Ken Kratz: "A deserving piece of evidence ... the last voice recording of 25 year old Teresa Halbach."

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When researching this case I often avoid reviewing too much to do with Kratz. Low tolerance, ya know? Most of my posts deal with a single Pre Trial hearing or a single witness being cross examined by DS and JB.

However foghaze has reignited my desire to look a bit deeper into his words. If you are able to stomach the intrusion upon your imagination for 20 minutes or so Kratz' opening statement in particular is worth taking a look at.

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Focus of Post:

• Going over the multiple ways in which Kratz 'preps' the jury for the tsunami of bullshit about to engulf them

• Examining Kratz' summary of the 4 charges leveled against Avery as the trial began.

• Reviewing Kratz' explanation of the bones, the RAV, the bullet and the key

• I finish off by examining a deserving piece of evidence, the voicemail apparently left on the Janda machine by Teresa on the day of her disappearance.

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Gas-lighting the Jury

February 12, 2007 - Ken Kratz Opening Statement (Page 37)

 

 

 

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ATTORNEY KRATZ: Thank you, Judge. May it please the Court, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, Mr. Strang, Mr. Buting. Mr. Avery, good morning.

MR. AVERY: Good morning.

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Poor Steven.

After Kratz says "Mornin' Steve" he goes on to admit (through clenched teeth I imagine) that Avery was indeed wrongfully convicted in 1985. Don't give Kratz too much credit though, he still takes the time to attribute the wrongful conviction to mistaken eye witness testimony as opposed to Manitowoc's intentional misconduct.

Kratz then brings up the 2003 exoneration, doing so (it seems) only to mention Sherry Culhane's role in it in an attempt to pass her off as Avery's guardian Angel.

Kratz desperately needed the jury to believe that since Sherry was the one who conducted the test that exonerated Steven her actions in this case are beyond question.

see also:

• Sherry's History

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The Favor and The Fox

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KRATZ: This is a very, very serious crime and potentially has very, very graphic kinds of details that may be involved or may be presented. My job is not to present gruesome, or overly graphic information for you.**

Such hypocrisy. Such obvious, blatant hypocrisy.

KRATZ: My job, as the prosecutor, is to present our case, to present the physical evidence that we have developed, to present the witnesses that we have developed to prove our case.

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Kratz is then faced with the unenviable task of explaining why Manitowoc turned over the investigation to Calumet but remained intimately involved in every aspect of it.

He begins by saying he took this case because he was doing a favor for Mark Rohrer and Manitowoc County. Apparently Calumet taking over control of the investigation didn't have so much to do with the conflict of interest, it was just Kratz doing the boys a solid.

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KK: It's a rather big favor for Manitowoc County, but it's a favor nonetheless. It is helping the Manitowoc County District Attorney's Office in presenting this case. You have already heard the reason for that was something calleda perceived conflict, an apparent conflict; that is, it may look bad if Manitowoc County remained involved. You are going to hear evidence from many law enforcement officers; in fact, the lead investigators in this case, thatthere was no actual conflict.

Quite the stetch.

KK: There is nothing improper about Manitowoc County being involved in this case. You are going to learn, however, that on the 5th, on the 5th of November, at about 2:00 in the afternoon, Judge Jerome Fox,another judge from Manitowoc County, one of the three sitting judges in Manitowoc County, assigned me to be responsible for the prosecution and to assist in the investigation of this particular case.

There was no conflict. That is why Fox had Kratz take over. Makes sense, right?

See also:

• The Club's Commitment - A post detailing that elusive conflict of interest

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A Dirty Pawn

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KK: Why would some small town lawyer be in charge of this entire prosecution, this big of a case? Why would Ken Kratz be asked to lead up this prosecution?

We know Kratz, we know. Kratz was such a deviant the Attorney General thought she could use him and also control him.

Lautenschlager (and everyone else) knew the investigation into Teresa's murder was clouded with so much misconduct that a corrupt prosecutor was an absolute must.

Someone was needed who would go along with events already set in motion. Whoever it was that set those events in motion, Kratz took over.

Of course after October 31, 2005 Kratz wasn't operating unchecked.

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A Helping Hand: The Department of Justice

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KK: There's two investigators in this case. Mr Wiegert is an investigator with the Calumet County Sheriff's Department. The other lead investigator in this case is Tom Fassbender. Mr. Fassbender works for the Department of Justice, for a law enforcement branch which is called the Division of Criminal Investigation.

KK: I'm also joined by Mr. Fallon who is seated directly to my right. Mr. Fallon is an Assistant Attorney General with the Department of Justice.

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Both Fassbender and Fallon worked for the Wisconsin Department of Justice.

For the record, this is the same Department of Justice that only 2 years earlier was ordered by Lautenschlager to investigate possible ethical violations by Manitowoc County during Steven's 1985 prosecution.

Recall that Special Agents Lehmann and Srauss were both subpoenaed and deposed for Avery's civil lawsuit. The pair certainly appear ethical, or at least they appear to have actually done their job and thoroughly investigated the handling of the 1985 case. Upon completion of their investigation into Manitowoc's prosecution of Avery they sent an email to the Wisconsin AG lawyer's office wherein they state 'it appears you were correct, there was no real investigation done. They [MTSO] had a suspect and they were going to make it work. What is troubling to us is the lack of paperwork done.

The Wisconsin Attorney General came to the conclusion that no ethical violations had occured. Her decision was no doubt made in the interest of saving a few jobs and stopping more than a few lawsuits.

Then October 2005 happens.

During Rohrer's deposition he says in 2003 he and Griesbach passed everything they had over to the Attorney General. The famous email (detailing the 1995 call) was not turned over.

On October 26th 2005 Kusche is forced to confirm that Jones' account of the conversation between them (as memorized in the email) is an accurate reflection of events. This admission by Kusche implicates Kocourek, Lenk and Colborn in the crime of withholding potentially exculpatory information from 1995 - 2003. It provides Avery's attorneys with what they needed to not only destroy the named defendants in court, but to possibly add a few more named defendants. Avery might even have been able to officially challenge the conclusion of the Attorney General. After all - the allegations in his lawsuit directly contradicted her findings.

Then, what d'ya know, Avery was arrested and charged with Teresa's murder.

The AG orders the DOJ back on the job, this time working along side some of the very same officers Lehmann and Strauss were speaking with during their investigating two years earlier.

It's a tangled web if I've ever seen one.

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Complex Legal Concepts

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KK: There are four separate charges that the defendant is charged with: First degree intentional homicide, mutilation of a corpse, felon in possession of a firearm and false imprisonment.

KK: Count 1, the Judge instructed you, has two elements. The legal concepts aren't all that complex. We are talking about two things that we have to prove - that Mr. Avery caused the death of somebody and did it intentionally. The same thing with mutilation of a corpse, just the two elements; that he mutilated a corpse and that he did so to conceal a crime that had been committed.

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Dean, of course, does his best to demonstrate to the jury that Kratz cannot prove any of what he has said.

The body was mutilated. No argument there. He does argue, however, that there has never been any evidence to suggest Avery himself mutilated the body, other than, you know ... the fact that 30% of the bones were found by his house. That is it though. No blood anywhere in his house or the garage or even near the pit. And of course no semen, rope or bloody cutting instruments found, as Wiegert swore he would find in his November 5 affidavit.

As for the charge of first degree intentional homicide, there are bullet holes in the skull, sure, but due to the condition of the bones no one was able to determine if the bullet holes were the cause of death or if they occurred post death. As odd as this is going to sound, based on the evidence available we might as well assume Teresa died sound asleep in her bed.

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Kratz moves on to describe the charge of False Imprisonment. He doesn't spend too much time on it and for good reason. Recall that the False Imprisonment charge was actually dropped half way through the trial when Willis was forced to admit (shocker) that there is no evidence to support a finding of guilty beyond a reasonable doubt for said charge. No evidence existed to support the idea that, as Kratz put it, Avery restrained Halbach without her consent.

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And finally:

KK: Mr. Avery is also charged with felon in possession of a firearm; again, two elements, the felon in possession. First, that he possessed the firearm, that seems obvious. And, number 2, that some time before November of 2005, he had been convicted of a felony.

This is point of contention for some, the fact that DS and JB did not dispute Avery's status as a felon.

If they did that, however, they would've essentially been asserting the State illegally held Avery from November 9th to November 15th when he was officially charged with Halbach's murder. That would have been a tough path to walk in such a crooked court room.

There is also this other sticky fact, whatever it means - the gun charge (the reason Kratz gives for taking Avery into custody on November 9, 2005) is not actually listed in the original criminal complaint, it shows up in the amended complaint.

I have actually pointed this out a few times

Count 3: POSSESSION OF A FIREARM BY A FELON

I had to double check, was the gun charge mentioned in the first complaint?

Nope. Hit CTRL+F while viewing the original criminal complaint.

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Zellner too draws attention to it briefly in her Motion for Post Conviction Scientific Testing

Mr. Avery was charged on November 15, 2005, with first degree intentional homicide and mutilation of a corpse. The complain was later amended to include possession of a firearm by a felon.

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I don't think this is a procedural error so grave that it would warrant reversal of his conviction. Still, it is an error that raises a few questions.

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An Uneven Burden

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KRATZ: Our burden is to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt. The State has the burden of proof here. The defense has absolutely no burden.

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Well ... This isn't exactly true. Kratz did not bear the burden of proving Avery's motive where as Strang and Buting did have to prove motive if they wanted to name a suspect other than Brendan.

see also:

• The Denny Motion and Avery's Lack of Motive

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Halloween Night

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KRATZ: On Monday, October 31 st, 2005, beginning at approximately 2:45 p.m. the State intends to prove to you that the defendant restrained, murdered, and mutilated a 25 year old photographer named Teresa Halbach.We're going to prove to you what happened. We're going to prove to you who committed this crime. We're going to prove to you where it happened. We're going to prove to you when, specifically, it happened.

KRATZ: Teresa was mostly responsible or mostly enjoyed taking photographs of weddings and was already developing quite a niche and quite a specialty taking pictures of little kids, of babies and young children. But to supplement her young business, she worked for Auto Trader Magazine.

KRATZ: The investigation determined that Teresa Halbach took three pictures or at least had three business stops on the 31st of October. Now, one of those was a person by the name of Mr. Schmitz; one of those was a person by the name of Mr. Zipperer. And the third and the last stop that she made late in the afternoon on the 31st was at the Steven Avery Salvage Property.

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Steven Avery Salvage Property? I have never heard it referred to as such, but I think I know what he was doing.

Also worth noting:

• Teresa's Appointment for Mr. Schmitz was set up through a Mr. Sippel. Teresa never met Mr. Sippel, she only met Mr. Schmitz during the interaction at his house.

• The appointment for the Zipperer's was set up through what is essentially Auto Trader cold calling. Teresa never spoke to the Zipperer's before arriving at their house.

• The appointment for Steve was set up by Steve. Steve gave his sister's name, as it was her van he was calling about. However, Teresa actually met with Avery, the same person who set up the appointment.

On the day that she was apparently killed, Steven Avery is the only person who freely admits to both making the appointment and having the actual contact with Halbach. Every other appointment was set up by someone other than the person she meets.

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Pings and Beeps

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KRATZ: You will hear about things like phone calls. You'll hear about how phone calls can't be changed in the records and we can provide a timeline as to when certain things happened.

Phone calls can't be changed in the records? Okay then.

KRATZ: You are going to hear from a witness named Ryan Hillegas who helped coordinate the citizen search efforts. You are going to hear that there was something called cell tracking. We're going to hear a little bit about that. A cell phone actually is almost a transmitting device and it pings or beeps, if you will, off of cell towers all over the state, whenever you carry it in your pocket, whether it's on or not. You are going to hear evidence about attempts to find Teresa's cell phone; if we find her cell phone, we can find Teresa.

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Well that was interesting. He actually mentions the Pings, he even says Ryan was tracking those Pings.

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Pam and Nicole: Two Citizen Searchers

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KRATZ: On Saturday, the 5th of November, Pam and Nikole Sturm, two citizens, two citizen searchers, were given permission and did search the Avery salvage property. Pam and Nikole found the needle in the haystack. You are going to learn, members of the jury, through this evidence in the case, that the vehicle was locked, that the four doors on this vehicle were locked when Pam and Nikole came upon it.

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Quite a few points deserve to be unpacked here.

First, Pam was not a citizen searcher. She was acting on behalf of LE. Let's just call it what it is. We have Ryan giving her Pagel's direct line, however it seems Pam was actually there with Pagel and Ryan at Teresa's on the morning of November 5th shortly before the car was found. We also have Wiegert on record calling Remiker saying he is going to send volunteer searchers out to the property, also on the 5th prior to the RAV's discovery.

See also:

• Using the Power of Prayer to Locate a Mystical RAV which focuses on a motion submitted by the defense asking that the fruits of the Nov 5 search warrant be suppressed, partially based on the fact that Pam and her daughter were acting on behalf of LE. The post also touches on the two RAV's debate.

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Second, the doors of the RAV apparently being locked. I have come to learn this was a critical aspect of the case for the State. They had to prove the doors were locked. To them that was conclusive proof the blood was not planted, and thus Avery is guilty.

However as with everything else in this case, we cannot be sure what is what. A photographer is able to open the RAV the morning of November 6th after it was left in a Madison storage locker late at night on the 5th, apparently locked.

There is also another small problem with the idea that the car was locked. The police didn't touch the car remember, Kratz relies on Pam to let the jury know that all the doors were locked. She tried every door with a Kleenex or her sleeve or whatever she finally settled on.

From above, Kratz' exact words are 'the four doors on this vehicle were locked when Pam and Nikole came upon it.'

During the preliminary hearing Pam does indeed say they checked the doors and they were locked. However, she also says she thought it was only a two-door RAV.

Attorney Loy's Cross Examines Pam Sturm during the Preliminary Hearing - page 20

LOY: The vehicle was locked?

PAM: That's correct.

LOY: Did -- Were all the doors tried?

PAM: The two, the passenger door and the driver's door were tried.

LOY: The door for the front seat?

PAM: There are only two doors.

LOY: Oh, it's only a two-door vehicle?

PAM: I believe so.

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This is wildly inconsistent with her having checked all four doors.

Five doors if you include the hatch where A23 was found.

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A Cornucopia of Contradictions

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KRATZ: And, again, just to orient you, Steven Avery's trailer is in the lower left hand portion of this particular photograph. Where it [The RAV] was found was not an accident.

No shit it was not an accident. No probable cause without it.

KRATZ: We'll also tell you, during the course of the introduction of the testimony, that it's important where it wasn't found. The car wasn't found on a roadway.

You hear me jury?! The RAV was not - NOT found on a road way on the 3rd and then moved to the Quarry and Salvage Yard on the 4th.

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KRATZ: At that early stage, when they find the vehicle, they don't know that there is any blood in the back of the vehicle, when they don't know if a body is involved in this case, that Agent Fassbender and every other law enforcement officer, you will hear, at that scene, had one thing in mind and that was to find Teresa.

'They don't know that there is any blood in the back of the vehicle.'

It was broad daylight on a Saturday morning, 11 a.m. The officers obviously had flashlights as well. They look in the car without touching it and are able to see what they think is a little pieces of paper with Teresa's name on it and they don't see the blood? That's very questionable.

Even without seeing any blood they go and apply for a search warrant and swear under oath that they think there is probable cause to believe evidence of a crime will be found, including but not limited to homicide. Then Kratz says this:

KRATZ: Make no mistake, that on the first night, they are looking for Teresa and they are hoping to find Teresa alive. The next morning, on the 6th, Mr. Fassbender, Mr. Wiegert, were able to secure some help. They needed bodies. They needed some cops. They needed some volunteers.

This ^ is what I mean when I say Kratz 'preps' the Jury for the tsunami of bullshit coming their way. Above he is trying to desensitize the Jury for when they eventually hear how Lenk and Colborn volunteered to search Avery's trailer without letting anyone know they had been deposed in Avery's, at the time, still active civil claim.

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November 7, 2005 - The Blood and the Barrel

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Kratz goes on to tell the jury that on the 7th of November the first results came back from the Wisconsin State Crime laboratory. They discover the blood in the back is female. They also discover the blood in the front is male. The way Kratz speaks it certainly seems as though these preliminary tests did not provide him with a DNA profile from the blood.

He then mentions the barrel, saying 'Critical pieces of information were found from that burn barrel ... on Monday, that was found.'

Of course Zellner has provided us with a nice rundown of the inconsistencies with the burn barrel.

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As you might have guessed, while describing events that occurred on November 7th Kratz does not mention anything about the cul-de-sac at Kuss road.

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November 8, 2005 - A lucrative day

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KRATZ: the next day, three critical pieces of evidence are found on Tuesday, the 8th.

First, the Toyota key:

KRATZ: You are going to hear evidence that this bookcase was pulled out, was jostled about. And after jostling and after searching it, after slamming things around and after putting the bookcase back in its location, you are going to hear this is what the officers saw. They saw a Toyota key in the bedroom of Mr. Avery. You are going to hear evidence that it had obvious evidentiary value.

After slamming things around? Obvious evidentiary value?

Okay ... just forget it. They key was planted. Moving on.

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Obvious Bone Fragments

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KRATZ: Now, I told you that there were three important discoveries on the 8th. The third and perhaps the most important discovery that day is something that's being referred to as a burn area. You can see his trailer, you can see the garage on the right. But, importantly, that burn area contained human remains.

KRATZ: It contained obvious bone fragments. Even though these fragments are small, even though they are burned almost beyond recognition, on Wednesday, the 8th, they determined that those were, in fact, adult female remains found right behind the defendant's garage.

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This simply isn't the case. At that point they had no way of knowing whether or not those items were bones are rock or bark or, you know ... animals bones.

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KRATZ: Now, this next picture is particularly important because it was taken before any processing begins. There's the burn area that we're talking about. That's the burn area that contained the obvious human remains.

He says that picture is important. Well fuck ya it is - it's pretty much the only picture we have of the 'crime scene' with the obviously human remains.

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Bear Bones

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Of course we might as well be thankful anyone managed to get even one photo of the burn pit what with that vicious German Sherphed of Mr. Avery's.

KRATZ: You will see and you will hear from the officers who were at the scene, that this burn area, from the first night, was guarded, was guarded by Mr. Avery's German Shepherd. I believe his name was Bear. But this particular German Shepherd, not of the friendly sort, did not allow law enforcement officers to get close to this burn area. Did not allow any of the canine help that was out there to get close to that area. And any time -- excuse me -- law enforcement even got close to the burn area, Bear made sure that they were shooed away.

Bear shooed them away. He was so big and so mean. That is (I suppose) why they didn't want to go near those obvious bone fragments until November 8th.

Later in the trial Bobby Dassey is asked about Bear's demeanor. Kratz doesn't like the reply he gets and so he quickly moves on in an attempt to obscure an answer that completely destroys the picture he painted of Bear as an aggressive animal.

Direct Examination of Bobby Dassey (Page 62)

KRATZ: I don't know if you are able to answer this Bobby, but I will ask you. What was Bear's personality or demeanor like, if you know?

BOBBY: He was really calm.

KRATZ: This next picture is Exhibit 51.

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Karen Halbach's daughter's tibia

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KRATZ: We aren't talking about a full skeleton that was found in that -- that bone (sic) pit. If we did, by the way, we may not be including a charge against Mr. Avery for mutilation of a corpse. But mutilation of this little girl -- excuse me -- not this little girl, but this young woman, absolutely occurred. Because this is what's left, small tiny pieces of bone fragment. Now, despite Mr. Avery -- The evidence will show, that despite Mr. Avery's effort to completely obliterate all these bones, by burning, to incinerate these bones completely, this bone survived.

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This is the point we all know from the documentary where Kratz says the bone is 'Karen Halbach's daughter's tibia.' He tells the jury that attached to Teresa Halbach's tibia was some tissue. Fancy that.

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KK: This tissue that was on the bone allowed a DNA match, allowed the State of Wisconsin analyst, guess who, Sherry Culhane, when she performed an analysis on that tissue, to match it with the blood found in the back of the SUV; with a soda can that is found in the front of the SUV; and with a standard.

This standard he is referring to is the Pap Smear that apparently belongs to Teresa. Up until the Pap smear came along they were saying, 'The profile of the blood found in the RAV is consistent with the profile developed from the soda can. This profile is presumed to belong to Teresa Halbach.'

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Unfathomable Odds

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KK: The evidence will show, that despite Mr. Avery's effort to completely obliterate all these bones, by burning, to incinerate these bones completely, this bone survived.

I have done a few posts on the many issues with the bone evidence. The post of mine that Zellner Tweeted ended with this line:

• It almost seems as though someone was able to pick and choose which bones would be found, depending on which bones would be most helpful to determining age and gender. No way this was luck.

After a bit more research it really does seem as though someone was able to sift through a pile of cremated remains and pick and choose whatever bones they needed, up to 30% of the skeleton. Clearly whoever did the dead knew what they were doing - previously noted the bones recovered from Avery's pit were not only able to be identified as belonging to a human, but a human female around Teresa's age. This meant that anyone, even the defense expert, would be forced to conclude that 'Yes, there are multiple indicators that the remains are that of an adult human female.'

Although I didn't include it in the post (thank God, if I did Kathleen might not have tweeted it) I was alluding to the CB theory when I wrote that line.

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Now consider what Kratz said above about the tibia - that 'despite Mr. Avery's effort to completely obliterate all these bones, this bone survived.'

It wasn't luck that only one bone survived with tissue on it. Whoever burnt the body made sure this one piece of bone was not burnt to a crisp.

Excerpt from the direct examination of Leslie Eisenberg:

LE: What you are looking at in this image, um, is a bone fragment that's -- that's kind of charred but, um, perhaps not really burned, certainly not to the degree of the other, uh --of all of the other bone fragments found in this case. It is, uh -- unquestionably human, 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.

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IMO someone had a watchful eye on that tibia as it burned, ensuring it did not get too damaged and could still be planted with some tissue remaining on the bone. Messed up, right?

See also:

• Run down of item BZ - the tibia

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With 100% Certainty

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KRATZ: We know that's Teresa. And from that exemplar, from that example, matches the tissue on the tibia; matches the blood; matches the soda can. We can say with 100% certainty that those human remains are those of Teresa Halbach.

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Here is the thing - We don't know if the bones are Teresa's.

Despite Kratz saying he is 100% certain they belong to her that is far from the truth. This is not some wild claim, it is actually stated in the trial by a State witness - Sherry Culhane.

Direct Examination of Sherry Culhane: Page 160

Gahn: Now, you stated previously you were able to determine that Teresa Halbach was the source of that blood; is that correct?

Culhane: Yes.

NG: Can you say that in this case?

SC: No.

NG: Why not?

SC: This was a partial profile. When we have a partial profile, we can only do a statistical interpretation on the markers that we have results for.

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7 of 15 loci were found to be matches (not even half). The FBI will not report on or record results on less than 9 loci matches. Even though Sherry says we have a partial profile, she is going off her very own statistical interpretation.

Really we have no proof that Teresa is dead.

Messed up that two people are sitting in jail for a murder / death that fundamentally has not been proven to have occurred.

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29 of Ms. Halbach's Teeth

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KRATZ: Other science is going to include things like teeth, teeth that were recovered from the burn area. Dr Simley will tell you that x-rays were taken of teeth that were found from the burn area.

Simley seemed very nervous during both Steven and Brendan's trial. He often stammers and stutters to finish his sentences. He was clearly very uncomfortable being called to the stand to testify about the condition of these teeth.

Direct Examination of Dr. Simley - Page 90

Fallon: All right. And, uh -- were you able to obtain a positive identification?

Simley: I'm kind of reluctant to use the world "positive". Uh -- there were -- there were not a lot of remains that were recovered. Uh -- there were no crowns that were critical, and no dental fillings that I could compare. I'm very conservative in my opinion, and I just was reluctant to use the word "positive".

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This is one of the things that still really bothers me and is frankly yet another point that allows me to entertain the idea that the bones do not belong to Teresa.

I normally would expect enough finesse in the planters that they would include the victims teeth. Our teeth are harder than any other substance in our body, including bone, this is why teeth are the last to degrade or decay. Dental records are widely considered one of the best ways to positively identify a body that has been burned, so why didn't this happen? It would have created a more firm link between Teresa, Avery and the bones.

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Manufactured Evidence

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To finish off I am going to examine a theory surrounding the voice mail left on the Janda Machine.

Note: Any piece of evidence that Kratz attributes as a deserving piece of evidence that will be important in determining a timeline ... take that as a hint that said piece of evidence is planted / fabricated.

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Ken Kratz - Opening Statement

KRATZ: A deserving piece of evidence was seized on the -- Sunday, the 6th of November. And it is, what we believe, the last recorded voice of 25 year old Teresa Halbach.

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Kratz explains that Avery lured Teresa. He says this is demonstrated by the fact that Avery did not give his name when setting up the appointment. Avery did use his sister's name, Janda, although he did so not to lure Teresa, but because that was who owned the vehicle that was being sold.

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KRATZ: Teresa Halbach doesn't know who B. Janda is. You are going to hear evidence that Ms Halbach called back the telephone number for Barb Janda and she left this voice mail. This voice mail was recovered, was retrieved. You are going to hear this voice mail. And you are going to hear from Teresa in her own words. Teresa Halbach tells B. Janda that she's going to be out there sometime after 2:00 p.m., that very day, on the 31st of October. This will be important for you in determining a timeline.

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The voice mail that Teresa apparently left on the Janda answering machine:

• Hello, this is Teresa with Auto Trader magazine. I'm the photographer and just giving a call to let you know that I could come out there today um, in the afternoon. It would probably be around two o'clock or even a little later. But, um, if you could please give me a call back and let me know if that will work for you, because I don't have your address or anything, so I can't stop by without getting the -- a call back from you. And my cell phone is xxx-xxxx. Again, it's Teresa, xxx-xxx-xxxx. Thank you."

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Now, consider the part of the call that was edited out of the documentary - 'I don't have your address ... I can't stop by without getting a call back from you'

It doesn't make much sense for Teresa to leave that message for anyone on the Avery property.

Recall that Teresa had Avery's address - not only was she given the address from Auto Trader, she had been there 5 or 6 times in the last 6 months. What's more, despite what Kratz would tell you Avery had previously set up an appointment with Teresa using he Janda name. Teresa knew exactly where she was going. It didn't matter what name she got, the address was on Avery road.

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Again, it doesn't add up that Teresa would leave a message saying she needed the address before she could head out to the Avery's.

The theory here is that this message we hear is not what Kratz tells us it is. Kratz took audio from one voicemail and edited it to play it over a video recording of the Janda machine. Note that instead of taking the machine into custody, the officers just recorded the audio.

The voicemail we hear in the documentary may actually be the voicemail pulled from the phone of the person who lured Teresa. That would mean, of course, that Kratz knew who that person was, or at the very least was provided with the audio to overlay on top of the video of the Janda machine.

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Ken Kratz - Direct Examination of Andrew Colborn - Page 107

KK: Were the messages on this machine examined?

AC: When we -- When we found the answering machine, I saw that there were messages on there. I said, let's unplug it and take the answering machine. And, of course, the conversation between all of us, we said, 'well, what if somehow in the unplugging process we lose the messages.' So, yes, we hit the play button and listened to the messages and Detective Remiker recorded the messages as they were being played.

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As Colborn says, 'What if somehow in the unplugging process we lose the messages.'

IMO this wasn't their actual concern. They didn't take the machine into evidence because that would have made it more difficult to overlay the audio from the separate voicemail.

So Colborn has Remiker record a video and Kratz edits the video to play a separate audio recording.

Who does the voicemail belong to? Presumably someone who lured Teresa to an unknown location.

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The voice mail might belong to The Zipperer's. We know Teresa was given an incorrect address for their house on her lead sheet. It makes perfect sense for Teresa to call the Zipperer's and say she needs a call back before she can make the stop, as whoever set up the appointment did not provide her with the correct address.

On the other hand, Teresa may have been lured somewhere under the impression she was going to meet Mr. Zipperer. It is fairly common knowledge that George Zipperer, upon learning he was under investigation, began acting as though he had no idea who Teresa was or why Auto Trader was calling him for a bill. He was angry. Although, if he truly had no idea who Teresa was I imagine he would indeed be angry that the police were questioning him about her murder.

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Here is a TL:DR of the 'swapped voice mail' theory:

• The Killer set up an appointment with Auto trader, intentionally providing the company with an incorrect address.

• Teresa begins planning her route, say on October 30th. She would have eventually realized she didn't have the correct address for one of her appointments.

• She calls her mystery appointment and gets a voicemail and says 'if you could please give me a call back and let me know if that will work for you, because I don't have your address or anything, so I can't stop by without getting the -- a call back from you.'

• Then right after she leaves the Avery property she gets a call back from whoever it was that gave the incorrect address. She gets the correct address heads off to her new destination where she is presumably killed.

• The killer saves the voicemail from Teresa knowing it might be useful to help manufacture a timeline etc.

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If this wild theory is correct it would suggest that the message was not swapped over from the Zipperer's voicemail, but from the voicemail of the person who lured Teresa to her death, perhaps purporting himself to be Mr. Zipperer.

I say again, this would mean that Kratz knew who that person was, or at the very least was provided with the audio to overlay with the video of the Janda machine.

But hey, Kratz, didn't you say during your recent dateline interview, your voice aquiver, that you have no reason to fear Kathleen Zellner?

Just because you repeat something over and over to yourself doesn't make it true.

Kratz is indeed culpable. Even if he isn't as deeply as involved as some think he is still liable.

Think of it this way - Kratz is just as culpable today as Vogel was in 2005