Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - CrimeCon Live: ‘Making a Murderer’ DA Ken Kratz & detective Tom Fassbender

Episode Date: June 19, 2017

Steven Avery prosecutor Ken Kratz and lead investigator Tom Fassbender join Nancy Grace for a LIVE podcast session at CrimeCon. Up & Vanished creator Payne Lindsey is also on stage sharing his thoughts on the “Making a Murderer” case. First of 2 episodes. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an i with Nancy Grace. Stephen Avery's attorney looks to get a new trial for her client. Kathleen Zellner lays out six reasons why she believes Stephen Avery deserves a new trial. Factors include the prosecutor's handling of the case, specifically mentioning Ken Kratz, accusing him of withholding evidence from the defense. Teresa Halbach was targeted by Stephen Avery. Zellner also points to an ex-boyfriend of Halbach's, suggesting he is the one responsible for killing her. Stephen Avery, innocent or guilty? I remember when a young girl, beautiful, short brown hair, big brown eyes, was just a missing person.

And we highlighted it on my show on CNN's HLN. Little did I know that was the beginning of a case that would have reverberations even now. That girl Teresa Hallback her killer Stephen Avery. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories and we are podcasting live

from CrimeCon 2000. Woo! Or as my twins go, they don't even know what they're doing. They go, they don't even know what that means. And they'll go, it's so funny. Oh, man. And when I think about them, I think about Teresa Hallback's family. Okay.

What would you do? You pour all your life, all your hopes, all your dreams, all your energy. Isn't that right, Renee? How many times have you come over to our house, even though she is a defense lawyer, and I'm doing homework? I'm in the floor making a project. And we're having trouble with it, too. Oh, trouble. Big trouble. Yeah. I can't believe they give them that kind of project in the third grade. I was doing that as a senior in high school. I've certainly mastered the staple gun and the hot glue, thanks to their third grade teacher. And then they're just taken and brutally, brutally raped and murdered. With me today, the lead investigator on the Stephen Avery case,

Tom Fassbender. Also with me, the creator of Up and Vanished, Payne Lindsey. With me, veteran defense attorney, Renee Rockwell out of the Atlanta jurisdiction, and of course Alan the Duke Duke with his radio voice straight from his posh pad penthouse in LA thank you very much I want to talk about Stephen Avery because at the launch of crime con 2017 here in Indianapolis we learn that there is a brand new, high-paid lawyer, well-known, high-profile, that has written a 1,000-page-plus defense brief claiming out of the blue that Teresa Hallback's ex-boyfriend is the real killer. Okay, let me just tell you something. That's not true. That is not true. Because how much sense does that make, Tom?

Because we know, and this is by Stephen Avery's, and Stephen Avery is the focus of Netflix, and I sure don't want to make them mad at me, but they probably already are. Netflix making a murder, suggesting after thousands of hours of videoing, thousands of hours of videoing, they cobble it together to make it look like Stephen Avery is innocent, and that is just killing me. And what do you think her, Teresa Hallback's family is feeling about all this? Let's just pretend for a moment. Let's

suspend our disbelief. If the ex-boyfriend had killed her, on Stephen Avery's words to me, I interviewed him on TV when she was just missing. He told me, Stephen Avery told me, Teresa Hallback came to his auto salvage yard business that day. That she took the pictures and left. Okay. He told me that. To my face. I was going easy. Because I didn't want him to just get up and leave at the beginning of the show.

You know. I wanted to at least ask them some questions. So I asked him, you know, what happened? Blah, blah, blah, blah. And then I get to him. I'm like, now, let me understand something. Her car is found at the edge of your auto salvage lot, hidden under like, was it plywood and trees? What was it hidden under? An automobile hood, trees, branches, pieces of wood.

He goes, that's right. I'm like, wow, that's a coincidence that her car is found on your lot. He goes, yeah, I was framed. I'm like, okay. So they found the car fairly quickly. So the way your lot is situated, because I looked it up, it's situated to get in your lot, don't you have to pass your office? He goes, uh-huh.

I'm like, didn't you just tell me that you were in the office the whole day and you never saw anybody come in? That's the only way in and out. Then he started backing off, getting all befuddled. Remember now, he told me that she came and took the pictures but then he's got we've got him star 67 himself where you hide your phone number calling her number and then what i think after she's dead he leaves a message now correct me if i got it wrong he leaves a message saying hey this is Steven Avery why didn't you show up well he didn't leave a message what he did he called the number he did not use the star 67

feature on the call after she had been abducted already after 2 30 quarter to 3 when Teresa was seen at the residence by his nephew walking to his Stephen Avery's house. Well, then later, about 4.30, he makes that call without Star 67 because he wants it to be seen, and that, we believe, is an alibi call. Okay. So him telling me one story is completely opposite. And that happened often early on where Stephen made made and told different stories what were some of the stories with me is tom fassbender the lead detective on the steve avery case okay which

netflix has you know no offense made people believe that the prosecutor set out to get the wrong person why what joy is it in getting the wrong person behind bars when the right person's walking free and you have an innocent person behind bars? So tell me how the whole thing went down, Tom. Well, initially on that day, this was Halloween 2005, Stephen Avery makes a call to AutoTrader where Teresa worked. Not using Star 67.

Not using Star 67. He calls the the office Auto Trader he asks Auto Trader to send out the same girl that had been there before. He provides a different name, B Yonda, not his own name. Whoa whoa whoa I didn't know that or I forgot it. I know so much about the case I forgot it. Okay so wait so he used a name. Well, it was actually his sister's name, Bionda Barbionda. He uses her name for a van that she owned that he allegedly is going to sell. What we later learned is Barb really didn't want that van sold. So start thinking about this.

He also provides her phone number, not his phone number. Where was the van? was the man was the man at the lot the band the van was outside of between their houses so he didn't he wouldn't give his own name he wouldn't give his own okay and he gave her phone number and the people at auto trader said the one that took the call said he talked funny like he was trying to disguise a voice. She couldn't tell whether it was a man or a woman. Why is he doing this?

Now, this is before she comes. This is before she comes. And isn't it true, Tom, that she did not want to go, that she had been out there for auto trader before, and she thought it was creepy? She felt it was creepy because he had come to the door with a towel on only. Oh, Lord. That was kind of very revealing. Guys, please don't do that. It does not make the impression you think it does.

Okay, go ahead. No. And on one occasion, she actually went into the house, and he pointed to pictures on the wall of females and said, someday you're going to be on that wall, according to what Teresa told her coworkers at Auto Trader. So, yeah, she felt he was a little creepy. She didn't seem to think he would do anything.

But, yeah, she. You know, I was just talking to Renee about this earlier. Sometimes when I look back on the things that I have done, looking back, I'm like, why did I do that? That was so stupid. And I didn't think anything about it at the time. And even with those feelings, she went ahead, probably didn't want to lose her job, and goes out to take the pictures at his salvage lot. Okay, then what happens?

What do we know then? What we know is that she got there about 2.30, quarter to 3, somewhere in that vicinity and prior to that, just prior to that, Steven Avery makes the two phone calls to her cell phone and uses star 67, does not make contact. Okay, so at least I got that part right. You were right on. He was making calls to her on Star 67. Why? His explanation was to find out where she was or to confirm whether she was coming, but she didn't answer.

And why did he Star 67 his phone? Right, I'm not sure. My theory is he was so worked up in anticipation of her being there that he just... The last time I used Star 67, Tom, my husband refused to answer his cell phone. I'm sure we were fighting about something to do with the twins. Oh, he gave John David a melatonin last night. He's nine. So you're going to end up on the Nancy Grace show.

So he wouldn't answer the phone. I'm like, mm-hmm, I'm star 67, and he picked up. I'm like, uh-huh. He hung up. Anyway, so why, I mean, I know I'm projecting, but why do you use star 67 to hide your number if not for some ulterior motive, right? Absolutely. Okay, so he calls her twice

does she pick up she did to our knowledge she did not pick up okay then what happened well then she gets there she does her job takes a picture of the van and she's not seen again except by bobby dassey his nephew who lives right next door. I thought it was Brendan Dassey. This is Bobby. Bobby wasn't involved in this. Brendan's nephew that was involved. Gotcha. Okay.

But this is very important information from a family member who works third shift. He gets up to go hunting. He looks out the window, and he sees Teresa taking pictures of this van, notes notes it and then he sees Teresa walking to Stephen Avery's trailer right next door. He goes back in the house, gets his hunting stuff on. He leaves and when he leaves, Teresa's car is there and Teresa's not around and Stephen Avery's not around. And he leaves to go hunting. When he comes home later, the car's not there and other people don't see it.

What time of the day was that that he observed Teresa there? About 2.30, quarter to three. Okay, 2.30. When is she reported missing? She's reported missing on November 3rd, Thursday, and this happened on October 31. So she's reported missing three days later. Mm-hmm. All right. And her car is found on his lot? Correct. Okay, let me ask about that night in the fire pit. Okay, so Avery, Stephen Avery, I don't understand this. Okay, and I grew up in the country. I did not know anybody that had a fire hole in the backyard.

When we say fire pit what is that basically it was a mound of dirt that he had taken like a skid stir with a front end scoop on it and scooped out a big section of the dirt in the middle and that's where they would have fires why fires for what bonfires get the kids or the nephews over and people stand around are you serious have a fire well this is wisconsin I know, I know. I grew up in the middle of nowhere. Let me tell you something. I mean, we grew up on a red dirt road, and my grandfather dug the well,

and our water would be red, okay? But can anybody attest to having bonfires in his backyard? Yes, they've had previous bonfires. Okay, fine. All right, they have fires. So he's got a fire pit, which is a hole in the dirt. Is it true, Tom, that family or relatives or friends saw Stephen Avery tending, stirring a fire in the fire pit in the backyard the day Teresa Hallback was at the home? Nancy, it is true.

Both witnesses, family, told us about a large bonfire in that backyard, seeing Stephen back there tending and watching the fire and also seeing another person believed to be Brendan Dassey out there with him. Who, I recall interviewing or talking to someone that saw him tending the fire pit. And I think it was the girlfriend of a relative that saw him back there? Yes. That would have been a sister-in-law, I believe. Right, okay, yeah, that saw the fire. It didn't go down far enough to see him, and also his sister's boyfriend saw him.

That, okay, yeah. Scott. And these then would be friends and family saw Stephen Avery tending the fire pit that night. Both the fire and tending the the fire but being out there and this is the reason I'm asking is it true that in the fire pit were found the studs off her Daisy Fuentes jeans and what parts of her body like teeth bone that didn't burn that is true Nancy the she was wearing Daisy Fuentes jeans we believe five of these studs of the six on those jeans we recovered in that fire

pit is along with her cremains unfortunately. What part of her could you actually get out of the fire? We had a forensic anthropologist do that exam and she found representative samples bones from every part of her body renee do you remember when i would do arsons and they are so hard because first you have to prove a crime actually happened that it wasn't an accident and then you have to go from there and put it back together those are hard cases it. Yeah, it's very hard to prove a case when remains or the evidence has been burned. Okay, so we've got bones, we've got studs off her pants in the fire, her bones in the fire, a 25-year-old girl.

Now, this is something I always report on it, but I want to ask you about it. Her car had his, Stephen Avery's, DNA on her car that was hidden back at the back of the lot. Is that right? Yes, Nancy, that's correct. There were four areas in her car, inside her car, that had his blood, which he denied ever being in the car, that is. And so there are four different areas in front of the car. And that's important that he denied it because if it's innocent, why lie about it? Okay, I didn't mean to interrupt. Go ahead. Where are the four areas?

In front of the car, between the seats, and also by the ignition switch. And this is a really big point. I thought that was sweat DNA. No, this was blood. Blood. Let me write that down. Okay, go ahead. By the ignition switch where you would put the key in, there was a swipe pattern of blood.

And that means you have an active bleeder who is swiping, making contact with that surface. And if you look at where we later found an injury on his middle finger, right hand a cut that that was fairly recent and if you look at where that cut was and you put the key in that ignition switch and you turn it it lines up almost perfectly with that swipe of blood on the plastic let me understand so you put the key it and you turn it and you're saying the blood was like that it would swipe along the the plan guys how are the cops gonna plant that I, it's just like when O.J. said they planted the evidence. Yes, the cops screwed up in O.J.

Fine. But that does not mean Simpson didn't do it. Both things can be true. Here, I didn't know that intricate piece of evidence, that the blood was in the swish of ending turning the key turned the key his finger came in contact with the plastic next to the ignition and swiped a pattern of blood that is some good police work to find that little bit of blood in that pattern and to find those studs and all of that that he was burning did he have tires in there burning tires

he burned tires he burned a car seat he burned uh wood obviously he actually burned her clothes in that fire bedding uh etc where okay so there was blood between the seats uh there was blood between the two front seats there was blood in the second row of the seats. This is a RAV4 small SUV, right? Near the, I guess you would call it the door panel. When the doors opened at that panel there, there was drops. Now, again, indicative of an active bleeder. You mean you open the door and there's drops on the door?

Yes, inside of that panel there. Rocker panel, I don't know what you call it. So you're getting different patterns that are very indicative of an active bleeder. And if a police officer is going to do this, there's put some blood in there, right? But these are indicative of an active bleeder actually being in that car. What about the trunk? And then in the back storage area, there was some, I believe, I'm not sure, but I believe there was some blood back there. And there was a bullet in the garage with Teresa Hallback's DNA on it. That's correct. That's correct, Nancy. I'm going to pause and thank

our awesome sponsor, our partner in today's podcast. And I'll start with a story out of Racine, Wisconsin. A house catches on fire at nobody's home. It took a while for neighbors to even notice the problem but at the end of the day there were $40,000 damages. If you're not home when a fire starts who will be there to save your house, your belongings, your home? For SimpliSafe home security user Tricia, SimpliSafe was there. She was on vacation. Her home caught fire, but with SimpliSafe, her smoke alarm went off, the fire department was alerted immediately, and they arrived in time to save Tricia's home. SimpliSafe has round-the-clock professional security monitoring and it's just $14.99 a month. Round the clock 24-7, 365 monitoring. Now that is peace of mind. Get 24-7 connection to dispatch, lightning fast response

time in emergencies with SimpliSafe home security. Order today and you get a special 10% discount. SimpliSafe.com slash Nancy. SimpliSafe.com slash Nancy for the 10% off your home security system. Here he is, Ken Kratz. Speak of the devil and his imp shall soon appear. I don't know. Sure. Let's take questions, guys.

Who has a question? You're not going to hear from the lead investigator a whole lot. Okay. In the back. It seemed like a few days ago when he killed her to win the car discount. Why do you think he didn't

just crush the car? Do you want to repeat the question? Yeah, hold on, let me repeat it. We have a lady in the back here. Everybody, we're at CrimeCon 2017. We are with Tom. Woo! Or is it with?

I love it when they do that little, because they don't even know what that means. What does it mean? Raise the roof. I don't know. Did we ever know what it meant? Does that raise the roof i think that's the roof is falling raise the roof kind of thing and they run around they'll get out of the bathtub does anyone still do that besides your twins i don't know where they i don't think so anyway okay so now we have from pain lindsey and the duke from his posh penthouse pad in L.A.

telling me what that little thing. Okay, with me, Tom Fassbender, and now Ken Kratz, both on this case. I bet you're having a backflip with this new motion that's been filed, trying to respond to that. Well, it's not something I ever will respond to, and I don't think I probably should. It's not something that I need to it to weigh in on it's obviously very troubling to see the kind of allegations that were made and and I'm sure you've talked about I'm sorry for coming in late but happy to answer any questions I have sure okay so the question in the back from the lady is why didn't he crush down the car?

Okay. Me, before I go to the expert, probably because he knew the cops were watching him and he didn't have to go get it and take it to a facility unless he could crush them there. Could he crush the cars there, Tom? Yes, he could. I don't know why, but that would kind of give it away, huh, if they found it crushed by this machine.

I don't know why what do you think? What happened is the week prior to that or there about Steven actually went down to the pit and Crushed some cars in that car crusher now car crusher makes a car crush car sandwich There's about six of them in there. He crushed two or three our belief is he was preparing for this And he was in all by all means going to crush this car brendan told us that that was his intent now that was a good question think of this the the salvage yard is a business and it's operating for business so he takes the car down there he hides it on monday night if he goes down there starts crushing this thing this

is a big diesel type car crusher people are going to hear it they're going to know stuff's going on but wait a minute they would probably have heard it all the time anyway and not thought a thing about it me i'm by people i'm saying probably more his his brothers yeah stuff on there wondering why steven's down there crushing cars but didn't he always crush cars no he did not not a lot it was it was mainly the owner of the car crusher that did the crushing but why do you think he was about to crush the car? Well, number one, he indicated that to Brenda. Number two, he put that car right in the vicinity of the car crusher to make it easy to get to that car crusher. And he couldn't do it during the week. Then the cars, or then she's reported missing, and there's

all these search teams out there. There's an airplane flying over, checking things out. He's not going to mess around there. He doesn't want to do it while the business is open. The weekend, the family goes up in northern Wisconsin to the cottage. Everyone clears out. They're closed from noon Saturday to Monday. We have a telephone call where he indicates that he's thinking about coming back from the cabin up north on Saturday our belief is that's when he was gonna go back when no one is around and crush the car and he didn't get a chance because the car was found Saturday morning and you know another thing on the outside looking in how many times the criminals say, if I had just X. Looking back, he probably thinks I should have done it at like 3 o'clock in the morning one night.

Why didn't I do it? But he had a plan, and his own plan messed him up. I hadn't thought of that. Nancy, there's a pretty good opportunity that if he did crush the car, and everybody think about this, we probably wouldn't have found the car. If we don have found the car if we don't find the car We don't get the search warrant if we don't get the search warrant he gets away with murder So that's how close this case came to us never having it solved Absolutely Yes, ma'am

Right fire, but in addition to the remains, there was a car seat and there was some tires in there. Right. Do you think that he always burned tires? Was that just a normal? I know that when people are having, I guess, bonfires in their backyard, they. Don't burn a tire. They smell awful. She, we've got a question about why would he burn the tires. I think to get rid, to take away from the body.

The more stuff he could throw on there, it would all burn down. It would be harder to find the body. But wait, let's go ahead, Tom. Being an auto salvage yard, it wasn't uncommon that they may burn tires occasionally. That night he did burn tires. That's verified through witness accounts. Tires burn hot, very hot. And they stink.

And they stink. And a lot of smoke, and they have some length to their burn. And we actually had our arson investigator, who's an expert in that area, testify to that about that would be an excellent fuel to burn what he burned. Also, the car seat has that foam that is also a very hot-burning fuel. So the fuel was absolutely ideal for the job that he was doing. Yes, ma'am. How did she die?

Did they ever try to determine the cause of death? Well, there was a bullet in the garage. The question is, how did she die? Is that your question? Was she alive? I don't think so, because there was the bullet found in the garage with her DNA on it. And according to Dassey, the nephew, who now there have been troubles with his conviction because it is now claimed he had a low IQ, which some of his tests showed he had a medium range IQ, and that he was tricked into giving a confession. He didn't seem very smart, though.

So? That's what I got from watching him. So he's not smart. What, does that mean he can't kill somebody? I don't know. I think that it would make you think twice about his confession. I'm not saying that he wasn't involved. Did you go to law school, Payne Lindsey? No, I didn't know. I think that it would make you think twice about his confession. I'm not saying that he wasn't involved. Did you go to law school, Payne Lindsey?

No, I didn't. No, but I can tell when someone's smart or not smart. Okay, I'm sorry, but I don't see that there's a disclaimer in the Constitution that said all people that Payne Lindsey says are not smart can't be prosecuted for murder. You're correct. This is actually a question for you guys more so. She's the one that asked the question and you have injected yourself. I'm not calling on you.

It's going somewhere. Did she die from a gunshot wound? Yes, she died from a gunshot wound. Of the fragments that were found in the fire, there were cranial pieces. Our forensic anthropologist found two bullet entrance wounds in pieces of those cranial bones, indicative of entry wounds of a bullet.

We found the bullets or a bullet in the garage. I don't know if that's the exact bullet that went through and entered a skull. Oh, I thought it had DNA on it. It did, but we don't know if that's the exact bullet that went through the skull or into other soft tissues or whatever. Got it. And I think importantly, we never claimed that the bullet that was recovered was one of the two that went through the skull. Probably not, as a matter of fact, because it, as those of you that know .22 caliber and ballistics, a bullet kind of rattles around once it goes into a skull. And so that's why it likely would have remained inside and likely wouldn't have been the bullet that was recovered in the back.

That probably went through soft tissue, although DNA of Teresa went on there. Probably not one of the skull projectiles, nor did we ever claim that, despite what Ms. Zellner put in her brief a couple of days ago. So that's, I think, an important distinction. So here's my question. If you're on the jury, that's how you get bogged down in the intricacies of a case. This is what I need to know. A bullet with Teresa Halbach's DNA is in Avery's garage, and her body has been incinerated. She's dead, burned dead. So this was done before she was burned. And I don't care if it went through her brain or where it went through.

I know she's dead, and there's a bullet with her DNA on it. But Dassey, in his statement, which I have watched, most of it's on video, I think, said that Stephen Avery either tied or chained her to a bed, cut off her hair, raped her as she's chained there, then made Dassey rape her, according to Dassey. He was forced. And then Avery shot her dead, and he looked away. Where is Renee still in here? Renee, stand up. How many times have I prosecuted cases where at that exact crucial moment, like the shooting, my chief witness looked away? Why would you look away at that moment? Well, they chief witness looked away. Why would you look away at that moment?

Because they don't want to testify. So when I heard he looked away at the moment, that one moment, I didn't believe that. But that is what Teresa endured before her death. This was a very traumatic event for this young man. He didn't want to go there. And he actually talked about when he was younger, the family had to kill a family cat. And he couldn't launch that. He couldn't see that. And that was very traumatic to him. So when we asked him, did you shoot? He didn't have trouble raping her, Tom. Chained to a bed. No, he didn't. I mean, excuse me, but. No, no did he didn't have trouble raping her Tom chained to a bed no I mean excuse me but no no he didn't okay so I don't want to traumatize

Brendan Dassey any further but he did rape Teresa Hall back as she was chained to a bed am I was that right that's correct okay question back there in the back That's correct. Okay question back there in the back Let me repeat a gentleman in the back wants to know is that the third confession where he talked about shooting That's a good question Yes Well, that's a good question. Yes. Well, that's a good question. We don't have enough time to talk about the whole interviews and all of the interviews. He's trying to pin you down.

He's trying to suggest that you fed it to him. And if you did, that is not unconstitutional. I don't like it. But when somebody just sits there and you go finally did you shoot her in the head didn't you and you're waiting for an answer i mean i could hear myself saying something like that if somebody wouldn't answer me well the question what he's talking about is we asked several times what else happened to her what else happened to something? What else happened to her? Something with the head. And he talked about cutting her neck. He talked about punching her and Stephen, not him, but Stephen strangling her.

And then my partner asked, well, all right, who shot her in the head? Okay. He had every right and opportunity to say, I don't know. Or nobody shot her in the head. Or nobody. I didn't. What did he respond to that almost immediately? He did, Stephen. He did.

And then when asked to elaborate on that, he said he shot her with his.22. And the point here is that.22, that bullet we found forensically matched up with Stephen Avery's 22, which was above his headboard in his bedroom, which is where Brendan told us that 22 was. The statements he made before the shooting and the head question, only Brendan knows whether those are true. We did not feed him them statements. We just kept asking him what happened. Something happened to her head. We didn't say, did this happen to her head?

He told us, I cut her neck, or he punched her, et cetera. You know what? I want to honor what he's saying back there in the back. Sir, could you stand back up again? Because when you see the Netflix documentary, it looks so real. And I would have questions, too, if I didn't already know what I knew. You know, if I didn't already know about the case and had not investigated the case and talked to Avery himself, I might have gotten taken in hook, line, and

sinker. So tell me, are you trying to ask, do you think Brendan Dassey was forced to give a – and I don't care. I don't care the answer. Do you think he was forced to give a confession? I feel like Steve Mayer is guilty even after the documentary. I do what Payne said. I think he has some belief to it that Brendan Dassey does not seem like the sharpest knife in the door. I agree with you.

Right. Well, to you guys. I want I did this, I did that. What about this? I want to finish here what he's saying. When do people confess to things they have never done? DNA, they are dishonest. Okay, so let me ask you this. I agree.

Wait a minute. I want to ask you a question. So, do you believe Avery is guilty? I do. Okay. Let me ask you a question. So do you believe Avery is guilty? Okay. Let me ask you about this. Do you think Dassey raped Hallback? I don't think Dassey shot her and I don't think Dassey strangled her. I just don't. I don't know why. It's just gut feeling. But I do think he raped her, because the way he said it was kind of like, I didn't want to do it, but he made me do it.

Why would Steven involve Brendan at all? I don't know. This is to you guys. Why do you think? I'm going to come back to you. Why do you think that, Tom? That's confusing to me. Me too.

You know, hard to answer that question. Why would he involve Brendan? If you had to answer that question, why would Stephen do that? You have to. Yeah. This is the courtroom. No, I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding.

If you would just, what's your best hypothesis? I think he wanted a partner in crime. I think he wanted someone there. And why did he choose Brendan? Maybe he didn't have anybody else else maybe Bo Dukes wasn't available maybe why why not Brendan because Brendan was was easily manipulated and then was easily convinced Brendan was easily manipulated yes by him that could be true Lindsay, that he is easily manipulated.

But he can be easily manipulated and have raped Teresa Hallback. Those can both be true. For the record, I think that Stephen is guilty. I'm just questioning Brendan's guilt. I think that he raped her and did not kill her. And I think the fact that he was there. But what did he go to jail for? He went to jail for murder because that is a felony murder.

If I can weigh in on this, it would be awesome. Please, yes. Who the hey do you think you are? Oh, yeah, the prosecutor. Okay. Brendan was there, and he helped. Those are the two, putting it down in delayed terms, those are the two elements of piping a party to the crime. Was he there and did he help? Okay. And so in the Brendan Dassey

prosecution, which was a separate prosecution from Avery, by the way, most of you know that Brendan's statement was never used in the Stephen Avery case, never presented at all. Thank God. We never even brought that in. Avery was convicted mostly on the forensic evidence, which was really compelling, so there wasn't any reason to do that. How did you decide not to bring in Dassey? Well, we tried to make a deal with Brendan. We tried to, and because of Brendan's Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination,

we either had to make a deal with him, give him some kind of immunity, which we weren't willing to do. And Brendan rejected our last plea offer. We offered Brendan 15 years in prison, which was, he'd be out in about three years from now, by the way. And it wasn't Brendan who turned it down. It wasn't even his attorney who told him to turn it down. It was his grandfather who called him and said, you have to reject that plea bargain, not so much because what it does to your case, but because it hurts Stephen's case, because it's going to hurt his chances of acquittal.

And we want you, Brendan, to go to trial on a first-degree intentional homicide. Even if you're convicted, it's better off for Stephen if you do that. Can you imagine a developmentally disabled 16-year-old who needs the support of his family members, and the advice he gets is reject that offer and go to trial? Guys, I'm sorry, I don't get it. Why do you keep talking about him being developmentally disabled, which he is, which he may be, I think.

Why aren't we talking about the raped dead girl? I'm telling you, because it impacted his decision-making, all right? It wasn't because of his behavior, what he was convicted for. Okay, what was his involvement then, Ken? What was it in a nutshell? Brendan Dassey involved himself in the rape. I'm very convinced that he convinced, or excuse me, that he raped Teresa. He also carried her out to the garage, participated not in an active way,

but participated in her death. They threw her in the back of their own cargo area of her vehicle, and before they decided together, that is Brendan and Stephen decided together that it was better to burn her than it was to put her in the pond. They were going to put her body in the pond. They didn't think there was enough water in the pond, and so they made a joint decision, or at least a decision, to burn the body. Brendan was involved throughout there. Was he the moving force? No. Would Brendan Dassey have done this himself? No. He's a 16-year-old kid who likes playing video games. We've got a lot of sympathy for Brendan

Dassey. But after offering Brendan a 15-year deal, after he turned it down and said, prove it, go to trial, our hands were tied to Nancy and we had nothing left at that point. Then to go to trial, to convict him of his involvement, to leave it up to the judge what the sentence was going to be. We never thought he should get life imprisonment. He didn't, but we were still upset, and today are still upset with the kind of advice that he got, which was really, I think, a disservice to that 16-year-old. Right up here was a question.

Going back to this coercion topic, and why you might think that her friend was coerced into having sex with her I'm sorry, what now? Okay, the question is, why do I think Brandon was not coerced into having sex with Teresa Hallback. Everybody thinks that he was coerced into acting with his uncle, right? I think that Brendan Dassey raped Teresa Hallback. If he's so easily coerced, couldn't Stephen have coerced him into having sex with her? At least the rest of the show was on her show business. Okay, there's... Okay, apparently Teresa Hallback, Tom, was begging, please don't do this. Teresa Hallback was begging for her life crying screaming so I mean

well he's a 16 year old guy that watches tv that plays video games that is in school I think he was still in school correct he was still in school, correct? He was still in school. He was operating. He had a couple classes, one or two classes that were. She's chained up, begging and crying to live. I don't think that's having sex with somebody. I think that's raping them. Those of you that attended yesterday's session got to see Brendan Dassey, in his own words, say that it was Stephen Avery that said, why don't you go ahead and have sex with her?

And here's the troubling part. This is where I'm going, though. He said, do it for me. Can you imagine an uncle saying that to a 16-year-old? I want you to do it for me. That might go to your question before, Nancy, about trying to get him involved. You know, once he gets Brendan involved, he buys his silence, right? He buys his silence from that.

Brendan Dassey made these statements to law enforcement. I'm jumping around here a little bit, but made these statements to law enforcement without the kind of coercion that you see. He made six different statements to law enforcement. You saw snippets of one of them in Making a Murderer. So unless you see the whole body of what it was that he said, including some of the clips that we showed yesterday, you're going to come away with Making a Murderer with that same opinion. Were they all the same statements or are they all different?

There were differences in all the statements. The important part was from the first statement on, he clearly was lying in the first statement. Witness interview, not a suspect interview, clearly lying and clearly trying to protect Stephen. Second interview, he tells the truth about a few things, clearly is lying about other things, which we know from witness statements and physical evidence. Clearly still protecting Stephen Avery. Clearly something is bothering him. Physically, you can see it, eyes, his reactions, everything. How did you know what the truth was when he was telling you?

Something is hurting him. How do I know that it's truthful? The emotion? Well, here's an example. First statement, he denies a fire that week. We know there was a fire. We know he was by the fire. Right.

Okay. Second interview, he admits to a fire. We know he was by the fire. Right. Okay. Second interview, he admits to a fire, but chooses to stay away from Monday, Halloween. It says it might have been Thursday or Wednesday. Third interview at the school, he starts admitting that he was out by the fire now, admits to it that it's Halloween, admits that he helped with the fire and saw body parts. Fourth interview at the resort, he finally admits to helping clean up using gasoline, paint thinner, and bleach in the garage and getting bleach on his pants, which we find and corroborate. So each interview, and it's important to recognize they were all witness interviews. We didn't treat him as a suspect. Even the start of the March 1st interview, we didn't think he was a suspect.

We didn't think he was actively involved. We just thought he knew more. Why did we go March 1st or to the school? Because we had indications that he was hurting, he was crying, he was losing weight. Something was bothering this boy. He told his cousin about bad things, about body parts, about the worry about blood coming up through concrete, stuff like that. And that garage floor had cracks in it, concrete garage floor. These are the things that were leading us to keep talking to him

and the knowledge that he was intentionally lying and intentionally not telling us the truth about stuff and probably protecting Stephen. Within 50 minutes approximately of that interview on March 1st, he pretty much blows us away and tells us that he participated in the rape of Teresa Halbach. We didn't feed him that. We were asking him questions about what happened. You know, you got into the trailer. What did you do next? What did you do next? What did he make you do?

He saw her down there. Stephen then, as Ken put it, do it for me. See what it feels like. Brendan later in the interview admits, when asked, why did you do this? Because I wanted to see what it feels like. There's a lot of detail that Brendan provided in his interview that I I don't know yeah I could not come up with that if I if I was lying impossible it was very indicative of memory of

something that he had been through you know when I would interview witnesses and was investigating a case when when somebody's lying, their story is not rich with detail. Like, I wanted to see what it felt like. I mean, the details that Brendan Dassey put in there, and again, my big concern is Stephen Avery. I do believe that Brendan Dassey has a low IQ, and I think that he was duped and used. But I still believe he raped Teresa Hallback, and I don't think he killed her, but I think he was part and parcel and did everything that he just said. This is why the truthfulness of statements or whether it ought to be believed is left to a jury,

to 12 people looking at that, because the richness of detail that Nancy's talking about is what we're talking about. Answers like, I wanted to know what it felt like, or that you were at yesterday's talk, you got to hear Brendan say, I'm not old enough to have a kid yet. Well, think about that. As naive as that is, all right, and the level of sophistication being as

low as that is, that rings true, folks. That's the kind of thing that a jury watched. Jury got to see the entire three-hour confession of Brendan Dassey. They got to hear details like that. I'm not old enough to have a kid yet. That's the kind of thing that a 16-year-old who is feeling bad about what happened, but also doesn't have the sophistication that adults do, and sure as heck isn't something that the officers are feeding to him. He came up with all that on his own. Coming up on the next episode of Crime Stories with Nancy Grace, we turn to Up and Vanished podcast creator Payne Lindsey for a discussion about the Tara Grinstead murder investigation. We promise it becomes heated. And Stephen Avery, prosecutor Ken Kratz, and investigator Tom Fassbender are still with us for more. We'll

post episode two of our live CrimeCon edition of Crime Stories with Nancy Grace Tuesday. And again, if you're not there when a fire starts, who will be there to save your home? With SimpliSafe Home Security, your smoke detectors immediately alert emergency services at the first sign of a fire. Get 10% off your system today at simplisafe.com slash Nancy. That's simplisafe.com slash Nancy. I'm Nancy Grace, Crime Story signing off. Goodbye, friend. This is an iHeart Podcast.