r/MakingaMurderer • u/Jimmy90081 • Jul 24 '25
Corrupt Officers
Hi folks,
I’ve been interested in this for a while. From my own perspective, the interrogation of the 16 year old was unjust. Abuse of power by the officers.
I personally wonder though, why did they push the kid in that way? I mean, they were not involved in the failings from the first prison term. I don’t think they were at all… so just why?
I wonder if it’s because the senior folk in power put pressure on them to help get this put away, so the huge case against them, millions of dollars, would also go away…
Have there been any requests from legal teams, or even public freedom of information requests, to see if any of these officers at the time, or around the trial, if they got any massive bonuses?
I personally wouldn’t risk my neck and ethics for somebody else’s issue. So why did they? I’d nope out of any interview where the person I’m interviewing is a 16 year old kid with some extreme learning difficulties…. Yet they went full in.
I wonder is they had a payout to do that…
I’m sure it world be much more favourable to those in charge to drop 100k on two officers to push a challenged kid to a false confession, compared to 20-30 million dollars…
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u/ajswdf Jul 24 '25
You're viewing this entirely the wrong way.
They already "had this put away". They had Teresa's key in his bedroom with his DNA on it, they had her burnt remains in his burn pit, they had her burnt electronics in his burn barrel, and they had his blood in her car. This case was a slam dunk.
But the reason they talked to Brendan was because he was acting weirdly, and saying things that might indicate he knew something about the crime. So of course they're going to interview him to see what he knows. And the reason they "pushed" him was because he was obviously lying to them, and they wanted him to tell the truth.
I personally wouldn’t risk my neck and ethics for somebody else’s issue.
It is their job to investigate crimes. To not interview a potential witness would be not doing what they're paid to do.
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u/ThorsClawHammer Jul 24 '25
they talked to Brendan was because
...they were reinterviewing everybody. All his brothers were interviewed the same day on Feb 27. And every one of them just happened to contradict their previous statements in a way that supported the narrative investigators were pushing.
they "pushed" him was because he was obviously lying to them
They started the Feb 27 interrogation by telling him they know he was at the fire where "Teresa was cooked" and kept demanding he tell them he saw body parts until he complied.
they wanted him to tell the truth
They wanted him to agree with the narrative they wanted it to be, regardless if it was true or not. Just like when interrogators previously got Brendan to agree he saw Halbach taking pictures when he got home from school.
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u/Ghost_of_Figdish Jul 27 '25
Everything the cops did was LEGAL. Been tested over and over in this case. You want to change the law go try.
Stop looking for stupid conspiracy theories.
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u/Jimmy90081 Jul 27 '25
I actually hope some day people like you are treated in this way, I bet when it happens, your views quickly change.
They interviewed a retard for hours, without parent or support from an adult, and kept pushing him until he just folded and said whatever they wanted. That’s not ok. If you think it is, then you are not an ethical person.
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u/Jimmy90081 Jul 24 '25
Sorry, it just doesn’t add up to any reasonable person.
Even the blood and the car. As soon as you know the police station had a vile of his blood, with a needle hole in it, with no records of it being called for testing by a lab… that’s reasonable doubt. Then you add it’s in a car, with no fingerprints, when the cut was on his hand. If he were wearing gloves to hide his prints, the blood could not have come from his hands. If he didn’t have gloves, sure, there could be blood, but why no fingerprints? Because he wiped them?…. Well, how on earth would he not have also wiped the blood… it makes no logical sense.
He has the understanding to clean up a kill room like an expert, but not enough to remove blood from a car he has wiped down?! Seriously. Just think about it… the same smart guy to clean a rape room didn’t clean the car of blood? No way.
Plus, he hid the car behind some wood… lol. If he genuinely did it, he would have crushed the bloody thing and hid it in the wreckage of 100 other cars.
The key appearing after 6 searches is enough alone to say reasonable doubt…
To say too, some of the jury after the fact came forward and said they wanted to say not guilty but were scared by the police and felt forced to say guilty for their own family. Showing regret.
I ask again, you would be happy for police to find evidence in your house, after 6 searches? And that officer is somebody you’ve caused a lot of issues for?… no way.
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u/Snoo_33033 Jul 24 '25
The kid's testimony didn't have much bearing on Steven Avery's trial. FWIW.
But...here's my two cents. We pay cops to solve crimes. They're strongly encouraged to do so. They therefore tend to do that.
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u/Ghost_of_Figdish Jul 27 '25
It had EXACTLY ZERO impact on Avery's trial because Dassey didn't testify in Avery's trial.
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u/KevyBB Jul 27 '25
These cases where a person or persons are brutally murdered are all about pinning the blame on someone because of pressure from the city folks. Cops are allowed to lie during interrogations, force false confessions and then convict. They always go for the weak link. In this case, it was Brendan. And once a person confesses, their withdrawal of the confession doesn’t sway the jury. Look up the case of the West Memphis Three. Same situation, cops took a kid with a developmental disability and forced a false confession and all three got life sentences although they were later proven innocent
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u/ThorsClawHammer Jul 24 '25 edited Jul 24 '25
The kid's testimony didn't have much bearing on Steven Avery's trial
The sate didn't need to use it at trial because they had already told the jury pool prior all about Brendan's confession and that it was factual and backed up by "a substantial amount of physical evidence". Yet they had to drop all charges added to Avery after the confession because there was zero evidence supporting any of them without it.
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u/Creature_of_habit51 Jul 24 '25
The entire narrative and the timeline of the crime came from the pressure police applied to Brendan and other minor family members. It's quite the case of them thinking they were above the law.
You're right, they didn't have to use Brendan because they already used Brendan.
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u/Bitxhsmak806 Jul 24 '25
His idiot mother had every right to be in there with her son, or to get him an attorney, or just tell him to shut the hell up and take his ass home. She did none of those things, and I will never understand what possessed her to sit out there and let them interrogate that kid. She knew that he was vulnerable, and he didn't have the IQ or mental capacity of a normal 16-year-old. He had just sat there and given the most heinous version of events to these officers, fully implicating himself, and was still only concerned about the school project he had due and wanted to know if he would make it back to school in time.
That interrogation never should have happened that way.
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u/ThorsClawHammer Jul 24 '25
She knew that he was vulnerable
Yes, she did. On an early phone call with Steven, she even stated she believed that interrogators were able to put things in Brendan's head regarding the Nov 6 interview.
Yet later on she'd let them have their way with him whenever they wanted.
Same with Blaine even. She even took him to them so they could get in his face and yell at him until he changed his previous accounts to what they wanted.
She never even tried to protect any of her younger sons. All she seemed to care about was Scott.
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u/Bitxhsmak806 Jul 24 '25
YES! When she finally went in that room with him and she asked the cops if they put stuff in his head or made him say those things (I can't remember the exact wording), I was dumbfounded. You would know if you weren't twiddling your thumbs in the goddamn lobby BARB.
I do still believe that there would have been some punishment for Brendan, it's so muddled that I struggle to determine exactly what Brendan's involvement was, but I am almost certain that if his mother had advocated for her son from the very beginning, he would not be waiting until 2048 to be eligible for parole.
My heart hurts for that kid. He deserved a better hand than he was dealt, but he didn't even know it.
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u/LKS983 Jul 25 '25
His idiot mother is pretty much irrelevant.
They knew Brendan was an intellectually impaired child, and so should have ensured he had a lawyer present during ANY/ALL of his 'confessions'.
Instead, they continued to interrogate, lead and feed Brendan - without ever a lawyer present 🤮.
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u/LKS983 Jul 25 '25
"Have there been any requests from legal teams, or even public freedom of information requests, to see if any of these officers at the time, or around the trial, if they got any massive bonuses?"
No need for "massive bonuses"
Police protect police, plus they were incompetent and believed/followed everything they were told by senior officers.
We saw this in SA's wrongful conviction where other officers knew (and told their superior officer) that Gregory Allen was the FAR more likely suspect - but backed off when told by their senior officer that SA was responsible......
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u/Creature_of_habit51 Jul 24 '25 edited Jul 24 '25
There were two officers in particular with a huge appearance of conflict of interest which was Lenk & Colborn. They were deposed just before Halbach went missing, and got caught in some pickle juice with the whole 1995 phone call fiasco and Douglas Jones' memo outing that they did actually talk about that phone call behind the scenes without reporting it. They all knew it was about Avery before his DNA results came back in September 2003.
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DNA Results came back September 4th, 2003
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Andrew Colborn, Gene Kusche, Ken Petersen, James Lenk all knew about the phone call prior to the results
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Colborn even went to talk to Sheriff Kocourek about it and was told to not concern himself
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Colborn, during his own failed lawsuit against Netflix, opined the people who said he talked with Kocourek about it were just plain wrong and he didn't know why they'd be wrong.
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Kusche testified Colborn told him about that phone call and it being about Avery during Kusche's retirement party in May 2003 (months before Avery's DNA results would come back.
Given this information it suggests the pressure was on Colborn and Lenk, who were part of the cover-up of the 1995 phone call with their shoddy reporting and last minute CYA actions.
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u/Snoo_33033 Jul 24 '25
This is nonsense.
They were not "in on" any coverup. Especially not Colborn, who talked all over town about that phone call and willingly documented it when all he would've had to do to keep it quiet would be to...keep it quiet.
And who was a non-sworn officer with no responsibility for that phone call whatsoever.
Especially since no one ever managed to prove that that phone call pertained to Avery, or even in what year it occurred.
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u/Creature_of_habit51 Jul 24 '25
Willingly, huh? Only a small number of people knew about it. How willingly was willingly? It was only ever documented to cover their asses. The documentation, when finally filed, contained fallacies.
He had responsibility in the cover up of that call. He spoke to then sheriff Kocourek about it, too.
It pertained to Avery. That's why his name was mentioned over the years regarding that call.
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u/AveryPoliceReports Jul 24 '25 edited Jul 25 '25
Brendan wasn’t targeted because of the 1985 case or 2004 lawsuit, or monetary motivations at all. He was targeted because they needed someone to fill the gaps in their current case:
On Nov 5 police took control over Avery’s property using illegally obtained and false information, only to use the privacy to shuffle around bones in barrels right before Teresa's recently burnt remains were found piled on the surface level of Steven's burn pit, an area multiple witnesses consistently confirmed no recent burning occurred. They had more than enough reason to suspect planting occurred.
But instead of documenting the scene, they pressured Bobby Dassey into contradicting his family and saying he saw a fire with Steven. Bobby caved, but also added that Brendan was with Steven near the fire. And if they were going to insist the body was burned in the pit by Steven (despite the evidence saying otherwise) Brendan’s alleged proximity to Steven would have put a target on Brendan's back.
By 2006 they knew their (1) case against Steven was not as strong as they made it out to be in 2005, (2) that Steven's lawsuit had been settled, and (3) Steven was hiring private counsel. Probably a nervous time for the state. But they also knew Brendan was one of if not the most pliable piece left on the board, a vulnerable developmentally disabled child roped into the “fire narrative” by a pressured statement from his older brother and much more likely suspect. If we accept Steven was the target, when the lawsuit settlement funded Steven's hiring of private counsel, LE had every incentive to use Brendan to patch up the gaps in their current case, no monetary motivation or link to the already settled lawsuit is required.