Victim in shooting tied to CJC inmate who died says family won’t get justice
ST. LOUIS, Mo. (First Alert 4) - Justice is something Edwin Cohee says he, and his identical twin brother Edward, will never get.
Cohee tells First Alert 4, “I did not want to hear that he had ed away because I felt like once again, just like he, he got away, and I just didn’t think it was justice.”
Sunday, the man accused of shooting the brothers, Derek Dean, was found unresponsive at the St. Louis City Justice Center.
According to Interim Corrections Commissioner Doug Burris, the detainee was taken to Barnes-Jewish Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
“My brother, man, he was everything. We did everything together. We got in trouble together, you know, we played sports together,” says Cohee.
Dean was accused of shooting the twins on July 4, 2014, after an argument. Edwin survived, but Edward died.
Edwin Cohee tells First Alert 4 that the incident changed his life forever.
“He also took my life in a sense, although I was still living because it was nowhere that I can go where I couldn’t. Didn’t have to look over my shoulder, ” says Cohee.
According to Cohee, he and his twin considered Dean a close friend. He was known in their north St. Louis neighborhood as “Man.”
Cohee says, “We grew up together. Their house was 20 steps to the right of us where we lived on Marcus Ave.”
He claims it’s still a mystery as to why their childhood friend would commit such a heinous act.
“We had no issue with man, no arguments or anything,” says Cohee.
Dean became a fugitive and was on the run for more than a decade. The case was featured in a 2019 episode of “In Pursuit with John Walsh.” Dean was eventually caught in 2024.
Cohee now lives in Texas. He says First Alert 4’s reporting confirmed to his family that Dean died.
Cohee says he was in the midst of preparing for the trial.
He tells First Alert 4, “Kind of stings a little bit, and it’s just because one word was used, it’s that the case will be dismissed.”
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