GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. (KREX) — Crosby Avenue under the Grand Avenue bridge next to a concrete pillar is where 69-year-old Warren Barnes was brutally murdered, and where Jordan Huslig with the Grand Junction Police Department started his investigation.
This crime scene investigator also specializes in digital forensic analysis. He told prosecutors he extracts data from an average of 20 phones per day including the phone belonging to the man on trial for the murder; Brian Cohee Jr.
The prosecution called Huslig to the stand on Thursday to take the jury through a timeline of Cohee’s cell activity in the month of February leading up to the murder and the arrest.
Early February 2021 Cohee google searched for information including holding people at knifepoint, how deadly a neck stab wound would be, and where homeless people sleep in winter.
February 27, the night of the murder, Cohee activates google maps at the Shell gas station eventually navigating to Crosby Avenue.
11:06 pm Cohee visits a URL for an organic waste disposal service.
Between 11:06 p.m. and 11:08 p.m., five pics of the murder scene were taken and deleted. The photos are so graphic, both investigator Huslig and the jury had to view them contained in folders.
March 1, 12:23 a.m. Cohee searches for how to wipe data from an android phone.
2:41 a.m. Cohee searches for if a river washes away evidence. finally, at 6:16 a.m. Cohee searched for how long does it take a body to stink?
cell phone data was also extracted from the phone of Warren Barnes.
on Friday DA Investigator, Robert Heil, who was the lead investigator of this case at the time, validated the data evidence Investigator Huslig provided.
Huslig told prosecutors Barnes’s last call was to check his debit card balance on February 27th at 6:53 p.m., and he played a card game on an app at 7:01 p.m.
March 1, the same woman who took his picture sent a text to Warren asking if he was alright, but she was already too late.
Before the prosecution rested their case on Friday afternoon, a forensic pathologist took the stand to testify to talk about the autopsy of Warren Barnes.
The trial is expected to wrap up sometime next week.
