Teen Killer: Brian Cohee Jr | Murder in Mind | Forensic Files

[tense music] THOMAS STUCKENSCHNEIDER: What's going on, man? - Cooperate? I am going to cooperate.
THOMAS STUCKENSCHNEIDER: OK. So parents have some concerns of some stuff they may have found in your room.
What would it be? - A human head and hands. - To come face to face with somebody so young,
it's kind of scary. - The nature was extremely brutal. BRIAN COHEE: I cut open his belly to see his guts.
They're really pink. [chuckles] - Every murder is bad, but this one was particularly horrific.
[dramatic music] LISSAH NORCROSS: He found this easy to do and admits that. BRIAN COHEE: I was growling and making animalistic noises.
[snarls] DR. JULIA SHAW: He seems to be completely detached from the fact that this was a human being.
KERRY DAYNES: To understand why somebody kills, we have to understand their life
story and the silent evolution of their thought patterns. [theme music] [ominous music]
- I think a lot of people are familiar with Grand Junction because they passed through here along the interstate.
We're located in the high mountains of Colorado, halfway between Denver and Salt Lake City.
- It is, I would say, a safe place to live. TRISH MAHRE: Brian, since he was a small child,
had grown up in a Grand Junction community. His family lived out in the Redlands area,
which is a nice upper-middle income area of our town. - My name is Kellen Pifer.
I'm a former classmate of Brian Cohee. I grew up here in Grand Junction. When I was about eight, we moved up to the Redlands
and that's when I started going to Broadway Elementary, which is where I met Brian.
Brian lived in a similar part of the Redlands to me. All the people knew each other.
It was very nice living there. You always kind of felt supported. You kind of felt like you knew all your neighbors.
It always felt like you could always reach out for help. People often brought each other cookies,
treats for the holidays. So it felt very tight, you know, knit. ROB HEIL: Brian Cohee's family seemed normal.
They seemed like they had a normal, steady jobs. TRISH MAHRE: His mom ran a daycare out
of the basement of her home. His father worked in construction. His parents were separating, and
they were living in two homes not very far from each other. He lived primarily with his mother,
but he frequented his father's home. [intriguing music] KELLEN PIFER: Brian's mannerisms in elementary school
were a little bit strange. He seemed to exaggerate his movements a little bit. He spoke very loud, oftentimes would
over pronunciate his words. TRISH MAHRE: Brian Cohee's mother was reporting that he had mild autism.
From the time he was very little, she was reaching out for help, trying to have him assessed
and trying to get him the right help. KELLEN PIFER: I would definitely say that Brian seemed to lack social awareness.
Oftentimes, it felt like he didn't necessarily know where bounds were supposed to be,
or maybe he felt like pushing on those bounds was the best way to get attention.
TRISH MAHRE: By middle school and high school, the schools were interacting with the Cohee family
about things that they were discovering that were disturbing. Brian Cohee, he was fixated on infamous people who hurt
people such as Hitler, Stalin. He was obsessed with crime scenes. He was obsessed with murder.
He was obsessed with serial killers. ROB HEIL: It was apparent in talking to Brian's teachers
that there was a disturbing behavior, disturbing thoughts. POLICE OFFICER 1 (ON RECORDING):
What do you remember about Brian? BRIAN'S TEACHER 1 (ON RECORDING): Not much. Just I remember there was like a notebook that
had some obviously concerning stuff talking about, like, serial killer statistics and stuff.
Like, he seemed to be kind of enamored with that. POLICE OFFICER 1 (ON RECORDING):
So famous serial killers? Some information about-- BRIAN'S TEACHER 1 (ON RECORDING):
Yeah, like kill counts and just stuff like that. Like, that's not entirely normal, you know?
- I'm Kerry Daynes, I'm a consultant forensic psychologist. Cohee is reading about serial killers.
He's researching serial killers on the net. And he's doing all of this not through a lens of empathy.
He's doing it through a lens of intellectual curiosity. And he's not empathizing with the victims.
He is identifying with the killer. It's the killer and the killer's mindset and the killer's behavior
that resonates with him. TRISH MAHRE: People came to know him as somebody with dark, dark humor.
BRIAN'S TEACHER 2 (ON RECORDING): He'd make comments about the Holocaust, you know, wildly inappropriate all the time.
He always looked for shock. He fed on that negative attention. I felt like he was bottling up a lot of, uh, dissatisfaction
because, like, he was really smart kid, very academically brilliant. But he was, like--
he was a little bit of a social outcast. KERRY DAYNES: He is really emotionally immature.
But also, you've got to understand that he does not understand the social world.
He doesn't understand the nuances of social interactions. He doesn't really understand the reciprocal nature
of friendships. And he wants people to take note of him. But the only way that he's found that really he
can achieve any sort of attention is by being shocking, and in being shocking, all it really reinforces to him
is his difference from other people. [suspenseful music] ROB HEIL: Brian had made a series of posts on Reddit
that provided a lot of insight into his thinking and his motives. - The fact that Cohee is going on the internet,
and he's becoming more and more extreme in what he is posting, shows that he is struggling himself in trying to understand
this and he wants to test. Are there other people out there that feel the same kind of things to me?
But of course, the response is overwhelmingly negative. So that can only feed into this cycle of feeling low, feeling
different, feeling other, and also feeling resentful of the world around you. [tense music]
KELLEN PIFER: It did seem like whenever a situation happened, maybe he didn't fully understand.
Like, if he had done something wrong, sometimes it felt like, it was more funny than it was concerning to him.
BRIAN COHEE (VOICEOVER): "I was bored in school, so I made a mace out of tape and a pencil."
[intriguing music] - I'm Dr. Julia Shaw, a criminal psychologist and author. What I think is most fascinating
about the Brian Cohee case is that he seems to have what are called callous, unemotional traits.
CU traits or callous and emotional traits are when you don't feel the same feelings as other people
and you don't have the same empathy in the brain. Callous, unemotional traits are related
to a part of the brain called the anterior temporal lobe. And what you see with people who are high in callous,
unemotional traits is this area that is responsible for suppressing callous thoughts is literally smaller.
Being high in these traits makes you more likely to hurt other people, and it takes away a barrier that most of us
would have to doing things like murder. [ominous music] KELLEN PIFER: It's really hard to know
when someone's actually going to take something too far. You know, when something goes from being a joke that you say
to get attention or to be funny, to where that actually gets turned into something, maybe
a lot more deeper, a lot more scary. [tense music] ROB HEIL: Brian Cohee had got his car stuck in the river
and had made a call to his family for help. Police were notified also. POLICE OFFICER 2: Hey, partner.
Come on, talk to me real quick. - Sure. POLICE OFFICER 2: I appreciate it. - I'm really cold.
Is it OK if it's in here because-- POLICE OFFICER 2: It's fine. TERRI COHEE: Because he is.
POLICE OFFICER 2: That's fine. I didn't-- I did not know that. ROB HEIL: It seemed like a normal thing
a teenager would get themselves into. POLICE OFFICER 2: Well, you're not hurt, right.
You're OK? BRIAN COHEE: No, just a little cold, is all. POLICE OFFICER 2: Just slide your pride a little bit?
What were you doing down here, bud? - Well, I felt like I needed to get out, like--
and I figured, why not park here and just-- POLICE OFFICER 2: Just relax a little bit?
- Relax and think. And I parked on the boat ramp, and I thought it would be easy to get out.
And it slid into the river. I was able to get out. ROB HEIL: Brian Cohee told officers
that he was just hanging out when he had accidentally backed his car too far into the river.
TERRI COHEE: Yeah. He was an inexperienced driver. POLICE OFFICER 2: OK. Oh, yep.
TERRI COHEE: Teenagers. Does he need to stay here? POLICE OFFICER 2: I'm sorry? - Is he free to go?
He was-- I'm sure he'd like to go home and get warm. POLICE OFFICER 2: I'm sure he'd like to get some pants on.
- Yeah, right. [laughs] POLICE OFFICER 2: Yeah. It's not a crash. It's-- - OK. It's just a stupid accident.
POLICE OFFICER 2: So. I don't. TERRI COHEE: All right-- ROB HEIL: The fact that Brian's parents were on scene
and telling the officers what their son had done apparently made a mistake as an inexperienced driver
did not raise any suspicions. POLICE OFFICER 3: What'd they say about us looking in the trunk?
POLICE OFFICER 2: They're good with it. POLICE OFFICER 3: OK. POLICE OFFICER 2: Really quick question for you.
- OK. POLICE OFFICER 2: So the back bumper, I don't know. You can probably see it from here.
There's a lot of red on the back of that. BRIAN COHEE: Yeah. POLICE OFFICER 2: Dripping down it all a little bit.
A lot of red. It looks like blood. - Blood? POLICE OFFICER 2: Yeah. I don't know if you-- did your son hurt himself?
Maybe just have him do, like, a self-check. Make sure he's OK. Well? TERRI COHEE: Brian, are you OK?
They see blood on the back bumper of the vehicle. BRIAN COHEE: Really? TERRI COHEE: Yeah.
Did you get hurt? BRIAN COHEE: No! - Are you-- are you sure you don't have any injuries?
BRIAN COHEE: No, I'm fine. There's blood on it? POLICE OFFICER 2: We're not sure.
TERRI COHEE: We're not sure. It's a red-- something red underneath the license plate.
But you're not injured. You don't have any cuts? BRIAN COHEE: No. I don't know what would cause the water
or whatever it is on the bumpers. ROB HEIL: Brian was very calm and cool when talking to his parents on the phone
and after police officers had noticed blood on the back of the car. He acted like nothing happened.
There was nothing wrong and he was very convincing. POLICE OFFICER 2: Let's take it.
Come out here to dump a body. [laughs] [intriguing music] ROB HEIL: Mr. Barnes was reported
missing by a friend of his who ran a local business. This friend would see him on a daily basis
and notice that he had not been coming around for a couple of days, which made her concerned.
One key connection that we found was a wallet belonging to Mr. Barnes had been located by Brian Cohee's father
inside the vehicle, and that was submerged in the river. TRISH MAHRE: When they realized that a wallet that
was associated with the boat ramp, some local people were literally walking the Colorado River looking for Warren Barnes.
WARREN BARNES' COWORKER: He literally shows up every morning, every day, without fail, like it's 6:00.
Sometimes a little sooner. And we always let him in before the customers. We give him free coffee.
He's the nicest old man ever. [somber music] - I am Gail Gandy. I am the youngest niece of Warren Barnes.
Uncle Warren is the seventh of nine children. He was definitely a fun uncle. He liked being around people.
He really enjoyed country music. He definitely loved to read. My uncle Warren would read books downtown.
A local shop owner actually would give him a chair so he could sit out in the sun to absorb the sun
and read his book and be out with the nature. He would help shop owners bring in boxes and stuff.
- And that's the weird thing is, I said, I'll see you tomorrow. He said, I'll be here.
I'll see you tomorrow. I don't-- I don't know. I just have a really bad feeling because it's unlike him.
- We are investigating the missing person. WOMAN: OK. I'm just going to keep looking until I hear from you guys.
POLICE OFFICER 4: OK. - I'm too worried about him, so. All right. Thank you guys.
Thanks for coming out and looking for him. [ominous music] [tense music] MORIAH WICK: I'm Deputy Wick.
I work for the motor County Sheriff's Office. I saw the call populating, and the dispatcher
will take the phone call. And then they start throwing in notes as they're developing the call, and we can see
those notes start coming in. MORIAH WICK: My first response was, mm, it's probably a Halloween costume,
or maybe it's animal parts. - I was a patrol deputy at the time and I am now a sergeant.
The reporting party had said that she had found what she believed was a human head and
hands in her son's closet, so that's pretty much what we had as we were headed out that way.
So driving down here, it's just, what are we going to? What am I going to see? I can't just go in there and think somebody's guilty
or pull my gun out. And I have to let their actions dictate what my actions are going to be after that.
As we're approaching, I'm going to gauge what type of reaction, what type of cooperation
are we getting. Are they aggressive or calm? What's going on, man? - Great. I am going to cooperate.
THOMAS STUCKENSCHNEIDER: OK, so parents have some concerns of some stuff they may have found in your room.
- Um, yeah, I believe so. THOMAS STUCKENSCHNEIDER: And what would it be? - A human head and hands.
- Are we dealing with somebody that has a mental illness that is hallucinating, seeing this, perceiving it?
Or is it something fake that he's made and he's playing a prank on mom? I wanted to verify.
Like, you said human head and hands. Are they real? Like, for real human head and hands?
- Yes. THOMAS STUCKENSCHNEIDER: From? - That fellow who went missing recently. THOMAS STUCKENSCHNEIDER: Which fellow was that?
BRIAN COHEE: Warren. THOMAS STUCKENSCHNEIDER: Warren. And how did you end up with him?
- I murdered him. THOMAS STUCKENSCHNEIDER: With what? - A knife. THOMAS STUCKENSCHNEIDER: And why would you have done that?
- I've always wondered what murder felt like. [ominous music] THOMAS STUCKENSCHNEIDER: And now my brain is like,
OK, we-- we have something. Do you have anything on you that's going to cut, poke, hurts, stick to anything without reaching for nothing?
Don't reach for nothing. - My phone and my wallet. THOMAS STUCKENSCHNEIDER: OK. Well, I'm going to have you face that way.
Put your hands on top of your head for me real quick. I just want to make sure you interlace your fingers for me
real quick. All right? OK. How did you come across the gentleman? - I was driving.
- Uh-huh. - And I saw a strange shape near the railway. So I parked my car and investigated it,
and I found it to be a man sleeping. THOMAS STUCKENSCHNEIDER: OK. Where's the knife at?
BRIAN COHEE: It is in my sunken car. - And at that point in time, with the information
he was giving, the way he was answering, my brain started to shift from, this isn't real to, OK, so maybe he found a dead person
to, oh, my gosh, I think this kid really killed somebody. - When I killed him, I tried disposing of his body
by putting it in the river, but I parked too low in the river. THOMAS STUCKENSCHNEIDER: Where's
the rest of his body at? - Huh? THOMAS STUCKENSCHNEIDER: Where's the rest of the body at?
- What parts? - His family is there listening to everything he's saying, and he seemed unbothered and unconcerned with anything
that was occurring. - I'm going to have you walk over here. You're going to sit in the back of my--
my partner's control patrol car for a minute, OK? MORIAH WICK: OK. I referenced to Sergeant Stuckenschneider
a motion, which we use to handcuff, and he's primary deputy, and he kind of gave me the head nod of no.
We make those decisions based upon behavior, mannerisms, cooperation. BRIAN COHEE: How are you. MORIAH WICK: Good, sir.
How are you? You said your name is Brian? BRIAN COHEE: Yes. Ah! I'm not feeling too well.
MORIAH WICK: You're not feeling too well? BRIAN COHEE: These past few days, I've been very, very anxious.
MORIAH WICK: That's understandable. MORIAH WICK: So what we're going to have you do here
is I'm just going to have you sit-in the back here, OK? I'm going to turn on the air for you in a second.
That way you're not too hot. Are you a hot-blooded or cold-blooded kind of guy? BRIAN COHEE: I am very cold blooded.
MORIAH WICK: The way he said it to me, I took it as he wasn't talking about the temperature.
So hop in here. I know you're tall, so it's a little bit of a tight squeeze, but like I said, I'll get that air on for you.
- Sorry about that. MORIAH WICK: All right. TERRI COHEE: I can't believe it. Oh my god.
MORIAH WICK: It's kind of a time to not really know what, so-- [crying] - Random too. Why?
I don't get it. MORIAH WICK: How old is Brian? - 19. - 19. MORIAH WICK: He's 19.
It was a very wild situation to watch unfold. It was kind of like their whole life was falling
apart right in that moment. THOMAS STUCKENSCHNEIDER: Can you walk me inside? So that's when I have dad take me
inside so that I can verify for myself that what we have is an actual human head and hands.
Can I go in there and verify here first? - Oh, yeah, please. We haven't seen it yet.
We haven't. [suspenseful music] THOMAS STUCKENSCHNEIDER: So as I'm going in the house,
I'm expecting to see something. BRIAN COHEE SR: I promise you-- THOMAS STUCKENSCHNEIDER: OK. BRIAN COHEE SR: --see it.
I didn't want him to run. - I could tell right away as soon as I lifted up the towel.
Yep. It was indeed a real human head. Yeah. ROB HEIL: This is a home where Brian's mother ran a daycare.
Several children were present on a daily basis. And to think there was a human head and hands inside the house
was quite disturbing. [dramatic music] THOMAS STUCKENSCHNEIDER: 22-42. Are you clear for a call?
Oh, yeah. You might want to call investigations. So-- oh, yeah. He-- he already-- I asked him what was going on.
He said, I killed a guy, I stabbed him, the head's in the sink. The body is, uh, in the river.
The sound by my voice that it looks real? It is. Now we are actually verified that this is a murder
and this is an actual person. Now I'm just calling the cavalry. MORIAH WICK: All right, Brian.
We're headed to the Sheriff's Office, and your family's going to go with us, OK?
I've got one male on board. We're en route to the office. Brian, I'm going to roll up these windows
because the air gets really loud back there, OK? We do often try to keep people at ease as much as we can,
even in situations where they've just confessed to murder. Brian was just that same even keel demeanor.
He did not show emotion one way or the other. When we arrived at the Sheriff's Office,
we pulled into the back area so I can walk him through into our Investigations unit.
OK, Brian. - Thank you. MORIAH WICK: No problem, sir. Let's go. Walk with me. We're going to walk right this way, OK?
BRIAN COHEE: You're fine with me not being in cuffs. MORIAH WICK: I'm fine with you not being in cuffs.
BRIAN COHEE: OK. Thank you. - I felt fully comfortable. He was still very polite.
He didn't do anything that I thought was indicative of him trying to run or be violent.
Take another left. Hard left. Right here, right here. All right. I walked him into the interview room
and told him he could have a seat, and that somebody would be with him shortly. [ominous music]
ROB HEIL: Even though Brian Cohee had confessed, we knew we had to gain some insight
into his mental state and things that would lead us to understand his thinking. KERRY DAYNES: What are we dealing with here?
Is this somebody who has acted on hallucinations? Delusions? Is this somebody that is suffering
with a mental illness? PETE BURG: Brian? Howdy? - Hi. - My name is Pete. I'll be right back with you.
I just didn't know if you needed a drink or-- - I'd like some water, please. - Water?
OK. My name's Pete Burg I'm an investigator with the Mesa County Sheriff's Office,
and I interviewed Brian Cohee. This is Lissah Norcross. - Hi. How are you? - I'm OK. You?
- Good. Thanks. I'm investigator Norcross. I've worked with investigator Burg for a really long time.
Our job is to get the truth, whatever that truth is. PETE BURG: I want your birthday, Brian.
- January 10, 2002. - And your address? - Which one? - Um, I mean, yeah-- - My dad's, then there's my mom and dad.
- Which one-- do you like both or one or-- - I sleep at my mom's. - OK. - But I often visit my dad's every day.
LISSAH NORCROSS: My first impressions of just looking at Brian, he looks like the typical 19,
20-year-old young person. Brian is well-spoken. He's a smart young man. He's cooperative.
He's willing to sit and talk with us. PETE BURG: And how did you get here? BRIAN COHEE: I murdered someone.
- OK. But how did you get to my office? - Well, um, the police drove me here from my mom's house.
- OK. - When somebody is very quick to say things like that and implicate themselves in serious crimes, that tells me
I have someone who has a unique personality here, and we're going to want to talk to them a lot more.
PETE BURG: You said you murdered someone. BRIAN COHEE: I did. PETE BURG: Do you know the person?
- No. And, uh, I am in a bad state of mind at that time. I have major depressive disorder,
so I am not thinking something positive to me. - One of the things that I knew we needed to ask about
was any type of mental health issues that he's either been diagnosed with or he believes he has.
When you say you have a major depressive disorder, I'm just curious what those are.
- Well, actually I have several. I had high functioning Asperger's. LISSAH NORCROSS: OK.
- I have ADHD and a major depressive disorder. And they also said I was schizo something.
That isn't me misremembering. They just said you have fear schizo something, whether that be schizophrenia, schizoaffective, schizotypal,
or schizoid disorder. They said I had something that was schizo. - Can you imagine at the age of 19,
you've got this list of diagnoses, list of labels? Here are all the-- the reasons why there's
something different about you. There's something wrong about you. None of this is being addressed therapeutically.
And he feels like a freak. - It seemed like Brian had studied serial killers a lot
to me. And he did want to be like those people. I mean, it seemed like maybe they were his heroes.
[ominous music] BRIAN COHEE: My nickname in high school is Jeffrey Dahmer. PETE BURG: OK.
- I had a reputation that I would become a serial killer. - OK. Why did you get that reputation?
- Um, because of how off putting I was in school. I was not social. I didn't like anyone.
I would purposefully make offensive, crass, rude comments just to get a rise out of people.
- OK. BRIAN COHEE: To ruffle their feathers. PETE BURG: Most people obviously aren't going to jump from I've never done anything
wrong to killing a person. They have a progression of leading up to, now I'm killing people.
LISSAH NORCROSS: Have you ever done it before? - Nah. No. PETE BURG: OK. You got F, right?
- Yeah. PETE BURG: How about animals? Did you practice on anything? - Yes. A cat has paws and claws.
They can hurt you. So I heard that the cat into the sleeping bag and beat it and strangled it.
And for a snap its neck, I put the large, heavy airsoft gun. It's metal. So it's heavy.
I then decapitate the cat. And hit the head in a wine cork box. I kept it for three days.
Then it started to stink. And then I disposed both in the trash and got away with it.
DR. JULIA SHAW: At the age of 16, he kills a cat. I think psychologically that is quite an extreme thing to do.
It's also almost the cliché of a serial killer, as that is the kind of behavior that is associated with callous
and emotional traits, with the inability to have empathy or sympathy for other creatures.
Brian Cohee actually says about his own behavior that he was, in quotes, "high on homicide."
Now, what that suggests is that in the process of killing while he is doing this, and also afterwards, arguably,
that he is enjoying the adrenaline rush he's getting, and also that presumably he's needing more and more of it
to get the same effect. And so that's what we see with his behavior, is that he's graduating to increasingly violent actions.
[suspenseful music] ROB HEIL: Brian Cohee had talked about killing a cat and keeping the remains in his house.
He indicated that he gets some sense of excitement from this, and that might have been part of the reason
why he kept a human head in hands. BRIAN COHEE: I was driving along and I see a shape here on the railway tracks.
I'm like, oh, that's interesting. So I go up and as I'm looking, I see a large being wrapped in a canvas.
PETE BURG: OK. BRIAN COHEE: And I'm like, that's homeless person. So I grabbed my knife.
I pulled back the canvas, and I stabbed his neck. He was panicking at first in his old man voice.
He was saying, what are you doing? What are you doing? Why? Ahh! And I said, I've been wanting to do
this for a long [bleep] time. And I just kept on stabbing his neck. I was just-- is it OK if I do a demonstration?
PETE BURG: Oh, yeah. - This is him. I was straddled on top of him like this. PETE BURG: OK.
BRIAN COHEE: And, uh, he couldn't fight back. It was actually surprisingly easy.
I was barely breaking a sweat. I thought a homeless guy, he's going to be tough.
But, no, it was actually surprisingly easy. And during the time, I was growling and making animalistic noises.
[snarls] PETE BURG: But why were you doing that? BRIAN COHEE: I suppose it was a fenzy.
PETE BURG: OK. BRIAN COHEE: I was so excited, so rushed up on adrenaline and, hey, let's just--
[mumbles] After I killed him, I just couldn't stop saying stinky, dirty, dirty, sticky, stinky.
I stripped his clothes. I cut open his belly to see his guts. They're really pink.
[chuckles] Sorry, that was morbid. And, uh, then I cut off his head. And then I cut off his hands.
And then I took the head, put it in a leftover box. GAIL GANDY: Uncle Warren was vulnerable without a home when
I found out he was murdered. It really hit hard. And I know I had a hard time just knowing how he passed.
Uh, it was senseless. We were all shocked. We were just-- It was very, very hard for all of us.
DR. JULIA SHAW: I think in the heat of the moment of killing somebody, the reason why
you might disfigure their face is to try and keep your high going. So if you have done this crime, not out of any real reason
other than because you feel like you want to know what it feels like to kill somebody,
and if you're there, you might also then go, well, I wonder what it feels like to gouge
somebody's eyes out. I wonder what it feels like to cut someone's face. Now, of course, that's all very extreme,
but if you're already in that mode of trying things and seeing how they make you feel, that to me
makes perfect sense that he would try lots of different things and go increasingly
more severe with his actions. So he's trying to maximize the emotional payoff of his murder.
LISSAH NORCROSS: One of the things that makes Brian the scariest type of person is that he found this easy to do and admits that.
[ominous music] BRIAN COHEE: I talked to the arm bits around. Like, I took the right arm bit.
Threw it out. And then took the left arm bit. Threw it out. PETE BURG: Somewhere around that bridge?
BRIAN COHEE: [sighs] Yeah. ROB HEIL: The crime scene was located near the Justice Center, near the courthouse
here in in Mesa County, underneath a bridge. And that was a location where homeless people do often stay.
It's fairly secluded. POLICE OFFICER 5: There's an arm. There's another arm. POLICE OFFICER 6: Let's do some pictures.
POLICE OFFICER 5: There's another one. POLICE OFFICER 7: Right. Here's a leg. Well, it could be the upper arm.
ROB HEIL: This was a disturbing crime scene, as there were human remains that were thrown around and discarded after the victim
was dismembered. DR. JULIA SHAW: The most common reason for why somebody cut somebody else's head off
after the commission of a murder, especially, is to hide the body, and that is called a defensive strategy.
So you have already done this, and you're trying to defend yourself from actually
having evidence against you. What we also have with Brian Cohee is an offensive strategy where he is decapitating somebody
because he wants to and he's mutilating the body because he's getting some sort of enjoyment
out of it or a thrill. And so that is incredibly uncommon. [intriguing music] PETE BURG: When did you start thinking about killing people?
- Six months ago. TRISH MAHRE: The six months before the murder, Brian Cohee's parents found him with a backpack
full of supplies. We referred to it as a kill kit. BRIAN COHEE: My parents found a kit I had been assembling.
It had hammers, shovels, knives, large zip ties, duct tape. I thought I was meant for hurting people,
but they found it, though. TRISH MAHRE: His parents discovered it. They were very, very concerned and
it did not make sense to them why he would have this kit. So they took it from him.
- It was an ultimatum, where if I didn't throw it away, they would call the police.
PETE BURG: And then two months ago, he started driving around again. BRIAN COHEE: Yeah.
PETE BURG: With the new kit? - It was just clubs at night. PETE BURG: OK. And a plan?
- Yeah, a plan. TRISH MAHRE: He was trolling or lurking around town trying to identify what type of person
he would ultimately kill. BRIAN COHEE: I was figuring the police don't-- this is not to be taken offense,
but police, they don't seem to care as much about high-risk individuals, homeless people,
prostitutes, et cetera. So I was deliberately looking for someone who lived that type of life.
PETE BURG: OK. ROB HEIL: In early February of 2021, Brian was conducting searches about how deadly
a stab wound would be, where homeless people sleep and how people react to being held at knifepoint.
Brian had also conducted internet searches related to river washing away evidence.
And also, how long does it take for a body to stink? It seemed like Brian was obsessed
with committing a murder after looking at his internet searches. [tense music] PETE BURG: So any idea of like, the time
of night when you started looking for this person? BRIAN COHEE: The night of the murder?
PETE BURG: Yeah. BRIAN COHEE: It was 10:00 PM. PETE BURG: And what were you wearing?
BRIAN COHEE: Well, you know the movie "Halloween"? Michael Myers? PETE BURG: Mm-hmm.
BRIAN COHEE: For Halloween last year, I bought that as a costume. You'll find the mask in my room.
PETE BURG: OK. - And, uh, yeah, I just associated that piece of-- article of clothing with violence.
That's why I was wearing it. PETE BURG: That night? BRIAN COHEE: Yes. - He's getting himself psyched up for this grand event,
so it's almost like a kid playing dress up. This is an outfit that he associates with violence,
and he's trying to get himself into character. BRIAN COHEE: I found Warren at 11:00.
I murdered him. 15 minutes I spent there mauling his body. Got back home at 12:00 and--
I tried to go to sleep for an hour. I was worried about it. - He actually went home to bed.
Couldn't sleep because he was afraid he had left evidence. And that's when he returned to the scene
behind the Justice Center, and ultimately took pieces of the body and disposed of the primary pieces
of the body in the Colorado River, which is when his car got stuck in the river.
[ominous music] The rest of his torso and legs were never discovered. I have never handled a murder case
where a human body was murdered and destroyed after the murder in this way. ROB HEIL: There was more than enough
evidence found in the home and at the scenes, in addition to Brian's confession,
to determine that he was the person who had killed Warren Barnes. - Within the next 15 years of my life
looks set in stone, prison. TRISH MAHRE: He was very much looking forward to the consequences that he
knew were going to be coming. He just misjudged the amount of the consequences. PETE BURG: What did it feel like?
- It was intense. It was, um-- it was a rush of adrenaline. It wasn't fear. It was just pure--
what's the word? Um, excitement, I suppose. Not excitement as in joy. Just excitement as in increased heartbeat.
- Did you enjoy it or not enjoy it? - Um, did I enjoy it? I don't know. I was perpetuating the whole thing.
I didn't enjoy it, but I didn't hate it. LISSAH NORCROSS: What did you think of the feeling?
- I thought it would be the best feeling in the world. DR. JULIA SHAW: I think when he says I didn't enjoy it,
but I didn't hate it, what he's trying to say is, I'm not a sadist. I didn't do this just because I get
pleasure from hurting people. It's more that I did a thing because I thought it was interesting.
And we know that he got at least a thrill out of it. That emotional/just physical response that he was maybe
struggling to get elsewhere. I think Brian Cohee killed Warren Barnes because he
wanted to feel something. And notably, and this is where we get to those callous, unemotional traits,
he seems to be completely detached from the fact that he has taken somebody's life.
He doesn't have those feelings of remorse and guilt. PETE BURG: After his interview, we took Brian back to the jail
and as he was sitting in booking, he kind of grinned and said, I feel like Hannibal Lecter right now and kind of
got a grin like he was a celebrity at this point, because he had now killed somebody and got arrested,
because you don't hear about serial killers that don't get caught. So now he got caught, and he's famous in his mind, I believe.
But then it was almost like another part of euphoria of, and now I get to go to jail and tell people I'm a killer.
[disquieting music] ROB HEIL: Brian pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. He was looking at a life sentence.
TRISH MAHRE: This crime sounds crazy, but just because it sounds crazy and is not expected,
that does not make him insane. KERRY DAYNES: The plea of not guilty by reason of insanity
was entirely dismissed, because actually he had proven his legal sanity all the way
through his police interview. He was not hallucinating. He was not struggling with paranoid beliefs or delusions.
He was fully in control of his behavior. ROB HEIL: I think the jury did have a hard time hearing
the story of what happened to Mr. Barnes, that he was an innocent victim who did nothing
to provoke the situation. I think it was a lot to handle for them. GAIL GANDY: The fact that this monster would do--
would attack a 69-year-old man while he was sleeping, it was such a cowardly act.
The judge said this was the worst crime he had ever heard in his lifetime on the bench.
I know it shocked everybody. It wasn't just our family that was affected. It was pretty much everybody in this valley was affected by it.
TRISH MAHRE: Brian Cohee, who committed first-degree murder, every murder is bad, but this one was particularly horrific.
Ultimately, he's serving the appropriate sentence of life-- life without parole.
KERRY DAYNES: I think that Cohee killed Warren because he was feeling down, feeling lost,
feeling that he couldn't relate to anybody in the world other than serial killers.
- I think there were two things going on when Brian Cohee murdered Warren Barnes.
I think the first thing is he was thrill seeking. He was trying to get a rush, and
we could see that as a pattern of behavior, where he perpetrated various violent acts
over the course of his life, and they got more and more extreme. The other thing that I think was happening
is that we know that Brian Cohee had a fascination with serial killers, he would record their kill counts.
He was fascinated by the fame that comes with killing people, and I think it's possible that he saw himself
as someone who would fit that kind of label, that maybe that kind of fame would look good on him.
- This is somebody that is really struggling to experience any kind of emotion. He's so cut off from his own emotions.
He doesn't have a language for his own emotions. You know, he's expecting to feel something.
I think that a lot of things are best left as fantasies because the reality just
doesn't measure up. GAIL GANDY: Uncle Warren got the moniker the Reading Man, because a lot of the Downtown business owners
saw him reading all the time. There is a memorial downtown off of Main Street. I believe that we should remember
my uncle Warren being the kind, generous person that he was. Remember to take time just to go out and soak up some sun.
Tomorrow may not come for you. Enjoy the little things in life and the here and now.
[theme music]

An isolated 19‑year‑old obsesses over deadly fantasies, culminating in a brutal murder and dismembering. His notebooks and confession expose a mind consumed by violence and dissociation.

Murder in Mind explores the psychological forces that drive people to murder.

Brief Summary

Brian Cohee murdered Warren Barnes, driven by a fascination with violence and a desire for notoriety.

Key points

Discovery of Human Remains. Authorities discover a human head and hands in Brian's home, leading to a shocking confession.
Chilling Confession. Brian Cohee admits to murder, revealing his unsettling curiosity about killing.
Brian's Confession. Brian openly admits to murdering someone during the police interview.
Chilling Admission. Brian describes his feelings during the murder, revealing a disturbing thrill.
The Crime Scene. The gruesome details of the crime scene reveal the extent of Brian's actions.
The Kill Kit Discovery. Brian's parents found a backpack filled with tools for murder, raising concerns.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

I’ve always wondered what murder felt like.

Brian Cohee's chilling confession.

18:29WatchOct 3, 2025

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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