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00:01:42
welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you are doing thanks for listening I'm your host Nick and
00:01:47
with me as always is a guy who eats honey crisp and Jameson for dinner here is the captain and I'm all out of honey
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crisp it's good to be seen and good to see you thanks for listening thanks for T the
00:02:00
[Music] friend this week we are very excited to be featuring magic hobo monkey Juju
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and let's give some praise and thanks to our friends that helped us fill up the fridge for this week's shows first up a
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big cheers to Patrick from Lake Mary Florida and a big we like your chip goes out to Tammy from witch Kansas and last
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whatever social media platform you like Twitter Instagram Facebook join us follow us engage with us at True Crime
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garage and that is enough for the business all right everybody gather around grab a chair grab a beer let's
00:03:35
talk some true [Music] [Music] crime on the morning of Friday August 11th 1995 in Grant's Pass Oregon a young man
00:04:12
walked into the police station he was disheveled he appeared to be very tired and dirty he said to the attendant at
00:04:20
the for service desk that he needed to speak with the police officer he then took a seat in one of those chairs near
00:04:29
the little window that separates wkins from the nice lady at the desk on the other side he waited briefly and then an
00:04:38
officer appeared and asked the young man what is it that you would like to report
00:04:43
what the young man had to say was going to take much more work than just another
00:04:48
incident report he started to tell the officer about last night the officer quickly walked the young man back into
00:04:57
the office portion of the police station he took the young man to a small interview room inside there was a small
00:05:05
table three chairs and nothing else the officer gestured toward one of the chairs and told the young man to have a
00:05:14
seat then he asked him if he would like something to drink maybe a water or soda
00:05:20
or perhaps something stronger like a coffee the young man replied soda followed by a simple thank you the
00:05:27
officer left the room and closed the door by behind him the young man could hear the door click in a manner that
00:05:34
suggested that he would not be able to just stand up and walk out of the room this door would need to be opened from
00:05:40
the outside there were no windows to the outside world in this little room but instead one small reinforced window that
00:05:50
looked out into the small white hallway that the two had just passed through on their way to the interview room the
00:05:57
young man could see the officer talking with two men through the shatterproof window the two men were not in uniform
00:06:04
they were in suits both sporting big wide Ties That stretched the length from their necks down to their belt buckles
00:06:13
at first the men in the suits look confused and then they both nodded their heads
00:06:18
simultaneously the group of men then quickly broke from their huddle the officer and one of the suits turned and
00:06:25
moved in the direction that the young man had just come from the other suit turned turned toward the door then the
00:06:31
young man heard the click of the door and it opened up a tall man in a suit introduced himself he's a detective and
00:06:40
said that the officer will be back in a minute with a soda followed by I hope Dr
00:06:44
Pepper is okay the detective closed the door he moved one of the chairs so now there is
00:06:51
a chair on each of three sides of the small table the detective sat down directly across from the young man and
00:06:58
said sir I understand you are here to tell us about something that happened the young
00:07:04
man agreed the door clicked again and opened this time it was a woman entering the room the room seemed to shrink
00:07:14
smaller every time someone entered the woman was wearing a pants suit she was holding a clipboard and a
00:07:22
can of Dr Pepper she handed the soda can to the young man and sat down in the chair on the side at the table that
00:07:30
separated the young man from the already seated tall male detective she said so tell us about last
00:07:40
night the young man was 17-year-old Nicolas McDonald he repeated the statement that he had made to the
00:07:47
officer just minutes earlier that led him to where he was now seated and nervous in a tiny room with two
00:07:55
detectives he said that last night he witnessed and participated in a murder and everything that he was going to tell
00:08:02
them took place just a few hours before the 17-year-old would go on to tell detectives how he watched and
00:08:10
participated in three murders three brutal murders that were committed by he and his best friend and
00:08:19
now Blood Brother Brian this is Israel son the beset family murders and this is true crime
00:08:28
garage [Music] where we pick up our story Captain it's Friday morning between the hours of 8:00
00:08:47
a.m. and 9:00 a.m. going into the afternoon the police at Grant's Pass are going to have their hands full here we
00:08:56
have this young man who sits ready to open up one horrific can of worms and the story that 17-year-old Nicolas
00:09:05
McDonald had to tell went something like this it all started late Thursday night
00:09:10
with a plan for premeditated murder he implicated his 16-year-old best friend Brian bassette as The Mastermind for
00:09:19
this plan in fact he had not known that Brian would be even capable of such evil
00:09:25
Deeds he said his friend had been kicked out of his parents house for some time this was due to several reasons but for
00:09:33
now we will call it behavior problems he continued saying that he and Brian bassette went to Brian's parents home
00:09:42
this was at approximately 12:30 in the morning the plan was to break into Brian's parents house this is a
00:09:49
two-story home McDonald said that they cut the phone lines to the house and this was planned before they got there
00:10:00
then he watched as Brian climbed a ladder up to the second story where Brian would gain access to the house via
00:10:08
a second floor bedroom window I believe this may be Brian's old bedroom that he's climbing into this is meant to be a
00:10:19
home that would be occupied by five people so we have Brian's parents which are 42-year-old Michael bassette
00:10:26
40-year-old Wendy bassette and one of Brian's older sisters 18-year-old Stephanie and Brian's brother which is
00:10:34
5-year-old Austin but on this night there would only be three people occupying that house as we said Brian he
00:10:43
had been kicked out of the house and his sister Stephanie who's 18 she was away thankfully she was out of town for a
00:10:51
softball tournament so on this night there were three members of the bassette family occupying the home and one member
00:10:59
of the family climbing up a ladder seeking revenge in its coldest of forms McDonald says that he waited
00:11:07
anxiously outside where he heard shouting then he heard gunshots then silence and then he heard more gunshots
00:11:18
then once again silence seconds later his friend Brian was outside in a voice that could only be described as some
00:11:25
kind of hushed shouting Brian explained that he needed McDonald to come inside saying I shot him meaning his dad I shot
00:11:36
him my dad but he is still alive I'm not sure about my mom but I need you to go inside and finish them off Nicolas went
00:11:45
into the home as he was walking through the home he saw blood and he could smell
00:11:51
the gunpowder Brian told him that after he entered the house his father Michael confronted him they argued before Brian
00:12:00
fired shots at his father Brian said he was able to hit his father with several of these shots Michael the father
00:12:08
staggered outside of the room and then fell the shots must have alerted his mother because his mom Wendy came
00:12:17
charging up the stairs with the baseball bat in her hands without even one single
00:12:23
second thought he then turned the gun on her and fired several times now Brian and McDonald reach the room where
00:12:33
Brian's parents Lay Dying to their surprise Brian's brother Austin was in the room he was kneeling with his hands
00:12:43
pressed up against the bodies of his parents he was attempting to shake them he must have thought that they were
00:12:50
sleeping or something of course Austin is crying and he's now covered in blood it's hard for me to decide here Captain
00:12:59
if Brian had thought this part through right I think that he and McDonald went there went to the home with the
00:13:07
intention of killing the parents and a general plan to carry that out but I wonder and could not find confirmation
00:13:17
of such did they know going to the house or did they know when they were creating
00:13:23
this plan that they were just going to kill whoever else was there it seems like the conflicts that he was having
00:13:29
was just with his parents not his family and obviously his brother is very little
00:13:34
so what kind of conflicts would you be having with him anyways right and then you have to wonder too Stephanie's not
00:13:41
there that night did right did he go there on this night because he knew his sister was gone or because he had been
00:13:48
kicked out of the house he's been out for some time there's conflicting reports on how long he had been kicked
00:13:54
out of the house you have to have then wondered would he have even known this Stephanie would not be home that night
00:14:00
and again whoever happens to be there is who could end up being a victim that night right because there are some pre-
00:14:09
offense behaviors that suggest that maybe the only intent was to kill mom and dad but
00:14:15
there are some post- offense behaviors and actions of the killers that I believe indicate otherwise and we can
00:14:21
get into that post- offense Behavior after we get through the rest of McDonald's confession here now one of
00:14:29
the pre- offense behaviors is the attempt to muffle the sound of The Gunshot so this is an
00:14:38
indicator to me there there there's conflicting reports okay one thing I could not figure out and even after
00:14:45
going through the trial and some of the transcripts that were available for the actual trials that that would take place
00:14:52
much later some information states that they went there with the intention to kill the parents
00:14:59
and to steal belongings and one of those items may have been a gun possibly the gun that was used to kill the parents to
00:15:07
shoot the parents that night other sources state that they went there with the gun now one thing that is not in
00:15:15
question is the this little fact that they were going to use a soda bottle as some type of silencer or
00:15:25
suppressor so this would be to muffle the sounds of the gunshots yeah the fact that they're going to use some man-made
00:15:34
concoction to try to silence the gunfire and makes it seem more likely to me that
00:15:41
they would have done this elsewhere and then brought the gun to the crime scene the way that this is typically done is
00:15:49
you take a 2 L plastic bottle or one of those 20 oz plastic soda bottles yeah little sod
00:15:59
pop and you cut the bottom of it off and you can fasten the bottle to your gun to
00:16:08
the barrel at the end of the barrel of your gun and a lot of times what I saw online pictures online where people had
00:16:15
just duct taped the the bottle to the gun I mean this sounds like something out of the Anarchist Cookbook here but
00:16:25
from the videos that I viewed on YouTube when people would do this because it's always been some kind of myth that this
00:16:33
actually works as a silencer which you know from our our episode when we talked about the the still unsolved murder up
00:16:42
in in Michigan right that the the killer comes in with a suppressor we had suggested maybe that was linked to a
00:16:51
case that took place about five or six months prior where somebody stole suppressors and guns from a a local
00:16:59
Sporting Goods store right we learned when we covered that case that in order to get a silencer or a suppressor you
00:17:06
have to request one you have to buy what it's it's a stamp right and you buy the
00:17:12
stamp from the uh ATF so you get the stamp and then it's it's you you have to purchase the
00:17:20
silencer but you also have to purchase basically a license to have that particular silencer meaning that at any
00:17:29
time the ATF can knock on your door and say we want to see your silencer produce
00:17:35
it now because you're not allowed to just gift it to somebody or sell it to somebody and we thought in that case
00:17:43
maybe if you could find the gun or if if that killer believed that a silencer was
00:17:48
needed to carry that out because he goes into a business shoots the attendant they're connected to other businesses
00:17:55
they're sharing walls at this Plaza right so here you have people that are trying to sidestep that right they don't
00:18:04
want to be tied to a silencer they don't want the government knowing that they purchased a a suppressor and a lot of
00:18:10
times you have to wait a a long a lengthy period of time before you're granted permission to buy the
00:18:17
silencer so people have tried to figure out how can they build their own and I'm
00:18:22
sure there's other ways to create one but this is a seem to be some kind of popular method probably amongst the
00:18:30
Dumber parts of our communities um because from what I could see Captain on YouTube it doesn't work at all it does
00:18:38
not suppress the sound of The Gunshot at all well yeah the the Dumber part of the
00:18:43
community or just the naive part of the community again we have to remember that
00:18:49
it's a 16 and 17year old that are planning to take out one of their families and and this is not even a
00:18:58
tragedy aside this is not even really that great of a plan in in in my humble garage opinion here okay back to back to
00:19:07
the scene as said upon entering the home with Brian McDonald found bassett's parents lying there with their child
00:19:17
Austin he's crying he's touching the parents in an apparent effort to Rouse them Brian told the little boy his his
00:19:25
little brother that because he was all dirty covered in blood that he would need to take a bath so Brian convinced
00:19:32
the boy to leave the room but before he left Brian points to his father and said
00:19:39
look he's still breathing so McDonald says that he could hear something something faint it sounded like air a
00:19:46
breath in and a breath out but the noise was not coming from where I guess McDonald would
00:19:53
expect it to he then says that the the noise was coming from Michael's chest yeah probably coming from a bullet hole
00:20:00
so he's still alive he's still breathing the air going in and out through a hole
00:20:06
in his chest nicholos McDonald says to the detectives that he shot Michael once in the head with Brian bassett's gun but
00:20:16
claiming that he did so only to end Michael's suffering and he also states that Wendy
00:20:22
was not breathing now how many times do we get a confession well we get multiple
00:20:27
confessions from McDonald so he he's going to confess in Grant's Pass he'll have to be shipped back to the state of
00:20:37
Washington for charges there you know this and and the listeners know this a lot of times when somebody goes to
00:20:43
confess they try to distance themselves from from the actual crime well and you know that's one reason why when we
00:20:52
review unsolved cases and it's clear to us that more than than one person was involved that's
00:21:00
why I always go on that I stand up on the soap box and shout it from the Mountaintop and tell people out there
00:21:07
listening if you're listening to this and you were involved you were one of the people involved you should be be
00:21:13
smart be the first one to pick up the phone or to walk into a police station and tell them what happened because you
00:21:20
know just like with our history books you know when there's when there's a war guess who gets to write the history of
00:21:26
that war the winner the the Victor gets to write the history books and that's how it was and that's how it is you get
00:21:36
their perspective and they can sugarcoat things however they want well same in this scenario if you speak first and law
00:21:46
enforcement believes you and you can you can back up some of your statements what you say becomes how it
00:21:54
went down and that's why I always say if you're involved in something especially nowadays we're talking about
00:22:01
the the Golden Age of DNA and solving cases cold cases a lot of times if they got the evidence what we're seeing today
00:22:08
is that it's it's only a matter of time before they make the arrest and charge you be the first one to to create The
00:22:14
Narrative of how it went down and who's responsible for what right because this is how it goes down the criminal then
00:22:20
goes to detectives or law enforcement they strike up a deal or basically say hey confess to us and then
00:22:29
we'll work this out the detectives are the ones that feed the information to the
00:22:34
prosecution so then to feed that information to the prosecution they will tend to protect
00:22:41
the person that gave the confession obvious I mean obviously if there's more than one more than one
00:22:49
perpetrator well this is a very intriguing case and a very intriguing True Crime Story But as the listeners
00:22:57
have already figured out there's not a ton of mystery here and what we're going to see is when this does go to trial
00:23:06
we're going to have two guys committed these crimes together these murders together but one will be charged
00:23:13
differently than the other right we can get into some of the confession stuff and the the way that that's going to
00:23:19
work and play out as after we get through the confession here so we now have according to our Confessor
00:23:28
where we're at in our story is that that unfortunately Michael and Wendy have both been killed McDonald implicating
00:23:36
himself as being involved directly involved in Michael's death if you're sensitive you're probably not listening
00:23:42
to this show but if if if you are you might want to skip ahead about 30 seconds or 40 seconds well I'm very
00:23:49
sensitive you pray because this is when this horrible horrible situation just gets even worse
00:23:57
if you can even imagine imagine it getting worse it it here here it goes um Nichol McDonald said that when he left
00:24:04
the room uh he believed that both of the parents were dead by this point and then
00:24:08
he walked he went into the bathroom this is where he finds Brian with his little
00:24:14
brother Austin Brian according to McDonald had filled up the bathtub with with water Austin had stripped off his
00:24:23
bloody clothes and according to McDonald now Brian has the gun and it was he McDonald that was going to have to kill
00:24:33
the boy McDonald told the detectives that quote he then went into the bathroom and that bassette was waiting
00:24:40
just outside the door and that he feared Basset would shoot him so he held the boy under the water face down until he
00:24:48
drowned horrific stuff what do we think of this confession so far here Captain like I was saying before normally when
00:24:54
the person is confessing they start and and you can see in his initial part of the story I well I didn't even enter
00:25:03
the house I entered the house after the crime and the murders already were taken
00:25:11
place and then he obviously shows his involvement with the killing of the father but this is where I think you'd
00:25:21
have to believe him more is because he then tells you well I I drown the little brother and um but I mean just it's
00:25:33
horrific let's just be honest we we're all teenagers at one point we all struggle maybe not all of us but I know
00:25:45
me and you did you struggle with authority figures a little bit and who's the number one authority figures in your
00:25:51
life your parents and there's a part of you that it's like just get off my back don't tell me what to do I don't I don't
00:25:59
need your advice I'm going to live my life I want to hang out with my friends but and I've known friends of mine that
00:26:08
it's gotten really intense and and and over the line as far as their relationship with their
00:26:16
parents G I was lucky that that never took place never got to that level with with my parents where they kicked me out
00:26:25
of the house or that I was basically like living on my own or living on the streets but you could understand why
00:26:32
somebody would be upset with their parents but to want to harm them to want to murder them it
00:26:41
just it doesn't make a lot of sense no no sense at all it's incredibly difficult to try to wrap your head
00:26:48
around this situation and of course this confession that they've heard so far is
00:26:55
going to spring board several actions in into play that will have a domino effect
00:27:00
right first things first there is one fast way you you need to confirm if this story is true because it's not every day
00:27:09
thank God that some kid just walks into a police station and says hey me and my friend we just killed three people so
00:27:16
now you have to do two things that you need to sort out really quickly one he's saying that he did not do this alone so
00:27:23
you need to go find the other killer two you need to locate the people that he is
00:27:29
talking about to see one if either they are perfectly fine and this kid is lying
00:27:35
or or just out of his mind or locate their bodies and go through the crime scene and build a case against the the
00:27:45
Confessor McDonald tells the police that he drove off on his own with the bodies of
00:27:54
Michael and Austin and that he hid their bodies along a Logging Road which was about 3 miles from the home from the
00:28:02
murder house he also helped Brian hide Wendy's body in the pump house that was adjoining their home I believe this was
00:28:11
for a well and that both of them clean the house after the murders to try to conceal evidence of the
00:28:19
killings then they take Brian's parents van and they take off [Music] this show is sponsored by better help do
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[Music] 2023 all right we are back thanks for joining us here in the garage thanks for
00:31:24
sharing these cases on social media it keeps the show going Colonel cheers to you cheers to you captain and cheers
00:31:33
to all the people that have already bought their tickets for The Brew doog live event coming up April 29th my
00:31:40
birthday bash yeah if you're going to be attending this is the captain's Birthday
00:31:45
Bash we will be celebrating together and the event includes your ticket includes
00:31:52
a beer tasting with yours truly with the colonel and the captain so we'll all get
00:31:56
a a little crispy together make sure you have a meal beforehand don't have a bunch of drinks before you sit down
00:32:03
because we'll have some drinks during the show and we can't wait to see all of you April 29th yeah and if you haven't
00:32:09
been to this Brew dog location it's absolutely fabulous and you're going to love the location so you might want to
00:32:16
get there early you can eat there you can have dinner there uh it's a incredible location you'll want to hang
00:32:22
out there there's games to play my favorite recreational game pin they got plenty of good pinball machines there
00:32:30
and we will well do you know why you like pinball because I'm a pinball wizard cuz you're a pin head that's
00:32:35
right uh and we and we want to hang out after the show and have a beer with you guys as well so hope to see you there
00:32:41
April 29th if you're looking for a ticket I believe there's still some available on our website on the store
00:32:49
Page wouldn't that be mean if we said hey come join us and then they go all sold out if it is my apologies later
00:32:56
that morning th see this is what's strange to me there's a lot of a lot of strange parts of this case but
00:33:04
thankfully this Nicolas McDonald seems to to grow a a heart you know like the Grinch
00:33:13
he's got a tiny little heart and then it grew bigger it's a normal size and he he
00:33:17
feels some remorse obviously because he walks into the police station confesses to what just took place hours before and
00:33:27
keep in mind the reason why the confession I think is it's it's a complete 180 you know life turns on a
00:33:33
dime sometimes without notice and what we have is just just hours earlier he and his friend are going to
00:33:41
Great Lengths and great efforts to conceal the triple homicide that they just committed and now he's walking into
00:33:49
the police station in Grant's Pass Oregon and implicated his 16-year-old friend Brian bassette in the shooting
00:33:56
deaths of of Brian bassett's parents so Grant's Pass police they then notify Gray's Harbor County the the two killers
00:34:08
are not from this area where he's at confessing right so they notify Grace Harbor County Sheriff's officers who
00:34:16
then discover the bodies on Friday afternoon that afternoon his accomplice Brian bassette police find Brian
00:34:24
bassette exactly where McDonald tells them they will find him he leads police to Brian who is sleeping in the van in
00:34:33
his parents' van that they stole after committing the murders at a gas station that is basically across the street from
00:34:40
the the police station I was hoping that you're going to say that he was sleeping
00:34:43
in the van down by the river but like you said they're confessing to this crime but not where the crime took place
00:34:50
locally so they're going to have to call in the local law enforcement to handle this case yeah that's right they are
00:34:57
from some tiny city called mlar which is in Gray's Harbor county or gray Harbor County excuse me Washington
00:35:05
the population there in 1995 when our case took place is roughly 1,200 people and this is like a beautiful small
00:35:16
wonderful Community Law Enforcement and now this profess and confessed killer are sitting in a room at Grant's Pass
00:35:25
police station about 300 70 miles south of McClary in the great state of Oregon that's a six-hour drive from where they
00:35:34
committed these crimes mlar is a small City not just in population but in size as well it's described as a western
00:35:41
Washington town just a few blocks long right from what I could find Captain it looks like McClary is just
00:35:48
2.05 square miles and to give you an idea of the location McClary is about 80 miles Southwest of Seattle following I5
00:36:00
Brian and McDonald were brought back from Oregon to Washington on that Saturday so they commit the murders very
00:36:09
early Friday morning by 8 to 9:00 a.m. McDonald's in the Grant Pass police station confessing to the crimes they
00:36:20
arrest Brian they find the bodies and by Saturday the following day they are trans exporting the two suspects back to
00:36:31
Washington following this unfortunately we have the funeral for three members of
00:36:37
the betet family most people in the town of 1200 knew the besets and more than half
00:36:45
of the city turned out for the funeral again both murderers are young 16 and 17 so you have the 17-year-old confessing
00:36:54
then they bring in Brian the 16 16-year-old it's it was his family that they killed you'd think that they'd be
00:37:02
it'd be pretty easy for them to get him to confess as well well and that's why I
00:37:07
think that we have multiple confessions from McDonald because when they arrest Brian you know they're telling him like
00:37:18
look your friend told us everything that that you guys did right and oh yeah we found the gun we found the bodies uh we
00:37:25
found the the we gone through the scene and so I'm sure Brian told them some other version of the same story right
00:37:35
and then you go back to McDonald and say okay well you know a lot of what you're
00:37:39
saying checks out but some of it does not uh let's go through this again and so you go through it a few times with
00:37:46
each of the suspects to try to sort out what in the end you believe ultimately happened and how and what the
00:37:54
prosecutors are going to attempt to charge and convict both of these people with well and it gets more complicated
00:38:03
too again because of their age for our victims here we have Austin who was remembered as a bright and Charming
00:38:09
little boy who helped his grandmother plant zucchini in the summer leading up to the
00:38:15
night in question and he was known to jump from lap to lap at ball games when he was in attendance watching uh ball
00:38:25
games because we have older siblings who participated in sports after the funeral
00:38:30
service 18-year-old Stephanie bassette who lived at the at the betet family home and through the grace of God just
00:38:38
happened not to be there that night she held a rose and a flag at the after the service as she
00:38:46
cried and smiled graciously accepting condolences and hugs from dozens and dozens of family friends the only direct
00:38:55
mention of Brian at the funeral or at the services came when someone read a list of survivors I
00:39:03
thought you going to say when somebody read a list of pieces of [ __ ] so other than that he was not discussed at this
00:39:09
service and rightfully so the bassette family they were buried in wooden caskets with Austin sharing a casket
00:39:17
with his his mother the victims as we said were Michael Allen Basset born 1951 Wendy Gil lamb bassette date of birth
00:39:26
August 12 1954 so she was killed by her son the day before her 41st birthday and
00:39:34
we have the little boy Austin Edward bassette born in 1989 he was just 5 years old the bassets had been together
00:39:42
and experienced over 20 years of marriage together and it sounds like they were still very much in love they
00:39:49
wrote little love notes to each other often Michael worked for the Simpson Timber Company in Shelton he was very
00:39:59
active in Youth Sports he coached t-ball and little league over the years he refereed grade and high school
00:40:05
basketball games he played slow pitch softball he was a graduate of Elma High School this is where he met his future
00:40:13
wife Wendy Wendy was a former dental hygienist before being a homemaker she sold crafts and babysat for extra money
00:40:22
they had five kids three daughters we mentioned Stephanie 18 who was out of town for a softball tournament at the
00:40:29
time of the killings two older girls two older daughters who were grown women and
00:40:35
out of the house by 1995 and did not live with them little Austin loved Barry picking and named his
00:40:43
this is like heartbreaking and sad and cute all at the same time he named his dogs and cats after friends of his uh
00:40:51
from from school yeah I mean in these cases it's it's when you have um whether it's a school shooter or you
00:41:01
have a teenager that harms a friend or harms his family the question always becomes
00:41:07
nature or nurture and in this situation you have a family that had five children
00:41:16
and it seems like all the other children other than Brian were were good people yeah and what it looks like to me is you
00:41:26
have this kind of snake eating itself situation right the snake eating its tail where it looks to me like when
00:41:35
Brian would get in trouble for some like he was starting to go down the wrong path and when he would get in trouble
00:41:40
for something his his reaction was to push back against mom and dad for punishing him and this creates this
00:41:51
this scenario where he's always in trouble and elevating the consequence quences for his actions because he's
00:41:58
he's just constantly fighting back against the authority right so our perpetrators Brian Michael bassette age
00:42:09
16 and Nicolas James McDonald age 17 some sources say that McDonald was 18 I believe that is because he was 18 by the
00:42:18
time this thing went to trial friends and family say Brian was a quiet and shy kid average student he went to Elma High
00:42:27
School where his parents went faculty there say that they saw no evidence of anger with this kid but he did drop out
00:42:35
of of high school so there there would be a period of time that they The Faculty would not have known or had
00:42:43
interaction with with Brian the principal at elah high said that he checked Brian's records and found no
00:42:51
disciplinary actions except truancy and he said said he didn't seem to enjoy school and dropped out last
00:42:59
April the the homicides took place in August Michael keading this was Brian's biology teacher said that Brian was a
00:43:08
decent student quote I was amazed he could keep up with his studies despite his treny problems end quote so he he
00:43:16
didn't sounds like he didn't show up a lot but when he did he was able to do the work get passing grades right about
00:43:23
a year before the murders Brian started Chang ing this is according to friends of the family mhm and according to
00:43:30
Wendy's brother-in-law Brian's mother's brother-in-law Ed Olen he said that Brian started hanging out with the wrong
00:43:38
crowd and this wrong crowd included McDonald Michelle Brown dated Brian for about a month this was about a year
00:43:46
before the murders she's quoted in some newspaper articles as talking about Brian one thing she said that she broke
00:43:55
up with Brian when he started getting into alcohol and she says that he got into alcohol real
00:44:01
bad so bad that on one occasion Brian had to be hospitalized for alcohol poison we also wonder what's going on
00:44:07
with his mental state you know again chicken or the egg is he having some mental issues that he starts
00:44:14
self-medicating or just oh I'm I'm a teenager I'm going to experiment with uh drugs or alcohol and then that causes
00:44:25
mental issues and and sometimes it's both right and uh and the person doesn't even know what they're doing but again
00:44:34
this is this is interesting here I think because she says that they broke up about a year before I don't know how
00:44:42
much interaction or what their relationship was after the breakup but she does state that he had a lot of
00:44:51
anger towards his parents but she says she never knew why never understood why so this is somebody that likely met his
00:44:59
parents and does not agree with whatever Brian you know the the the anger and we
00:45:05
can even say the word hate toward his parents I think that he was expressing to her and to others yeah I think hate
00:45:13
would be the appropriate term Wendy's brother-in-law Ed Olen said that Brian's Behavior had gotten so violent in the
00:45:20
weeks leading up to the murders that Wendy started sleeping with a baseball bat next to her bed well you know like
00:45:27
you said when the conflict was was happening evidence of this evidence of his story being true is she came after
00:45:37
her son with a baseball bat yeah and Wendy's mom said that quote they tried to get help they tried to get counseling
00:45:44
and even asked the sheriff's department if they could put him meaning Brian in juvenile hall right nothing was working
00:45:51
so they kicked him out of the house now there are some conflicting reports here Captain some say that the parents kicked
00:45:57
Brian out of the house about a week before the murders because of his increasingly violent Behavior but other
00:46:05
reports state that he was kicked out weeks before and one statement that was made this is according to several
00:46:14
friends and family that Brian actually threatened to kill his parents the week before the actual murders right not
00:46:21
knowing the story firsthand experiencing any of this firsthand I think Brian likeley was kicked out several weeks in
00:46:29
advance and you know how these things were I think he was actually kicked out multiple times yeah I sometimes you're
00:46:35
kicked out and then you're let back in and then you're kicked out again um this is what we' call uh escalation as uh
00:46:41
Dave Chappelle would say a habitual Lin stepper right so well and it's weird though too because I I don't know if
00:46:48
you've saw this in reports but it seemed like Brian occasionally was like staying
00:46:54
in their shed like when he couldn't figure out where to go and not wanting to deal with his parents or not knowing
00:47:02
how to deal with his parents he would just camp out in their shed well and I'm using air quotes here uh he would break
00:47:10
into the house that's why I think he might have been out for multiple weeks leading up to the murders because
00:47:17
there's a report that the week prior the week before the murders he broke into his parents' home this was when so the
00:47:27
family went on a vacation that week that would make sense because there's no school at this
00:47:33
time they go on vacation but his sister who's 18 stayed at the house I don't know if she had things to do with
00:47:41
softball or with friends or what have you but she stays at the house and that's how they know that he broke into
00:47:47
the house because she's able to report that that he broke into the house the week before and so this method of using
00:47:54
the ladder to climb up to the Second Story window I think was something that he had done multiple times now when we
00:48:01
talk about how long had he had been kicked out of the house or Outdoors I'm wondering if part of this stemmed from a
00:48:08
report that I found that said that he broke into his grandmother's house and stole a gun and remember we're talking
00:48:14
about the parents the the parents are telling people like we kick him out because he's violent he's hostile we're
00:48:20
afraid of him are they afraid of him because they know that he stole a gun from one of their one of their parents'
00:48:27
homes yeah and like you said he was making threats I mean this is this would be a very difficult situation for any
00:48:33
parent you want to protect your kid but now you have to protect your wife you got to protect your youngest son or
00:48:39
you're going to try to because your teenage son is threatening everybody but how very Joey Potter of him to have that
00:48:46
ladder go up to the Second Story and so he can climb into Dawson's window right and I mean you can kind of take a look
00:48:54
at this and see it from his perspective he probably thought that he was unjustly kicked out of his parents' home
00:49:01
which I mean nobody wants violence in their home but you don't want to be looking over your shoulder in your own
00:49:08
house because you're afraid of your violent teenage son yeah you're your violent douche muffin Vienna Seymour
00:49:16
this is a friend of the betet family she was asked about Brian's increasingly outof control behavior and she had this
00:49:24
to say quote it was a known fact he was a little out of control but there's out of control and then there's killing your
00:49:32
parents end quote Nicolas McDonald aged 17 moved to the town of McClary from Illinois I believe it was a year or two
00:49:44
before the murders took place so I don't think he was there a great deal of time
00:49:48
but I could not confirm when he when he moved to McClary he too was a high school drop out Mark keading biology
00:49:58
teacher said of McDonald quote he was a good kid and I liked him I saw him about
00:50:04
a week ago and he had a job in a local restaurant and talked about saving money to buy a car he seemed happy end quote
00:50:11
he had gone to an alternative school after he dropped out and earned his high school equivalency diploma Pat Boden a
00:50:20
betet family friend who used to work with McDonald said quote Nicolas was a strange kid with a bad reputation in
00:50:28
town some Reports say that the two were friends and some Reports say that they were boyfriends that there was something
00:50:35
else going on with the relationship between McDonald and Brian [Music] B so much more to get to in this case
00:50:52
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