Chilling body-cam footage shows moment teenager admitted to having man’s severed head in bedroom
Warning: This article contains content which some readers may find distressing.
Footage showed the sickening moment killer Brian Cohee admitted to having a severed head and a pair of hands in his bedroom closet.
Cohee was just 19 years old when he murdered 69-year-old homeless man Warren Barnes in 2021.
The teen, who is from Colorado, US, was later found guilty of first-degree murder, two counts of tampering with a dead body and also tampering with evidence before being sentenced to life in prison without parole in 2023.
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If you’ve never heard of this case, it was covered in a YouTube true crime documentary created by the EXPLORE WITH US channel.
Titled 'Parents Discover Teen Son's Horrifying Secret', it shows footage from a police camera, including the moment Cohee revealed the murder.
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Shockingly, it was his mother, Terri, who made the grim discovery in his bedroom and immediately called the police to investigate.
She had unwittingly uncovered a bag of body parts which were confirmed to have belonged to Barnes.
Terri described in the documentary how she came across the bag, saying: "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'."
It was later found that Cohee dismembered, decapitated, and mutilated the 69-year-old's body before keeping his head and hands in separate plastic bags in his wardrobe.
A further investigation discovered that he had attempted to get rid of Barnes' body by putting it into the trunk of his car and drinking it into the Colorado River.
After being called to the residence, police had a chat with Cohee, who admitted that he'd murdered Barnes 'with a knife'.
In the video, police said: "Your parents have concerns over some stuff they may have found in your room? What would that be?"
To which 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 would you have done that?', the teen responded: "I always wondered what murder would feel like."
However, the extent of his planning would soon come to light.
Cohee revealed that it was six months in the making, as he said: "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."
He later claimed he'd killed Barnes because he 'wanted to' and also decapitated him for 'the hell of it'.
Britt Jones