Sex abuse revealed on tape in court

PALMER — The taped confession of a man charged with sexually assaulting a minor gives some insight into the delusions that drove him to do it and the depression that followed.

“It doesn’t matter. Either way, I’m going to eat a bullet,” Brett Talmadge says on the tape while debating telling the girl’s mother. “Yes, I slept with (the girl). Yes, I loved her dearly, and yes, I wanted to be with her dearly.”

Talmadge is on trial facing four counts of sexually assaulting the teenager — the daughter of a close family friend — stemming from two incidents at his Meadow Lakes home. He was 35 at the time. She was 15.

With the help of the Wasilla Police Department, the girl’s mother recorded a 2.5-hour-long telephone conversation with Talmadge. The jury heard the tape Friday.

In the first two hours of the recording, Talmadge comes across as a man suffering from depression. He talks about how he has long had suicidal thoughts and took medication when he was younger.

“No matter what, I will always think about it. It will always be there,” Talmadge says on the tape. “I don’t know how many times I have tried.”

But since the incidents with the girl in the fall of 2007, he says the destructive thoughts have become even stronger. He lost his job on the North Slope, was struggling to make the $1,600-a-month mortgage payments, and all his credit cards were six months behind. He says he was working as a truck driver in the Lower 48 for $10 an hour with no insurance or benefits.

At first, stopping short of a full-on admission, Talmadge says on the tape that he will carry the guilt of what he did for the rest of his life. This makes him question if life is even worth living anymore.

“You don’t know how many times I wanted (the girl’s father) to come and kill me,” Talmadge said.

Added to the guilt is the paranoia, he says on the tape. He is clearly expecting the police to arrest him at any moment. He says he is suffering because there is no one he can turn to for advice.

“The only person I can trust right now is me and how fast I can get to my pistol,” Talmadge says.

He is hesitant to come out and say what he has done because he is afraid the police will surely come after he does. To him, that means he will have to kill himself after he confesses.

The girl’s mother takes every opportunity to discourage Talmadge from killing himself. If confessing to her means that he will commit suicide, she says, then she does not want to talk to him anymore.

“You don’t have to end it, so don’t think that way,” the mother says. “Killing yourself won’t make you feel better, and it will make us feel worse.”

The mother tried to convince Talmadge she has not, and will not, go to the police. She says she just wants to know exactly what happened. It’s impossible to say whether she convinced Talmadge or Talmadge truly resigned to killing himself. But, two hours into the conversation, Talmadge admits to having sex with the girl. He said it happened four or five times, always at his house.

At this, the girl watching the proceedings on Friday, walked out of the courtroom.

“I do appreciate your honesty,” the mother says after the confession.

Talmadge says he saw the girl as someone he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. He says he had “fond dreams” of their future together, and he thought he would “for once be happy in my life.”

Talmadge says he wanted to talk to the mother about his feelings even before it happened, but he did not know how to broach the subject.

“I know I will never do it again with any girl underage,” Talmadge says. “I would never touch her again. … But I still love her.”

The trial continues on Wednesday.

Contact Todd L. Disher at todd.disher@frontiersman.com or 352-2252.