The rawest moment in Part Two.
Given the severity of the Teresa Halbach murder case – a point that the filmmakers of Making A Murderer were keen to stress – it’s obvious that emotions and passions will run high.
While audiences are riveted by the constant barrage of conspiracy theories, allegations of corruption, and various cover-ups, there’s an undeniable fact that remains: many people’s lives have been damaged by this.
For Teresa Halbach’s family and friends, the pain of losing a loved one is hard to bear and to compound matters, there remains question marks surrounding her murder. A murder that the world is now being reacquainted with.
For Steven Avery, he has spent almost 30 years of his life in prison – 18 of those followed a wrongful conviction of sexual assault and attempted murder in 1985.
On April 25, 2007, Brendan Dassey, 29, was sentenced to life in prison, with the earliest possibility of parole in 2048, after the courts judged that he was party to first-degree murder, mutilation of a corpse, and second-degree sexual assault.
Making A Murderer isn’t solely a piece of entertainment. We’re dealing with people’s lives and these lives have been damaged.
On this note, if you haven’t followed the real life case – or if you’re still catching up on events via the documentary – consider this to be a spoiler alert warning because Kathleen Zellner, Avery’s lawyer, has implicated new suspects in Teresa Halbach’s murder.
As stated previously, Zellner filed a 599-page filing to the Wisconsin Circuit Court which included a request for them to consider fresh evidence in her client’s latest appeal.
Zellner claims that a CD-rom with data from the Dassey family computer supports the argument that Bobby Dassey, older brother to Brendan, lied in court. The CD-rom also contains data which showed violent pornographic images, mutilated female corpses, and other macabre search terms.
Here’s an example of the search terms.
At the time of the trial, Bobby Dassey was never suspected by law enforcement in the 2005 crime.
During the trial, Bobby Dassey told prosecutors that he had seen Halbach arrive, take photos of Tadych’s van (she was trying to list it for sale), and walk towards Avery’s house.
After Zellner filed this new information, the phone call between Steven Avery and his sister Barbara Tadych – Bobby Dassey’s mother and Scott Tadych’s wife – was extremely heated.
Here’s the transcript of what unfolded – which we saw in the final episode of Making A Murderer: Part Two – and a clip of the telephone conversation in full that implicates Bobby Dassey and Scott Tadych.
Barb: What the fuck is going on?
Steven: What’s going on?
Barb: Yeah! Why is she starting up with Scott and Bobby again?
Steven: Well, it’s going wherever the evidence is going.
Barb: So, she’s going to take down my fucking family again?
Steven: If that’s where the lead is gonna go then I don’t know?
Barb: It fucking better not because you’ll have a dead sister.
Steve: Yeah? Well, I don’t think it was him, I think it was the other one.
Barb: Who’s the other one?!??
Steven: Your husband.
Barb: HE DIDN’T DO IT EITHER! Christ, Steven. I was fucking with him!
Steven: Well, you weren’t with him all day.
Barb: I was with him from 5 O’Clock on. Plus he was in the hospital with his mother for most of the day.
Steven: Well…
Barb: Well nothing!
Steven: I don’t know about that either.
Barb: So, you’re actually thinking that Scott did this?
Steven: Don’t ask me. I don’t know who did it. I know I didn’t!
Barb: Well, neither did he and neither did Bobby. So, she better get it out of her fucking mind because I called that bitch today.
Steven: Well, she wasn’t in.
Barb: I know she wasn’t in. We give her fucking information and this is what she turns around and does!
Steven: She has been doing this for quite a while already.
Barb: He’s (Scott) got two kids (Bobby Dassey and Brendan Dassey) that he has to worry about now.
Steven: Why is all that shit on the computer?
Barb: There was nothing on my fucking computer. I didn’t even have Internet back then.
Steven: Yes you did.
Barb: No I didn’t. No I didn’t have Internet.
Steven: All I know is that it’s on the computer and the only time that it was on, was when Bobby was there alone. He says she left.
At this point, Scott Tadych begins to interject on the conversation.
Barb: YEAH! She left!
Steven: Well, he didn’t testify for that. I just want to get down to the truth and see who did it.
Barb: Well, so do I. But you should know fucking better that it wouldn’t be my fucking kids (Bobby Dassey and Brendan Dassey), or Scott.
Steven: Well, how do I know that? I don’t know him, I don’t know nobody.
Scott (overheard): Let me talk to him. I want that motherfucker to answer some fucking questions. Fuck Steven Avery! He is a piece of shit, he has been all his fucking life. He’s a cock sucking loser. The only evidence they have is against him and he’s trying to asp for air by blaming it on somebody else. He’s a fucking loser. I wasn’t even on that property that fucking day…you goddamn idiot. That’s how fucking intelligent you are! You want to get out and do something stupid again? Ya dumb fuck! I can’t wait until you get out and kick your fucking ass!
Steven: I ain’t scared of him.
Scott: You ruined my fucking life! I hate the cock sucker. You ruined my fucking life!
Steven: And you ruined mine.
Scott: That fucker is all for him and nobody else.
BARB: SHUT UP! (directed to both men)
Scott: I hate him!
Barb: This needs to stop.
Steven: It’s not going to stop until it’s over.
Barb: This needs to stop now (sobbing)
Steven: It can’t.
Barb: Like I said, you will end up with a dead sister (her) because I can’t take this shit no more.
Steven: Well, shut the computer off then. (presumably in reference to the various media reports, stories and interviews online)
Barb: The computer isn’t even on!
Steven: Shut everything iff, you don’t need a phone. Just go to work.
Barb: Yeah, ok. Whatever! (Sarcastically)
Steven: I’ll bet you..
Barb: I got to go, Brendan is calling me.
Steven: Ok, bye.
In a November 2017 interview with special investigators that’s shown in Part 2, Bobby Dassey stuck by what he said in his testimony.
“Everything I told was true. I had, I have no reason to lie,” he said. “I’m at to the point where, you know, Zellner can blame me all she wants. Deep down inside, I know I didn’t do it … that’s the only way I can keep going on every day, is ’cause I know I didn’t do it.” He then added that “It sucks that people are trying to pin it on me … the one thing I want is for my name to be cleared,” said Bobby Dassey.
Here’s the call in full.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1FUMNMhLwc
