Colorado dad beheads son, 13, after he stumbled on photos of him eating feces in lingerie
Dylan Redwine, 13, was killed by his father, Mark, in 2012 after the boy discovered lewd photos of the man on his laptop and confronted him about them. After beheading him, Redwine Sr. dumped the youngster's body in wilderness for animals to eat in a bid to cover his tracks
A Colorado dad beheaded his 13-year-old son after the boy found images of him eating feces from a diaper while wearing lingerie.
Dylan Redwine was reluctant to visit his father, Mark, during the Thanksgiving holidays in 2012, but he had no choice — a court order mandated the visit, and his mother, Elaine Hall, risked legal action if she didn't comply.
So, she sent her son on a flight to Durango, Colorado, a quaint town nestled in the southwestern corner of Colorado, approximately 217 miles northwest of Albuquerque, New Mexico, and 337 miles southwest of Denver.
That fateful day, Nov. 18, 2012, marked the last time Dylan was seen alive. Mark collected Dylan from the airport, and surveillance footage shows minimal interaction between them, a pattern that continued during their trip to a nearby Walmart.
According to Dylan's older brother, Cory, Dylan had hoped to stay at a friend's house that night, but his father denied his request, leading them back to his father's home. While there, Dylan reportedly texted his friend that he would be arriving around 6:30 a.m. the next morning — one of the last known communications anyone received from the boy.
By approximately 6:46 a.m., when Dylan failed to arrive at his friend's house as planned, the friend grew concerned and texted to inquire about his whereabouts, according to All That's Interesting.
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Mark insisted that he had departed the residence on the morning of Nov. 19 to complete some tasks and that upon his return, Dylan was missing. However, Hall rejected that account when he presented it to her and instantly suspected that something horrific had occurred to her son at the hands of Mark.
Cory alleged that Dylan confronted his father over photos showing Mark wearing women's lingerie and appearing to eat feces from a diaper — images both boys had discovered the year prior that they said deeply disturbed them.
Cory said he urged his brother to confront his father about the images, telling PEOPLE Magazine that he told Dylan that he was "getting old enough to speak his mind" and that he encouraged the boy to speak up. "We encouraged him to tell him how he felt. You should always be able to tell your dad how you feel and have some sort of understanding. He was definitely going down there with a bigger voice than he had before," Cory said.
But Cory said both boys' relationship with their father had become strained amid the divorce proceedings with Hall, which included the custody battle over Dylan, and the boys finding the pictures of their father.
It's believed that Mark killed his son in the living room of the home after becoming heated about the images, then beheaded him, dumping his body in the wilderness for animals to eat.
According to The Durango Herald, search warrants of Mark's home found traces of Dylan's blood in the living room, and a cadaver dog detected the recent presence of a corpse in the same living room as well as in the bed of Mark's pickup truck.
Months later, in June 2013, the first partial remains of Dylan's body were discovered about 8 miles away on Middle Mountain Road. Then, three whole years after the heinous crime, a pair of hikers reportedly found Dylan's skull about a mile and a half further up the road.
It was determined that Dylan had been stabbed, dying from sharp force trauma. Forensic experts testified during the trial, it was reported, that no animals would have transported a human skull that far from the rest of the remains.
Mark was ultimately convicted of second-degree murder and child abuse resulting in death, charges he was slapped with after the brutal murder in 2017. Then, in October 2021, he was sentenced to 48 years for the murder — the maximum penalty allowed under the law, which prosecutors had pushed for.
District Attorney Christian Champagne said at the time to the jury, "He stands before you refusing to accept responsibility, showing no remorse, reflecting that same, cold-hearted murderer's heart that killed Dylan Redwine. Your honor, that's the ultimate aggravating factor that you should consider. And that alone will justify imposition of the maximum sentence in this case — 48 years for both counts."
6th Judicial District Court Judge Jeffery Wilson then addressed Mark as he called the evidence against him "overwhelming." He said, according to The Durango Herald, "First of all, you killed your son, a 13-year-old boy. At 13, he's still a little boy. As the father, it's your obligation to protect your son, keep him from harm. Instead of that, you inflicted enough injury on him to kill him in your living room."
He continued, "After the passion of whatever caused you to act the way you did subsided, you didn't think about Dylan. You thought about yourself. You sanitized the crime scene. You hid Dylan's body. And you went so far as to remove his head from the rest of his body."
PEOPLE reported that Dylan's phone and iPod, which he had with him when he went to visit his father, were last used at 9:37 p.m. on Nov. 18, 2012, but had not yet been recovered as of Oct. 11, 2021.
Mark's attorneys had alleged that Dylan had simply wandered off and died either from the elements or from an animal attack, but investigators shut down that theory with their hypothesis about the boy's skull, which they said would not have been carried that far by an animal.
Mark called the trial "fake justice" amid the sentencing as he maintained his innocence. Wilson's message scathingly concluded, "After all this time and listening to what was heard in this courtroom, you still take absolutely no responsibility for what you did to Dylan. I have trouble remembering a convicted criminal defendant that has shown such an utter lack of remorse for his criminal behavior."