Avery
YNNEK, did you read his transcript that I linked above? It is indeed really sad when he kept saying he wanted to get out to see a show. The wrestling you were talking about. That was a bit tough to read. Nobody told him ‘no…you’re fucked for a good 10 years’
Of course then he listened to his family full of retards, recanted and went to trial…and now he’ll do 40 years.
I have not read the transcripts…and I’m not sure what to think based on the series…
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I just don’t understand how there was none of her DNA in the house or garage at all. If he did have her chained up, etc…
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What about the officer that called in the plates on the Rav4 and knew what kind of car it was before any details were released. (At least they made it seem that way)
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The FBI saying it would take a few months to get the tests for the blood set up and then magically being ready just in time for the trial. (The guy who testified struck me as kinda shady, not really answering a few of the questions)
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The contaminated DNA test. Where the tester used it all up so it couldn’t be ran again.
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No other investigations were conducted.
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And the biggest one. That the local county officers were the only ones to find evidence (who weren’t even supposed to be involved), days after it started (supposedly in plain site) and then the bullets well after that. I just find it almost impossible that they did not find that stuff before.
I’m going to read through the transcripts when I have some time. But the fact that they (seemingly) botched the investigation from the get go and then connected the dots through some (seemingly) gaping holes. I don’t think we will ever get the full story, but it just seems odd the way the investigation was conducted.
Well fortunately one of the assailants confessed. You can read his confession given to his own legal team at the link above. Should clear up a lot of things. At that point you’ll stop looking for these few holes and will see the bigger picture…which is that in fact a mountain of evidence was gathered against the Averys, blood, DNA, ballistic, as well as a trail of cover up, premeditation and intent. And a detailed, thorough confession that was so damning, the TV show edited the hell out of it to make you think the kid was a fully fledged retarded person, and was told by police what to say (and said it).
I think the real problem is that people are expecting it to look like CSI or Dexter. ‘oh there has to be one drop of blood at least’ and then they run a DNA test in 5 minutes and have a perfect match. Or fingerprints etc. Reality is a lot different, especially when someone has covered up a murder. If you go watch any crime reality show like first 48 or something, you will see that it’s almost never like you see on fictional TV shows.
First 48 is such a good show.
I stopped watching. It’s too depressing. Hard to watch real families get ripped to shreds episode after episode.
One thing you learn on first 48 is that there is rarely great ‘physical evidence’ that provides a great link to a perp.
They REALLY need you to confess, and they REALLY hate when you ask for a lawyer when you first get brought in.
Hate when they lawyer up. All that buildup and no interrogation :’(
a nice summary of the stuff the show hid from everyone for those still arguing with people about this lol. Kratz is the DA that nobody likes.
1. the cat story
Though this incident is in the documentary, filmmakers Moira Demos and Laura Ricciardi included a voiceover from Avery that it was a “mistake” and he and his friends were “fooling around.”
“Another mistake I did, I had a bunch of friends over and we were fooling around with the cat and, I don’t know, they were kind of negging [sic] it on,” viewers heard him say in the first episode. “I tossed him over the fire and he lit up. You know, it was the family cat. I was young and stupid and hanging around with the wrong people.”
“Avery’s past incident with a cat was not ‘goofing around,’” Kratz wrote in an email sent to media outlets as well as Reddit users. “He soaked his cat in gasoline or oil, and put it on a fire to watch it suffer.”
The soaking of his cat in gasoline or oil was also reported by The Associated Press in 2005: “[Avery’s probation] was revoked in 1982 after he was charged with animal cruelty for pouring gasoline on a cat and throwing it into a bonfire.”
2. The torture chamber plans
“While in prison, Avery told his cell mate of his intent to build a ‘torture chamber’ so he could rape, torture, and kill young women when he was released,” Kratz said in the email. “He even drew a diagram. His other cell mate was told by Avery that the way to get rid of a body is to ‘burn it’…heat destroys DNA.”
This shell-shocking assertion was included in additional charges filed by Kratz in 2005 and allegedly comes from “prisoners who served time with Avery at Green Bay Correctional Institution,” according to an article from the Appleton Post Crescent.
“They said Avery talked about and showed them diagrams of a torture chamber he planned to build when he was released,” the report said.
3. The creepout
“On October 10 [2005], Teresa had been to the property when Steven answered the door just wearing a towel,” Kratz wrote in the email. “She would not go back because she was scared of him (obviously).”
This incident was reported at the time by The Chippewa Herald when Manitowoc County Circuit Judge Patrick Willis would not allow this evidence into trial.
The story came from Dawn Pliszka, an AutoTrader receptionist at the time, but it went a little differently than how Kratz describes it:
“She had stated to me that he had come out in a towel,’’ Pliszka said. “I just said, ‘Really?’ and then she said, ‘Yeah,’ and laughed and said kinda ‘Ew.’’’
Willis did not allow the testimony because “the date wasn’t clear and few details were known about the alleged encounter,” according to The Chippewa Herald.
4. The fake name fakeout
Halbach was a photographer for AutoTrader Magazine. Her job was to go take pictures of a car someone wanted to sell, and she had previously worked with Avery in the past.
Kratz said in the email that Avery specifically requested “that same girl who was here last time” when he booked the appointment and put the appointment under his sister’s name, Barb Janda, in order to “trick” Halbach into returning.
AutoTrader receptionist Pliszka testified during the trial that Avery did specifically ask for Halbach, according to The Associated Press.
As for the “fake” name, the documentary revealed that the car was Janda’s, so it would stand to reason her name would be on the bill of sale.
5. The *67 fakeout
“Phone records show three calls from Avery to Teresa’s cellphone on October 31 [2005],” Kratz said in the email. “One at 2:24 p.m., and one at 2:35 p.m. — both calls Avery uses the *67 feature so Teresa doesn’t know it him [sic]…both placed before she arrives. Then one last call at 4:35 p.m., without the *67 feature.”
“Avery first believes he can simply say she never showed up so tries to establish the alibi call after she’s already tied up in his trailer, hence the 4:35 p.m. call,” Kratz continues. “She will never answer of course, so he doesn’t need the *67 feature.”
Conjecture over why Avery used *67 aside, this evidence was a part of Avery’s trial testimony from a wireless telephone-company technician, according to a 2007 Associated Press article.
6. The attempted destruction of evidence
“Teresa’s phone, camera, and PDA were found 20 feet from Avery’s door, burned in his barrel,” Kratz said in his email. “Why did the documentary not tell the viewers the contents of her purse were in his burn barrel, north of his front door.”
Kratz doubled down on this assertion in an interview with Maxim:
Teresa’s phone, camera and [other contents of her purse] were found 20 feet from Avery’s door, burned in his barrel…Two people saw him putting that stuff in there. This isn’t contested. It was all presented as evidence at the jury trial, and the documentary people don’t tell you that.
7. The cremation
“Also found in the fire pit was Teresa’s tooth (ID’d through dental records), a rivet from the ‘Daisey Fuentes’ [sic] jeans she was wearing that day, and the tools used by Avery to chop up her bones during the fire,” Kratz said in his email.
Though these tools to dismember her body are never mentioned, Kratz does discuss Teresa’s tooth and rivets from her jeans at Brendan Dassey’s trial.
“You’re going to hear that the five of those six rivets were recovered from the burn area right behind Steven’s garage,” Kratz said in his opening statement. “Teresa tooth No. 31, one of the back teeth on the left side of her jaw, was recovered from the bone area.”
8. More burn site discussion…
“Her bones in the fire pit were ‘intertwined’ with the steel belts, left over from the car tires Avery threw on the fire to burn, as described by Dassey,” Kratz wrote in the email. “That was where her bones were burned!”
This is significant because the documentary discusses two other possible burn sites in addition to Avery’s bonfire location. His defense counsel argued that the bones were most likely moved from one of these burn sites in order to frame Avery.
Kratz said to People magazine that the evidence “suggesting that some human bones found elsewhere — never identified as Teresa’s — were from this murder was never established [sic].”
Because we don’t have access to Avery’s full trial transcript, there’s no way to verify Kratz’s statement. But a 2005 Wisconsin State Journal article reported:
Investigators also said in the court documents that they found steel belts of about six tires that were used as fire accelerants. They also found a number of 5-gallon buckets that appeared to have been used to distribute burned remains.
9. Avery’s DNA was found on the hood latch, not just in the blood car
At the trial and in the documentary, a lot of emphasis is placed on Avery’s blood, which was found in Halbach’s car. Avery’s legal team argued that the blood could have been planted there by police officers in an effort to frame Avery while the prosecution insisted it was from an open cut on Avery’s hand.
Kratz argues in the email, however, that it’s Avery’s DNA from his sweat — not his blood — that was found under the hood of her SUV.
“How did his DNA get under the hood if Avery never touched her car? Do the cops have a vial of Avery’s sweat?” Kratz said to People. “That is completely inconsistent with any kind of planting,” he later told The New York Times.
10. The bullet
In Avery’s garage, police found a bullet that had Halbach’s DNA on it. Kratz said in the email that the ballistics proved the bullet was shot from Avery’s rifle that police had confiscated back when they first searched the property.
“Ballistics said the bullet found in the garage was fired by Avery’s rifle, which was in a police evidence locker since [November] 6 [2005],” he wrote. “If the cops planted the bullet, how did they get one fired from his gun?”
Avery’s former defense attorney, Strang, did not deny the ballistics report, but told The Times that bullet fragments were found all over the Avery Salvage Yard property, where the family often shot guns.
Strang also told The Times that Halbach’s DNA on the bullet “really didn’t move the needle one way or another.”
11. cuffs and shackles bought 3 weeks before the murder
Dassey’s controversial confession included statements saying that he found Halbach restrained on Avery’s bed with “ropes and chains” before they raped and killed her. Manitowoc County Sheriff Hermann told THR that leg irons and handcuffs were found in Avery’s and Dassey’s homes, which was also confirmed by the testimony of a Department of Justice investigator in Dassey’s trial.
12. Bleach on Dassey’s clothes from cleaning the garage
“Apparently, Brendan had helped Avery clean the garage floor with bleach and there was bleach on Brendan’s pants,” Hermann told THR.
This bit of information was also in Kratz’s opening statement from Dassey’s trial:
Brendan, himself, hands over to Investigator Fassbender his jeans. He says, these were the pants I was wearing that night, and these pants are splashed with bleach from cleaning Uncle Steve’s garage.
The Dassey defense responded that though bleach was found on Brendan’s pants and he did help Avery clean the garage, it was to clean up a lawnmower spill, not Halbach’s blood, like both Kratz and Hermann insinuate.
“They go into the garage, and there’s a small area behind the lawnmower as if something had spilled,” Dassey’s trial lawyer, Mark Fremgen, said in his opening statement. He continued:
Steven takes from gasoline and pours it onto this little area, and they use some clothing, old rags, that sop up the mess, and as they begin to clean it up with these old clothes and old rags, they throw them onto the fire, and they do that for about a half hour. Steven tries some gasoline and paints — paint thinner to help clean up the area, and some bleach as well.
I’m shocked how much following this has developed. My wife loves murder/mystery/suspense shows. I enjoyed the first 2-3 episodes, but the rest just drug on and on for way too long.
More importantly, they’re all dumbasses which is obvious. I think Avery probably did it, but I was much more shocked by the local police involvement which was atrocious imo. If it was me, I’d be staying far away as possible to ensure there was no cry of fowl play. But it was shocking how much was found by local cops that shouldn’t have even been there. Overall the timeline/crime theory just didn’t seem to match up to me, but that still doesn’t mean I think he is innocent, just that it might not of happened like they presented it.
Part of me says, if you’re smart enough to commit such a heinous act and leave so little evidence (inside the house such as blood/dna/etc), how can you be so stupid as to put the victim’s car on your own lot when you own a car crusher and live in such a relatively remote area.
I was more conflicted about the nephew. He’s on the borderline IQ wise to be mentally handicapped, and obviously has not been around any positively influencing figures in his life to encourage development. A little lower IQ or proper representation and he would have been tried completely differently. And how the cops were allowed to use testimony from a minor without parental consent and then to be tried as an adult is even more confusing. He changed his story so much and felt like he was led by the cops to answer questions so many different ways that it’s tough to know what his true involvement was (before only, after only, there for it all?).
Mostly it’s just sad to see the quality of individuals that make up that family and to some degree the general town.
I really think the show did a number on a lot of people.
If that kid is ‘mentally handicapped’ or ‘retarded’ then so is about 40% of the teenaged population
summary?
I didn’t read enough of it to give a good summary.
Going through the pictures is a bit creepy, you’d need to spend a few hours reading to make any sort of summary.