After Brian Cohee’s mum made the grim discovery, the 19-year-old nonchalantly told police that he killed a homeless man because he ‘wanted to know what murder feels like’
Cohee told police he put his victim’s head in a leftover pizza box(Image: Youtube/Explore With Us)
The chilling moment a teenager admits to having a man’s severed head and hands in his bedroom was caught on police body camera.
While Brian Cohee’s mum screamed hysterically after making the grim find, the 19-year-old nonchalantly told officers the body parts belonged to homeless man, Warren Barnes, 69.
Asked why he dismembered the pensioner, he said: “I wanted to know what murder feels like.”
The footage, which has since been made public shows an officer ask Cohee about what his mum has found in his bedroom.
Without emotion, he replies: “A human head and hands.” He said they belonged to “that fella who went missing recently.”
Cohee said he wanted to know what murder felt like(Image: Youtube/Explore With Us)
When asked what happened, he tells the officer he “murdered him…with a knife.”
When the officer asks: “Why would you have done that?” he casually answers: “I’ve always wondered what murder felt like.”
Mr Barnes, known locally as “The Reading Man” was reported missing in February 2021 by owners of the Colorado store he often liked to sit outside to enjoy books.
The harrowing case has recently been retold in a true crime documentary and explains how a car mishap set in motion a string of events that led to Cohee’s dark secret.
He had parked his family’s car on a boat ramp on the Colorado river and ended up getting it stuck. Authorities were called to the scene to help and the family got a laugh out of how he ended up there.
Cohee’s mum found the body parts in his bedroom(Image: Youtube/Explore With Us)
Although they were left perplexed by “a lot of red” they noticed on the vehicle, which unbeknownst to them was Mr Barnes’ blood.
The next morning, while Cohee’s father was cleaning the car, he discovered a large knife in the glove compartment and a wallet that didn’t belong to his son. Inside it a card for an agency which helps people find work. He called the number asking if they knew the man whose name was on it and was told he’d been reported missing.
Meanwhile, the most sickening discovery was made by his mother when she found something in his closet “covered in maggots” in a plastic container.
When she took it to the kitchen sink to unwrap it, she found it was a severed head.
Her frantic 911 call was played in the documentary as she told police: “I think it’s a human head. It looks like it, I saw an ear.”
Cohee’s mum was hysterical when she dialled 911(Image: Youtube/Explore With Us)
When Cohee was questioned at the police station, he says he was “in a bad state of mind” and had stopped taking his medication.
He told them he’d gone out in seatch of homeless people adding: “I was deliberately looking for someone who lived that type of life.”
He detailed how he’d pulled back the covers and stabbed Mr Barnes repeatedly in the neck.
“It was actually surprisingly easy, I was barely breaking a sweat,” he said. “I thought, oh, this guy, he’s gonna be tough. I was growling, making animalistic noises.”
Cohee explains how he dismembered Mr Barnes and put his head in a “leftover pizza box” that he had in his car.
The family initially thought it was funny when Brian got the car stuck in the river(Image: Police Handout)
“I was just doing everything I thought of at the moment. I gave him the Glasglow smile, a Joker smile,” he claimed.
He said he told Mr Barnes he was killing him because he’d “been wanting to do this for a long…time.”
“I decapitated him partially just for the hell of it,” he said. He told officers he dumped some of Mr Barnes’ remains in the river the night his car got stuck, but took his head and hands home.
Recalling the river incident, he said: “I’m panicking a bit at this point. I’m gonna be like: ‘This is what I’m gonna be remembered for, dying of hypothermia in a botched attempt at hiding a body.’”
Cohee said he had been inspired by serial killers like Ted Bundy who described murder as “the best feeling in the world.”
The knife was found in the glovebox(Image: Police Handout)
He added: “I’m like, I’m gonna try that. I’ve always wondered what murder felt like.”
But in reality, he said it didn’t have the desired effect and he ended up feeling “sort of neutral about the whole thing.”
“I didn’t enjoy it, but I didn’t hate it,” he said. “If I could go back to that night, I probably wouldn’t have done it. Knowing what it felt like, knowing how this will turn out, I wouldn’t have done it. I thought it would be the best feeling in the world.”
In February 2023, then 21-year-old Cohee was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole after attempting to plead not guilty by reason of insanity.
He said he thought murder ‘would be the best feeling in the world'(Image: Youtube/Explore With Us)
Cohee was previously diagnosed with major depressive disorder, ADHD and being on the autism spectrum, but a jury decided he could distinguish between right and wrong at the time of the horrific crime.
Meanwhile, a memorial lwas erected in Mr Barnes’ favourite spot depicting a replica of the chair he used to read in alongside a stack of his beloved books.
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