Your child being arrested is arguably a parent’s worst nightmare, and Brian Cohee Jr’s mom and dad experienced this first hand.
In 2021, then 19-year-old Brian was arrested after his mother called 911 after finding what she believed to have been a severed head in her teenage son’s bedroom.
It was later revealed that Brian had murdered a local homeless man and dismembered his body afterwards.
Named as Warren Barnes, the 69-year-old man had been sleeping under a bridge in Grand Junction, Colorado.
Apparently Brian targeted the man as he believed that his disappearance would warrant little attention.
After Brian’s mother Terri called the police, officers arrived at their home to speak to the teenager.
In harrowing bodycam footage shown in part of a YouTube documentary on Brian’s case, an officer is heard asking him: “Your parents have some concerns about some stuff that they may have found in your room?”
“Yeah, I believe so,” Brian replies.
Brian’s father urged him to cooperate with the officer. (YouTube/EXPLORE WITH US)
When asked to divulge exactly what it is they found, he then casually tells the officer: “A human head and hands.”
The footage goes on to show the officer asked Brian’s father to escort him into the house and show him were the remains in question were.
Meanwhile, Brian’s mother is curled up on their front lawn hysterically crying.
Brian’s brother Andy is also there, who is urged to stay with his mother and give her a hug to try and console her.
While talking towards the house, Brian’s father says: “I had a bad feeling about what happened this weekend. She said there’s a bag in his closet and she opened it up and she called me and said, ‘Get over here right now.'”
Fast forward to February 2023 and Brian was found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to life behind bars.
Brian’s mother sobbed as her son was taken away. (YouTube/EXPLORE WITH US)
He’d pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity at his trial, but jurors weren’t persuaded and still voted to indict him.
Brian underwent a psych evaluation but he was found to not meet the legal standard of insanity during the murder.
Judge Richard Gurley, the judge on Brian’s case, labelled his crimes as one of the worst cases he’d ever worked on at the time.
Now 22, the convicted murderer is being held at the Buena Vista Correctional Complex.
