KS KS - Tammy Cochran, 37, Kansas City, 29 Feb 2008

It has been five years since Tammy K. Cochran’s burned body was found by Olathe water treatment employees checking a line, but her family remains hopeful that someone will come forward with information about her death.

A reward of up to $18,000 — collected through fundraisers and from local businesses — is still available for tips that help police solve her homicide.
The water treatment employees found Cochran’s body about 10:30 a.m. on March 5, 2008, near the Cedar Creek boat ramp at 8255 S. Gardner Road, close to the Kansas River.

The body had been burned, and police have investigated her death as a homicide. Her family said she had been strangled, dumped and set ablaze.
Cochran was a mother and a skilled cosmetologist who ran a salon from her Shawnee home for a while, family said. A drug addiction overtook her life.
Drugs probably led to her death, family members have said. Cochran had been struggling to change her life. But her family thinks she left her Olathe home in the final days of February 2008 looking for drugs.
Shortly before her death, she was reportedly seen in various locations, including Kansas City and Kansas City, Kan.
She was last seen about 10:30 p.m. Feb. 29 at a convenience store. She was wearing a dark blue or black jacket with a fuzzy collar. She also had a green shirt, black shoes and blue jeans with a design on the back pocket, a surveillance video showed.
Anyone with information about her death is asked to call the TIPS Hotline at 816-474-TIPS (8477). Tips may also be submitted at
www.kccrimestoppers.com or by texting TIP452 and your information to CRIMES (274637).

(kansascity.com - Link)

[h=1]Olathe police seek tips in woman’s 2008 killing[/h]

I've always thought someone knew what happened in this case. This one is local to me & had a whole lot less coverage than some. Maybe because she is older ... or because of her troubles with substance abuse. I just hate to see it buried under the rug, so I brought it here.

Also, you can look in to the death of Penny Tyler in 2000, who was seen in the same general area as Tammy in Kansas City, Missouri (I am referring to the surveillance images of her on Feb, 29 2008). Penny's body was found extremely close to where Tammys was found.

The investigation is still ongoing. Tammy was strangled and deceased before being burned on the boat access ramp. I have heard there was evidence of being beaten as well.

The theory one of the detectives publicly stated was that the unknown subject "didn't mean" for a murder to happen, but something "set him off." The way I read what they have said publicly is that they seem to intimate that something unplanned happened, like a beating gone too far, or a burst of rage, and that the perpetrator held on to the body for a few days before dumping and burning it overnight on March 6 (I think that's the date).

Strangulation is such an intimate way of killing someone. Also, the unknown subject clearly knew the body would be found, and in a relatively short amount of time. While the area is fairly remote, it still has a fair amount of traffic and the unknown subject would of had to have known the body would be found within a day or two.

Burning the body appears to be a way of removing DNA or an attempt to torch the body into a state where all forensic evidence is gone. However, the unknown subject could have disposed of the body in several other, less public ways. This was a decently trafficked access road.

So given Tammys lifestyle at the time, the unknown subject was probably in one of three categories: pimp, john, or drug dealer/drug related (this could overlap with the first two possibilities.

Tammy had recently spent time in rehab, she spent about 2 weeks at home after rehab and then went back to her old lifestyle about for another 2 weeks before she was killed. Of note, is that Penny Tyler in 2000 had recently returned from some sort of rehab or program and was trying to "get her life together" as well. Was this a coincidence? Or perhaps it was a common pimp or person who knew them both and was involved in both lifestyles.

The police highly doubt the unknown subject has kept this to himself. Perhaps he used his act as an example to threaten others. However, if this were the case you would figure that it would be a high probability that someone would have told LE by now for a deal of some sort or money. But perhaps fear of similar fate overrides these scenarios and those who know choose to remain silent.

So Tammy was active in her old lifestyle for roughly 10-14 days before the last time she was spotted alive. The survilence video from a gas station is the last footage they have of her, it is telling I think, you see Tammy look backwards and look over her shoulder a couple times, as if something has caught her attention out there.

What happens after that surveillance footage? Who was she afraid of possibly? Or wasn't it just a normal glace over the shoulder and meant nothing...

In 2000, Penny Tyler was doing the same thing as Tammy, and was trying to get her life back together but she fell back in to her old patterns and lifestyle. She was last seen in the same area as Tammy, and her body was found very close to Tammy's in a rather remote area. The information about Penny trying to get clean and leave her lifestyle was on the Johnson County Sheriff's Cold Case page (which I think is no longer up). This article has a bit of info: http://www.desotoexplorer.com/news/2008/mar/12/resident_body_east_bottoms_reminiscent_2000_discov/

Tammy and Penny's murders have quite a lot in common; recently had been in a rehab program/recently away from the streets and lifestyle, location of where they were last seen, and location of the bodies.

Similarly, in 1989 two prostitutes were also murdered, and in those cases, they were seen last alive in the same general area and their bodies were found in fairly close proximity in a pretty remote area. One of the girls, Christina I believe, was found burned. LE has said publicly they believe the two 89 murders are related: http://www.kctv5.com/story/32119037...2-unsolved-possibly-related-cold-case-murders

I'm not saying all four are related, but they are close enough to at least make a note of it.

So back to the video footage of Tammy alive as she is walking in to a gas station, where she seems to be looking over her shoulder and it appears something has her attention. She purchased a cell phone charger and that was the last time she was seen alive. The video was about 5 days before she was found. What happened in those 5 days?

Information about those 5 days is what is going to solve the case...

Back scene where her body was found. It was a secondary location. So at the primary location she was strangled and possibly beaten, and the unknown subject killed her in an "upclose and personal" way. He either knew Tammy and killed her for reasons based on their relationship, or Tammy was a stand in/representation of the target of rage.

The body being burned and easily found is interesting. With the burning though, the unknown subject maybe wanted to "get rid" of the actions taken, to "burn away" their crime and deviance. All forensic evidence would go up in flames with it, and psychologically, they could seperate themselves from the act they committed.

The detective saying they don't think the person "had set out to do this...but something set them off" indicates they are reading in to it that some sort of care was involved and it was not random. Frequently murder victims who are killed by those who care about them or know them in some personal way are "covered up" with blankets, sheets, etc. and the killer has an "out of sight, out of mind" approach which helps seperate themselves from the act. LE could be theorizing something similar is happening albeit not nearly as personal. The unknown subject knew the remains would be found, and knew she would have her body taken care of. Also, burning a dead body, while horrific in this context, is a societal norm in America and not bad in and of itself.

The scene where the body was found is remote, and at night, would be very very difficult to navigate unless the person was familiar with the area. The unknown subject would most certainly have to be familiar with the area. Also, the area is actually part of a tiny area by the river that is actually the jurisdiction of Olathe Kansas, a town about 20 miles south of the location. Did the unknown subject know this tiny, tiny area by the river would be a good place to put the body because it has this weird jurisdictional quirk? It's tough to tell because an even tinier area close has a sign that is clearly viewable from the road that says "Olathe Water District" or something like that, but I don't know if this was up in 2008 or if any indication was given by signs etc.

There is a boat ramp and gun club in the immediate area. It's a gravel road, but it is fairly close to a main road, 83rd street. You do have to go over railroad tracks too to get to the location where the body was, and trains frequently go down those tracks; to get back to the main road, they must be crossed. The unknown subject would be risking being stuck behind a train for a few critical minutes if this wasn't timed right.

Also of note is that this remote rural area where the body was found is a very different area from where Tammy was last seen. Basically, the pimps and drug dealers in Kansas City Missouri and KCK would most likely not be comfortable or familiar with this area, both in distance and demographics.