Hey guys, it's Laura. Today. October second is International Wrongful Conviction Day, and to mark this day, we're re releasing an episode that first came out exactly two years ago. It's an episode that's really close to my heart because it features my longtime clients and friend, Brendan Dacy. Here's
a quick update on worthings stand with Brendan. Although Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers denied Brendan clemency in twenty nineteen, we're still fighting to free him and we've been joined by an army of supporters, everyone from legal experts to everyday people. In fact, I want to shout out one particularly dedicated group of online supporters that's been doing some pretty incredible
work over the past year. They've done everything from organizing email campaigns to placing free Brendan Dasy billboards along Wisconsin highways. Their message has reached more than one point eight million people so far. Their dedication is amazing, and yours is tuo. So to all of Brendan's supporters and to Brendan himself and so many others like him. We're re releasing this episode for you.
Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flumm, you know many of our listeners. Most of our listeners have seen the Netflix original series Making a Murderer. It's the story of Stephen Avery, a guy from the wrong side of the tracks whose family owned an auto salvage yard in Manitoa, Wisconsin.
It starts off in nineteen eighty five, where Stephen Avery was wrongfully convicted of a sexual assault, for which he was exonerated eighteen years later when the DNA in the case was found to match another man and his alibis were proven to have been true all along. After his release, in two thousand and three, Avery filed a thirty six million dollars civil suit against Manitoa County, Wisconsin and several of its officials. Fast forward to two thousand and five.
Teresa Halbach, a photographer known to have been photographing cars on the Avery property when missing. The handling of the investigation was quite controversial, to say the least, with issues of evidence tampering, not to mention the obvious conflict of interest in allowing Manitoa County to investigate the very same
man who was suing them for thirty six million dollars. However, all of that aside The most damning piece of evidence came in the form of a false confession from Avery's nephew, Brendan Dacy, a sixteen year old boy with no criminal record and serious mental challenges. Now, I'm honored to present the exclusive, the one and only interview that Brendan has ever given to anyone joining us has esteemed appellad attorney from the Center on Romful Convictions at Northwestern University. My
friend Laura and nightrider. Laura was kind enough to pick me up from the airport in Chicago and we drove out to Oshkosh Correctional Facility for a pre interview behind bars with Brandon. This left us with both time to talk and plenty to talk about. We have had a very eventful last twenty four hours.
Yeah, you know, it's been a trip I've done so many times for going on twelve years now, and you know, it was a trip I hoped to never have to make again. That it's a trip that you know what we're going to keep on doing for as long as we have to do. Right, go out there, support him, and I'm just glad you had a chance to see who Brendan is, you know, to really spend some time with him and get to know him, because he's he's a pretty incredible guy.
Brandon is a very powerful example of a phenomenon that amazes me and keeps me going and drives me onward in this fight, which is that there is an absolute and total absence of malice, anger, bitterness, self pity. Like I don't even think he knows what those emotions are.
He's an incredible guy. I mean, you know, he was sixteen when he went in. He's twenty nine years old now. And during that whole period of time of knowing him, You're right, I mean, Brendan is a sweet soul. You know, he's a he's a simple guy. He's a funny guy. He's gentle, he's so gentle and kind shallow. No, no, he's not.
That's right, And in his story is one of extreme juxtaposition, right, because he went from being a very childlike young person adolescent into a very extreme grown up situation. You got involved with Brennan's case at what stage?
Well, let's start with Steve Drisen, my colleague on the case. In two thousand and seven, about three months after Brendan was convicted. At his trial, Steve was asked to handle Brendan's appeals going forward because of his expertise around interrogations and confessions.
Two thousand and sevens this is lost. Yes, he was just another of the two point two million people in prison.
That right, that's right, and Steve took the case. Now this is two thousand and seven. Okay. So at the time, Steve was teaching here at Northwestern Law School, and I was a third year law student in Steve's class on wrongful convictions. Now, I didn't intend to practice criminal law. I actually had a career all mapped out for myself as a business lawyer. I was going to go do that.
I had a job lined up after graduation. I knew nothing at a law from here in town, here in Chicago, And you know, I knew nothing about the criminal justice system. I knew nothing about wrongful convictions. I definitely knew nothing about false confessions. But I'd signed up for Steve's class, you know, on a whim, try to do something off
the beaten path. And a few months into that fall semester of my last year of law school, that's you know, Steve called me into his office and he said, I've just gotten involved in a case from Wisconsin involving a six teen year old boy with intellectual limitations who confessed to a crime that I don't think he committed. And he handed me the interrogation videos from Brendan Dazzy's case, right, the same videos that years and years later ended up in making a murder. And he told me to go
watch them. So I went home. I sat down on my couch, I got out my laptop, because this is two thousand and seven, I pop in these DVDs and I watched them all right, from start to finish, their confession tapes. Yeah, and my heart broke, and I knew that this is it. This is what I had to do with, you know, fight for people like Brendan. So,
you know, no more business law for me. I came back to Northwestern after graduating, and for the last twelve years, I've been building with Steve the Center on Wrongful Convictions, where we represent Brendan and other kids just like him.
So for the people who may not have seen making a murder, and there are those who listen to our show who haven't seen, Yeah, what was it? What was the moment? What was it about those tapes?
Yeah, it's a great question. You know, I actually remember the moment. Right. It's so this is a videotape of the entire interrogation.
Right.
He was actually questioned four times over forty eight hours, and it was only the last interrogation that produced the confession. You know, which I which I say in quotation marks. But this is an interrogation where they're asking Brendan about murder. Right, this is a murder case. So they want to ask him about, you know, how was the victim in this case?
How was Teresa Halbach killed? Right? And and these police going into the interrogation, they know, or they think they know based on their own investigation, that she had been shot in the head. So they're waiting for Brendan to describe shooting somebody in the head, right, So they ask him, you know, Brendan, how did you guys, you know, how did you kill Teresa Hallbach?
And he says, we choked her.
Well, that's that's not right. So they said, I'm okay, you know what else, Brendan, what else did you do to her?
Did he do it? When we know something else was done? We stabbed her?
Still not right, So they actually started not even close, So they start dropping him hints right. They say, come on, Brendan, something with the head, something with the head. What else did you guys do to her? And Brendan says, we punched her and that's still not right. So it's like Brendan's completely at sea and he says, you know, we we cut off her hair and his voice goes up like that like he's asking a question and no, no, no, Brendan, come on, what else? What else? Something with the head?
What else?
What else? What else was done to her head?
And this goes on and on and on, and finally Brendan he must get exhausted and he just says, remember, And the officers at that point say to him, Brendan, I'm just going to come out and ask you.
All right, I'm just going to come out and ask him who shot her in the hat?
And you know, Brendan says, well, that was that was my uncle Stephen. And then, you know, comes one of the most heartbreaking moments of the entire interrogation, because I say to him, Brendan, why didn't you just tell us that?
Why didn't you tell us that?
And he says, because I couldn't think of it right. He was guessing. Yeah, So let's say you're not convinced the way I am that Brendan was guessing. Let's say for a moment that the story was true, that this bloody attack occurred in Stephen Avery's bedroom the way that Brendan's confession claimed that it did. You'd expect that bedroom and that bed to be covered with forensic evidence, blood from a stabbing and throat cutting, hair from when her
hair was supposedly cut. I mean, think about how hard it is to clean up hair. And of course, after Brendan gave his confession, the police went back to Stephen Avery's bedroom and they searched it for evidence to corroborate the confession. They searched the bed, They searched the bedding, the mattress, the headboard, the bed frame. They looked at the carpet underneath the bed. They pulled that carpet back
and looked underneath the carpet. They even took the paneling off the walls in the bedroom, searching for a single molecule of Teresa Halbach's DNA or Brendan Dacy's DNA, and they found nothing. This story didn't happen. It's made up.
The day after our face to face meeting at Oshkosh Correctional, we did our formal interview with Brendan over the phone from Laura's office at Northwestern University.
Not God Correctional Label.
Hello, Hi, Brendan. It seems like only yesterday that I saw you, because it was only yesterday. Yeah, And it was great to meet you. You know, Laura and I had a long ride back to Chicago, and obviously we talked about you a lot and things that we are hoping to do to make a difference for you and with you. I mean, we'll wait for the announcement to
go by. You went through an ordeal that even those of us that have seen the show and have seen on video parts of what happened, obviously we couldn't see the whole thing, but none of us can understand what it would be like to be in your shoes, you know, to be in this impossible situation of being a really
a child at sixteen. You're still a child, You're not a grown man, and to be going to this interrogation where you have grown men who are interrogating you for days, without a parent, without a lawyer, without anyone to help you. I mean, were you scared or were you just thought maybe if you just told the truth, everything would be fine, or what was your thought process at that point?
Well, I just wanted it all over with, so I said whatever they wanted to hear.
You know, most people grow up as I did, with believing that the law enforcement are out to help us, right, the people you call when you need help. Did you have that same idea when you went in there?
Yeah, I thought maybe anything I can do to help them, you know I would.
So was there a point when you were in that horrible room where you started to worry about the outcome, or that you thought that these men may have been not as well intentioned as you originally thought.
Yeah, when they started saying that that I wasn't telling the truth and that that my story didn't fit the facts that they had, that's when I started getting worried.
There's a very good reason your story didn't fit the vaccas you didn't know the facts. Yeah, so, Brandon, you remember there was a time when the interrogators left the room for a few minutes and your mom came back into the room. Yeah, beautiful life.
To say, did you huh not? Really? We do you need not really, huh what do you mean by that?
So was that the first time you had seen your mom since they had started interrogating you?
Yeah, that is okay.
So what was it like to see her after being alone with those interrogators for such a long time?
I felt that I could be safe and I could tell her the truth. You know that they got into my head, They got me to say whatever they wanted.
Do you think either before, during, or after that, the detectives conducting that interrogation knew or realized that he was actually innocent?
You know, it's a very good question, and it's something I've asked myself right over and over again. This is just my opinion, but I think that they were worried that something had gone wrong. Brendan's already been in the box for about three and a half hours. He's adopted their their theories that he committed rape and murder and the whole thing. And the story is over, it's done, it's locked, and they let her into the room, and the cameras are still rolling in the room, right and
they leave two of them alone. You know, it's my theory that they were outside watching this all unclosed circuit camera hoping that Brendan was going to make more admissions to his mother. Instead, he recants one of the clearest recantations I've ever heard, Right, Brendan using his own words, his own ability to express himself, to tell his mom what he had just been through. They got to my head.
And at that moment, the officers come barging back through that door into the interrogation room, and Brendan doesn't say another word.
Yeah, I'm getting the chills. I mean, as a parent, it's just so heartbreaking. And look, I always say, there are a lot of very good people in our criminal justice system, but the ones who do the types of things that were done to Brendan. I mean, there's a lot of villains in this story.
Right, some unbelievable characters in the story.
Yeah, and so the system that was designed in theory to protect the innocent and this case, to protect Brendan failed at every level.
Right.
I mean you're starting in the interrogation room, that's right, starting with the fact that they targeted him in the first place. I don't really understand. I mean, I have a theory in my own head about why they may have done that, and maybe we'll never know, but it seems like to me they wanted to build a stronger case against Stephen, no doubt about it, and so they went for the weakest length, no doubt about right. They knew that small community, they knew that Brendan was a simple person.
Well, that's right. And you know, one of the things about Brendan, of course, he's got disabilities. Everybody knows that. But his disabilities in particular are clustered around speech. The way he speaks, the way he hears language, the way he processes words, and the way he uses his own words. Right, So you know, this is not a person who can sort of weave sophisticated stories or lies or things like that.
And of course these are disabilities that are at the center of an interrogation, right, the sort of sophisticated level of conversation talking about you know, what could happen to him if he didn't confess because there was a threat in this case, what happened to him if he didn't start adopting the story that was being fed to him. What was going to happen on the other hand, if he if he did agree to go along with the story.
You know, this is a really hard situation for someone like brendan sixteen special education student in Wisconsin public schools, a hard situation for him to navigate. He did the best he could.
For as long as he could, for as long as he could.
Four times over forty eight hours, these officers questioned him.
And yeah, this should have been a first round knockout.
Oh my god, he held up as long as he could.
We've been investiating a lot, it is. We already know what happened. To be a lot easier on you if you live on it, that's going to be wrong. I'm your friends, Really, it's on fair place, on crap. You're an honest person, you get a better dealt of you going to believe on network.
I don't believe in your archetical You can't make any propises, but we'll stand behind you.
Your mom sid you'd be honest when she's behind you. What happens? She thinks you know more to and you're more borner.
We already know what happened on toss exactly.
What would you tell people when they're sitting in that jury box and they're listening to incredible testimony videotapes. Yes, I'm someone going yeah I did it? Yeah, So what should peopleatch because some confessions are true.
Of course, some confessions are true. Those are the ones we want, right, it's you know, we got to screen out the false confession.
So what do they look for?
Okay? So the big message, right, A confession is just a piece of evidence, like any other piece of evidence. Right, Sometimes it can be misleading, and you question it and you examine it in the same way that you'd ask you know, critical questions, intelligent questions about any other piece of evidence. Right, can I trust what this person is saying?
So when you see a confession like Brendan Darcy's, where somebody is getting the facts of the crime wrong unless they're being told the right answer, that's a red flag.
Right.
It happens throughout Brendan's interrogation, details learned and small he can't come up with. He's guessing, and he guesses wrong, actually until he gets strained out by the officers. Not just about how Teresa Holbach was killed. But he can't decide if a shirt was black or white, right, he doesn't know what the right answer is. Has he never met her because he never saw her, that's right. He can't decide if the fire was started at three PM or later on in the evening after dark, right, I
mean he doesn't know these things. He's just guessing all over the place. And you see this repeatedly throughout false confession cases, because what you have in those cases are people who had nothing to do with the crime trying to say something that sounds believable to satisfy their interrogators.
Almost everybody I've ever met says the same thing. I am not that guy. I'm smart, I'm capable, I'm strong, I'm not confessing with crime and then commitment.
Everybody thinks this, right, Well, that's for other people, right, That's for you know, maybe mentally impaired people, that's for children maybe. So what you have to understand is that interrogation is a carefully orchestrated set of psychological tactics that are designed to get people off their belief in their own innocence and designed to actually make them believe that it will help them, that it will improve their situation, that it will benefit them to say they did these
things that the officers think. Right, These are incredibly powerful techniques, and every single one of us has a breaking point, and these techniques are designed to find it. So how does this work, right, So the way this basically works, interrogation is generally a two stage process. The first half is all about confrontation and reducing you down to hopelessness. Right, we know you did this. I've got so much evidence against you. No one is going to believe you when
you say you're innocent. Right, I've got three people in the room next door who picked you out of a lineup. I've got your DNA on the scene, I've got your fingerprints on the gun. Even if none of that is true. By the way, it's perfectly legal for the police to lie. That's right. Not the UK, that's right, but here it's perfectly legal for the police to lie during interrogations. So they bring you down to hopelessness. Right, I'm not going to listen to you say you're innocent. You're just making
it worse off for yourself. No one's going to believe you. You're caught, you're trapped, you're screwed, You've got nothing. And then when you reach that point of hopelessness, that's when they offer you an out right a life raft confession. It's going to help you. If you confess, you will go easy on you. You know, I'll go talk to the judge. Right, I'll see what I can do for you. Things are going to be so much better for you. You've got a whole life to live in front of you.
You're just a kid. People are going to understand that over and over. But I need to hear the story from you.
Right.
People are going to understand that you deserve help if you cooperate. That's how it works.
Right.
These techniques are incredibly good at getting true confessions, but they are so potent that they also get false confessions.
And this actually we're sitting here in Chicago, which is where this was originated, right, the read.
Technique read technique actually even better than that. It's originated here out of the work of a professor at Northwestern Law School. Oh my god, back in the nineteen forties, right, so before these are that's right, before these psychological techniques were developed, interrogations were physical, right, the third degree. People were beaten or hung out of windows. Right, this is
how it was done. And in the forties, these people who at the time were thought of as progressive reformers come along and say, you know what, let's stop physically abusing people. Let's do the psychological techniques. Instead, those techniques that were developed here at Northwestern here in Chicago back
in the nineteen forties are still being used today. Talk about outdated even though the DNA revolution, which has been in full swing now for twenty five years, has proven time and again that these outdated techniques are far too capable of coercing false confessions.
The crazy thing is correct me if I'm wrong, you're the lawyer in this equation. But had Brendan said what I advise people listening to the show, or anybody who asked me anywhere, if you're picked up for a crime that you didn't commit, and you're brought to the station, and you're placed in this situation, right, and you say yourself, well, I don't want to end up like Brendan. What do you do?
I want a lawyer, that's what you say, right. I want a lawyer that stops the interrogation, or it should stop the interrogation. That's your constitutional right to say that. What's interesting, of course, you know the Miranda rights are read usually at the beginning of interrogations. Eighty five percent of people wave their miranda rights, So I mean a
huge number of people do right. We think of these as these important safeguards, and everybody's out there asserting their rights to lawyers and their right to be silent and all these No, everybody waves these rights. And you know we've all been in that situation right where you get pulled over and you think you can talk your way out of it. People wave these rights. They don't understand how these rights can help them, especially kids. Right, what
does it mean to a kid? What does it mean to Brendan Dassy that he can have a lawyer in the room, his admissions will be used against him in court. He doesn't know what a lawyer does. He doesn't understand the ways in which a lawyer could help him or improve his situation or stop this from happening to him. But yeah, huge numbers of people waive those rights. And it's actually the numbers are even greater when we're talking about innocent people.
Sure, right, because you figure, ihing, I go home.
Right, nothing to hid, of course, I'll talk to you, right.
And you may also be sitting there thinking, well, if it's going to take a long time for a lawyer to get here, wait, I have things to do.
Let me just clear this up, No problem, No, I'll be out of here.
No, No, we're begging you. This is Jason and Laura personally begging you. If you're in that situation, there's only four words you need. I want a lawyer.
Right.
Part of the process that landed Brendan in this situation, which was his.
Own team, Lenn Kachinsky.
Can you tell us what that was like? I mean, being represented by this guide.
When I first met him, I knew that he didn't have I have my best interest in mind, because he was always trying to get me to take a plead deal or something.
So you knew right away. Yeah, Brendan, than a lot of credit to you, because you know, many people might not have picked up on that so quickly, because people go into that situation they think, well, this is my lawyer. He's going to be protecting me and defending me. Yeah, so you knew right away. But then as things progressed, I mean, did you feel betrayed or did you feel hopeful that maybe he was going to turn it around and actually do his job.
No, especially since that when I saw him on TV with Nancy Drace, you know, and he more or less told her that he believes that I'm guilty.
Wow. Yeah, there's a lot of things wrong with that whole scenario. I mean, as you mentioned that named Nancy Grace and you know my skin crawls and that. Yeah, the fact that he went on there with hers is horrible. And then you had this investigator who was supposed to be helping you. Yeah, and can you talk about that a little bit?
What do you want to know?
Well, when he was asking you to draw pictures and all these other things, and he was sort of badgering you, like Brendan, you did this? Yeah, what about this investigator?
At first I thought maybe he would try to help me, you know, but then when he was trying to get me to more or let's give another confession, you know, I knew right then and there that he wasn't on my side either.
So basically, you had your family and that was pretty much it. But they're not lawyers and they're not investigators. They're just just regular people.
Right.
Yeah, how did being represented or misrepresented by len and the things that he did, how did that make you feel?
It made me feel betrayed and that I couldn't really trust lawyers either, But now I can.
What an insane set of twists and turns.
Yeah, We've represented Brendan Dassi through the state court appeal system, where the state courts in Wisconsin were not particularly bothered by what they saw on that interrogation video, but we sort of expected that, and then we took his case, as people who watched Making a Murderer will remember, we
took his case to the federal court system. Right. The way this basically works is you can go to federal court and you can say, hey, federal court, will you review the way in which the Wisconsin state courts protected Brendan's rights. So that's what we did. We went to the federal courts. We filed what's called a petition for a writ of habeas corpus, asking the federal court to take a look at how the state courts handled Brendan's case.
But there is a trick here. Okay, so let's say you go into federal court and you prove to them beyond the shadow of a doubt, right that the state court was wrong in how it handled Brendan's case. You lose. In order to win in federal court, you have to prove not only that the state court was wrong in how it handled Brendan's case, but that it was so unreasonably wrong that no other judge in America could possibly
have ruled the same way. Right, that's literally the legal standard thanks to the Anti Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act signed into law in nineteen ninety six, which keeps, you know, a lot of innocent prisoners like Brendan Dacy from accessing this kind of relief in the federal courts. So that's the needle that you have to thread in federal court. So we filed our petition, you know, we made these arguments, yes, this is that's not just wrong,
it's it's unreasonably wrong. No one else would rule this way. And we sat and waited months and months and months for a decision, and we got our decision. You know, we'd won after years of representing Brendan, we'd won in the federal district court, you know, which was a moment of enormous joy, as you can imagine. But we knew, because we've pushed the boulder up the hill a lot of times before, we knew that that was just round one, that the state had every right to appeal, that it
was going to appeal this case, and it did. Right, that's right, that's right, that's right. And so when we found out that they were going to appeal, we said, you know what that is. You're right, we can't stop you from doing that, but we want Brendan out right. We want him home. This is right around Thanksgiving. We want him home for the holidays while you guys do your thing. So we asked the court to release Brendan during the appeals and we made all of our arguments.
Here's where he's going to go live. He's going to be in a protected environment. We have a social worker on the space, you know, working on the case, identifying resources supports for him outside. And the court said, okay, yeah, let's let Brendan go home. Right, He's not a danger to this community. I believe in him. I can see
it's going to be fine, So let's release him. And we had an order directing the State of Wisconsin to release Brendan Dacy and came within about twelve hours of getting Brendan out before the State of Wisconsin asked the appeals court to block that order and they did. So, you know, okay, we go forward with the appeal. The state files its brief, we file our briefs, we argue it out in court before the appeals court, the federal appeals courts, and again, right, we're trying to thread the
eye of the needle. Here we wait and wait and wait for our verdict, for our decision. And we'd won again right, two to one. If this is in front of three judges, we'd won two to one, which is another moment of great joy in celebration. Two to one. I'll take it. Except please notice that as we studied this decision was two to one decision, there was suddenly another judge in America who would have ruled to keep
Brendan Dacy still in prison. Right. And the more we read that dissenting judge's opinion, we realized that it read like in open invitation for the state of Wisconsin to try this very rare leo maneuver a rehearing on bank where you throw out the appeal and redo it in front of the full court. And that's exactly what they did. We argued that case and lost by a single vote, four to three. Steve and I are not done fighting for Brendan, and the world isn't either, and the Wisconsin
ights aren't either. Right, So today we have filed a petition with the governor of Wisconsin asking that he grant Brendan clemency, that he release Brendon Dassy from prison. It's the only person in the world with the power to do that, Governor Tony Evers. We hear so much from people in state, out of state, right, people from all over all four corners of Wisconsin, Madison, Milwaukee, but up in Superior, up in Green Bay, out in Eau Claire. I get these messages constantly from people who I just
think it's time for Brennan to come home. You know, it's pastime. And you know, we're honored to be in a position where we can hopefully show the governor it's the right time to do this.
Yes, and the good news is that, by all accounts, this governor is a reasonable man. He's had experience. He's visited a juvenile detention facilities one of the first things he did.
That, that's right, he did. And he comes from the education system. You know, he was the head of the Wisconsin Board of Education before he assumed the governor's office. So this is somebody who understands. You know, Brendan was a tenth grader in the public school special education system, right, That's who he was in many ways, it's still who he is.
Brendan. You know, one of the things I was personally so struck by was when we spoke yesterday about your dreams for after you get out what you want to do in the world. Do you mind sort of talking about that a little bit.
I mean, like getting into making and playing video games.
Well, yeah, and hopefully getting paid for it. Yeah. We always I think it was Laura that asked you, if you had a superpower, what would.
That's right, That's always one of my favorite questions to ask, Brendan.
I would want to have the power to heal illnesses and diseases all over the world.
And where do you think that comes from? Like, I mean, it's a great superpower. I'd like to have it too. But of all the things, why do you think that one is the one that came to your mind.
Well, I just like helping people, so I wanted to help other people in the world.
I mean, look, there's a lot of people that want to help you too, and it's amazing. We talked about yesterday how many letters you get. Do you figure you've gotten letters from every state in the country by now, all fifty states.
It's got to be close.
Uh huh, you.
Know, Brendan, why don't you tell them some of the countries that people have sent you letters from? Do you remember some of the.
Countries Singapore, Ireland, Iceland, South America, Canada, Hawaii, New Zealand.
Too, Yeah, even Australia, right, Australia, it's amazing, and also some from Wisconsin. Right. Yeah, that's great.
So there's tens of millions of people now all over the world, as you know, who have watched Making a Murderer have learned about your story. Do you want to see the show when you get out? Are you interested?
I might eat. I don't know if I can.
No, Yeah, you mean it might be hard to watch.
Yeah, you know, more or less because I lived it, So why would I want to watch it again?
Really understandable after everything you've been through and all the twists and turns and the freedom being sort of, you know, yanked away from you twice? Really?
Yeah?
What was that? Like? Your bags were packed, right, You're ready to go home, and then they pulled the rug out from under you. I mean I would think that would make somebody crazy.
Yeah. I I was a little depressed, you know, and called my mom that night and you know I was, I was upset, you know, and so she was she you know, she thought I was going to be coming home, you know, and I was willing to give up all my stuff, you know, just walk out the doors with nothing.
Right, So you were going to give it to some of the other guys in there.
Or either that or or just tell all the prison that they can keep it.
Right, Well, you weren't going to need it anymore.
Yeah, what helps you sort of get through this, Brendon? As this was all happening to you, Where did you find your strength?
Mostly having my family support me and have.
My back, Yeah, especially your mom, right. Yeah, so it's visiting day, right, Yeah, I'll.
Be getting a visit from my mom tonight. M It means everything, you know. They have a family that loves and supports me no matter what, and they always have my back, you know.
Yeah, And it's real is heartening to know that so many people care and still care. And what would you tell people that want to get involved that have seen your story didn't really have any idea of what goes on in our justice system, but now they do. Is there anything particular that you could advise someone.
Just keep fighting for me and keep showing your love and support.
And then there's a lot of ways to do that, and going to Innocenceproject dot org is a good place to start, Laura. Are there other places people can go to learn more about this case and to follow your progress and the progress and getting Brendan home.
Absolutely, Folks can go to CWCY dot org. That's the Center on Wrongful Convictions of Youth. You can learn a lot more about Brendan's case, read as legal papers and follow developments as they happen.
And do you have social media yourself that we can tag you in here because we want to have people follow you and your progress, not only on Brenda's case, but also on all the other amazing work that you're doing.
I do, I do. I'm on Instagram and Twitter both at Laura and I writer.
That's easy, that's at Laura and I writer.
That's right.
And now, as regular listeners of the show know, it's time for the best part of the show, closing arguments, where I get to just kick back in my chair turn my microphone off. First of all, thank you again for taking the time to share your thoughts and your perspective and your spirit with me. And with our audience, And of course thank you Laura for arranging this and for being such a passionate, dedicated, obsessive justice fighter, and
for being on the show. So Laura, first, thank you for being here.
Thanks for giving this opportunity to let the world hear who Brendan Naci is. You know, there have been so many people out there who watched Making a Murderer and were moved disturbed Brendan's story, and who've reached out to us to ask what they can do to help Brendan. There's something really easy you can do. Maybe this upcoming weekend, you find yourself in the extra ten minutes a time,
think about sending him a letter. Right. These letters don't have to be long, they don't have to be powerful, but just tell him, you know, keep your head high. I believe in you. Right, we're fighting for you. It'll happen for you. These letters are such a small gesture on the part of every one of us, but they sustain him, right. They give him hope every day, and that gives us the hope we need to keep on fighting. So find his address on the Wisconsin Department of Corrections website.
He's in the Oshkosh Correctional Institution. Reach out to him, let him know he's got friends all over the world who believe in him. If you want to get involved in other ways, you can do that. You can educate yourself. There are a lot of other books, films, TV shows about wrongful conviction. Right, Brendan is not the only one. Get out there. Watch when they see us, Right, Watch the Paradise Last series about the West Memphis three or West of Memphis. Watch You Murder on a Sunday morning, Right,
watch the confession tapes. You can see incredible shows, read incredible books about this happening over and over, some of which we've mentioned today, and you can get out there. Of course, you can support organizations like the Center on Wrongful Convictions or the Innocence Project or a lot of other incredible organizations that do this work. But most importantly, right, don't stop saying Brendan Dacy's name. Get out there on social media, remember him, Keep insisting that the people with
power in this system do justice for Brendan. Write letters to the governor of Wisconsin. Tell him what you see when you see Brendan on TV. Tell him what you hear when you hear Brendan on a podcast like this, especially if you live in Wisconsin, tell him you want Brendan home. That's the difference that you can make. It's a huge difference. We rely on people like you to light the way, to show the path. We're doing the right thing here. So thank you to everybody who's written
to Brendan. Keep doing it, keep showing your support. Let's get him home together.
And Brendan, thank you again for you know, letting me come see you and for spending time on the air with us today. And now I get to leave it open for you to say whatever you want as we close the show.
I don't know what to say. I love Pokemon and my favorite Pokemon is Mew. But there's a new one coming out called El Creamy that I really like, and hopefully I get to see some of the more new ones coming out pretty soon.
Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flahm. Please support your local innocence projects and go to the link in our bio to see how you can help. I'd like to thank our production team, Connor Hall, Jeff Clyburn, and Kevin Warnis. The music on the show as always is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and
on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction podcast. Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flahm is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number one