NASHUA – The girl whom Michael Cochran allegedly raped and molested six years ago is now an anorexic, suicidal 8-year-old, her mother said Thursday.
“Things are very, very hard with her,” the girl’s mother said, all the more so because the girl’s feelings toward Cochran remain conflicted despite the alleged abuse.
Cochran, 37, is charged with raping and molesting the girl repeatedly from 2000-03, and molesting another girl from 2004-06. He also faces child pornography charges for allegedly filming both girls. Cochran has pleaded innocent to all charges, but remains jailed, unable to post $250,000 bail.Authorities investigated reports of suspected abuse starting when the girl was two, her mother said. Cochran saw the girl regularly before his arrest in May.
The girl and her mother live in another southern New Hampshire town, but her mother came to Nashua on Thursday to see Cochran’s arraignment in Hillsborough County Superior Court and to meet with the prosecutor and victim-witness advocate.
The woman, a former friend of Cochran, said the alleged abuse has devastated her daughter.
“It’s been a rollercoaster,” she said. “Some days are very good . . . other days, she gets hysterical.”
The girl is underweight, at 55 pounds, and has been diagnosed with anorexia and other psychiatric disorders, her mother said.
“She was first diagnosed with ADHD, but now they believe it’s post-traumatic stress disorder,” her mother said.
The girl sees therapists four times a week and must remain supervised at all times, her mother said. She was hospitalized for nine days after a suicide attempt last summer, her mother said.
“She broke a mirror in her jewelry box and tried to cut her wrists. They were very superficial cuts, but when I asked her about it, she said it was the cat,” she said.
When her mother pointed out the cat was de-clawed, the girl admitted she’d cut herself.
“She said ‘I’m tired of everything.’ She said ‘Mommy, I have nightmares. I feel dirty. I don’t know who to believe.’ ”
The woman now keeps knives, scissors, pins and other sharp objects locked away in her house, she said. Even at school, a monitor accompanies her to the bathroom.
“She can’t be left alone at all. She can’t be unsupervised,” her mother said.
The girl’s mother hopes with therapy, her daughter will begin to heal before she reaches her teen years. She hasn’t acted out sexually toward other children, but she doesn’t always act her age, either.
“She already acts like she’s 8 going on 20,” her mother said. “I can’t even take pictures of her, at the park or wherever . . . She automatically strikes some sort of provocative pose.”
Police are still investigating whether any of the alleged child porn was distributed. Images of her daughter have been sent to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children’s Victim Identification Program, in case any of the photos or video turn up elsewhere, the mother said.
Meanwhile, all they can do is wait and see what happens with the girl, with Cochran and the other defendants, and with the images, the mother said.
“I think we’re at the beginning of a long road, and there’s going to be a lot coming out,” she said
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