Post by Jax on Aug 7, 2018 12:34:04 GMT -6
Review of Jerry’s Buting’s book ‘Illusion of Justice’ and his book tour stop in Naperville, IL
By Jax West
I was interested in reading Jerry Buting’s book but then I found out his book tour was making a stop just one town over from me. The book store that was hosting it [Anderson’s] then asked me if I would speak at the event and gave me free tickets. So I needed to get the book ASAP so I was educated on it before the event.
It only took me 2 days to read it. There is a lot in there about Buting’s background and other cases he has had but I am only going to cover stuff that pertains to ‘Making a Murderer’. I do recommend getting the book and reading for yourself. I will go over things from the book that I found of interest to the case. Some I had never heard before. Some I knew but have forgotten. There’s just so much to remember in this case. So let’s get started.
Buting discussed how Andrew Colborn got a call while working in the jail 8 years prior to when DNA proved Steven’s innocence in the Penny Bernsteen case but he did nothing about it until the DNA came back. Then he and Lenk wrote a report and hid it in a safe. How ridiculous is that? But these guys were involved in the Halbach case?
I thought this was very interesting. Remiker had initially said that they coordinated the efforts of the volunteers who were searching for Teresa. If that’s the case, then that would mean Pam Sturm was acting on behalf of Law Enforcement so needed a search warrant to be on the property. Who was involved in coordinating that? Wiegert, one of the men who forced Brendan into falsely confessing.
Buting said that in prison there is the attorney/ client privilege so anytime they met with Steven it was not to be recorded. But it just so happened that anytime they talked to him it was in the one room that had recording equipment. They were told it wasn’t on but they don’t know if that was true or not.
Steven has never once admitted any guilt in the Halbach case. All of his calls and visits have been recorded. Not a single time has he said anything that would say he was guilty of this alleged crime. All he ever says is he wants to get out of prison and that law enforcement was out to get him.
There wasn’t any of Steven’s fingerprints on the RAV4. I thought Buting did a good job of doing some damage control for people who thing Strang and Buting didn’t do a good job for Steven. The Internet wasn’t what it is now back when they were investigating this case. When Buting was trying to find information on EDTA he couldn’t really find anything online so had to look in books. I will always defend Strang and Buting on this. I know many people, Steven included, doubt that Strang and Buting did everything they could for Steven. I think they did. They didn’t have a documentary spark people’s interests to start investigating everything. They didn’t have information available so easily.
Lenk was the person who transported Steven’s blood to be stored at the Clerk’s office. Then he is the one searching Steven’s room when he was deposed in Steven’s civil suit. Oh, and lookie there! He is the one who finds the magic key that no one could find in the tiny trailer bedroom after 7 searches.
Wiegert was the one that brought Buting the box that had Steven’s blood vial in it. But for some reason it was just the white Styrofoam box. Not the big cardboard one it was in. Wiegert claimed the other stuff in the box just had fingernail scrapings and hair and not anything they needed. But things that make you go hmmm.
Ooh. Back to EDTA. EDTA is found in cleaning stuff like Armor All. So that’s something Kratz was going to use if EDTA was found in the blood sample on the car. That Teresa kept her car clean and much have used Armor All.
10 people had just as much access and opportunity to kill Teresa as Steven did. Human female pelvic bones were found in the Radant quarry. All 10 people visited the Salvage Yard on 10/31/05. 1 was a frequent customer who attacked his girlfriend with a hatchet a few days afterward. This is another thing that I always talk about. Just because Buting had said that an Avery brother or Barb’s son or boyfriend could have done it, it didn’t mean that is what the lawyers or Steven thought. You just have to show that there are other people that could have been suspects but that they never even looked into them. It wasn’t anything negative against any of the family. It’s just showing that it was possible for it to be someone else but it was never considered cuz Law Enforcement focused on Steven from the start.
Brendan wanted a lie detector test. That is why Kachinsky hired O’Kelly. O’Kelly was allegedly a lie detector expert. Then he claimed the results were inconclusive but lied to Brendan and told him he failed it to further manipulate him. This is the thing that drives me up the wall. The trickery that these guys can legally get away with all to put innocent people in prison. It’s disgusting.
You get 7 strikes at Voir Dire. The judge refused to strike the wife of a former lawyer for Calumet County. She used to regularly sit with Kratz at dinner functions. She also knew Teresa Halbach’s brother Tim who is also a lawyer. She believed Steven was guilty from the start. Another juror admitted to reading the press even though they were told not to.
Lenk signed himself out of the Avery Salvage Yard the day that Pam Sturm was led by God to find the car. But he was never signed in. So he had the opportunity to plant blood in the car.
Remiker was awarded $100,000 in a civil suit and one of his jurors also sat on Steven’s jury. How that isn’t another conflict, I have no idea.
Sherry Culhane contaminated the bullet sample since she was talking to people without wearing a mask. So she then had to wash the bullet and test the wash. While the prosecution will try to sing her praises cuz she was the one that did the DNA test that freed Steven the last time…. She also had it sit in her lab for a whole YEAR before she tested it. Another year of Steven’s life just stolen from him. She was also the person whose testing who convicted him in the first place.
So you know that there is a chance that the blood in the RAV4 was planted. The bullet they found in the garage was contaminated. What else do they have? Oh yeah. The “sweat” DNA on the hood latch. First off, there is no such thing as sweat DNA. Secondly that was also contaminated. This time a forensic scientist has been searching the passenger compartment of the RAV4 & then went & opened the hood without changing their gloves.
Something to remember is that Culhane had one of the HIGHEST contamination reports that year. Just sayin.
Only 40% of cremains were found. It would fill a one liter bottle. They were found in 2 different sites. What APPEARED to be burned female human remains were found at a third location in the quarry. They were never identified with any certainty to be human. A forensic anthropologist BELIEVED 2 MAY have been a female pelvis. All they had is that they were burned to the same degree as the others that were indentified as Teresa’s.
Manitowoc Sheriff’s Department searched on November 7th and found electronics and bones. But they never took any pictures or videoed the scene. Sergeant Jason Jost didn’t even file a report about it. The State Forensic Anthropologist Lesle Eisenberg was not called to the scene either. Thomas Sturdivant of the Wisconsin Division of Criminal Investigation said they had to I.D. the bones quickly to find out if they belonged to the missing girl.
Manitowoc County Coroner Debra Kakatsch saw the search on the news. Why wasn’t she called? Wiegert told her that her services were not needed. Then the Manitowoc County Executive and Lawyer told her that she had to back off this case cuz of the civil suit. How does that make any sense? She didn’t have anything to do with Steven’s civil suit but Lenk, Colborn & Wiegert all did. Why was it ok for them to be there? Judge Willis also wouldn’t let the Coroner testify.
Where is the original burn site? Most often where the most bones are found is where the bones were moved TO. So in this case that would mean Steven’s burn pit is where the bones were moved to and that the quarry is where bones were scooped up and moved from.
Many of the Averys went to Crivitz on that Thursday. Steven went on Friday. They found the RAV4 on Saturday. Someone very easily could have driven that car in there Friday night.
Buting said they never accused the Police of killing Teresa at the trial. That’s what Kratz would like people to believe but all they were saying was that the Police planted evidence.
Someone deleted voicemails before she was even reported missing. That was never explained why.
Bobby and Scott were each other’s alibis and that was never looked into.
Kratz said at Steven’s trail that all the evidence pointed to one person but then a few weeks later at Brendan’s trial now it was 2 people responsible.
There was no trace of Steven on his landlord Rollie Johnson’s rifle that they claim is what killed Teresa.
The jury took 4 days to deliberate. They said he was guilty of murder but not guilty of mutilating a corpse. We know now that was cuz some jurors thought Steven was innocent but a bully on the jury got them to vote guilty and the compromise was to vote not guilty on that charge. The jurors were hoping that that would send a message that they didn’t all think he was guilty and it would get him another trial.
When Strang and Buting went to talk to their client after the decision was read they had already transported him to the Manitowoc County Jail instead of the Calument County one he had been in for 16 months. Buting was very afraid that MC was going to kill Steven now and make it look like he killed himself due to the guilty verdict. They would say it was a suicide. So Buting warned MCSD that Steven’s safety was in their responsibility.
Buting never understood why Brendan’s lawyers agreed at their trial to not show the entire interrogation video and the end when Brendan immediately tells him Mom when he sees her that they got to his head.
Kratz said there was no blood in the trailer at Steven’s trial cuz she was killed in the garage. At Brendan’s trial he said she was raped, stabbed and killed in the bedroom. He now claimed there were 2 people responsible for this crime. Buting said not only did the prosecutors, defense and judicial system fail Brendan but the press did too. They did not call Kratz out on any of this.
Buting questioned why were there bones in the burn barrel? Why did it take 7 searches to find the key? He thinks Teresa was burned elsewhere and then the remains were scooped up and put in a burn barrel before being dumped into the burn pit. Since it was dark they didn’t notice a few bones were left in the barrel when they then placed it near Barb’s trailer next to the 3 barrels that are normally there.
Dawn Plitszka from Auto Trader said she and Teresa had laughed about the towel incident. Teresa wasn’t scared of him. Steven arranged a hustle shot with Teresa on October 10th privately. He had her cell number. So if he was planning to murder her why would he schedule this appointment through Auto Trader and not call her privately?
The bullet from the rifle and the bullet they had in evidence showed a great deal of differences when it was test fired. It was also the most common rifle that everyone up there had one.
There you have everything I found of interest about this case in the book. Man, do I blather on forever? Now it’s time to get into the book signing.
I counted around 50 people in the audience. I was surprised to see so many hands go up to say they have never seen ‘Making a Murderer’. Buting said that he was still in the 5 year range from battling cancer when Strang asked him to join him on the Avery case. Buting’s wife was a public defender as well as his law partner. They discussed it together on whether or not he should take the case. There is no down time on a case like this. You live and breathe it. They had 2 young kids. His wife told him to take the case.
On 3/6/06 Kratz had that press conference. Buting believes it crossed the line of ethics. He was influencing the potential jury pool. The State has the burden to prove guilt to the jury. When you do a press conference like that it is difficult to change their minds later. 139 people in the jury pool said they thought Steven was guilty. Wisconsin judges are elected and need the endorsement of Law Enforcement Agencies. So they really don’t want to rule against them in court.
False confessions are a real thing. 25% of the people who confess are innocent. He talked about the Reid Technique which makes the assumption that Law Enforcement are human lie detectors. No denials will be accepted. They’re allowed to lie to the suspect. They can say they have evidence they don’t have. Buting is really bothered by them saying to Brendan they weren’t police then but fathers who know that his uncle put him up to this. On that very day that Buting was talking to us the 2nd biggest trainer of Law Enforcement announced they would not be using the Reid Technique anymore. Buting suspects Brendan’s case had something to do with that.
Illinois has recently passed a law where you can’t interrogate minors age 15 and under of a serious crime without a lawyer present. They can’t waive their right to counsel either. All interrogations of minors age 18 and under have to be recorded on all felonies.
Wisconsin had just changed the law 6 months before Brendan’s case so that all minor interrogations had to be recorded. They will be re-writing the Miranda warnings so young people can understand them.
Brendan’s case went to the federal court. It’s a Writ of Habeas Corpus. Brendan’s confession was thrown out and the State appealed it to the 7th Circuit in Chicago where they had oral arguments on Valentine’s Day. Buting thinks it will be quite a few months until we hear anything. In his experience it’s like 3-6 months. If the court rules that his confession is thrown out, the State then has to either release Brendan or retry him.
Steven now has Kathleen Zellner representing him. She is doing additional forensic tests. She may have fact witnesses as well. Buting said over 100 scientists contacted him and Strang after MaM. Zellner can then file a motion for a new trial based on the new evidence.
Buting said 2 guys were tried on 2 different theories. There wasn’t any blood, dna or scratches on the bed or headboard. Kratz’s rebuttal in Steven’s case was that there wouldn’t be as the murder occurred in the garage by only 1 man. But then he tried Brendan on it being 2 men and the murder happened in the bedroom. Buting said at least one of those theories is not the truth. It’s just about getting a conviction.
I think I have covered all the things of interest in both the book and the book signing. Make sure to pick up the book and if his tour comes near you, go on out to check it out for yourself. He does a question and answer segment so you can ask him something you’ve always wondered about. Stay tuned to #StevenAveryProject and #FreeBrendan for all the latest news on the cases.
By Jax West
I was interested in reading Jerry Buting’s book but then I found out his book tour was making a stop just one town over from me. The book store that was hosting it [Anderson’s] then asked me if I would speak at the event and gave me free tickets. So I needed to get the book ASAP so I was educated on it before the event.
It only took me 2 days to read it. There is a lot in there about Buting’s background and other cases he has had but I am only going to cover stuff that pertains to ‘Making a Murderer’. I do recommend getting the book and reading for yourself. I will go over things from the book that I found of interest to the case. Some I had never heard before. Some I knew but have forgotten. There’s just so much to remember in this case. So let’s get started.
Buting discussed how Andrew Colborn got a call while working in the jail 8 years prior to when DNA proved Steven’s innocence in the Penny Bernsteen case but he did nothing about it until the DNA came back. Then he and Lenk wrote a report and hid it in a safe. How ridiculous is that? But these guys were involved in the Halbach case?
I thought this was very interesting. Remiker had initially said that they coordinated the efforts of the volunteers who were searching for Teresa. If that’s the case, then that would mean Pam Sturm was acting on behalf of Law Enforcement so needed a search warrant to be on the property. Who was involved in coordinating that? Wiegert, one of the men who forced Brendan into falsely confessing.
Buting said that in prison there is the attorney/ client privilege so anytime they met with Steven it was not to be recorded. But it just so happened that anytime they talked to him it was in the one room that had recording equipment. They were told it wasn’t on but they don’t know if that was true or not.
Steven has never once admitted any guilt in the Halbach case. All of his calls and visits have been recorded. Not a single time has he said anything that would say he was guilty of this alleged crime. All he ever says is he wants to get out of prison and that law enforcement was out to get him.
There wasn’t any of Steven’s fingerprints on the RAV4. I thought Buting did a good job of doing some damage control for people who thing Strang and Buting didn’t do a good job for Steven. The Internet wasn’t what it is now back when they were investigating this case. When Buting was trying to find information on EDTA he couldn’t really find anything online so had to look in books. I will always defend Strang and Buting on this. I know many people, Steven included, doubt that Strang and Buting did everything they could for Steven. I think they did. They didn’t have a documentary spark people’s interests to start investigating everything. They didn’t have information available so easily.
Lenk was the person who transported Steven’s blood to be stored at the Clerk’s office. Then he is the one searching Steven’s room when he was deposed in Steven’s civil suit. Oh, and lookie there! He is the one who finds the magic key that no one could find in the tiny trailer bedroom after 7 searches.
Wiegert was the one that brought Buting the box that had Steven’s blood vial in it. But for some reason it was just the white Styrofoam box. Not the big cardboard one it was in. Wiegert claimed the other stuff in the box just had fingernail scrapings and hair and not anything they needed. But things that make you go hmmm.
Ooh. Back to EDTA. EDTA is found in cleaning stuff like Armor All. So that’s something Kratz was going to use if EDTA was found in the blood sample on the car. That Teresa kept her car clean and much have used Armor All.
10 people had just as much access and opportunity to kill Teresa as Steven did. Human female pelvic bones were found in the Radant quarry. All 10 people visited the Salvage Yard on 10/31/05. 1 was a frequent customer who attacked his girlfriend with a hatchet a few days afterward. This is another thing that I always talk about. Just because Buting had said that an Avery brother or Barb’s son or boyfriend could have done it, it didn’t mean that is what the lawyers or Steven thought. You just have to show that there are other people that could have been suspects but that they never even looked into them. It wasn’t anything negative against any of the family. It’s just showing that it was possible for it to be someone else but it was never considered cuz Law Enforcement focused on Steven from the start.
Brendan wanted a lie detector test. That is why Kachinsky hired O’Kelly. O’Kelly was allegedly a lie detector expert. Then he claimed the results were inconclusive but lied to Brendan and told him he failed it to further manipulate him. This is the thing that drives me up the wall. The trickery that these guys can legally get away with all to put innocent people in prison. It’s disgusting.
You get 7 strikes at Voir Dire. The judge refused to strike the wife of a former lawyer for Calumet County. She used to regularly sit with Kratz at dinner functions. She also knew Teresa Halbach’s brother Tim who is also a lawyer. She believed Steven was guilty from the start. Another juror admitted to reading the press even though they were told not to.
Lenk signed himself out of the Avery Salvage Yard the day that Pam Sturm was led by God to find the car. But he was never signed in. So he had the opportunity to plant blood in the car.
Remiker was awarded $100,000 in a civil suit and one of his jurors also sat on Steven’s jury. How that isn’t another conflict, I have no idea.
Sherry Culhane contaminated the bullet sample since she was talking to people without wearing a mask. So she then had to wash the bullet and test the wash. While the prosecution will try to sing her praises cuz she was the one that did the DNA test that freed Steven the last time…. She also had it sit in her lab for a whole YEAR before she tested it. Another year of Steven’s life just stolen from him. She was also the person whose testing who convicted him in the first place.
So you know that there is a chance that the blood in the RAV4 was planted. The bullet they found in the garage was contaminated. What else do they have? Oh yeah. The “sweat” DNA on the hood latch. First off, there is no such thing as sweat DNA. Secondly that was also contaminated. This time a forensic scientist has been searching the passenger compartment of the RAV4 & then went & opened the hood without changing their gloves.
Something to remember is that Culhane had one of the HIGHEST contamination reports that year. Just sayin.
Only 40% of cremains were found. It would fill a one liter bottle. They were found in 2 different sites. What APPEARED to be burned female human remains were found at a third location in the quarry. They were never identified with any certainty to be human. A forensic anthropologist BELIEVED 2 MAY have been a female pelvis. All they had is that they were burned to the same degree as the others that were indentified as Teresa’s.
Manitowoc Sheriff’s Department searched on November 7th and found electronics and bones. But they never took any pictures or videoed the scene. Sergeant Jason Jost didn’t even file a report about it. The State Forensic Anthropologist Lesle Eisenberg was not called to the scene either. Thomas Sturdivant of the Wisconsin Division of Criminal Investigation said they had to I.D. the bones quickly to find out if they belonged to the missing girl.
Manitowoc County Coroner Debra Kakatsch saw the search on the news. Why wasn’t she called? Wiegert told her that her services were not needed. Then the Manitowoc County Executive and Lawyer told her that she had to back off this case cuz of the civil suit. How does that make any sense? She didn’t have anything to do with Steven’s civil suit but Lenk, Colborn & Wiegert all did. Why was it ok for them to be there? Judge Willis also wouldn’t let the Coroner testify.
Where is the original burn site? Most often where the most bones are found is where the bones were moved TO. So in this case that would mean Steven’s burn pit is where the bones were moved to and that the quarry is where bones were scooped up and moved from.
Many of the Averys went to Crivitz on that Thursday. Steven went on Friday. They found the RAV4 on Saturday. Someone very easily could have driven that car in there Friday night.
Buting said they never accused the Police of killing Teresa at the trial. That’s what Kratz would like people to believe but all they were saying was that the Police planted evidence.
Someone deleted voicemails before she was even reported missing. That was never explained why.
Bobby and Scott were each other’s alibis and that was never looked into.
Kratz said at Steven’s trail that all the evidence pointed to one person but then a few weeks later at Brendan’s trial now it was 2 people responsible.
There was no trace of Steven on his landlord Rollie Johnson’s rifle that they claim is what killed Teresa.
The jury took 4 days to deliberate. They said he was guilty of murder but not guilty of mutilating a corpse. We know now that was cuz some jurors thought Steven was innocent but a bully on the jury got them to vote guilty and the compromise was to vote not guilty on that charge. The jurors were hoping that that would send a message that they didn’t all think he was guilty and it would get him another trial.
When Strang and Buting went to talk to their client after the decision was read they had already transported him to the Manitowoc County Jail instead of the Calument County one he had been in for 16 months. Buting was very afraid that MC was going to kill Steven now and make it look like he killed himself due to the guilty verdict. They would say it was a suicide. So Buting warned MCSD that Steven’s safety was in their responsibility.
Buting never understood why Brendan’s lawyers agreed at their trial to not show the entire interrogation video and the end when Brendan immediately tells him Mom when he sees her that they got to his head.
Kratz said there was no blood in the trailer at Steven’s trial cuz she was killed in the garage. At Brendan’s trial he said she was raped, stabbed and killed in the bedroom. He now claimed there were 2 people responsible for this crime. Buting said not only did the prosecutors, defense and judicial system fail Brendan but the press did too. They did not call Kratz out on any of this.
Buting questioned why were there bones in the burn barrel? Why did it take 7 searches to find the key? He thinks Teresa was burned elsewhere and then the remains were scooped up and put in a burn barrel before being dumped into the burn pit. Since it was dark they didn’t notice a few bones were left in the barrel when they then placed it near Barb’s trailer next to the 3 barrels that are normally there.
Dawn Plitszka from Auto Trader said she and Teresa had laughed about the towel incident. Teresa wasn’t scared of him. Steven arranged a hustle shot with Teresa on October 10th privately. He had her cell number. So if he was planning to murder her why would he schedule this appointment through Auto Trader and not call her privately?
The bullet from the rifle and the bullet they had in evidence showed a great deal of differences when it was test fired. It was also the most common rifle that everyone up there had one.
There you have everything I found of interest about this case in the book. Man, do I blather on forever? Now it’s time to get into the book signing.
I counted around 50 people in the audience. I was surprised to see so many hands go up to say they have never seen ‘Making a Murderer’. Buting said that he was still in the 5 year range from battling cancer when Strang asked him to join him on the Avery case. Buting’s wife was a public defender as well as his law partner. They discussed it together on whether or not he should take the case. There is no down time on a case like this. You live and breathe it. They had 2 young kids. His wife told him to take the case.
On 3/6/06 Kratz had that press conference. Buting believes it crossed the line of ethics. He was influencing the potential jury pool. The State has the burden to prove guilt to the jury. When you do a press conference like that it is difficult to change their minds later. 139 people in the jury pool said they thought Steven was guilty. Wisconsin judges are elected and need the endorsement of Law Enforcement Agencies. So they really don’t want to rule against them in court.
False confessions are a real thing. 25% of the people who confess are innocent. He talked about the Reid Technique which makes the assumption that Law Enforcement are human lie detectors. No denials will be accepted. They’re allowed to lie to the suspect. They can say they have evidence they don’t have. Buting is really bothered by them saying to Brendan they weren’t police then but fathers who know that his uncle put him up to this. On that very day that Buting was talking to us the 2nd biggest trainer of Law Enforcement announced they would not be using the Reid Technique anymore. Buting suspects Brendan’s case had something to do with that.
Illinois has recently passed a law where you can’t interrogate minors age 15 and under of a serious crime without a lawyer present. They can’t waive their right to counsel either. All interrogations of minors age 18 and under have to be recorded on all felonies.
Wisconsin had just changed the law 6 months before Brendan’s case so that all minor interrogations had to be recorded. They will be re-writing the Miranda warnings so young people can understand them.
Brendan’s case went to the federal court. It’s a Writ of Habeas Corpus. Brendan’s confession was thrown out and the State appealed it to the 7th Circuit in Chicago where they had oral arguments on Valentine’s Day. Buting thinks it will be quite a few months until we hear anything. In his experience it’s like 3-6 months. If the court rules that his confession is thrown out, the State then has to either release Brendan or retry him.
Steven now has Kathleen Zellner representing him. She is doing additional forensic tests. She may have fact witnesses as well. Buting said over 100 scientists contacted him and Strang after MaM. Zellner can then file a motion for a new trial based on the new evidence.
Buting said 2 guys were tried on 2 different theories. There wasn’t any blood, dna or scratches on the bed or headboard. Kratz’s rebuttal in Steven’s case was that there wouldn’t be as the murder occurred in the garage by only 1 man. But then he tried Brendan on it being 2 men and the murder happened in the bedroom. Buting said at least one of those theories is not the truth. It’s just about getting a conviction.
I think I have covered all the things of interest in both the book and the book signing. Make sure to pick up the book and if his tour comes near you, go on out to check it out for yourself. He does a question and answer segment so you can ask him something you’ve always wondered about. Stay tuned to #StevenAveryProject and #FreeBrendan for all the latest news on the cases.