Post by Jax on Aug 7, 2018 12:33:01 GMT -6
By Jax West
We have been waiting a long time for Kathleen Zellner to show us her cards. But not as long as Steven Avery, Brendan Dassey & their families. I read through the 220 pages that were released last night but I am going to go through them again & type my thoughts of the things that stand out to me. I am NOT a lawyer & do not claim to know it all. I am just someone who has followed the case & want to see these men freed. So follow me down the rabbit hole, won’t you?
Page 1 says Steven asks to vacate the judgment against him & for a new trial. I know many people just want Steven to just walk out immediately. I know Kathleen said at one point she would not go for a new trial but exoneration. But haven’t we all learned by now that our legal system sucks & is incredibly slow? I do not know our legal process well enough, or at all, to question Kathleen’s decisions.
Page 3 says that Steven has been locked up for 10,909 days for crimes he didn’t commit. He has been alive 20.058 days. Of the 4,238 days since Teresa Halbach was murdered only 9 days were devoted to indentifying the alleged murderer.
Page 4 begins her “Idiot-Savant” description of Ken Kratz’s many theories. Here are my thoughts on this. Is Steven the most brilliant man in the world? No. We know he has a low IQ plus most of his life has been stolen from him & he is institutionalized. What was Steven’s motive for killing Teresa? He was free from prison. Had some fame from that. Depositions had just started in his $36 million dollar suit against Manitowoc County. He was going to get a couple hundred thousand dollars from the state outside of what he was suing for. He had a girlfriend. Even if you think Steven is an asshole or abusive to women, why would he kill some random girl? At his own house? During the day in a working Salvage Yard? Why would he call Auto Trader to schedule an appointment when he had her private cell number that he could have just *67d of he was trying to cover his tracks? Don’t tell me he used a fake name when the Jandas had an account with Auto Trader & that’s what car was being listed.
So Steven allegedly kills Teresa in his tiny bedroom by slashing her throat & stabbing her in the stomach after raping her yet there isn’t any DNA there at all. I really don’t get putting the body on a creeper to roll her body to the fire pit behind the garage. Have you been to Steven’s trailer? I have. It wouldn’t be easy to roll a creeper out there. Teresa was a little girl. He could have thrown her over his shoulder & carried her out there. Would be much easier.
Then the story changes to say that Steven shot Teresa twice when she is on the floor of the garage. Yet there isn’t any bullet holes in the ground. But a magic bullet with Teresa’s DNA is miraculously found after multiple searches in the dusty garage.
Teresa’s body is then put in the back of her own vehicle & Steven was able to clean up most of the DNA except for some suspicious looking swabbed blood in the front & his sweaty sweat sweat DNA on the hood latch.
Kratz claims that Steven burned her electronics. Sure. Cuz Steven wouldn’t keep that stuff if it was him, right? Then he claims Steven burned her in a barrel right by his trailer at 7pm on a weeknight in a working business.
Oh but wait! Now there’s a story of Steven driving the RAV-4 & Brendan drives with him. Now both of these guys are experts at covering up fingerprints, DNA, etc as there isn’t a single trace of Brendan ever being in that car. Of course guys who have grown up in a salvage yard wouldn’t just crush the car. Or sink it in the pond in the southeast corner of the property. Or abandon it in the huge quarry that runs on 2 sides of their property. They park it going in the opposite direction of all the other cars & then throw some branches, etc on it to make it stick out even more.
Kratz claimed Steven was wearing gloves but is still able to leave 6 drops of blood inside the car. But not where you would expect blood to be if someone has a cut finger & driving a car.
Kratz says that Steven kept the key so he could crush the car later yet he wouldn’t need a key to do that as they would use a front-loader to pick it up.
Next Steven burns an entire body in just 3-4 hours without anyone noticing. He then just left the bones where anyone could find it, including his dog who would have eaten the bones & be detected in his stool. 60 percent of the bones disappeared as well as all but 2 teeth. Then Steven picked up some large bones to put in Barb’s burn barrel & the gravel pit. Makes perfect sense, right?
Page 7 starts to go into evidence. The hood latch swab really came from a groin swab they conducted on Steven & didn’t log. The magic key was actually her “sub-key”. Messages were deleted off Teresa’s answering machine so people wouldn’t know it was full & worry about her being missing. Her last appointment was actually at the Zipperer’s & not at Avery Salvage Yard. There was a message on the Zipperer’s machine where Teresa told them she was lost & the State destroyed it. The State concealed her mileage. Teresa led a risqué life by being romantically involved with a married man & doing nude photography. Her ex was verbally & physically abusive. Ryan Hillegas had scratches on his hands which are consistent with fingernail scratches. He also gave a fake name to police & lied about his relationship to Teresa. He controlled crime scene evidence & the search party. He was regularly on the Avery property & helped to “find” the car. He moved into Teresa’s house immediately after her disappearance & had control of all of her personal effects.
On Page 8 Kathleen talks about the ineffective counsel. Now, I still completely support Strang & Buting. They were up against huge odds here back then. They didn’t have ‘Making a Murderer’. They didn’t have Zellner money. They didn’t have all these internet sleuths who have really found some good leads. They did the best they can. I don’t believe that Kathleen has a real issue with them too. This is just standard procedure in freeing an innocent man. It’s so easy to lock them up but so hard to get them out. It’s just our awful system. Kathleen argues that Strang & Buting didn’t do all they could for Steven & she’s right. But it’s not their fault & rather it is the fault of our corrupt system.
Page 9 begins her list of experts. Christopher Palenick PH.D. will testify that the bullet never went through bone. He says it actually went through wood. He also concluded that the swab they say was from the hood latch was never on the hood latch. Finally he says the key found was not the one Teresa used every day.
Lucien Haag says the bullet would have had bone particles embedded on it if it had gone through a skull.
John DeHaan, PH.D. says Teresa’s bones were planted in the burn pit after being burned in a burn barrel. He said her body was not burned in Steven’s burn pit.
Steven Symes, PH.D. says the suspected pelvic bone should have been examined microscopically to determine if they were even human.
Stuart James says that the blood stains in the car were selectively planted & the stain by the ignition was placed with an applicator. He said the blood did not come from the vial of Steven’s blood from 1986 but was instead dripped by Steven in his bathroom sink that was then used in the car. He also said the blood stain in the back is not from Teresa’s body being thrown in the back after she was shot.
Karl Reich, PH.D. says the hood latch DNA probably came from the relabeled groin swab. He also said that the DNA on the key probably came from Steven’s toothbrush.
Gregg McCrary says they rushed to declare Steven the suspect & ignored evidence that showed otherwise.
James & Steve Kirby have interviewed over 35 witnesses & have uncovered an abusive relationship between Teresa & Ryan. James found that Ryan lied to Law Enforcement about Teresa’s broken parking light. They also ran experiments that refute that the electronics were burned in Steven’s barrel. While interviewing Teresa’s roommate Scott Bloedorn, Scott inadvertently mentioned that Ryan was a suspect.
Larry Blum, M.D. will testify that the scratches on Ryan’s hands is consistent with fingernail scratches that occurred in that timeframe.
Bennett Gershman, J.D. will testify on the ongoing unethical violations committed by Kratz before, during & after the trial.
Lawrence Farwell, Ph.D. is the brain fingerprinting guy. This is the one thing I am iffy on in this whole thing. I am not going to comment on this at all as I just don’t get it.
Page 15 starts on the State’s case at trial. Page 16 has one of Kratz’s various timelines. This one stating that the police only zeroed in on Steven cuz he was the last appointment so assumed the last person to see her alive. Page 18 talks about Sturm of God. I walked that Yard from the office to where the car was found. I videoed & timed it. There is absolutely no way possible Pam found that car that quickly without being told where to look. Period. End of story.
Page 19 says that Kratz claimed that the car couldn’t be seen in the flyover on November 4, 2005 cuz of it being covered with branches & a hood. Then says Steven disconnected the battery so a search party couldn’t activate it. But then where is her fob that would have those buttons to activate a panic alarm or unlock the doors? Kratz then claimed the car couldn’t be driven back there from the quarry due to a high berm. That berm didn’t exist then.
Colborn called dispatch from his cell on Nov 3 but claims he was just verifying information & that he wasn’t looking at the RAV-4. They claim he used the cell cuz Steven had a police scanner.
On Page 20 Kratz says no one had access to Steven’s blood. But Steven was actively bleeding from his finger when he reopened a cut. The State’s expert claimed that the blood by the ignition matched if someone turned the key.
Let’s just skip all the stuff Kratz alleged in the case as we know that. This is long enough wo me going over all that as well.
On Page 28 it starts in on Strang & Buting’s defense. I am not going to cover that either. We know the case & if you want a refresher then read up on it. I just want to cover what Kathleen says actually happened.
Evidence begins on Page 43. It first starts on the ineffective assistance of counsel. I already talked about my thoughts on that. This is standard procedure in getting a new trial. I do not think Strang & Buting did a horrible job. They did the best they could with what they had. Kathleen is using evidence & testing she has done to use against them saying that they should have done these things & by not doing it, they hurt his case. Which is true but again, they didn’t have the ability to do those things.
Page 50 says that Colborn showed up at the Salvage Yard on Nov 3rd while Steven was having dinner w his Mom. Colborn asked them about Teresa. Colborn then changed the time Steven had told him Teresa had left from 2:30 to 3pm. But Steven has always been consistent in saying she left at 2-2:30.
Steven drove back to his trailer & went to unhitch a trailer & cut his finger back open. That’s how he got his blood on his car & in his trailer. He did not lock his trailer when he went out w his brother Chuck. They left around 7:30pmto go to Menards which was around 23 minutes away. They checked out at 8:06pm.
Steven’s landlord Rollie Johnson said he saw the cut on Steven’s finger prior to Oct 31.
At around 7:30pm when Steven was driving away he saw taillights near his trailer. He believes the lights were similar to a RAV-4 & not a police vehicle. They drove back but the car was gone. So he & Chuck went to Menards & then to drop of money for Steven’s girlfriend Jodi who was in jail. He got home between 10-10:30 & went to bed.
Steven got up at 6am & went to take a shower. He noticed that most of the blood around his sink was gone. He consistently said that he thought the blood was planted in the RAV-4 from his sink. There are interviews with the media to prove this.
Lenk & Remiker arrived at 10:30am to interview him. Steven said he smelled cigarette smoke when he went to his bedroom & neither he nor Jodi smoked. He believed someone broke into his trailer.
On Nov 5 when he was getting ready to go to Crivitz he saw his front door had been pried open. He remembered he had locked the door after Lenk & Remiker left.
When Chuck was leaving for Crivitz he saw headlights back by the pond where the RAV-4 was later discovered. He called Steven around 7:20pm. By the time Steven got to Chuck’s trailer the headlights were gone.
On Page 56 one of Kathleen’s experts says that the blood on the RAV-4 carpeting was planted cuz if dripped it would have been absorbed but this was flakes on top of the carpet.
She starts talking about the 1986 blood vial on Page 59. She is blaming Strang & Buting for even using it as a defense. She says there is no proof Lenk ever knew this vial existed in the Clerk of Court’s office. She also claims that the defense knew that the whole in the top was created by the nurse. She said they lost credibility with the jury when they couldn’t present any evidence that the blood in the car was planted.
Kathleen’s experts have been able to demonstrate that all of Steven’s blood in the RAV-4 was planted.
On Page 60 it talks about the RAV-4 key not being found after multiple searches until Nov 8. Defense is blamed for not using the fact that they don’t need the key to use the frontloader to pick the car up & put in the car crusher.
Then goes into the bookcase. It was approximately 32x16x31. Colborn manhandled this little thing til eventually the magic key popped out. The key & Steven’s slippers were not in a previous picture. Lenk is the one who picked up the slippers to allegedly look inside them. Kathleen faults Strang & Buting for not having that bookcase at trial. They could have demonstrated there is no way the key would come out & land where they claimed it did. On Page 62 it goes into an experiment they did with the bookcase. They were not able to recreate what the prosecution claimed happened.
Page 63 goes into the key really being the sub-key. The shape of the key found clearly indicates it is the spare key & not the one that Teresa would use daily. Her car also had electronic locks & it is seen in a photograph that she had her fob attached to her master key. No fob has ever been found. Nor was the white lanyard it was on in the photo.
Scott Bloedorn was interviewed on Nov 4 in Teresa’s kitchen & Kathleen alleges you can see the blue lanyard & sub-key sitting on the counter. That same key was “found” in Steven’s bedroom on Nov 8.
Kathleen’s experts examined the key. There was deposits in the grooves that are consistent w testimony that said the key had been placed in the ignition & driver’s door after collection by Sherry Culhane. They also discovered that the key didn’t have the wear & tear on it that it would if it was what Teresa regularly used.
The key had Steven’s DNA on it but not Teresa’s. They didn’t do any testing to prove where that DNA came from put Culhane still testified that it was Steven’s blood from his cut finger. Kathleen’s expert conducted experiments that demonstrate the DNA was planted cuz there was more DNA on it then Steven deposited on a test key. Steven held it in his hand for 12 minutes. The expert found that Steven deposited 10 times less DNA then what was found on the magic key.
Their experiment ruled out skin cells from Steven’s slippers as being the source of the DNA. But Culhane also had Steven’s toothbrush & their testing showed that it was a comparable quantity. They never logged the toothbrush into evidence even though it was collected. Steven noticed it was missing when he was looking at police photographs.
Page 70 says 2 groin swabs were taken from Steven on Nov 9. Fassbender & Wiegert were both there. But the search warrant said they could only take blood & saliva. The nurse never put in her notes that she took those swabs. Fassbender & Wiegert then stopped the nurse & the exam was concluded. But the nurse never would have done that if she hadn’t been told to do it. Fassbender claimed the swabs were thrown out. But the nurse never noted that. Yet Wiegert told the nurse that HE would throw it out while Fassbender took Steven to be fingerprinted. Steven heard Wiegert tell the nurse to give him the swabs & saw him pretend to throw them away but didn’t.
Page 71 says that 4 months after the police had the RAV-4 they began looking at the hood latch. Fassbender & Wiegert first brought up while interrogating Brendan on March 1 & asking him if Steven ever look at the engine, etc. Brendan said no but then on March 13th after being pressured by Fassbender & Wiegert Brendan changed his story to fit their narrative.
The hood latch was then swabbed for evidence on April 3rd. They only swabbed the exterior latch. Not the interior latch that he would have had to use as well. They also broke the chain of custody in this comedy of errors. Kathleen contends that since they weren’t supposed to take groin swabs, the nurse never noted doing it, concealing throwing them away, the chain of custody screw up, all eludes to them doing this to plant the evidence.
Page 74 says they were on the hunt for the sweaty sweat sweat on the hood latch. They conducted experiments on an identical vehicle. In 11 of the 15 experiments, no detectable DNA was present on the swab. The remaining ones had a teeny tiny bit. An expert said the law enforcement lab did everything below acceptable standards of practice. They also didn’t photograph any of the alleged bones in the burn pit. They confused where the burn barrels were & messed up the chain of custody on those as well.
Any photos that were taken had the area of interest obscured by the shadows of investigators. Some remains were found outside the pit. No large bones were found at all. There was nothing on what fueled the fire except tires. Many of the bone fragments were coated with a yellow or tan dust. Dr Eisenberg said she rinsed some bones. Based on Kathleen’s expert’s experience the bones could only be burned like they were when confined by a metal enclosure. The expert contends that the body was burned in a “field” cremation involving a sustained & re-stoked fire over a period of time. The bigger portions like the base of the skull, shoulders or pelvis would only be charred after 4-7 hours in a fire. They remained their shape unless mechanically stirred. To achieve what these bones were reduced to they would have to be in a fire for much longer.
Kathleen’s expert does not think the body was burned behind Steven’s garage. He says someone transferred the bones there. It was consistent to someone dumping them there & then some rolling away. The State claimed Teresa was burned in the open pit from 7-11pm. Kathleen’s expert says that is not supported by the evidence. The burned bench seat was not found in the burn pit but near it.
As for the tire belts being burned onto some of the bones. The dog’s chain was long enough to reach the pit & it could very well have dragged some of the fragments into the fire.
Page 86 says Teresa’s electronics weren’t found in the first searches. Kratz is who was directing the search of the burn barrels. He knew they weren’t in the barrels in the initial searches but then all of the sudden they were on Nov 7th. Kratz pressured Fabian into committing perjury cuz Kratz needed to link Steven to those items. Fabian was the only witness they had. Fabian claimed he smelled burning plastic & saw thick smoke on Oct 31 as he & Earl Avery were driving a golf cart around at 5:20pm. Kathleen’s expert burned identical items & there was no burning plastic odor. Nor was there heavy smoke.
Things get personal on Page 97. I know people don’t want to hear anything negative about the victim but the fact remains it is important to know their life to identify possible suspects. Kathleen has evidence that Teresa & Ryan’s relationship was abusive. She was also in a relationship with a married man that she met when she was photographing him & his wife naked. Her affair caused a breakup of the marriage. She was also having sex with her roommate who was friends with her abusive ex. But none of these people were looked at.
Ryan knew Teresa’s password to her voicemail & deleted messages so her box wouldn’t be full & tip people off that she was missing. Teresa’s phone records show the last time she accessed her voicemail from her own phone was at 2:12pm on Oct 31.
Ryan planned to burn the body & plant the evidence at Steven’s cuz he knew she had an appointment with him from the paperwork in the RAV-4. He volunteered to control the search party so he would also control the focus of the investigation. He did not initially tell the police his relationship to Teresa.
Page 102 mentions Ryan having a medical background as it describes how Ryan went to the Yard to plant the vehicle & body there. He went into Steven’s trailer to find something that would have his DNA on it. Then he noticed the blood in the sink. He wasn’t able to hide the car that on his first attempt. He went back on Nov 4 w an accomplice that drove another vehicle through the quarry & parked the RAV-4 on the southeast corner by the pond. He then took Law Enforcement back there that night & offered to search for them since they couldn’t without a warrant. He looked into the vehicle & then said “It’s hers”. Ryan then helped the police justify planting evidence to frame Avery. Ryan had access to the Yard since he was part of the search party to plant bones & electrical devices.
No one had seen a broken parking light on Teresa’s car on that last day. But when it was found it had damage. The broken light was put in the cargo area of her car. Ryan damaged it but had to pick up all the pieces so it wouldn’t be known where the vehicle had driven & that it had left the Yard. He had first attempted to hide the car near Steven’s trailer & the cul-de-sac at Kuss road. But there is a metal post coming out of the ground 2.5 feet that he hit. That’s what broke the light.
Page 106 said that Teresa’s colleague at the photo studio, Tom Pearce, said that Teresa had been in an abusive relationship. Kathleen has emails showing that Ryan was still interested in Teresa when she wasn’t romantically into him any longer. She was also having sex with her roommate & Ryan’s friend, Scott. Ryan committed perjury when he said Teresa & Scott were just friends. Kathleen’s expert tried to interview Scott but he refused. When he was told that Kathleen would be naming a suspect Scott immediately blurted out, “You mean Ryan Hillegas”.
Ryan also didn’t like her nude photography business & that she was having sex with one of her clients. Teresa kept those pictures.
The guy Teresa was having an affair with sent her a text at 12:45pm on Oct 31. He admitted that to the police but was never asked what it said or asked to show it. Bradley Czech did have an alibi. Ryan called Czech on Nov 3rd. Phone records show this is the first time they ever talked on the phone.
Ryan lied to police about when the damage occurred to Teresa’s car. Why would he lie if he was innocent? He claimed it happened months ago. He said she had filed an insurance claim too. Kathleen’s investigator has found that Teresa never filed a claim.
Ryan’s cell records have big gaps during the times in question. On Oct 31 there was a huge block of time from 9:41am-3:48pm where his phone wasn’t used at all. This is during the time Teresa would have been at the Salvage Yard. Teresa’s Day Planner said she was going to get Sarah’s stuff from her Mom at 3pm. Then there was another gap in his phone records from 3:50pm-6:01pm. There are more gaps the days following Teresa’s disappearance. Then on November 4th from 4:15-7:25pm he got 21 calls from an unidentified, hidden number. It is during this time that Colborn called in Teresa’s plates using his cellphone instead of the police radio.
Then there’s the whole he just happened to guess her log in & password to her Cingular account. He called Teresa’s phone at 6:42pm on November 1st & he said he got an automated message saying her box was full. He testified that the call lasted 4 seconds. But when Steven said he called & got that same message his call lasted 13 seconds. Sometime between that call & Tom Pearce’s call the killer [Ryan] deleted messages.
Ryan had scratches on his left hand prior to the RAV-4 being found on November 5th. One of Zellner’s experts says they are consistent with scratches from fingernails.
Zellner said burning the body is an obvious way to make sure he didn’t leave any DNA on her body.
Teresa’s voicemail could hold 20 minutes of messages. When Steven called her phone at 4:35pm on October 31st he got the automated message saying her box was full. When Pearce called her around noon on November 2nd it was full. But in Fassbender’s report there were 5 minutes & 11 seconds of messages left between those 2 calls. So someone had to have deleted some calls.
Scent tracking dogs gave trained alerts in the wooded area south of the Kuss Road cul-de-sac & between that & Steven’s trailer. Some dogs were trained to find decomposing bodies & others to find living people. The live dogs established that the RAV-4 w Teresa inside was driven to that wooded area. The remains dog alerted at a suspected burial site near there. A shallow ditch was dug & a plastic tarp was discovered. Colborn persuaded everyone it wasn’t a burial site. Other dogs took them through Radandt Pit, traveling to the place the RAV-4 was discovered on Jambo Creek Road where a witness said they saw it going into the Manitowoc County Pits.
Ryan knew they were going to conduct aerial surveillance on November 4th to search for the car. Kratz admitted that the car was not visible on this. The flyover ended at 6pm on November 4th & afterwards Ryan drove the car to the southeast corner of the Yard & was followed by a white Jeep using the Radandt Pit from Jambo Creek Road & then only the Jeep returned.
Ryan parked the car on a ridge between the Pit & a pond. He parked it facing the opposite way all the other cars were parked. Then put tree branches, cardboard boxes & a rusty car hood to explain why it wasn’t seen in the flyover.
Zellner says Ryan [to be clear, she always says “the killer” but its Ryan she is referring to] went to the Yard the night of the 4th w Colborn to look for the RAV-4. That’s the night that Chuck saw headlights. Colborn did not have probably cause so used Ryan as a civilian to do the search. Ryan quickly found the car & Zellner claims you can hear Ryan saying “it’s hers” on the audio of when Colborn called Dispatch using his personal cellphone to call in the plates.
Ryan spearheaded the search party for Teresa. He lied about his name & claimed he was Ryan “Kilgus” to the police. He concealed his relationship to Teresa. He made maps for the volunteers to use on the search. He said he found a condom wrapper by the first house on Jambo Creek Road. He told Pam Sturm of God where to search & supplied her with a camera & the direct line to MCSD “in case” she found anything. Pam was the only person to get these things.
Even though Ryan & Teresa were no longer a couple & when they were it was abusive, Ryan moved immediately into Teresa’s home. This gave him control over her belongings. He was there any time police came to search. He told cops where they could get her dirty underwear, boxes for her phone & camera as well as medical records. So it is reasonable to think he would have access to her sub-key that he could have given to Colborn & Lenk to plant in Steven’s room.
Ryan also personally searched the Salvage Yard multiple times. He did not log in when he went the second time. Only logged out. So no one knows how long he was on the property. This gave him opportunity to plant the bones & electronic devices. At least one time he used his fake name. This would explain why the bones in the barrels weren’t found until November 8th.
Ryan was never asked for an alibi. He said the last time he saw her was on October 30th when he dropped something off at her house. He doesn’t remember what he gave her or what time it was.
He first told cops he was just a friend. Then they discovered he was her ex. Ryan testified that he was never treated like a suspect in any way.
Ryan got 22 calls on November 4th from unknown numbers. Zellner assumes this was Law Enforcement working w him on the illegal search of the Yard. Ryan testified that he didn’t know how many times he talked to Sheriff Pagel on November 4th but it was at least once. He doesn’t know if he talked to Wiegert that day.
Pam Sturm of God found the car among 400 cars on 40 acres in a half hour. No way. She was told where to go.
Page 122 is a timeline of Teresa’s calls on October 31st.
Steven called Auto Trader at 8:12am to schedule an appointment for Barb’s van. Barb’s husband Tom Janda had an Auto Trader account.
The State never shared the call she got at 8:17am from Auto Trader that lasted 1 minute & 7 seconds.
Then they called her back at 9:46am & that lasted 33 seconds.
Steven called Auto Trader at 11:04am from his landline. Steven confirmed that someone was coming to take a picture of the Janda van around 2pm. The State omitted this call from their timeline.
Then another omitted call to Teresa by the State at 11:10am for 5 seconds.
Teresa called Barb at 11:44am.
She got to the Schmitz’s house at 1:10pm. Her cell records show she called them at 12:51pm so she was actually there 20 minutes earlier than the State presented. She left there are 1:15pm.
She looked for the Zipperers but couldn’t find it. She left a message on their machine at 2:12pm.
So she went to the Yard. Steven called her at 2:24pm to find out when she would be there & he used *67 so she didn’t have to return his call.
Auto Trader called Teresa at 2:24pm. Dawn Pliszka testified that Teresa called her at 2:27pm but the phone records show it was the other way around. So her testimony is not credible.
Teresa got to the Yard between 2:31 & 2:35pm. She took a picture of the van & started walking towards Steven’s trailer but he came out so she went back to her car to get the magazine for him. He paid her & she gave him the magazine. She turned left on Hwy 147 when she exited the Yard.
Steven called Teresa at 2:35pm cuz after he flipped through the magazine he realizes they also advertised front-loaders & he wanted to sell one. So he was calling to ask her to come back but he ended the call before she answered cuz he wanted to go talk to Bobby but Bobby wasn’t home.
The last voicemail Teresa got was at 2:41pm. She was on her way back to the Zipperers. On November 5th Wiegert & Remiker had a conversation where they said that the Zipperers home was her last stop.
Steven called Teresa again at 4:35pm to set up an appointment to sell the front-loader. It went to automated voicemail.
Jodi called Steven at 5:36pm from jail. They talked for 15 minutes.
Steven had a bonfire around 7pm for around 2 hours. Brendan joined him & they burned brush.
Jodi called him again at 8:57pm & they spoke for another 15 minutes. Brendan went home before that call & the fire had already burned down to ash.
On Page 127 Radandt told investigators he saw a fire on October 31st but it was in a 55-gallon drum. When he was interviewed on November 10th he was pushed to say the fire was large, behind the garage in the burn pit.
Law Enforcement said in a report that Paul Metz said he heard a big whoosh that reminded him or starting a fire w gas on November 1st & that he smelled a vile odor that was coming from the Yard. But his affidavit says it was on October 31st & he heard a sound that reminded him of electrical wires surging around dusk. Then he smelled something like insulation burning. He never said anything about gasoline igniting or an odor. He is familiar w burning bodies as he is a volunteer firefighter. He does not know how that whoosh statement was attributed to him.
Page 128 says scent dogs found a burial site 500 yards west of Steven’s trailer. There were numerous times between November 5-8 for the dog to discover the bones in the fire pit if they were there as Steven went to the family cabin in Crivitz on the 5th. They searched around but the dogs did not detect Teresa A dog that can detect small sources from long distances was around 205 feet from where the car was later found but didn’t. Another dog didn’t find anything on November 6th.
Page 129 lists what the dogs did detect. On the Rav-4 after it was found.
Several spent shell casings along the conveyor road at the southwestern edge of the Yard.
The burial site on Kuss.
Several burn piles in the Manitowoc County gravel pit.
Also in the brush & trees between Kuss & Steven’s trailer as well as the berm on the west edge border by the Yard. The State didn’t include those since they weren’t on Avery property.
Lenk, Colborn & Sgt Tyson performed the excavation of the burial site & reported there was nothing of value. But based on the dogs interest it is probable that Teresa’s body was there for awhile before she was burned.
Wilmer Siebert says he saw a call like Teresa’s for into the Radandt Pit using the access road immediately south of his property. He saw a white Jeep following it. He remembers the paint was chipping off the hood. He said they were speeding when they drove down Jambo Creek Rd & turned east towards the gravel pits. He saw the Jeep come back out shortly afterwards but not the other car. His daughter called Manitowoc County dispatch to report it. The recording of this call has not been turned over to the defense. The dogs corroborated his observations on where the Rav-4 drove.
The State told the jury that you couldn’t access the Yard property from the south but the dogs show how you can.
Teresa had called the Zipperers when she was in their area & lost. She left a message on their machine. When the Zipperers were interviewed on November 3rd at 9:30pm they told Law Enforcement about this message. Remiker listened to it & gave a copy to MCSD Detective Dennis Jacobs. That CD copy was never given to the Defense & had allegedly disappeared. Zellner sent a FOIA request & both counties claim they don’t have it. Kratz never turned it over in Discovery. Fallon confirmed in a litter on April 20,2017 that neither county has been able to find it.
Kratz never played the recording of the voicemail for the jury. It is reasonable to assume he concealed it as it proves that the Zipperers was Teresa’s last stop. There is a recorded conversation w Remiker & Wiegert where they say that her first appointment was Schmitz. Then Avery & then Zipperers.
Page 134 goes into the odometer reading on the RAV-4. The odometer was noted but not the amount of gas in the tank. That would tell you how far she traveled since she filled it on October 29th. The State didn’t want the mileage cuz it would refute their claim that the Yard was her last stop & not show she drove for miles afterwards.
Page 135 says Wendy Baldwon & Sheriff Pagel were in the air for around 4 hours doing the flyover on November 4th. But the State only made 3 minutes of footage. Kratz saw the unedited footage & knew the RAV-4 was not there at the time so they intentionally edited it to conceal that.
Radandt told Zellner that he was told that they believed the car was driven to Kuss Rd cul-de-sac by driving west through an empty field & then south down the gravel road past his hunting camp to an intersection w a gravel road that ran northeast into the Yard. He believed the theory was based on the scent & tracking dogs. But Investigators never wrote a report on their conversation w Radandt telling him that. Kratz did not call him to testify.
Zellner says that Radandt has been unfairly targeted as a suspect just cuz he lived nearby. He has taken her to view his property twice & has a solid alibi.
Page 136 starts the new evidence. First up, Kratz claimed Teresa was killed by 2 gunshot wounds to her head while she was laying on the garage floor. Dr Eisenberg said there were entrance wounds but no exits. Zellner’s expert says that the bullet the State says went through Teresa’s head never went through bone. He said that detectable bone fragments would be there if it was.
Big Hair Culhane testified that she washed the bullet in a test tube filled w a reagent. Her wash would not have removed the bone from the bullet.
Zellner’s expert says wood garments appear to be on the bullet. So it was fired into wood. There was also a red droplet on it. It could be paint. Steven’s trailer & garage are red.
Steven’s landlord Rollie Johnson who owned the .22 the State claims killed Teresa said he often fired it near Steven’s garage at gopher holes. He did not pick any of the casings up.
On Page 145 she goes into the Brain Fingerprinting thing. I am not saying this can’t be a real thing but I just have zero interest in anything about that so I am skipping that entire section. Sorry.
That takes us to Page 155 & Zellner’s expert says that the swab the State said was used on the hood latch was not. Testing ruled out the DNA to be blood, saliva, semen & urine. [Sorry, Kratz. There’s no such thing as sweaty sweat sweat DNA.]
The DNA on the key is not blood but the State claimed it was Steven’s skin cells. Zellner’s expert said it was planted cuz the amount of DNA was 10x greater than what Steven left in a test where he held another key for 12 minutes. Steven said he saw in police photos that his toothbrush was missing. The planted DNA could be from that.
Page 162 begins the ethical violations by Ken “Sweaty” Kratz. He impaired Steven’s right to a fair trial. His press conference was professional misconduct. Charging Steven based on Brendan’s coerced confession is professional misconduct. His attempts to include Steven’s acts prior to 2007 was, say it with me, professional misconduct. Having separate trials for the guys… his request to aid & abet the instruction at Steven’s trial… his public dissemination of inflammatory information about Steven… his jailhouse contacts w Steven… are ALL professional misconduct.
Kratz held a press conference on March 2nd where he first told kids to leave the room. Then he went into this disgusting story that I am not even going to repeat as it’s utter bullshit & we all know it so no need to repeat it.
Page 166 says that Kratz knew the statements from Brendan were uncorroborated & coerced. He also knew of Brendan’s IQ & that he was in special education problems & was an introvert. The police interrogated him multiple times without a parent or lawyer present. Brendan’s confession was legally inadmissible against Steven for constitutional & statutory reasons. Kratz had no evidence so no legal basis to support these new charged of sexual assault & torture.
Page 170 says Kratz’s statements destroyed Steven’s due process for a fair trial. On June 15th Sweaty moved to introduce prior accusations against Steven that had nothing to do with this. Judge Willis sealed that motion. Sweaty charged Steven w sexual assault just on Brendan’s coerced confession which he knew wasn’t admissible. There was no proof Steven sexually assaulted Teresa. So that’s why Kratz wanted to go into Steven’s past.
In Sweaty’s summation he said that there was no question who killed & mutilated Teresa & all the evidence pointed to only ONE person. He said she was killed by 2 gunshot wounds to the head. He said no blood was found in the trailer but since she wasn’t killed there, there wouldn’t be. Sweaty said that Teresa was killed in the garage.
But uh oh! He tried Brendan for the same crime but this time Teresa was stabbed in the stomach & her throat was slit… in the trailer… where there wasn’t any blood. Then he threw in the gunshots. But said she was killed in the trailer, not the garage. His 2 narratives contradict one another. It is unfair, legally & ethically & undermines the very concept of justice & the duty of a prosecutor to serve truth.
Page 176 says Kratz asked the judge to instruct the jury that they could find Steven guilty for causing Teresa’s death or aiding & abetting Brendan in causing her death. But then he & the judge agreed to take Brendan’s name out & just say “another”. Kratz knew that would link Steven & Brendan before Brendan’s court case. He was barred legally from using any evidence against Brendan to prove Steven’s guilt. So if this case rested on just Steven’s conduct & not anyone else, then that had nothing to do w this case. Kratz knew there was no proof relating to Brendan or his confession.
Page 178 says Sweaty’s book & media appearances just further destroys Steven’s ability at getting a fair trial. He tells stories of Steven sexually assaulting his ex-wife, former girlfriend, niece, babysitter. The cat story & more. Sweaty does have the right to free speech but as an attorney his rights are constrained by ethical rules. Kratz had tried to get some of this in at trial but it was ruled inadmissible.
Page 180 says that Kratz wrote to Steven on January 14th, 2013 trying to get Steven to meet w him to talk about his case. Sweaty told him he was in private practice now & since Steven was no longer represented by counsel he wanted to meet w him for “his own personal use”. Steven replied on June 18th suggesting that Kratz could take his appeal since “you now the case & you got Candy Avery”. & that “we can all get money together”.
Sweaty wrote Steven 2more letters 2 years later. One on August 10, 2015 saying Steven hasn’t put him on his visitor’s list. He told Steven to “ADD ME” to his list. His last letter was September 6, 2015. He referred to a letter Steven wrote him asking if they checked out the other fingerprints on the RAV-4. So that is when Kratz wrote that stupid letter saying he thought Steven was interested in being honest & so on that I am not going to repeat cuz it just gets me mad.
Page 183 goes into Sweatys taking advantage of vulnerable women when he was a prosecutor. There were at least 10 women who complained about him. They started proceedings to remove him so Kratz involuntarily resigned. He was found to have committed professional misconduct by violating the attorney’s oath. He was suspended for 4 months from practicing law. The Wisconsin Supreme Court upheld the suspension.
I am also not going to go into any of the ineffective counsel stuff. I understand why she’s doing it. I think Strang & Buting did the best they could with what they had. They did not have the money she has. They did not have her experts. They did not have all the internet sleuths. Or ‘Making a Murderer’. So they did what they could. Things were missed. They’re human.
That’s everything from her brief. There are still the affidavits from her experts & then all the exhibits. I will try to go into those now. Since this is so long I will make this one article & go into a separate one for that. But let me go into my thoughts on this.
I have been following this case since I watched MaM the weekend it came out in December 2015. I have read all the documents. Looked at exhibits. Listened to tapes. I have visited the Yard. Walked the Path of God. Stood where Teresa took the picture of the van while being filmed from the bus stop. I drove through the quarry. I drove to the Zipperers & timed it from the yard. I have met most of the family. I have gone to see the lawyers talk about the case. I have talked on the phone to the lawyers, Brendan & Steven. I have written articles on my experiences & done Facebook Live Videos. I went to Brendan’s appeal at the 7th Circuit. I run the Free Brendan Facebook page & I own the Steven Avery Project & Wrongfully Abused. I advocate for 2 other of Zellner’s clients & I work with their families. I Admin one of their Facebook groups. But I am NOT an expert. The only thing I am certain of is that Steven & Brendan are innocent & their families were robbed of their loved ones & it’s taken a toll on all of their lives.I have complete faith in Zellner that she knows what she is doing far more than I would ever dream to know. I am not going to second guess her in any way shape or form.
That being said, it’s in my opinion, as it has been from the start, that Ryan Hillegas is the killer. I know there are so many theories out there & yes you can make many of them fit the pieces by why overlook the obvious conclusion. Most murders are done by people who know the victim. If it turns out it wasn’t Ryan, I won’t be all upset about it. I don’t have some crazy need to be right. I just want the truth & those guys freed.
I want Steven to meet the woman of his dreams & get the love he has always wanted. I want him to spend his days working on cars or going fishing. I want Brendan to be reunited with his devoted Mom who has been the one constant in his life. His Mom has always been there for him. I want him to be able to play video games all day, every day. Eat all the hamburgers he wants. I hope both of them will be able to have their private lives & people will leave them alone to just be them.
The thing we all need to take away from this horrible story is that #WeAllLiveOnAveryRd. No matter who you are or where you are from, if you are EVER questioned by the police for any reason, DO NOT speak to them without a lawyer.
Enough of my rambling. I will move on to the other stuff to summarize & post this for now. I hope it’s of some help. If you want to read the complete brief you can find it on Zellner’s website here:
www.kathleentzellner.com/
You can find all the prior documents, exhibits & just about anything you can imagine here:
www.stevenaverycase.org/
If you want to check out information on Brendan you can go here:
freebrendan.org/
or here:
www.facebook.com/freebrendan/
& if you are interested in other cases you can go here:
www.facebook.com/WrongfullyAbused/
We have been waiting a long time for Kathleen Zellner to show us her cards. But not as long as Steven Avery, Brendan Dassey & their families. I read through the 220 pages that were released last night but I am going to go through them again & type my thoughts of the things that stand out to me. I am NOT a lawyer & do not claim to know it all. I am just someone who has followed the case & want to see these men freed. So follow me down the rabbit hole, won’t you?
Page 1 says Steven asks to vacate the judgment against him & for a new trial. I know many people just want Steven to just walk out immediately. I know Kathleen said at one point she would not go for a new trial but exoneration. But haven’t we all learned by now that our legal system sucks & is incredibly slow? I do not know our legal process well enough, or at all, to question Kathleen’s decisions.
Page 3 says that Steven has been locked up for 10,909 days for crimes he didn’t commit. He has been alive 20.058 days. Of the 4,238 days since Teresa Halbach was murdered only 9 days were devoted to indentifying the alleged murderer.
Page 4 begins her “Idiot-Savant” description of Ken Kratz’s many theories. Here are my thoughts on this. Is Steven the most brilliant man in the world? No. We know he has a low IQ plus most of his life has been stolen from him & he is institutionalized. What was Steven’s motive for killing Teresa? He was free from prison. Had some fame from that. Depositions had just started in his $36 million dollar suit against Manitowoc County. He was going to get a couple hundred thousand dollars from the state outside of what he was suing for. He had a girlfriend. Even if you think Steven is an asshole or abusive to women, why would he kill some random girl? At his own house? During the day in a working Salvage Yard? Why would he call Auto Trader to schedule an appointment when he had her private cell number that he could have just *67d of he was trying to cover his tracks? Don’t tell me he used a fake name when the Jandas had an account with Auto Trader & that’s what car was being listed.
So Steven allegedly kills Teresa in his tiny bedroom by slashing her throat & stabbing her in the stomach after raping her yet there isn’t any DNA there at all. I really don’t get putting the body on a creeper to roll her body to the fire pit behind the garage. Have you been to Steven’s trailer? I have. It wouldn’t be easy to roll a creeper out there. Teresa was a little girl. He could have thrown her over his shoulder & carried her out there. Would be much easier.
Then the story changes to say that Steven shot Teresa twice when she is on the floor of the garage. Yet there isn’t any bullet holes in the ground. But a magic bullet with Teresa’s DNA is miraculously found after multiple searches in the dusty garage.
Teresa’s body is then put in the back of her own vehicle & Steven was able to clean up most of the DNA except for some suspicious looking swabbed blood in the front & his sweaty sweat sweat DNA on the hood latch.
Kratz claims that Steven burned her electronics. Sure. Cuz Steven wouldn’t keep that stuff if it was him, right? Then he claims Steven burned her in a barrel right by his trailer at 7pm on a weeknight in a working business.
Oh but wait! Now there’s a story of Steven driving the RAV-4 & Brendan drives with him. Now both of these guys are experts at covering up fingerprints, DNA, etc as there isn’t a single trace of Brendan ever being in that car. Of course guys who have grown up in a salvage yard wouldn’t just crush the car. Or sink it in the pond in the southeast corner of the property. Or abandon it in the huge quarry that runs on 2 sides of their property. They park it going in the opposite direction of all the other cars & then throw some branches, etc on it to make it stick out even more.
Kratz claimed Steven was wearing gloves but is still able to leave 6 drops of blood inside the car. But not where you would expect blood to be if someone has a cut finger & driving a car.
Kratz says that Steven kept the key so he could crush the car later yet he wouldn’t need a key to do that as they would use a front-loader to pick it up.
Next Steven burns an entire body in just 3-4 hours without anyone noticing. He then just left the bones where anyone could find it, including his dog who would have eaten the bones & be detected in his stool. 60 percent of the bones disappeared as well as all but 2 teeth. Then Steven picked up some large bones to put in Barb’s burn barrel & the gravel pit. Makes perfect sense, right?
Page 7 starts to go into evidence. The hood latch swab really came from a groin swab they conducted on Steven & didn’t log. The magic key was actually her “sub-key”. Messages were deleted off Teresa’s answering machine so people wouldn’t know it was full & worry about her being missing. Her last appointment was actually at the Zipperer’s & not at Avery Salvage Yard. There was a message on the Zipperer’s machine where Teresa told them she was lost & the State destroyed it. The State concealed her mileage. Teresa led a risqué life by being romantically involved with a married man & doing nude photography. Her ex was verbally & physically abusive. Ryan Hillegas had scratches on his hands which are consistent with fingernail scratches. He also gave a fake name to police & lied about his relationship to Teresa. He controlled crime scene evidence & the search party. He was regularly on the Avery property & helped to “find” the car. He moved into Teresa’s house immediately after her disappearance & had control of all of her personal effects.
On Page 8 Kathleen talks about the ineffective counsel. Now, I still completely support Strang & Buting. They were up against huge odds here back then. They didn’t have ‘Making a Murderer’. They didn’t have Zellner money. They didn’t have all these internet sleuths who have really found some good leads. They did the best they can. I don’t believe that Kathleen has a real issue with them too. This is just standard procedure in freeing an innocent man. It’s so easy to lock them up but so hard to get them out. It’s just our awful system. Kathleen argues that Strang & Buting didn’t do all they could for Steven & she’s right. But it’s not their fault & rather it is the fault of our corrupt system.
Page 9 begins her list of experts. Christopher Palenick PH.D. will testify that the bullet never went through bone. He says it actually went through wood. He also concluded that the swab they say was from the hood latch was never on the hood latch. Finally he says the key found was not the one Teresa used every day.
Lucien Haag says the bullet would have had bone particles embedded on it if it had gone through a skull.
John DeHaan, PH.D. says Teresa’s bones were planted in the burn pit after being burned in a burn barrel. He said her body was not burned in Steven’s burn pit.
Steven Symes, PH.D. says the suspected pelvic bone should have been examined microscopically to determine if they were even human.
Stuart James says that the blood stains in the car were selectively planted & the stain by the ignition was placed with an applicator. He said the blood did not come from the vial of Steven’s blood from 1986 but was instead dripped by Steven in his bathroom sink that was then used in the car. He also said the blood stain in the back is not from Teresa’s body being thrown in the back after she was shot.
Karl Reich, PH.D. says the hood latch DNA probably came from the relabeled groin swab. He also said that the DNA on the key probably came from Steven’s toothbrush.
Gregg McCrary says they rushed to declare Steven the suspect & ignored evidence that showed otherwise.
James & Steve Kirby have interviewed over 35 witnesses & have uncovered an abusive relationship between Teresa & Ryan. James found that Ryan lied to Law Enforcement about Teresa’s broken parking light. They also ran experiments that refute that the electronics were burned in Steven’s barrel. While interviewing Teresa’s roommate Scott Bloedorn, Scott inadvertently mentioned that Ryan was a suspect.
Larry Blum, M.D. will testify that the scratches on Ryan’s hands is consistent with fingernail scratches that occurred in that timeframe.
Bennett Gershman, J.D. will testify on the ongoing unethical violations committed by Kratz before, during & after the trial.
Lawrence Farwell, Ph.D. is the brain fingerprinting guy. This is the one thing I am iffy on in this whole thing. I am not going to comment on this at all as I just don’t get it.
Page 15 starts on the State’s case at trial. Page 16 has one of Kratz’s various timelines. This one stating that the police only zeroed in on Steven cuz he was the last appointment so assumed the last person to see her alive. Page 18 talks about Sturm of God. I walked that Yard from the office to where the car was found. I videoed & timed it. There is absolutely no way possible Pam found that car that quickly without being told where to look. Period. End of story.
Page 19 says that Kratz claimed that the car couldn’t be seen in the flyover on November 4, 2005 cuz of it being covered with branches & a hood. Then says Steven disconnected the battery so a search party couldn’t activate it. But then where is her fob that would have those buttons to activate a panic alarm or unlock the doors? Kratz then claimed the car couldn’t be driven back there from the quarry due to a high berm. That berm didn’t exist then.
Colborn called dispatch from his cell on Nov 3 but claims he was just verifying information & that he wasn’t looking at the RAV-4. They claim he used the cell cuz Steven had a police scanner.
On Page 20 Kratz says no one had access to Steven’s blood. But Steven was actively bleeding from his finger when he reopened a cut. The State’s expert claimed that the blood by the ignition matched if someone turned the key.
Let’s just skip all the stuff Kratz alleged in the case as we know that. This is long enough wo me going over all that as well.
On Page 28 it starts in on Strang & Buting’s defense. I am not going to cover that either. We know the case & if you want a refresher then read up on it. I just want to cover what Kathleen says actually happened.
Evidence begins on Page 43. It first starts on the ineffective assistance of counsel. I already talked about my thoughts on that. This is standard procedure in getting a new trial. I do not think Strang & Buting did a horrible job. They did the best they could with what they had. Kathleen is using evidence & testing she has done to use against them saying that they should have done these things & by not doing it, they hurt his case. Which is true but again, they didn’t have the ability to do those things.
Page 50 says that Colborn showed up at the Salvage Yard on Nov 3rd while Steven was having dinner w his Mom. Colborn asked them about Teresa. Colborn then changed the time Steven had told him Teresa had left from 2:30 to 3pm. But Steven has always been consistent in saying she left at 2-2:30.
Steven drove back to his trailer & went to unhitch a trailer & cut his finger back open. That’s how he got his blood on his car & in his trailer. He did not lock his trailer when he went out w his brother Chuck. They left around 7:30pmto go to Menards which was around 23 minutes away. They checked out at 8:06pm.
Steven’s landlord Rollie Johnson said he saw the cut on Steven’s finger prior to Oct 31.
At around 7:30pm when Steven was driving away he saw taillights near his trailer. He believes the lights were similar to a RAV-4 & not a police vehicle. They drove back but the car was gone. So he & Chuck went to Menards & then to drop of money for Steven’s girlfriend Jodi who was in jail. He got home between 10-10:30 & went to bed.
Steven got up at 6am & went to take a shower. He noticed that most of the blood around his sink was gone. He consistently said that he thought the blood was planted in the RAV-4 from his sink. There are interviews with the media to prove this.
Lenk & Remiker arrived at 10:30am to interview him. Steven said he smelled cigarette smoke when he went to his bedroom & neither he nor Jodi smoked. He believed someone broke into his trailer.
On Nov 5 when he was getting ready to go to Crivitz he saw his front door had been pried open. He remembered he had locked the door after Lenk & Remiker left.
When Chuck was leaving for Crivitz he saw headlights back by the pond where the RAV-4 was later discovered. He called Steven around 7:20pm. By the time Steven got to Chuck’s trailer the headlights were gone.
On Page 56 one of Kathleen’s experts says that the blood on the RAV-4 carpeting was planted cuz if dripped it would have been absorbed but this was flakes on top of the carpet.
She starts talking about the 1986 blood vial on Page 59. She is blaming Strang & Buting for even using it as a defense. She says there is no proof Lenk ever knew this vial existed in the Clerk of Court’s office. She also claims that the defense knew that the whole in the top was created by the nurse. She said they lost credibility with the jury when they couldn’t present any evidence that the blood in the car was planted.
Kathleen’s experts have been able to demonstrate that all of Steven’s blood in the RAV-4 was planted.
On Page 60 it talks about the RAV-4 key not being found after multiple searches until Nov 8. Defense is blamed for not using the fact that they don’t need the key to use the frontloader to pick the car up & put in the car crusher.
Then goes into the bookcase. It was approximately 32x16x31. Colborn manhandled this little thing til eventually the magic key popped out. The key & Steven’s slippers were not in a previous picture. Lenk is the one who picked up the slippers to allegedly look inside them. Kathleen faults Strang & Buting for not having that bookcase at trial. They could have demonstrated there is no way the key would come out & land where they claimed it did. On Page 62 it goes into an experiment they did with the bookcase. They were not able to recreate what the prosecution claimed happened.
Page 63 goes into the key really being the sub-key. The shape of the key found clearly indicates it is the spare key & not the one that Teresa would use daily. Her car also had electronic locks & it is seen in a photograph that she had her fob attached to her master key. No fob has ever been found. Nor was the white lanyard it was on in the photo.
Scott Bloedorn was interviewed on Nov 4 in Teresa’s kitchen & Kathleen alleges you can see the blue lanyard & sub-key sitting on the counter. That same key was “found” in Steven’s bedroom on Nov 8.
Kathleen’s experts examined the key. There was deposits in the grooves that are consistent w testimony that said the key had been placed in the ignition & driver’s door after collection by Sherry Culhane. They also discovered that the key didn’t have the wear & tear on it that it would if it was what Teresa regularly used.
The key had Steven’s DNA on it but not Teresa’s. They didn’t do any testing to prove where that DNA came from put Culhane still testified that it was Steven’s blood from his cut finger. Kathleen’s expert conducted experiments that demonstrate the DNA was planted cuz there was more DNA on it then Steven deposited on a test key. Steven held it in his hand for 12 minutes. The expert found that Steven deposited 10 times less DNA then what was found on the magic key.
Their experiment ruled out skin cells from Steven’s slippers as being the source of the DNA. But Culhane also had Steven’s toothbrush & their testing showed that it was a comparable quantity. They never logged the toothbrush into evidence even though it was collected. Steven noticed it was missing when he was looking at police photographs.
Page 70 says 2 groin swabs were taken from Steven on Nov 9. Fassbender & Wiegert were both there. But the search warrant said they could only take blood & saliva. The nurse never put in her notes that she took those swabs. Fassbender & Wiegert then stopped the nurse & the exam was concluded. But the nurse never would have done that if she hadn’t been told to do it. Fassbender claimed the swabs were thrown out. But the nurse never noted that. Yet Wiegert told the nurse that HE would throw it out while Fassbender took Steven to be fingerprinted. Steven heard Wiegert tell the nurse to give him the swabs & saw him pretend to throw them away but didn’t.
Page 71 says that 4 months after the police had the RAV-4 they began looking at the hood latch. Fassbender & Wiegert first brought up while interrogating Brendan on March 1 & asking him if Steven ever look at the engine, etc. Brendan said no but then on March 13th after being pressured by Fassbender & Wiegert Brendan changed his story to fit their narrative.
The hood latch was then swabbed for evidence on April 3rd. They only swabbed the exterior latch. Not the interior latch that he would have had to use as well. They also broke the chain of custody in this comedy of errors. Kathleen contends that since they weren’t supposed to take groin swabs, the nurse never noted doing it, concealing throwing them away, the chain of custody screw up, all eludes to them doing this to plant the evidence.
Page 74 says they were on the hunt for the sweaty sweat sweat on the hood latch. They conducted experiments on an identical vehicle. In 11 of the 15 experiments, no detectable DNA was present on the swab. The remaining ones had a teeny tiny bit. An expert said the law enforcement lab did everything below acceptable standards of practice. They also didn’t photograph any of the alleged bones in the burn pit. They confused where the burn barrels were & messed up the chain of custody on those as well.
Any photos that were taken had the area of interest obscured by the shadows of investigators. Some remains were found outside the pit. No large bones were found at all. There was nothing on what fueled the fire except tires. Many of the bone fragments were coated with a yellow or tan dust. Dr Eisenberg said she rinsed some bones. Based on Kathleen’s expert’s experience the bones could only be burned like they were when confined by a metal enclosure. The expert contends that the body was burned in a “field” cremation involving a sustained & re-stoked fire over a period of time. The bigger portions like the base of the skull, shoulders or pelvis would only be charred after 4-7 hours in a fire. They remained their shape unless mechanically stirred. To achieve what these bones were reduced to they would have to be in a fire for much longer.
Kathleen’s expert does not think the body was burned behind Steven’s garage. He says someone transferred the bones there. It was consistent to someone dumping them there & then some rolling away. The State claimed Teresa was burned in the open pit from 7-11pm. Kathleen’s expert says that is not supported by the evidence. The burned bench seat was not found in the burn pit but near it.
As for the tire belts being burned onto some of the bones. The dog’s chain was long enough to reach the pit & it could very well have dragged some of the fragments into the fire.
Page 86 says Teresa’s electronics weren’t found in the first searches. Kratz is who was directing the search of the burn barrels. He knew they weren’t in the barrels in the initial searches but then all of the sudden they were on Nov 7th. Kratz pressured Fabian into committing perjury cuz Kratz needed to link Steven to those items. Fabian was the only witness they had. Fabian claimed he smelled burning plastic & saw thick smoke on Oct 31 as he & Earl Avery were driving a golf cart around at 5:20pm. Kathleen’s expert burned identical items & there was no burning plastic odor. Nor was there heavy smoke.
Things get personal on Page 97. I know people don’t want to hear anything negative about the victim but the fact remains it is important to know their life to identify possible suspects. Kathleen has evidence that Teresa & Ryan’s relationship was abusive. She was also in a relationship with a married man that she met when she was photographing him & his wife naked. Her affair caused a breakup of the marriage. She was also having sex with her roommate who was friends with her abusive ex. But none of these people were looked at.
Ryan knew Teresa’s password to her voicemail & deleted messages so her box wouldn’t be full & tip people off that she was missing. Teresa’s phone records show the last time she accessed her voicemail from her own phone was at 2:12pm on Oct 31.
Ryan planned to burn the body & plant the evidence at Steven’s cuz he knew she had an appointment with him from the paperwork in the RAV-4. He volunteered to control the search party so he would also control the focus of the investigation. He did not initially tell the police his relationship to Teresa.
Page 102 mentions Ryan having a medical background as it describes how Ryan went to the Yard to plant the vehicle & body there. He went into Steven’s trailer to find something that would have his DNA on it. Then he noticed the blood in the sink. He wasn’t able to hide the car that on his first attempt. He went back on Nov 4 w an accomplice that drove another vehicle through the quarry & parked the RAV-4 on the southeast corner by the pond. He then took Law Enforcement back there that night & offered to search for them since they couldn’t without a warrant. He looked into the vehicle & then said “It’s hers”. Ryan then helped the police justify planting evidence to frame Avery. Ryan had access to the Yard since he was part of the search party to plant bones & electrical devices.
No one had seen a broken parking light on Teresa’s car on that last day. But when it was found it had damage. The broken light was put in the cargo area of her car. Ryan damaged it but had to pick up all the pieces so it wouldn’t be known where the vehicle had driven & that it had left the Yard. He had first attempted to hide the car near Steven’s trailer & the cul-de-sac at Kuss road. But there is a metal post coming out of the ground 2.5 feet that he hit. That’s what broke the light.
Page 106 said that Teresa’s colleague at the photo studio, Tom Pearce, said that Teresa had been in an abusive relationship. Kathleen has emails showing that Ryan was still interested in Teresa when she wasn’t romantically into him any longer. She was also having sex with her roommate & Ryan’s friend, Scott. Ryan committed perjury when he said Teresa & Scott were just friends. Kathleen’s expert tried to interview Scott but he refused. When he was told that Kathleen would be naming a suspect Scott immediately blurted out, “You mean Ryan Hillegas”.
Ryan also didn’t like her nude photography business & that she was having sex with one of her clients. Teresa kept those pictures.
The guy Teresa was having an affair with sent her a text at 12:45pm on Oct 31. He admitted that to the police but was never asked what it said or asked to show it. Bradley Czech did have an alibi. Ryan called Czech on Nov 3rd. Phone records show this is the first time they ever talked on the phone.
Ryan lied to police about when the damage occurred to Teresa’s car. Why would he lie if he was innocent? He claimed it happened months ago. He said she had filed an insurance claim too. Kathleen’s investigator has found that Teresa never filed a claim.
Ryan’s cell records have big gaps during the times in question. On Oct 31 there was a huge block of time from 9:41am-3:48pm where his phone wasn’t used at all. This is during the time Teresa would have been at the Salvage Yard. Teresa’s Day Planner said she was going to get Sarah’s stuff from her Mom at 3pm. Then there was another gap in his phone records from 3:50pm-6:01pm. There are more gaps the days following Teresa’s disappearance. Then on November 4th from 4:15-7:25pm he got 21 calls from an unidentified, hidden number. It is during this time that Colborn called in Teresa’s plates using his cellphone instead of the police radio.
Then there’s the whole he just happened to guess her log in & password to her Cingular account. He called Teresa’s phone at 6:42pm on November 1st & he said he got an automated message saying her box was full. He testified that the call lasted 4 seconds. But when Steven said he called & got that same message his call lasted 13 seconds. Sometime between that call & Tom Pearce’s call the killer [Ryan] deleted messages.
Ryan had scratches on his left hand prior to the RAV-4 being found on November 5th. One of Zellner’s experts says they are consistent with scratches from fingernails.
Zellner said burning the body is an obvious way to make sure he didn’t leave any DNA on her body.
Teresa’s voicemail could hold 20 minutes of messages. When Steven called her phone at 4:35pm on October 31st he got the automated message saying her box was full. When Pearce called her around noon on November 2nd it was full. But in Fassbender’s report there were 5 minutes & 11 seconds of messages left between those 2 calls. So someone had to have deleted some calls.
Scent tracking dogs gave trained alerts in the wooded area south of the Kuss Road cul-de-sac & between that & Steven’s trailer. Some dogs were trained to find decomposing bodies & others to find living people. The live dogs established that the RAV-4 w Teresa inside was driven to that wooded area. The remains dog alerted at a suspected burial site near there. A shallow ditch was dug & a plastic tarp was discovered. Colborn persuaded everyone it wasn’t a burial site. Other dogs took them through Radandt Pit, traveling to the place the RAV-4 was discovered on Jambo Creek Road where a witness said they saw it going into the Manitowoc County Pits.
Ryan knew they were going to conduct aerial surveillance on November 4th to search for the car. Kratz admitted that the car was not visible on this. The flyover ended at 6pm on November 4th & afterwards Ryan drove the car to the southeast corner of the Yard & was followed by a white Jeep using the Radandt Pit from Jambo Creek Road & then only the Jeep returned.
Ryan parked the car on a ridge between the Pit & a pond. He parked it facing the opposite way all the other cars were parked. Then put tree branches, cardboard boxes & a rusty car hood to explain why it wasn’t seen in the flyover.
Zellner says Ryan [to be clear, she always says “the killer” but its Ryan she is referring to] went to the Yard the night of the 4th w Colborn to look for the RAV-4. That’s the night that Chuck saw headlights. Colborn did not have probably cause so used Ryan as a civilian to do the search. Ryan quickly found the car & Zellner claims you can hear Ryan saying “it’s hers” on the audio of when Colborn called Dispatch using his personal cellphone to call in the plates.
Ryan spearheaded the search party for Teresa. He lied about his name & claimed he was Ryan “Kilgus” to the police. He concealed his relationship to Teresa. He made maps for the volunteers to use on the search. He said he found a condom wrapper by the first house on Jambo Creek Road. He told Pam Sturm of God where to search & supplied her with a camera & the direct line to MCSD “in case” she found anything. Pam was the only person to get these things.
Even though Ryan & Teresa were no longer a couple & when they were it was abusive, Ryan moved immediately into Teresa’s home. This gave him control over her belongings. He was there any time police came to search. He told cops where they could get her dirty underwear, boxes for her phone & camera as well as medical records. So it is reasonable to think he would have access to her sub-key that he could have given to Colborn & Lenk to plant in Steven’s room.
Ryan also personally searched the Salvage Yard multiple times. He did not log in when he went the second time. Only logged out. So no one knows how long he was on the property. This gave him opportunity to plant the bones & electronic devices. At least one time he used his fake name. This would explain why the bones in the barrels weren’t found until November 8th.
Ryan was never asked for an alibi. He said the last time he saw her was on October 30th when he dropped something off at her house. He doesn’t remember what he gave her or what time it was.
He first told cops he was just a friend. Then they discovered he was her ex. Ryan testified that he was never treated like a suspect in any way.
Ryan got 22 calls on November 4th from unknown numbers. Zellner assumes this was Law Enforcement working w him on the illegal search of the Yard. Ryan testified that he didn’t know how many times he talked to Sheriff Pagel on November 4th but it was at least once. He doesn’t know if he talked to Wiegert that day.
Pam Sturm of God found the car among 400 cars on 40 acres in a half hour. No way. She was told where to go.
Page 122 is a timeline of Teresa’s calls on October 31st.
Steven called Auto Trader at 8:12am to schedule an appointment for Barb’s van. Barb’s husband Tom Janda had an Auto Trader account.
The State never shared the call she got at 8:17am from Auto Trader that lasted 1 minute & 7 seconds.
Then they called her back at 9:46am & that lasted 33 seconds.
Steven called Auto Trader at 11:04am from his landline. Steven confirmed that someone was coming to take a picture of the Janda van around 2pm. The State omitted this call from their timeline.
Then another omitted call to Teresa by the State at 11:10am for 5 seconds.
Teresa called Barb at 11:44am.
She got to the Schmitz’s house at 1:10pm. Her cell records show she called them at 12:51pm so she was actually there 20 minutes earlier than the State presented. She left there are 1:15pm.
She looked for the Zipperers but couldn’t find it. She left a message on their machine at 2:12pm.
So she went to the Yard. Steven called her at 2:24pm to find out when she would be there & he used *67 so she didn’t have to return his call.
Auto Trader called Teresa at 2:24pm. Dawn Pliszka testified that Teresa called her at 2:27pm but the phone records show it was the other way around. So her testimony is not credible.
Teresa got to the Yard between 2:31 & 2:35pm. She took a picture of the van & started walking towards Steven’s trailer but he came out so she went back to her car to get the magazine for him. He paid her & she gave him the magazine. She turned left on Hwy 147 when she exited the Yard.
Steven called Teresa at 2:35pm cuz after he flipped through the magazine he realizes they also advertised front-loaders & he wanted to sell one. So he was calling to ask her to come back but he ended the call before she answered cuz he wanted to go talk to Bobby but Bobby wasn’t home.
The last voicemail Teresa got was at 2:41pm. She was on her way back to the Zipperers. On November 5th Wiegert & Remiker had a conversation where they said that the Zipperers home was her last stop.
Steven called Teresa again at 4:35pm to set up an appointment to sell the front-loader. It went to automated voicemail.
Jodi called Steven at 5:36pm from jail. They talked for 15 minutes.
Steven had a bonfire around 7pm for around 2 hours. Brendan joined him & they burned brush.
Jodi called him again at 8:57pm & they spoke for another 15 minutes. Brendan went home before that call & the fire had already burned down to ash.
On Page 127 Radandt told investigators he saw a fire on October 31st but it was in a 55-gallon drum. When he was interviewed on November 10th he was pushed to say the fire was large, behind the garage in the burn pit.
Law Enforcement said in a report that Paul Metz said he heard a big whoosh that reminded him or starting a fire w gas on November 1st & that he smelled a vile odor that was coming from the Yard. But his affidavit says it was on October 31st & he heard a sound that reminded him of electrical wires surging around dusk. Then he smelled something like insulation burning. He never said anything about gasoline igniting or an odor. He is familiar w burning bodies as he is a volunteer firefighter. He does not know how that whoosh statement was attributed to him.
Page 128 says scent dogs found a burial site 500 yards west of Steven’s trailer. There were numerous times between November 5-8 for the dog to discover the bones in the fire pit if they were there as Steven went to the family cabin in Crivitz on the 5th. They searched around but the dogs did not detect Teresa A dog that can detect small sources from long distances was around 205 feet from where the car was later found but didn’t. Another dog didn’t find anything on November 6th.
Page 129 lists what the dogs did detect. On the Rav-4 after it was found.
Several spent shell casings along the conveyor road at the southwestern edge of the Yard.
The burial site on Kuss.
Several burn piles in the Manitowoc County gravel pit.
Also in the brush & trees between Kuss & Steven’s trailer as well as the berm on the west edge border by the Yard. The State didn’t include those since they weren’t on Avery property.
Lenk, Colborn & Sgt Tyson performed the excavation of the burial site & reported there was nothing of value. But based on the dogs interest it is probable that Teresa’s body was there for awhile before she was burned.
Wilmer Siebert says he saw a call like Teresa’s for into the Radandt Pit using the access road immediately south of his property. He saw a white Jeep following it. He remembers the paint was chipping off the hood. He said they were speeding when they drove down Jambo Creek Rd & turned east towards the gravel pits. He saw the Jeep come back out shortly afterwards but not the other car. His daughter called Manitowoc County dispatch to report it. The recording of this call has not been turned over to the defense. The dogs corroborated his observations on where the Rav-4 drove.
The State told the jury that you couldn’t access the Yard property from the south but the dogs show how you can.
Teresa had called the Zipperers when she was in their area & lost. She left a message on their machine. When the Zipperers were interviewed on November 3rd at 9:30pm they told Law Enforcement about this message. Remiker listened to it & gave a copy to MCSD Detective Dennis Jacobs. That CD copy was never given to the Defense & had allegedly disappeared. Zellner sent a FOIA request & both counties claim they don’t have it. Kratz never turned it over in Discovery. Fallon confirmed in a litter on April 20,2017 that neither county has been able to find it.
Kratz never played the recording of the voicemail for the jury. It is reasonable to assume he concealed it as it proves that the Zipperers was Teresa’s last stop. There is a recorded conversation w Remiker & Wiegert where they say that her first appointment was Schmitz. Then Avery & then Zipperers.
Page 134 goes into the odometer reading on the RAV-4. The odometer was noted but not the amount of gas in the tank. That would tell you how far she traveled since she filled it on October 29th. The State didn’t want the mileage cuz it would refute their claim that the Yard was her last stop & not show she drove for miles afterwards.
Page 135 says Wendy Baldwon & Sheriff Pagel were in the air for around 4 hours doing the flyover on November 4th. But the State only made 3 minutes of footage. Kratz saw the unedited footage & knew the RAV-4 was not there at the time so they intentionally edited it to conceal that.
Radandt told Zellner that he was told that they believed the car was driven to Kuss Rd cul-de-sac by driving west through an empty field & then south down the gravel road past his hunting camp to an intersection w a gravel road that ran northeast into the Yard. He believed the theory was based on the scent & tracking dogs. But Investigators never wrote a report on their conversation w Radandt telling him that. Kratz did not call him to testify.
Zellner says that Radandt has been unfairly targeted as a suspect just cuz he lived nearby. He has taken her to view his property twice & has a solid alibi.
Page 136 starts the new evidence. First up, Kratz claimed Teresa was killed by 2 gunshot wounds to her head while she was laying on the garage floor. Dr Eisenberg said there were entrance wounds but no exits. Zellner’s expert says that the bullet the State says went through Teresa’s head never went through bone. He said that detectable bone fragments would be there if it was.
Big Hair Culhane testified that she washed the bullet in a test tube filled w a reagent. Her wash would not have removed the bone from the bullet.
Zellner’s expert says wood garments appear to be on the bullet. So it was fired into wood. There was also a red droplet on it. It could be paint. Steven’s trailer & garage are red.
Steven’s landlord Rollie Johnson who owned the .22 the State claims killed Teresa said he often fired it near Steven’s garage at gopher holes. He did not pick any of the casings up.
On Page 145 she goes into the Brain Fingerprinting thing. I am not saying this can’t be a real thing but I just have zero interest in anything about that so I am skipping that entire section. Sorry.
That takes us to Page 155 & Zellner’s expert says that the swab the State said was used on the hood latch was not. Testing ruled out the DNA to be blood, saliva, semen & urine. [Sorry, Kratz. There’s no such thing as sweaty sweat sweat DNA.]
The DNA on the key is not blood but the State claimed it was Steven’s skin cells. Zellner’s expert said it was planted cuz the amount of DNA was 10x greater than what Steven left in a test where he held another key for 12 minutes. Steven said he saw in police photos that his toothbrush was missing. The planted DNA could be from that.
Page 162 begins the ethical violations by Ken “Sweaty” Kratz. He impaired Steven’s right to a fair trial. His press conference was professional misconduct. Charging Steven based on Brendan’s coerced confession is professional misconduct. His attempts to include Steven’s acts prior to 2007 was, say it with me, professional misconduct. Having separate trials for the guys… his request to aid & abet the instruction at Steven’s trial… his public dissemination of inflammatory information about Steven… his jailhouse contacts w Steven… are ALL professional misconduct.
Kratz held a press conference on March 2nd where he first told kids to leave the room. Then he went into this disgusting story that I am not even going to repeat as it’s utter bullshit & we all know it so no need to repeat it.
Page 166 says that Kratz knew the statements from Brendan were uncorroborated & coerced. He also knew of Brendan’s IQ & that he was in special education problems & was an introvert. The police interrogated him multiple times without a parent or lawyer present. Brendan’s confession was legally inadmissible against Steven for constitutional & statutory reasons. Kratz had no evidence so no legal basis to support these new charged of sexual assault & torture.
Page 170 says Kratz’s statements destroyed Steven’s due process for a fair trial. On June 15th Sweaty moved to introduce prior accusations against Steven that had nothing to do with this. Judge Willis sealed that motion. Sweaty charged Steven w sexual assault just on Brendan’s coerced confession which he knew wasn’t admissible. There was no proof Steven sexually assaulted Teresa. So that’s why Kratz wanted to go into Steven’s past.
In Sweaty’s summation he said that there was no question who killed & mutilated Teresa & all the evidence pointed to only ONE person. He said she was killed by 2 gunshot wounds to the head. He said no blood was found in the trailer but since she wasn’t killed there, there wouldn’t be. Sweaty said that Teresa was killed in the garage.
But uh oh! He tried Brendan for the same crime but this time Teresa was stabbed in the stomach & her throat was slit… in the trailer… where there wasn’t any blood. Then he threw in the gunshots. But said she was killed in the trailer, not the garage. His 2 narratives contradict one another. It is unfair, legally & ethically & undermines the very concept of justice & the duty of a prosecutor to serve truth.
Page 176 says Kratz asked the judge to instruct the jury that they could find Steven guilty for causing Teresa’s death or aiding & abetting Brendan in causing her death. But then he & the judge agreed to take Brendan’s name out & just say “another”. Kratz knew that would link Steven & Brendan before Brendan’s court case. He was barred legally from using any evidence against Brendan to prove Steven’s guilt. So if this case rested on just Steven’s conduct & not anyone else, then that had nothing to do w this case. Kratz knew there was no proof relating to Brendan or his confession.
Page 178 says Sweaty’s book & media appearances just further destroys Steven’s ability at getting a fair trial. He tells stories of Steven sexually assaulting his ex-wife, former girlfriend, niece, babysitter. The cat story & more. Sweaty does have the right to free speech but as an attorney his rights are constrained by ethical rules. Kratz had tried to get some of this in at trial but it was ruled inadmissible.
Page 180 says that Kratz wrote to Steven on January 14th, 2013 trying to get Steven to meet w him to talk about his case. Sweaty told him he was in private practice now & since Steven was no longer represented by counsel he wanted to meet w him for “his own personal use”. Steven replied on June 18th suggesting that Kratz could take his appeal since “you now the case & you got Candy Avery”. & that “we can all get money together”.
Sweaty wrote Steven 2more letters 2 years later. One on August 10, 2015 saying Steven hasn’t put him on his visitor’s list. He told Steven to “ADD ME” to his list. His last letter was September 6, 2015. He referred to a letter Steven wrote him asking if they checked out the other fingerprints on the RAV-4. So that is when Kratz wrote that stupid letter saying he thought Steven was interested in being honest & so on that I am not going to repeat cuz it just gets me mad.
Page 183 goes into Sweatys taking advantage of vulnerable women when he was a prosecutor. There were at least 10 women who complained about him. They started proceedings to remove him so Kratz involuntarily resigned. He was found to have committed professional misconduct by violating the attorney’s oath. He was suspended for 4 months from practicing law. The Wisconsin Supreme Court upheld the suspension.
I am also not going to go into any of the ineffective counsel stuff. I understand why she’s doing it. I think Strang & Buting did the best they could with what they had. They did not have the money she has. They did not have her experts. They did not have all the internet sleuths. Or ‘Making a Murderer’. So they did what they could. Things were missed. They’re human.
That’s everything from her brief. There are still the affidavits from her experts & then all the exhibits. I will try to go into those now. Since this is so long I will make this one article & go into a separate one for that. But let me go into my thoughts on this.
I have been following this case since I watched MaM the weekend it came out in December 2015. I have read all the documents. Looked at exhibits. Listened to tapes. I have visited the Yard. Walked the Path of God. Stood where Teresa took the picture of the van while being filmed from the bus stop. I drove through the quarry. I drove to the Zipperers & timed it from the yard. I have met most of the family. I have gone to see the lawyers talk about the case. I have talked on the phone to the lawyers, Brendan & Steven. I have written articles on my experiences & done Facebook Live Videos. I went to Brendan’s appeal at the 7th Circuit. I run the Free Brendan Facebook page & I own the Steven Avery Project & Wrongfully Abused. I advocate for 2 other of Zellner’s clients & I work with their families. I Admin one of their Facebook groups. But I am NOT an expert. The only thing I am certain of is that Steven & Brendan are innocent & their families were robbed of their loved ones & it’s taken a toll on all of their lives.I have complete faith in Zellner that she knows what she is doing far more than I would ever dream to know. I am not going to second guess her in any way shape or form.
That being said, it’s in my opinion, as it has been from the start, that Ryan Hillegas is the killer. I know there are so many theories out there & yes you can make many of them fit the pieces by why overlook the obvious conclusion. Most murders are done by people who know the victim. If it turns out it wasn’t Ryan, I won’t be all upset about it. I don’t have some crazy need to be right. I just want the truth & those guys freed.
I want Steven to meet the woman of his dreams & get the love he has always wanted. I want him to spend his days working on cars or going fishing. I want Brendan to be reunited with his devoted Mom who has been the one constant in his life. His Mom has always been there for him. I want him to be able to play video games all day, every day. Eat all the hamburgers he wants. I hope both of them will be able to have their private lives & people will leave them alone to just be them.
The thing we all need to take away from this horrible story is that #WeAllLiveOnAveryRd. No matter who you are or where you are from, if you are EVER questioned by the police for any reason, DO NOT speak to them without a lawyer.
Enough of my rambling. I will move on to the other stuff to summarize & post this for now. I hope it’s of some help. If you want to read the complete brief you can find it on Zellner’s website here:
www.kathleentzellner.com/
You can find all the prior documents, exhibits & just about anything you can imagine here:
www.stevenaverycase.org/
If you want to check out information on Brendan you can go here:
freebrendan.org/
or here:
www.facebook.com/freebrendan/
& if you are interested in other cases you can go here:
www.facebook.com/WrongfullyAbused/