Pod Insights Murder In America Murder in America Presents: The Antiquarium of Documented Atrocities - The Reading Man Murder About this episode 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
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Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Speaker 00 This episode is brought to you by the Academy Museum. Horror fans, this one's for you. On September 26, the Academy Museum opens its newest exhibition, The Horror Show. An immersive journey through the characters, creatures, and terrifying worlds that have haunted movie theaters and our nightmares for generations. Enter through a darkened gallery and make your way down a hallway lined with classic horror posters before exploring six chambers devoted to Gothic, psychological, science, slasher, religion, and ghost horror. And these rooms are packed with incredible pieces of horror history. See Bela Lugosi's cape from Dracula, original storyboards from Psycho, come face to face with legendary killers like Freddy, Michael Myers, Ghostface, and Art the Clown,
0:44 Speaker 00 and discover haunted objects from The Conjuring, The Ring, and Talk to Me. But there's only one way out: through the Blood Room. Plus, there's the family-friendly Zombies exhibition, horror screenings, special programs, and retrospectives celebrating horror legend John Carpenter. The Horror Show, now open at the Academy Museum. Get your tickets now at academymuseum.org. If you dare.
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1:56 Colin Brown? 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.
2:33 Speaker 04 Hello, this is Jonas. I address your emergency.
2:36 Speaker 05 Hi, there is an emergency. I found... I found something in my junk drawer that's wrapped in a plastic bag.
2:44 Speaker 04 Okay, what was it?
2:45 Speaker 05 I think it's a human head.
2:47 Speaker 04 It's a what?
2:49 Speaker 05 I think it's a human head.
2:50 Speaker 06 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 Cohi.
3:09 Speaker 07 Oh my God, I can't believe it! Where's the stuff in that car, you know? I can't believe it! I've got it. Oh my God! It's kind of a time to not really know what to do, so... I don't know what happened there. It's random, too. Ahhh! You'll have any case. How old is Brian? 19. He's 19.
3:30 Speaker 04 What's going on, man? I'm not... I am gonna cooperate. Okay, so... Parents have some concerns of some stuff they may have found in your room? Um, yeah, I believe so. And what would it be?
3:48 Speaker 04 A human head and hands. Like, for real, human head and hands? Yes. From? That fellow who went 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, then how did you end up with him? I murdered him. With what? A knife.
4:13 Speaker 06 Why would you have done that? I've always wondered what murder felt like. What you are about to hear describes real events, some of which may be unsettling. Listener discretion is advised.
4:33 Speaker 06 Good evening. You've reached the quiet end of the Ant Aquarium. Tonight, we step briefly into the back room I keep closed to the passing crowd.
4:45 Speaker 06 I call it the Archivum Malorum. A simple name for a simple purpose. A private archive of documents, reports, recordings, and the grim accounts of human darkness that history tries to misplace.
5:06 Speaker 06 This is case number A005. The Reading Man Murder. Welcome to the Ant Aquarium of sinister happenings and documented atrocities.
6:00 Speaker 06 The earliest 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. 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 it happened more up there because it's weird. He would never come down here. He would never come all the way down here. He doesn't have a camp down here or anything? No, he worked for People Ready.
6:44 Speaker 06 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 bohram?
7:01 Speaker 06 Warren Bruce Barnes was killed two nights earlier. On February 27, 2021, Barnes was 69 years old. He was unhoused at 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 in an effort to discourage loitering, Barnes didn't disappear. He adapted.
7:46 Speaker 06 A store owner placed a cane-back 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 passersby, 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.
8:30 Speaker 06 He fed the birds.
8:34 Speaker 06 And he read constantly. Monique Lenati, 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.
9:03 Speaker 05 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 hand out 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 wouldn't, he just wasn't that kind of person. So he taught me definitely to be kind.
9:48 Speaker 05 He really did. He did.
9:54 Speaker 06 When people would tell him to have a good day, Barnes had a signature reply. And you also.
10:04 Speaker 06 That phrase matters, not because it's sentimental, but because it is one of the few pieces of Warren 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.
10:26 Speaker 06 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.
10:52 Speaker 04 How do you know this guy?
10:55 Speaker 04 They told me that that was what was in the wallet. What do you mean that was? No, Brian, how did you come across this guy? How did you come across the gentleman? I was driving and I saw a strange shape on 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 sunken. This is gonna be an investigation. 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. What's, how's it related? Well, when I killed him, I tried disposing of his body by putting it in the river.
11:40 Speaker 04 But I parked 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 in the river. Okay. I'm gonna have you walk over here. You're gonna sit in the back of my partner's patrol car for a minute, okay?
11:58 Speaker 04 Just sit back there and hang out for me, okay?
12:00 Speaker 06 Brian Thomas Kohi's life, on paper, looks like the opposite of Warren Barnes's. Kohi grew up in Grand Junction. His mother, Terri Kohi, operated a licensed daycare out of the home. Terri's toddlers since Brian was about six years old. His father worked in construction.
12:24 Speaker 06 Witnesses and clinicians later described Kohi as socially isolated and detached. In the first week of trial coverage, K K C O reported that Kohi's mother and father described him as emotionless and cold. Though other testimony painted a more complicated picture. Kohi 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.
13:10 Speaker 06 The results were normal.
13:14 Speaker 06 The same doctor testified that, aside from 2018, Kohi did not report being suicidal. And crucially, in the days immediately before the murder, Kohi visited the doctor for an infected abscess under his arm. The doctor told the court that Kohi was definitely not psychotic during that visit.
13:37 Speaker 06 Another witness, a counselor named Bee Phillips, testified that she worked with Kohi across 24 sessions, beginning in 2017. In court reporting, Phillips described Kohi making disturbing remarks, including dehumanizing language toward trans people. She testified about conversations where Kohi questioned why hurting or stealing from others was treated as "a big deal." She also testified about an instance where Kohi intentionally bullied a young girl to trigger her PTSD, and that, in her view, he knew right from wrong at the time. Kohi's mother had initially sought counseling for him,
14:22 Speaker 06 hoping he could process the death of an uncle. But the counseling testimony described Kohi as "ambivalent, tired of pretending, and not emotionally impacted in the way his mother expected." In 2019, Kohi'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.
15:09 Speaker 06 And both sides would anchor their story in Kohi'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, Kohi told police he had killed and decapitated a cat several years earlier and kept the head in the home for three days before discarding it. And in the same reporting, Kohi was said to have been nicknamed Dahmer in school because of a fascination with serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer and with death and morbidity.
15:53 Speaker 04 And you, you talked about you were just kind of in a bad state that night? I was, yes. Okay, why were you in a bad state? I didn't take my medicine, um, and 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 feeling in the world, so I'm like, I'm gonna try that. Okay. So for some time I've been wondering when it would happen. I always knew I would be in this building, or that it was as a criminal or police officer. Okay. Because I was planning to go in the military, go into prison. Okay, alright.
16:36 Speaker 04 And, uh, how long do 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, alright.
16:51 Speaker 06 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 to an unknown number close to 7:00 PM, 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 Kohi went looking.
17:37 Speaker 04 I was driving along and I see a shape here on the railway tracks. So I'm like, oh, interesting. So I go up and as I'm looking, I see a large thing wrapped in a canvas. Okay. And I'm like, that's a homeless person. So I grabbed my knife, I put on three layers of gloves because plastic gloves can betray their users because they're so thin. The vinyl gloves, but I didn't bring your fingerprints through. So I put on two, three on one hit. I took the knife, I pulled back the canvas, then I stabbed his neck.
18:20 Speaker 04 He was panicking at first in his old man voice. He was in his 50s. I know why, I know why I call an old man. He was saying, "What are you doing? What are you doing? Why? Ah!" And I just kept on stabbing his neck. I was looking if I do a demonstration. Oh, yeah. This is him. I was straddled on top of him like this. Okay. And he couldn't fight back. It was actually surprisingly easy. I was barely breaking a sweat. I thought, homeless guy, he's gonna be tough. But no, it was actually surprisingly easy. And during the time, I was growling and making the animal's dignity.
18:59 Speaker 04 But why were you doing that? I suppose it was a frenzy. Okay. I was so excited, so rushed up on adrenaline, every day. But it's... And, um, I paused and he said, "Why are you doing this?" And I, and I said, "I've been wanting to do this for a long fucking time, for someone." And then I continued. The whole ordeal lasted about a minute, minute and a half. And I stabbed, and when I was finished stabbing him, he took out his last breath of grunts and his head was halfway cut off. It's that. I, all the while, no, actually, after I killed him, I just couldn't stop thinking,
19:44 Speaker 04 "Sixty, thirty, thirty."
19:47 Speaker 04 Wasn't, I wasn't feeling anything, but... Then why would you say that? I don't know. Okay.
19:56 Speaker 04 But you remember doing it, so... Yeah.
20:00 Speaker 04 I suppose it was just me speaking out my mind at that moment. It was pouring out of my... And then, after that, I stripped his clothes. I cut open his belly to see his guts.
20:17 Speaker 04 They're really cheap. Sorry, that was morbid. Um, and, uh, then, I cut off his head. I gave him a Glasgow smile. What's that? A Joker smile.
20:34 Speaker 04 I, I destroyed his eyes by stabbing them in... Okay. And then, I cut off his hands. I put those in plastic ziplock bags. And then I cut off his right arm at this joint. Okay. 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, uh, I accidentally broke his bone. This one, it was poking out. And so, I left that one here, partially cut, dismembered here, bone sticking out.
21:18 Speaker 04 And then, I left his body there. And then I took the head, put it in a leftover box when I took dinner a few nights ago. And I took the hands, put them in the back, throw them home, hid the hands and head in my room.
21:35 Speaker 06 At sentencing, the Colorado Sun reported that Kohi assembled a kit that included a 12-inch kitchen knife and gloves. And he spent weeks driving around looking for what he considered the right victim.
21:50 Speaker 06 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, is not just a personal delusion. It is a cultural assumption. And the community response that followed is, in many ways, the rebuttal.
22:24 Speaker 04 This is not to be taken offense, but police, they don't seem to care as much about high-risk individuals, homeless people, prostitutes, etc. So I was deliberately looking for someone who lived that type of life.
22:41 Speaker 06 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, Kohi 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.
23:20 Speaker 04 And I opened the trunk, I take his body out, I put it in the water, and because I don't want fingerprints on a body, so I just tried moving it with my shoes. And that worked successfully. He goes out, some part in the river, and pulls it off. God knows where he is now. Then, when I tried, too negative, tried it out. Yeah. My car didn't come out. I'm from blue hair. Yeah, from blue hair. My car was stuck. I tried putting it full throttle. Yeah. That doesn't work. My car isn't that four-wheel drive. It's a house, it's a me. Okay. And so then I tried putting it in low gear. I'm trying to have a good look. Right, right. And it still doesn't come out.
24:06 Speaker 04 And then it slides into the river. Oh! My car slides into 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 a river that's almost freezing. Yes. I'm drenched. Ooh! I love that. So I'm able to climb out, um, I don't see the body, so I'm, I assume this is a travel bit. Okay. And I come up, and I'm sitting there, I need to act fast or else I'll die of hypothermia. I'm, I'm panicking a bit at this point, I'm gonna be, this is what I'm gonna remember for dying of hypothermia and a botched attempt at hiding a body, and I'm just like, fuck, fuck, fuck.
24:49 Speaker 06 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.
25:01 Speaker 05 One one, this is Jonas, I have just emergency. Hi, there is an emergency. I found, I found something in my son's closet, wrapped in a plastic bag. Okay, what was it? Uh, I think it's a human hood. It's a what? I think it's a human hood. Why do you think it's that? Because it looks like it's all in here. Is it all, was it bloody, or did it, like, anything like that? It's just, oh, you just come, the pilot, take a picture, and it's you, you just come. Is your son there now? He just pulled up, we wanted to make sure he was here before we called. How old is he? Nineteen.
25:39 Speaker 05 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 gonna be cooperative with us? I don't know, I don't think he'll be violent, just 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, we can handle it immediately, before he gets in his room, he's stopped by the car now, so.
26:09 Speaker 06 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 cellphone 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.
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27:30 Speaker 01 Hey Spotify listeners, when you travel with American Airlines, you'll enjoy comfort and convenience at every altitude. Before takeoff, unwind in the Admirals Club Lounge with curated self-serve offerings of hearty bites and refreshments. In flight, stay connected with high-speed Wi-Fi. Sponsored by AT&T. Your journey is designed to feel easy from the moment you check in to the moment you arrive. No matter where you're going, American gets you there. Book now at aa.com.
27:58 Speaker 06 Before we return to the archivum, 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 1st, 1976.
28:21 Speaker 06 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 6'1" with brown hair and brown eyes. He has a 6-inch vertical scar on his lower back. Bishop is a former US 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
29:06 Speaker 06 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 a confidential tip at tips.fbi.gov. Do not approach this individual. Now, back to the archive.
29:44 Speaker 06 When we left off, the question was not whether Brian Cohie 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.
30:08 Speaker 06 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. Kohi 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,
30:51 Speaker 06 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,
31:36 Speaker 06 planning, preparation, concealment, and awareness. The jury is asked to decide where sanity ends and accountability begins. We can't climb into Brian Kohi's mind, but we can document 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 Kohi noted the murder in his cellphone notes with a single word: "First." Not "mistake,"
32:19 Speaker 06 not "what have I done." A marker, like a first attempt or a first achievement.
32:29 Speaker 04 I'm really curious. When you talk about the hammer and the shovels and the knives and like this this time, 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 there's no prostitutes in Grand Junction, I would think. Have you ever? Had any sex times? Yeah, there's not parties like five of them standing alongside the room, but there's parties in that 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.
33:11 Speaker 04 That would have been sexual in 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 felt like? Yeah.
33:22 Speaker 06 Another thread is preparation. The kit with the 12-inch knife and gloves and the weeks spent searching for a victim. Another thread is post-defense behavior. Bringing the severed parts home, attempting to dispose of other remains and, according to reporting, efforts consistent with hiding evidence.
33:46 Speaker 04 If you had have been able to get rid of the head and your, your coasts did not find it? Well, it depends. Okay. Would you guys have been able to, uh, solve it if the body was down the river? The head and hands were missing and there were no fingerprints or anything? 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 happens next? Then what would you have thought of to 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 your grave.
34:30 Speaker 04 So, to see what it felt like? What did it feel like? It was intense. It was, um, it was rush of a journey, wasn't it? Okay. My whole body was shaking, not like out of fear. It was like, yes. What? Yeah, um, it was, it was years ago. Um,
34:57 Speaker 04 well, no, actually it wasn't. It was, um,
35:00 Speaker 04 occasionally I, um, my thoughts get better with me and, um,
35:09 Speaker 04 Sometimes I, I don't know how to describe it, it isn't a panic attack, it's anything like that. I'll give you an example. I was, I was, um, watching the 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 the bed, blades will come up and chop it off. And I don't know, I know that's not gonna happen, but I'm worried about that. Okay.
35:52 Speaker 04 So then I was, my whole body shaking up and down. So it's like a fear adrenaline, is that what you have, the eyes? Not really fear, no. There was a thought that bothered me.
36:06 Speaker 06 The defense thread is disorder. In KKCO 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."
36:30 Speaker 06 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 that 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.
37:12 Speaker 06 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.
37:40 Speaker 06 Kohi 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?
38:24 Speaker 06 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
39:08 Speaker 06 birds, visiting the temp agency, and getting a sandwich. The Sun 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."
39:56 Speaker 06 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. KK Seal reported testimony from a gas station worker at a shell on First 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 let him into the store before opening to customers. She testified that she felt safer having Barnes around early in the morning,
40:36 Speaker 06 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 Kohi, because the question people ask in cases like this is always the same. How does a nineteen-year-old become the kind of person who does this?
41:19 Speaker 06 Kohi 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 was entirely disconnected from others.
41:46 Speaker 06 K K Seo 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.
42:08 Speaker 06 The friend said Ko he 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.
42:38 Speaker 06 The prosecution's sanity rebuttal leaned heavily on the forensic evaluation. Dr. Laura Serrano Amerigo, the court-ordered forensic psychologist, testified that Ko he 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.
43:21 Speaker 06 This is where the case becomes what sanity trials often become. A fight over whether 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.
43:48 Speaker 06 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 is asked not to decide whether Brian Cohi 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. Cohi is found guilty of first-degree murder, along with tampering charges related to the body and evidence.
44:30 Speaker 04 How do you feel about all this now?
44:37 Speaker 04 The next fifteen years of my life, books set in stone, prison.
44:48 Speaker 04 If I go back to that, I wouldn't have done it. Knowing that, knowing what it felt like, knowing how this will all turn out, I wouldn't have done it. 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.
45:13 Speaker 04 And it just, you said you didn't feel much of anything. Um, excitement. Oh, that's right. Okay. But other than that, no.
45:23 Speaker 06 Sentencing takes place in early February 2023. In the Colorado Suns reporting from the courtroom, more than thirty friends and relatives of Warren Barnes filled the room to witness the moment Cohi would be sentenced. Family members addressed the court, describing the man they lost. Monique Lenati spoke. She said Barnes was valued and loved and missed every day.
45:52 Speaker 06 The son reported that Kohi sat stone-faced during statements, while his mother, Teri Kohi, 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. Kohi received additional time, thirteen 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.
46:36 Speaker 06 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's 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." Navin recreated Barnes's chair in metal.
47:19 Speaker 06 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.
47:32 Speaker 05 Ally Talindi, 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, you know, he had passed. And finding out that it was him was... just hit me really hard. There's such a stigma with 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...
48:09 Speaker 05 Little hope for those individuals sometimes internally. And so when they get outside, um, 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, with how much Warren is missed.
48:33 Speaker 06 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.
49:14 Speaker 06 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.
49:57 Speaker 06 A chair in the sun, a paperback in hand, birds at his feet, and a final kindness offered reflexively to strangers.
50:08 Speaker 05 And, uh, told him, you know what? I'm gonna give you my chair. I have it downstairs. No one's sitting on it, so we'll put it in, we'll bring it out every single day, you know? It's the exact replica of the chair. 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 kinda 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, senseless acts happen.
50:53 Speaker 05 But to see people come together has been very uplifting for me.
51:00 Speaker 05 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.
51:24 Speaker 06 And you also.
51:28 Speaker 06 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 Archivum 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.
51:55 Speaker 06 Walk wisely. Until next time.
52:00 Speaker 00 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 Shan. A presentation of Bloody FM. This program contains brief excerpts of audio from third-party sources, including archival broadcasts 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 Victims of Crime, an organization
52:45 Speaker 00 supporting individuals, families, and communities harmed by crime. For more, visit victimsofcrime.org. Email [email protected] . Follow @documentedatrocities on Instagram. For ad-free episodes and to support the show, go to patreon.com/documentedatrocities.
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