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Despite once having a no-contact order from when he broke her nose, the man on the other end of the line last month was once again professing his love for one of his ex-girlfriends from Rhode Island, the ex said.
She Googled his name - Cole Werhan - when he seemed reluctant to talk about another ex who died at his house. Her eyes quickly scanned headlines that quoted Connecticut police saying the death was "suspicious" - and one caused her to lose her breath.
The woman's death had been ruled a homicide.
"I gasped," she said, "but he didn't hear. I was scared. I couldn't even say anything. He'd be like, ‘Hello?' "
" ‘Yup,' " she answered. "Like, ‘I'm here.' "
The phone conversation was June 22, the day before Werhan, 28, was charged with murder in the death of Janina Brooke Murphy. Murphy lived in Massachusetts before she moved into Werhan's house on Claire Hill Road in Burlington last winter. Police said they found her unresponsive on March 29, with traumatic injuries to her face and limbs, plus bruises in various stages of healing. Those injuries, Werhan's swollen hand and the discovery of blood in five rooms of the house, as well as outside, appeared to contradict his claim that Murphy threw herself down the stairs, according to the warrant for his arrest.
Murphy was the same age as the ex-girlfriend from Rhode Island, 26.
The Rhode Island woman agreed earlier this month, on condition of anonymity, to share with CT Insider her story of how she fell for Werhan and endured his violence. Her tale of Werhan's affection, followed by his sudden changes in demeanor and attempts to control and abuse her are similar to those of his other surviving victims, a half-dozen of whom are mentioned in the murder warrant.
One of the other cases involved a California woman who told CT Insider she had to climb out a window to escape the Connecticut house owned by Werhan's parents, where he lived alone, in 2024. Another said Werhan last year put his hands around her neck and squeezed until she couldn't breathe, police said. A third said months later, he hit her in the face so hard, she fell backwards.
Another Rhode Island woman told Connecticut State Police that when she lived in Providence with Werhan in 2021, he pressed a knife against her neck and at times seemed to be in a "demonic state" - once doing a satanic ritual in his kitchen, police said. None of the Connecticut cases led to convictions, although Werhan still faces domestic violence charges in four of them, including the murder case.
Unlike the Rhode Island woman who lived with Werhan in 2021, the one CT Insider interviewed this month said she never moved in with Werhan. but was with him every day - and many nights - in 2023.
'Fell victim so easily'
She met Werhan on the Hinge dating app in late March or early April 2023, and even before she met him in person, he treated her like a steady girlfriend, she said.
He told her he loved her during one of their first online conversations, and he would stay on the phone with her even when she went to bed at night, she said.
"We would just like be on the phone, a regular phone call and mute ourselves when we sleep," she said.
She went to see him in person for the first time after a few weeks.
"I think he was extremely attractive," she said. "I probably fell victim so easily."
Although she didn't technically live with him, "I was at his apartment every single day," she said.
They would do the things many couples do, she said: Listen to music, play video games, watch movies and go for walks.
They also went out with his parents, she said.
The woman admits she missed a sign that something was wrong the first time she stayed overnight.
"He got on top of me and was choking me," she said. "I actually thought he was fooling around. But it got to the point where I couldn't breathe." He stopped before she passed out, she said, and she didn't see any marks on her neck.
The woman said Werhan explained his behavior by saying it wasn't him, it was "Eloc" - Cole backwards - his alter ego.
"It happens when he drinks and takes his medication at the same time," she said. "He just told me that 'Eloc' comes out when he blacks out."
She was about to see more of Werhan's dark side.
Gushing blood from broken nose
Things were supposed to go well on the night of Sept. 21, 2023. Werhan told her he didn't take his medication because he was drinking alcohol, she said.
But as the couple watched movies together, Werhan started texting other women and talking about it.
"He went on and on about his ex-girlfriend," she said. "I think he wanted me to be jealous."
One of the things he said to her was that the ex-girlfriend was "trying harder to be with him then she was," she said.
The woman said she responded by saying, "If you want to be with her, be with her."
The fact she didn't have a big reaction seemed to infuriate him, she said: "He smacked me when I said that."
Then he hit her again, she said, and this time there was blood.
"Immediately, my nose started gushing blood everywhere. I was like, ‘Oh my God, Oh my God,' she said, and "he was standing in the doorway mocking me: ‘Oh my God. Oh my God.' "
She reached down to put on her shoes so she could leave, and when he moved to stop her, he knocked the television over, she said.
"He said, ‘Look what you made me do,' " she said.
He then ordered her to lie down on the floor, she said, and when she did, he expressed that he was pleased with her obedience in one syllable.
"Good," he said.
'I'm going to kill you'
The woman said she asked Werhan if she could get up. When he allowed it, she picked up her phone, she said, but he grabbed it out of her hand and threw it into another room, where it hit a wall.
He then stood in the hallway, between the bedroom and kitchen, blocking her from getting out, she said.
"He kept saying, ‘I'm going to kill you, I'm going to kill you,' " she said.
She said she kept trying to calm him down, saying, "It's OK, it's OK," as she slowly walked closer to him. But as soon as she got close enough, she kicked him, she said, and ran out of his apartment.
Neighbors saw the bloody young woman in the hallway, pulled her into their apartment, locked the door and called 911, she said.
"And so, I was in their apartment," she said. "I don't even remember what I said."
Police came and arrested Werhan on domestic violence charges, she said, and he was ordered to have no contact with her. However, there is no record of the case, according to a clerk at the 6th Division District Court in Providence, R.I., which may mean it was expunged.
The victim, who said she went to urgent care the next day and found out her nose was broken, admits she didn't help police with their investigation.
"I wasn't really being cooperative," she said. "I still at the time believed he had a good heart and a good soul and I thought he needed help."
"I didn't think jail was what he needed," she said.
Jail is where Werhan is now, however. With help from his relatives, Werhan posted more than $800,000 in bonds after his Connecticut arrests on Nov. 20, April 28 and June 3, but couldn't make the $5 million bail for the June 23 murder charge. He is at MacDougall-Walker Correctional Institution in Suffield, prison records show.
Phone call day before murder arrest
The day before his murder arrest, Werhan called the Rhode Island woman, seemingly out of the blue, she said.
She said he gushed like he did back in 2023 when they first started talking.
"I haven't felt anything like this since my ex," Werhan told her, she said.
He added, "And she died," the woman said.
The woman asked what happened, but he didn't want to talk about it, she said.
That's when she searched for her own answers while still on the line. When she saw the headlines, she struggled not to let her voice betray her fear.
She was safe, two hours away in Rhode Island, she said, but, "I was nervous and I was shocked."
"As soon as I was off the phone with him, I blocked him," she said.
Clarification: This story has been updated to clarify Cole Werhan once had a no-contact order against him involving the Rhode Island woman.
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