# Making a Murderer S01E10 "Fighting for Their Lives"



## teknikel (Jan 27, 2002)

From this perspective, just sad.


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## VegasVic (Nov 22, 2002)

I'm from the area and am quite familiar with this story. Let's just say that the makers of this doc definitely had an agenda and didn't present both sides equally. Some of that is due to the defense side participating more in the making of this series. They have the motivation to do so, they are trying to get the guy out. They have nothing to lose. The other side really doesn't have a reason to participate since the guy is convicted and in jail. They have nothing to gain.


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## teknikel (Jan 27, 2002)

VegasVic said:


> I'm from the area and am quite familiar with this story. Let's just say that the makers of this doc definitely had an agenda and didn't present both sides equally. Some of that is due to the defense side participating more in the making of this series. They have the motivation to do so, they are trying to get the guy out. They have nothing to lose. The other side really doesn't have a reason to participate since the guy is convicted and in jail. They have nothing to gain.


That's what I've saw and mentioned in many of the other threads. I would like to have heard and seen more from the other side on the filmmakers' mic and camera. Still a sad story either way.


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## VegasVic (Nov 22, 2002)

Definitely sad. Even though I knew the story I still found it interesting. It's not like the other side wasn't given an opportunity to be interviewed, they just chose not to so they went with who they had. Personally I think he's guilty but some people are born with 2 strikes against them.

One of the prosecutors was on local news this week saying that &#8220;I believe there to be 80% to 90% of the physical evidence, the forensic evidence, that ties Steven Avery to this murder never to have been presented in this documentary,&#8221;. Netflix claims he turned down their request to be interviewed so who knows.


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## teknikel (Jan 27, 2002)

Even with what they showed, I thought the jury would come back with a guilty verdict for the 1st count. 

Were you familiar with Avery's first conviction while it was happening? If so, did you have any thoughts on his guilt then?


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## JFriday (Mar 20, 2002)

teknikel said:


> Even with what they showed, I thought the jury would come back with a guilty verdict for the 1st count.
> 
> Were you familiar with Avery's first conviction while it was happening? If so, did you have any thoughts on his guilt then?


I thought the evidence looked pretty weak considering the vile of blood in evidence had been tampered with. 2 spots of blood randomly smeared in 2 different locations but it he was bleeding why wasn't there more?

Vegas Vic do you know any of the evidence that wasn't shown? I wasn't familiar with the case prior to this show.

It's kind of weird to convict one guy and in the closing arguments say he was solely responsible for the crime and then convict the nephew basically on his confession. That poor kid is in the dull spectrum of intelligence.


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## teknikel (Jan 27, 2002)

JFriday said:


> I thought the evidence looked pretty weak considering the vile of blood in evidence had been tampered with. 2 spots of blood randomly smeared in 2 different locations but it he was bleeding why wasn't there more?


I agree from what we saw but the prosecution had to put out more than what we saw. We didn't see two weeks of testimony.

IMO, the show was entertaining and leaned way toward my philosophy about the judicial system. But I believe it still was a little too one-sided.



JFriday said:


> It's kind of weird to convict one guy and in the closing arguments say he was solely responsible for the crime and then convict the nephew basically on his confession. That poor kid is in the dull spectrum of intelligence.


All This.


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## nataylor (Apr 26, 2000)

I'd love to see a project like this done where two sets of filmmakers examine the case from opposite viewpoints.


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## TampaThunder (Apr 8, 2003)

JFriday said:


> I thought the evidence looked pretty weak considering the vile of blood in evidence had been tampered with. 2 spots of blood randomly smeared in 2 different locations but it he was bleeding why wasn't there more?


This is one of the things that boggle my mind. Steven Avery's blood in the Rav 4 but not his fingerprints at all. How is that possible? If he was wearing gloves how would the blood from his finger get in the vehicle? Maybe he wiped everything down but just for kicks decided to leave the blood smears. 

As I said in another thread if there was definitive evidence proving his guilt I believe the filmmaker's would have shown it. If that evidence was presented I'd love to hear what it was.


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## teknikel (Jan 27, 2002)

TampaThunder said:


> I agree with the one-sidedness but feel that the holes in the prosecution's case, and there were a lot of them, stood up on their own and provided more than enough for reasonable doubt. For example, the many times prosecution witnesses made statements that were contradicted by their own testimony during depositions months earlier and in their own written statements and reports. Practically every single prosecution witness stepped down from the stand with a credibility issue hanging over their head.
> 
> Also, if there was any other evidence that favored the prosecution that was stronger than what they showed in the documentary I feel that they would've shown it or their credibility would be questioned. I'm sure there was a ton more circumstantial evidence that we didn't see but there wasn't a "smoking gun" that removed reasonable doubt.
> 
> ...





TampaThunder said:


> This is one of the things that boggle my mind. Steven Avery's blood in the Rav 4 but not his fingerprints at all. How is that possible? If he was wearing gloves how would the blood from his finger get in the vehicle? Maybe he wiped everything down but just for kicks decided to leave the blood smears.
> 
> As I said in another thread if there was definitive evidence proving his guilt I believe the filmmaker's would have shown it. If that evidence was presented I'd love to hear what it was.


I don't disagree with all that was presented in the film but I think possibly

1. The defense didn't do that good of a job connecting the dots for the jury

2. The jury was tainted by previous pre-trial publicity.

3. The jury was tainted during deliberations.

4. The judge was a part of the conspiracy as well.​
It would be interesting to know why this evidence hasn't swayed VegasVic. It may give a clue as to a juror mindset. The judge seemed to come to the same conclusion that Avery was this monster that we really didn't see. I never really saw anything inappropriate from the judge but his conclusions for sentencing were a little baffling. Was it personal for him, too?


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## VegasVic (Nov 22, 2002)

I don't recall enough about the murder trial to remember what was left out of the documentary. I think it's ironic that the DA they brought in for the case is complaining about how inaccurate the piece is but didn't want to participate when asked. He recently said:



> "Documentaries, of course, have both sides of the story being told," Kratz told Post-Crescent Media Monday. "And it's very clear that not only is nobody from the prosecution or law enforcement side interviewed as part of this, the editing is really dramatic and done to achieve only one conclusion that the viewer can come to and that is that Mr. Avery and Mr. Dassey are innocent and that they were perhaps set up by law enforcement or with the help of the prosecution or judges or whoever else was involved in this conspiracy. And of course, that's an unfortunate conclusion to present as fact. ... It certainly is not based on any of the evidence that was presented at trial and that the jury heard to have rendered their verdict."


Kratz himself is an interesting character, he got into all kinds of hot water in a sex scandal in 2010


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## teknikel (Jan 27, 2002)

VegasVic said:


> I think it's ironic that the DA they brought in for the case is complaining about how inaccurate the piece is but didn't want to participate when asked.
> 
> Kratz himself is an interesting character, he got into all kinds of hot water in a sex scandal in 2010


Do we know they were asked to participate? Did I miss this in the series? If so, yes, very disingenuous.

And, of course, he'll rail against them since not only did they make him look somewhat foolish during the trial and before, they also showed a bit about the sexting scandal.


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## VegasVic (Nov 22, 2002)

Kratz says he was never given the opportunity to participate, the documentary makers say he was so who knows



> "Anytime you edit 18 months worth of information and only include the statements or pieces that support your particular conclusion, that conclusion should be reached," Ken Kratz, former Calumet County district attorney said.
> 
> Kratz was the special prosecutor on Avery's murder case.
> 
> ...


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## smak (Feb 11, 2000)

I saw 11 episodes in the queue, and at the end of 10 it just ended with no resolution, and then I saw that "episode 11" was just a trailer.

Arrggh, I thought this was all going to be wrapped up.

But imo, this was an easy case for the jury to come back not guilty.

There is every reason to believe that the cops had the car 2 days before it was found in the salvage yard.

And not just reasonable doubt, but almost certitude.

And then it was never brought up again. 

This proves everything the defense was going for, so I'm guessing it just wasn't shown, but that was a major bombshell for me.

-smak-


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## MNoelH (Mar 17, 2005)

VegasVic said:


> I'm from the area and am quite familiar with this story. Let's just say that the makers of this doc definitely had an agenda and didn't present both sides equally. Some of that is due to the defense side participating more in the making of this series. They have the motivation to do so, they are trying to get the guy out. They have nothing to lose. The other side really doesn't have a reason to participate since the guy is convicted and in jail. They have nothing to gain.


I don't think they have anything to do with him now. He ran out of money. He had court appointeds helping with his appeals, and now he's run out of appeals and is trying to find a loophole that wIll reopen the case or offer new evidence to get a new trial. He's doing the latter by himself in the law library with his girlfriend's help with file/evidence storage.

The original guys appear to be done with it except for the meeting the producers requested to get everyone's thoughts on a final hail mary.


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## TAsunder (Aug 6, 2003)

I want to know more about Brendan's trial. It would seem that they could easily disprove 90% of what he confessed to - no blood traces anywhere in the house or garage that would be indicative of the horrible mess he claims to have participated in.

There is no way to view this thing positively. The most "acceptable" conclusion is that they were both guilty. Even in that scenario, there were several grossly immoral, probably unconstitutional things that occurred during this case. No one is being held accountable. And, worse still, it makes me assume that some of this stuff is common place and a regular occurrence during criminal investigations.


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## JFriday (Mar 20, 2002)

TAsunder said:


> I want to know more about Brendan's trial. It would seem that they could easily disprove 90% of what he confessed to - no blood traces anywhere in the house or garage that would be indicative of the horrible mess he claims to have participated in.
> 
> There is no way to view this thing positively. The most "acceptable" conclusion is that they were both guilty. Even in that scenario, there were several grossly immoral, probably unconstitutional things that occurred during this case. No one is being held accountable. And, worse still, it makes me assume that some of this stuff is common place and a regular occurrence during criminal investigations.


The prosecution explained that by saying they had 3 days to clean it up. Even though the trailer didn't appear to be spotless.


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## TAsunder (Aug 6, 2003)

JFriday said:


> The prosecution explained that by saying they had 3 days to clean it up. Even though the trailer didn't appear to be spotless.


That's pretty weak. He'd have to get a new mattress and linens and probably replace many other things. Plus there's the whole no blood in the crack of the garage aspect.


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## smak (Feb 11, 2000)

TAsunder said:


> I want to know more about Brendan's trial. It would seem that they could easily disprove 90% of what he confessed to - no blood traces anywhere in the house or garage that would be indicative of the horrible mess he claims to have participated in.
> 
> There is no way to view this thing positively. The most "acceptable" conclusion is that they were both guilty. Even in that scenario, there were several grossly immoral, probably unconstitutional things that occurred during this case. No one is being held accountable. And, worse still, it makes me assume that some of this stuff is common place and a regular occurrence during criminal investigations.


Brendan's lawyer actively conspired against him, and the Judge was "whatevs"

-smak-


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## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

I think the cases weren't nearly as one-sided as the documentary presented it. There was six weeks worth of evidence and testimony in Steven's case and we saw less than an hour of it. I get the sense that the producers chose to show the testimony that the defense was able to effectively rebut, but didn't show the stuff the defense had no answer for. 

For example, Teresa's camera and Palm Pilot were found in one of the burn barrels, and it was a significant fact at the trial, but that was never mentioned in the show. I'm willing to bet there are several other facts like that. 

With what we were shown, it seems there was reasonable doubt. But the jury saw six weeks worth of evidence and testimony, not a couple hours. 

However, I am surprised that Brendan's post-conviction motion was denied, as it seemed pretty cut and dried that his first attorney was more interested in helping the prosecution rather than helping his client.


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## NatasNJ (Jan 7, 2002)

DevdogAZ said:


> I think the cases weren't nearly as one-sided as the documentary presented it. There was six weeks worth of evidence and testimony in Steven's case and we saw less than an hour of it. I get the sense that the producers chose to show the testimony that the defense was able to effectively rebut, but didn't show the stuff the defense had no answer for.
> 
> For example, Teresa's camera and Palm Pilot were found in one of the burn barrels, and it was a significant fact at the trial, but that was never mentioned in the show. I'm willing to bet there are several other facts like that.
> 
> ...


The camera and Palm Pilot was mentioned in the Brendan's interview where his lawyer was not present. They showed a clip of them asking him if he put the camera and palm pilot into the burn barrel of if Steve placed them in there. Mentioned but not shown in the court.

Just listened to a True Murder podcast from last year that went over this case. Really focused on the Beach Attack/Rape case more so than this case. Made you amazed he ever went to prison for the alleged rape on the beach. Even more than the Documentary even went into.
Though the guest on the podcast made it seem like the new murder trial was a slam dunk and it was known he was guilty. (didn't hear last 15 minutes though)

I don't see how the camera & Palm Pilot matter. They found her car there. They found her remains there. What difference does the camera and palm pilot make? Same goes for key. All things EASILY placed on his property. After hearing more about how Steve was totally STEAMROLLED in the first rape trial I just don't see how you can't really question this case. Especially with the motive of the lawsuit which was also not detailed as much in the documentary as the podcast. How the murder charge alone saved the city millions.


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## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

NatasNJ said:


> I don't see how the camera & Palm Pilot matter. They found her car there. They found her remains there. What difference does the camera and palm pilot make? Same goes for key. All things EASILY placed on his property. After hearing more about how Steve was totally STEAMROLLED in the first rape trial I just don't see how you can't really question this case. Especially with the motive of the lawsuit which was also not detailed as much in the documentary as the podcast. How the murder charge alone saved the city millions.


I'm not saying the camera and Palm Pilot by themselves are significant. I'm simply pointing out that this is a big piece of physical evidence presented at the trial but which the show never mentioned (until the brief mention in Ep 10 during the Brendan interrogation). So how much other physical evidence was presented at the trial which the filmmakers chose not to show us?

In other words, did the filmmakers choose to only show us the evidence that could be spun in favor of not guilty, but intentionally fail to show us a mountain of other evidence that couldn't?


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## teknikel (Jan 27, 2002)

DevdogAZ said:


> In other words, did the filmmakers choose to only show us the evidence that could be spun in favor of not guilty, but intentionally fail to show us a mountain of other evidence that couldn't?


This is what I felt throughout the program. It didn't take away too much of the enjoyment of watching the series.

But thinking about it afterward causes some pause. I think we may start to hear more about this if debate about this show continues.


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## NatasNJ (Jan 7, 2002)

DevdogAZ said:


> I'm not saying the camera and Palm Pilot by themselves are significant. I'm simply pointing out that this is a big piece of physical evidence presented at the trial but which the show never mentioned (until the brief mention in Ep 10 during the Brendan interrogation). So how much other physical evidence was presented at the trial which the filmmakers chose not to show us?
> 
> In other words, did the filmmakers choose to only show us the evidence that could be spun in favor of not guilty, but intentionally fail to show us a mountain of other evidence that couldn't?


Nothing has come to light yet. I assume if there was anything else we would have or will hear about it.

Also the fact the juror started at 7 Not Guilty on the vote doesn't suggest there was a TON of other stuff that made this a slam dunk conviction.


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## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

So many questions that I would love answers to, but obviously that's not possible.

For example, if Steven did it, why would he just park the RAV-4 in the junkyard? With the plates still on it? Without making any attempt to strip it or alter its appearance? Especially when the car crusher was only about 100 yards away?

If Steven did it, where is the blood? Seems to me there is no way that the trailer or the garage could possibly be the location where she was killed, unless she was killed in a way that didn't result in much blood. But if that's the case, then the entirety of the prosecution's case is faulty.

But what about the bloody hair impression in the back of the RAV-4? If she was killed in such a way that there was blood, where did it happen? Why was she put in the back of the car? And why was there no other blood evidence found in the car if she really was bleeding in the back?

If it wasn't Steven, and if the cops really did plant a bunch of evidence at his property, where did they get the evidence? Did they kill her with the intention of framing Steven? Did they just happen to stumble on the real crime scene and decided to use it to take down Steven? 

And why would Lenk and Colburn care if the county was going to have to pay out on Steven's lawsuit? The way the documentary went after them, it was as if they were trying to avoid being found personally liable for Steven's improper incarceration, but I don't see how that's possible.

So. Many. Questions.


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## nataylor (Apr 26, 2000)

DevdogAZ said:


> For example, if Steven did it, why would he just park the RAV-4 in the junkyard? With the plates still on it? Without making any attempt to strip it or alter its appearance? Especially when the car crusher was only about 100 yards away?


I don't think it was mentioned in the show, but I read that the plates weren't on the vehicle. They were found inside another vehicle nearby.

Not that I think that makes a lot of difference.


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## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

nataylor said:


> I don't think it was mentioned in the show, but I read that the plates weren't on the vehicle. They were found inside another vehicle nearby.
> 
> Not that I think that makes a lot of difference.


Ah. All I knew is that they had the plates since the defense team used them when they were questioning Colburn about when he called in the plates two days before the car was "found."


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## NatasNJ (Jan 7, 2002)

DevdogAZ said:


> So many questions that I would love answers to, but obviously that's not possible.
> 
> For example, if Steven did it, why would he just park the RAV-4 in the junkyard? With the plates still on it? Without making any attempt to strip it or alter its appearance? Especially when the car crusher was only about 100 yards away?
> 
> ...


It sounds like the lawsuit Avery had against the City/County was HUGE and it was going to really HURT the town. Plus these are the same law enforcement that caused this in the first place by steamrolling him in the first rape case.

I have heard people suggest other possible murderers. Boyfriend, brother etc... If Avery didn't do it then the COPS had to be in on it. Only possible option to be able to place evidence on site. Especially blood in car. (Unless it was another Avery family member who did the murder.

I still can't get over the detail of COLBURN cop made a radio dispatch call in 2 days before Theresa was reported missing asking about a license # then stated the make/model of the car without being told it. Why would he be calling in dispatch checking that license #? The only reason I have been able to figure was that he was in front of or near the vehicle. Which means the cops were in possession of the car before it was found on Avery's property. Until that question is answered I just don't know.


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## gossamer88 (Jul 27, 2005)

I only got to ep 4 and was very troubled. That episode ended with Avery's blood vile being obviously tampered with.

I thought for sure that would get the case thrown out! I did some online searching and do not even feel like continuing at this point. Should I continue?


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## TampaThunder (Apr 8, 2003)

http://www.people.com/article/steven-avery-prosecutor-ken-kratz-says-netflix-series-forgot-key-evidence

Interesting read but doesn't change my belief that this case was chock full of reasonable doubt.


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## NatasNJ (Jan 7, 2002)

gossamer88 said:


> I only got to ep 4 and was very troubled. That episode ended with Avery's blood vile being obviously tampered with.
> 
> I thought for sure that would get the case thrown out! I did some online searching and do not even feel like continuing at this point. Should I continue?


If you are not enjoying it then NO. If you are enjoying it then YES.


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## QueenBee (Feb 26, 2002)

Just binge watched this whole series. Fascinating! After reading more online I kind of think Steven is guilty. But I can't believe Brendan didn't get a new trial. His lawyer was horrible. I remember wondering what they were thinking in the episodes where the lawyer's investigator questioned him.

Also, girlfriend? GIRLFRIEND???


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## nataylor (Apr 26, 2000)

FYI, the transcript from the Dassey trial can be found here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/6pjd6kpq5o5mx40/Dassey Trial Transcript.pdf?dl=0

I'm still looking for a transcript of Avery's trial. If anyone has a link to it, I'd love to read it.


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## sharkster (Jul 3, 2004)

There was just so much here that was wrong.

NatasNJ - a lot of your observations and questions were mine as well. Why was there no mention specifically, in Steven's trial, of the clear fact that the blood vial was tampered with? They had video of them pulling out the evidence file, seeing the box was re-taped, and then seeing the hole in the stopper of the vial. Maybe that's not enough to close a case, but it seems to me that it's enough to indicate that something uncouth DEFINITELY happened with evidence. There were not that many people who could access that evidence, either, so it's not like it could have been even a handful of people.

I also wondered about why Steven wouldn't just have crushed the car. There was a lot of stuff around the placement of that car there that didn't add up, especially when that one guy had called in the plate before she was reported missing.

As for the Avery, et al, family - clearly that gene pool is in dire need of chlorine and I just don't think that one guy, or two guys, with an IQ of 70 could have done this crime the way it appears it was done.

Since it was established that this was a bloody death, there is no way this guy could have efficiently cleaned up all that blood. While we're on blood again, there should have been a more objective test done than the one that was done that said that it didn't come from that vial (Steven's blood that is).

You could write volumes about all the facts and pseudo-facts in these two cases - much of which just doesn't add up.

I had to laugh when it turned out that that disgusting, smarmy DA guy was a lech, going after women. I think that he thought he could keep his job until more women stepped forward. I could just tell, during the trials, that he was not how he represented himself.


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## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

sharkster said:


> There was just so much here that was wrong.
> 
> NatasNJ - a lot of your observations and questions were mine as well. Why was there no mention specifically, in Steven's trial, of the clear fact that the blood vial was tampered with? They had video of them pulling out the evidence file, seeing the box was re-taped, and then seeing the hole in the stopper of the vial. Maybe that's not enough to close a case, but it seems to me that it's enough to indicate that something uncouth DEFINITELY happened with evidence. There were not that many people who could access that evidence, either, so it's not like it could have been even a handful of people.


Not only was that mentioned in Steven's trial, but the jury was shown the video of the evidence box being opened and the discovery of the hole in the lid, just like what we saw.


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## cmgal (Oct 2, 2003)

sharkster said:


> There was just so much here that was wrong.
> 
> NatasNJ - a lot of your observations and questions were mine as well. Why was there no mention specifically, in Steven's trial, of the clear fact that the blood vial was tampered with? They had video of them pulling out the evidence file, seeing the box was re-taped, and then seeing the hole in the stopper of the vial. Maybe that's not enough to close a case, but it seems to me that it's enough to indicate that something uncouth DEFINITELY happened with evidence. There were not that many people who could access that evidence, either, so it's not like it could have been even a handful of people.
> 
> ...


If I remember correctly, he was told that the plate was connected to a missing person case and there was some discussion as to how he was reading the number. The cop was stumbling trying to answer.


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## VegasVic (Nov 22, 2002)

Here is the series of articles that appeared in the Milwaukee paper during all this

http://www.jsonline.com/news/crime/...rer-netflix-series-b99643080z1-363828481.html


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## smak (Feb 11, 2000)

NatasNJ said:


> I still can't get over the detail of COLBURN cop made a radio dispatch call in 2 days before Theresa was reported missing asking about a license # then stated the make/model of the car without being told it. Why would he be calling in dispatch checking that license #? The only reason I have been able to figure was that he was in front of or near the vehicle. Which means the cops were in possession of the car before it was found on Avery's property. Until that question is answered I just don't know.


I don't know what they do to juries, if they're just so blinded by the cops and prosecution, that they would never believe they lie, or do anything wrong, but how could the above not be reasonable doubt.

It's well beyond reasonable doubt

Especially after Colburn lies on the stand and says that the dispatcher was the one who brought up the make of the car when he did.

Did the government ever try to give an explanation for this. What could the possible explanation be?

This is even way bigger than the vial, because for the vial to be a major thing, you'd have to prove that the blood found had the compound from the vial.

-smak-


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## smak (Feb 11, 2000)

NatasNJ said:


> It sounds like the lawsuit Avery had against the City/County was HUGE and it was going to really HURT the town. Plus these are the same law enforcement that caused this in the first place by steamrolling him in the first rape case.


It's not just the money, it's the cops lives and reputations.

Nobody there is going to care that they put an innocent man in jail by all those shenanigans if he's a murderer.

After this, they probably are thanking them for keeping him in jail for all those years.

-smak-


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## teknikel (Jan 27, 2002)

Does this change or confirm your thinking at all?

http://www.maxim.com/entertainment/making-a-murderer-prosecutor-ken-kratz-2015-12

I read that the producers asked him to be on camera back in '05 more than once and they said Kratz ignored the requests. So, his remarks seem disingenuous.

I still don't see how Teresa's phone, camera and purse items make it any more likely that he did it than any of the other evidence. And wasn't it only Brendan that claimed to see him put it in the burn barrel?

His reasoning for not doing the interview in 2013 doesn't sound right. Also, how can you be ambushed if you have the truth on your side? What is so hard about putting the real story out there?


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## bsnelson (Oct 30, 1999)

I'm surprised more of you aren't mentioning the judges, particularly in Avery's case. I know the filmmakers slanted it, but still, the judge seemed to favor the prosecution rather strongly the whole way. 

And am I the only one that thinks that, if you're having a post-trial procedural thing like they had (essentially, the "did the court screw up" hearing), that a different judge should preside in all cases? Shouldn't there be some oversight from someone else? 

Neither Avery nor Brendan, and certainly not together, had the wherewithal to pull this off the way the prosecution said, mentally or physically. 

But, at the end of the day, the jury made the decision, and frankly, it just seems like they got it wrong in both cases. It's almost like they used civil trial standards ("preponderance of the evidence" - it's "more likely than not" that they did it) rather than "reasonable doubt". It seems that there was plenty of reasonable doubt in Avery's case, and there was a metric sh*t-ton in Brendan's case. 

The "preponderance of the evidence" benchmark would fit well with the other elephant in the room: "If Avery and/or Brendan didn't do it, how DID it happen?" Even I don't believe that the police killed her, so how did she get dead? I *do* believe that SOMEONE planted the physical evidence, and maybe it wasn't the cops that did the vehicle and cremains. The real murderer could have known that Avery was an easy mark and started the framing, and of course, the Manitowoc County boys were only too eager to finish it. 

I haven't seen/read anything outside the series, but I think two innocent men are in prison. 

Brad


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## VegasVic (Nov 22, 2002)

bsnelson said:


> I haven't seen/read anything outside the series, but I think two innocent men are in prison.
> 
> Brad


You should. Maybe you'll come to the same conclusion but if you base it only on this series you're only getting one side for the most part.


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## QueenBee (Feb 26, 2002)

From what I've read online it seems that Avery did have some type of history with Teresa Halbach. Articles say that he would specifically ask for her when the company sent somebody to take photos and that she felt uncomfortable about it in the past. That kind of sets off warning bells for me. I think maybe he did rape and kill her, but I also think the police planted evidence and set him up.

As for Brendan, I don't know if he was at all involved, but he definitely did not get a fair trial. It looks as if his own attorney was actually trying to get him convicted. That guy was SUCH a sleezebag. Even when he was later caught lying on the stand he just kept smirking. Ugh.


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## Shanezam203 (Jul 28, 2007)

TampaThunder said:


> As I said in another thread if there was definitive evidence proving his guilt I believe the filmmaker's would have shown it. If that evidence was presented I'd love to hear what it was.


I watched all 10 episodes and enjoyed the documentary a lot but I disagree with your statement that the filmmaker's would have included evidence proving his guilt. I think the 10 shows were one sided and now that more and more is coming out showing his history the viewership of the series may slow down. The documentary painted him to be "Wrongfully Accused" twice and watching it I started to believe parts of him being set up and framed but the more and more I think about it, I think the justice system got it right this time. It's just my opinion but I do not think someone else committed the crime, got away with Murder and they set Avery up for something he did not do.

*Evidence 'Making a Murderer' Didn't Present in Steven Avery's Murder Case (Updated)*

"Heres where I want to talk about whats not in the documentary series, because like many of you, I finished the series furious because I was convinced that Steven Avery (and to an even larger extent, Brendan Dassey) had been unfairly framed for the murder by the police and were serving life sentences for crimes they didnt commit.
To a certain extent, whether Avery and Dassey were guilty or not, like in the Adnan Syed case, it doesnt matter. The series revealed massive flaws in our legal system. There was unquestionably reasonable doubt in Averys case, in spite of the fact that his blood was found in Halbachs car, the burned body was found on his property, and a bullet with Halbachs DNA was found in his garage, because there was evidence supporting the fact that the police could have planted that evidence. In fact, I remain convinced  like Averys lawyers  that whether Avery committed the murder or not, the police planted evidence to ensure his conviction.
There are, however, a few things that were not presented in the series that convince me that Avery  and maybe even Dassey  were guilty of the murders, which makes the failure of the legal system a slightly less bitter pill to swallow. The process was wrong, but the result  I think  was right. But again, whether he was guilty or not, he never shouldve been convicted based upon the circumstantial evidence, and what Dasseys lawyer and investigator did to Brendan should not only warrant a new trial, it should result in the permanent disbarment of Dasseys attorney.
There was clearly some shady **** here, but I snooped around in various Reddit threads and through some local news reports and found a few pieces of evidence not presented in the docuseries that persuade me that Avery was probably guilty. Some of this was presented at trial, while some of it was excluded in pre-trial motions."

*Heres what I found.*
 The documentary said that part of Averys criminal past included animal cruelty. To my recollection, it didnt specify exactly what that animal cruelty was. I know that for some of our readers, knowing is enough to want to see Avery get the death sentence regardless of whether he murdered Halbach: He doused a cat in oil and threw it on a bonfire (this is not relevant to the murder trial, but it certainly diminishes the sympathy some of us felt for him).
 Past criminal activity also included threatening a female relative at gunpoint.
 In the months leading up to Halbachs disappearance, Avery had called Auto Trader several times and always specifically requested Halbach to come out and take the photos.
 Halbach had complained to her boss that she didnt want to go out to Averys trailer anymore, because once when she came out, Avery was waiting for her wearing only a towel (this was excluded for being too inflammatory). Avery clearly had an obsession with Halbach.
 On the day that Halbach went missing, Avery had called her three times, twice from a *67 number to hide his identity.
 The bullet with Halbachs DNA on it came from Averys gun, which always hung above his bed.
 Avery had purchased handcuffs and leg irons like the ones Dassey described holding Halbach only three weeks before (Avery said hes purchased them for use with his girlfriend, Jodi, with whom hed had a tumultuous relationship  at one point, he was ordered by police to stay away from her for three days).
 Heres the piece of evidence that was presented at trial but not in the series that I find most convincing: In Dasseys illegally obtained statement, Dassey stated that he helped Avery moved the RAV4 into the junkyard and that Avery had lifted the hood and removed the battery cable. Even if you believe that the blood in Halbachs car was planted by the cops (as I do), there was also non-blood DNA evidence on the hood latch. I dont believe the police would plant  or know to plant  that evidence.
I certainly believe that there was a tremendous amount of police misconduct in this case. I believe the police helped the case against Avery along by planting evidence (and theres no doubt in my mind that they planted the RAV4 key in Averys trailer). I also dont believe the prosecutions theory of events: Theres no way Halbach was raped and had her throat slashed in the trailer without a speck of DNA evidence, and theres no way she was shot in the garage without any blood splatter evidence. After all, if Avery had somehow used bleach to erase all trace of Halbachs DNA, he wouldve also cleaned the garage of his own DNA (and the garage still contained lots of Averys DNA).
I dont know how Avery murdered Halbach. I also dont believe anything that Dassey said in his coerced confession, but I also wont rule out Dasseys involvement because he wouldve done anything anyone asked of him. Still, the idea that the police killed Halbach is impossible to believe, not because they werent capable of it, but because of the planning and foresight it wouldve required.
I also believe that Adnan Syed is guilty, but in both cases, I dont believe the jury shouldve convicted because there simply wasnt enough unimpeachable evidence to support a guilty verdict. I am even more convinced than after Serial that the jury system is ****ed, but ironically, in both cases, I also think the jury arrived at the correct conclusion.


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## nataylor (Apr 26, 2000)

The problem I have with the DNA on the hood is that it was aquired after investigators took Dassey's statement.


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## nataylor (Apr 26, 2000)

Also, it was agent Fassbender who first brought up the hood. From Dassey's interview with him:



> F: OK, what else did he do, he did somethin' else, you need to tell us what he did, after that car is parked there. It's extremely important. (pause) Before you guys leave that car.
> B: The he left the gun in the car.
> F: That's not what I'm thinkin' about. He did something to that car. He took the plates and he, I believe he did something else in that car. (pause).
> B: I don't know.
> ...


Also, police had collected sweat samples from Avery a few months prior to this interview and subsequent collection of DNA from the RAV4's hood latch.


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## TampaThunder (Apr 8, 2003)

Shanezam203 said:


> It's just my opinion but I do not think someone else committed the crime, got away with Murder and they set Avery up for something he did not do.


I somewhat agree with you here. When all is said and done I think he probably did it. But if I was on the jury there is no way I would've agreed with a guilty verdict. Probably doesn't cut it. Had the Manitowoc Sheriff's Dept. stayed totally hands off when it came to the searches a guilty verdict would've been much more likely but they tainted everything. Due process was just an afterthought for the prosecution in both trials and certainly wasn't in practice.


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## smak (Feb 11, 2000)

teknikel said:


> Does this change or confirm your thinking at all?
> 
> http://www.maxim.com/entertainment/making-a-murderer-prosecutor-ken-kratz-2015-12
> 
> ...


The phone camera and purse mean absolutely nothing.

-smak-


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## smak (Feb 11, 2000)

nataylor said:


> Also, it was agent Fassbender who first brought up the hood. From Dassey's interview with him:
> 
> Also, police had collected sweat samples from Avery a few months prior to this interview and subsequent collection of DNA from the RAV4's hood latch.


Did Brendan ever come up with anything that happened that wasn't fed to him by the cops first?

-smak-


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## Odds Bodkins (Jun 7, 2006)

Barely a footnote in the series but my internet research leads me to believe Scott Tadych and Bobby Massey are the killers.


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## getreal (Sep 29, 2003)

TampaThunder said:


> This is one of the things that boggle my mind. Steven Avery's blood in the Rav 4 but not his fingerprints at all. How is that possible? If he was wearing gloves how would the blood from his finger get in the vehicle? Maybe he wiped everything down but just for kicks decided to leave the blood smears.


Just did a marathon viewing of this depressing documentary series over the last couple of days. I do not look forward to a sequel. I believe both guys were born losers and the system actively worked against them.

Every time they showed that blood smear by the ignition on the RAV4 it just seemed so obvious to me that it was put there with the tip of a Q-Tip, but it was never mentioned. There was a little smear that led down to the point that was pressed, and then the smear to the right looked like the person who planted that was pulling back on the Q-Tip and it sprang to the right on the release of the stroke. As a professional artist I know what sort of marks are made with different tools, and a Q-Tip is a handy smudging tool for a variety of applications. I've used it in body painting, pastels, airbrush, watercolor, etc.

Maybe poor Brendan will attract a female fan on the outside like his Uncle Stevie seemed to have no trouble accomplishing. The term for those sorts of people who seek out relationships with convicted inmates is "Hybristophiliacs".


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## getreal (Sep 29, 2003)

Odds Bodkins said:


> Barely a footnote in the series but my internet research leads me to believe Scott Tadych and Bobby Massey are the killers.


And was their motive their mutual hate for Steven? Why victimize the young lady and her family and their own family? Maybe Brendan's older brother who was leaving to go hunting was the culprit and they burned the body in the quarry to dispose of the evidence and then moved most of the cremains to Steve's fire-pit because they hated Steven? How did the friend of Teresa know where to find the vehicle on that 40-acre property within 20 minutes?

I should go back to read this entire thread ... I may have already unwittingly smeeked once or twice in this post.


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## peitsche (Nov 13, 2002)

Odds Bodkins said:


> Barely a footnote in the series but my internet research leads me to believe Scott Tadych and Bobby Massey are the killers.


You have my attention. Please present your evidence.


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## ACoolDude (Dec 11, 2001)

2 petitions have taken off

Whitehouse has over 25K signatures

and

change.org has over 214K signatures and climbing rapidly (ETA: ~235K at 12am ET - 4K+/hr)


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## getreal (Sep 29, 2003)

Odds Bodkins said:


> Barely a footnote in the series but my internet research leads me to believe Scott Tadych and Bobby Massey are the killers.





peitsche said:


> You have my attention. Please present your evidence.


I decided to check out an alternate theory on reddit, and this one seems to be plausible.


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## TAsunder (Aug 6, 2003)

I would say a petition to have the president issue a pardon is pointless because he has no power to do so, but then I realized that it would be a perfect ending to this story since it would be another gross violation of the justice system if somehow he did issue one and anyone actually did anything to enact it.

On the other hand, the chances of Scott Walker ever issuing a pardon are very slim. He has openly stated on more than one occasion that he doesn't believe in them. It's one of the few areas where I kind of respect his opinion.


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## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

Shanezam203 said:


> I watched all 10 episodes and enjoyed the documentary a lot but I disagree with your statement that the filmmaker's would have included evidence proving his guilt. I think the 10 shows were one sided and now that more and more is coming out showing his history the viewership of the series may slow down. The documentary painted him to be "Wrongfully Accused" twice and watching it I started to believe parts of him being set up and framed but the more and more I think about it, I think the justice system got it right this time. It's just my opinion but I do not think someone else committed the crime, got away with Murder and they set Avery up for something he did not do.
> 
> *Evidence 'Making a Murderer' Didn't Present in Steven Avery's Murder Case (Updated)*
> 
> ...


There's some new information in that article that hasn't been mentioned:

-Brendan told his mom during a taped phone conversation that Steven had previously "touched" him and others.

-The full transcript of Brendan's confession paints a very different picture than the bits and pieces they showed in the documentary. He provides full details of everything that happened that day and it isn't pulled out of him with leading questions.

After watching, I felt like I had been manipulated and knew there must be more to the story than what had been shown. Now I'm fairly certain that Steven and Brendan did kill her. It certainly appears that some evidence was planted, but definitely not all of it.


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## ACoolDude (Dec 11, 2001)

Juror in Steven Avery's Murder Trial Says "Verdicts Were a Compromise"



> "They [Jurors] told us really that they were afraid if they held out for a mistrial, it would be easy to identify which juror had done that and they were fearful for their own safety," Demos said. "And what they explained to us was they believed if there was a split verdict like this that that would send a message to the appellate courts. They thought that Steven would get a new trial that was their plan but it didn't work out that way."


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## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

So the jurors traded votes among themselves and that's how he ended up convicted on the murder count but not guilty on one of the other counts. For some reason, the jurors thought this inconsistency would be treated by the appellate courts as reason for a new trial. I have no idea where they came up with that info, but they were grossly misinformed.


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## nataylor (Apr 26, 2000)

DevdogAZ said:


> -The full transcript of Brendan's confession paints a very different picture than the bits and pieces they showed in the documentary. He provides full details of everything that happened that day and it isn't pulled out of him with leading questions.


I read all the transcripts of Brendan's interviews, and I didn't come away with that impression. It seemed to me that he volunteered almost no information that wasn't either prompted by the interviewers or had clearly been discussed with them beforehand.


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## Cainebj (Nov 11, 2006)

Having just finished the series - reading the evidence that was left out here in this thread does leave me scratching my head. Even the prosecutor is not coming across as evil as he did in the series, I found his comment that he declined to participate because he thought he was going to be ambushed very interesting.



Odds Bodkins said:


> my internet research leads me to believe Scott Tadych and Bobby Massey are the killers.


I thought that too - not even from internet research - just because of their testimony.



Shanezam203 said:


> He doused a cat in oil and threw it on a bonfire


That is mentioned in the series early on.


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## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

nataylor said:


> I read all the transcripts of Brendan's interviews, and I didn't come away with that impression. It seemed to me that he volunteered almost no information that wasn't either prompted by the interviewers or had clearly been discussed with them beforehand.


I clicked on the link within that article to access a copy of the confession transcript but it took me to a Dropbox page that said it had been disabled due to high traffic or something like that. So I haven't actually read the confession and will defer to you if you have. However, here's what that page says about it:



pajiba.com said:


> - There's no denying that it was unethical as hell for the investigator of Dassey's own attorney to elicit a confession out of Brendan, but the documentary suggests that the investigator peppered Brendan with leading questions and basically fed him the answers. From the full transcript, that is not the case at all. Brendan not only confessed, he gave a very detailed account of what happened. They had sex with Teresa on the bed, then they carried her out to the garage, where they cut her throat, and that's where Steven shot her five times with the .22 Brendan said he pulled from above his bed. Then they threw her in the fire. She begged for her life through the entire ordeal. Brendan even cut off some of her hair. Then they cleaned up with bleach and burned all the clothes in the bonfire.
> 
> The bits and pieces from the interview provided in the series make it seem like Brendan is kind of making it up as he goes along or is being fed answers. The 21-page transcript leaves very little doubt of Brendan's role. But again, Brendan's IQ is 70. He'd been molested by Steven in prior occasions. Basically, Steven forced him to do this, and Brendan wasn't bright enough to say no. He's also not bright enough to make up a story that matches much of the evidence, without being fed the answers.


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## nataylor (Apr 26, 2000)

Here are the transcripts, from my Dropbox account:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/due5yiiyf...y 27, 2006 (at Mishicot High School).pdf?dl=1

https://www.dropbox.com/s/mzq4qlks0...uary 27, 2006 (at Police Department).pdf?dl=1

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ss4oiyl9fn2mwkj/Transcript - March 1, 2006.pdf?dl=1

https://www.dropbox.com/s/rfil7igzzjb75j4/Transcript - May 13, 2006.pdf?dl=1

I'd read them in that order (they're listed chronologically, oldest first), so you can get an idea of how the story develops and changes over time. If the article was based on reading only the final interview, I can see how it might seem that Brendan was volunteering details.

Edit: Here's the interview with Michael O'Kelly, the defense investigator. It takes place the day before the final interview listed above: https://www.dropbox.com/s/6rshsqdxlfuedyz/Transcript - 05-12-2006 - Dassey and O'Kelly.pdf?dl=1


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## TAsunder (Aug 6, 2003)

Cainebj said:


> That is mentioned in the series early on.


The cat thing is way underplayed in the show. They made it sound like he grabbed a cat and tossed it over a fire, not into it. And didn't mention dousing it in oil. And he made it sound like it was just a goofy prank. Umm, no.


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## BrettStah (Nov 12, 2000)

I remember hearing that he set a cat on fire, and so does my wife. We were both disturbed by that news, so it stuck with us.


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## TeddS (Sep 21, 2000)

From things I've read before, cat (and other animal) torture and burning has been a fairly common thing among people looking for entertainment for a long time. A one-time occurrence, while disturbing, doesn't make me think that proves he's anything other than a very dumb, bored, uneducated, insensitive person.

People who torture lots of animals, over time and with increasing severity are the ones you need to look out for.

Very disturbing documentary overall. I'm pretty sure both guys were innocent and set up. They were exceptionally unintelligent, next were the jurors, with the police slightly more intelligent, the prosecutors slightly more intelligent and the judges a smidge more intelligent. Lots of dumb people behaving very badly at all levels. If it were a fictional movie it would have been hard to believe that so many characters are so dumb.

Moral of the story - never, ever, *ever *speak with police without a lawyer present.


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## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

TeddS said:


> Moral of the story - never, ever, *ever *speak with police without a lawyer present.


And even then, if your lawyer is court appointed, s/he might not be acting in your best interest.


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## TeddS (Sep 21, 2000)

DevdogAZ said:


> And even then, if your lawyer is court appointed, s/he might not be acting in your best interest.


Absolutely. Very scary stuff.


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## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

markb said:


> Here's a great annotated map of the salvage yard:
> 
> 
> __
> ...


Quoting this post from the episode 5 thread so we can further discuss the linked map without having to remember which pieces of evidence were presented in which episodes.

Looking at the map and looking at the same area in Google Earth, I see that the school bus dropoff point is approximately 330 yards from where the for-sale minivan was parked. So I'm curious how/why the school bus driver and any kids on the bus would have noticed someone 300+ yards down the road taking pictures of the minivan.


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## TeddS (Sep 21, 2000)

DevdogAZ said:


> Quoting this post from the episode 5 thread so we can further discuss the linked map without having to remember which pieces of evidence were presented in which episodes.
> 
> Looking at the map and looking at the same area in Google Earth, I see that the school bus dropoff point is approximately 330 yards from where the for-sale minivan was parked. *So I'm curious how/why the school bus driver and any kids on the bus would have noticed someone 300+ yards down the road taking pictures of the minivan.*


I assumed that was a lie told by the investigators to Brendan in order to get him to repeat back to them what they wanted to hear.


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## nataylor (Apr 26, 2000)

DevdogAZ said:


> Quoting this post from the episode 5 thread so we can further discuss the linked map without having to remember which pieces of evidence were presented in which episodes.
> 
> Looking at the map and looking at the same area in Google Earth, I see that the school bus dropoff point is approximately 330 yards from where the for-sale minivan was parked. So I'm curious how/why the school bus driver and any kids on the bus would have noticed someone 300+ yards down the road taking pictures of the minivan.


I'm assuming the bus has to turn around. Maybe it drives down to the circular area in front of the Dassey house to do so.


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## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

TeddS said:


> I assumed that was a lie told by the investigators to Brendan in order to get him to repeat back to them what they wanted to hear.


Except that didn't they reference during the trial that the bus driver and kids on the bus testified that they saw her out there taking pictures and that this was at around 3:30-3:40 on that day? I thought this was used to refute the timeline of Brendan's brother who claimed to see Teresa walking toward Steven's trailer before 3 pm.



nataylor said:


> I'm assuming the bus has to turn around. Maybe it drives down to the circular area in front of the Dassey house to do so.


I thought that as well, but if that's the case, why would the bus drop Brendan off 330 yards down the road rather than in front of his house?


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## nataylor (Apr 26, 2000)

DevdogAZ said:


> I thought that as well, but if that's the case, why would the bus drop Brendan off 330 yards down the road rather than in front of his house?


I don't know. Avery Road looks relatively narrow, and turning around a bus there looks like it would be a pain.


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## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

nataylor said:


> I don't know. Avery Road looks relatively narrow, and turning around a bus there looks like it would be a pain.


I agree that seems reasonable, but there must be some reason why the map maker decided to indicate the approximate bus drop off point as being near the entrance to the salvage yard. According to that link, the map went through several iterations, so I'm guessing if there's reason to believe the bus got closer than that point, it would be corrected on the map.

Edit: In fact, the school bus stop info was added in v1.4 of the map based on information provided in a Reddit thread.


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## nataylor (Apr 26, 2000)

DevdogAZ said:


> I agree that seems reasonable, but there must be some reason why the map maker decided to indicate the approximate bus drop off point as being near the entrance to the salvage yard. According to that link, the map went through several iterations, so I'm guessing if there's reason to believe the bus got closer than that point, it would be corrected on the map.
> 
> Edit: In fact, the school bus stop info was added in v1.4 of the map based on information provided in a Reddit thread.


I think it's based on Brendan's brother's testimony. He says the bus drops them off about half a mile away, and it takes 3-4 minutes to walk to the house. His distance estimate is probably off.


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## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

nataylor said:


> I think it's based on Brendan's brother's testimony. He says the bus drops them off about half a mile away, and it takes 3-4 minutes to walk to the house. His distance estimate is probably off.


There are three logical drop off points:

1. Out on the highway where Avery Road intersects it.
2. In front of the entrance to the salvage yard as indicated on the map.
3. In front of Brendan's house, if the bus drove down that way to turn around.

Brendan's brother testifies that they don't get dropped off in front of the house, and nobody disputes that, so #3 is out. #1 is over 600 yards away from where the minivan was parked across a field, so that seems a little too far for anyone to be able to testify to what they saw. So #2 is the most logical place.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

I'm not so sure they're innocent, but the account told by the DA to the media was obviously false. The fact that they were unable to find a single bit of her DNA in the house or the garage, except for on a single bullet found under strange circumstances, but did find her blood/hair in the back of the SUV pretty much proves to me that it didn't go down the way they said it did. The tampered with blood vial was also a huge red flag. 

However I'm not quite sure how deep the conspiracy went. Did the police come across the crime scene in a completely different location and move the SUV and the bones onto the Avery property in a complete effort to frame an innocent man? Or did they find the car, on the property, perhaps during an illegal search, and then decided to help the case along by planting the blood, key and bullet? In either case some seriously shady sh*t was going on there and it's pretty clear that the way the prosecution said it occurred is not really possible.


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## KRS (Jan 30, 2002)

Some of the lines the police used to explain why they didn't do something were pretty suspect themselves.

Paraphrasing: 

"We couldn't have used Steven's gun to fire a bullet because it was in the evidence room." - this proved nothing in my mind

"What, are the police carrying around vials of sweat to plant?" - perhaps, and it almost gave more credibility of the police using vials of blood for that same purpose

"It would have been easier to kill Steven" - the cop who said this really didn't think it through before speaking!


Personally, I think Steven was framed. Not just by the cops, but also by the actual murderer. 
Yes, his actions showed a fixation on the photographer, but not that he killed her. His other actions on that day (normal phone calls with his girlfriend, inviting Brendan and others to the fire pit, his demeanor during interviews shortly after the investigation began) lead me to think he did not do it. While he has done some bad things in the past, it seemed like he readily confessed and took the punishment. Perhaps others on the compound knew of his interest in her and used it against him. Maybe they killed her and clumsily tried to pin it on Steven. Then the cops got involved and tried to make the "evidence" look more convincing with their tweaks. This idea would also explain Brendan's odd responses about the events of that day. I think he heard some details after the fact or possibly saw _something_. This likely confused him or perhaps he was coached by someone to say certain things. During the interrogations, he knows he needs to tell that story, but can't keep the details straight.

Regardless of all the speculation about what actually happened, the bottom line is that there is clearly reasonable doubt all over the case.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

Exactly. No matter if he did it or not I don't think the Jury should have convicted. There was just way too much reasonable doubt.

And the kid... I'm not sure he should have even been considered competent to stand trial. He seemed to be severely mentally handicapped and they had video proof that the police used that to manipulate him into saying things that were completely untrue. (most of the story he told could be disproved by the physical evidence)


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## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

According to this short blub from The Daily Beast, Steven Avery's defense team filed another appeal on Monday.



> Steven Avery has filed to have his murder conviction appealed by the Wisconsin Court of Appeals in a motion made public Tuesday. Avery says the search warrant that collected evidence of Teresa Halbach's murder was not valid because it only covered a single property, but multiple properties were searched by law enforcement. He does not clarify the properties to which he's referring. What's more, Avery claims "Juror C.W." told the jury room that he was "****ing guilty," and that act "deprived Avery of an impartial Jury trial." Finally, Avery said the murder conviction cannot stand because an alternate juror was improperly seated after deliberations began following closing arguments-but Avery's defense counsel consented to that alternate juror being seated.


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## gossamer88 (Jul 27, 2005)

Dan203 said:


> Exactly. No matter if he did it or not I don't think the Jury should have convicted. There was just way too much reasonable doubt.
> 
> And the kid... I'm not sure he should have even been considered competent to stand trial. He seemed to be *severely mentally handicapped* and they had video proof that the police used that to manipulate him into saying things that were completely untrue. (most of the story he told could be disproved by the physical evidence)


Geez...I wouldn't go that far! He was 16. Dealing with experienced cops who were very intimidating. Any 16 year old would probably be swayed the way he was.


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## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

gossamer88 said:


> Geez...I wouldn't go that far! He was 16. Dealing with experienced cops who were very intimidating. Any 16 year old would probably be swayed the way he was.


I don't know. Supposedly his IQ is 73. If I remember the beginning of Forrest Gump correctly, I think the teacher told his mom that he had an IQ of 75. So that's basically the cognitive level we're dealing with.










Depending on which classification you use, he's either on the low end of "Dullness" or on the low end of "Borderline Intelligence."


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## cheesesteak (Jul 24, 2003)

I don't know if Steven committed the murderer or not. There's certainly doubt but that was the whole purpose of the documentary. One thing I noticed is that I grew to like Steven more and more as the series progressed. He just didn't _seem_ like a murderer.

I'm astonished that Brendan couldn't get a post-conviction appeal based on his dim wittedness. I felt so bad for his mother.

I think Steven's current gf is nuts. I'll never understand women who become obsessed with prison inmates.

I know this is unkind but Steven's parents reminded me of dwarves from the Lord Of The Rings movies.


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## cheesesteak (Jul 24, 2003)

WTH?

'Making a Murderer': Ex-fiancee says he's guilty



> Stachowski, who appeared in the Netflix documentary, also calls Avery a "monster," and says he "beat her all the time."
> 
> "He told me once, all *****es owe him, because the one that sent him to prison the first time," she says, referring to Avery's wrongful conviction for sexual assault in 1985, for which he was in prison for 18 years. "We all owed him. And he could do whatever he wanted"
> 
> "Steven's the one person I can't trust," she went on. "He's a monster."


Now that's an about face.


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## QueenBee (Feb 26, 2002)

She "ate two boxes of rat poison"?


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## markb (Jul 24, 2002)

cheesesteak said:


> WTH?
> 
> 'Making a Murderer': Ex-fiancee says he's guilty
> 
> Now that's an about face.





> Stachowski also said she originally didn't want to be on "Making a Murderer," apparently telling director and writers Laura Ricciardi and Moira Demos that she wanted no part in it. "Steven called me and told me that if I didn't say anything good and nice about him, I'd pay," she says. "He'd beat me."


This was while he was in jail, awaiting trial for murder? There should be a recording of that phone call.

From what I've heard, the filmmakers only got the idea start filming after Avery was arrested for murder.


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## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

markb said:


> This was while he was in jail, awaiting trial for murder? There should be a recording of that phone call.
> 
> From what I've heard, the filmmakers only got the idea start filming after Avery was arrested for murder.


The filmmakers were in film school and first heard about this case when it appeared on the front page of the NYT in November 2005 with a story about how Steven Avery had been imprisoned for 18 years and then exonerated based on DNA evidence, and then was now being charged with a new crime. They immediately decided this sounded like the documentary project they had been looking for and went to Wisconsin and started filming. So it's correct that they didn't know about the case or start filming anything until after Steven's arrest. Obviously they were able to get some video footage from other sources, such as the home movies of Steven arriving home from prison in 2003.


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## markb (Jul 24, 2002)

DevdogAZ said:


> The filmmakers were in film school and first heard about this case when it appeared on the front page of the NYT in November 2005 with a story about how Steven Avery had been imprisoned for 18 years and then exonerated based on DNA evidence, and then was now being charged with a new crime. They immediately decided this sounded like the documentary project they had been looking for and went to Wisconsin and started filming. So it's correct that they didn't know about the case or start filming anything until after Steven's arrest. Obviously they were able to get some video footage from other sources, such as the home movies of Steven arriving home from prison in 2003.


Right, so if we was making threats from jail, over the phone, we know there should be a record of that.

I'm not saying the phone call didn't happen. But if it did happen like that, it should come to light.


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## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

markb said:


> Right, so if we was making threats from jail, over the phone, we know there should be a record of that.
> 
> I'm not saying the phone call didn't happen. But if it did happen like that, it should come to light.


Correct. If such a threat was made over the phone, I'm sure the filmmakers got a copy of it. Whether they got it and then chose not to use it in the documentary because it didn't fit with their narrative of painting Steven as the victim, or whether such a recording simply doesn't exist, is anyone's guess at this point.


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## getreal (Sep 29, 2003)

Here's an interesting video regarding a rejected alternate suspect for Teresa's murder which the Manitowoc cops refused to investigate because they felt that they already had their man ...


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## DUDE_NJX (Feb 12, 2003)

Someone posted this on reddit:



> "The police didn't kill Theresa Halbach. Andrew Colborn located that RAV4 with the assistance of Mike Halbach and Ryan Hillegas who illegally trespassed onto the Avery Salvage Yard on the night of November 3rd 2005. Mike Halbach and Ryan Hillegas suspected something was up since the Avery Salvage Yard was the last place they knew Theresa visited on Oct.31st Halloween day. They went snooping on the property and found the car. They checked the car and found the key in the ignition and blood in the cargo area. Mike or Ryan removed the key from the ignition to ensure that no one could easily move the car off of the Avery property... freaked out about this huge discovery they call the Manitowoc Sheriffs Department. Andrew Colborn fielded the call that night and went out and met Ryan and Mike at the Salvage Yard so he could view the car for himself. Ryan and Mike show him the car and to be certain its Halbachs he "calls" in the plate number to dispatch. Colborn has to "call" in... instead of "radio" in... the plate number to Manitowoc dispatch because he wasn't in his police cruiser at the moment, but rather on foot and in the "field' on the Avery Salvage property. This mistake places Colborn at the scene and in contact with Halbachs RAV4... 2 days before it is officially located on November 5th, 2005, by Pam Sturm.... This is problematic for Colborn because all call and radio transmissions to dispatch are recorded and logged onto the Manitowoc Police server. Andrew Colborn is now operating outside of police protocol at a potential crime scene that he has no official directive to be at. He tells Mike Halbach and Ryan Hillegas to basically STFU about what they found and not mention to anyone that they were ever on the Avery Salvage property that night. Ryan or Mike turns the RAV4 key over to Andrew Colborn. Mike and Ryan are told to go home. Andrew Colborn then immediately calls Lt. James Lenk and briefs him about the discovery of the Halbach car and breaches of protocol he committed on the Avery property, also about Ryan Hillegas and Mike Halbach being there. Lt James Lenk realizing that Colborn's calling in Halbachs plate is a serious mistake with potential consequences orders Andrew Colborn to remove the license plate from Halbach's car and then report to him immediately.
> What James Lenk and Andrew Colborn, or the others for that matter, don't realize at this point and are completely unaware of is that Bobby Dassey and Scott Tadych have kidnapped, raped, shot and then burned Theresa Halbach in the privacy of the gravel quarry off of Jambo Rd on Halloween evening. They choose to burn her body to dispose of their DNA evidence of the crimes. They hid Halbach's car in the rear of Avery Salvage and wiped it clean of their prints. I believe it is Scott Tadych's idea to secretly transport the cremains of Halbach from the gravel quarry and dispose them into Steven Avery's burn pit. Scott Tadych transports Halbach's cremains in secret by using one of Barb Jandas burn barrels from her yard. Scott Tadych fails to collect all of Halbach's cremains from the original burn site in the gravel quarry, thus leaving some behind that FBI investigators later find... but he also fails in making certain all of Halbach's cremains are out of Barb Jandas burn barrel after dumping them into Steven Avery's burn pit. This is why investigators found small bits of Halbach in Barb Jandas burn barrel. Thus making a total of three sites where Halbach's cremains are found. Scott Tadych and Bobby Dassey are unaware that Ryan Hillegas and Mike Halbach have found Theresas car on the property and that Lenk and Colborn are now involved and in play with their scheme. .........By shear colossal luck, two completely independent frame jobs targeting one man, Steven Avery were shaping up into the perfect storm. On one front, from Lenk and Colborn regarding the RAV4, ....and on the other unconnected front by Scott Tadych and Bobby Dassey regarding the cremains of Theresa Halbach. One party wasn't aware of the other's involvements at any point during the days leading up to the official discovery of Halbach's RAV4 at the Avery Salvage Yard hence why the investigation and murder trial made zero sense to anyone especially the Jury.
> None of the evidence could be connected because it was all unrelated... everybody was guessing. But Buting and Strang had zeroed in on a part of it but couldn't fully form a solid defense to prove it. The Jury couldn't conceive that Manitowoc officers could have conspired to kill Theresa Halbach to frame Steven Avery as Ken Kratz insisted they had to if they wanted to follow the theory the defense presented of the frame up of Steven Avery by Manitowoc officials. And Ken Kratz was right... Imagine Scott Tadych's confused and utter relief when Steve Avery's blood was found in the Halbach car and the RAV4 key found in Steve Avery's bedroom..... he must have been like.... WTF?! A quote from Scott Tadych after Steven Avery is convicted of Theresa Halbach's murder.... "THIS IS THE GREATEST THING TO EVER HAPPEN" ..... We will see Scott, we will see.....................﻿"
> This is probably the most credible theory I have come across so far. Notice how the events here not only make logical sense, but they also line up with how many of the parties involved behaved during the documentary i.e how Mike Halbach and Ryan Hillegas seemed like they knew more about what happened than they were leading on. As well as Scott Tadych and Bobby Dassey's bizarre hostility towards Steven Avery.




__
https://www.reddit.com/r/MakingaMurderer/comments/40xtpo


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## TAsunder (Aug 6, 2003)

If the burn barrel was empty to begin with why would they have left major pieces in there, including various electronic equipment?

How does the bullet with her dna find its way into his garage? Do the police find a spent bullet there, take it, lace it with her dna, return, and then drop it in a random place? Is it more "sheer colossal luck" that the bullet happens to exactly match the one over his bed?

Why is Avery's DNA found under the hood?

I also feel it loses credibility at the point where you have to lift your arms in the air and say, "sheer colossal luck"


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

It's not really "luck". If they stashed the car on the property and put the cremains in the burn pit to frame Avery, and then the police do the rest it makes sense. The cops fall or the initial frame job but realize that the evidence isn't concrete enough to specifically implicate Avery so they help it along by planting the rest.

From what I've read they had a sample of his sweat and the sweat DNA was not found until the second search in March, so plenty of time for them to plant that. Same with the bullet. They had the gun and Teressa's DNA from the cremains in their custody for months before they found the bullet. They could have easily fired a shot from it in an alternate location, collected the bullet and laced it with Teressa's DNA. 

The bullet and the key are the most sketchy bits of the whole case. The key just magically appears on the 7th search of the property which just happens to be the one time when the Manatawoc cops are not being closely monitored? And the bullet is found in a garage where not even one spec of DNA from the victim is found and there is no evidence that there was any sort of cleanup effort. 

The blood and sweat in the car are iffy too. Seems weird that there are such obvious blood stains but no fingerprints. I mean if you're going to wipe down a car for fingerprints wouldn't you also clean up the glaringly obvious blood stains too? 

As for the stuff left behind in the burn barrel... they were probably in a hurry and just didn't dump it out completely. Perhaps they heard someone coming and did it hastily. The fact that they found cremains at the quarry is a big red flag that the body wasn't actually burned in that burn pit.


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## TAsunder (Aug 6, 2003)

Sounds lucky to me. The lucked their way into another group helping them frame someone. I just think the alternate theory is way less plausible than Avery just having done it in some way unrelated to the story they concocted for the conviction. I also think it's a little weird that people think it MUST be someone from the documentary who did it if it wasn't Avery. It seems to be based on some pretty thin assumptions.

Keep in mind he could have done it and ALSO still have been framed to increase the chance of conviction.

I don't think Manitowoc had the gun. It was a completely different department. The idea of firing the gun that's in custody, collecting the bullet, lacing it with blood, and then planting it later requires the Calumet(?) department to be complicit, and I just don't see why that would happen.

The bullet being found much later seems reasonable. The key, not so much. To me that is the one thing that gives me the biggest pause. 

It's not at all weird that there are no fingerprints. If you have a cut and wear gloves, there's a decent chance that you will deposit blood somewhere if it's bleeding profusely. It happens somewhat regularly on Chopped, for example.


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## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

How is there a bullet in the garage with Teresa's DNA but there's no blood found anywhere in the garage, and no evidence of a clean up?

I don't have any problem believing that Steven Avery killed her, but I definitely have a problem believing it went down the way Brendan said, and the way the prosecution explained during the trial. He throat wasn't slit in the bedroom. She wasn't shot in the garage. None of that stuff happened. 

What's more likely is that she was strangled, which explains why no blood evidence was found in the bedroom or the garage. The only flaw with that is the blood in the back of the RAV-4, but then again, the existence of that is further proof that the Brendan/prosecution version of the story didn't happen.


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## KRS (Jan 30, 2002)

TAsunder said:


> Sounds lucky to me. The lucked their way into another group helping them frame someone. I just think the alternate theory is way less plausible than Avery just having done it in some way unrelated to the story they concocted for the conviction. I also think it's a little weird that people think it MUST be someone from the documentary who did it if it wasn't Avery. It seems to be based on some pretty thin assumptions.
> 
> Keep in mind he could have done it and ALSO still have been framed to increase the chance of conviction.
> 
> ...


They didn't even need the gun - didn't they find bullet shells all over the property. Grab a bullet from one of the targets they shot at, add some DNA, casually drop it in the garage to be discovered.

Not to mention that the lab results were invalidated by the technician. Who has been shown to lie before - someone on Reddit posted that in Avery's first case, she said that the pubic hair was Steve's when it was later proven to be the actual rapist's hair, which is what exhonorated Steve!

I think people suspect some of the other people in the show because they were clearly lying about stuff. And it is not like any of them were investigated by the police or anything.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

Yeah I'm not sure the people they picked are actually the killers. It could have been Steve in a different location. I was just pointing out how that theory is plausible. 

But the theory the prosecution used to convict Steve and Brandon is not supported by the evidence in any way. 

Also I assume that the blood in the back of the car is a result of someone knocking her over the head in an effort to subdue her, before the actual killing. Like if the above theory is true maybe they knocked her over the head and threw her in the back of the car so they could get her out to the quarry. Then they raped her, shot her, and burned the body.


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## cheesesteak (Jul 24, 2003)

> One of the strongest pieces of trial evidence in favor of "Making a Murderer" subject Steven Avery was the vial of his blood from a previous conviction that appeared to have been tampered with.
> 
> But new information makes that piece look a lot weaker.
> 
> OnMilwaukee.com reports that court papers from Avery's appeal show prison nurse Marlene Kraintz was set to testify in Avery's trial for the 2005 murder of Teresa Halbach that she punctured a hole in the test tube of Avery's blood, and in fact such holes are commonplace, because that's often how the blood gets put in the tube in the first place.


http://finance.yahoo.com/news/theres-one-big-problem-crucial-220545816.html


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## Robin (Dec 6, 2001)

TAsunder said:


> The cat thing is way underplayed in the show. They made it sound like he grabbed a cat and tossed it over a fire, not into it. And didn't mention dousing it in oil. And he made it sound like it was just a goofy prank. Umm, no.


They did say the cat died, though. That soured me on him immediately.



Dan203 said:


> And the kid... I'm not sure he should have even been considered competent to stand trial. He seemed to be severely mentally handicapped and they had video proof that the police used that to manipulate him into saying things that were completely untrue. (most of the story he told could be disproved by the physical evidence)


I wouldn't say severely but certainly mildly.

He seemed a lot less so at trial which worked against him. Despite also seeing the interrogation the jury also saw him a lot more together which carried more weight. Plus his testimony sounded extremely reversed. I understand that it had to be either way, but it made him look guilty.



cheesesteak said:


> I don't know if Steven committed the murderer or not. There's certainly doubt but that was the whole purpose of the documentary. One thing I noticed is that I grew to like Steven more and more as the series progressed. He just didn't seem like a murderer.
> 
> I'm astonished that Brendan couldn't get a post-conviction appeal based on his dim wittedness. I felt so bad for his mother.
> 
> I think Steven's current gf is nuts. I'll never understand women who become obsessed with prison inmates.


It's interesting because early on they reported both Steven and Brandon as having IQs near 70. Steven appeared to become a lie smarter and more savvy as he got older.

I started out furious with Brandon's mother because she "declined" to be present for his questioning but then later she did she wanted to be in there and they wouldn't let her, which I believe based on how he was railroaded.

I will never understand the women who fall in love with prisoners.



DevdogAZ said:


> What's more likely is that she was strangled, which explains why no blood evidence was found in the bedroom or the garage. The only flaw with that is the blood in the back of the RAV-4, but then again, the existence of that is further proof that the Brendan/prosecution version of the story didn't happen.


We know from the forensic anthropologist that she was shot in the head. I assume that's where the blood in the car came from.

But where was she when she was shot?

I haven't seen anyone mention Brendan's cousin. I don't think I've ever seen someone look so terrified. That poor girl.


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## ElJay (Apr 6, 2005)

Steven Avery does not strike me as a nice guy. He has done a lot of stupid things, and some of those letters he wrote to his kids while he was first incarcerated were incredibly nasty. That said, I doubt Avery's guilt if for nothing more than the sloppy, buckshot approach the State had toward his trial. I felt like Kratz just threw tons of theories not supported by evidence out there to see what would stick. That press conference was appalling where he said all of this crap that was clearly not backed up by anything concrete. Lenk repeatedly seemed to be the magic source of the biggest pieces of physical evidence (even though he wasn't supposed to be involved), and Avery's blood in the RAV4 seemed incredibly unconvincing from what we were presented in this film.

As for Brendan, I think he was irreparably harmed by Kachinsky's incompetence or whatever that was.

Kratz bellyaching now about the show's editing after he declined to be involved is not helping my opinion of him. Normally I would say a sexting scandal of a public official is none of my business, but given the nature of the victim and Kratz's position, I'd say he is as f'ed up as Avery in some ways.


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## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

Adam Carolla and defense attorney Mark Gerragos do a weekly podcast called "Reasonable Doubt." It's always a great discussion if you're interested in legal issues. In last week's episode they started talking about this case, and then in today's episode, they actually had Dean Strang on and got to ask him several questions about the case. I highly recommend you check it out if you're interested in this case.


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## cheesesteak (Jul 24, 2003)

Steven's facial hair choices throughout the years were sometimes "interesting".


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## Robin (Dec 6, 2001)

You misspelled "always".


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## jgickler (Apr 7, 2000)

Finished the show a week ago, and have been reading many theories, "new evidence", statements from the people involved etc. Honestly, the more I learn about the case outside of the documentary, the more convinced I become of Avery's guilt.

If you ignore the statements of Brendan as just mostly made up by the police, you are freed from many of the more difficult to explain actions of the killer, or missing evidence. For example, if you don't assume that she was killed in the bed, then not having DNA evidence in the house isn't a problem. If you don't use Brendan's story, then the time line doesn't really matter, she could have been tied up in the garage or somewhere for days for all we know.

So I think that Avery killed her but did so at a location other then the house or garage. Then he used her car to transport her back to the garage where he tossed her in the burn barrel and then took the barrel to the burn pile to burned her body. I think that he probably wore gloves, during the killing and while driving the car.

He then proceeded to keep the car in the garage, wiping it down or any traces. Then when he heard that she was reported missing, he panicked knowing that the police would be there soon to question him. He tried to hide the car in the yard, and at that point, he transferred the blood to the car, but was panicking and didn't realize this was a major mistake.

I can't dismiss that the local cops may have tried to help the case, perhaps planting the key, but I don't think that mean that Avery is innocent. I think they rushed to judgement, probably tampered with the evidence, but in the end, the killer ended up behind bars.


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## jgickler (Apr 7, 2000)

As far as the bullet in the garage. It would have been pretty hard for them to transfer her DNA onto a bullet shot from the gun after it was in police custody. My guess is that Avery shot her, probably multiple times before transporting he back to the garage area for burning. My guess is that the bullet was stuck in her clothing, and when he moved her from the car to the barrel, it came out, without Avery know it. Or maybe it was in the car or in the tread of the car tires, either way, I think that planting that piece of evidence would be far more complicated then dropping a key in the bedroom, or even planing Avery's blood ( which I don't think was done). The main reason I say that is that if they were determined to frame Avery, it would be very difficult to insure that any found bullet was from his gun, and to know that the DNA they were using to apply to the bullet was that of the victim. The burned body made DNA identification difficult, and it would have been difficult to assume which blood stain from the car was the victims, and take a sample without leaving any evidence that the blood stain was tampered with.


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## ElJay (Apr 6, 2005)

jgickler said:


> I think they rushed to judgement, probably tampered with the evidence, but in the end, the killer ended up behind bars.


Do the ends justify the means? It was the same crooked playbook they used to convict him of rape in 1985, with Avery's civil suit throwing gasoline on the fire this time around. This is not how our law enforcement and justice system are supposed to work.


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## DreadPirateRob (Nov 12, 2002)

Man, what a ride. Finished the last episode last night after watching the whole show in a span of about 4-5 days. 

I'm obviously very conflicted about whether Avery actually did it or not. (Not Brenden - I don't think he was involved in the slightest - his entire story doesn't match up with a single piece of corroborating evidence as far as I can tell). But I am convinced that the local sheriff's deputies planted some evidence to ensure a conviction (even if you take out the blood vial, the key planting and the face that Deputy Colburn was clearly standing in front of her car 2 days before it was found is enough to convince me that nothing they do can be trusted). 

Like I said in an earlier episode thread, the hard part to wrap your mind around is that, if Avery didn't do it, then who did? I can see the police planting evidence to frame him, but I can't see them killing an innocent woman to do so. So who did it, and what part did they take in the frame-up? Some of the cousin theories mentioned above are interesting, but it's hard to take them seriously since there is no evidence of anything. 

I will certainly be thinking about this show and this case for a long time.


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## jgickler (Apr 7, 2000)

ElJay said:


> Do the ends justify the means? It was the same crooked playbook they used to convict him of rape in 1985, with Avery's civil suit throwing gasoline on the fire this time around. This is not how our law enforcement and justice system are supposed to work.


Here's the thing, Avery did have a trial. He was allowed to question the evidence against him, and he still lost. There have been recent accusations of jury intimidation, but absent that, I think he had a fair trial. The physical evidence convicted him, even after the theory of planted evidence was introduced by the defense. He can say, isn't it odd that the key never showed up in the initial searches, but he has no evidence to show that it was planted. Same with the blood evidence and the bullet.

I think that a skilled film maker could probably used the same footage, and edit it to give the exact opposite point of view, that justice was done.

So I'm not really sure that justice was not done. I am not convinced that evidence was tampered with, although I think it is a possibility, and if just presented the information in the documentary, I would say there was reasonable doubt. But knowing about some of the selective inclusions of the documentary, I'm not sure my initial doubt was reasonable.

So for me at least, I think that any talk of exoneration, pardons, etc are crazy. If there was new evidence that showed the evidence used to convict him was tampered with, then I would say he should get a new trial. But honestly, I think that a new trial would be disastrous for him.

I do however that that Brendan should be at the least given a new trial. His case was a travesty of justice in my opinion, especially the way he was treated by his lawyers. He should not be in prison in my opinion, but more due to the failings of our legal system then any kind of tainted evidence.


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## getreal (Sep 29, 2003)

jgickler said:


> Here's the thing, Avery did have a trial ... I think he had a fair trial.


How do you feel about the appeals process since the trial (i.e., getting the exact same judge who convicted him)? Would it be more "fair" if an impartial judge considered the appeal?


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## DreadPirateRob (Nov 12, 2002)

Interesting - these are the 4 alternate suspects that the defense team wanted to introduce evidence on during the Avery trial, but were prohibited from doing so by the judge. I'm not convinced the judge was wrong to make that ruling per Wisconsin law, but it's still interesting.

http://ftpcontent.worldnow.com/wkow/newsdocs/avery document page 23 +.pdf

Then a reporter took those names and took a deep dive into the criminal records for each, and came up with these summaries (she didn't list them by name in her article, but you can correlate them pretty easily with the names in the motion):



4 potential alternate suspects said:


> *Person 1*
> 
> According to the defense motion, Person 1 had a violent and volatile personality. His co-workers allegedly described him as a short-tempered angry person capable of murder. He was allegedly described as a chronic liar who blows up at people, "screams a lot" and is a "psycho." He had been previously charged in 1994 with criminal trespass and battery. The criminal complaint alleged he went to a woman's home at 3 a.m. and knocked on her bedroom window. Then he allegedly walked into her home and stated, "You will die for this, b-tch." He then allegedly knocked a man with the woman unconscious.
> 
> ...


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## jgickler (Apr 7, 2000)

getreal said:


> How do you feel about the appeals process since the trial (i.e., getting the exact same judge who convicted him)? Would it be more "fair" if an impartial judge considered the appeal?


The trial judge is the most knowledgeable about the case, so for the first round of appeals, it makes sense to have him presiding. Plus, if the defendant disagrees with the ruling, he can appeal to a higher court. So honestly, for me the judge hearing the appeals was one of the least troubling part of the legal system in this case.


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## markb (Jul 24, 2002)

jgickler said:


> The trial judge is the most knowledgeable about the case, so for the first round of appeals, it makes sense to have him presiding. Plus, if the defendant disagrees with the ruling, he can appeal to a higher court. So honestly, for me the judge hearing the appeals was one of the least troubling part of the legal system in this case.


I don't really understand this. Appeals often are based on the mistakes that the judge allegedly made. Wouldn't that be a conflict of interest for the original judge to hear the appeal?


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

You don't think the fact that the vial of Steve's blood from the previous case had been opened and punctured was suspect at all given that the blood in the car was one of the main pieces of evidence used against him? 

Also how can you call a trial "fair" if the evidence used against him was planted by law enforcement who is inherently trusted by jurors? 

There are some gaping holes in the whole case and the jury seemed to ignore them. Maybe they had more evidence then we saw, but based on the initial jury vote which was 7-4 not guilty I suspect not. Instead it seems that a stubborn juror got everyone to change their mind.


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## DreadPirateRob (Nov 12, 2002)

The scuttlebutt is that there were 3 jurors who walked in to the jury room and said something to the effect that "he was effing guilty" and they would never agree to anything less than a guilty verdict, and that the not guilty on the mutilating a corpse charge was both a compromise and a signal from the other jurors that something was amiss in the jury room (because how could hear what little evidence there was, but then get a guilty verdict on murder 1 but not guilty on the corpse mutilation charge).


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

Yeah I heard that too. But why would anyone just agree to find someone they believed was innocent guilty of murder? I wouldn't. I'd rather get to a hung jury. I'd be more likely to flip my vote the other way. Someone's life is at stake. There is a reason you're presumed innocent. We like to error on the side of innocence in this country.


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## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

Supposedly several jurors wanted to vote not guilty but they knew that if the trial ended in a hung jury, they'd have problems facing their families, friends, and the public because the general public sentiment was that he was guilty. That's the inherent danger with a public jury in a small town.


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## jgickler (Apr 7, 2000)

Dan203 said:


> You don't think the fact that the vial of Steve's blood from the previous case had been opened and punctured was suspect at all given that the blood in the car was one of the main pieces of evidence used against him?
> 
> Also how can you call a trial "fair" if the evidence used against him was planted by law enforcement who is inherently trusted by jurors?
> 
> There are some gaping holes in the whole case and the jury seemed to ignore them. Maybe they had more evidence then we saw, but based on the initial jury vote which was 7-4 not guilty I suspect not. Instead it seems that a stubborn juror got everyone to change their mind.


The problem with the blood vial and the other evidence that was brought up in the show is that there is nothing but conjecture that it was planted. The blood tested negative for the preservative, the blood in the vial tested positive for it. At best there is no evidence to support the contention that the blood from the vial was planted, at worst ( if you believe the FBI) the test disproved the idea that the blood was planted.

I think the bias in the presentation is pretty evident with the blood. The conspiracy includes stealing evidence, knowing the location of the car prior to it's discovery, planting the evidence, somehow talking the FBI into creating a bogus test, the multiple people lying on the stand. Or Avery did it and left some blood in the car.

If you are not predisposed to mistrust the police, due to the tone of the documentary, I think the most straightforward interpretation of the evidence lead to Avery's guilt. The officer who supposedly planted the evidence had very little motive to frame Avery, and I find it difficult to believe he would commit a crime because the admitted forwarding a call in his other case.

I also think the film makers gave a very distorted view of Avery. They glossed over his previous crimes, his molestation of Brendan, beating his wife and girlfriend, and his stalker like actions toward the victim.

If the jury was compromised, the he should get a new trial, but I would guess that based on the evidence that I have seen, he would be convicted again.


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## nataylor (Apr 26, 2000)

jgickler said:


> The problem with the blood vial and the other evidence that was brought up in the show is that there is nothing but conjecture that it was planted. The blood tested negative for the preservative, the blood in the vial tested positive for it. At best there is no evidence to support the contention that the blood from the vial was planted, at worst ( if you believe the FBI) the test disproved the idea that the blood was planted.


The blood didn't test negative. All the test could tell was that the concentration in the blood was under the detection limit. The problem with the test is that they didn't quantify the detection limit. For all we know, the limit was just a hair under the concentration in blood in the vile. Without quantifying the detection limit, the test is pretty much useless.


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## jgickler (Apr 7, 2000)

And again, we only saw what the editors showed us. But like I tried to point out, there was no evidence that the blood had the preservative, no evidence it was planted. Just evidence that someone at some point in the past broke the seal, and someone poked a hole in the tube. I read today that one of the lab techs was willing to testify that the hole was SOP, but was not called because the prosecutors felt FBI test settled the issue. We are left with a theory by the defense with no evidence to support it.

http://mobile.onmilwaukee.com/movies/articles/makingamudererbloodvial.html


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## Robin (Dec 6, 2001)

We don't know whether the preservative evaporates when exposed to air.


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## jgickler (Apr 7, 2000)

And we don't know if it becomes more concentrated as the blood dries either. I'm sure someone does. From what I saw of Avery's lawyers, they were pretty sharp. Don't you think that if evaporation was an issue, they would have made that point to the jury? But that is all conjecture.

What we know is that the test was not able to detect the preservative, so there is no evidence that the preservative is present. Remember, this was evidence for the defense, they needed to prove that the blood got there by some other means then Avery putting it there. The test did not provide any evidence to back that up.

But the documentary lead us down a road to distrust these particular cops, to feel sorry for Avery, then they showed us part of the evidence, and gave us a conspiracy theory, and we were all supposed to follow them down this path. And I did as well, until I did some digging on my own and realized what was missing from the documentary.

The documentary got us believing that this was a good guy caught in a bad position, wrongly imprisoned, and once released, he wanted to walk the straight and narrow. That way, when he says he didn't do it, he was framed, we are more likely to believe him. If the documentary had started with a detailed look at the crimes he did commit, the alleged abuse ( both physical and sexual) that he has been accused of, his comments about building a killing chamber etc, then I doubt anyone would have believed his conspiracy theory, absent real evidence. We are only able to believe this theory if we believe that he is innocent, or very likely innocent. If you go in thinking he is likely guilty, knowing the facts on the other side of the table, then I think that your opinion would be very different.


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## KRS (Jan 30, 2002)

The theory posted on Reddit (and earlier in this thread) is more plausible than anything the prosecution presented in the documentary. 

Especially the explanation of the burning. Burned at the quarry, scooped up into the barrel, dumped in Avery's burn pit. Makes sense that some bones were left behind. What would not make sense would be for the burn pit to have been the primary location for the burning, with the other locations to have come after (despite what the forensic witness claimed). 

Even ignoring all the weird evidence, just looking at the cops, Teresa's ex, Teresa's brother, and the hunters who drove by each other, it was clear to me that lies were being told. And it is just my gut, but I really think Avery would have confessed to the crime.


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## jgickler (Apr 7, 2000)

I don't think that the bones at the quarry are the slam dunk evidence that they are being made out to be. From what I have read, there were many animal bones at the quarry, and they found a couple of bones that they believe were human pelvis bones, but they were not able to say that they were the victims bones, and not even say conclusively that they were human.


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## DreadPirateRob (Nov 12, 2002)

jgickler said:


> I think the bias in the presentation is pretty evident with the blood. The conspiracy includes stealing evidence,


The case containing the vial was supposed to be sealed. It was not. That tends to show that it was tampered with. Even the assistant DA was very disturbed by that.



jgickler said:


> knowing the location of the car prior to it's discovery,


Which we know they did because Colburn called in the plates 2 days before the car was "found". And then lied about the timeline during trial.



jgickler said:


> planting the evidence,


Ordinarily, I would agree that this is difficult to prove. But the car keys were clearly planted. So if they're willing to plant car keys, why not a little blood?



jgickler said:


> somehow talking the FBI into creating a bogus test,


Not necessarily. All they need is for the FBI to be willing to perform a test that won't prove anything because it's not accurate and not likely to find evidence of the preservative, which is what happened. Remember - law enforcement likes to stick up for themselves even when clearly in the wrong (i.e. the Wisconsin DOJ sitting on Kratz's sexting behavior for more than a year), something they are unwilling to do for any accused.



jgickler said:


> the multiple people lying on the stand.


You only need one person to lie - Colburn. And we know he already did lie about the timeline. Once you get caught in a lie once, the jury is free to disbelieve everything else that you testify to (that's a jury instruction).



jgickler said:


> Or Avery did it and left some blood in the car.


Possibly. He did have a cut on his hand. But he didn't leave any fingerprints anywhere, which means he either a) wore gloves, or b) meticulously cleaned the interior of the car. If he wore gloves, how did the blood get there? If he meticulously cleaned the interior - how did he leave a large blood drip in plain sight?



jgickler said:


> The officer who supposedly planted the evidence had very little motive to frame Avery


Except for the fact that they were just deposed in his civil suit, were possibly worried about facing personal liability (if it could be proven that their actions were intentional, they would not be acting in the course and scope of their employment, and thus employer liability would not protect them), and even if not, were almost certainly hearing bad things at work about how the Avery lawsuit was probably going to bankrupt the county and possibly even affect their public employee benefits/pensions.

It doesn't take much genius-level thinking to realize that if Avery goes back to jail, the pressure to settle the lawsuit fades, and they can all go back to their comfy lives.



jgickler said:


> I also think the film makers gave a very distorted view of Avery. They glossed over his previous crimes, his molestation of Brendan, beating his wife and girlfriend, and his stalker like actions toward the victim.


Avery is not a good guy. No question. But most of these aren't even accusations, much less things that resulted in charges being filed. And even then, none of that was relevant to the trial (except maybe the stalker like behavior), since evidence of "prior bad acts" is inadmissible, unless they are particularly relevant to the charges filed.


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## mooseAndSquirrel (Aug 31, 2001)

KRS said:


> The theory posted on Reddit (and earlier in this thread) is more plausible than anything the prosecution presented in the documentary.
> 
> Especially the explanation of the burning. Burned at the quarry, scooped up into the barrel, dumped in Avery's burn pit. Makes sense that some bones were left behind. What would not make sense would be for the burn pit to have been the primary location for the burning, with the other locations to have come after (despite what the forensic witness claimed).
> 
> Even ignoring all the weird evidence, just looking at the cops, Teresa's ex, Teresa's brother, and the hunters who drove by each other, it was clear to me that lies were being told. And it is just my gut, but I really think Avery would have confessed to the crime.


I too liked the Reddit theory, and this was my problem with the defense team. They needed to provide (how, I don't know) a plausible alternate theory that did not involve the police either murdering Halbach or being the primary framers. The Reddit theory would allow the jury to say to themselves, OK, the cops are good people who came upon a scene that very much pointed to Avery as the killer. And they helped that along because they were concerned about him using his notoriety to get out of this.

I think that would have at least allowed reasonable doubt to enter.

What I saw from the documentary was we don't know how she was murdered or who did it, but there is a vast conspiracy in the police to frame Avery.

I also like the Reddit theory because it hangs together with internal logic to all of the pieces. The fact that none of her DNA was found seemingly anywhere on the property and her DNA wasn't even found on her Key ring (while Avery's was) would have been enough reasonable doubt for me.


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## pdhenry (Feb 28, 2005)

jgickler said:


> Remember, this was evidence for the defense, they needed to prove that the blood got there by some other means then Avery putting it there. The test did not provide any evidence to back that up.


Actually, the defense doesn't need to prove anything, nor present any evidence. They just need to show reasonable doubt.


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## jgickler (Apr 7, 2000)

pdhenry said:


> Actually, the defense doesn't need to prove anything, nor present any evidence. They just need to show reasonable doubt.


But a half baked theory with no evidence to support it does not provide reasonable doubt, doubt isn't reasonable if it is pure conjecture. They had a theory, in order for that theory to be reasonable, they needed the jury to believe it, they didn't.

But I want to go back to Colburn, the whole defense theory is based on the idea that he had some sort of vendeta against Avery. He hid the car, or allowed it to stay hidden for several days, without knowing if the victim was dead or alive. He then broke into the office where the evidence was stored, stole the blood, planted the blood, and then let the car be found on Avery's property.

And the defense's theory of his motivation was that he was upset about a deposition he gave. In that deposition, all he said and all he was questioned about was a call to the jail where he was working saying that someone said they had an innocent person in jail. He then forwarded the call to a detective, since he was at the time basically the head jail keeper. There was nothing in that call that identified Avery, nothing that identified the person who supposedly was the actual assailant, and he was not a detective who would investigate such things. I don't see how that puts him in much of a bind, certainly not enough to frame someone for murder, risk his career, and jail time.

Without Colburn, the whole theory unwinds. The only evidence against Colburn is the phone call he made to confirm the license plate number was to a 99 Toyota. It didn't mention the make of the car, something that I assume he would have done if he were looking at the car. It also had many innocent explanations, for example, maybe he was looking at a 99 Toyota, and just wanted to confirm that he had written down the right plate. Maybe he was trying to remember the plate ( not having it written down) to clear a car, and wanted to make sure his memory was correct. Maybe he saw a flyer, and was trying to help insure that it had the proper information. All the documentary showed was him being blindsided by the call, I don't think it showed any redirect where he could have given a better explanation.

Recently the sheriff has said that there was nothing suspicious about asking for the plate.


> "That's common practice, to run the plate and have that information on a teletype. A lot of times, it's attached to a report if there's a report on it," Hermann said. "The other thing is that Calumet county ... also knew that one of her last stops was in Manitowoc county."


Of course, none of this was presented in the documentary because it didn't fit their narrative. But without Colburn finding the car days before it was discovered by the volunteers, no type of conspiracy is possible. So the documentary puts you in a frame of mind where you think there is a conspiracy, and that this call is a smoking gun. But IMO, if you take a step back, look at all the evidence available, not just what is in the documentary, that the most reasonable explanation for the evidence is that Avery was the murderer.


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## peitsche (Nov 13, 2002)

DreadPirateRob said:


> I'm obviously very conflicted about whether Avery actually did it or not. (Not Brenden - I don't think he was involved in the slightest - his entire story doesn't match up with a single piece of corroborating evidence as far as I can tell).


Check out http://www.newstalk1130.com/onair/common-sense-central-37717/rebutting-a-murderer-episode-1-14260554/.


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## DreadPirateRob (Nov 12, 2002)

peitsche said:


> Check out http://www.newstalk1130.com/onair/common-sense-central-37717/rebutting-a-murderer-episode-1-14260554/.


I've seen all of that before. I don't believe anything that Kratz says. He has the ethical and moral compass of a starving coyote. I haven't seen any other source of what "Avery's fellow inmates" allegedly said about Avery, and even if there were, are we really going to take the words of *other* convicted felons? Who will say whatever you want them to say if you can get them a better cell, or preferred prison jobs or what have you?


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## peitsche (Nov 13, 2002)

jgickler said:


> Without Colburn, the whole theory unwinds. The only evidence against Colburn is the phone call he made to confirm the license plate number was to a 99 Toyota. It didn't mention the make of the car, something that I assume he would have done if he were looking at the car. It also had many innocent explanations, for example, maybe he was looking at a 99 Toyota, and just wanted to confirm that he had written down the right plate. Maybe he was trying to remember the plate ( not having it written down) to clear a car, and wanted to make sure his memory was correct. Maybe he saw a flyer, and was trying to help insure that it had the proper information. All the documentary showed was him being blindsided by the call, I don't think it showed any redirect where he could have given a better explanation.
> 
> Recently the sheriff has said that there was nothing suspicious about asking for the plate.


From the "Rebutting a Murderer" link I posted above:

When Strang cross-examines Colborn at trial, he grills him about the timing of that call.

You can understand how someone listening to that might think that you were calling in a license plate that you were looking at on the back end of a 1999 Toyota, Strang says.

Yes, Colborn replies.

But there's no way you should've been looking at Teresa Halbach's license plate on November 3 on the back end of a 1999 Toyota.

I shouldn't have been and I was not looking at the license plate.

Because you're aware now that the first time that Toyota was reported found was two days later on November 5.

All of the scary music in the world cant make this phone call anything other than what it likely was: Colborn looking to confirm with dispatch information he had received from another investigator about a car that was driven by a woman who had just been reported missing.

Neither Strang nor the series offers any evidence that Colborn was actually looking at the car before it was officially found Strang merely says that it sounds like he was."

But it sounds just as much like he was trying to confirm a license plate that he had just heard on his radio and couldnt quite make out. *Its not as though law enforcement on the 3rd didnt know what kind of car Halbach was driving* or what its license plate number wasthat information is invariably among the first law enforcement will disseminate in an effort to find a missing person.

If Colborn really did find the RAV 4 two days before Pam Sturm did, however, and he was caught in a phone call looking at it, wouldnt both the defense and the filmmakers follow up on this with more evidence to demonstrate that Colborn really did find Halbachs car on November 3rd and then take it to the salvage yard at some later point?


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## DreadPirateRob (Nov 12, 2002)

jgickler said:


> Without Colburn, the whole theory unwinds. The only evidence against Colburn is the phone call he made to confirm the license plate number was to a 99 Toyota. It didn't mention the make of the car, something that I assume he would have done if he were looking at the car. It also had many innocent explanations, for example, maybe he was looking at a 99 Toyota, and just wanted to confirm that he had written down the right plate. Maybe he was trying to remember the plate ( not having it written down) to clear a car, and wanted to make sure his memory was correct. Maybe he saw a flyer, and was trying to help insure that it had the proper information. All the documentary showed was him being blindsided by the call, I don't think it showed any redirect where he could have given a better explanation.


So he wasn't sure if he could remember a plate number, so just called dispatch to make sure his memory was correct? That doesn't make sense in the slightest. And why would he be double-checking a flyer (which wouldn't have even been printed yet, since she was just reported missing that day), when he was certainly given the info via his in-car system?

The most likely scenario is that he was looking at the vehicle when he called it in. He can check the year by looking at the VIN at the base of the driver'side windshield.



jgickler said:


> Recently the sheriff has said that there was nothing suspicious about asking for the plate.


Well, then. That settles it! If the sheriff says his guys did nothing wrong, then clearly they didn't! Move along. Nothing to see.


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## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

mooseAndSquirrel said:


> I too liked the Reddit theory, and this was my problem with the defense team. They needed to provide (how, I don't know) a plausible alternate theory that did not involve the police either murdering Halbach or being the primary framers. The Reddit theory would allow the jury to say to themselves, OK, the cops are good people who came upon a scene that very much pointed to Avery as the killer. And they helped that along because they were concerned about him using his notoriety to get out of this.
> 
> I think that would have at least allowed reasonable doubt to enter.
> 
> ...


In the podcast interview with Dean Strang I mentioned earlier, he said that under Wisconsin law, the prosecution doesn't have to prove any kind of motive for the accused. But if the defense wants to present any alternate suspects, they have to present evidence of motive. Which is why Avery's defense team was not able to present any alternate theories or other suspects, because they didn't have any evidence that would point to a motive for anyone else to kill her.


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## DreadPirateRob (Nov 12, 2002)

peitsche said:


> If Colborn really did find the RAV 4 two days before Pam Sturm did, however, and he was caught in a phone call looking at it, wouldnt both the defense and the filmmakers follow up on this with more evidence to demonstrate that Colborn really did find Halbachs car on November 3rd and then take it to the salvage yard at some later point?


Some people have a misconception of how trials work. How is the defense team going to be able to bring in more evidence that Colburn found the car? There's no way to gather that evidence even if it somehow exists - the cops don't turn anything over to the defense until much later in the case, after their investigation has been completed, and they don't "turn over" the actual evidence - just the reports and their photographs.

The only way to "prove" what they were trying to prove is through inference and pointing out discrepancies/poking holes in the story. That's it. That's why the deck is stacked against every criminal defendant, except for the ones without limitless resources.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

I'm still not convinced that Avery is innocent. But I am convinced that the police helped the case along by planting evidence and that the murder happened very, very, differently then Brenden's story. None of the physical evidence corroborated Brenden's story. In fact most of the physical evidence pointed to her being killed somewhere else. (i.e. her blood in the car and lack of any DNA in the house or garage)

It's possible the police just planted some evidence to secure the conviction of an actual murder, but even if that's the case it's still highly disturbing. Whether or not he committed the crime the police should not be allowed to get away with things like this. It's a huge misuse of their authority and a miscarriage of justice.


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## KRS (Jan 30, 2002)

Instead of seemingly going after the cops for a frame job, Avery's lawyers should have focused more on establishing reasonable doubt. 

Even while watching the program, I was flip flopping between probably not guilty to probably guilty. Both sides are full of doubts, and none of the timelines presented made any sense. And I don't think anybody could argue that the proper procedures were being followed. The whole thing is riddled with doubts in my mind, and the jury not concluding that was flabbergasting.


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## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

I think a big part of the problem was that the prosecution used Brendan's obviously incorrect story as the basis for their theory of what happened, despite the fact that none of the evidence matches that story. I think the trial would have seemed like much less of a travesty of justice if the prosecution had simply focused on the fact that Steven was the last one to see her alive, he had an unhealthy obsession with her, and her car and remains were found on his property. The rest of the stuff about rape, throat slitting, tying to the bed, murder in the garage, etc. was a complete circus sideshow.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

Yeah. And worse yet it seems they probably planted evidence to help support that bogus story.


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## ElJay (Apr 6, 2005)

jgickler said:


> And the defense's theory of his motivation was that he was upset about a deposition he gave.


I think there was some personal liability exposure to Colborn regarding the last 10 or so years of Avery's wrongful imprisonment. He acted like the call he received about the rape was some routine, mundane thing when in fact it was quite remarkable as the only call he had ever received like this in his long career.


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## mooseAndSquirrel (Aug 31, 2001)

DevdogAZ said:


> In the podcast interview with Dean Strang I mentioned earlier, he said that under Wisconsin law, the prosecution doesn't have to prove any kind of motive for the accused. But if the defense wants to present any alternate suspects, they have to present evidence of motive. Which is why Avery's defense team was not able to present any alternate theories or other suspects, because they didn't have any evidence that would point to a motive for anyone else to kill her.


But couldn't they have said something like the Reddit theory with "assume for a moment that someone other than Steven Avery committed the rape. Now, follow this scenario. Isn't that a whole lot less illogical than what the prosecution is presenting?"


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## DreadPirateRob (Nov 12, 2002)

You have to make an offer of proof beforehand, outside the presence of the jury. If the judge shuts you down, you risk sanctions (or worse) if you go against that order.


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## DreadPirateRob (Nov 12, 2002)

ElJay said:


> I think there was some personal liability exposure to Colborn regarding the last 10 or so years of Avery's wrongful imprisonment. He acted like the call he received about the rape was some routine, mundane thing when in fact it was quite remarkable as the only call he had ever received like this in his long career.


Not only that, but the County was looking a $36M settlement that would not be covered by insurance. That would almost certainly bankrupt the county, which would cause some cops to lose their jobs, and others to have their pensions threatened. That is plenty motive to me.


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## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

mooseAndSquirrel said:


> But couldn't they have said something like the Reddit theory with "assume for a moment that someone other than Steven Avery committed the rape. Now, follow this scenario. Isn't that a whole lot less illogical than what the prosecution is presenting?"


I think that's exactly what they did. But since the judge didn't allow them to point the finger at any specific suspects, they just had to allude to some vague speculation and innuendo about the potential existence of another killer(s). And frankly, I think their strategy of trying to blame the cops for framing Avery was not all that strategically sound. Without the ability to point the finger at any specific suspect or lay out a specific alternate theory, all of their accusations made it seem like they were placing the blame on the police for killing her, which I think may have been more confusing to the jury than anything.


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## bareyb (Dec 1, 2000)

Wow. Just binge watched all ten episodes AND the two Dr. Phil episodes on this. Holy crap! I am troubled by the Burning of the Cat. Apparently there are witnesses that saw him do it. That still doesn't make him a murderer though, but whoa... gives one pause. 

Secondly, how stupid would you have to be to put the body twenty feet from your front door? Why put the Toyota in plain view when he had 40 acres to hide it in? He has a SMELTER. So that gives me pause the other way....

One thing I know for sure is that cops bungled the investigation. Manitowoc should not have been anywhere near the evidence. They had much to lose once the Insurance company told the they'd be on the hook for the 32 Million themselves. Probably personally as well. So that's plenty of motive.... I don't know who killed that woman, but as Strang said, I almost hope he did it, because the thought of him being in there innocent AGAIN is tough to take. I liken it to the Man in the Iron Mask being back in the Mask when he thought he'd been freed.


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## mooseAndSquirrel (Aug 31, 2001)

DevdogAZ said:


> I think that's exactly what they did. But since the judge didn't allow them to point the finger at any specific suspects, they just had to allude to some vague speculation and innuendo about the potential existence of another killer(s). And frankly, I think their strategy of trying to blame the cops for framing Avery was not all that strategically sound. Without the ability to point the finger at any specific suspect or lay out a specific alternate theory, all of their accusations made it seem like they were placing the blame on the police for killing her, which I think may have been more confusing to the jury than anything.


IMO they were a little too specific blaming Lenk and Colburn. I believe these probably were the tainting cops, but I think it made it too specific and personal for the jury.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

Someone should release the raw footage from the trial. I'd like to see the whole thing and not just the bits they chose to show us for the series. Maybe there was more evidence we didn't see or jury instructions we didn't hear that make a guilty verdict more clear.


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## mooseAndSquirrel (Aug 31, 2001)

I was amazed at a few statements Kratz got away with. "Reasonable doubt is for the innocent." Wow - you mean it's for everybody who is supposed to be presumed innocent. Which, you know, should be everybody.

And then I can't remember the exact phrasing, but the comment about so what if the key was planted? There was plenty of other evidence that proved his guilt.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

So if they could have somehow proven that Colburn found the car 2 days earlier, via an illegal search, would that pretty much get rid of all the other evidence due to the whole "fruit from a poisonous tree" thing? 

The only reason they got the search warrant for everything else was because of the car right? 

Do police cars have GPS tracking? If so is that something Avery's lawyers could request via discovery?


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## nataylor (Apr 26, 2000)

I'd been looking for transcripts of the Avery trial. Finally found a place with all but one day's worth:

http://www.stevenaverycase.org/jurytrialtranscripts/


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## mooseAndSquirrel (Aug 31, 2001)

I'm just up to episode 9, where Brendan is convicted. 

A question on that - did the defense ever point out that if any of Brendan's story was true, there would have to be lots of (or at least some) DNA evidence left behind? I guess I heard some cop say they had 5 days to clean up, but c'mon. She's tied to the bed, raped and has her throat cut and there is zero of her DNA or Brendan's in that room? Where are the shackles?

He actually did better on the stand than I thought he would, but it was all for naught.

Speaking of the shackles, I read elsewhere that Avery had purchased shackles the week before, which does seem pretty damning. Were his purchased shackles ever found or entered into evidence?


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## getreal (Sep 29, 2003)

nataylor said:


> I'd been looking for transcripts of the Avery trial. Finally found a place with all but one day's worth:
> 
> http://www.stevenaverycase.org/jurytrialtranscripts/


Thanks for that link!

The document covering Day 1 has the Opening Statements by the Prosecution and the Defense, and the document covering Day 23 has the Closing Arguments by the Prosecution and the Defense.


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## pdhenry (Feb 28, 2005)

Photo of Teresa Halbach supposedly shows a set of keys rather than a single key like was found in Avery's bedroom.

http://hellogiggles.com/teresa-halbach-keys/


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## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

pdhenry said:


> Photo of Teresa Halbach supposedly shows a set of keys rather than a single key like was found in Avery's bedroom.
> 
> http://hellogiggles.com/teresa-halbach-keys/


I don't see how anyone can look at that picture and conclude that what's in her hand is definitely a keyring with more than one key on it.

However, it makes sense that she would have more than one key, since she didn't live alone and therefore couldn't always be sure whether the door would be locked or unlocked when she arrived home. And since some of the theories have suspected the roommate or the brother or the ex-boyfriend, any of those would have likely taken her house key(s) off the ring so they'd be able to use them. There's no reason Steven Avery would have removed keys from the ring and then left the one key in his bedroom. And there's no reason the cops would have removed keys before planting the keys in the bedroom.

The most interesting part of that article is it says NBC's Dateline is going to be doing a Making of a Murderer follow-up special later this month. If anyone knows when that is going to air, please post the details here.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

The key is by far the most obviously planted piece of "evidence" in the whole story. The fact that it didn't have any of her DNA on it but did somehow have his, even though she touched it daily and he touched it once, is the real clencher. Even if you believe they some how magically found it on the 7th search of the bookcase.


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## DUDE_NJX (Feb 12, 2003)

Dan203 said:


> The key is by far the most obviously planted piece of "evidence" in the whole story. The fact that it didn't have any of her DNA on it but did somehow have his, even though she touched it daily and he touched it once, is the real clencher. Even if you believe they some how magically found it on the 7th search of the bookcase.


The cop "shook it really hard, you know"


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## jgickler (Apr 7, 2000)

Dan203 said:


> The key is by far the most obviously planted piece of "evidence" in the whole story. The fact that it didn't have any of her DNA on it but did somehow have his, even though she touched it daily and he touched it once, is the real clencher. Even if you believe they some how magically found it on the 7th search of the bookcase.


If your assumption is that the evidence was planted, then the lack of DNA becomes suspicious. If your assumption is that Avery left it there ( and remember he is not a very bright guy), then the lack of her DNA could point to him cleaning it at some point.

The rest of the lanyard, with a USB drive attached was found in the vehicle. The victim's sister testified at the trial that she gave the lanyard to her. Brendan gave the police a pair of bleach stained pants, apparently to collaborate his story about cleaning up after the murder.

Plus, the key wasn't really that important to the case. If Colburn stole the key, how would he possibly know that many days later he would be able to plant the evidence in Avery's house? And as long as he was planting blood in the car, why didn't he just plant blood on the key? Why would he go to the trouble of using blood and sweat on different items, when he had blood which we can assume he thought was definitive, that he was already planting in the car?

Like I said earlier, I think that Avery and possible Brendan were cleaning the evidence in his garage, over several days, but when he found out that she had been reported missing, he panicked. In the panic, he drove the car to the back of the lot, hid it, and in the process contaminated the scene he had been cleaning with his blood and the key with his sweat.

And there were what at least 8 to 10 people living in the junk yard, with one entrance. So for someone to plant the car on the Avery property, or for Colburn to do an unauthorized search, they would have had to sneak onto the property without detection? I think that is highly unlikely, and certainly very risky.


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## bareyb (Dec 1, 2000)




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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

jgickler said:


> Plus, the key wasn't really that important to the case. If Colburn stole the key, how would he possibly know that many days later he would be able to plant the evidence in Avery's house? And as long as he was planting blood in the car, why didn't he just plant blood on the key? Why would he go to the trouble of using blood and sweat on different items, when he had blood which we can assume he thought was definitive, that he was already planting in the car?


I don't think they originally planned on planting the key. I think they decided to do that later when they realized the evidence was thin. Same with the bullet.

I don't think the cops murdered her or that they set out to frame an innocent man because of the lawsuit. I think they believed he did it and when the evidence wasn't stacking up like they wanted they decided to help it along by planting the key and bullet. The blood I'm not so sure about. However it is really, really, suspicious that his blood sample from the police's evidence room was obviously tampered with.



jgickler said:


> Like I said earlier, I think that Avery and possible Brendan were cleaning the evidence in his garage, over several days, but when he found out that she had been reported missing, he panicked. In the panic, he drove the car to the back of the lot, hid it, and in the process contaminated the scene he had been cleaning with his blood and the key with his sweat.


The police jackhammered the floor of the garage and checked every crack. Not one single spec of blood or DNA was found. Nor did they find one spec of blood on any of the junk in the garage. Did you see how messy that garage was? Do you really think that two men with sub-80 IQs could have done a perfect job cleaning it up? Every nook and cranny that would have been sprayed from a gunshot to the head?

Based on Teressa's blood in the back of the car and the total lack of her DNA in both the house and the garage I'm almost certain she was killed somewhere else. Maybe not by someone else, but definitely somewhere else.



jgickler said:


> And there were what at least 8 to 10 people living in the junk yard, with one entrance. So for someone to plant the car on the Avery property, or for Colburn to do an unauthorized search, they would have had to sneak onto the property without detection? I think that is highly unlikely, and certainly very risky.


There are multiple entrances to the junk yard and the place the car was found was about as far away from the residences as you could get.


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## bareyb (Dec 1, 2000)

Which brings up another obvious question. Why not just crush the car and melt it down? They had the equipment. Why not move a pile of crushed cars and bury the body 10 feet down and then pile a hundred crushed cars on top? Why on earth put her car all by itself up there on a ridge where it would be most easily found? Why put her body in a "burn barrel" 20 feet from your house? It makes no sense, unless you were the murderer and trying to frame someone else for the crime. If you were trying to get away with it... you'd likely do almost anything else.


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## DUDE_NJX (Feb 12, 2003)

bareyb said:


> Which brings up another obvious question. Why not just crush the car and melt it down? They had the equipment. Why not move a pile of crushed cars and bury the body 10 feet down and then pile a hundred crushed cars on top? Why on earth put it all by itself up there on a ridge where it would be most easily found? Why put incriminating evidence in a "burn barrel" 20 feet from your house? It makes no sense, unless you were trying to frame someone.


Hence the brother-in-law theory. He's crazy enough to do all that, and had the perfect person he hated to frame for it.


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## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

bareyb said:


> Which brings up another obvious question. Why not just crush the car and melt it down? They had the equipment. Why not move a pile of crushed cars and bury the body 10 feet down and then pile a hundred crushed cars on top? Why on earth put her car all by itself up there on a ridge where it would be most easily found? Why put her body in a "burn barrel" 20 feet from your house? It makes no sense, unless you were the murderer and trying to frame someone else for the crime. If you were trying to get away with it... you'd likely do almost anything else.


I haven't seen any reference to the salvage yard having the means to melt the car down. But they did have a car crusher, and it's right in that part of the yard near where the RAV-4 was found. I wonder if maybe Steven didn't have authority to crush something, and if he had done it it would have prompted questions from his dad or other family. Especially since the car was relatively new and in good condition.


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## bareyb (Dec 1, 2000)

DevdogAZ said:


> I haven't seen any reference to the salvage yard having the means to melt the car down. But they did have a car crusher, and it's right in that part of the yard near where the RAV-4 was found. I wonder if maybe Steven didn't have authority to crush something, and if he had done it it would have prompted questions from his dad or other family. Especially since the car was relatively new and in good condition.


It was mentioned briefly in the Documentary. They have a Smelter on the property as well as a Crusher. If Steven didn't have the authority to crush something (which I highly doubt) he could have put the car almost anywhere else. As it is, it certainly "appears" it was put up there to make it easy to find. And it was. I think the Lady said it took her 25 mins. to find it.

Can you imagine if he'd hidden it out in the middle of his 40 acres somewhere under a pile of cars? They'd likely never find it. Having said that, why put it on your own property at all? That also makes more sense if the person putting it there was trying to frame Avery rather than Avery himself trying to get away with Murder. That whole area is Rural. There was plenty of other less incriminating places to put the car and body.


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## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

bareyb said:


> It was mentioned briefly in the Documentary. They have a Smelter on the property as well as a Crusher.


Are you sure? I watched the whole thing and have read lots of stuff about the case and the documentary, and you are the only person I've ever read that said anything about a smelter. Can you point to where in the documentary that was mentioned?


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## bareyb (Dec 1, 2000)

DevdogAZ said:


> Are you sure? I watched the whole thing and have read lots of stuff about the case and the documentary, and you are the only person I've ever read that said anything about a smelter. Can you point to where in the documentary that was mentioned?


Oh God, I'd have to watch the whole thing again. IIRC correctly, it was mentioned by one of the investigators somewhere along the line. He basically posed the same question. He said "they have a smelter on the property, why not just burn the body using that?".

ETA: Did a quick Google and found several sources that also heard it. It seems fairly widely known.










ETA 2: Check out this link: https://www.google.com/search?clien...erty+why+not+just+use+that?&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8


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## jgickler (Apr 7, 2000)

How was the evidence not stacking up like they wanted, so they felt they needed to plant a key and a bullet? They had Avery's blood in the car, burned bones and the personal effects of the victim 20 feet from his residence, they had evidence that he was one of the last, if not the last person to see her, and the victims car was found on the property where he was living. With the blood evidence, the key is redundant in proving that he was in the car. So if they planted the blood, then planting the key and not putting blood on it doesn't make any sense.

I don't know where she was killed, and having her killed somewhere else probably makes sense. But I think that at some point after the murder, they put the car in the garage to clean it. If it wasn't the murder scene, then that wouldn't mean a lot of blood in the garage. My guess is that she was killed, put in the back of her car briefly, then put in the burn barrel. That would keep the blood from getting all over, and then they just wheel it to the burn pit, add gas, and let it burn, eventually dumping the ashes and bone fragments on the pile. 

As far as the bullet, during the initial searches, they didn't know that Theresa had been shot in the head, so on a property littered with bullets, they may not have been specifically looking for bullets, and it could have been easily ignored. There was also a ballistic match to the gun that had been in police custody since the initial search of Avery's house, so either the gun had to have been stolen out of evidence ( in the other county), fired and then DNA from the victim planted on it or they found a bullet and hoped that it was shot from Avery's gun.

Finally, there are only 2 entrances that I see to the Avery compound, the first is by the bus stop, and the only one that anyone is demonstrated to use during the trial and in the documentary. The second, that goes to the quarry area is gated and locked. So for the police to have entered they would have needed to break the lock or jump the fence and proceed on foot. I doubt that on a hunch, an officer would take such action. Remember, at this point, they had a missing person, no indication that there was a murder, and anything they do that is seen to be hostile or harassment toward Avery would certainly not reflect well on the the suit Avery had against the police.


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## bareyb (Dec 1, 2000)

I recall hearing in the Documentary (from Steven) that there are entire sections of the property that anyone could drive right in and not be seen. It was only the prosecution who claimed there were only two entrances. From looking at the Map that seems to be untrue. There were many sections that were unfenced and open. Having said that, I think the real Killers live on the property with Steven. My top suspects are Bobby Dassey and Scott Tadych:

Here's my favorite "alternate theory" from Reddit:



> I think that police tampering and clumsy efforts by the real killer caused Steven to be charged. My favorite suspects are Bobby Dassey and Scott Tadych, but you could easily substitute any of the capable men living on the Avery property to fit my theory of the crime.
> After entering her car to leave the Avery property, Theresa is stopped by Bobby and Scott as she tries to exit the scrapyard. She is forced at gunpoint to drive to a secluded area. There she is raped and shot in the head. Her body is loaded into the back of the Rav4 and transported to a corner of the scrapyard. The vehicle is hidden here.
> 
> Bobby and Scott retrieve a burn barrel and place the body within. They would not have to mutilate the corpse to fit her small frame inside a large barrel. They transport the barrel to the quarry. The body is burned there and the flames remain out of site from passers-by.
> ...


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## jgickler (Apr 7, 2000)

As someone who work for a company that makes solder, a low melting alloy, I can attest to the idea that to have a furnace large enough to melt a car, or even large parts of a car is probably far beyond the capabilities of a junk yard. My guess is they have a small furnace, with a small pot or crucible that they use to melt copper, brass, and other metals found when tearing a car apart. Even that requires a significant amount of heat. 

As to why he didn't crush the car or hide it better, I don't think he had an opportunity when it wouldn't have been noticed. And the only time you would crush a car would be if you are selling it for scrap, it would draw a lot of questions from the other Avery's if he was scrapping what appears to be a car full of valuable parts.


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## TAsunder (Aug 6, 2003)

Of all the theories about why the bullet tested positive for her DNA, contamination is by far the silliest, IMO.


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## bareyb (Dec 1, 2000)

I don't think the other Averys would have even known. That place is HUGE. 40 Acres. The houses are about as far away from the main junk yard as they can be. I'm sure the sound of equipment in the distance is a common thing on a Junk Yard even if they had heard something. Which I doubt. My theory is, that one of his relatives who also lives on the property did it and they were less concerned with getting caught since they were going to frame Steven for it anyway.

ETA: It appears that Smelters _are_ commonly used in Auto Salvage to remove precious metals from Electronics, Catalytic converters, etc.:

http://www.specialtymetals.com/blog/2014/3/7/where-are-precious-metals-hiding-in-junked-cars


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## jgickler (Apr 7, 2000)

bareyb said:


> I don't think the other Averys would have even known. That place is HUGE. 40 Acres. The houses are about as far away from the main junk yard as they can be. I'm sure the sound of equipment in the distance is a common thing on a Junk Yard even if they had heard something. Which I doubt. My theory is, that one of his relatives who also lives on the property did it and they were less concerned with getting caught since they were going to frame Steven for it anyway.
> 
> ETA: It appears that Smelters _are_ commonly used in Auto Salvage to remove precious metals from Electronics, Catalytic converters, etc.:
> 
> http://www.specialtymetals.com/blog/2014/3/7/where-are-precious-metals-hiding-in-junked-cars


And these are not nearly large enough to get rid of an entire car. At most, I would guess that the smelter at a junk yard would hold maybe a a couple cubic feet of material, probably much less.


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## bareyb (Dec 1, 2000)

jgickler said:


> And these are not nearly large enough to get rid of an entire car. At most, I would guess that the smelter at a junk yard would hold maybe a a couple cubic feet of material, probably much less.


I'll stipulate to your expertise on Smelters. 

That's just the first one I saw on Google and it was meant to burn the _body_, not the car. Either way, the Smelter is irrelevant. There are Google Pics of larger ones, but that's not the point. The point is, the real killers didn't bother to even make an attempt to hide the car (or smelt it) because they didn't care if it was found. They knew the Cops would point the finger at Steven. How much the Cops actually knew is anyone's guess.

My opinion is, they were not trying to frame an innocent man. I'm sure in their minds it had to be Steven. Or at least hoped it would be. After all he was suing the County for 32 Million Dollars and the Insurance Companies had already said they were not going to cover it if they lost the case... That's a pretty strong motive to "help a guilty man go to Prison".


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## jgickler (Apr 7, 2000)

So if you believe that one of the Avery's did it, why not Stephen? He allegedly was a child molester, domestic abuser, he tortured and killed small animals for pleasure, and he apparently harassed the victim on several occasions. Plus, all the question about why would he be so dumb as to leave the evidence close to his house, or not to crush the car are easily explained by the fact that he was literally an idiot, IQ around 70. Brendan was called every demeaning name in the book by his lawyers due to his low intelligence, but Stephen has nearly an identical IQ, and he is supposedly too smart to make a mistake in covering up this murder.

Honestly, the more I read about this case, the more certain I become that Avery did it, and I am beginning to wonder how much of what Brendan said was really true. For example, when he was asked how he came up with the story about the murder if it didn't happen, he says he read it in Kiss the Girls. Are we really to believe that a kid with a 70 IQ and a 4th grade reading level is reading 500 page James Patterson novels?


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## bareyb (Dec 1, 2000)

jgickler said:


> So if you believe that one of the Avery's did it, why not Stephen? He allegedly was a child molester, domestic abuser, he tortured and killed small animals for pleasure, and he apparently harassed the victim on several occasions. Plus, all the question about why would he be so dumb as to leave the evidence close to his house, or not to crush the car are easily explained by the fact that he was literally an idiot, IQ around 70. Brendan was called every demeaning name in the book by his lawyers due to his low intelligence, but Stephen has nearly an identical IQ, and he is supposedly too smart to make a mistake in covering up this murder.
> 
> Honestly, the more I read about this case, the more certain I become that Avery did it, and I am beginning to wonder how much of what Brendan said was really true. For example, when he was asked how he came up with the story about the murder if it didn't happen, he says he read it in Kiss the Girls. Are we really to believe that a kid with a 70 IQ and a 4th grade reading level is reading 500 page James Patterson novels?


He said book in the interview but it came out later that he'd actually seen the Movie. As for why not Steven? I'm not sure it wasn't him. It just doesn't make much sense compared to someone who was trying to make it _look_ like it was him. Granted, he's not the brightest star in the sky, but I'd think even someone as slow as Avery would make an attempt to get away with it. I think it's more likely he was set up for it. But who knows? At minimum, I think there was _reasonable doubt_ that he did it.

I'm disturbed by Avery's criminal past too. Very much so, but can we send a guy to prison for murder because he's a low life or deserves to be there for other reasons? Let me ask you this. Do you think there's a reasonable doubt? At all? If not, how can you be so sure with all the inconsistencies in this case?


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

I think the question was not why didn't he melt the car in the smelter but why not use it to burn the body. Rather then a burn pit 20' outside his window. 

The one thing I've yet to hear you attempt to disprove... If she was killed in the garage and then burned 40' away why did they find her blood/hair in the back of the SUV? To me that indicates someone transported her in the back of the SUV. Either her body or perhaps while she was still alive but knocked on the head.

You seem to be convinced that Avery did it. Which is fine as I'm not convinced he didn't do it. But whether he did it or not there is a LOT of fishy sh*t going on that seems to point to the police tampering with the evidence. 

If the blood wasn't planted in the car then why did someone break into his blood sample in the evidence room? What other reason is there for that?

If she was really shot in the garage, and that's where the bullet came from, then why wasn't there even a spec of blood or DNA found anywhere else in the garage? They cleaned the entire garage with a fine tooth comb to get every spec of blood but somehow missed the bullet?

If the story went anything like the narrative Brenden laid out why wasn't there a single spec of blood or DNA found inside the house? Why wasn't there rub marks on the bed posts from the shackles? Why wasn't there any sign of a struggle of any kind?

No matter if you believe he's guilty or not there is a LOT of stuff that doesn't add up.


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## jgickler (Apr 7, 2000)

I am the vice president for a company which melts metals as our primary business. I am telling you that no junk yard in rural Wisconsin is going to have a furnace large and hot enough to melt a car. They may be able to melt small pieces of a car, but anything large enough to melt a car would be very expensive, would require a large amount of fuel and probably all sorts of permits from the EPA, etc. 

And as far as the suit being motive, it was only in the deposition stage, I don't think that anyone expected Avery to eventually be awarded the full amount, and all that Colburn testified to was that he was working at the jail when he received a call about someone who was innocent being in their jail. He forwarded the call to the detectives, which is what he should have done. He was not involved in the initial case, and he really was only tangentially involved in the lawsuit. He was not listed as a defendant and had very little at stake as far as the lawsuit. And I also believe that the insurance companies had not categorically dropped out, but were threatening to, and I doubt that Colburn knew about that at the time.


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## mooseAndSquirrel (Aug 31, 2001)

mooseAndSquirrel said:


> I'm just up to episode 9, where Brendan is convicted.
> 
> A question on that - did the defense ever point out that if any of Brendan's story was true, there would have to be lots of (or at least some) DNA evidence left behind? I guess I heard some cop say they had 5 days to clean up, but c'mon. She's tied to the bed, raped and has her throat cut and there is zero of her DNA or Brendan's in that room? Where are the shackles?
> 
> ...


To answer my second question, according to an article I read, the shackles and leg irons were submitted into evidence. While that does seem damning to me, they also did not contain any of Halbach's DNA. It's certainly possible Avery cleaned them, but there's no way he cleaned his bedroom of her DNA so thoroughly.

Also, evidently there were leg irons in other family members' possession, so it seems like a kinky family.

So, given her blood in the back of the RAV4 and the lack of her DNA in the bedroom or garage, it seems certain that things did not go down the way the prosecution (or Brendan's earlier confession) described; not even remotely. So it still surprises me that neither trial came up with reasonable doubt. That's especially true with Brendan. (although is Kiss the Girls at a 4th grade reading level?)

OTOH, his confession was bizarre. There were leg irons. Avery did have a history of sexual assault. There was forensic evidence. The FBI guy was pretty definitive that the vial was not the source of the samples tested. Some nurse said the puncture wound on the vial is often the way they fill the thing in the first place (which seems odd, but so much in this case seems odd).

So had I been on the jury, I'm not sure how I would have voted. Certainly the documentary is staged to make you feel one way, but sitting through all of that trial, I may have decided that the prosecution had the details wrong, but still had the right suspect.


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## bareyb (Dec 1, 2000)

Yeah. These are the "Leg Irons" they found. Not exactly what I had in my mind... Even so, assuming someone was fighting for their life, wouldn't they have left marks on the bed posts?


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## mooseAndSquirrel (Aug 31, 2001)

Thanks - not what I had in mind either! And you would also think "sweat DNA" would be hard to clean off of the pink fuzzy areas.


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## jgickler (Apr 7, 2000)

Dan203 said:


> I think the question was not why didn't he melt the car in the smelter but why not use it to burn the body. Rather then a burn pit 20' outside his window.
> 
> The one thing I've yet to hear you attempt to disprove... If she was killed in the garage and then burned 40' away why did they find her blood/hair in the back of the SUV? To me that indicates someone transported her in the back of the SUV. Either her body or perhaps while she was still alive but knocked on the head.
> 
> ...


Like I have said several times, I don't know where she was killed, but I do think that at some point, they tossed her in the back of the car, and transported her body to a burn barrel. Whether her body was in the garage, I don't know, but honestly this isn't clue, for Avery to be guilty you don't need to prove he did it in the study with a candlestick, you just need to prove he did it. I think that the bullet most likely was either trapped in her clothes, somewhere in the car, in the tire treads or something, and it fell out when they were trying to clean the car. But again, to plant the bullet they would have had to take the gun out of the lockup in the other county, fire it, or just hope that a bullet they found would match Avery's gun.

As far as the blood sample, they didn't mention it in the show, but I posted a link that the nurse who took the sample was going to testify that she poked the hole in the vial and several experts were going to testify that that was the proper way to use that particular vial. So the only evidence of the blood being stolen is the tape being cut and re-taped. That certainly doesn't in any way indicate that Colburn stole the blood, it just means that sometime after the vial was initially packaged, someone for some reason opened the Styrofoam. The show wants us to believe it is Colburn, because he is the only member of the conspiracy that had access to the keys to the office, but we have no idea when it happened, who broke the tape or why. My guess is that since it was evidence from a closed case, they didn't treat it as reverently as an open case, and someone opened it to verify that the vial was there, and didn't have the proper tape to close it again.

As I said, I don't think that most of the details Brendan said were accurate. I think he possibly was involved in the clean up, and his sexual abuse by Avery could have led to him wanting to make Avery seem like a monster in his interview. Avery did have shackles, but I think they were more S&M type then the ones that would be secure, so I'm guessing that Brendan knew he owned them, and added that to the story as well.

But again, I doubt she was killed in the house, my guess is that he took her someplace in the woods, raped her, shot her in the head, tossed her back in the Rav4, probably using some plastic to keep most of the blood out of the car, then transferred her to the burn barrel, eventually burning her body, and having Brendan possibly help with the clean up.

There is a podcast I was going to listen to from one of the reporters who covered the case and was there for the entire trial. He is absolutely convinced beyond any reasonable doubt that Avery is guilty, and still believe it after watching MoaM. So I do think it is possible that a fair juror to find him guilty beyond any reasonable doubt.


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## peitsche (Nov 13, 2002)

Dan203 said:


> The one thing I've yet to hear you attempt to disprove... If she was killed in the garage and then burned 40' away why did they find her blood/hair in the back of the SUV? To me that indicates someone transported her in the back of the SUV. Either her body or perhaps while she was still alive but knocked on the head.


From "Rebutting a Murderer":

Why, the defense claims, would Avery load her body into the car to take it to the burn barrel right outside his garage? Well, because Making a Murderer completely omits a part of Dasseys confession in which he says that he and Avery drove the body to a nearby pond in an effort to dump it there, but found that the pond had dried up, so they took it back to the burn pit and set it on fire.


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## mooseAndSquirrel (Aug 31, 2001)

peitsche said:


> From "Rebutting a Murderer":
> 
> Why, the defense claims, would Avery load her body into the car to take it to the burn barrel right outside his garage? Well, because Making a Murderer completely omits a part of Dasseys confession in which he says that he and Avery drove the body to a nearby pond in an effort to dump it there, but found that the pond had dried up, so they took it back to the burn pit and set it on fire.


Wow, all of these left out details really point to how manipulative they were.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

peitsche said:


> From "Rebutting a Murderer":
> 
> Why, the defense claims, would Avery load her body into the car to take it to the burn barrel right outside his garage? Well, because Making a Murderer completely omits a part of Dasseys confession in which he says that he and Avery drove the body to a nearby pond in an effort to dump it there, but found that the pond had dried up, so they took it back to the burn pit and set it on fire.


I hadn't heard that. That might explain the blood in the car. But it still makes you wonder why they couldn't find any blood or DNA in the garage or house. Not even in the cracks.

If he did do it I'd still say he did it somewhere else.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

jgickler said:


> Whether her body was in the garage, I don't know, but honestly this isn't clue, for Avery to be guilty you don't need to prove he did it in the study with a candlestick, you just need to prove he did it.


But it seems like most of the physical evidence was highly suspect and even the circumstantial evidence was muddied. There was some really odd and conflicting testimony in this trial.

And from what I saw they had zero physical evidence to convict Brandon. All they had was his confession, the details of which could be completely disproved by the physical evidence.


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## jgickler (Apr 7, 2000)

The documentary tells you over and over how distrustful the cops are so you distrust the evidence. To the point where you are willing to believe a convoluted conspiracy theory predicated on the idea that the cops were willing to do anything to make Avery and his lawsuit go away. To the point where they don't care if Theresa is alive when the find the car and they are willing to risk not only their jibs, their freedom, and the reputation of their police force to frame Avery without knowing if he was in fact the killer. 

And to be honest, I resent the fact that the documentary manipulated us into believing his innocence by omitting facts and highlighting small irregularities. Couple that with the fact that Avery has been accused of child molestation, abusing his wife and girlfriend, sexual harassment, and even harassing the victim and I don't see how he his story has any credibility.


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## bareyb (Dec 1, 2000)

jgickler said:


> The documentary tells you over and over how distrustful the cops are so you distrust the evidence. To the point where you are willing to believe a convoluted conspiracy theory predicated on the idea that the cops were willing to do anything to make Avery and his lawsuit go away. To the point where they don't care if Theresa is alive when the find the car and they are willing to risk not only their jibs, their freedom, and the reputation of their police force to frame Avery without knowing if he was in fact the killer.
> 
> And to be honest, I resent the fact that the documentary manipulated us into believing his innocence by omitting facts and highlighting small irregularities. Couple that with the fact that Avery has been accused of child molestation, abusing his wife and girlfriend, sexual harassment, and even harassing the victim and I don't see how he his story has any credibility.


Calling it a "convoluted conspiracy theory" is just a _bit_ of an overstatement... It's certainly not much of a reach to suspect the cops _may_ have tampered with the evidence. One or two people (Lenk and the Coburn for instance) was all it would have taken. Those two guys were either present or directly involved with every single bit of "new" evidence that was found later after the original searches. As they said in the film, in cases like there can't be even an _appearance_ of impropriety or it brings the whole case into question. They should never have been anywhere NEAR to the evidence and now because of the improper way the evidence was handled, that is precisely what has happened. Lots and lots of doubt. Lots and lots of _reasonable doubt_ in my mind.

As for Theresa, she was already dead anyway so why would that have any bearing on how they proceeded afterward? They just wanted to make damn sure they got Steven Avery for it. I think the true killers are walking free and they live on Avery property. The last part of your post is irrelevant from a legal standpoint. You can't send a person to Prison for Murder because you think he's a bad person or because of previous bad acts. You send them there because you have found within a reasonable doubt that they are guilty. If there has ever been a case that if riddled with inconsistencies and _reasonable doubt_ this is it.


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## jgickler (Apr 7, 2000)

If the conspiracy theory is correct, they found the car, and not Theresa. So how did they know she was dead? She could be injured, held hostage, or something else. To believe the conspiracy, you have to also believe that finding out if she was dead or alive, possibly saving her life if she wasn't dead ( we don't know when she was killed), that none of that mattered to the cops, all they cared about was framing Avery. They were willing to do whatever it takes, even if that meant letting the real killer ( for all they knew at the time) go free and maybe commit more crimes in the future just like happened with the false rape conviction. That is some cold blooded thinking, especially if the motivation is a lawsuit in its early stages where they are not defendants. 

I brought up Avery's past because it goes to his credibility. The series tried to portray him as a good person who made a few mistakes and had turned his life around. From what I have learned after the show, he was a monster even if he didn't commit the murder. I wouldn't believe a thing he said. 

As far as reasonable doubt, thinking some evidence was tampered with doesn't automatically give reasonable doubt if the rest of the evidence is sufficient enough to convict.


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## pdhenry (Feb 28, 2005)

Once you reasonably believe some of the police might have tampered with evidence everything those officers touched or could have touched is suspect.


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## getreal (Sep 29, 2003)

DevdogAZ said:


> ... The most interesting part of that article is it says NBC's Dateline is going to be doing a Making of a Murderer follow-up special later this month. If anyone knows when that is going to air, please post the details here.


Investigation Discovery already did a feature on the Halbach case years ago. It will be interesting to see their new update with Keith Morrison.

Check out the old episode:


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## Zevida (Nov 8, 2003)

Dan203 said:


> The key is by far the most obviously planted piece of "evidence" in the whole story. The fact that it didn't have any of her DNA on it but did somehow have his, even though she touched it daily and he touched it once, is the real clencher. Even if you believe they some how magically found it on the 7th search of the bookcase.


If there was blood on it, or he thought there was, he may have cleaned it off, but then was unlikely to be bright enough to wear gloves, so would have left his DNA on it.



bareyb said:


> Granted, he's not the brightest star in the sky, but I'd think even someone as slow as Avery would make an attempt to get away with it.


He did make an attempt to get away with it. He burned the body. He tried to hide the car. He cleaned off the key. Getting away with murder is a lot harder than the movies make it look to be. Most people try to get away with it and fail. Like he did here.


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## jgickler (Apr 7, 2000)

pdhenry said:


> Once you reasonably believe some of the police might have tampered with evidence everything those officers touched or could have touched is suspect.


I would say that for you to reasonably believe that an officer, let alone an entire department, tampered with evidence, you need more evidence then what we have here. There really is no proof that the evidence was tampered with, just speculation based on the narrative that the police in this town are corrupt and out for revenge. The only evidence of any tampering is the retaped blood vial container, and we have absolutely no idea who, why or when the package was opened and resealed.

But my point is that even if you believe that the key and the bullet were planted, and you exclude that evidence, there is enough evidence to convict Avery beyond a reasonable doubt. That is why the defense came up with this theory that a cop found the car days before, planted the blood, stole the key etc. Because the blood evidence in the car proves that Avery was in that car. I don't think that it is reasonable to believe that Colburn found the car based on the license plate check, I don't think that he would have complete disregard for the life of a missing person to let the evidence sit undiscovered for 2 days when he didn't know if she was dead or alive. Without early access to the car, the cops planting evidence theory can't work. If he doesn't find the car, there is no way to plant the blood evidence. If he doesn't find the car, there is no way that he had the key to plant later ( remember lanyard part was found in the car, so no way that the key was given to the police at a time after the 5th).

I guess the bullet plant doesn't require finding the car, but the gun used to fire the bullet was in the evidence locker since November 5th, and they didn't find out she was shot until months later. So either this is a grand conspiracy, including multiple police forces in 2 different counties, or the more straight forward explanation that it was overlooked during the first search, before they knew that she was shot.

And the idea that planting a bullet would help the case is pretty poor thinking. At that point, they had the Avery's blood in the car, they had her remains ( positively identified at that point) burned in a fire pit near he residence, and they had a confession from Brendan implicating Avery. At that point, things seemed like an open and shut case. So why risk planting a bullet, when you already have an open and shut case?


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## pdhenry (Feb 28, 2005)

No, if you believe the key and the bullet were planted, all other physical evidence needs more scrutiny than one would ordinarily give to police. Any assumption in their favor for being police is lost. And if it had been handled by any Manitowoc officers, particularly the two who were assisting in the search of Avery's trailer and property, it would be discarded by me in a jury I was a member of.
Manitowoc knew they had to be hands off in the investigation and at least some officers acted contrarily to that.


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## TAsunder (Aug 6, 2003)

getreal said:


> BTW, I grew up in a small town surrounded by farms, and it was not uncommon for farm kids to have many experiences killing small animals as recreation on their properties. These included feral cats, rabbits, gophers. Once I was horrified to witness one of the farm kids during recess as we played soccer, he chased down a gopher and bashed its head in with a rock. I had also heard stories of farm kids pulling pranks like grabbing a cat by the tail and scraping it's rear end with a wire brush and then pouring turpentine on the wound and letting it go. There was also a story of a boy (about 12 or 13 yrs. old at the time) throwing a feral cat on a fire. That was before the term "politically correct" was a thing, and before psychologists had studied the minds of serial killers and connected similar behaviors to escalating levels of socio/psychopathy (i.e., late 60s - early 70s). But when kids are raised on farms where animals are slaughtered for fun and for food, it is part of their "culture". Sheltered cityfolk and molly-coddled Millennials cannot relate to such a mindset. I think a grungy family of possibly inbred dummies like the Avery clan can accept such behavior as just messin' around.
> 
> Also, I concur with the Reddit theory presented in this thread as the most likely explanation of what actually took place on Halloween 2005.


Those were strays and ferals. This was a family pet. It's a huge difference.


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## Robin (Dec 6, 2001)

DevdogAZ said:


> I haven't seen any reference to the salvage yard having the means to melt the car down. But they did have a car crusher, and it's right in that part of the yard near where the RAV-4 was found. I wonder if maybe Steven didn't have authority to crush something, and if he had done it it would have prompted questions from his dad or other family. Especially since the car was relatively new and in good condition.


It was mentioned somewhere, I think in the documentary, that Stephen did have access to the crusher.


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## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

Robin said:


> It was mentioned somewhere, I think in the documentary, that Stephen did have access to the crusher.


I'm sure he could have used the crusher. What I'm not sure of is if he could have used the crusher on a relatively new car and then hidden it somewhere in the salvage yard without anyone else noticing or asking questions about what he was doing.


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## KRS (Jan 30, 2002)

jgickler said:


> But my point is that even if you believe that the key and the bullet were planted, and you exclude that evidence, there is enough evidence to convict Avery beyond a reasonable doubt.


I disagree. What evidence against Avery is not tainted and actually links her killing to Avery? Reasonable doubt is the only logical conclusion, as far as I am concerned. If you are questioning the defense theories, you also have to question the prosecution theories too. I believe that both sides presented highly flawed theories.



jgickler said:


> That is why the defense came up with this theory that a cop found the car days before, planted the blood, stole the key etc. Because the blood evidence in the car proves that Avery was in that car.


How does it "prove" that with no fingerprints present? Her blood was confirmed to have been in accordance with hair smearing patterns (or something), but his blood was oddly located in several spots without a single fingerprint. I think it is reasonable to doubt that.



jgickler said:


> I don't think that it is reasonable to believe that Colburn found the car based on the license plate check, I don't think that he would have complete disregard for the life of a missing person to let the evidence sit undiscovered for 2 days when he didn't know if she was dead or alive.


Did you observe his reaction to the questions about that call? He looked like a deer in the headlights, caught in a lie. Maybe it was a routine call, but it sure looked fishy to me. And let's not forget how Colburn took the phone call from another prison saying that someone confessed to Avery's 85 conviction. That shows a certain amount of disregard for life on his part.



jgickler said:


> the gun used to fire the bullet was in the evidence locker since November 5th, and they didn't find out she was shot until months later. So either this is a grand conspiracy, including multiple police forces in 2 different counties, or the more straight forward explanation that it was overlooked during the first search, before they knew that she was shot.


The bullet should not have been used as evidence in the first place. The DNA tests on the bullet were invalidated by the lab tech. The same lab tech who incorrectly confirmed that the hair found on the 85 rape victim was Avery's, when in fact it was not, and that is why he got exhonorated. And the same lab tech who was instructed by Fassback to "try to place her in the garage." Reasonable doubt.



jgickler said:


> And the idea that planting a bullet would help the case is pretty poor thinking. At that point, they had the Avery's blood in the car, they had her remains ( positively identified at that point) burned in a fire pit near he residence, and they had a confession from Brendan implicating Avery. At that point, things seemed like an open and shut case. So why risk planting a bullet, when you already have an open and shut case?


The bullet could have been to firm up their theory and place her in the garage. Nothing else placed her in there, aside from Brendan's forced confession. And how would you explain the fact that no other DNA or blood evidence was found in the garage? It would have been impossible to clean up all her blood and DNA in a garage that was filled to the brim with tools, machinery, and junk.


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## TAsunder (Aug 6, 2003)

The bullet dna was only "invalid" in the sense that the tester's own dna (not the victim's) was also found there. According to normal procedure, they would discard the result as inconclusive but since there was no way to re-test, the group decided to call it conclusive. There was no doubt that the victim's DNA was on the bullet.

I've already noted that it is entirely plausible for there to be blood but no fingerprint. Aside from the basic forensic fact that fingerprints aren't ALWAYS present no matter what, there's the fact that a profusely bleeding wound can bleed through gloves.


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## pdhenry (Feb 28, 2005)

TAsunder said:


> According to normal procedure, they would discard the result as inconclusive but since there was no way to re-test, the group decided to call it conclusive.


You seriously have no issue with what you just typed there?

Why do you think there's a protocol for declaring a particular test result inconclusive?


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## KRS (Jan 30, 2002)

TAsunder said:


> The bullet dna was only "invalid" in the sense that the tester's own dna (not the victim's) was also found there. According to normal procedure, they would discard the result as inconclusive but since there was no way to re-test, the group decided to call it conclusive. There was no doubt that the victim's DNA was on the bullet.


So, they did not follow normal procedure. Why? If they had so much other evidence, why include it?
And I thought that it had been established that the lab tech had previous evidence from the case at her station while doing the tests. Not to mention instructing two other lab techs while working on the bullet test.

Sloppy on all fronts. Should not have been allowed as evidence in my opinion.


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## TAsunder (Aug 6, 2003)

pdhenry said:


> You seriously have no issue with what you just typed there?
> 
> Why do you think there's a protocol for declaring a particular test result inconclusive?


It is problematic but the theory that the contamination led to false positive is silly. I think the test should have been thrown out, but I'm under no delusion that her DNA was not actually present on the bullet.


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## pdhenry (Feb 28, 2005)

Right, the presence of foreign DNA in the control sample shows procedural issues in the analysis. It's not necessary that the contamination in the control to be the suspect's for this to be the case.


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## DreadPirateRob (Nov 12, 2002)

jgickler said:


> So if you believe that one of the Avery's did it, why not Stephen? He allegedly was a child molester, domestic abuser, he tortured and killed small animals for pleasure, and he apparently harassed the victim on several occasions.


That's a pretty generous reading of allegations - assuming all of them are true when in fact there's almost no evidence of them. The ex-fiance says things now, but she sure painted a different story in the footage made during the time, as well as during her phone calls. Was she play-acting the entire time? Doubtful - she's a drunk after all. And I'm not sure about the "harassing" the victim part. Kratz talks a big game about that, but answering a door in your towel once is not harassment. The cat thing is certainly bothersome to me, but is there any evidence of it being more than one? As for child molester - I guess, if you take Brendan's word as absolute fact. But the problem is, which word do you take? His various accounts are all over the place.

And you could say the same thing - or worse - about at least 4 other adult males who all were at the junkyard or Avery compound the same day that Teresa went missing.



jgickler said:


> Honestly, the more I read about this case, the more certain I become that Avery did it, and I am beginning to wonder how much of what Brendan said was really true. For example, when he was asked how he came up with the story about the murder if it didn't happen, he says he read it in Kiss the Girls. Are we really to believe that a kid with a 70 IQ and a 4th grade reading level is reading 500 page James Patterson novels?


How could any of what Brendan said be true? There's not a single shred of physical evidence corroborating any of it. If Teresa's throat was cut anywhere in the house or garage there would be no way to clean it all up - especially with all the crap everywhere. Besides - there was no blood or DNA on the mattress at all, and it certainly didn't look like it had been replaced anytime recently.


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## DreadPirateRob (Nov 12, 2002)

jgickler said:


> And as far as the suit being motive, it was only in the deposition stage, I don't think that anyone expected Avery to eventually be awarded the full amount, and all that Colburn testified to was that he was working at the jail when he received a call about someone who was innocent being in their jail. He forwarded the call to the detectives, which is what he should have done. He was not involved in the initial case, and he really was only tangentially involved in the lawsuit. He was not listed as a defendant and had very little at stake as far as the lawsuit. And I also believe that the insurance companies had not categorically dropped out, but were threatening to, and I doubt that Colburn knew about that at the time.


If they settled it for $400,000 when he was in jail and had absolutely no leverage, you can be sure that the county was worried they were going to be hit for well more than $10M.

As for Colburn/Lenk - I think losing your job and your pension because the county has been bankrupted by the settlement is plenty motivation.


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## KRS (Jan 30, 2002)

The simple fact that there is so much debate on either side kinda shows that there is considerable doubt surrounding the details of the case. 

I work in software, and when we are deciding how many agile points to assign to a task (the way to measure how long it will take to do), debates between a high and lower number often come up. I find that the longer something needs to be debated, the more clear it becomes that the longer estimate is the correct one.


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## jgickler (Apr 7, 2000)

The whole thing with Colburn like a "deer in the headlights" is due to the bias of the film makers. Yes, he was asked about a call that he did not remember, and appeared surprised and unsure of where this was leading. But notice that the documentary didn't show his redirect testimony, where he explains how the call could have been made. He wasn't caught lying on the stand, he was caught not remembering a 10 second phone months after the fact. And that testimony is the only way you can link Colburn to the car, the blood, the key etc. If, as I do, you think that the call was merely to confirm the information he was given, then what reason is there to think that he would plant any evidence? 

As for why no fingerprints in the car, there were only 8 surfaces in the car that would have been suitable for fingerprints, they found nothing on those 8 surfaces. That doesn't mean someone hadn't touched every other inch of the car, it just means that in those limited areas, there were no prints. Maybe Avery was wearing gloves for part of the murder/destruction of evidence, maybe he wiped down those limited areas, maybe they are not areas that you would normally touch. There are plenty of explanations for why no fingerprints that don't involve tampering with the evidence. And the wound on Avery's hand was not on the finger tip, so there is no reason to expect that a blood transfer from that wound would leave a fingerprint.

As far as the allegations of his past acts, there are police reports for the domestic violence visits with his first wife, I believe there are for his second. If you listen to the Brendan molestation part, he said it both in his interview ( which again was not shown) and to his mother. His mother did not seem surprised or angry, which I would expect if the allegations were new to her and she did not believe they were true.


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## KRS (Jan 30, 2002)

jgickler said:


> As for why no fingerprints in the car, there were only 8 surfaces in the car that would have been suitable for fingerprints, they found nothing on those 8 surfaces. That doesn't mean someone hadn't touched every other inch of the car, it just means that in those limited areas, there were no prints. Maybe Avery was wearing gloves for part of the murder/destruction of evidence, maybe he wiped down those limited areas, maybe they are not areas that you would normally touch. There are plenty of explanations for why no fingerprints that don't involve tampering with the evidence. And the wound on Avery's hand was not on the finger tip, so there is no reason to expect that a blood transfer from that wound would leave a fingerprint.


From reading your posts, you are speculating about evidence just as much as the filmmakers and people who suspect a set up.

I don't think people in this thread are convinced 100% that Avery is innocent. It is more questioning the evidence, the timeline, and the validity of the people testifying.


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## jgickler (Apr 7, 2000)

For any case, even one that is a slam dunk forensically, there are 2 sides. When presented with a view of both sides, I think that there is no reasonable doubt in this case. When just watching the documentary, reasonable doubt is created by only showing one side of the evidence, and by demonizing the witnesses for the prosecution while whitewashing the past actions of the defendant. 

Sure you have to make assumptions in any case where there are 2 competing sides. In this case, the big assumption that the documentary wants you to make is that the police can't be trusted. If you don't trust the police, then it seems reasonable that maybe they did something improper. And if it is reasonable to believe the police planted evidence, then that can lead to reasonable doubt. But they way they build this distrust is by only showing one side of the story. 

For example, the vial of blood. They made a big deal about the hole in the vial, saying that that is not what any professional would do. But the prosecution had a statement from the nurse who drew the sample saying that the way she took a sample included piercing the top of the tube. They also had experts willing to testify that for that particular tube, the proper use involved puncturing the end of the tube. If you just watched the documentary, you were left with the impression that the only thing that could have caused the hole was someone stealing blood. And after the blood came back as negative for EDTA, the prosecution didn't need to call these people because they didn't feel it was necessary, their point was already proven.

If you know that the hole was there from the time the sample was taken, then that puts a big hole in the idea that the vial with a hole is a smoking gun. But knowing the truth about the sample, the hole is not proof of anything. And the defense ended up with no evidence of tampering with the blood, just innuendo and a improbable theory with no evidence to support it.


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## jgickler (Apr 7, 2000)

I just re-watched Colborn's testimony about the plate. Honestly, I don't see anything to make me think he is lying. If you take out the menacing music in the background, I think his answers are pretty consistent with someone who is being questioned about something that he does not remember, and who is trying to listen carefully to the questions so he can answer questions truthfully without falling into a trap by the prosecution. The defense lawyer is good, and asks the questions in a way that could easily trip up someone who is lying, or not listening closely. 

Also, remember that this was not a call made from his radio, it was from a phone. I am guessing it is a land line or the defense would have provided cell phone records. It would be pretty dumb of him to call it in if he was at the car, reading the plate to the person on the other end, knowing that any call he made to that number was automatically recorded. Also, if he was going to describe the car over the phone, you wouldn't say a 99 Toyota because other then looking at the VIN, there is no easy way to tell a 99 from a 2000. My guess, he was given the information by the detective like he said, and before he passed it on to others, he wanted to verify it. Probably a pretty routine call for someone on patrol, and with all the excitement that day, going to visit Avery etc, I could see how he could forget the call.


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## mooseAndSquirrel (Aug 31, 2001)

Speaking of phone records, Brendan mentioned calls throughout the afternoon and evening. Were they ever confirmed or disputed?


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## KRS (Jan 30, 2002)

jgickler - well the documentary did do an excellent job of casting suspicions on the police and their methods. Seemingly with good measure. 

Ignoring the call about the plates...

Why were other people not investigated or questioned? The ex-boyfriend and other residents at the salvage yard?

Why were Lenk and Colburn so thoroughly involved with the investigation after being told to steeer clear due to the conflict of interest?

Why were the bones shoveled into a box if they were such a key piece of evidence? Wouldn't the act of shoveling them mess up the forensic analysis later?

Why did Colburn not act on the phone call that someone confessed to the 85 rape? And why was paperwork filed so long after the fact and/or locked in a safe?


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## TAsunder (Aug 6, 2003)

The most reasonable suspect is still Steven Avery. Every other scenario I've seen proposed is so convoluted and full of coincidence that they just don't seem more plausible than him having done it. The story the prosecution told is also largely implausible, but almost all of the evidence I have seen falls into one of a few categories:

1. It appears to point to Steven Avery, but he'd have to be really stupid to do what he did for the evidence to show up there. e.g. burn barrel, car

2. It appears to point to Steven Avery, but it doesn't seem to match the story told by the prosecution. e.g. bullet

3. It appears to point to Steven Avery, but it seems to be fabricated, planted, or suspicious

4. It does not point to any particular suspect. e.g. Colborn's call

Basically there's very very minimal evidence against anyone else. And this is likely because they didn't really investigate anyone else. The only thing I can think of that looks particularly like evidence against another suspect is the deleted voicemails. 

Is there anything else?

Given all that, I don't understand how anyone can truly believe any of these silly alternate theories. It seems to boil down to someone believing Avery is innocent (plausible) and assuming that we have enough information to really understand what happened (not even close).


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## KRS (Jan 30, 2002)

TAsunder said:


> The most reasonable suspect is still Steven Avery. Every other scenario I've seen proposed is so convoluted and full of coincidence that they just don't seem more plausible than him having done it. The story the prosecution told is also largely implausible, but almost all of the evidence I have seen falls into one of a few categories:
> 
> 1. It appears to point to Steven Avery, but he'd have to be really stupid to do what he did for the evidence to show up there. e.g. burn barrel, car
> 
> ...


I don't think Steve Avery is the only reasonable suspect. At the very least, an ex-boyfriend (with a stalkerish incident in his history) is a normal person to look at.

Also, Scott Tadych did a lot of suspicious things. He was home for the appointment, had a weird alibi with times that did not add up, he tried to sell a .22 a couple days after the murder, saying that it was the "best thing ever" when Avery was convicted. Not that it proves he did it, but why wasn't he investigated too.

Or the other Avery brothers, both of whom also had violent histories and lived on site.

But the police started and finished their investigation with just Steven Avery.


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## TAsunder (Aug 6, 2003)

Yes, there are more than a few people that should have been investigated. I still don't see anything that makes me think that the most likely suspect is anyone but Avery. Maybe if they investigated other people more, we would. Until then, the theories on reddit and elsewhere are totally unconvincing.


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## jgickler (Apr 7, 2000)

KRS said:


> jgickler - well the documentary did do an excellent job of casting suspicions on the police and their methods. Seemingly with good measure.
> 
> Ignoring the call about the plates...
> 
> ...


Let me answer your last question first. Colburn was not a detective, he was the jail keeper. He did not investigate as part of his job, he ran the jail. So when he got the call, he forwarded it to the detectives. That is what he was supposed to do. I assume he filed the paperwork as a CYA type thing when it came out that Avery was innocent of the rape. But I'm sure that writing a report for a forwarded phone call is not SOP for the jail keeper.

As for the other questions, I think that the theme that binds all those questions together is budget. The Calumet County investigators were limited in their resources, both money and manpower. So they used more help from Manitowoc then they should have. That probably explains why they didn't question more suspects prior to Avery being arrested. It also explains why they had Manitowoc officers helping with the searches, they just didn't have enough people or money to pay their people to be investigating such a high profile, labor intensive case, and do all the things they needed to do in their own county. I would also guess that the forensic team collecting the bones was also limited in their budget, and probably their expertise, and the way they treated the evidence probably made it more difficult on the prosecution.


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## pdhenry (Feb 28, 2005)

TAsunder said:


> The most reasonable suspect is still Steven Avery. Every other scenario I've seen proposed is so convoluted and full of coincidence that they just don't seem more plausible than him having done it. The story the prosecution told is also largely implausible, but almost all of the evidence I have seen falls into one of a few categories:
> 
> 1. It appears to point to Steven Avery, but he'd have to be really stupid to do what he did for the evidence to show up there. e.g. burn barrel, car
> 
> ...


We don't convict on those grounds.

Reasonable doubt results in a decision for the defendant.


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## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

jgickler said:


> The whole thing with Colburn like a "deer in the headlights" is due to the bias of the film makers. Yes, he was asked about a call that he did not remember, and appeared surprised and unsure of where this was leading. But notice that the documentary didn't show his redirect testimony, where he explains how the call could have been made. He wasn't caught lying on the stand, he was caught not remembering a 10 second phone months after the fact. And that testimony is the only way you can link Colburn to the car, the blood, the key etc. If, as I do, you think that the call was merely to confirm the information he was given, then what reason is there to think that he would plant any evidence?


The one issue I have with this is that the prosecution had to know that the defense was going to use this call. That's the way trials work. Both sides know about all the evidence before the trial ever starts. So if the prosecution knew about this call and knew that Colburn was being called as a witness and would be asked about this, why was he not better prepared to answer questions about this call?

And why was the call made from a phone rather than from his car radio unless he wasn't in his patrol car during his shift?


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## jgickler (Apr 7, 2000)

Colborn was the patrol shift supervisor, so he had administrative duties which could explain why he was ar a desk and not his car. I also assume that even a full time patrol officer has paperwork the fill out at the station, so using a phone is not suspicious. 

If you read the transcript, the defense had a cd of recording that spanned several days. My guess is the prosecution didn't see the call as suspicious, and didn't prep Colburn on the call. If you read the redirect, Colburn explains that he could have been confirming information he was given, and he again states the he did not see the car on the 3rd.


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## GoPackGo (Dec 29, 2012)

bareyb said:


> Oh God, I'd have to watch the whole thing again. IIRC correctly, it was mentioned by one of the investigators somewhere along the line. He basically posed the same question. He said "they have a smelter on the property, why not just burn the body using that?".
> 
> ETA: Did a quick Google and found several sources that also heard it. It seems fairly widely known.
> 
> ETA 2: Check out this link: https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=Avery+had+a+Smelter+on+the+property+why+not+just+use+that%3F&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8


I like to use the subtitle sites when I need to recall dialog from a show: http://subscene.com/subtitles/making-a-murderer-first-season/english/1246835


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## jgickler (Apr 7, 2000)

A smelter would not be a good was to get rid of a body. They are designed to melt metal, and it is basically a vessel that is heated. Think of it like a pot on a stove. They are not designed for combustible materials and a body would not melt, it would probably make a lot of very nasty smoke, and I doubt it would ever be as effective as an open fire with some sort of fuel.


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## ElJay (Apr 6, 2005)

jgickler said:


> The documentary tells you over and over how distrustful the cops are so you distrust the evidence. To the point where you are willing to believe a convoluted conspiracy theory predicated on the idea...


I think what you are missing is the personal liability aspect on Lenk, Colborn, et al regarding the civil lawsuit. I don't think it was just the county itself that was going to go down.


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## getreal (Sep 29, 2003)

Here's yet another theory about an alternate murderer of Teresa Walbach on Halloween 2005 ... Edward Wayne Edwards:


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## TAsunder (Aug 6, 2003)

pdhenry said:


> We don't convict on those grounds.
> 
> Reasonable doubt results in a decision for the defendant.


I'm not talking about a court of law. I'm talking about people here and on reddit who actually think the most likely scenario is that someone other specific person did it.


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## ACoolDude (Dec 11, 2001)

Was the jury stacked from the get go?










How did the jury have the father of a Manitowoc county officer and the husband of a woman that works in the Manitowoc county clerks office? Both would have had a personal interest in seeing the county not lose a $36M lawsuit and possibly seeing relatives/wife lose their jobs due to the resultant job cuts.

I think that having a Manitowoc county officer's father on the jury would be pretty intimidating if you lived there - and IIRC all of the jurors were from Manitowoc county.

The main point of the video is the possibility that the family emergency that got a juror dismissed was set up. Not sure about that, but the jury seems biased from the start - these 2 at least would have never found not guilty.


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## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

But the threat of the lawsuit was long-since over before the jury was ever empaneled. Once the settlement occurred, there was no longer any danger of the county employees losing jobs due to bankruptcy.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

ACoolDude said:


> Was the jury stacked from the get go?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Don't the defense attorneys have the right to dismiss jurors if they feel there is a bias? Did they not realize these conflicts ahead of time? Or did they just not care?


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## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

Dan203 said:


> Don't the defense attorneys have the right to dismiss jurors if they feel there is a bias? Did they not realize these conflicts ahead of time? Or did they just not care?


Typically, during voir dire (jury selection), both sides have a certain number of potential jurors they can dismiss, so the number of people they can veto is not unlimited. It's likely that they simply used their vetoes on more objectionable options and were stuck with what was left.


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## ACoolDude (Dec 11, 2001)

DevdogAZ said:


> But the threat of the lawsuit was long-since over before the jury was ever empaneled. Once the settlement occurred, there was no longer any danger of the county employees losing jobs due to bankruptcy.


That may be, but how much was "I'll show him, trying to bankrupt the county..."

How big a lawsuit would there be if he is exonerated again? Not saying it will happen, but if it were to be proved he were innocent (not just reasonable doubt in this case).

I've only seen the Netflix series, what I read here, and a little extra. Don't know if he's guilty or not, I just know that I'm never going to visit Manitowoc county


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## ACoolDude (Dec 11, 2001)

What bothers me a lot is the prosecutors etc. referring to his past as if he were really guilty of the rape still.

In the Investigation Discovery piece linked to previously, just about every thing the blonde lady (DA?) said showed she still believed he was guilty of the rape, and the one statement that mentioned he wasn't guilty was something like "he may not have committed the rape but he was a bad man"


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## mooseAndSquirrel (Aug 31, 2001)

ACoolDude said:


> What bothers me a lot is the prosecutors etc. referring to his past as if he were really guilty of the rape still.
> 
> In the Investigation Discovery piece linked to previously, just about every thing the blonde lady (DA?) said showed she still believed he was guilty of the rape, and the one statement that mentioned he wasn't guilty was something like "he may not have committed the rape but he was a bad man"


I think (but have started to lose interest) that he had a larger criminal record than the documentary presented. As my son-in-law said to me the other night, he was probably known to the police from age 13 on.

So, when the judge discussed the ever increasing arc of his criminal life, I think that was alluding to other crimes and complaints, and not the false rape conviction.


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## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

I just saw something in an article on Variety.com that said Dateline's special about this case is airing tonight. Not sure if that's true, as my TiVo's guide description just has generic info. But I set it to record. For those of you in the eastern half of the country, check it out in 45 minutes and see if that's what's really on tonight.


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## pdhenry (Feb 28, 2005)

Yeah, my Guide is generic but I've seen an ad or two today saying it's on tonight at 10 Eastern.


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## BrettStah (Nov 12, 2000)

The DirecTV DVR guide has the correct guide data (assuming the episode is about this case).


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## bareyb (Dec 1, 2000)

pdhenry said:


> Yeah, my Guide is generic but I've seen an ad or two today saying it's on tonight at 10 Eastern.


Looks like it's on at 10 Pacific too. Thanks for the heads up guys.


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## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

Watching now. It's so frustrating. They only have an hour to go through the whole saga and tell us what new info they might have found, yet they don't even get to Teresa until 21 minutes after the hour, spending the first 1/3 of the episode on the 1985 rape case and exoneration. 

And then before every commercial break, they spend a full minute telling you what's coming up. I'll never understand why TV shows waste their allotted time on that, when they could instead use it to tell more of the story.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

DevdogAZ said:


> And then before every commercial break, they spend a full minute telling you what's coming up. I'll never understand why TV shows waste their allotted time on that, when they could instead use it to tell more of the story.


They're trying to keep you from changing the channel. For some reason there are still a lot of people who channel surf. By placing a "coming up" segment before the commercial they're hoping to prevent those people from surfing off to another channel during the break.


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## BrettStah (Nov 12, 2000)




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## maggsm82 (Sep 20, 2005)

smak said:


> I don't know what they do to juries, if they're just so blinded by the cops and prosecution, that they would never believe they lie, or do anything wrong, but how could the above not be reasonable doubt.


I'm still reading the thread, but wanted to pause on comment on this. I served on a jury for a drug case. All of the men on the jury were 100% convinced that the cop who testified in the case (who was clearly a jerk) would never, ever, under any circumstances lie. His testimony was straightforward enough that there was no reason to suspect he might be lying, but to hear so many people avow that they believe he'd never lie was very surprising to me.


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## hefe (Dec 5, 2000)

I just binge-watched it this week. Left me very disturbed. While I can't say that I believe 100% that Avery is innocent, I can't come close to convicting either. (Even after reading a lot of the stuff from outside the documentary.)



ACoolDude said:


> What bothers me a lot is the prosecutors etc. referring to his past as if he were really guilty of the rape still.


The way the state handled this troubles me greatly, and those comments are part of it. I seem to remember that someone was asked on the stand about the original conviction and how law enforcement was sure he was the guy, but then evidence showed he was innocent and this other person did it...the official on the stand wouldn't even admit that Avery was not guilty of the first crime. Said, "I'm not convinced he didn't do it," or something to that effect. That just says to me that they're willing to ignore evidence that doesn't support their theory because the ends justify the means.

And the way the confession was drawn out of Brendan...that just made me mad. Leading a dull witted kid like they did, prompting him to make up details around the specific areas that they fed him with the promise that if he told them what they wanted they could help him...and all without a lawyer. It was disgusting. And then, the DA uses the Brendan "confession" and holds a press conference to graphically paint an emotionally inflammatory picture of what happened, poisoning any possible jury pool with details that have no evidence to back them up. If any of what Brendan was true, there would be so much blood evidence. There would be no way to clean it out of the mattress, the carpet, the garage the floor, the cracks in the floor, the mounds of junk in the garage...and if they had cleaned it up (as one witness said they had 5 days to do.) there would be evidence of cleaning...that garage was filthy and anything that had been cleaned would have been readily apparent.


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## pdhenry (Feb 28, 2005)

I think this has become the general discussion thread for the cases.

A federal judge has overturned Brendan Dassey's murder and sexual assault convictions.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/13/us/brendan-dassey-making-a-murderer.html?_r=0


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

Good. I can't say for sure if Steve Avery is guilty but based on what's in the show it seemed pretty clear, to me anyway, that Brendan had nothing to do with it.


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## bareyb (Dec 1, 2000)

I'll admit, It crossed my mind when I saw the thread get bumped that he'd killed someone (else) and we were all wrong, and he'd been guilty all along.


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## Zevida (Nov 8, 2003)

I think Steven is guilty, but I am glad Brendan will either be going free or getting a new trial. At most he was an accessory after the fact, and clearly treated inappropriately by the police and with incompetent legal counsel not acting in his interests.


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## Regina (Mar 30, 2003)

I was so happy to hear the news about Brendan. He is obviously mentally slow and had no idea what was going on when the police were questioning him...he seemed to want to please them and get back to class...crazy!


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## Hcour (Dec 24, 2007)

Regina said:


> I was so happy to hear the news about Brendan. He is obviously mentally slow and had no idea what was going on when the police were questioning him...he seemed to want to please them and get back to class...crazy!


Yeah, there are questions about Steven's guilt or innocence but Brendan was obviously railroaded.


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## pdhenry (Feb 28, 2005)

Change.org petition to send Brendan to Wrestlemania
https://www.change.org/p/wwe-send-brendan-dassey-to-wrestlemania

(Soon after he went to jail he realized he'd miss Wrestlemania.)


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## smak (Feb 11, 2000)

So, Steven Avery was framed.










http://www.rollingstone.com/culture...even-averys-lawyer-says-he-was-framed-w436412

In the motion, Zellner lays out her theory for how Avery was framed, with perhaps the biggest bombshell being a Manitowoc County Sheriff's Department report which documents Colborn discovering Halbachs car on November 3rd, 2005  two days before it was officially found in Averys Salvage Yard on November 5th. Zellner's motion contends that the car was moved on the evening of November 4th after law enforcement officers planted evidence inside the car.

-smak-


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## pdhenry (Feb 28, 2005)

Brendan Dassey ordered released.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/15/us/brendan-dassey-making-a-murderer-to-be-freed.html


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## Cainebj (Nov 11, 2006)

And I just read that the State of Wisconsin has filed an appeal on the grounds that he would be a "danger to society". I just don't get it. A judge has to rule before Wednesday, but I don't see how the appeal could be granted at this point.


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## Cainebj (Nov 11, 2006)

And this just in: the appeal has been denied - he will be released before the end of the week.


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## pdhenry (Feb 28, 2005)

Hide your ramen...


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## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

Will the WWE invite him to be a guest of honor at their next big match?


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## pdhenry (Feb 28, 2005)

The release has been overturned on appeal:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/18/us/brendan-dassey-netflix-making-a-murderer.html


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## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

pdhenry said:


> The release has been overturned on appeal:
> 
> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/18/us/brendan-dassey-netflix-making-a-murderer.html


It would be nice if that article would say what exactly that means. When is the appeals court scheduled to hear the appeal? How much longer does this mean he'll be in prison pending the appeal?


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## Cainebj (Nov 11, 2006)

I can't even believe that - poor kid - now they are just frakking with him.


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## DUDE_NJX (Feb 12, 2003)

Battle of the egos.


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