Newer Publications: 

 

 

• Kathleen Zellner: "The bones look like they were planted."

 

• The Club's Commitment

 

 

• Strang (to Willis): "Mr. Fallon kept pounding away like there's no way this could be unless the officers killed her. 'They had to have killed her.' He must have said that five or six different times in their argument."

 

•  Strang and Buting's Theory of Everything

 

• She helped lock Avery up in 1985. Got him out in 2003. Helped lock him up again only two years later. Guess who?

 

 

Older Publications:

 

 

 

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• November 4, 2005: Timely, Thorough and Fair Investigative Reporting

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Excerpt from post:

 

After they (Strang and Colborn) have agreed on a litany on issues, he then poses a question based on the issues for which they have just expressed agreement, hoping to show the jury the blatant inconsistencies with the witnesses opinion.

 

Main focus of the post:

 

• Detailing a section of Colborn's Cross Examination wherein Dean presses him about his habit of filing late reports, specifically concerning his memory of November 4, 2005, the day Zellner alleges the RAV was planted after, which only hours after Pagel and Baldwin had made the fly over, and only one day after Colborn called in Teresa's RAV plate number.

• Dean makes Colborn go over with basics of reporting, effectively explaining to the jury why his reports are worthless, and conveying to the jury the issues that arise out of bias investigative reporting

 

Colborn and his buddies did not fill out timely, fair or thorough reports, ensuring that the defense would be left digging through an incomplete investigation, extremely biased or false investigative reports with incredibly limited detail to try and decipher the truth and defend their client.

 

Post includes excerpts from Zellner's Motion For Post Conviction Scientific Testing

 

 

 

 

 

• The Cringe Worthy Court Room Faux Pas of Kenneth Kratz

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Main focus of post:

• A moment early in the trial where Kratz calls Teresa's mother to the stand and persists to question her about details surrounding the death of her daughter, but no questions that would help them discover who killed her.

• Dean, with a little help from Willis, interrupts Kratz and puts a stop to it:

 

STRANG: Your Honor, this is needlessly difficult and it's -- the case is not about Mr. Kratz

WILLIS: Court agrees.

KRATZ: I would pass the witness to Mr. Strang.

STRANG: I'm not going to make Mrs. Halbach answer any questions.

 

The difference between Strang and Kratz is as clear as the difference between Locker Room Talk and Sexual Assault night and day.

 

 

 

 

 

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• Validity v. Infallibility

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Excerpt from post:

 

Jerry Buting:

When we argued, by the way, in last March and filed a motion and said, "We want fair forensic testing. All we want is someone to be there to observe this." They opposed it. They said, "No. We don't want anybody on -- Oh, there's so much more potential for contamination." That's what they said. That our person being there would be more risk of contamination when she's contaminated it herself.

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Main focus of post:

 

• This post also contains a rundown / comparison of both the Defendant's Motion in Support of Fair Forensic Testing and the State's reply to said motion:

 

Buting: The Court, the prosecution, Mr. Avery, and Manitowoc County residents all have an interest in assuring that the handling of this case exceeds the normal standards, and that its fairness is beyond reproach or question.

Kratz: Why does Mr. Avery's Case deserve to exceed normal standards? The state finds it astonishing that Mr. Avery wants to baby sit and look over the shoulder of the same crime lab analyst who exonerated him a few years ago.

Dean: Now, on information and belief, it seems Manitowoc County Sheriff's Department employees either gathered or allegedly first spotted certain physical items on which the state will rely at trial in this case.

Kratz: The defendants perception of bias on the part of Manitowoc county is irrelevant because Manitowoc county is not conducting any of the forensic testing of evidence.

 

Other key moments:

 

• Examination of Sherry Culhane's Cross Examination, as well as brief examination of Nick Stahlke, the State's blood pattern excerpt.

• Excerpts from Kratz and Pagel's press conference

• Brief explanation from the National Commission On Forensic Science on why terms such as 'to a reasonable degree of scientific certainty,' can potentially be very confusing for jury members.

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• Examining The Direct & Cross Examinations of Andrew Colborn

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Self explanatory. Excerpt from post:

 

D. Strang: Did you have any concern that you would be added as a defendant in that lawsuit?

A. Colborn: I wasn't a Manitowoc County resident at that time.

DS: My question, though, was whether you had concern, the thought crossed your mind, that you might be added as a defendant in that civil lawsuit?*

AC: Yes, the thought crossed my mind.

 

Main focus of post:

 

• Colborn's relationship to 1985, 1995, 2003 and 2005. Also his style of reporting things months or years after the fact.

• His run for Sheriff against Hermann. How Colborn felt about his deposition. The many searches of Avery's trailer / who was involved.

• The key.

 

 

 

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• The Malfeasance of Marc Lebeau: An EDTA Test for the Fraudulent and the Fanciful.

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Main focus of post:

 

• This is one of my more complicated posts. I have spelled it out as best I can, why in my mind this test was useless. It is rather lengthy, so I will allow the excerpts to do the summarizing:

 

Was the protocol, method, or result ever validated? Nope. No way - no how. The protocol, method and results were never even validated by the FBI let alone validated by independent peer review.

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The defense themselves argued that even if EDTA was detected, they would still need to find out the significance of the level of EDTA detected in relation to the level of EDTA in the vile.

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If the EDTA test performed by the FBI was valid, the defense expected molecular amounts of EDTA would have been detected in the blood! Even if the blood was from Avery's finger. This assumption is due to the chemical becoming increasingly more commonplace in the modern world. Many types of food and condiments, general hygiene products as well as products meant for automotive care contain EDTA in much larger quantities then you would find in a purple top tube.

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If the results of the quantitative test, when adjusted for volume, revealed a consistent reading between the two samples, the the FBI would have had to say the blood came from the vial and was probably planted, because if the quantitative results revealed the amount of EDTA in the swab to be consistent with the amount of EDTA in the vial, that would suggest planting.

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If the results of the quantitative test, when adjusted for volume, revealed a noticeable difference in the concentration of EDTA in the separate samples, the FBI could have come to the reasonable conclusion that the blood was not planted.

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TLDR courtesy of u/profoundlyprofound :

The way this EDTA test was conducted was absolute horse shit and far from scientifically accurate or representative of any information that proves or disproves the source of the blood as being from the vial. The way it was presented by Kratz was equally horse shit, patently false and intentionally misleading.

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• Concealing what the Remains were Revealing: Eisenberg and Culhane

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Excerpt from the post:

 

Dean is picking away at the theory or opinion presented until it crumbles. This happens multiple times with Leslie. It is brutal to read. Dean attacks her credibility and her opinions to such a degree that Kratz felt it necessary that he take some time to defend her credibility in his own closing statement. He goes so far as to say she actually took part in the recovery of the bones (she DID NOT).

 

Main focus of post:

 

• Leslie Eisenberg's cross examination takes up the majority of this post. It happens to be littered with interesting little tidbits, such as,

• The volume of cremains, her opinion on manner of death, the improbability of the brittle bones not breaking upon recovery / transport.

• Establishing the process of a careful and respectful recovery of the cremains. Plus one of my favorite moments from the transcripts, where Dean, after recieving repeated denials, finally elicits this testimony from Leslie...

 

DS: All right. Do you have any information that there was an anthropologist present anywhere at the Avery Salvage Yard during the recovery of the bones you saw?

LE: I do not believe there was.

DS: That wasn't so hard, was it?

LE: No.

 

I just love it. He was playing with her, he probably never had to raise his voice once and I am sure that more than a few members of the jury realized how big of a bit her credibility took.

 

Other key moments:

 

• Rundown of testimony / reports concerning Item BZ, the bone fragment that is in multiple places at once: with Leslie, with Sherry or with the FBI.

• Further, while the FBI was unable, Sherry Culhane developed a partial (partial) profile from fragment BZ:

 

LE: This is -- was the largest bone (Item BZ) that was collected as part of this evidence tag. It is, uh, unquestionably human, um, and -- and the -- the color of this bone is more typical of what you would expect to see, um, in a non burn case. In other words, it was somehow protected.

 

• The rivet that was found vs. the button that was not.

• Manner of death / bullet holes in the skull fragments

 

 

 

 

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• Ken Kratz: "Teresa Halbach, by her DNA and where it's found, is telling you a story."

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Excerpt from post:

 

KK: ... she's telling you, this is where I was. She's telling you, this is what happened to me. She's telling you, this is how I was killed. She's telling you, this is how this person tried to hide me and where they tried to hide me.

 

Main focus of the post:

• Kratz, in his closing, makes a pathetic, and I mean pathetic attempt to explain away the partial profile obtained from the cremains.

 

KK: This is a number that is absolutely huge. People can't even really picture how much a billion is, finding a billion, one thing in a billion. Finding one thing in a billion is -- is hard enough, butI'm going to take 45 seconds and I'm going to tell you what a billion is. All right.

KK: To get to a billion, you first have to know what one out of a hundred is. Pick up 1 white marble and think of 99 black marbles. Can you picture that?

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Other key moments:

• The post also is benefited by a fantastic comment posted by u/nexious explaining at length how Kratz used the word science all too often during the trial and did what he could to exclude jurors who had any significant education.

 

 

 

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Speculation / Theories / Suspects

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• October 31 - November 4, 2005 (Activities during nighttime hours)

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Excerpt from post:

 

One little interesting bit of testimony that almost slid by me, actually, was Mr. Dassey, Bobby Dassey's testimony. Sometimes the truth comes out in little dribs and drabs when people aren't expecting it. And on direct examination, as Mr. Kratz, I believe it was, was trying to lead Mr. Dassey through a number of photographs. He asks him about the burn barrels that your mom has out back. And Bobby says, we have three. And then they try to correct him, and Bobby says, I thought we had three.

 

Main focus of post:

 

• A small post surrounding my moment of excitement upon finding that DS and JB had filed a Motion for Disclosure of Exculpatory Information, wherein they request,

 

that the Court order the state immediately to disclose:

All documents and information about the work schedules and whereabouts of James Lenk, Andrew Colburn, Kenneth Peterson, and Thomas Kocourek on October 31, 2005 and on November 1-4, 2005.

This includes any information about their locations and activities during nighttime hours.

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• Bow Hunting, Highway 147, The Big Fire and a Hysterical Teenager

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Excerpt from post:

 

Scott corroborates Bobby's story, and vice versa, and that is it - no one else. Oh, and even though they were passing each other on the highway going opposite directions, they both seemed to simultaneously understand that the other was going hunting, without any prior conversation taking place between the two about that.

 

Main focus of post:

 

• Analysis of ST direct and cross examination.

• Dean exposing his many inconsistencies to the jury.

• Multiple pieces of information left out of the documentary painting Tadych in a suspicious light.

• Kratz and his manipulation of testimony. Both Bobby and Scott were bow hunting around the time of Teresa's death. They did not have guns, according to Kratz. Dean destroys Scott by showing him report after report where it is shown pretty much every answer he gave on the stand was not the answer he gave to police during the investigation.

• How Denny (Third Party Liability) was a road block for DS during this cross examination.

 

The defense relies on the reports filed, in this case by CASO and MTSO, to build their case of why this person or that person should be considered as an alternative suspect. So when people accuse Dean and Jerry of not being able to satisfy the Denny requirement, that is not really the truth of the issue. The real issue is Kratz, who, IMO, had all his minions write exactly what they needed to, in order to put everyone where they needed to be. So essentially Kratz could tell the court that every suspect the defense wanted to name was not near the property at the time of the murder, and thus, they did not satisfy the requirements under Denny to be considered as an alternative suspect. All Kratz had to say was,'Objection judge, third party liability.'

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• Ryan Hillegas: A glaring, blinding omission, which casts a shadow of doubt over the entire investigation.

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Excerpt from post:

 

Why does Ryan think it would be believable that you would remember some of what you had done that day, but not the time that you had done it?

 

Main Focus of Post:

 

• An analysis of his direct and cross examination during the Jury Trial

• The relevant excerpts from Zellner's Motion for Post Conviction Scientific Testing (Excerpts where Ryan is mentioned. (20+ phone calls from LE etc.)

"The lack of a robust investigation of the alibis of Hillegas and Bloedorn is a glaring, blinding omission, which casts a shadow of doubt over the entire investigation."

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• Teresa Was Trespassing: Belligerent Behavior or a Reasonable Response?

Excerpt from the post:

 

Mrs. Zipperer answering 3:00 was a mistake. She was not supposed to give that time. Notice, however, Kratz simply moves on and (as we will see) decides to clear up the time later on re-direct. When he does, it is painful to read - at the very least, it is shamelessly obvious that his witness has been coached, at worst, it is slightly suspicious when we learn who actually wrote Mrs. Zipperer's statement to police.

 

Main focus of post:

 

• This post deals with what seems like the many, many possibilities of Teresa's appointment with the Zipperers. Did they ever make they appointment with Auto Trader? Was she actually there? Was she being lured under false pretenses?

• The post also includes an examination of Mrs. Zipperer's testimony, as well as yet another example of investigative bias, and (possibly) an instance of evidence tampering with the voice mail supposedly left on the Janda answering machine. Included are excerpts from Colborn's and Remiker's Direct Examination, wherein they both describe the unsual way they recovered the voicemail from the Janda machine.

 

Other moments:

• The bill of sale and Teresa's outfit / footwear

• Mrs. Zipperers written statement that wasn't written by Mrs. Zipperer

• Comparing who set up the appointment with Teresa to who actually met her

• Dean Strang, after Kratz asks the judge to excuse the jury, explains his reasoning for asking about Mr. Zipperer's beligerant / threatening behavior

 

 

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• Concealing what the Remains were Revealing: Halbach or Boutwell?

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Excerpt from the post:

 

No need to disguise my intentions. The theory explored here is one that essentially argues the bones said to have been found on the Avery property, were not Teresa's, but instead belonged to a young girl woman named Carmen, who, it has been said, died of an overdose on the very same day Teresa was reported missing.

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Also ... the fire burned the body down to maybe a little under 4 cups of remains ... did not sufficiently damage a few of these that they could be used to determine gender. This is very telling. The bones, that could be easily recognized as human, came from every major bone group, allowing for Leslie to not only make a distinction between human and non human, but between male and female as well.

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Almost seems as though someone was able to pick and choose what bones would be found, depending on which bones would be most helpful to the case.