Brendan Dassey was 16 years old when he was accused of killing Teresa Halbach alongside his uncle Steven Avery, and although a judge has since found that police officers coerced him to confess to her murder, he remains behind bars to this day.
Warning: This article contains graphic descriptions and/or images of violent, disturbing, or otherwise potentially distressing events.
NetflixBrendan Dassey, the teenager involved in the case at the heart of Making a Murderer.
While much of Netflix’s hit docuseries Making a Murderer revolves around the conviction of Steven Avery, Avery was not the only person implicated in the disappearance of Teresa Halbach. At the time, Avery’s 16-year-old nephew, Brendan Dassey, was also sentenced to life in prison for Halbach’s murder. However, a number of legal oversights and errors led many to wonder if these two men were actually guilty of the crime.
Dassey’s case in particular drew the ire of the general public. First of all, there was no forensic trace of Dassey at the crime scene. If that weren’t bad enough, Dassey’s confession had been coerced and then presented in court even though he recanted it. Moreover, Dassey was enrolled in special education classes and had an IQ level of either “borderline deficiency” or “low average.”
In either case, Dassey would have been easily malleable by investigators looking to quickly solve Halbach’s case. And after the Netflix series debuted in 2015, that was exactly what a judge determined as well.
So, what exactly went wrong for Brendan Dassey to find himself behind bars?
Who Is Brendan Dassey?
NetflixBrendan Dassey (center) with his mother and stepfather.
Brendan Dassey was born on Oct. 19, 1989, in Manitowoc County, Wisconsin. According to an extensive analysis of Dassey’s judicial issues by the Albany Law Review, Dassey was “a developmentally-delayed special education student” who eventually found himself embroiled in a case that was far above his head. He was determined to have a “low average to borderline” IQ, and he was described as “a very quiet student” by his teachers.
He particularly struggled with language fundamentals, and at the age of 16, his test scores in skills like memory, reception, expression, and content ranged from those typical of an 11-year-old to those of a five-year-old.
Brendan lived with his parents and brothers near Avery’s Auto Salvage, his family’s business. His grandparents and uncles, including Steven Avery, also lived on the property.
NetflixSteven Avery spent 18 years in prison for a crime he did not commit.
Avery hadn’t been around for much of Brendan’s childhood. In 1985, Avery was convicted of sexual assault and attempted murder. He served 18 years of a 32-year sentence before he was exonerated by DNA testing in 2003. He held a grudge against the local police department and judicial system, and he sued Manitowoc County for $36 million for wrongful imprisonment. Some people believe this put a target on Avery’s back.
Then, in October 2005, a photographer named Teresa Halbach went missing shortly after meeting with Steven Avery at the salvage yard. Law enforcement officials quickly looked to Avery as their primary suspect — but this time, they didn’t think he’d acted alone.
The Disappearance And Murder Of Teresa Halbach
Teresa Halbach was a 25-year-old Wisconsin photographer who had recently opened her own studio. To make extra money on the side, she took pictures for Auto Trader magazine, and on the day she vanished, she was on assignment at Avery’s Auto Salvage to snap photos of a used vehicle that was for sale.
Halbach had visited the property before, and she reportedly had an uncomfortable experience when Steven Avery answered his door “wearing just a towel.” However, she agreed to return on Oct. 31, 2005 — and nobody ever saw her again.
Kimberly PetersonTeresa Halbach (front right) was a photographer working on an assignment for Auto Trader magazine when she vanished in October 2005.
After Halbach’s family reported her missing, investigators searched the Avery property and made a grisly discovery. The young photographer’s car was still at the salvage yard, and Steven Avery’s blood was inside. What’s more, Halbach’s charred bones were found in a fire pit behind Avery’s trailer. The police took this as clear evidence that Avery had killed her.
Avery was arrested on Nov. 11, less than two weeks after Halbach disappeared. Investigators also questioned the other family members who lived on the property, including Brendan Dassey. The teen had been at school the day Halbach visited the salvage yard, and during his interrogation, he informed the police that he’d arrived home around 3:45 p.m. and spent the evening playing video games with his brother.
For some reason, detectives didn’t buy Dassey’s alibi — and they decided to get a confession out of him any way they could.
How Investigators Coerced Brendan Dassey To Confess
Brendan Dassey’s first police interview took place on Nov. 6, and he initially told his interrogators that he didn’t remember seeing Halbach or her vehicle when he got off the bus a week earlier. However, the officers tried to convince him otherwise. According to the interview transcript, Detective Anthony O’Neill said, “You remember that girl taking that picture. You’re gettin’ off the bus, it’s a beautiful day, it’s daylight and everybody sees her, you do too. Do you remember seeing that girl standing there taking a picture?”
Brendan then replied, “Maybe, I don’t know… don’t remember.”
O’Neill continued, “You do know, don’t you… I mean I’m not puttin’ nothin’ in your mind. You tell me if you remember that girl standing there taking pictures.” Brendan responded, “Yeah.”
NetflixBrendan Dassey during one of his police interviews.
Brendan was interrogated again four months later, in late February 2006, even though investigators found no physical evidence that he’d been involved in Halbach’s murder. He was questioned without an attorney or parent present, and detectives seemingly ignored his cognitive disabilities. They asked him paragraph-length, leading questions that he likely wouldn’t have been able to follow.
“At a verbal level, the warning is utterly inaccessible for someone like Brendan,” write the authors of the Albany Law Review paper. “This is a paragraph-length chunk of language, which we already know Brendan cannot follow. Before a question is finally asked, there are 263 words and 15 sentences, many of which are syntactically complex.”
During the interview, detectives informed Brendan that they knew he’d gone to a bonfire at Steven Avery’s house the night Halbach vanished, something Brendan had never told them. One officer said, “I find it quite difficult to believe that if there was a body in that, Brendan, that you wouldn’t have seen something like a hand, or a foot, a head, hair, something… We know you saw something.”
Brendan then stated that he’d seen some clothes in the fire. As the detectives pushed him further, he admitted he’d seen Halbach’s head. When the police later asked the teen if Steven Avery had cut himself while he was stabbing his victim, Brendan said that Avery had indeed stabbed Halbach. Two days later, on March 1, Brendan also confessed that he and his uncle had raped Halbach as she was handcuffed to Avery’s bed. He said he then watched as his uncle stabbed her and helped him burn her body.
Following this interrogation, Brendan’s mother came into the room and asked him if he’d actually done anything to Halbach. “Not really,” Brendan responded. “They got to my head.”
NetflixBrendan Dassey seated next to his post-conviction attorney Laura Nirider.
As reported by NPR in 2018, Dassey’s attorney Laura Nirider said in a statement, “The video of Brendan’s interrogation shows a confused boy who was manipulated by experienced police officers into accepting their story of how the murder of Teresa Halbach happened. By the end of the interrogation, Brendan was so confused that he actually thought he was going to return to school after confessing to murder.”
On March 2, 2006, Brendan Dassey was charged as an adult for being a party to first-degree intentional homicide, mutilation of a corpse, and first-degree sexual assault. Even though he recanted his confession, it was used against him at trial. He testified in his own defense, claiming that he lied during the interrogation, though he couldn’t say why. Brendan was ultimately convicted and sentenced to life in prison with a possibility of parole in 2048.
However, after the release and subsequent popularity of Making a Murderer in 2015, it seemed as if things may turn around for Brendan Dassey.
Where Is Brendan Dassey Today?
On Aug. 12, 2016, U.S. Magistrate Judge William E. Duffin overturned Brendan’s conviction. He wrote that because there was no parent or attorney present during the teen’s interrogation, investigators “exploited the absence of such an adult by repeatedly suggesting that they were looking out for his interests.”
NetflixBrendan Dassey with his mother after his interview with police in March 2006.
Judge Duffin added that Brendan’s “borderline to below average intellectual ability likely made him more susceptible to coercive pressures than a peer of higher intellect.”
However, prosecutors appealed Duffin’s decision, and Brendan’s conviction was once again upheld by an appeals court. In 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear another appeal by Brendan.
Brendan Dassey will turn 36 in 2025, and he has now been behind bars for 20 years. His earliest possible parole date is still 23 years away. While his attorneys continue to fight for his freedom, the question of his innocence remains a highly debated topic.
After learning about Brendan Dassey and his potential wrongful conviction, read about nine other heartbreaking wrongful convictions in history. Then, go inside the tragic case of the West Memphis Three.
