in Bangor. The cache was loaded into his attorney's vehicle and his attorney then transported them to the Bangor Police Department with approval from Penobscot County DA David Cox (Report states the cache was received from an "unnamed client."). No charges filed. 

By 1989 I had accumulating a lot of information especially information against Paul Pollard. He was with Mike the night he was murdered and seen fleeing into the woods away from the murder scene and I had a statement of his telling Det. Shuman that he had returned to the murder scene before the authorities had found Mike's body. I borrowed $35,000 against my home to hire an attorney (Michael Popkin) to file suit against Pollard. The case was filed in US District Court in Bangor for intentional Inflection of Emotional Distress.  March 14, 1990, Pollard's attorney wanted the case dismissed or for summary judgment. March 22, 1990, Popkin responded stating that gas poured on Mike was the cause of my Emotional Distress. The case was not dismissed.
  
March 23, 1990, Deputy Chief Medical Examiner (DCME) Ronald Roy’s deposition testimony was taken at my attorney's law firm. His deposition was transcribed and video recorded. We had 49 days to trial date when DCME Roy was deposed. But shortly after his deposition he left the United States and went to Canada leaving us with only his video testimony.
     It never entered my mind when I brought suit against Pollard that the Maine State Police and the Attorney General's Office would get involved in my lawsuit and continue their cover-up of Mike's murder. The Attorney General's Office hired my attorney and on April 30, 1990, eleven days before trial, my attorney  walked out on me. And to top it all off Maine State Police Detectives Shuman and Pinkham wanted to testify for Pollard. Attorney Jed Davis (new attorney on the case)  submitted a motion to the court asking that Shuman and Pinkham not be witnesses for Pollard.  But Shuman was allowed to testify for Paul Pollard and the short time I was on the stand to testify, I looked down on the face of Shuman and Pollard sitting together. I don’t have any record of why that happened other than believing the court must have allowed it. Needless to say I lost my lawsuit against Paul Pollard. The Bangor Daily News reported the one day trial.
    
After my lawsuit was over, I drove the 80 miles to August and asked for my file. I was told Attorney Davis was on vacation and I would have to wait until he returned. I demanded my file and it was given to me. I carried two large heavy boxes to my car. When I got home I found letters Popkin had sent to the court, and to Pollard's defense attorney.
    One letter showed that two weeks after Roy's deposition, and without consulting me, my attorney sent a letter to Pollard's attorney saying he was excising everything that has to do with the dental identification or with identification generally." and "everything that has to do with the identification of the medical examiner's file." (excise everything that made Roy look incompetent). And three days later he again wrote Pollard's attorney saying You will notice that I have excised everything to do with the "gasoline on the body issue." I will not offer Bill Ricker's opinion on this issue. I will not offer any expert testimony to the effect that gasoline was poured on the body. This was wiped out my Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress claim. No wonder I lost my law suit. A new attorney not familiar with my case and my emotional distress emoved from the suit along with the lead detective on Mike's case allowed to testify.
     I have the video depositions of Fire Inspector Wilbur Ricker's testimony, Fire Chief Norman Herrin and Deputy Chief Medical Examiner Ronald Roy's deposition testimony that was taken in preparation for trial. Ricker's deposition disputes Paul Pollard's March 3, 1980 and February 12, 1985 statements of waking and finding the cottage on fire and fleeing because he was afraid. His testimony also disputes Deputy Chief Medical Examiner Ronald Roy's description of how injury occurred as "Trapped in house fire."  Ricker testified the glass in the door was broken out to allow someone access to the cottage and that broken glass was under Mike's body. Ricker said gas was poured on Mike.