Day 5 - April 20, 2007

Before the jury entered, Judge Fox said a seated juror would be released because of health-related issues. Mark Wiegert then testified about investigators’ February 27 and March 1 interviews of Brendan Dassey. He described reading Dassey a warning-and-waiver form and acknowledged using intentionally false suggestions during questioning. The jury viewed portions of the March 1 interview DVD after the judge instructed jurors to rely on the video if its captions differed. Wiegert also discussed Dassey’s drawings and information used in a search-warrant application that preceded the recovery of two bullets from the garage. On cross-examination, Wiegert addressed differences between accounts of where Teresa Halbach was pinned and between Dassey’s bedroom drawing and a computer-generated depiction drawn from Dassey’s and Jodi Stachowski’s statements. With the jury excused, the judge granted the State’s request to exclude the defense’s proposed use of Dassey’s February 27 answers, except for matters cited on pages 556 and 604. When cross-examination resumed, Wiegert acknowledged untruths, emotional appeals, and promises in the earlier questioning. He agreed that, apart from jeans with believed bleach spots, the listed physical items lacked fingerprints, DNA, or other scientific evidence connecting Dassey to Halbach’s death, and added that there had been five days to clean up. Cross-examination remained unfinished at adjournment.