This article contains graphic descriptions of murder. Please read with caution.
In the dashcam footage, now viral on TikTok, an officer asks Brian Cohee Jr. if he might know what his parents discovered in his room that they found so upsetting. ” … a human head and hands. From that fella that went missing,” Cohee Jr. responds dispassionately. “I murdered him with a knife.”
On TikTok, Cohee Jr.’s calm demeanor admitting what he’s done tests the limits of believability. But that dashcam clip, as well as Coheed Jr.’s mother’s statement about how she made the gruesome discovery, are all too real.
What did Brian Cohee Jr. do?
In 2021, Brian Cohee Jr. was a 19-year-old living with his parents in Grand Junction, Colorado. Based on Cohee Jr.’s confession, he’d been curious about murder for a while, and one night, under a full moon, the younger Cohee set out with a kitchen knife to find a victim in the Grand Junction area. Cohee Jr. told the police he planned to target an unhoused individual, or possibly a sex worker, because they might not be missed.
Cohee Jr.’s victim that night was 69-year-old Warren Barnes, a person experiencing homelessness, well-known in the Grand Junction community. The Colorado teen said that in a surprise attack, he brutally stabbed Barnes in the neck while he was sleeping before he dismembered Barnes’ body, storing Barnes’ severed head and hands in his closet.
Barnes later said he planned to get rid of the rest of Barnes’ body in the trunk of a car, driven into the Colorado River. And when asked why he did it, he added, “I always wondered what murder would feel like.”
How did Brian Cohee Jr. get caught?
Meanwhile, Brian Cohee Jr.’s mother, Terri Cohee, explained to the police that she made the terrible discovery while tidying up her son’s room. “I was in his room cleaning up, putting some things away, and he has a Rubbermaid container in his closet, and so I just kind of started digging through,” Terri said in police interrogation footage.
“I saw a plastic bag and I was like what in the world is this,” Terri continued. “I picked it up, and it was heavy and I held it in my hands, maggots covering it. I take it to the sink. It was double-bagged. So, I opened the first bag, and I didn’t open the second bag. I called his father and said, ‘You need to get over here right now.'”
Cohee Jr. pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity
Brian Cohee Jr. — who in the past was diagnosed with major depressive disorder, ADHD, and Autism Spectrum Disorder — admitted what he’d done, but pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. Remembering the night he killed Warren Barnes, Cohee Jr. simply told the police, “I [was] in a bad state of mind at that time.”
Nonetheless, Cohee Jr. was declared sane when the murder happened, and fit to stand trial. In 2023, the younger Cohee was found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison, The Daily-Sentinel reported. A Warren Barnes memorial statue now stands in downtown Grand Junction.
The complete story of what happened in the Cohee Jr. case is now told in the true-crime podcast episode, Parents Discover Teen Son’s Horrifying Secret, available on the Explore With Us YouTube channel.