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