Montana woman sentenced to mental hospital for satanic murder

Nina Mel Cochran sentenced for satanic murder.

She claimed it was part of an initiation.

She will be held in a mental hospital.

A Montana woman has been sentenced to a state psychiatric hospital for stabbing and killing a man in his home.

She described the act as part of a «satanic initiation.»

Nina Mel Cochran, 34, pleaded not guilty to deliberate homicide in a plea agreement with prosecutors.

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Nina Mel Cochran sentenced for satanic murder

Photo: Park County Detention Center- Storyblocks

Judge Brett Linneweber sentenced Nina Mel Cochran to 75 years in the custody of the Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services.

Cochran will remain at the Montana State Hospital in Warm Springs, where she has been receiving mental health treatment.

She was charged in December 2022 for the beating and stabbing death of 64-year-old Douglas Merrill Nielsen inside his residence.

Police arrested Cochran after a Highway Patrol officer stopped her for driving recklessly on Interstate 90.

Nina Mel Cochran confessed

Satanic murder in Montana / Photo: Shutterstock

Cochran told an officer that Douglas Merrill Nielsen was «dead in his house.»

She also stated that she had killed him as part of a «satanic initiation,» according to KPAX.

Montana police found Nielsen’s body in the house on December 6.

Prosecutors acknowledged that Cochran has a mental illness that prevented her from understanding the criminality of her actions.