Moment police arrest teenager Brian Cohee who hid head of homeless man he murdered in closet (video)

A video has been released showing the horrifying moment police arrested a 19-year-old who murdered a homeless man and stored his head in his closest. 

Brian Cohee, now 21, from Colorado, murdered 69-year-old homeless man Warren Barnes, in 2021. 

 

The video came to light after Cohee became the subject of a shocking true-crime documentary titled Parents Discover Teen Son’s Horrifying Secret on YouTube channel. 

The extremely gruesome crime saw Cohee decapitate, dismember and mutilate Mr Barnes’s body before bringing some of the body parts home, where his mother found them.  

Alongside his head, Barnes hands were also discovered by Cohee’s mother Terri, decomposing in a separate plastic bag that was stashed in his wardrobe.   

Cohee had tried to discard the rest of the body by putting it in the trunk of his car and attempting to drive the vehicle into the Colorado River. 

 

The documentary featured police dashcam footage of the moment authorities arrived at the Cohee residence.  

Police questioned Cohee at his home asking: “Your parents have concerns over some stuff they may have found in your room? What would that be?” 

Cohee replied: “Yeah, I believe so, a human head and hands. From that fella that went missing. I murdered him with a knife.” 

When asked why by police officers he added: “I always wondered what murder would feel like.” 

 

Later Terri painfully recalled the moment she discovered Barnes’s severed head in her son’s closet during a police interview.  

 

She said: “I was in his room cleaning up, putting some things away and he has a rubber made container in his closet and so I just kind of started digging through. 

“I saw a plastic bag and I was like what in the world is this, 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’s parents then called 911 to report the gruesome discovery. They admitted to the dispatcher that their son had a keen interest in “death and mortality”.  

Cohee admitted to killing Barnes with a kitchen knife and said he’d been plotting murdering someone for six months prior. 

He added he was looking to kill a homeless person or prostitute under the assumption that no one would miss them.  

In the documentary, Cohee detailed his crime to investigators while showing no emotion or remorse.  

He said: “It was the night of February 27th it was a full moon and I figured I could see so well why not try it out, I am in a bad state of mind at that time, I have major depressive disorder. 

“I was driving around and I see a shape and I am like ‘oh interesting’. I’m like that’s a homeless person, so I grabbed my knife, I put on three layers of gloves because plastic gloves can betray their users because they’re so thin, I took the knife I pulled back the canvas and I stabbed his neck. 

“He was panicking at first in, he was saying what are you doing, what are you doing why, why,  and I just kept on stabbing his neck.” 

Cohee told investigators that he was “growling” and “making animalistic noises” while stabbing Barnes.  

He went on to laugh as he explained how he dismembered the man’s body. 

Cohee appeared excited to tell the investigators all about his horrific crime, he even looked excited to be reliving the murder and relishing the memory.  

Despite pleading insanity, Cohee went on to be sentenced to life behind bars without parole last year, after being found guilty of first degree murder. 

He was also found guilty of two counts of tampering with a dead body and of tampering with evidence. 

Judge Richard Gurley, who presided over this case called it one of the most horrific he had seen in his 37 years with the criminal justice system. 

 

Watch the video below.