Brendan Dassey’s 2005 confession—after his cousin Kayla Avery flagged his erratic behavior (40 lbs lost, uncontrollable crying)—revealed his role in Teresa Halbach’s rape and murder alongside uncle Stephen Avery, including watching her burn. His mother, Barb, was present during interviews, debunking claims of coercion, while his lack of remorse and later admissions (burning clothes, hiding tooth/ashes) expose psychopathic tendencies. Media sympathy for criminals like Dassey mirrors Disney’s humanization of villains, risking public desensitization to violence. Victims deserve justice over narratives that embolden perpetrators. [Automatically generated summary]
So first, I just want to talk about the overarching opinion about Brennan Dassey because I am startled that At the amount of sympathy that he has been able to garner over the years, even from people who fully accept that Stephen Avery is a monster, fully accept that Brendan Dassey was involved in this horrific crime, they still go, okay, but he was 16 at the time and it's just sad to think that he's going to spend the rest of his life in prison.
Yeah, I mean, I think there's been kind of a pivot because at first when people...
If people believe that he's innocent, I think that's naive and ridiculous.
But if you believe he's innocent and you think he should be out of prison, well, that at least, that tracks.
But when you present a lot of the facts that you present in convicting a murderer, that's when, yeah, you get to the pivot where they say, well, even if he is guilty, he shouldn't be in prison because he was 16 and all this kind of stuff.
And that I find pretty disturbing, considering if you're willing to admit that he's guilty.
He's obviously guilty as hell. What he...
If you are capable of doing something like that to a person at any age, it already means that you're not fit to be free and to be out in society.
I think I made this point before when we talked about it, that it's a little bit like the insanity defense.
That's not exactly what the defense people are using for Brendan Dassey, but it's a similar kind of thing.
It all goes to culpability.
If someone pleads insanity, they say, well, they're not culpable for what they did.
And in this case, they're saying he's not culpable because of mental...
Well, even then, you know, you could make the argument that if he did that because he wasn't culpable, then he's even more of a danger to society because that's not something you can, you can't reform that.
You can't change that. That's right.
So if this is someone who would do something like that because they don't even realize that it's wrong to do, I don't buy that excuse.
But if it's true, then that's all the more reason why, like, would you want to have him living next door when you're, you know, with your family in your house?
So this is not someone who's fit to live in society.
To me, it's as simple as that. Yeah, over and over again, especially if you're following the Reddit threads, they keep pointing to how low of an IQ Stephen Avery had, how low of an IQ Brennan Dassey has, as if that changes things, where we go, okay, well, I know that you raped and murdered and burned this individual, but you have a very low IQ, so where are you supposed to go in society if not into prison?
So there was something about this particular interview that people felt really sad for Brendan.
This is kind of the interview that made its way around the world.
People didn't know what was leading up to it.
They assumed that they took him and never informed his parents that he was being interviewed, which is actually just completely false.
They assumed, which this conspiracy theory never even made sense to me, that they somehow poisoned Brendan to pretend that these things happened because they wanted Stephen Avery so bad and actually Brendan had nothing to do with anything and he was completely innocent.
We do find out obviously that Brendan did sleep with her as well and got involved in raping her.
And so it's very hard for me to understand why the sympathy is being placed on Brendan and not on the 22-year-old who was brutally raped and stabbed and subsequently shot and burned in a pit in somebody's yard.
Yeah, I have the same question. I don't know if there's just something...
There's a certain switch I don't have in my brain that's not flipped that most people do.
I don't know what it is, but I know that, yeah, the vast majority of people who watch that interview in Making a Murderer, they came away from that all teary-eyed and, oh, I feel so bad for this poor kid.
That was not my instinctive reaction at all.
I watched that, listened to what he's describing and how casually he's describing it, and I feel sorry for him.
Not at all. Not in the least bit.
I just... I don't...
I don't understand that instinct that people have.
I don't know if you put the sad music in the background or what.
A lot of it is just framing.
If you were to take that exact interview and you were to present it to people from the beginning by saying, listen to this callous murderer describe casually how he participated in raping and killing a woman.
You show them the exact same thing.
I think people have a different emotional response.
But it was framed by the filmmakers in a way that it's just telling people ahead of time how they're supposed to feel about it.
When I think of peer pressure at the age of 16, I think of sneaking out of the house.
I think of, okay, somebody's offering you pot, trying to get you to go to a party.
I do think that 16-year-olds do have a moral conscience enough to be able to say, okay, if you're asking me whether or not I want to kill someone, the answer tonight is no.
I've got to stay in and do my homework.
You know, if you're asking me whether or not I want to rape someone, which it still remains
unclear whether or not Teresa was conscious or not during this rape.
We don't know whether or not she was alive or dead during this.
My answer would be no.
Like, do I want to rape a corpse?
Do I want to rape somebody who's being bound and tied?
So at what point do we think that people become adult enough to make the decision not to kill
somebody because I have a two-year-old and he fully understands right and wrong.
You know what I mean?
And he knows that it's wrong because he instantly bursts into tears after he does it because
So I don't understand what 16-year-old doesn't understand that killing someone and burning the body, a lot of steps, not exactly impulsive anymore when you're using multiple days to clean up the mess, is obviously the wrong thing to do.
Yeah, you would think. I mean, there's a certain limit to it.
Like you said, with peer pressure...
When I was 16, I was peer pressured to jump from the top of my friend's roof into a wading pool.
And I did it, because that's the kind of thing a 16-year-old...
And you shouldn't do it. It's a very bad idea to do that.
That's the kind of dumb thing that a 16-year-old, especially a 16-year-old boy, will do.
Just like reckless, kind of fueled by adrenaline.
You want to impress people. And so you give a lot of leeway for that sort of thing.
But when it comes to heinous...
murderous crimes, I would think it would be obvious to most people that that doesn't qualify.
It certainly is not negated by the peer pressure excuse.
And like I said, if it's A 16-year-old who's doing something like that, who already at that age has sort of plunged into that level of evil, then to me, I don't look at that person and say, well, 30 years from now, I think they could be a much better person.
I think if you're already that evil at the age of 16...
What are you going to be capable of 20 years from now, 30 years from now?
Yeah. Generally, our approach in the justice system is to take those people, and maybe you put them in jail for a few years, and then you let them out, hope they've been reformed.
But again, you have someone who's already capable of that level of evil, and then you put them in prison, and they're kind of marinating around other violent criminals, and then you release them?
Is it likely that during that time they've gotten better, that they're a better person?
Probably not. It usually has the opposite effect.
And so we really have no choice but to segregate them from society for the rest of their lives, I would think.
When Kelly had spoken to them, she wasn't saying too much about why she felt he was losing weight or anything like that, but it definitely prompted Wiegert and Fassbender to question Brendan again, to look into that and see what she meant.
unidentified
It's not normal for a 16-year-old boy to be just crying uncontrollably and to lose that type of weight.
Something's bothering him.
Something's going on. And we felt that he may know more and that he was protecting Stephen.
And that's why we ultimately went back and talked to Brendan.
Just to clarify to people that are watching us at home, they at first obviously spoke to everybody that was at the Avery lot, took a statement, Brennan included back in November, didn't really think anything of it, maybe thought Brennan could have witnessed something but moved on from that, focused their investigation on Steven, and then suddenly Kayla gives them this little tidbit, not natural obviously for a 16-year-old to just lose what she approximates to be Right versus wrong.
Yeah, I mean, those are more details that I think would have been relevant to people that would probably be interested to know in the original series.
And it's hard to explain that any other way than obviously this is someone who, despite the excuses that he didn't know what he was doing, you know, if this is how he's responding to it, then clearly he had some awareness that he participated in something that was...
That was horrifically evil.
The fact that he incriminated himself during the questioning, that is probably a function of his low IQ, but that doesn't change the fact that he's guilty.
And so what the officers then did is they went to his school because they still thought that maybe he was wracked with guilt because he saw something.
I mean, you never could have thought as an officer this 16-year-old participated in this heinous crime, right?
You would maybe think he knows something, he's hiding something, he saw something.
But they obviously went to the school just to sit down and have a conversation with him, which we're going to see a tidbit of.
And after their conversation indicates that he really saw some stuff, they moved him to the police station Still not aware that he participated in the crime whatsoever.
Let's watch this clip of investigators talking to Brendan, which will also debunk the idea that his mother had no idea that this was taking place when they went down to the police precinct.
unidentified
We made arrangements to talk to Brendan while he was at school.
I told him, I think twice during that interview, that he wasn't under arrest,
and he didn't have to answer questions, was free to leave.
They thought that maybe he had seen something, and they thought he was having trouble,
you know, dealing with what he had witnessed.
unidentified
And we weren't expecting anything really major.
We were talking to him as a witness.
When they interviewed him again, he started to come clean with certain details of the crime that he had not included in his earlier interview back in November.
He talks about seeing Teresa in the fire, and some of that obviously was brought up to him in a question form.
I saw somebody, Mark.
I feel the rain.
That was what you saw.
Alright.
It's gonna be alright.
Ultimately he admitted to seeing things because from our standpoint, you're not gonna be able to fire and
not see a body in there.
That's why I'm shooting this thing.
We ask him, did we promise you anything?
I believe that I would have been a lot better if I had not been in that situation.
Showing an acute understanding and memory of that particular part of the interview.
We called his mother and got her to come to the school.
We briefed her and we said that we wanted to go to Two Rivers Police Department and do a video recording portion of this.
Her and Brendan both got in our car and we drove to Two Rivers.
When they took you down to Two Rivers, you should have said to them, I want my mom in there.
Yeah. You shouldn't have said, well, I don't care.
Either way. And they told me that I shouldn't go in there.
That I'm better off not going in there.
And they told me to go to the waiting room.
Well, at Two Rivers, you know, we said, well, we're going to go in and do this.
We asked Barb if she wanted to go, and she essentially said something.
In fact, she didn't need to. But can't you go outside this morning?
I see your aunt or something? Yeah.
I remember Brendan even saying, yeah, I wish you had to go smoke a cigarette or something like that.
And we asked Brendan, do you want your mother in there?
And he said, you know, it's not necessary either, something to that effect.
And so we did the recorded interview, which essentially was the information that he had already provided us at the school.
Yeah, when you see the full context of the way the police handled Brendan Dassey, I... I'm not sure what they could have done differently or what they should have done differently.
Of course, the narrative is that there are all these abuses and all these shortcuts that they took.
But when you see it all laid out, what exactly did they do wrong?
And when it's clear that he's confessing to being involved in a heinous crime, are they supposed to stop him and tell him to stop talking to them?
Right. And it's also one of the underlying points of all this is that These, the police and the investigators involved in this case, not only did they capture two murderous psychopaths, but it's like, to me, pretty much guaranteed that they prevented future victims.
That if Stephen Avery was not put in prison, like somebody like that doesn't just do that once.
No. Maybe that was his first time.
Who knows? But he doesn't just do it once.
So it's pretty much a guaranteed fact that if they had not been able to convict him, that there would be more victims and who knows how many.
And then to have him just totally thrown under the bus at such a national level is a total disgrace.
Yeah. And do I think that he was, I guess, manipulated by his uncle?
Yes. Obviously, his uncle told him to come over.
His uncle told him to get involved and all things of that nature.
But as I said, I don't think there's any 16-year-old that is not possessed within them to go, this is really wrong.
You know, this woman is obviously defenseless and my uncle's done something wrong.
And at no point following this, by the way, did he tell his mom.
I mean, if there was any element of him being ridden with guilt and having done the right thing after, maybe I could understand how people go, oh, I feel so bad.
It was in the moment. He did something stupid.
He held on to the secret for his uncle.
And as we examine the family dynamics, and we are starting to understand more and more that all of them, it really does function a bit like a cult.
Like, they want to protect Stephen Avery over and over again.
And Brennan Dassey was offered 10 years, and they essentially said, don't take the plea deal.
Because if you do, then it will implicate Stephen.
And it's a very bizarre and a warped way of thinking, but Stephen Avery to them was the hero of the Klan.
He was the person that was fathering, in a sense, represented this sort of patriarch figure.
And this is why Brendan was put into the situation in the first place, but it does not make me feel bad.
And I can't understand how it is.
I just keep going back to Theresa Hall back how people just cannot realize that this is a
22 year old young woman who had her entire life ahead of her who just wanted to shoot some pictures
She's forever lost in the narrative of these people that insist on Stephen Avery's innocence
It's really bizarre to think that there are women that want to marry
Stephen Avery women that have been his fiance's while he's in prison
Knowing that he's been involved in such a steep history of Abusing women including his own daughter and for her family
Somehow the victims of their own heinous crime is that's the part that to me is unimaginable
I just can't. I can't imagine being in that position, and God forbid something like that happens to my own family member, and I have to watch as the person who did it is turned into a martyr.
I mean, they're in prison, thank God, so our justice was served on that level.
But... But culturally, you know, it's like they're being re-victimized over and over again.
That portion of Brendan Dassey's confession, which of course was conveniently left out of Making a Murderer, is the most difficult portion to listen to.
I felt physically sick the first time that I heard it.
unidentified
Tell us what you did. Did you take your clothes off?
No. And you had intercourse with her?
What does intercourse mean to you?
They were stuck in here.
You stuck what in here?
It's okay. The penis.
And where'd you stick it? In a vagina.
Okay. Where is Steve at this time?
Standing by the door.
After you're done and you put your clothes on, what happens next?
They told me I did a good job, and then he closed the door.
It's still very difficult for me to listen to that and I just keep thinking we're talking about someone's daughter who's dead and making a murderer thought to conveniently leave that portion out of how, I mean just the concept of his uncle watching him do that and then saying good job.
Yeah, and when I watched that, I mean, again, when I watched that, and I guess, of course, that portion was not in the original show, but when people see that interview, we're supposed to see an innocent, helpless kid or something, but what I see is someone who's...
You know, I think, just to even make this discussion larger, I'm really sick of people telling us, just, like, people that think logically and rationally about these circumstances that we need to exercise more compassion.
This is a word that we're hearing over and over again in today's society.
You're not compassionate enough.
You need to try to understand these people.
Going back to, I'm sure you covered this on your show, the person in New York who just got stabbed, and his viewpoint was that we need to be compassionate towards drug addicts.
Now we have an 18-year-old, another teenager, who was arrested for horrifically stabbing this man to death late at night or early in the morning, whichever way you want to look at it.
Are we suffering from compassion in American society?
Well, actually, I would say no, because I don't think that what you see, certainly on the left and generally in the culture, I wouldn't call it compassion.
I mean, they call it compassion. And so sometimes maybe we might say, well, they're too sensitive.
There's almost like too much, overabundance of compassion.
But I don't think that's the case. I mean, even when you look at the word compassion and kind of the etymology of the word, it means co-suffering, co-passion.
And so compassion means that you are...
In the most literal sense, you're kind of suffering alongside them.
You're taking on their suffering. You're feeling their suffering.
And we're talking about the passion of the Christ, suffering for the sins of all mankind.
So if you're actually...
The point is, if you're actually...
To be actually compassionate means to...
Understand the suffering of victims.
And that's what it is to be actually compassionate.
I think there's a real lack of that kind of compassion, which is the only real kind in our culture, of actually caring about people who fall victim to these crimes.
If your first instinct...
Is to take the side of or to be sympathetic towards the criminal, then that's not compassion.
I don't know what that is. That's spiritual disorder of the highest kind.
And the other thing, too, is that compassion, justice and compassion go hand in hand.
And so if you're a really compassionate person, then you have a thirst for justice.
And we've lost that part of it.
Like, being compassionate means being angry and When horrible things are done to people, being angry on their behalf, especially if they're not around anymore to seek justice for what was done to them.
And we've completely lost that.
You should have, yes, compassion is anger because you want, it's a thirst for justice.
Completely lost that entirely.
So I think the most compassionate response when you watch a video like that, the most compassionate response is to be like blind with rage at that scumbag.
Right. Because you are being compassionate towards the woman that he brutalized.
And this could be a conspiracy, or just your thoughts if there is some conspiracy behind it, but like the media effort to constantly try to convince the masses that the villain is actually the hero.
So this is one such example of that.
We talked about how even Disney movies are doing this, where they're pulling out the villain, Maleficent, and saying, oh, this actually, let me look into the past of Maleficent.
It actually matters that this person grew up this way, so it will help you discount the crimes.
Netflix looking into Jeffrey Dahmer.
Softening someone like Jeffrey Dahmer.
What is that exercise that is taking place right now in the mainstream media and culturally that constantly wants us to see where the person made a wrong turn or to see the humanity in someone that's so villainous?
But comment and let me know if you agree with him.
I'm definitely a lot sweeter than Matt Walsh.
All right, guys, that is all the time that we have for today.
As a reminder, Episode 8 airs next Thursday, and we have a little teaser for you for what that looks like.
Take a look. Coming up on Convicting a Murderer.
Brendan Dassey had confessed to burning Teresa Halbach's clothing, but you don't see anything about her clothing or the jean rivets in making a murderer.