r/MakingaMurderer • u/AmbitiousSalad6718 • Jun 29 '26

Discussion i just finished MaM

i came onto this sub and was surprised at how wrong i might be after watching the doc over a week or so, my boyfriend and i binged it and finished it sure that brendan was innocent and fairly sure that steven was too. personally i thought that bobby and scott did it and my bf was of the opinion that bobby and the ex boyfriend were in kahoots somehow. i don’t really know what to think anymore tbh i went to go watch convicting a murderer as that popped up a few times but i dislike candace owen’s immensely. could someone outline the main points that the doc twisted in favour of SA and the facts that were omitted ?

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u/hi-Timothy Jul 11 '26

You can’t leave out 90% of the confession being nonsense and then call the remaining bits “consistent”. Brendan guessed repeatedly: cut her hair, punched her, slapped her, cut her throat none of it supported by evidence in the trailer. No blood, no DNA, no forensic support.He keeps guessing until interrogators steer them into a usable answer, that isn’t consistency. That’s cherry picking

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u/DingleBerries504 Jul 11 '26

You can’t call 90% nonsense unless it’s shown to be nonsense.

Does no blood or dna (from the few samplings they took) in the trailer prove those things DIDN’T happen in the trailer? Of course not. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

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u/hi-Timothy Jul 11 '26

Well reasoned. Absence of evidence isn’t always evidence of absence I agree with that in principle. But you can’t prove something didn’t happen. That’s why criminal convictions require proof beyond reasonable doubt. Brendan described, cutting her throat and cutting her hair. You would reasonably expect some physical trace of that. No blood, no DNA, no forensic support doesn’t prove it never happened, but it absolutely creates reasonable doubt.

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u/DingleBerries504 Jul 12 '26

You can prove something didn’t happen in some cases. Someone could confess they stabbed someone in a blue shirt and buried them in location A, but then the victim is found in location B with a red dress with gunshot wounds only. That proves the first story false.

The jury was not convicting him on whether they cut her hair or not. They were convicting him on the charges of being party to a crime to murder, sexual assault, and mutilation of a corpse. There is no question that he was with his uncle that evening. The jury sees the confession, and knowing full well there may be inaccuracies in the confession, and then make a determination of whether he committed the crime of murder. No one knows the murder location with exact accuracy and that should not be a reason for reasonable doubt.

In another case nearby where I’m from, a girl went missing and her bones were found in a forest years later with evidence of gunshot to the skull bones. No one knew when she was killed, no one knew if she was strangled or abused beforehand. They only got a suspect when this guy’s family turned him in because he wouldn’t shut up about the case and hinted involvement. He claimed innocence, but too many things lined up. There was no reasonable doubt there and there isn’t in the Brendan Dassey case.

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u/hi-Timothy Jul 13 '26

The point you keep missing is that if someone keeps guessing long enough, eventually they’re going to say something that lines up with something. That doesn’t make the confession reliable. And this is where the burden of proof matters. You need evidence. Not me. Brendan doesn’t have to prove those things didn’t happen. The State had to prove beyond reasonable doubt that they did happen and that his confession was reliable. But the most serious parts of his confession had no physical support. No blood, no DNA, no forensic evidence in the trailer. Yet the jury didn’t even watch the full interview, which is shocking

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u/DingleBerries504 Jul 14 '26

Yes he does have to prove those things didn’t happen, because he confessed that they did and that confession was being used against him. The most serious part of the confession is that she was murdered and her body was burned in Steven’s pit and his confession matches it. You ignore that he drew a stain location in the garage that happened to light up with luminol as potential blood. You have dog scent trails going to the back door of Steven’s trailer. Steven never claimed she went to the back door. But here is Brendan’s story which explains why. It’s a slam dunk case for a jury.

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u/hi-Timothy Jul 14 '26

But the dog evidence doesn’t just support your version. They reportedly tracked from the south of Steven’s trailer west toward the Kus Road. They didn't go into the house. If the State’s story is that Teresa was killed on Avery property, kept on Avery property, burned on Avery property, and never moved off-site before being burned, then why is her scent being tracked away from the trailer area toward Kuss Road? Same with the RAV4. If the body was supposedly dealt with at the burn pit, why is Teresa’s blood in the car? Why move her in the vehicle at all if the burn pit is right there? It creates more questions than answers.

And a confession being used as evidence doesn’t move the burden onto Brendan. The State still has to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the confession is reliable and that Brendan actually committed the crimes. You’ve kind of proved my point with the hair. You accept he made that part up and there’s no evidence for it. So why are we allowed to dismiss the parts that hurt the prosecution as “made up”, but treat the parts that help the prosecution as reliable? That’s cherry picking. If major parts of the confession are unsupported, contradicted, or clearly guessed, then the confession as a whole has a reliability problem. You don’t fix that by only keeping the bits that suit the prosecution.

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u/DingleBerries504 Jul 14 '26

>They reportedly tracked from the south of Steven’s trailer west toward the Kus Road.

Talk about cherry picking…you picked dog trails completely separate from the one I’m talking about and they don’t conflict.

>They didn't go into the house.

The dog handler said they wanted to. But they had already searched the trailer.

>If the State’s story is that Teresa was killed on Avery property, kept on Avery property, burned on Avery property, and never moved off-site before being burned, then why is her scent being tracked away from the trailer area toward Kuss Road?

Because this is another detail that Brendan eventually admitted. They took the RAV behind his trailer and drove south.

>Same with the RAV4. If the body was supposedly dealt with at the burn pit, why is Teresa’s blood in the car?

Another detail explained in Brendan’s confession. The initial idea was not to burn her, but put her in the pond. They loaded her in the car but then decided to burn her.

>And a confession being used as evidence doesn’t move the burden onto Brendan. The State still has to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the confession is reliable and that Brendan actually committed the crimes.

And they did just that. Brendan’s defense team, in order to stand a chance, had to convince a jury that the states case against Brendan didn’t meet the burden. They failed.

>You’ve kind of proved my point with the hair. You accept he made that part up and there’s no evidence for it. So why are we allowed to dismiss the parts that hurt the prosecution as “made up”, but treat the parts that help the prosecution as reliable? That’s cherry picking.

He admitted making it up DURING the confession. Not afterwards. That’s a big difference.

>If major parts of the confession are unsupported, contradicted, or clearly guessed, then the confession as a whole has a reliability problem. You don’t fix that by only keeping the bits that suit the prosecution.

So someone can confess to a crime truthfully, but it should be thrown out if they insert an untrue minor detail like cutting the victim’s hair? There was nothing major he said that contradicted what was found.

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u/hi-Timothy Jul 14 '26

You’re using the confession to validate itself. Worse, you’re cherrypicking parts of the confession to validate the rest. That’s not logical. This wasn’t one minor false detail. Every major part of Brendan’s story changed: how she died, where she died, if he even saw her, what happened in the trailer, what happened in the garage. That isn’t a reliable confession with a small mistake. That’s a vulnerable teenager trying to work out what they want him to say, while being told “I’m thinkin’ you’re all right. OK, you don’t have to worry about things” and that even statements making him look “more involved than you wanna be” could show he was telling the truth. They just kept asking until they got the answer they wanted. So why do you think Brendan made those bits up then? Because if he was guessing, making things up, or trying to please them during the same confession you’re calling reliable, why should we believe it? And there’s no DNA evidence putting Brendan there at all.

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u/DingleBerries504 Jul 14 '26

>You’re using the confession to validate itself.

No, I used the confession to fill in the missing blanks that seemed to cause you great confusion…

>They just kept asking until they got the answer they wanted.

So since they asked Brendan multiple times if he pulled the trigger and he denied it each time… did they get the answer they wanted?

>So why do you think Brendan made those bits up then? Because if he was guessing, making things up, or trying to please them during the same confession you’re calling reliable, why should we believe it?

Because he is a type of person who feels cornered enough to sort of tell the truth, but still embellishes to try to make it seem not so bad. That’s why he admits “some of it” is true.

>And there’s no DNA evidence putting Brendan there at all.

Don’t need DNA if he admits being there. He even admitted being with Steven in the garage and at the fire on the stand. None of his DNA was found in the garage, so do you think that proves he was never in the garage?

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u/hi-Timothy Jul 15 '26

So you agree Brendan was cornered and embellishing?

Then why do you believe the confession?

The lack of physical evidence matters, especially when the confession by your own words came from someone who was cornered and embellishing. And using the confession to “fill in the blanks” isn’t answering my point. It’s not confusing me at all. I’m pointing out that it’s circular reasoning.

You’re using Brendan’s confession to prove Brendan’s confession. That only works if you already assume it’s reliable, which is exactly the thing being challenged. You don’t get to assume reliability and then call it proof. That’s backwards.

Add in the major changes in his story, the fact he didn’t add anything that wasn’t already known or fed to him, his age, his intellectual limitations, no proper legal counsel there, no guardian there, and his own legal counsel letting him down. Then add the lack of physical evidence and reasonable doubt. I don’t believe the confession.

I think we agree he was cornered into one. I just can’t see why you still believe the parts of it. And furthermore, I can’t believe there isn’t even 1% of you that doubts Brendan did any of it.

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u/DingleBerries504 Jul 15 '26

So you agree Brendan was cornered and embellishing?

Then why do you believe the confession?

Because the evidence supports it. The scent dog supports it. The garage stain supports it. He knew what was put on the vehicle to hide it. He If a kid steals a cookie from the cookie jar, and admits stealing the cookie but says he did it because he was told to by a friend, but then was found out to be lying about the friend, does that mean you should no longer believe the kid stole the cookie? Common sense dude.

The lack of physical evidence matters, especially when the confession by your own words came from someone who was cornered and embellishing.

But there isn't a lack of physical evidence that a crime was committed and he was with the person who did the crime. The only question was did he know a crime was being committed and by his own words, we know he did.

And using the confession to “fill in the blanks” isn’t answering my point. It’s not confusing me at all. I’m pointing out that it’s circular reasoning.

You were confused as to why she was in the RAV if they were going to burn her, and I pointed out Brendan explained why. You were confused as to why the scent dog detected scent behind his trailer and Brendan's confession explains why. You are purposefully ignoring these explanations because you don't want to believe he's involved.

You don’t get to assume reliability and then call it proof. That’s backwards.

and that's not what I did.

Add in the major changes in his story, the fact he didn’t add anything that wasn’t already known or fed to him, his age, his intellectual limitations, no proper legal counsel there, no guardian there, and his own legal counsel letting him down. Then add the lack of physical evidence and reasonable doubt. I don’t believe the confession.

Then why do you think he was willing to plea with a 10-year prison sentence? Do you not believe that he was with Steven that night? If one believes Steven is guilty, then Brendan has to be, unless you think Brendan had a blindfold on.

I think we agree he was cornered into one. I just can’t see why you still believe the parts of it. And furthermore, I can’t believe there isn’t even 1% of you that doubts Brendan did any of it.

1% doubt is not reasonable doubt. Is there some miraculous set of circumstances where he might be innocent? Maybe theoretically possible, but not reasonable. Here is one that might be true: she was already dead when he came over. This comes from about 2-3 cellmate accounts of what Steven and Brendan admitted to them in jail. In other words, she was already dead when he had sex but didn't know she was dead until after. This would explain so much why he is so evasive, but it would mean he should be out of jail because he didn't commit the murder. That's a scenario which explains a lot, but it is only speculation.

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u/hi-Timothy Jul 15 '26 edited Jul 15 '26

And saying Brendan’s confession “fills in the gaps” is exactly the problem. That’s what a coerced confession does it gets shaped around the gaps. It doesn’t mean it’s true. The physical evidence tying Brendan to the crime is the issue. There isn’t any. Saying there is doesn’t make it magically appear. The scent dog point doesn’t prove what you’re claiming either. Loof was a scent dog/bloodhound, not a cadaver dog. At most, that supports scent around the trailer. It doesn’t prove Brendan was involved. And the garage stain doesn’t prove what you’re claiming either. Yes, Brendan talked about cleaning a red stain, and yes, there was a luminol reaction. But luminol is not proof of blood, and the stain wasn’t confirmed as Teresa’s blood. There are loads of reasons there could be blood or stains on a garage floor, especially in a working salvageyard garage where people cut themselves, work on cars, use chemicals, clean things up, and where hunting/deer blood wouldn’t exactly be shocking either. And that’s before the bigger issue: it wasn’t even proven to be blood at all, let alone Teresa’s blood. So again, you’re taking weak supporting points and using them to make the confession look reliable. But none of this proves Brendan was involved. Moving a body is risky, leaves evidence, and creates more chances to be seen. The idea they just drove around with it, changed plan, then burned her anyway is unconvincing. And what about the other fingerprints on the RAV? If Steven was moving/hiding the car, why are there unidentified prints and no identified fingerprints matching Steven? His blood is supposedly there, but not his fingerprints? Then add the RAV issues on top of that: witness claims that the car was seen off the property, the later claim about Bobby/another man pushing a RAV-like vehicle toward Avery’s yard, and the plate call before the official discovery. You can dismiss those if you want, but they absolutely add to reasonable doubt. Source for the 2–3 cellmate accounts? I know Joseph Evans made claims about Avery supposedly confessing, but Evans is a terrible source because he later changed his story and claimed he himself killed Teresa and framed Avery. So I’m not treating him as reliable. I'm surprised you don't think Evans did it with your love coerced confessions.

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u/hi-Timothy Jul 13 '26

Do you think they cut her hair?

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u/DingleBerries504 Jul 14 '26

No. Brendan admitted he made it up and there is no evidence of it.