Murder In America - Murder in America Presents: The Antiquarium of Documented Atrocities - The Reading Man Murder

Episode Date: July 10, 2026

Mom comes home to find a human head and hands in her sons bedroom… The Antiquarium of Documented Atrocities Case A005 - The Reading Man Murder Narrated by Stephen Knowles Produced and Engineered by Trevor and Lauren Shand Spotify Show Link: https://open.spotify.com/show/12H7pSoEJ3zETh2739CZUC?si=8d1664511a554389 Apple Podcast Link: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-antiquarium-of-documented-atrocities/id1872170627 Instagram: @documentedatrocities Additional music by:Clement Panchout Vivek Abhishek SUBSCRIBE to them on YOUTUBE: / vivekhsihba   LIKE them on FACEBOOK:  https://rb.gy/nhgn0i Follow them on Spotify/ iTunes/ Amazon: https://tinyurl.com/rxdcjqt A portion of proceeds is donated to the national center for victims of crime www.victimsofcrime.org This podcast may contain copyrighted audio excerpts used for purposes of commentary, analysis, reporting, and education under the Fair Use doctrine (17 U.S.C. § 107). All recordings, 911 calls, interviews, and archival materials remain the property of their respective copyright holders. No endorsement by any rights holder is implied. If you are a rights holder with concerns about the use of any material, please contact us and we will promptly address the issue. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, y'all, it's Colin here. While we're taking a short summer break, we wanted to share an episode of another true crime podcast, The Antiquarium of Documented Atrocities. This weekly series dives into some of the world's most disturbing and fascinating crimes, featuring real audio from case files, courtroom proceedings, police interrogations, body camera footage, and phone calls connected to the cases. Each episode explores a different crime from around the globe,

bringing listeners closer to the story through the actual recordings behind the investigation. We hope you enjoy this episode, and we'll be back with brand new murder in America episodes on the last Friday of July. Hello, this, John. It's the address emergency. Hi, there is an emergency. I found something in my son's cold that wrapped in a plastic bag. Okay, what was it? I think it's a human hood. That's a what?

I think it's a human hug. Just after midday on March 1st, 2021. A 911 call is placed from a quiet home in Grand Junction, Colorado. When officers arrive, they approach the house and speak with 19-year-old Brian Thomas Cohe. Oh, my God, I can't believe it. I can't believe it. Oh, my God. It's kind of a time to not really know what to do, so.

How old is Brian? He's 19. He's 19. What's going on, man? How much? I am going to cooperate. Okay, so parents have some concerns of some stuff they may have found in your room? Yeah, I believe so.

And what would it be? A human head and hands. Like, for real human head in hands? Yes. From? That fellow who I'm missing recently. Which fellow was? that? Warren Brown. Warren Brown? When did he go missing? The night of the 27th. The night of the 27th? Okay. And how did you end up with him?

I murdered him. With what? A knife. Why would you have done that? I've always wondered what murder felt like. What you're about to hear describes real events, some of which may be unsettling. Listener discretion is advised. Good evening. You've reached the quiet end of the antiquarium. Tonight we step briefly into the back room I keep closed to the passing crowd. I call it the Archivum Malorum. A simple name for a simple purpose.

A private archive of documents, reports, recordings, and a grim accounts of human. darkness that history tries to misplace. This is case number A005, the Reading Man Murder. Welcome to the antiquarium of sinister happenings and documented atrocities. The confirmed timestamp in this case is not a scream, a chase, or a weapon. It's a mother in a bedroom closet on March 1st, 2021. A chilling discovery and a 911 call.

How do you know Warren? I own Monique's bridle downtown, and I give him a chair to sit and read his books. When was the last time you saw him? Saturday, 5 o'clock. I said, I'll see you tomorrow, Warren, and he was like, okay, meaning he planned on coming down on Sunday. And then he did not show up. So I'm thinking if they saw him Saturday, maybe happy. and more up there because it's weird.

He would never come down here. He would never come home home. He would not a camp down here or anything? No. He worked for People Ready. And someone found the wallet and called People Ready this morning. And they said that everything looked like

it was in there because he doesn't have much. And I just gave him $20 for beer. So I know that he had maybe a couple bucks. So they found his wallet just down here at the program? Warren Bruce Barnes was killed two nights earlier. On February 27, 2021, Barnes was 69 years old. He was unhoused and a well-known staple in the town of Grand Junction.

To those who never knew his name, he was simply the reading man. For many years, Barnes could be found most days in downtown Grand Junction, tucked into a breezeway off Main Street, hunched over a paperback. When the city removed benches from the area, an effort to discourage loitering, Barnes didn't disappear. He adapted. A store owner placed a cane-backed chair behind her bridal shop, and Barnes found a home there, reading in the shade, in the quiet hours between foot traffic. People described him as gentle and quiet, someone who didn't beg, someone who didn't hassle passes by, someone who didn't speak unless spoken to. Someone who didn't speak

unless spoken to, sometimes offering only a friendly nod. He was also, by multiple accounts, a man of routine. He checked in for day labor through People Ready, a temp agency downtown. He performed odd jobs for businesses in the area. He bought a noontime sandwich. He fed the birds. And he read, constantly. Monique Lanati, the owner of Monique's bridle, became one of the people who adopted him.

Not in a symbolic way, but in the daily human way of noticing someone and treating them like they matter. She placed the chair for him. She watched him doze with his books still open. She saw him feed the birds from his meal. I've been down on Main Street for a long time. I've not put my nose up at the homeless, but not really reached out or tried to help or even talk to them or anything. Warren was the first that I ever, you know, was like, hey, you know, who are you, where are you from? He taught me to not be afraid to talk to people.

We don't know their story. We don't know what they've been through. They may not be sitting there with their handout wanting money. Warren wouldn't even take food. He wouldn't take a thing. I would have to sneak cookies into his bag on holidays. He just wasn't that kind of person. So he taught me definitely to be kind.

He really did. He did. When people would tell him to have a good day, Barnes had a signature reply. And you also. That phrase matters, not because it's sentimental, but because it is one of the few pieces of war in Barnes that survived the violence that took him. It becomes the title etched into his memorial, and it becomes the line that tells you who he was when no one was watching.

Because in cases like this, it is very easy for the victim to be reduced to a category, homeless, transient, anonymous. Warren Barnes was none of those things in the way his killer assumed. Go ahead. How do you know this guy? They told me that that was what was in the wallet. What do you mean? No, fine. How did you come across the guy? How'd you come across the gentleman? I was driving. Uh-huh.

And I saw strange shape in the other railway. So I parked my car and investigated it, and I found it to be a man sleeping. Okay. Where's the knife at? It is in my sunken car. Well, it's in my car. I had that previously sunk. This is going to be an event, and I'll take it from there.

So, did that happen when you crashed your car? Or is that totally different? That's related, but a different event. Okay. How's it related? Well, when I killed him, I tried disposing of his body by putting in the river. Okay. So, too low in the river.

Where's the rest of his body at? Huh? Where's the rest of the body at? What parts? The body, Brian. Where's his body? Down the river. Okay.

I'm going to have you walk over here. You're going to sit in the back of my partner's patrol car for a minute, okay? No, yeah. Okay. Just sit back there and hang out for me, okay? Brian Thomas Cohes' life, on paper, looks like the opposite of Warren Barnes's. Cohe grew up in Grand Junction. His mother, Terry Cohe, operated a licensed daycare out of the home.

Terry's toddlers, since Brian was about six years old. His father worked in construction. Witnesses and clinicians later described Cohe as socially isolated and detached. In the first week of trial coverage, KKCO reported that Cohe's mother and father described him as emotionless and cold, though other testimony painted a more complicated picture. Kohe had significant mental health history before February 2021. A family doctor testified that he began seeing Kohi as a patient at age 15 and diagnosed and treated him for depression in 2018. In 2020, when Kohi reported frequent headaches, the doctor ordered a CT scan to rule out tumors or clots.

The results were normal. The same doctor testified that, aside from 2018, Cohe did not report being suicidal, and crucially, in the days immediately before the murder, Cohe visited the doctor for an infected abscess under his arm. The doctor told the court that Cohe was definitely not psychotic during that visit. Another witness, a counselor named B. Phillips, testified that she worked with Cohe across 24 sessions, beginning in 2017. In court reporting, Phillips described Cohe making disturbing remarks, including dehumanizing language toward trans people. She testified about conversations where Cohe questioned why hurting or stealing from others was treated as a big deal. deal. She also testified about an instance where Kohie intentionally bullied a young girl to trigger her PTSD, and that, in her view, he knew right from wrong at the time. Cohe's mother had initially

sought counseling for him, hoping he could process the death of an uncle, but the counseling testimony described Cohe as ambivalent, tired of pretending, and not emotionally impacted in the way his mother expected. In 2019, Cohe's mother took him to Colorado's division of vocational rehabilitation for assessment. She reported concerns that he did not understand how his choices affected the future and the lives of others. When Brian killed a stranger, the case did not proceed as a simple question of identity. The defense would later argue insanity. The prosecution would argue deliberation.

And both sides would anchor their story in Cohe's words and behavior before, during, and after the crime. There is another detail in the record that prosecutors treated as a warning sign. According to the arrest affidavit, summarized by the Colorado Sun, Cohe told police he had killed and decapitated a cat several years of, earlier and kept the head in the home for three days before discarding it. And in the same reporting, Cohe was said to have been nicknamed Dahmer in school because of a fascination with serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer and with death and morbidity. And you talked about you were just kind of in a bad space that night.

It was, yes. Okay. Why were you in a bad space? I didn't take my medicine. And plus for years, I was wondering what murder would feel like, because you read shit like Ted Bundy and the Zodiac. They all say murder's the best human in the world. So I'm like, I'm going to try that. Okay.

So for some time I had been wondering when it would happen. I always knew I would be in this building. Whether it was as a criminal or a police officer. Okay. I was planning to go in the military, go into breakfast. Okay. All right? And, uh, how would you really, you know, honestly think you've been thinking about really, at some point you wanted to know what murder felt like?

A year. Okay. All right. On February 27th, 2021, Warren Barnes moved through the last hours of his life in ways that looked like any other day. Phone data indicated that Barnes made a call. called to an unknown number close to 7 p.m. Interacted with the People Ready Job Stack app and played a mobile card game that appeared to be poker.

Ordinary actions. A man passing time. Later that night, Barnes ended up sleeping under a bridge near downtown. And that is where Brian Cohe went looking. I was driving along and I see a shape here on the railway truck. So I'm like, oh, interesting. Like, look, and as I'm looking, I see an orange thing wrapped in a canvas. Okay. And I'm like, that's a homeless person.

So I wrap my knife. I put on three layers of gloves because plastic gloves can be trailer users because they're so thin of vinyl gloves by printing your fingerprints through. So I put on two, three on one hit. And I took the knife, I pulled back to canvas, and I stabbed his neck. He was panicking at first in his old man's voice. He was in his 50s. I know why I call an old man.

He was saying, what are you doing? What are you doing? Why? And I just kept on stabbing his neck. I was, okay if I do a demonstration. This is him. I was straddled on top of him like this. Okay.

And he couldn't fight back. It was actually surprising me easy. I was barely breaking the sweat. I thought, oh my god, he's gonna be tough. But no, it was actually surprisingly easy. And during the time I was growling and making the animalistic noises. What were you doing that?

I suppose it was a frenzy. Okay. I was so excited, so rushed up on adrenaline, and I was just... And I paused and he's like, why are you doing this? And I said, I've been wanting to do this for a long fucking time, part of someone. And then I continued.

The whole idea lasts about a minute and a half. I stabbed. When I was finished stabbing him, he took out his last breath, the grunt, and his head was halfway cut off and stas. I did all the while, no actually after I killed him, I just couldn't stop saying stinky, dirty, dirty. It wasn't, I wasn't feeling anything, but... Good morning, do you say that? I don't know.

Okay. But you remember doing it, so... Yeah. I suppose it was just me speaking out my mind at that moment. It was a pouring out of mine. And then, after that, I stripped his clothes. I cut open his belly To see his guts

It really did he really think But I was morbid And then I cut off his head I gave him a Glasgow smile What's that? A Joker smile I

I Destroyed his eyes by Stabbing Benin Okay And then I cut off his hands. I put those in plastic, the block bags. And then I cut off his right arm at this joint and at this joint. And then at this arm, I tried cutting it here.

And then I tried cutting it here. But what happened was I accidentally broke his boat. This one, it was poking out. And so I left that one here, partially cut, dismembered here, bone sticking out. And then I left his body there. And then I took the head, put it in a leftover box, and I took the hands, put them in the back, throw them home, hit the hands and head in my room.

At sentencing, the Colorado Sun reported that co-he assembled a kit that included a 12-inch kitchen night. and gloves, and he spent weeks driving around looking for what he considered the right victim. In other words, the victim was not chosen because of anything Warren Barnes did. He was chosen because of what Warren Barnes represented to someone who wanted to kill. That difference is the moral center of this case. Because the offender's logic, no one will notice. It's not just a personal delusion.

It is a cultural assumption. And the community response that followed is, in many ways, the rebuttal. This is not to be taken offense, but police, they don't seem to care as much about high-risk individuals, homeless people, prostitutes, et cetera. So I was deliberately looking for someone who lived that type of life. Investigators later presented evidence that Kohi attempted to dispose of other remains, including testimony that body parts were dumped into the Colorado River. The disposal did not go as planned. After returning to the bridge to collect additional remains,

Cohe drove to a boat ramp along the Colorado River, where his vehicle became stuck near the waterline. When the car was recovered, officers observed what appeared to be red liquid resembling blood in the trunk area. During interrogation, Kohi explains how it happened. And I open the trunk, I take his body out, I put it in the water. Because I don't want fingerprints on a body, so I just try to move me with my shoes. That works fixed. That's what he goes out, some part in the river, and it's closed off.

God knows where he is now. Then when I tried to an additive, try it out. Yeah. My car didn't come out. He's from blue hair. Yeah, from blue hair. My car was stuck. I tried putting it full throttle.

Yeah. That doesn't work. My car doesn't have four-wheel drives. Okay. And so then I tried putting it in low gear. I'm trying to everything at this. Right, right. And it still doesn't come out.

And then it slides into the river. Oh! My car slides in the river, the inside. Oh. And so I'm there in a car quickly being flooded with water. Okay. It's the middle of February. It's cold.

At night. Yeah. In the river that's almost freezing. Yes. I'm drenched. I almost thought. So I'm able to climb out. I don't see the body, so I assume it's a travel a bit.

Okay. And I come up. And I'm sitting there, I need to act faster else I'll die of hypothermia. I'm panicking a bit at this point. I'm going to be like, this is what I'm going to remember for dying on myphosurmia and I've botched a tent hiding a body. And I'm just like, fuck, fuck, fuck. March first, the crime entered the world of the living again,

not through a witness at the river or a passerby under the bridge, but through a mother cleaning a room. One, Lord is John. It's the address to emergency. Hi, there is an emergency. Okay, what was it? That's a what? Why do you think it's that? Because it looks like it's all in ear.

Is it all, was it bloody or did it, like, anything like that? Did you tell me you just come in there now? He just pulled up. He wanted to make sure he was here before we called. How old is he? In 19. He's had a little bit of a fascination with the morbid, but he was channeling it, I thought, into becoming a crime scene investigator, but not so much.

Do you think he's going to be cooperative with us? I don't know. I don't think he'll be violent. He came back from his friend's house. Does he have any weapons in his room, or do you guys have any in the house? I don't know. I think that he has a shotgun, but we can certainly remember immediately before he gets in his room. He's caught by the car now, though. Is the bag still in the closet? No, it's in my kitchen sink. And there's a secondary bag that I have not opened.

Coming up, a jury weighs violent fantasy against legal responsibility. The single word found in a cell phone note that prosecutors say reveals intent, and the sentence that will answer whether curiosity can ever be a defense. Welcome to the antiquarium of sinister happenings and documented atrocities. The reading man murder. Before we return to the Archiveham, a matter of public safety, The FBI is seeking information on William Bradford Bishop Jr. Wanted for allegedly bludgeoning to death his wife, mother, and three sons in Bethesda, Maryland on March 1, 1976.

He allegedly transported their bodies to Columbia, North Carolina, where he buried them in a shallow grave and lit them on fire. Born August 1st, 1936 in Pasadena, California, Bishop is a white male approximately six foot one with brown hair and brown eyes. He has a six-inch vertical scar on his lower back. Bishop is a former U.S. Foreign Service officer, highly educated, holding degrees from Yale and Middlebury College. speaks multiple languages including French, Italian, Spanish, and Serbo-Croatian. He is an avid outdoorsman with extensive camping experience and was a licensed amateur pilot. William Bradford Bishop Jr. should be considered armed and extremely dangerous, with reported suicidal tendencies. If you have information on his whereabouts, contact your nearest FBI field office or submit

confidential tip at tips.fbi.gov. Do not approach this individual. Now, back to the archive. When we left off, the question was not whether Brian Cohe killed Warren Barnes. The question was whether he knew it was wrong. Because in Colorado, insanity is not about diagnosis. It's about distinction, right from wrong, and 12 jurors were about to decide. The case proceeds quickly in one way and slowly in another. Quickly, because the suspect is known, the evidence is physical, and the admissions are immediate. Slowly, because the defense enters a plea that turns the trial into a psychological battlefield. Cohe is charged with first-degree murder, tampering with a deceased human body, and tampering with physical evidence.

He pleads not guilty by reason of insanity. That plea does not mean the defense is saying he didn't do it. It means they are arguing that because of a mental disease or defect, he could not distinguish right from wrong at the time of the crime. In Colorado, that is the legal fulcrum. Not whether the act happened, but whether the defendant understood its wrongfulness. The trial begins in January 2023, and the testimony is designed to paint two pictures that cannot both be true in the same legal frame. Picture one.

A young man with a long history of emotional disturbance, and intrusive violent thoughts unraveling into a psychotic break. Picture two, a young man with violent curiosity, planning, preparation, concealment, and awareness.

The jury is asked to decide where sanity ends and accountability begins. We can't climb into Brian Cohe's mind, but we can doctor what was said in court and what was found in the record. One thread in the prosecution narrative is deliberate structure. At sentencing, the Colorado son reported that Cohe noted the murder in his cell phone notes with a single word.

First. Not mistake. Not what have I done. A marker. Like a first attempt. or a first achievement. I'm really curious when you talk about the hammer and the shovels and the knives of like the zip types. I mean, what was kind of your plan then?

That's a little bit different than you did this time. Oh, yeah. So what was the plan back then? The plan was to go find. Because there's no prostitutes in Grand Junction, I don't think. Have you ever had any sex crimes here? There's not prostitics like five of them. standing along the side of the road, but there's part of the

case of that's a guy's junction. Yeah, the plan was to go with one of them and have them come with me, and then the plan was to subdue them and tie them up and then torture her. That would have been sexual nature. This was just to see

what it felt like. But that would have been sexual. So you thought about the sexual killing, but this one was just to see what a killing comes. Yeah. Another thread is preparation. The kit with the 12 12-inch knife and gloves, and the weeks spent searching for a victim. Another thread is post-defense behavior, bringing the seven parts home, attempting to dispose of other remains,

and, according to reporting, efforts consistent with hiding evidence. If you had been able to get rid of the head, and your folks did not find it. Well, it depends. Okay. Would you guys have been able to solve it? if the body was down the river, the head and hands were missing and there were no finger printer. Well, we'd like to think so, but who knows? Right, who knows? We'd like, yeah, we'd love to think so, but who knows?

So let's say we didn't solve it. What happened next to? Then what would you have thought would do next? Well, I had thought, I would have been very careful because I would have been worried at any moment this could become a cold case and then it could be solved later on down the line. I was just to see what it felt like. And if I had gotten away with it, I would have just kept the secret to be a grief. So to see what would have felt like. What did it feel like? It was intense.

It was, um, it was rush of the adrenaline. Okay. My whole body was shaking. Not like out of fear. It was like, yes. What? Yeah. Uh-huh.

It was, it was years ago. Um, well, no, actually, it wasn't. It was, um, occasionally I, um, my thoughts get better of me. And, um, sometimes I, I don't know how to describe it. Isn't a panic attack. Is anything like that? I'll give you an example. I was, I was, um, watching a video when all of a sudden I get, I start going into,

that sense of thoughts. I get the feeling, I know that it isn't, but I get the feeling that there are eyes on the walls watching the eyes on the furniture. And I cover myself up. I'm like, oh, God, eyes.

And I'm worried if I stick anything out from bed, the ways will come up and chop it off. And I don't know, I know that's not going to happen, but I'm worried about that. Okay. So then I was

my whole body shaking up and down until it's like a fear around is that what you're not really fear it's none it was a thought that buggered me the defense thread is disorder in kkko reporting from cross-examination of the court-ordered forensic psychologist jurors themselves asked pointed questions about whether someone could have homicidal thoughts and paranoia and still be sane. And the psychologist answered, yes. Jurors asked whether Kohi was oriented when he went back to retrieve Barnes' body. The psychologist stated that he was not experiencing specific signs of psychosis at that time. During trial, it emerged the two standard sanity evaluation questions were not asked

during the psychologist's assessment. Did you think the offense was wrong before doing it? Did you think the offense was wrong when you were doing it? Defense attorneys argued those questions were vital. The broader point is that this trial wasn't simply about diagnosis. It was about timing. Because someone can have autism, ADHD, and depression, and still understand right from wrong.

And someone can have intrusive thoughts and still not be legally insane. That's why the evaluation, the raw data, and what questions were asked or not asked, became ammunition. Cohe described a two-week period in which he felt a strong instinct to bite someone's throat and rip it out, and that he experienced intrusive images when he saw people, imagining them shot, stabbed, or missing body parts. He reportedly said those thoughts began when he was 15 to 17, and that the last time he experienced those impulses was the night he murdered Barnes. Those are horrific words to hear in any context. But in a sanity trial, they become evidence. Evidence for what exactly is the question the jury must answer.

Delusion or desire? In the middle of all of this, Warren Barnes risks being pushed into the background again, reduced to the crime scene and the autopsy. That's not acceptable. So we return to the man himself. In the Colorado Sun's reporting, Barnes is described as a crusty old cowboy who loved books and birds. He did odd jobs. He checked for work daily.

He lived in a small half-mile quadrant downtown that made up his world, reading, feeding birds, visiting the temp agency and getting a sandwich. The son reported that when Barnes didn't show up in his usual spots on the morning of March 1st, Monique Lanotti started looking for him. She called police after People Ready managers said they were worried too. His wallet was found at a boat ramp along the Colorado River, a place the sun reported he did not frequent, which heightened fear for his safety. Lanotti posted his photo on Facebook asking people to watch out for him. The post was shared hundreds of times. This certainly dismantles the offender's premise. No one will notice.

They noticed quickly. Not because Barnes had money. Not because Barnes had status. Because Barnes had something more fragile and more powerful. He had community. KKCO reported testimony from a gas station worker at a shell on 1st Street and Grand Avenue, who said Barnes became part of her morning routine. He would get coffee, use the restroom, sometimes grab a donut.

She'd eventually led him into the store before opening to customers. She testified that she felt safer having Barnes around early in the morning, and that the only day he didn't show up at his regular time. was the day he was killed. Those are the pieces that form a life. A chair. A book. A coffee.

A nod. A quiet man who didn't ask for much. And a city that, when he vanished, started looking. Now we return to Brian Cohe. Because the question people ask in cases like this, This is always the same. How does a 19-year-old become the kind of person who does this? Cohe had documented treatment for depression as a teenager.

He had counseling sessions where he expressed a worldview that minimized harm and questioned morality. He had a reputation among peers for fascination with infamous serial killers. And he had at least one close friendship that complicates the idea that he would entirely disconnected from others. KKCO reported testimony from an individual who described them as each other's closest friends, chatting online nearly daily, hanging out in person, having conversations about mental health. The same report noted that they discussed true crime and serial killers prior to the murder. The friend said Kohi seemed normal the day he was at her house,

just before his mother called 911. In other words, this was not a person who looked like a monster all the time. It was someone who could move through the world with enough surface stability to not raise immediate alarms until the closet was opened. And that's part of what makes this case so unsettling. The prosecution's sanity rebuttal leaned heavily on the forensic evaluation. Dr. Laura Serrano Amerigo, the court-ordered forensic psychologist, testified that Kohi knew where he was, what he was doing, and why he was being interviewed, and showed no signs of psychosis before, during, or after the crime.

She testified that he had no issues answering questions and showed no signs of distress. The defense, meanwhile, attempted to undermine that evaluation, arguing about what data the psychologist had, and pointing out what was missing. This is where the case becomes what sanity trials often become. A fight over where the planning equals comprehension. Because the prosecution argument is straightforward. He planned. He prepared. He concealed.

he disposed. Those are the actions of someone who not only knows the world has rules, but that he has broken them. The defense argument is also straightforward. A person can plan inside a broken mind. A person can perform actions and still be disconnected from moral reality. And so the jury has asked not to decide whether Brian Cohe is mentally ill, but whether he was legally insane. at the moment he chose to kill Warren Barnes. After two weeks of testimony and two days of deliberation, the jury rejects the insanity defense. Cohe is found guilty of first-degree murder, along with tampering charges related to the body and evidence. How do you feel about all this now?

The next 15 years of my life, book set in stone, prison. I would have been I probably wouldn't have been knowing that knowing what's it felt like knowing how this wall

turn out I wouldn't have that well what did you think it was gonna feel like what did you you know you said you were curious what did you think

it was gonna feel like I thought it would be the best feeling in the world okay and it just you said you didn't feel much of anything um

excitement. Oh, that's right. Okay. But no. No. Sentencing takes place in early February, 2023. In the Colorado Sun's reporting from the courtroom, more than 30 friends and relatives of Warren Barnes filled the room to witness the moment Cohe would be sentenced. Family members addressed the court, describing the man they lost. Monique Lanotti spoke. She said Barnes was valued in love. and missed every day.

The son reported that Kohie sat stone face during statements, while his mother, Terry Kohie, sobbed, and described her son as someone who always knew he was not like other people. She asked that any sentence include mental health treatment. The judge imposed the mandatory sentence for first-degree murder in Colorado, life in prison, without the possibility of parole. Cohe received additional time, 13 and a half years, for the tampering charges. And that is where the criminal case ends in the legal sense.

A conviction. A life sentence. A file closed. But the story that the city carries does not end there, because Grand Junction did something that rarely makes it into homicide narratives. They kept telling Warren Barnes' story after the trial ended. In November 2021, before the trial even began, Friends raised funds for a permanent memorial. Metal artist Tim Navin, who had once been homeless himself and was sober at the time,

spent 285 hours building a sculpture, a curved metal chair beneath an ironwork tree, with a sheet metal book titled, And You Also. Navvin recreated Barnes's chair in metal. He added a tree and wind-lifted pages. The memorial was installed in the breezeway near where Barnes used to sit between a bookstore and the bridal shop. Ali Tlindy, who had worked downtown in Grand Junction, put it out there on Facebook that she was looking for somebody,

a metal artist to do a memorial. I didn't even know his name at the time until he had passed and finding out that it was him. was just hit me really hard. There's such a stigma with the homeless people in communities, and it's just unfortunate that someone would think that, just because of his situation, that nobody would care about him and nobody would miss him.

Being in a similar situation myself, there's little hope for those individuals sometimes internally, and so when they get outside, outside hope, outside happiness and joy from others. You know, that means a lot to somebody that's in their situation. And to just think that they are somebody that doesn't matter is just so far from the truth. And I think it's definitely apparent with how much Warren has missed. The memorial bears a simple message.

Warren was here. If you want to understand what this case is truly about, it's there. A killer chose Warren Barnes because he believed no one would miss him. And a city answered with iron, books, and a chair that will never again be empty. There are cases built out of passion. There are cases built out of greed. There are cases built out of years of conflict that finally ignite. This one is built out of something colder.

A young man with a fixation. Driving at night, looking for a person he believed the world had already forgotten. A sleeping man under a bridge. Living his life in quiet routines. A knife. A decision. And then a mother in a closet, staring at the physical proof that her child crossed a line that cannot be uncrossed. What remains is Warren Bruce Barnes

69 years lived Remembered not for the manner of his death But for the dignity of his life A chair in the sun A paperback in hand Birds at his feet And a final kindness offered Reflexively to strangers

And told him, you know what I'm going to give you my chair I have it downstairs no one's sitting on it, so we'll put it in, we'll print it out every single day, you know. It's the exact replica of the chair. It also has books on it because he was an avid reader. The top book is actually something he would say every day. And I'd say, I'll see you tomorrow, Warren.

Have a good night. And he'd say, and you also every single day would say the same thing, which was kind of funny. It's a good memory now, but it's just hard because he's missed. and I can't hear it again. I mean, it's really hard to find the good in the world sometimes when, especially when horrible, since those acts happen. But to see people come together has been very uplifting for me. I just think it's really special that people are learning,

people that weren't fortunate enough to meet Warren, that they're kind of able to learn a little bit about who he was. And just hopefully it'll be a lesson. to extend kindness anywhere you can because you never know what somebody's going through and you never know you could make a friend and somebody that really would touch your life forever. And you also.

For tonight, that as far as the documented record will take us. I'll close the folder on this case, return it to its place in the archive of Malorum, and lock the door behind us. Out there, The people the world ignores are still people. And sometimes noticing is a form of protection. Walk wisely.

Until next time. The antiquarium of sinister happenings and documented atrocities. Case number A005, The Reading Man Murder, narrated by Stephen Knowles, written and produced by Trevor and Lauren Shand, a presentation of Bloody FM. This program contains brief excerpts of audio from third-party sources, including archival broadcast and interview material. These excerpts are used solely for purposes of commentary, criticism, analysis, and reporting, and are incorporated under the principles of fair use. All rights and the original recordings remain with their respective copyright holders. The stories presented here are based on real events. While we research each case thoroughly, some details may be incomplete or dramatized in the telling.

We intend no disrespect toward victims or their families. A portion of proceeds is donated to the National Center for Vignton. Victims of Crime, an organization supporting individuals, families, and communities harmed by crime. For more, visit Victimsofcrime.org. Email documented atrocities at gmail.com. Follow at documented atrocities on Instagram. For ad-free episodes and to support the show, go to patreon.com slash documented atrocities. Descend into the unexplained and unimaginable.

Mom said to them, what are you here for? What do you want? That's not human! What's not human! True accounts of crimes and anomalies so strange, they defy reasoning. It was extreme violence. I've never seen anything like it. She was forced to eat human flesh and survive the unthinkable. Welcome to the antiquarium of sinister happenings and documented atrocities. And at that moment, the feeling to survive kicked in almost like an animal instinct.

I told her to run. I knew that minute something terrible had happened. Why would somebody do this to him? Why would they try to hurt my baby? Search the Antiquarium of documented atrocities on Apple, Spotify, and wherever you get your podcasts. A presentation of Bloody FM.