A new documentary horrified more than 11 million viewers with chilling body camera footage and an interrogation confession from a teenager who wore a Michael Myers costume while brutally dismembering a homeless man.
A new true-crime documentary has revived interest in the brutal murder of Warren Barnes, a 69-year-old homeless man well-liked in Grand Junction, Colorado.
In February 2023, 21-year-old Brian Cohee was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for the terrible loss of life, after trying to plead not guilty by reason of insanity. Cohee was previously identified with severe depressive disorder, ADHD and being on the autism spectrum, but a jury ruled he could distinguish between right and wrong at the time of the horrific crime.
Last week, the true crime YouTube channel Discover with us released a new documentary about Cohee’s murder, which included never-before-seen body camera footage and video from the case’s interrogation room. The nearly two-hour video has racked up more than 11 million views in the week since it aired, horrifying viewers in the process.
We’ve embedded the video below, but it should be viewed on YouTube:
The document explains how police discovered the crime, starting with a car accident involving Cohee on the night of February 28, 2021.
The 19-year-old man initially told officers he “wanted to leave” to “calm down and think” and ended up parking his family’s car at a boat ramp on the Colorado River. The car, however, was caught and authorities were informed of the location. At the time, the authorities and Cohee’s own parents were amused by the situation, as everyone was wondering how the hell the car ended up in the river.
After he was pulled from the water, police observed “some sort of red” running down the back of the vehicle, which left them wondering whether Cohee had been injured in the incident. He, however, said it was wonderful and he couldn’t imagine why there could be blood in the car. Authorities would only learn the next day that it was, in fact, blood – and it belonged to Barnes.
The next morning, Cohee’s father discovered Barnes’ wallet in the car, as well as a card from PeopleReady, a company that helps others find temporary work. He called PeopleReady to report the wallet, and eventually Barnes was reported missing by two local women who saw him every day. One of the women said he would never be in the area where the car got stuck in the river.
Cohee’s father then found a “very large knife” in the car’s glove compartment, before the children’s mother made an even more gruesome discovery in her closet. Inside a Rubbermaid container, she found something wrapped in a plastic bag, telling police in an interview that she saw “worms protecting something.” She pulled it out, put the bag in the kitchen sink and opened it – saying: “I saw old blood… and I saw his head.”
Her frantic name for 9-1-1 was also heard in the document, as she told police, “I think it’s a human head. It seems so, I noticed an ear.”
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When police arrived at the scene, Cohee approached them calmly while authorities said, “So, the parents have some issues with some things they may have present in their room.”
“Yes, I consider so. A human head and palms,” he said, before confirming that they belonged to “that guy who disappeared recently,” mistakenly calling him “Warren Brown.” Cohee then said, “I killed him” with a knife because he “always wondered what homicide was like.”
While her mother was seen crying hysterically, authorities went home and confirmed that there were human remains in the bag. Cohee was then handcuffed and told police, “I’m not feeling very well. The previous two days, I was very, very anxious.” While driving to the sheriff’s department, he also said, “It was under this bridge” as they drove through the area that authorities would later discover was the crime scene.
The police interrogation is chilling to watch, as Cohee lays out precisely what happened the night of the homicide. He mentioned that he had “an unhealthy way of thinking at the moment” and mentioned that he stopped taking his medication.
While driving his car, he ended up under a bridge near the sheriff’s department and saw what appeared to be a homeless encampment. Cohee told police he had been involved in homicide for “a year” or at least “six months,” believing authorities did not care about the homeless group or the sex squad and admitting, “I was intentionally looking for someone who lived that kind of life.
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He then said he put on three layers of gloves, before pulling back the tarp protecting Barnes and stabbing him in the neck repeatedly. According to Cohee, the person started yelling, “What are you doing? Why? Why?!” – before asking if it was “right” to give authorities “an indication” of how he continued to stab the victim.
“It was actually surprisingly simple, I barely broke a sweat,” he recalled. “I believed, oh, this man, he’s going to be powerful. I was growling, making animalistic noises.”
He then went into the truly gruesome details of how he cut up Barnes’ body, before dismembering it – first but cutting off his head, which he placed in “a leftover pizza box” he had in his car, and then the hands and palms.
“I was just doing whatever I thought of at that moment. I gave him a Glasglow smile, a Joker smile,” he claimed, saying he told Barnes he was killing him because “I’ve been wanting to do this for a long time.” Cohee added: “I partially decapitated him just for fun.”
He said he threw his arms around the crime scene but took his head and palms home. Cohee also drew authorities a map showing where he dumped the discarded body parts, body camera footage of which also showed police presence at the scene.
During interrogation, he compared himself to serial killer Ed Kemper, before explaining why he wore a blue jumpsuit on the night of the murders.
“You know the movie Halloween, Michael Myers, he wears some kind of and for Halloween last year, I bought this as a costume. you will discover the masks in my room. I simply related that piece, that piece of clothing to violence. That’s why I was using it,” he said.
Michael Myers masks were present in his residence. Although Cohee also told authorities that he wore a mask during the murder, it is unclear whether he was referring to the suit or the Covid medical mask.
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Cohee confessed that he threw more of Barnes’ body parts into the river the night his car was caught, laughing as he said he thought he would drown during the incident.
“I’m a little panicked at this level. I’ll be like, ‘This is what I’ll be remembered for, dying of hypothermia in a failed attempt to hide a physique,'” he recalled. “I am similar to ‘f–k, f–k, f–k.”
During interrogation, Cohee admitted to thinking about “ripping out his heart,” as well as taking photos of the crime scene before deleting them “because they were evidence.” Authorities were later able to extract footage from his phone.
When asked why he was in an unpleasant situation, Cohee said it was in part because he wasn’t “taking my medication.”
“Also, for years, I wondered what homicide would actually be like. Since you learn like Ted Bundy and the Zodiac, everyone says murder is the best feeling on the planet,” he confessed. “I’m like, I’m going to try this. I always wondered what murder would be like.
But the murder did not have the expected outcome for Cohee, who said he felt “kind of dispassionate about the whole thing” after the fact itself.
“I didn’t like it, but I didn’t hate it,” he said. “If I could go back to that night, I probably wouldn’t have played. Knowing what it was like, knowing how it could happen, I wouldn’t have done it. I believed it could be the best feeling on the planet.”
After his death, a memorial was erected at the place where Barnes used to sit and stroll in Grand Junction. According to Colorado Solar, the sculpture is a reproduction of the chair he sat in, next to a stack of his favorite books.
Watch the full documentary here.