Indefensible

by Michael Griesbach

  The subsequent two interviews were on February 27, when Dassey admitted that he was invited over to a bonfire by his uncle Steven and saw a few of Halbach’s body parts, notably her toes. Since these were the interviews that ultimately led to Dassey’s conviction, I wanted to know why the officers called him out of class at Mishicot High School that day.

  After hours of reading statements from the 1,116-page Calumet County Investigation report, I eventually found what I was looking for. On February 20, 2006, Investigator Wiegert and Investigator Baldwin met with Kayla Avery and her mother, Candy, at her home. The reason for the meeting, as noted in the activity report, was to speak to Kayla about allegations made by Jodi Stachowski that Avery had beat Jodi up. The entire interview, up until the last paragraph, consisted of Kayla giving examples of abuse she witnessed that substantiated what Jodi told police, in addition to a few comments concerning Kayla’s own dealings with Steven: Kayla did state that on several occasions, STEVEN would grab her arms and pull them up over her head and pin her to the wall and then he would let her go. Kayla also told police that she would become very scared and would tell him to stop.

  The next paragraph told me everything I needed to know. It was buried on page 435 in a paragraph unlikely to elicit consideration beyond that of it being a simple side note someone made when referring to an unrelated portion of the dialogue. An “oh, by the way” remark, but for me, it was exactly what I was looking for. The paragraph read:

  As I was talking with Kayla, she stated to me that her cousin, Brendan who had been burning things with Steven on Halloween night had been acting up lately. I asked Kayla what she meant by him acting up to which she stated Brendan would just sit there and stare into space and start crying. Kayla also told me that Brendan had lost approximately 40 lbs. since this all started a couple of months ago. Kayla and her mother CANDY, both told me at that time they both remember seeing the bonfire by STEVEN’s house on Halloween night. Kayla and CANDY had stopped by Kayla’s grandmother’s, Delores, on Halloween night and they remember seeing the fire down by Steven’s trailer. That was the end of my conversation with Kayla, Candy and Earl Avery.

  Investigation continues

  Inv. Mark Wiegert

  Calumet Co. Sheriff’s Dept.

  Police spoke to Brendan Dassey a week later. During that interview it quickly became clear to the officers that he knew something about Teresa Halbach’s murder. They knew that he was helping his uncle burn garbage in a fire that night, and they thought that he might have seen something in the fire. As in the later interrogation shown in Making a Murderer, Dassey did not readily respond to questions with much detail. As investigators expressed their concern and willingness to listen, it resulted in some leading questions. Eventually Dassey admitted that he saw a body in the fire, first the toes and then the rest. Dassey said that his uncle told him to keep his mouth shut and threatened him when he noticed he had seen the body. Dassey said Avery told him he stabbed her in her RAV4 and hid the vehicle under some branches planning to crush it later.

  Dassey had offered this information after a great deal of probing and leading questions. At one point, when asked if Steven Avery was injured, Dassey said he cut his finger on glass near the garage. Later, when the interrogators asked leading questions, Dassey said that Avery cut his finger with a knife when he was stabbing Halbach.

  It became very apparent, just from this statement, that the investigators should not have been asking Dassey so many leading questions if they wanted to rely upon what he told them. For at least some of his responses, he simply told them what they wanted to hear. It was obvious that even the investigators picked up on this during the interview.

  Dassey was allowed to go to his final class of the day after speaking with Wiegert and Fassbender for just under two hours. He wrote two statements and signed both of them. Police contacted his mother, Barb, who met them at the high school, and was updated on the situation. Once he was done with class, Barb and her son agreed to go to the Two Rivers police station with the officers to participate in a second videotaped interview.

  At three twenty-one p.m., in an interview room at the police station, the officers began the second interview that day, of course starting off with the Miranda warnings. Dassey’s demeanor was different during this interview. He talked more freely, responding to questions in a narrative form. He stated that he got home from school around three forty-five, ate dinner around eight, and then received a phone call from his uncle Steven asking him to come over to the bonfire. Dassey said that he saw Teresa Halbach’s car when he got home from school, and that later he saw toes, hands, a person’s belly, and forehead in the fire, all buried underneath some tires and branches. When his uncle Steven noticed that he had seen the body, he threatened to stab his nephew if he told anyone. This time Dassey said that Avery said he stabbed Halbach in the stomach and that he received a scratch on his finger from her fingernails when she struggled to get away from him.

  By this time the repetitive leading questions and internal contradictions in Dassey’s statements were obvious. In the third interrogation, on March 1, it didn’t get much better. During this questioning he provided a different story—this time where he sexually assaulted Halbach and played an active role in her murder. In addition to the details Kratz provided in his press conference the next day, Dassey stated that Avery stabbed Halbach and directed his nephew to slit her throat. Avery then shot her in the garage. They backed her RAV4 into the garage and she was placed in the back of the SUV. Avery originally thought of putting her body in the pond, but decided it was too shallow.

  As hard as it is to believe Dassey’s confession, after the many times he changed it, often at the prompting of the investigators’ leading questions, clearly some of these new details line up with the physical evidence. The bullet with Halbach’s DNA was found in the garage after a more thorough search. Before this time the police did not know where she was shot, but knew that she was shot, due to the bullet hole in her skull.

  Dassey also told police that Halbach was shot twice in the head, and this information was provided before the police knew it. They were first informed that Halbach was shot in the head in a phone call that Investigator Wiegert received from Kenneth Olson at the Wisconsin State Crime Lab regarding laboratory findings on February 28. Olson told him that one piece of charred skull had a suspected entrance defect and that there were traces of lead. That is what ultimately prompted the infamous “what happened to her head” question from one of the investigators. Dassey answered the question, “Who shot her in the head?” with the simple statement, “He did.”

  FASSBENDER (F.): Then why didn’t you tell us that?

  DASSEY (D.): ’Cause I couldn’t think of it.

  F.: Now you remember it? (Dassey nods “yes.”) Tell us about that then.

  D.: That he shot her with his .22.

  WIEGERT (W.): You were there, though?

  D.: Yeah.

  W.: Where did this happen?

  D.: Outside.

  W.: Outside? Before? Tell me when it happened?

  D.: When we brung her outside to throw her in the fire.

  W.: Okay. So let’s back up, okay? So I wanna go through this, okay? So he stabs her (Dassey nods “yes”) and chokes her?

  D.: Mm-huh.

  W.: And then you do what?

  D.: I help tie her up.

  W.: Okay. And then what?

  D.: Then we . . .

  W.: You cut her throat somewhere in there?

  D.: Yeah.

  W.: Yes?

  D.: Yeah.

  W.: And then what?

  D.: Cut off, er, some of her hair.

  W.: Okay.

  D.: Then we brung her outside and shot her.

  W.: Was she alive when you shot her?

  D.: I don’t know.

  W.: Where did you shoot her?

  D.: In the head.

  W.: Who shot her?

  D.: He did.

  F.: How many times?
<
br />   D.: Twice.

  Making a Murderer spliced the video so that viewers didn’t see the rest of Brendan Dassey’s responses showing he knew what kind of gun Avery used, and how many times he shot Halbach in the head, which was not public knowledge and even the police didn’t know that then. Investigators did not find out until later that there were two confirmed entrance defects on two different pieces of Halbach’s skull. How could they have fed him details that even they didn’t know at the time? Discounting for the moment the theory that police planted the bullets in the garage, this detail corroborates part of Dassey’s confession. These additional details provided by Dassey were not the result of leading questions.

  Dassey’s statement that they placed Halbach’s body in the RAV4 also explains why splotches of her blood were found in the back of the vehicle, which was consistent with the scenario of her body being placed in the back of the vehicle with blood in her hair. Also, Avery’s DNA on the hood latch was not found until Dassey told the police that Avery had opened the hood, although Dassey could not say why.

  It seems, then, that at least some portions of Dassey’s confession are true.

  * * *

  I started my investigation into Dassey’s confession in the hope of forming a solid opinion of his role in the murder. But that didn’t happen. In the end I was left, as many viewers were, with more questions than answers.

  The events leading to Dassey’s confession had a domino effect. Had police never spoken to Kayla Avery on February 20, when they were simply following up on Jodi’s statements of Steven’s abuse, they most likely would not have met with Dassey a week later. Had Kayla not told police that he had lost weight and was crying a lot, police would not have asked Dassey questions that ultimately led to his self-incrimination in saying he had witnessed Halbach’s body in a fire. Had Kenneth Olson not contacted Wiegert the next day, to inform him that one of Halbach’s charred cranial fragments had a suspected entrance defect with trace evidence of lead, the March 1 “What happened to her head?” interrogation, which shifted Dassey’s role from a witness to a potential accomplice, may not have occurred. Additionally, it’s more than likely that they would have never followed up with Kayla Avery after February 20, had her school counselor not contacted police after hearing of Brendan Dassey’s arrest.

  * * *

  Kayla Avery was just fourteen when Dassey told her at a birthday party in December 2005, less than two months after Halbach’s death, that he had seen Teresa Halbach “pinned up” in Steven Avery’s trailer. She told police that her cousin “had gotten very shook up” after telling her that he had seen this and then observing the bones in the fire.

  Kayla was concerned enough about this information that she approached her school counselor in January 2006. A teacher’s aid, who was at that meeting with Kayla later testified in Brendan Dassey’s trial:

  Q.: Tell us what happened?

  A.: Kayla came into the office, and she was asked by Ms. Baumgartner if she minded that I was there, and Kayla said, no. And she said she was there because she was feeling scared.

  Q.: All right. Let me stop you there, first, and ask who else, if anyone, was present for this conversation?

  A.: No one else.

  Q.: All right. So there’s just the three of you?

  A.: Correct.

  Q.: All right. And did Kayla reveal to the two of you why she was feeling scared and why she wanted to talk?

  A.: Yes.

  Q.: And what did she tell you?

  A.: She told us that she was scared because her uncle, Steven Avery, had asked one of her cousins to help move a body.

  Q.: All right. What else, if anything, did she tell you about that?

  A.: She also said she was scared about going to the shop, and she, specifically, asked if blood can come up through concrete.

  Q.: All right. Now, was—did she identify which of her cousins may have been asked by her uncle, Steven Avery, to move this body?

  A.: No.

  Q.: All right. Describe for us, if you will, Kayla’s demeanor, her affect, during these revelations?

  A.: She—she was scared.

  Q.: All right. Did she seem at all confused?

  A.: No.

  Q.: Was this the first time you ever had contact with Kayla?

  A.: Yes.

  Q.: All right. Your best estimate, approximately how long did this conversation take?

  A.: My best guess would be 15 or 20 minutes.

  Q.: All right. How was Kayla’s demeanor at the conclusion of this discussion?

  A.: I think she still felt scared, but maybe a little bit more relieved.

  Q.: All right. Did she, at the end of the conversation, seem confused by anything that she was telling you?

  A.: No.

  After Brendan Dassey’s confession on March 1 and his subsequent arrest, Kayla’s counselor came forward to speak with the police. Investigators returned to interview Kayla on March 7 based on the counselor’s statement.

  Investigator Wiegert and Special Agent Fassbender met with Kayla Avery and her mother, Candy, at three thirty-six p.m. at their residence in Whitelaw, Wisconsin. Kayla provided details concerning her own experiences with Avery and described several attempts he made to grab her, pull her toward him, and kiss her, telling her that she had “big boobies.”

  When investigators spoke to Kayla about specific statements she made to her counselor, she initially stated that she could not remember and broke down, crying. She later admitted that Brendan told her he saw Halbach “pinned up” when he dropped off the mail and later saw body parts in the fire. According to Kayla, her cousin told her that Steven had threatened that if he told anyone, the same thing would happen to him.

  Kayla also stated that her cousin told her that he left Steven’s home after seeing Halbach pinned up, but he didn’t want to say any more, and Kayla didn’t want to know anyhow. The last thing he told her, Kayla said, was that he had heard Teresa Halbach screaming when he walked out of the trailer home. She stated that her cousin had gotten very shaken up while telling her all of this.

  Kayla also admitted that she told the counselors at school about this and also provided investigators with a written statement as to what Brendan told her. A transcript of Exhibit 163, with editing for clarity and ease of reading, from Brendan Dassey’s trial, reads as follows:

  STATEMENT OF Kayla Avery

  Date: 3/7/06

  Brendan told me that he saw the body parts of Teresa in the fire pit behind Steven’s grown. (Editor’s note: garage?) Brendan got the mail and brought it to him and he sat in a chair in Steven’s bedroom. Then Brendan walked out of the house and he heard skremins (Editor’s note: screams?) in Steven’s house. When I tried to talk to him at Ashle’s B-day party and I asked him to talk to me and he did not want to talk to me about it. I think that Steven should stay in Jail or Prison. I do NOT like him at all I really think that Brendan did something and he got forst. (Editor’s note: forced?)

  I HATE STEVEN A LOT

  P.S. Teresa was pind [sic] up

  P.P.S I hope he rots in hell....

  Love

  Kayla Avery

  Kayla later testified in Dassey’s trial and claimed that none of the statements she made to police were true. She said she made up the story about her cousin seeing body parts. When asked why, she lied to the police, she stated that she was confused and didn’t know what to do. When asked what she was confused about, she responded, “I don’t know. Everything.”

  * * *

  As a result, Kayla’s role in the Dassey trial has been controver-cial. It’s easy to believe that she was telling the truth when she spoke to her counselors. Why would she go to them unless she was troubled? Others have suggested that her intent was to get Steven in trouble, but then realized she implicated Brendan in the process. Or that it was simply a bid for attention.

  Insinuations and assumptions bounced around in one heated online discussion after another. Here is a typical example posted on a Faceb
ook group:

  Maybe Kayla got in trouble at school and made up the story about Brendan to take the focus off of her. I raised my husband’s daughter, and teenage girls lie a LOT. Especially when they get busted doing something wrong. So maybe she lies, and then her parents tell her she is GOING to retract her statement. So she does. Just a theory, could be wrong.

  But a recorded telephone conversation between Dassey and his mother while he was in jail is cited by others in support of the truthfulness of his confession. During this conversation, when there were no police officers present to pressure him or ask leading questions, he told his mother that he and his uncle committed the murder. He explained that the investigators told him that he might only get twenty years if he told the truth. He also told his mother that he did not know how he would face his uncle in court.

  The phone call recording offered a stark contrast to the hours of interrogation footage. Brendan Dassey clearly seemed to be telling the truth.

  CHAPTER 19

  PARTING THOUGHTS

  I first became obsessed with the Avery case—and, unfortunately for my wife and our children, “obsession” is the right word—in 2003, twelve years before Making a Murderer aired. For more than a decade I have believed this stranger-than-fiction true-crime drama has the potential to engage a broad audience with its implications for today’s pressing issues concerning the criminal justice system and its need for reform. It’s not every day, after all, that a folk hero celebrity exoneree, who is slated to become the namesake of a state’s most meaningful criminal justice reform bill in years, commits an exceptionally brutal murder and then tries to get away with it by accusing the police of setting him up again.