Original subtitles

[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.