Reason First: Part IV of the Charles Cohen Murder Story

After escaping capture for 18 months, Charles Cohen, in a New Orleans, Louisiana courtroom, stood up and told everyone in attendance that he was a murderer. Though floored, the occupants of the court didn’t pommel him or even heckle him with insults. “In Jesus name” he confessed to the three murders including his parents Dr. Martin and Ethel Cohen in Hockessin, Delaware and Mr. Conrad Lutz in San Francisco, California.

He said all of this in the name of his Savior. Soon, Cohen would be flown back to Delaware to deal with the charges related to his heinous crimes. On the trip back, Cohen could have free motion of his arms. Only a knee brace fitted on him kept him from evading detectives John Downs and Allen Ruth.

Cohen’s cuffs soon found his wrists once the plane landed. Police officers awaited him in cars to be driven to confinement in the First State from the Philadelphia airport.

Over a couple of days, Cohen confessed to all of the slayings. He had committed the second worst fear in a parent’s mind. The first is that your child would die before you and the second would be that they cut you down like chaff. As for Mr. Lutz, Cohen just treated him as dispensable.

While Downs, now a state prosecutor after serving 21 years on the force, said that he doesn’t believe that Cohen played a role in any other murders, he does say that the reach of his crimes may never be confirmed.

For the first time, Cohen seemed to not have plotted his actions out in a premeditated manner. He wanted to retract talking to the police in 1990. But it was too late.

Cohen would be sentenced to two life terms plus sixty years. In California, He received a life sentence that would be tacked on to the previous sentence, barring him from probation or parole.

But in all of this, Cohen tried his best to escape the death penalty which the state abolished in Delaware in 2016. Instead, he attempted a mentally ill plea and sought to live in DPC (Delaware Psychiatric Center). He ultimately ended up in an infirmary while also visiting DPC from time to time. And what did he say had delivered him? His faith. Just like any other low-grade murderer, he says that he is saved and that all of his “sins” have been washed away. He feels that he should flaunt his beliefs to seek a sense of approval amongst those “covered by the blood” and would murder some more but his belief system would get in the way.

This is a massive copout. This vicious brute should have seen the electric chair, the needle, or the gallows. To hide behind the cross is an affront to actual believers, though they may be in error. That means that they don’t plan, for the most part, to murder anyone based on their ideas in their claim to the unknown and unknowable.

Cohen is the classic case of a young male who couldn’t deal with reality. When his consciousness finally clawed and dug and pestered him into confession, he felt not the weight of the unknown and unknowable but the burden of truth pushing against his soul.

His deliberate, methodical slayings present a male (not a man) who could not reason with his parents or an acquaintance. Rather, he found brief spurts of rage against their very existences. He felt the urge to carry out these harsh crimes like the monster that he is. No amount of mental health conditioning or excursions into mysticism should be able to sway anyone responsible for keeping Cohen behind bars or in the criminal side of a mental ward.

He was not insane when he went out of his way to bludgeon and stab his parents. He did not “go crazy” and just stab Lutz. He thought out and planned each murder and should do the maximum amount of time that Judge Herlihy decided.

Now, Cohen should rot in a cell and have his mind eat away at him like bacteria. He already feels like witchcraft found its way into his life. Maybe he feels that he can cast a spell on himself and become a cat to escape his confines. His faith, his mental health, and his regrets cannot bring back three human beings that he silenced. Let that be the epitaph over his headstone. Or better yet, just throw him into a ditch upon his demise and don’t even mark the grave.

Below are the links to the original series as it appeared in Delawareonline.com. Thanks to Patricia Talorico at (302) 324-2861 or [email protected] and on Twitter @pattytalorico and Esteban Parra at (302) 324-2299, [email protected] or Twitter @eparra3 and Jerry Habraken for their excellent reporting.

MURDER IN HOCKESSIN, THE CHARLES COHEN STORY

‘I'll tell you how I murdered my parents after I eat fried chicken’

https://www.delawareonline.com/in-depth/news/2020/04/28/murder-hockessin-part-1-downward-spiral-charles-cohen/4245077002/?build=native-web_i_p

MURDER IN HOCKESSIN, THE CHARLES COHEN STORY Part 2

'I lured him up to my room'

https://www.delawareonline.com/in-depth/news/2020/04/29/murder-hockessin-part-2-charles-cohen-ambushes-his-parents/4999742002/?build=native-

MURDER IN HOCKESSIN,THE CHARLES COHEN STORY Part 3

'When he closed his eyes, I stabbed him in the heart'

https://www.delawareonline.com/in-depth/news/2020/04/30/murder-hockessin-charles-cohen-run-finds-another-victim/5004682002/

MURDER IN HOCKESSIN, THE CHARLES COHEN STORY Part 4

‘A witchcraft spell has been placed on me’

https://www.delawareonline.com/in-depth/news/2020/05/01/murder-hockessin-part-4-charles-cohens-doom/5109673002/