If you have not already, I recommend reading the transcripts of his police interviews and watching the ones which are available. He knows things he couldn't possibly know unless he had been there.
That said, his attorney's investigator's "interview" was egregiously out of line. And the attorney should have been with Brendan instead of leaving him alone with police.
If you have not already, I recommend reading the transcripts of his police interviews and watching the ones which are available. He knows things he couldn't possibly know unless he had been there.
That said, his attorney's investigator's "interview" was egregiously out of line. And the attorney should have been with Brendan instead of leaving him alone with police.
Not sure how it works, but whoever has jurisdiction over the conviction of BD (the county ?, the state ?) must call some sort in investigation or enquiry surrounding the whole proceedings at least,otherwise they reveal that they ultimately don't represent justice.
Boodles - do please give us those examples of what he knew without being there?
His original innocent statement is the one that never wavered. I believe that one. It was not implied by the police for him to just make him agree to ideas/questions they had thrown at him. He got off the bus, checked the mail, played video games, someone called, his brother went trick or treating, his mom got home. Steven and Brendan would not have had time from 3:30-5pm to do anything. He was so confused thinking he was going back to school and going to watch wrestling too.
You know I read the transcripts and watched the videos about 3 weeks ago (disturbing!). I didn't take notes, and I'm not up for reviewing them again. But it's the totality of all the circumstances, statements, etc., which implicate Brendan. Off the top of my head, having details of the bonfire, having told his cousin (Kayla I recall, but another one, too IIRC), knowing about leg cuffs, rope, etc, knowing that SA was under the hood, remembering that his mom called asking if he was wearing a sweater, who remembers minutia like that when they're pulling fiction out of their butt?
I think the attorneys' investigator was out of line, but I don't think the cops were. IMO, Brandon was trying to walk the line between having actual guilty knowledge while at the same time, trying to somehow kowtow to the pressures of certain family members telling him not to reveal things. That made Brendan a mess of a witness due to his constantly changing his responses and not knowing which tact to take at various points in the interview/interrogation. Is he reliable? No. But does he have too much detail to be uninvolved? IMO, yes.
It's fine that you disagree! And I won't be bothered if he has a new trial, but ultimately, I believe he's involved and is where he needs to be. There's an ounce of truth in every lie, and the cumulative amount of incriminating info in Brendan's tales amounts to guilty knowledge IMO.
I stop in to these threads from time to time, but have pretty much moved on as my interest in this case has dwindled after reading the xscripts, etc.
I believe Dassey is completely innocent but perhaps he might have seen something (I do wonder if someone else committed the crime and Dassey saw that and not what he said).
His "confession" is remarkably similar to that of the West Memphis Three and that was later reasonably proven to be coerced and untrue.
I feel terrible for Dassey, he is a victim in this.
If you believe Brendan in the 5/13/06 interrogation, TH would have been tied up in SA's trailer from around 3 - 8:30 PM as according to BD, she was alive when taken to the garage around 8:30 or so. After 8:30 she was stabbed, shot 5 times and no one at the Dasseys heard anything. BD also said that the knife used to murder TH was put under the seat in the RAV4, but no blood/knife was ever found that I am aware of. He also said that SA took the RAV4 out to the pit and stashed it after he went home to bed. BD said he went home around 10 and talked to his mom ( with bleach/blood ) on his pants/shoes before he went to bed. Something ain't right here ...
I thought the death of TH happened somewhere between 4pm and 5:30pm and the "get rid of/burn the body, clean the garage" time frame was somewhere around 6pm-ish and on. Then again the timeline has been confusing.
What say you?
I don't see that there can be any doubt about the confession being coerced.
Absolutely appalling treatment and I'm gobsmacked that a child his age and with his IQ could have been interviewed without a parent or guardian present.
However, I also had to put a vote in for "assisted in covering up the crime".
IMHO there's sufficient evidence to support the belief that there was a clean-up in the garage that night - BD's (admittedly inconsistent) statements, the call with his mother where he talks about helping SA clean up the garage, the bleach stains on his jeans and the luminol results showing a large bleached patch on the garage floor.
What I'm not sure about is what exactly was cleaned up.
The possibilities that come to mind are :
1. The clean up was totally unrelated to the crime and SA really is the unluckiest man alive to have picked that night to spruce up the garage along with all the other coincidences.
2. The version of events in BD's confession is true and it really did happen as he said it did. (Given that other evidence just doesn't fit with that narrative, I also find that particular version of events very hard to believe.)
3. BD was involved in the crime and something relating to it (but not as described in his confession) took place in the garage that required a clean up.
4. Something related to the crime (but not as described in BD's confession) took place in the garage, requiring a clean up. BD is ignorant of what actually occurred and helped his uncle clean up in all innocence.
I don't believe this child was involved in or witnessed anything, including cleaning up blood or seeing a body in the fire after the fact. His third confession at the very end, after discussing how he and Avery did all these terrible things, the investigators asked him how he felt. Brendan's response? He's sad because he thought for three or four months Avery hadn't murdered Halbach. How could he possibly think that if he'd participating in or helped clean up a murder scene?