Dad beheaded teenage son after he found pictures

A Colorado father murdered his 13 year old son and subsequently decapitated him after the boy discovered explicit photos of him eating faeces from a nappy whilst dressed in lingerie.

Dylan Redwine was hesitant to visit his father, Mark, during the Thanksgiving holidays in 2012, but he had no choice - the court ordered the visit, and his mother, Elaine Hall, faced legal repercussions if she didn't comply with the order.

So, she sent her son on a flight to Durango, Colorado, a small city tucked away in the southwestern corner of the state, approximately 217 miles northwest of Albuquerque, New Mexico, and 337 miles southwest of Denver. The news comes as AI fuelling a new one age of child abuse - 600,000 victims in Britain alone

That fateful day, November 18, 2012, marked the last time Dylan was seen alive. Mark picked Dylan up from the airport, and security camera footage shows minimal personal interaction between them, a pattern that continued when they visited a nearby Walmart.

According to Dylan's older brother, Cory, Dylan had wanted to stay at a friend's house that night, but his father denied his request, so they returned to his father's home. While there, Dylan reportedly texted his friend that he would be coming over around 6:30 a m. the next day - one of the last known communications anyone had with the boy, reports the Express US.

By approximately 6:46 a. m., when Dylan didn't arrive at the friend's house as planned, the friend grew concerned and texted to inquire about his whereabouts, according to All That's Interesting.

Mark claimed that he had departed the house on the morning of 19 November to run errands, only to return and discover Dylan missing.

Nevertheless, Hall didn't believe his account and immediately suspected that something dreadful had occurred to her son at Mark's hands.

Faeces nappy photos spark concern

Cory alleged that Dylan confronted his father over photos they found the previous year, which showed Mark dressed in women's lingerie and seemingly eating faeces from a nappy - images that deeply disturbed both boys.

Cory told PEOPLE Magazine that he encouraged his brother to confront their father about the disturbing images, telling Dylan that he was "getting old enough to speak his mind" and urging him to express his feelings.

"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 stated.

However, Cory noted that the relationship between the boys and their father had become tense due to the ongoing divorce proceedings with Hall, and the discovery of the unsettling pictures of their father.

Dylan's body was left in the wilderness for animals

It is believed that Mark, enraged by the confrontation over the images, murdered his son in the sitting room, decapitated him, and discarded his body in the wilderness for animals to consume. As reported by The Durango Herald, search warrants carried out at Mark's home uncovered traces of Dylan's blood in the lounge area.

A cadaver dog also detected the recent presence of a body in the same room and in the back of Mark's pickup truck.

In June 2013, several months afterwards, the first partial remains of Dylan's body were discovered about eight miles away on Middle Mountain Road.

Three years following the horrific crime, walkers reportedly found Dylan's skull approximately a mile and a half further up the road.

Forensic specialists established that Dylan had been stabbed and died from sharp force trauma.

During the trial, they gave evidence that no animals would have carried a human skull that distance from the rest of the remains.

Mark was ultimately found guilty of second-degree murder and child abuse resulting in death, charges he faced following the brutal killing in 2017.

In October 2021, he was handed a sentence of 48 years for the murder - the maximum penalty permitted under the law, which prosecutors had pushed for.

District Attorney Christian Champagne addressed the jury at the time, stating, "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."

Judge Jeffery Wilson of the 6th Judicial District Court addressed Mark, describing the evidence against him as "overwhelming."

According to The Durango Herald, he stated, "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 sanitised 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 visited 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 lawyers suggested that Dylan had simply wandered off and died either from exposure or an animal attack, but investigators dismissed this theory with their hypothesis about the boy's skull, which they said would not have been carried that far by an animal.

Mark branded the trial as "fake justice" during his sentencing, persistently maintaining his innocence. Wilson concluded his statement with a sharp comment: "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 behaviour."