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It was a gruesome discovery off a dirt road in Georgia. Hunters had found a body. Was it immediately clear to you that this woman had been murdered? Yes. But who was this mystery woman in the woods? That looks like Mindy. I'm Erin Moriarty, and from 48 Hours, this is The Woman in the Woods. I've never wanted to be wrong like this in my whole entire life. Binge the full series of Woman in the Woods wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, make a wish. Mrs. Buchanan was a very attractive young lady.
She was a very creative type. Very free-spirited. My name is Tara Bentley. I'm Lisa's older sister. When I first saw her, I just saw her as a patient. And while she was waiting to see her dentist, she saw a sign saying free consultations. She walked in, she was wearing a ball cap, no makeup, this incredible little smile on her bright blue eyes. There was something we saw in each other we enjoyed. They looked like a wonderful couple, but that really was a veneer that really hid what was really going on.
between the two of them. It was her intention to put an end to their relationship that weekend. The July 4th, 2005 weekend, certainly a weekend that you would think that folks would be out picnicking, going to fireworks, concerts. But there, holed up in Lisa's apartment having this sex marathon, I think he really liked the way that she reacted and responded when she was under the influence of drugs. The only time that she was experiencing these drugs was when he gave them to her. She was addicted to Chris Coolis and their relationship. The drugs were certainly a part of that relationship.
He was injecting Lisa repeatedly with this concoction of oxycodone. It was pulverized, ground up. The drugs were coursing through her veins. They caused her to collapse. Suddenly, Lisa stopped breathing. I think that he is a predator. I think that he is a manipulator. I'm Eric Anderson. I'm the lead investigator in the case involving the death of Lisa Buchanan.
I didn't give Lisa any drugs. I loved her. They're looking for someone to blame. He wanted her under his control. And when you're a doctor and you want control, you just have tools at your disposal that other people don't have. Addicted to love. Tonight's 48 Hours Mystery. When police were called to Lisa Buchanan's apartment in Franklin, Tennessee. Straight ahead is the living room kitchen area. They were surprised by what they found in this quiet, gated community. A cache of prescription drugs and sex toys. They found needles. They found a lot of syringes.
Lisa and Chris Coolis had spent most of that final July 4th weekend of 2005 in her bedroom. They stayed in that apartment that weekend, engaged in this marathon sex session. There was so much evidence to collect. It was a massive undertaking. Most crucial, say detectives, was the discovery of used syringes with traces of oxycodone. Oxycodone is a powerful narcotic used to kill pain. It can be a very addictive and dangerous drug. Abusers like the calming euphoria creates. The high is immediate and potent.
It's a controlled substance. It's something you can only get from a prescribing physician. You can't just buy it. But when Lisa was rushed to the emergency room, the doctors trying to save her say Dr. Coolis told them nothing about the drug she had been using. In fact, paramedics say Dr. Coolis claimed Lisa had collapsed after a trip to the swimming pool. Chris was deceptive. He totally misled them. Chris stood there in that ER room, didn't tell them about the illegal drugs, didn't tell the ER staff what could have been crucial in saving her life.
I just wish that at some point she had realized how dangerous he was. Tara Bentley believed her sister Lisa did not see Coolis as she did. I think that the rest of us just felt that any day now she would realize who he was. On paper, Coolis looked pretty good. He was a young, handsome plastic surgeon. He was a graduate of Vanderbilt University and had a thriving practice by the time he was 30. Lisa's mother Peggy was thrilled when her daughter met a doctor. I thought finally she had met somebody that was going to make her very happy.
Dr. Coolis was very charming. He was extremely confident. Coolis had served his internship at a Chicago hospital and loved working in the emergency room. That was the most exciting for him because it was rescuing people from death. It was in Nashville in the year 2000 that Coolis had that chance meeting with Lisa Buchanan. He became her boyfriend and her doctor. You performed numerous procedures on her for free. Oh, yes. How many? A redo breast augmentation, her eyelids, forehead, lip augmentation, liposuction, full face laser, Botox, collagen, the list goes on.
Coolis also helped Lisa pay the bills. She was struggling to make it as an actress and model. Even at a young age, Lisa Buchanan had big dreams for herself. She was going to get on TV and she was going to be heard. Lisa Buchanan, how are you? She auditioned for soaps. I heard about this general hospital thing and I think I'd be really, really good. Tried out for TV shows. I can do love scenes and I can do drama. Her most recent pursuit was to develop a children's puppet show. I do have quite a lovely singing voice, don't you think?
But things just never clicked for Lisa, professionally or personally. No matter how beautiful she was or how beautiful people saw her, there was insecurity in her. Before Coolis, Lisa had a string of failed relationships. She married young and divorced, but from that broken marriage came one of the best things in her life, her daughter Jessie. She was so much fun. We were best friends. I could tell her anything. Anything.
Jessie was happy at first when her mother met Dr. Coolis. We just moved into this big house and it was so cool. I got a huge room and my girlfriends came over and we had a huge big screen TV on the wall and I was cool. But it wasn't long, says Jessie, before she noticed how controlling the doctor was. Once I got to know him, I didn't really like him. He would always call her every 10 minutes, want to know where she was. He's like stalkerish, so protective in a creepy kind of way.
Lisa and Dr. Coolis were on again, off again for five and a half years. According to her sister Tara, Lisa was just about to break things off again that final weekend. You just had to hope that maybe this time it was really going to stick. Tara had wondered if Lisa could ever break away. Lisa appeared locked in Coolis' grip, even though the couple spent much of the relationship apart. He lived and practiced in other cities and frequently called Lisa, accusing her of seeing other men.
There were times that she had to hand the phone to me so that I could tell him she's with me. He wouldn't trust it. He, over the years, cut her off from all her friends, alienating all her friends because of jealousy on his part. And there was something else that concerned Lisa's family. Lisa was becoming ill more frequently. In fact, her family believes that Dr. Coolis would convince Lisa she was sick and that he alone could fix her. In one conversation, he could absolutely convince her that the world was coming to an end.
But at the same time, he was going to save her from it. Did you ever see Chris Coolis give your mother drugs? Yes. Jesse has a vivid childhood memory of seeing Coolis inject her mother with an unknown drug. She fainted, and I started screaming to mommy. He shut the bathroom door. I started banging on the door, and he wouldn't let me see her. You saw him administer a shot to her? Mm-hmm. I'll never forget it. Investigators now believe it was Coolis who introduced Lisa to the idea of using drugs to enhance their sexual encounters. I don't think that there's a shred of evidence or proof that she was a drug addict.
Anderson, like Lisa's family, believes she only used drugs when Dr. Coolis gave them to her. But Coolis claims he knew Lisa better than anyone. And like it or not, he says she was a drug addict. Coolis says Lisa hid her IV drug use by injecting herself in concealed areas of the body, like her groin. But detectives aren't buying it. After a five-month-long investigation, Chris Coolis is arrested and charged with murder. They say he supplied the drugs.
He injected her, and he is responsible for Lisa Buchanan's death. I do believe that he gave her at least one injection, if not multiple injections, and he's absolutely responsible for her death. It's been extremely traumatic. I'm quite concerned as to what is going to happen. Charged with killing his girlfriend, Lisa Buchanan, Chris Coolis faces the possibility of spending the next 25 years in prison. But he says he's innocent. Did you kill Lisa Buchanan? Absolutely not. The autopsy concluded that Lisa died of an overdose of oxycodone. During the search of her apartment, detectives found only one mostly intact oxycodone pill, but the used syringes contained crush pills and liquid mixed into a slush. Prosecutors say Lisa was injected with that slush at least three times that weekend.
And in Coolis' travel bag, detectives found an unopened 18-gauge needle, the same kind that had been used. That piece of evidence is extremely incriminating. Chris Coolis is accused not only of injecting Lisa Buchanan with the drugs, but of supplying them as well. Despite his denials, he's about to be put on trial, facing four charges, ranging from simple assault to second-degree murder. Stay ready to proceed? Yes, sir. Thank you. Kim Helper is prosecuting Dr. Koulas. The evidence supports the fact that it was this defendant who was injecting Lisa Buchanan with that Oxycodone mixture. Lee Offman is defending the doctor. So what does the evidence show? It shows he didn't do it. From the facts, I could not see how he could be convicted of anything. But prosecutors are convinced they have a strong circumstantial case, thanks, in part, to the small videocassette detectives found in Lisa's apartment.
They had videotaped these sex acts all weekend long. It documents the final hours of Lisa's life and provides clues to her death. The tape is disturbingly graphic, and in some scenes, Lisa seems barely conscious. So the jurors from this fairly religious and conservative southern city must sit through a screening of the entire two hours of the sex tape in open court. It's extraordinarily embarrassing. This was never intended to be seen by anybody else but for Lisa and I and them to be destroyed. Your balance is perfect.
That video clearly showed she enjoyed what she was doing. She participated willingly. Coolis' attorneys believe the tape is more damaging to Lisa than to their client. I think the prosecution made a mistake in trying to portray her as just a victim with no fault because clearly she was not. But prosecutors are convinced Coolis injected Lisa with drugs to control and dominate her. You can see in the background on occasion where there is a needle laying on the carpet. The tape does not show who gave Lisa the injections, but it does show Lisa holding gauze against her groin, covering fresh injection marks, incriminating evidence, prosecutors say, against Coolis. The evidence on the video clearly shows Chris Coolis being aware of those pads and the presence of syringes. On the tape, Coolis can be heard telling Lisa to apply pressure to the area to stop some bleeding.
It was being portrayed as proof that I gave Lisa narcotics. In fact, they did not show that at all. All right, ladies and gentlemen, that will conclude everything for today. Coolis maintains Lisa injected herself in the groin that weekend. It's quite easy. It is. Absolutely. Not so, according to Tennessee's chief state medical examiner, Dr. Bruce Levy. When you see a series of injections in a nice straight line like that, you know that it had to have been done too hard. He feels quite strongly that the injections in her groin were made by an expert.
Like a doctor. If you're off by as much as a half of an inch, it can be deadly. And making it even more difficult for Lisa to inject herself, says Levy, is the fact that she was impaired by drugs at the time. I think it was very clear evidence that Dr. Coolis was responsible for the injection. There's just no other alternative that makes sense.
To bolster that claim, Lisa's family points to this picture they say was taken just days before her death. There was not a mark on her body, and there was not a sign of drug use in her behavior, her attitude, nothing. All week long. She was perfectly healthy. Chris Coolis and his attorneys believe he has no choice but to take the stand to defend himself. He tells the jury that he tried repeatedly to get Lisa to stop abusing drugs.
Lisa promised she'd stop. She'd go up and down. She'd stop. She'd start. She'd stop. She'd start. I told her, do you have to do that? And then I told her, I know you want to, but I don't want you to. You're going to kill yourself. We've talked about this. Why didn't you just leave? Aside the fact I'm an idiot, because I loved her and I wanted to be with her. I wanted to be with her. And so, to make her happy, you looked the other way. I was unable to stop her one way or the other. She wanted to get high, and she was going to get high. What precise was I supposed to do? Tackle her?
Prosecutor Kim Helper doesn't believe Coolis. She confronts him about his callous behavior that weekend. In fact, the doctor repeatedly had sex with Lisa even though she had complained of shoulder and chest pain that weekend. Symptoms that Coolis concedes could have signaled a heart attack. Lisa had a very bad headache. She was complaining of shoulder pain and left arm pain. And she was having palpitations. Her heart was beating rapidly. But you continued to have sex with her. Because she said everything went away, she felt fine. Is the woman you love, sir? Yes, ma'am. And is it a fair assessment to say that you were thinking about yourself on that day? I was. And you were not thinking about Lisa, were you? I was thinking about myself, yes. That may not have been the only time Coolis was just thinking about himself.
Prosecutors are about to introduce details of a previous incident, one in which Coolis has freely admitted injecting Lisa Buchanan with addictive drugs. Prosecutors firmly believe Chris Coolis killed Lisa Buchanan that lost weekend, and they say it isn't the first time he put her life in danger. I think it's extremely relevant and important for a jury to understand that in the past it has been his habit to inject her with drugs. Kim Helper points to an incident back in 2002 that was eerily similar. At the time, Lisa and Coolis were briefly living together in Kentucky.
I was going through a very difficult time financially. Things were falling apart. And one day, there was Demerol that was left over. And I had the really bad idea to try it. And I did. And I was probably instantly addicted to it. Dr. Koulis says he was shooting up frequently. Where'd you get the Demerol? It was from my office. I had a surgical center. So you stole it from your office? It was from my office. And in the midst of his own downward spiral, Koulis admits he got Lisa addicted as well. When she asked me for it, I gave it to her. I was impaired at the time.
Things got so bad that Coolis' parents intervened and came to take him to rehab. Lisa stayed behind. Lisa's mother Peggy says she will never forget the condition in which she found her daughter. It was the most horrific sight I've ever seen in my life. Bottles, syringes, blood on the floor. They had her on a mattress. She was completely incoherent. It was horrific.
Peggy says she and her friend quickly scooped up some of the drugs and rushed Lisa to the hospital. I mean, she had injection sores on her body that were that big around. Right over here on our left is where Lisa and Chris Coolis lived in 2002. Bobby Pate at the Boone County Sheriff's Office was assigned to investigate. She was injected in both hands, in the arms, the groin area, and in the feet. They were infected, and her hands and feet were probably about twice the size as normal. Pate met with Lisa at the hospital and says she accused Coolis of injecting her against her will. There was times where he chased her around the room to get her shot when she didn't want one. And he called her a hypochondriac because she was complaining about the infections and sores and stuff, and he shot her up some more. She stated that...
Chris said that this was just do it for fun. It would enhance the sexual pleasure. Let's do this for fun. Let's just do this for fun. At his trial, prosecutor Kim Helper confronts the doctor about the earlier Kentucky incident. She was in pretty bad shape when you left. Is that true? No, ma'am. She was walking, talking lucid. We had breakfast. She said goodbye to me at the door. Then just leave her in the basement and leave. That's a mischaracterization.
Maybe so, but Kentucky authorities arrested him anyway on several serious charges, including drug trafficking. Lisa Buchanan was our star witness in the case. Lisa gave authorities this handwritten letter she received from Dr. Coolis after he entered rehab. In it, he takes the full blame for getting her hooked on painkillers, supplying them, injecting her, and admitting she had no prior history of drug abuse before they met. But it wasn't enough to convict him.
He hurt Lisa in 2002, and he got away with it. Lisa's family believes he got away with it because he scared her out of testifying against him. They said he convinced her she was also in trouble and could lose custody of her daughter. Chris just absolutely convinced her that she could lose Jesse, and that the police were lying to her, that the DA was lying to her, and no matter what, she just believed him. I think the fear was so real.
Coolis denies he made any threats, but Lisa stopped cooperating, and the case against him collapsed. Coolis ended up pleading guilty to just one of the 20 drug charges and was given probation, no prison time. And within a short period, he was back to practicing medicine again. What happened in 2002? That was horrific. We went to hell and back. She did, and I did. But despite that hell, Lisa could not let go of Chris Coolis. For her family, it was difficult to accept. You don't understand why she was listening to him.
There aren't words because you can't, because you don't understand it. You're the one that ejected her first. True? Yes, sir, I did. In court, Dr. Coolis accepts blame for introducing Lisa to illegal drug use. You're a doctor. What were you thinking? I don't know what I was thinking. I was wrong. I shouldn't have done it. I should have done it to me, and I should certainly, sure as hell, not have done it to her. I was responsible. I felt responsible. If he appeared contrived when speaking to the jurors, it was a different Chris Coolis who spoke to us later, blaming Lisa Buchanan for her own drug problems. Did you get her addicted to drugs?
I provided her. I made it available to her. Did you get her addicted to drugs? I think the choice of addiction is her own. When I recognized that I was addicted, I got help. I got her help. From that point on, all bets are off. She realized how addictive this drug was the first time you used it. Absolutely. And you introduced this to your girlfriend. You provided the drugs to her. You gave her the syringes. I was wrong in doing so. And you're saying that it was her responsibility to get clean. Yes, it is her responsibility to stay clean. I don't think I bear herself for her death.
Guilty or not, Kulis' lawyers are hoping to throw a huge wrench into the case with experts who will testify that it was not a drug overdose that killed Lisa Buchanan after all. An early fall morning in Franklin, Tennessee, as most of the city's police force proudly gathers for a group photograph. It's a department that may be unaccustomed to the attack it's facing from Chris Kulis' attorneys. We realized that they were going to hold us under a microscope and look to exploit anything that wasn't absolutely 100% perfect.
Defense lawyers are highly critical of what they consider sloppy police work, even suggesting that detectives fail to properly isolate Lisa's apartment, the crime scene. How do you know that those items that you say were in that apartment hadn't been moved around? Detective Anderson bristles at the question, saying the apartment was secured almost immediately. The locks were changed. No one had access. The apartment was secured from that point on. Unless, well... Unless what? Unless your client broke in to the apartment, then the apartment was secured.
But mistakes were made, like losing evidence, medicine bottles from Lisa's apartment that detectives forgot to take from the hospital the day she died. We had been going several hours into days in this investigation, so it had slipped our mind at that time to go get those pills, and when we finally realized we needed to go back and get those pill bottles, by the time we went back there, the hospital had already destroyed it. Slipped your mind? An even bigger problem for prosecutors is a defense challenge to the very heart of this case. What killed Lisa Buchanan? If she did take the oxycodone, that's not what killed her.
Dr. Michael Graham, a forensic pathologist and medical examiner, testifies for the defense that the drug didn't kill her, the filler did. That's the powdery material used to give shape and form to the pills when they're made. It was the filler, and then the reaction to that filler is what I think tipped her over the edge. Drug abusers crush pills mix them with liquid and inject them into their veins for a quicker high. But Graham explains that over time, tiny particles of crushed filler can build up and clog blood vessels in the lungs. And that, he says, is exactly what happened to Lisa Buchanan. Injecting crushed up pills over a long period of time caused her death suddenly. She was so plugged up that it stopped the heart and she died of a heart attack. You don't get that from an occasional use. It took months to years to form those things. It came from Lisa injecting herself when he wasn't around.
But prosecutors argue the defense theory of what killed Lisa is only partially true. That in fact it was both the filler and the narcotic working together that caused her death. The filler was impacting the lungs. The oxycodone was suppressing some of her breathing mechanism. I would suggest to you that the evidence fully supports the state's assertion that Lisa Buchanan died at the hands of this defendant. There's no proof he did. And because of that, you just got to find him not guilty.
As the case goes to the jury, Lisa's family is concerned over what the verdict may be. We hope he's convicted, and there's nothing he can say to me, there's nothing he can say to that court, there's nothing he can say to my family to change what's happened. So, Dr. Coolis is left to wait, facing the possibility of spending his next 25 years in prison. Left unanswered is the question of how an ambitious young doctor, a plastic surgeon, ended up here.
Dr. Coolis is an extremely intelligent person. He went into medical school at age 19, if that tells you something. All he did was work, work, work. So Dr. Coolis never had the time to enjoy his youth. His immaturity caught up with him. So he was in the middle of an extended adolescence when he met Lisa Buchanan. I don't think he ever matured.
Standing trial for murdering his girlfriend, though, may be very sobering, and Lisa's family hopes the jury holds Coolis responsible for her death. Shelly Jensen was about to retire early after selling her veterinary practice for millions. But a moment of vulnerability became a way to take away her rights. Don't you see how destroyed I am as a person? Her husband fought to save her before Shelly lost her freedom forever. This is a life or death matter. My wife's life is at stake. From Sony Music Entertainment and Novel, this is free Shelly Jensen. Available now on The Bench. Over the course of a number of months or years, Lisa did something which caused her significant internal damage. And ultimately, that's why she died.
And that would have happened, I believe, whether I was there or a day later, a week later, a month later. She's responsible in actions, just as I am. Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude the instructions and the closing arguments. It is time for you to take this case and make your decision. They began deliberations about 9.15 this morning here at the courthouse. Nearly two weeks after the trial began, the jury begins deliberating in the Lisa Buchanan murder case. It is tense. Everybody right now waiting. It's been a challenge for prosecutors who've had only circumstantial evidence to rely on. Do you think you'll win a conviction?
I would like to think so, but I think I've been around long enough to know that when it gets into the hands of the jury, you just can't predict. Jurors have four charges to consider, ranging from simple assault to second-degree murder. The wild card is there's no telling how jurors will react to the sex video. But Prosecutor Kim Helper felt she had no choice. The evidence on the tape from the state's perspective was too important to not show it. They say they want to see Exhibit 203, 212, and 213. That is the videotape. In fact, just one hour into the deliberations, the jurors request to see the video again. We're just hoping and praying that they understand that this man is guilty. Because of the chemistry between the two and the drug use, it was just destined for something terrible to happen. It was just a fatal attraction.
The jurors take less than a day to reach a verdict. The courtroom is tense as each charge is read. As to count one of the indictment on the charge of second-degree murder, what say you? Not guilty. As to count two of the indictment on the charge of reckless homicide, what say you? Not guilty. As to the charge of criminally negligent homicide, what say you? Guilty. Very well. That's all in your deliberation. Guilty, but not of murder. Lisa Buchanan's family is devastated. Coolis now faces just months in prison instead of years.
Lisa's daughter, Jessie, runs from the courtroom in tears. I was really upset. Almost more upset than the night when I found out she passed away. What was hardest was hearing the same cries from Jessie that I had to hear the night her mom died. For Coolis and his attorneys, the verdict is welcome news, even with the felony conviction. I'm relieved that it's over. I accept the verdict of the jury. It's a tragedy. Lisa died. She never happened.
Did the jury conclude that Chris Coolis bears some responsibility for Lisa Buchanan's death? With the finding of criminally negligent homicide, they are saying that as a doctor, he should have done more to prevent her from killing herself. Not according to the jurors we spoke with. They told us they didn't buy the doctor's testimony or his innocence, but felt there just wasn't any hard evidence to convict him of murder. A good majority of us thought that he probably did the injection, but we couldn't. There's no way to know for sure.
They couldn't prove that he directly acted to kill her. You still maintain that Chris Coolis killed Lisa Buchanan? Yes, sir. And I think the jury agreed with me. And quite frankly, we just didn't have a photo putting Chris Coolis with a needle in his hand, injecting Lisa Buchanan. Court finds the defendant's testimony to be lacking in credibility. At sentencing, Judge Jeff Bivens showed little sympathy for Coolis. While the court is mindful of the fact that the victim is Buchanan.
was in many ways a knowing and willing participant. In the activities of that tragic weekend, that does not diminish the defendant's criminal conduct and culpability. He sentences Coolis to two years in prison, the maximum sentence allowed, but he's expected to serve less than half of that. Can you do the time? Can I do the time? Do I have a choice? After he's sentenced, it's unclear just when the doctor will be in prison. He leaves the courtroom not in handcuffs, but on $500,000 bond paid by his parents to keep him free while his attorneys appeal the conviction.
Coolis' limited sentence and the fact that he's free pending appeal is hard for daughter Jessie to accept. She even reached out, writing a very personal letter to Coolis.
You know you're responsible for her death, and you think of me and my family. Try to imagine what we have been through and how much we miss her. Lisa's sister, Tara. In the end, this too shall pass, and someday he'll stand before God. No one could have predicted the next bizarre twist in this story. Five years after Lisa's death and with his appeal still pending, Chris Coolis was found dead at a friend's apartment. A former Nashville plastic surgeon convicted in the death of his model girlfriend has died.
Toxicology reports just released list the cause of death as bronchial pneumonia due to opiate intoxication, a drug overdose. My duty to my client extends beyond his death. Because Coolis' case was in appeal, his attorney David Rabin was able to get his 2007 conviction dropped by the state's Court of Criminal Appeals. However, the Attorney General's office is fighting to have that conviction reinstated. Enough is enough. This case is over with. The conviction should be vacated. And let Dr. Coolis rest in peace. Dr. Chris Coolis never served one day of his sentence in jail. There's no satisfaction. There's no real peace. There's no vengeance. There's no anger. There's no hate. Just, you're dealt a certain set of cards. And you just have to do what you can with them.
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