[killer speaking] There's a thing inside of me, it's like...
the appetite, it's like a wolf that's...
killing... the hunger.
Even when you have seasoned...
detectives,
and seasoned police officers,
there's very little that prepares a human being
for seeing
a harrowing crime scene like this,
where a human being has been treated with
such a level of disregard
that it just tells us that this is a high-risk case,
and it's somebody who has some level of psychiatric disturbance
to be able to do that to another human being.
Cohee's displaying classic psychopathic tendencies
where he has absolutely no remorse,
no feelings of guilt.
He's not offering up any of that.
But what he's offering up is how much time he's got to do
because of this murder.
He's really not identifying what the value of the life is.
He doesn't really understand.
He's just saying, "Oh, okay, I'm going to go away for a couple of years."
There's no empathy towards the victim, whatsoever.
No understanding of life,
feelings, emotions, absolutely none.
[Dr. Charles] He's announcing, there are weapons in the car,
and I'm a sick person.
So, we can see this as
already setting a new frame
in the conversation with the interviewer
in controlling where it's gonna go
and then framing how it should be viewed.
He's already laying out the status for
what could be described as an excuse or a defense,
um, sort of putting the blame somewhere else.
[Dr. Nameeta] As he starts to talk about the details
of his attack on the victim,
he seems to be getting titillated
and aroused by this,
and not aroused in the sexual sense of the word
but aroused in the sense that the adrenalin is starting to course.
[mimics growling]
[detective] Okay.
[Cohee chuckles]
[Dr. Nameeta] He's not attached to the fact that Warren Barnes
this is a human being he killed,
and that he went on to then
dehumanize, and humiliate his body,
his remains.
It sounds like it's something out of a horror movie.
But what we also get a sense of is that, Brian Cohee was entertained.
This was play-acting for him.
This was him going through the motions
of creating his own horror film,
creating his own set of memories.
Many people with psychopathy sense they...
they don't appreciate the world around them like other people do,
may incorporate the ideas
that they've seen in a film into the act
that they act out
because the fantasy world is more interesting to them
than the actual world of human relations that they live in.
Cohee proudly talks about what he knows,
and what he has become a learner of,
which is the forensic sciences,
and how the criminal mind thinks,
and he has taken copious notes on various serial killers.
What is ironic,
is that he didn't take many steps to hide his evidence,
and his own sort of missteps in decision making,
the fact that his mother found these remains in the home,
speaks of somebody who was looking to get caught,
because it's not spectacular, if it only lives in your head.
I think there's a lot in that comment.
The... the criminal is someone
who is not obeying social rules,
a police officer is someone who has a lot of authority over other people
but I think it's more of the access to people in power and control issue
that would be appealing to someone with psychopathy.
[Dr. Nicole] Cohee is choosing a victim
that he thinks no one will know is missing,
so he can actually complete the act of killing.
This is a new thing for him.
He hasn't done this before.
So he doesn't want to engage in a struggle.
He doesn't want it to be interfered with.
He wants to accomplish this act
to get that feeling of excitement and arousal.
[Dr. Charles] Cohee talks about his experience killing a cat
and it's a miniature
prelude to killing a human
and cutting them open
and taking their head off.
Uh, and we do see that in many instances
of people who are psychopathic,
who then go on to kill people.
They've done rehearsal. They've tortured animals
or they've hurt other kids.
Those are all sort of the baby steps
toward the bigger act of killing a human.
What we know about Brian Cohee's time
in school and as a student
is there were a multitude of red flags.
Revealing some of the entries from Cohee's journals,
they can best be summarized
as a self-created encyclopedia on murder,
on harm of human beings,
and glorifying psychopathic behavior.
There was also an incident of a third-degree assault,
where he created a homemade weapon, a homemade mace,
and swung it around
into one of the other student's heads.
[Dr. Nicole] He was practicing,
because if he can perfect that
then he can take it to next level and add in that sexual component
and that would make sense for someone like Cohee
who doesn't have any history of personal relationships,
let alone with females,
and so this might be a way of him
seeing what it's like to be with a female,
but controlling and abusing them and getting them to the point
where they are in such fear of their life
that it's also giving him sexual gratification off of that.
[Dr. Nameeta] What might be most disturbing
when Cohee talks about how it felt for him,
he's a bit deflated.
Cohee's desire to seek a thrill
and a get a high or an adrenalin rush,
it didn't even really last.
So, what happens for a person like Brian Cohee
if that thrill-seeking and an adrenaline rush
is short lived,
after doing that much destruction to a human being?
That part I think is incredibly scary to think about.
[reporter] A Mesa County teen accused of brutal murder
of the local homeless man has pleaded not-guilty
by reason of insanity.
Nineteen-year-old Brian Cohee entered the plea in person
during his arraignment in Mesa County Court this morning.
During hearing in September
an investigator told the court,
he believed Cohee suffered
from mental illness and depression
among other conditions.
In general, when we think about competency evaluations,
we are thinking about at the time of the crime,
did they understand the difference between right and wrong?
Brian Cohee understood if he was caught he'd be in trouble,
and this is somebody that from the outset of when he left home
took steps to avoid being detected,
avoid being linked to this crime.
And ultimately his choice of victims was also part of that,
in that he chose somebody that by his own definition,
he thought would not be missed.
[reporter] Judge Gurley sentenced Cohee
to the rest of his natural life in prison
plus thirteen and half years without parole.
Justice served, that while Warren is gone,
he will never be forgotten.
Now, some of Warren's family members
told me they choose to remember Warren
where he was known and loved,
at his memorial in Downtown Grand Junction,
not the murder site.