Valdez receives 80 years plus 20 probation in jail murder

Jesse Shane Valdez was sentenced in District Court in Havre to 80 years in prison followed by 20 years of probation in the Nov. 17, 2019, murder of Gordon Cochran of Chinook, 54, in the Hill County Detention Center.

District Judge Ashley Harada sentenced Valdez Friday on the charge of deliberate homicide to 100 years in the Montana State Prison with 20 suspended.

Harada credited Valdez with 867 days served and ordered an alternate charge of deliberate homicide be dismissed.

Valdez was charged with intentionally causing the death of Cochran or, in the alternative, committing aggravated assault resulting in Cochran’s death. Under the plea agreement, Valdez pleaded guilty to causing the death by committing aggravated assault.

Valdez pleaded guilty in a plea agreement Dec. 6 to the deliberate homicide charge.

The prosecution recommended Valdez be sentenced to 100 years in the Montana State Prison with no time suspended.

At the time of the Nov. 17, 2019, death, Valdez was being held in the detention center on $20,000 bond after he was arrested Nov. 13, on charges of burglary, criminal mischief vandalism and trespassing.

Cochran was arrested in Havre Nov. 16, 2019, on two charges of disorderly conduct and one of resisting arrest.

According to a court document, Nov. 17, 2019, at about 6:38 p.m. Hill County Dispatch received a call from the detention center requesting assistance in one of the center’s holding pods.

A detention center officer told Havre police he ordered a lockdown on the pod and when he unlocked the door to the only cell occupied in the pod, he saw Valdez lying on the floor with his hands behind his head, saying he was not going to fight him, the document said.

It said Valdez indicated a man lying face down in the cell and said “He’s the guy that killed my relative.”

Detention center staff placed Valdez in handcuffs and rolled the man lying face down over and saw the man, whom they identified as Cochran, was bleeding from a head wound.

Detention center officers called for emergency medical technicians and began chest compressions on Cochran after they could not detect a pulse.

The EMTs began life saving measures, then transported Cochran to Northern Montana Hospital, where he was declared deceased.