Manitowoc County Confession of Brendan Dassey – Prelude
On March 1, 2006 the lead investigators for the Teresa Halbach murder case picked up sixteen‑year‑old Brendan Dassey from his school and drove him to his home in the Town of Gibson, Wisconsin. Calumet County Investigator Mark Wiegert, and Wisconsin Special Agent Tom Fassbender went inside Dassey’s home and obtained a pair of pants while Dassey waited the car. They proceeded to the Manitowoc County Sheriff’s Department.
The pants were considered evidence. On 27 February, the investigators had placed Brendan Dassey, his brother Blaine, and his mother in their custody at the Fox Hills Resort in Mishicot, Wisconsin. At 10:30 in the evening, Fassbender went to the motel and bullied Dassey. The result was investigators wanted pants with bleach spots that Dassey possibly wore when helping Steven Avery clean his garage on 31 October, 2005. There was no blood evidence on the pants, nor was there any evidence of Teresa Halbach.
At the Fox Hills confrontation, Fassbender also suggested to Dassey that a large reddish spot in the Avery garage was blood. Fassbender got Dassey to state then that spot might be blood and then it was blood. Fassbender was using Dassey to obscure the results of science. The spot tested negative for blood. There was no blood evidence inside the Avery garage at all.
By March 1, apparently whatever the prosecution wanted from Dassey, the investigators could suggest that and Dassey would do his best to comply. Truth was not the issue. During this interrogation, whenever Brendan Dassey got stuck Tom Fassbender or Mark Wiegert would simply tell him, by leading questions or with a direct statement, what they wanted for an answer.
I’m not sure if the investigators really believed Dassey was involved with the disappearance of Teresa Halbach. They were working at the direction of the Special Prosecutor, Calumet County District Attorney Ken Kratz.
The investigators chatted with each other during the ride to the Manitowoc County Sheriff’s Department. Fassbender offered to some nutritious chips and a donut to Dassey remarking, “this may, you know be a little while.”
A conversation about basketball indicates the reasoning process of the investigators.
Fassbender: “I wonder how bad Menasha got beat.”
Wiegert: “They did?”
Fassbender: “I wonder how bad.”
Wiegert: “Oh.”
Fassbender: “I’m assuming they did.”
There is nothing like assuming and fabricating to ignore good research and facts.
Brendan Dassey was ushered into an interrogation room at the Manitowoc Sheriff’s Department. Wiegert later characterized this as an interview room or a soft room. But, as before, this was an interrogation from the start.
During the interrogation, it became clear that a search warrant was prepared and the basis for the search warrant was information that needed to be coaxed out of Brendan Dassey.
The interrogation had to justify a predefined court document. The prosecution was in desperate need for another shot in gathering evidence.
by Brian McCorkle
in category Brendan Dassey
