02x02 - Words and Words Only

[bunniefuu]

[SOMBER MUSIC PLAYING]

[INDISTINCT CHATTER]

As our first witness, the defense calls Kenneth Kratz.

[WOMAN]

Do you solemnly swear that the testimony you shall give before the court is the truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God? Yes.

Be seated.

Mr.

Kratz, at the time that you made a decision to charge Mr.

Avery with the homicide in this case, you did not know exactly what had happened to Teresa Halbach prior to the time that her body had been b*rned, correct?
- I think that's fair.


- [DRIZIN]

OK.

And at the time that you filed criminal charges against Steven Avery for the m*rder of Teresa Halbach, you did not have sufficient evidence to support sexual as*ault charges against Mr.

Avery, correct?
- That's true.


- OK.

And so, would it be fair to say that you did not get a narrative of Teresa Halbach's final hours, if you will, until Brendan Dassey gave a statement on March 1? That was the first individual who was involved in the criminal enterprise to give me a narrative of what had happened.

Narrative can be provided by crime lab personnel "Here's what the physical evidence suggests, and this came first, and " But prior to the time prior to [JUDGE]

Hang on here.

One at a time.

Finish your answer.

[KEN]

Right.

I had received a narrative in that respect from the forensic scientists that were involved.

[DRIZIN]

You had some evidence, you were getting some reports from various crime lab people, but there were significant gaps in the narrative that were filled in only when Brendan Dassey's statement was presented to you.

I think that's fair.

Mr.

Kratz, in order to convict Steven Avery of first
-degree m*rder, did you need the testimony of Brendan Dassey to do that? No.

It wasn't offered at Steven Avery's trial.

Would it be fair to say that the only benefit to Mr.

Dassey's testimony would have been to support the charges of sexual as*ault, kidnapping and false imprisonment? [KEN]

No.

I think there were side benefits.

If we felt less comfortable trying this case from a forensic science standpoint rather than a, um, you know, statement of witnesses or codefendant statement, that certainly would have had a collateral benefit.

Having said that, um, as you and probably everybody now knows, we chose to try the Avery case very much as a circumstantial forensic science case.

[THEME MUSIC PLAYS]

[FASSBENDER]

Morning.

Good to see you.

[WIEGERT]

Why don't you just have a seat, Brendan? Tom and I have to step out for a minute, and then we'll be right in, OK?
- OK.


- [WIEGERT]

Alright.

[LAURA]

Steven Avery's attorneys face a different task than us.

The case against Steven Avery is a case that's built on forensics, on blood evidence, on things like that.

[FASSBENDER]

Soda? Water? You sure?
- Well, water maybe.


- [FASSBENDER]

OK.

[LAURA]

The case against Brendan Dassey, there's no scientific evidence pinning him to this crime.

The case against Brendan Dassey is words, and words only.

Why would someone falsely confess to a crime they didn't commit, especially one as horrific as this crime? The reality is that the work of organizations like the Center on Wrongful Convictions and the Innocence Project have uncovered hundreds of proven false confessions.

In fact, in m*rder cases, homicide cases, like Miss Halbach's case, we know that false confessions are actually the most common cause of wrongful convictions.

[WIEGERT SIGHS]

[WIEGERT]

I just wanted to go over this real quick again.

Do you remember these rights,
- your Miranda rights I read you?
- Yeah.


- [WIEGERT]

You still want to talk to us?
- Yeah.

[WIEGERT]

OK.

Just wanted to make sure of that.

[DRIZIN]

If you believe that your client has falsely confessed on videotape, it's not enough to simply argue that.

You have to embrace that tape.

You have to accept that tape as the best proof of your client's innocence.

We want to talk today about the three errors that occur during police investigation that can cause false confessions to happen.

The first one is the misclassification error.

Officers making wrong assumptions about whether somebody is lying and therefore guilty.

Police are trained to watch the ways in which people answer questions, to read their body language, to notice their choice of words.

This is what's referred to as "behavioral analysis.

" And all it takes is proper training for a police officer to turn into a human lie detector.

[FASSBENDER]

Be honest.

Because we're gonna be able to tell when you're not being honest.

I'm telling you that right now.

So you're walking down the road This is a handout that is used by a company called John E.

Reid & Associates.

They developed the most widely used interrogation technique in the country.

This is the slide of characteristics that are supposed to be shown by people who are lying.

Let's look.

It says "slouched.

" Here's a screenshot of Brendan's interrogation.

He's slouched.

"Hand over mouth or eyes.

" Sure enough.

"Rigid and immobile.

" And as for these verbal things, somebody who says, "I don't know" must be lying? Let me tell you, if there's one thing Brendan Dassey said hundreds of times during that interrogation, it's "I don't know.

" His ability to interact with other people is limited.

But of course it feeds right into these false narratives that officers are trained in.

Somebody who can't make eye contact? It must mean they're lying, that they're guilty.

This failure to look people in the eye, e this withdrawing during social situations, this is his disability, and I think it also is the misclassification error.

Then there's the coercion error.

Once you get that wrong person in the interrogation room, how are they convinced to say something so dramatically against their self
-interest? [WIEGERT]

How did she get in the back of the jeep? Tell us that.


- I don't know.


- [WIEGERT]

Did you help him? No.

[DRIZIN]

At the beginning of an interrogation, an innocent person's confidence that they will emerge from the interrogation process unharmed is sky
-high.

But the goal of interrogation is to bring that confidence level down.

[WIEGERT]

We've been investigating this a long time.

We pretty much know everything.

We already know what happened.

We already know what happened.

We already know.

Remember, we already know.

We already know.


- We already know.


- [FASSBENDER]

We know.

We already know.

You know we know.


- [FASSBENDER]

We know.


- We know you were back there.

We know what happened.

It's OK.

[DRIZIN]

False evidence ploys.

Telling the suspect over and over again, "we already know.

" John E.

Reid & Associates cautions police officers, "Deceptive tactics should not ordinarily be used with individuals who have significant mental limitations or with youthful suspects of low social maturity.

" You were there when she d*ed.

We know that.


- Come on.


- [FASSBENDER]

What he made you do [FASSBENDER]

We know he made you do something else.

We have the evidence, Brendan.

He says, "There's all this evidence against me.

He's not believing me.

What am I going to do? This is a serious problem.

What am I going to do?" And that's when interrogators are trained to give a suspect an out.

He made you do something to her, didn't he? So he would feel better about not being the only person, right? Yeah.

What did he make you do to her? [DRIZIN]

Did you want to participate in the r*pe, or did your uncle force you? The suggestion is, if you accept the less heinous version, that you will be treated more leniently.

[FASSBENDER]

From what I'm seeing, even if I fill those in, I'm thinking you're alright.

OK? You don't have to worry about things.

[WIEGERT]

Honesty, Brendan, is the thing that's gonna help you.

No matter what you did, we can work through that.

The honest person is the one that's gonna get a better deal out of everything.

Honesty is the thing that'll set you free.

It's OK.

We're gonna help you through this, alright? [DRIZIN]

Brendan here is a 16
-year
-old who functions at a much lower level than your average 16
-year
-old.

So he actually thinks, "If I tell them what they want to hear, I'm gonna go home.

" [FASSBENDER]

You are doing the right thing.

We need to hear it from you.

Let's get it all out today and this will be all over with.

It's OK.

What did he make you do?
- Cut her.


- Cut her where? On the throat.

[DRIZIN]

While getting an admission is powerful evidence, what they need to get a conviction is to have the suspect give the police officer the details of the crime that only the true perpetrator would know.

Now, this is a real problem for an innocent person.

How does that happen? Well, it happens through the third error, which is the contamination error.

Fact feeding.

John E.

Reid & Associates tells investigators that they should hold back some facts, because if the suspect can give you those facts, then you have a pretty good idea that what the suspect is telling you is true.

What else happens to her in her head? These officers fed him the three critical facts that were not publicly released before Brendan's interrogation: Teresa Halbach was sh*t in the head, her personal items were found in a burn barrel on the Avery salvage yard, and the fact that someone went underneath the hood of the car and did something with the engine.

[FASSBENDER]

It's extremely, extremely important you tell us this for us to believe you.

Come on, Brendan.

What else? [FASSBENDER]

We know.

We just need you to tell us.

Contamination occurs when investigators grow frustrated with an innocent person's inability to give them those facts.

That's all I can remember.

[WIEGERT]

I'm just gonna come out and ask you.

Who sh*t her in the head? He did.

[FASSBENDER]

Why didn't you tell us that? Because I couldn't think of it.

[FASSBENDER]

Now you remember it? Tell us about that, then.

[DRIZIN]

They wanted this information in the worst way.

And they got it in the worst way.

Brendan has confessed.

They've got what they think they need.

They have that narrative, a horrific narrative.

Note that he recants at the very first opportunity, when he and his mother are alone.

What'd happen if he says something, like his story's different? Like he says he he admits to doing it.

What do you mean? Like, if his story's, like, different.

Like I never did nothing, or something.

Did you? Huh? Not really.

What do you mean, "not really"? They got to my head.

Huh? say anything.

[DRIZIN]

"They got to my head.

" This is Brendan's way of recanting.

What do you mean by that? [DRIZIN]

And note how he shuts up immediately when those interrogators rush back in.

What do you mean by that, Brendan? [DRIZIN]

The best interpreter of what Brendan meant by "they got to my head," the only real interpreter, was Brendan's mother.

Were you pressuring him?
- [WIEGERT]

Who are you talking about?
- Him.

[WIEGERT]

What do you mean, "pressuring him"? When talking to him.

[WIEGERT]

No.

We told him we needed to know the truth.

We've been doing this job a long time, Barb, and we can tell when people aren't telling the truth.

[INDISTINCT CHATTER]

We have now determined what occurred sometime between 3:45 p.

m.

and 10 or 11 p.

m.

on the 31st of October.

Brendan accompanies his sweaty 43
-year
-old uncle down the hallway to Steven Avery's bedroom, and there they find Teresa Halbach, unclothed, completely naked and shackled to the bed.

Both of her arms are shackled, both of her legs are shackled, with leg irons.

Teresa Halbach is begging Brendan for her life.

[DRIZIN]

Once police officers get a confession, the job of police officers and of prosecutors does not end there.

Investigators need to see if there's additional corroboration of the confession.

They need to continue to investigate.

They need to test whether that confession is reliable or not.

And so do prosecutors.

After the sexual as*ault is completed, Steven Avery tells Brendan what a good job he did.

[DRIZIN]

Ken Kratz didn't do any of that, and part of the reason is because he held a press conference within 24 hours after Brendan confessed in which he announced to the whole world that Brendan's confession was reliable.

New details laid out this afternoon left us all gasping and shaking our heads.

[NEWSCASTER]

Prosecutors revealed disturbing new details about how Teresa Halbach was r*ped and m*rder*d.

We now know what happened to a 25
-year
-old Wisconsin woman who disappeared [REPORTER]

It takes a lot to shake the composure of a prosecutor, but it happened today as this man revealed new grisly details about how Teresa Halbach was k*lled.

They knew that she probably suffered, but they were not fully prepared to learn how she might have been tortured.

This confession had not even been ruled admissible by a court.

So, he's out there talking about it as if it's coming into evidence.

Sixteen
-year
-old Brendan, under the instruction of Steven Avery, cuts Teresa Halbach's throat, but she still doesn't die.

I thought that was one of the most outrageous things I've ever seen, pretrial.

I thought that was just unbelievable.

It was so much He went so much further than most prosecutors.

Most prosecutors would have said, you know, "She was stabbed.

" Of course, there's no evidence that she was stabbed.

Or, "She was sh*t in the head.

" But this, you know, prosecutor creates this fantasy about what has happened, and then that spreads.

[NEWSCASTER]

This picture of Steven Avery and Brendan Dassey makes more sense in hindsight.

[JEFF PHELPS]

You can see the connection between the eyes, and they obviously, without saying a word, know what each other is thinking.

[NEWSCASTER]

Look at this photo of the two.

Notice what's on TV.

[KEN]

There's additional information in the complaint as to additional t*rture, as to additional mutilation, as to additional mechanisms of death, which includes manual strangulation and g*nsh*t wounds.

I can't think of a worse way to go than what he described in that press conference.

I mean that's a pretty gruesome picture to paint.

I believed him at first, and now it's the other way around.

His friend coming out and saying all that stuff I totally I totally think he did it now.

[DRIZIN]

It violated every sense of ethics that governs the conduct of prosecutors.

Legal ethics and ethical rules prohibit a prosecutor from discussing the contents of a suspect's confession.

The rules are crystal clear.

[DRIZIN]

Ken Kratz just went way, way overboard here.

And he had to know had to know that what he was doing was wrong.

[KATHLEEN]

Brendan was just a pawn, just a tool that was used by the investigators and the prosecution to frame Steven Avery.

He was another piece of the planted evidence.

You know, we've got the blood planted in the car, we've got the key in the bedroom, and we've got Brendan Dassey, because they planted this story in his brain and got him to agree with it.

And that it could have survived through the court system in Wisconsin, I think, is shocking.

[INDISTINCT CHATTER]

And then if we can't find anything, we'll just initiate.

Exactly.

[KARL]

Miss Zellner called me and asked me to look over the case and find anomalies.

And in this case, there are more than a handful of those.

And that's unusual.

One or two is expected.

People collect, the documentation isn't perfect.

That's understandable.

But when there's a large number of these anomalies, these less
-than
-complete results which don't quite fit into what you expect, um, you want to look at those in more detail.

[KATHLEEN]

The blood in the car there was no mixture of the victim's blood and Steven Avery's blood.

If you follow the logic of, although it's horrible to say, putting the victim in the back while you're bleeding and then getting in the car and driving, and the victim's blood is only in one spot, and the supposed assailant is always in another, you know that they'd been in contact.

So, why isn't there a mixture? Why isn't it spread around? That's what you expect to see in something as violent as what was described, and that's really not what the DNA results from testing the specific areas tells us.

I believe that the prosecutor in Steven Avery's trial had a strong suspicion the blood evidence was planted.

All of Steven's blood is in the front of the car, all of Teresa's blood is in the back of the car.

Any experienced prosecutor, anybody who's done m*rder cases, knows that's a huge red flag.

Because that was a huge red flag, the prosecution needed to have another body fluid somewhere else on the vehicle.

What would be really ideal would be if Brendan Dassey could talk about Steven Avery touching or doing something else in the car that would leave DNA evidence.

[FASSBENDER]

OK, what else did he do? He did something else.

You need to tell us what he did.

After that car was parked there.

It's extremely important.

That he left the the g*n in the car.

[FASSBENDER]

That's not what I'm thinking about.

He did something to that car.

He took the plates, and I believe he did something else to that car.

I don't know.

[FASSBENDER]

Did he Did he go and look at the engine? Did he raise the hood at all or anything like that to do something to that car?
- Yeah.


- What was that? [WIEGERT]

What did he do, Brendan? It's OK.

What did he do? What did he do under the hood, if that's what he did? I don't know what he did, but I know he went under.

[FASSBENDER]

He did raise the hood? You remember that?
- Yeah.


- [KATHLEEN]

And voilà .

Suddenly, Brendan Dassey is talking about Steven opening up the hood and touching the hood latch.

No one swabs the hood latch initially.

The hood latch isn't swabbed until after Dassey's confession.

What's interesting is the crime lab did the blood swabbing in the car, but they did not do the swabbing of the hood latch.

That was done in Calumet and taken to the crime lab.

And magically, when they test it, it's got Steven's profile on it.

Wow, what a piece of luck that is.

Now you're not dependent anymore just on that blood evidence.

And kind of like Nancy Grace said, "It's the sweat DNA that convinced me.

" You heard a suggestion already, which will be evidence in this case, that the battery was disconnected on Miss Halbach's vehicle.

But importantly, in reaching up underneath the hood to open up Teresa Halbach's vehicle, Mr.

Avery was kind enough to leave his DNA on the hood latch.

DNA evidence, again, is not just from blood.

It can be from skin cells which are left through perspiration.

Sweat.

Now, remember, at trial they said it was sweat DNA that was on the hood latch.

They locked into that.

That's just wishful thinking, because you can't test for sweat.

So, the answer is, we don't know the source.


- That's the honest, correct answer.


- [KATHLEEN]

Right.

What about touch DNA? Touching and opening it? The amount of material you're gonna get from handled objects is pretty low.


- Do it multiple times, you'll get more.


- Right.

But Liz's results were quite interesting when you compare them with what they found in this case.

[LIZ]

We were curious to see what sort of results we might get from having this hood opened and the latch handled.

So, we had three volunteers each do it five times.

We had 15 trials, and I sampled the latch each time.

I only got a detectable signal from four of those fifteen.

And those were very low quantities, much less than even half a nanogram total.

[KATHLEEN]

It's a rich source of DNA, whatever is on that hood latch.


- [KARL]

Right.


- [KATHLEEN]

It's not touch DNA.

Blood and saliva, very common forensic sources.

Lots of DNA in them.

Lots and lots of DNA in there.

OK, so, they fought the idea that that was blood on the hood latch.

That contains a swab from the hood latch of Teresa Halbach's RAV4? Yes.

Do you recall, when you looked at the swab, did you notice any condition to it, as far as color? It was discolored, but it did not have the appearance It was not a reddish
-brown discoloration consistent with blood.

So, it did not appear to have blood on the swab? Correct.

In the Avery case, there are a number of DNA profiles that were obtained that make you wonder what was the source.

They're pretty robust, they're full profiles, but they didn't do body fluid identification.

So, where did it come from? [KATHLEEN]

So, what source, right, of the
- What's the source of the DNA?
- What's the source of the DNA? In order to determine the source of the DNA, laboratories have four tests they can run: one for blood, one for saliva, one for semen, and one for urine.

Blood, that should show up.

Semen isn't an issue on this.

Urine doesn't count, either.

So you're left with one other test.

And it would be it would be the saliva.

Of course.

Our laboratory has developed a test for saliva that's very widely used.

And if I am able, with that test, to detect saliva on the hood latch Well, then you're starting to build a different story.

Now you're building the story that Mr.

Avery is spreading his saliva all over the place.


- That's right.


- Or someone else is taking Mister He's licking hood latches.

An innocent explanation or a not
-so
-innocent explanation.

And in any event, it contradicts their original concept of how it got there.

[KATHLEEN]

It really profiles like a buccal swab of saliva, and it would be very improbable, I think, that you wouldn't have had a mixture.

To me, it looks like a surface that was cleaned off with diluted bleach, and then the buccal swab planted the saliva.

Because you just have Steven on there.

You don't have anybody else who ever opened up the car.

And then, of course, there's a hood release inside the car.

That's never swabbed for anything.

The prop that holds the hood up, nobody ever swabs that.

Um, see, that's all things the defense could have requested that they didn't.

So, I don't know if they were talking to a forensic scientist, but a forensic scientist would have immediately told them that.

If his hand was there, why didn't you find fingerprints? Well, they're looking for DNA.

That's what was looked for and found.


- They didn't look for fingerprints?
- I don't know.

I I imagine it would be an important thing to know.

You're alleging that he drove this vehicle and hid it.

I would imagine his fingerprints would be all over the thing.

They might have.

Um, I don't have the case file.

[STEVEN]

You know, these DAs are just doing whatever they want to do.

Trying to make fit what ain't true.

You know, the DA's got too much power for anything and everything.

You know, they're supposed to protect the families.

You know, the citizens.

They gotta be accountable for their actions.

We gotta change it.

This can't happen to somebody else.

He should be in here, where I am.

Put him in here and me out there.

So, as you understand, Steven, we're doing brain fingerprint testing here, and that detects concealed information in your brain.

[KATHLEEN]

I had learned about testing that many authorities think is superior to polygraph, which is brain fingerprinting.

[NEWSCASTER]

How often have we heard these words from law enforcement officials: "These are details known only to the perpetrators"? The latest technology in forensic science uses those details to prove a suspect's guilt or innocence.

Developed by Harvard
-trained doctor Lawrence Farwell, brain fingerprinting uses brain waves to measure what Dr.

Farwell calls the "Aha" of recognition.

[REPORTER]

Farwell says that when the human brain recognizes important information, it triggers a specific electrical signal called a "MERMER" that can be measured and analyzed.

[KATHLEEN]

I told Steven the CIA, the Navy, the FBI, was using a very sophisticated test to detect if someone was telling the truth or not about being innocent, and would he do the test.

Regardless of whether it would come into court or not, I convinced Steven Avery that it was 100 percent reliable and that if he flunked it, we would have a big problem.

So, I laid all this on him.

So, he very enthusiastically agreed to subject himself to this testing.

[CHUCKLES]

[KATHLEEN]

He was thrilled that there was something like that that we could use.

Alright.

So, let's go over some things that you know and some things that you couldn't possibly know if you really haven't done the crime.

[LARRY]

The Steven Avery case was very challenging for brain fingerprinting.

If we had gotten there on day one, the perpetrator would have known everything about the crime, an innocent suspect would know nothing about the crime, and we'd have a wealth of evidence that we could test.

Steven Avery has been through a long trial.

He knows a tremendous amount about the crime from the trial.

So, we had to find information that was not presented at the trial, or even information where what they thought happened at the time of the trial was not accurate.

It is consistent with a bloody object, such as a body, being loaded into the rear end of this vehicle.

[KATHLEEN]

When we did the blood spatter analysis and realized that the prosecution had made a big mistake about the blood spatter on the rear cargo door, we used the blood spatter pattern, what it actually indicated, to test Steven Avery's knowledge about that cargo door being open and where Teresa Halbach was positioned at that point.

We wanted to know, was he storing that information of hitting her, knocking her to the ground, and then repeatedly hitting her in the head? Because if he was, he'd be the k*ller, because that's how the blood ended up on the rear inside cargo door.

[LARRY]

We present three different types of stimuli: Things we know he knows, things that are irrelevant, where we won't get the response.

And then probes, where we'll get the response only if he knows it.

[KATHLEEN]

We spent two days there.

We did 13 hours of testing on Steven.

[LARRY]

When we analyze the data, e we can make a mathematical determination.

Yes, this information is stored in the brain.

Or no, the information is not stored in the brain.

So, you've got no response to the irrelevant things.

You've got this big response, you can see in the red line, to the things you know.

Now, the question we were asking scientifically is, do you know those details about the crime that nobody ever told you but the person who did it definitely knows?
- See this blue line?
- Mm
-hmm.

Now, that blue line doesn't show that recognition response, does it? It looks just like the green line.

It's basically a flat line.

So, what that means is, according to your brain, you don't know what happened when she was m*rder*d.

If you had been the perpetrator, this blue line would have It would be like the red line.

Yeah, it'd be like the red line.

It would have that big response in it.

So, this is very powerful evidence that, in fact, you're innocent of the crime.

I knew that already.

[ALL LAUGH]

Well, you knew that, but, see, I didn't know that.

Now I know it, and anybody who understands the science is gonna know it as well.

So, what does that mean to you? It's good news.

[LAUGHING]

[KATHLEEN]

Steven has all the hallmarks of someone who's innocent: how cooperative he is, the lengths that he wants us to go to.

There's nothing about him, um, that I think is indicative of someone who's guilty.

I mean, I am I'd bet my life on Steven Avery being innocent.

I'm positive he's innocent.

The question is, can we prove it? This is excellent.

This is an excellent result.

I really didn't know until today.

Now we gotta find out who did.


- [KATHLEEN]

Yeah.


- Mm
-hmm.

So, I saw Steven last week on Monday, and he seemed like he was doing pretty well.


- Oh, yeah?
- Yeah.

[KATHLEEN]

He was going over to the doctor just because he's They're always trying to monitor his blood pressure, so Oh, yeah, I heard it was high.

Yeah, he said it had gone up higher just in the last couple of weeks, so I was telling him he needs to relax.

Yeah, I know.

I know.

That's what's wrong with him.

[KATHLEEN]

It is.

It's amazing that he's just survived it as long as he has.

He told me he got some new books about building a house.


- What kind of house he'd like to build.


- Oh, yeah.

I said, "That's good for you to do that, think about the future of being free and being out.

" He said, "Yeah, that's what I'm doing.

" But I think we know more about everything, how this happened, so much more than they knew at the trial.

I wonder how those cops feel now.


- [KATHLEEN]

I bet they're nervous.


- I bet.

Yeah.


- [DOLORES]

They should be.


- Yeah, Judgment Day is coming.

I want to catch who did it.

If there's any way we can do that.


- You know, it'd be good.


- Yeah.

Well, my goal is just to keep him calm so nothing happens to his health.

[KATHLEEN]

He could still have a good life, live a long time.

If he got out and got good care
- And got out of here.


- [KATHLEEN]

Got out
- He can't stay here.


- [KATHLEEN]

No.


- I talked to him about where he would go.


- What did he say?
- [KATHLEEN]

He talked about Michigan.


- Yeah.

You like that? Yeah, because it's beautiful there.

He wants Chucky to load up the whole junkyard and take it to Michigan.

Oh, my God.

I wonder how you'd do that.


- [KATHRYN]

That'd be a big project.


- A lot of trips.

Yeah, that's true.

It would be a lot of trips.

Well, we're gonna help him get that.

[CHUCKLES]

I have one goal, and that's to vacate the conviction of Steven Avery.

The steps I have to take to do that are more involved.

But in a nutshell, I have to undermine confidence in his verdict.

The way I undermine confidence is I find new evidence that shows that the verdict wasn't correct.

I show that there were violations of his constitutional rights, that there was exculpatory evidence that was concealed by the prosecution, what we call Brady violations, or ineffective assistance of counsel, that the defense attorneys didn't do their job.

The first thing that you do is file a motion for new scientific testing, if that exists, and I believe it does.

That will allow me to have scientific testing done that was not done previously.

Once those test results come in, then I combine that with the new investigation that I'm doing into what's called a postconviction petition.

Then, after that's filed, the court will decide if I have presented enough evidence to justify what's called an evidentiary hearing.

I see an evidentiary hearing almost like a second trial.

That's what I'm envisioning.

So, then we have a hearing, we call witnesses, but we don't have a jury.

We just have a judge listening to everything.

We present all the evidence.

We present all the new evidence, the reinvestigation, any new witnesses, any evidence that's been concealed by the prosecution that we've discovered.

We present all of that.

If the defense wants to put forth their defense that they're suggesting and implying in their pleadings today, then they do so at their peril.

During late October of 2009, I had engaged in an exchange of text messages with a domestic abuse victim.

[KEN]

My behavior was inappropriate.

Here are two officers who are accused of something just terrible.

That's terrible that they would plant evidence and try and frame someoneand basically ignore whoever it may have been that m*rder*d Teresa Halbach.

[REPORTER]

Gahn was part of the team that included Fallon and Ken Kratz that originally prosecuted Steven Avery and his nephew Brendan Dassey for the 2005 m*rder of Teresa Halbach.

[SECOND REPORTER]

Because the trial judge in this case has retired, a Sheboygan County judge has been assigned to it.

I spoke with the judge's office today and was told there was no timetable or schedule for what would happen next.

I'm Judge Angela Sutkiewicz.

I was a member of the Crime Victims Rights Board for six years, so I really carry a lot of what I learned on that board with me.

I try to be interactive in criminal cases, make sure that the victim's voice is heard, make mention of the impact on them, praise defendants when they have turned things around and done well.

I think if people know that you've really listened to them, you've read everything that's come before you, you know about their case, you didn't just come out and say, "It's because I said so," you give a reasoned decision and you explain it to them, even if they disagree with you, I think they're a lot more likely to go away happy.

[STEVEN]

The judge in Sheboygan, you know, I had the problem with her before when I was working on my case on my own.

It was 2013.

I was still at Boscobel.

She had my 974.

06, the motion, and she was looking at that at the same time that she was looking at the Halbachs' wrongful death suit against me and Brendan.

I thought, maybe it'd go to a different judge but she got them both.

But then the Halbachs put in for a dismissal on the wrongful death suit against me.

The judge, she thought maybe I should pay pay some money to them and everything else, so she wanted to keep it open, and she didn't want to let it go.

It didn't seem like she was for me at all, or for justice.

That's the way I felt, you know? One day, I got up and said, "Well, this has been too long.

It's been over a year already.

" So, that's when I filed in the Court of Appeals.

I told them that she was being biased because the Halbachs put in for a dismissal, and she won't do it.

And then when I did that, it only took a couple weeks.

I got a letter in the mail from the courts that it was all dismissed, that she signed the papers then.

[STEVEN COUGHS]

So I won that.

[SANDY]

Are you playing cards now?
- [STEVEN]

Yeah.


- Are you still winning? Yeah, I'm still winning.

The game ain't over.

Uh
-huh.

[BOTH LAUGHING]

Is it rummy? [STEVEN]

No, it's, uh Shampoo.

[DOLORES]

Shampoo? [STEVEN]

That's what the game is called.

Shampoo.

[DOLORES]

Oh, OK.

You don't have to worry, then, Steven, because you have no hair to shampoo, so [STEVEN LAUGHING]

[STEVEN]

You know, with Sandy, kind of we had a perfect six years, you know? There was no arguing, no nothing, and we got along great.

Excellent.

She made me feel good, and I made her feel good all the time, and everything was good.

But these last two years, a little over two years, it's been on the rocks.

She's talking about, you know, she's too old for me and I need somebody my own age.

She threw that up at me, oh, probably a million times.

[SANDY]

After he moved to Waupun, he had wanted to get married, and he had figured out how to do it and was happy about it.

But I didn't think it was a good idea.

I had health issues.

I didn't know what was gonna happen to me.

It was a big question.

And we did have religious differences, and we had been going round and round about that.

[STEVEN]

She was trying to pull away and she didn't come up for a while.

And then her health ain't good.

She didn't want me to worry about it.

And I always told her, "That's what I'm for, you know? We're supposed to be talking and tell me all of this stuff.

" Today we're talking about a story full of twists and turns.

I didn't see it.

Went to chow.

Everybody else seen it and told me.

Sandy, I've heard him say that if he was out, if he was able to get out, he would love to go off and live in the woods.

Is that what the two of you plan to do if he is released? [SANDY]

That had been our plan, however, I have broken the engagement.

I hate to say this on air, but I did.

We don't know what will happen when he gets out.

[STEVEN]

That was the sure thing because she told everybody.

She told the whole world.

The other inmates, they said, "Oh, we seen you on TV.

Looks like Sandy broke up with you.

" [SANDY]

I didn't want to break our relationship.

I just wanted not to marry him right then.

That was the worst thing I could have said, and I regret it so much.

That changed Steven's plans.

And so now his plans are just, "I don't know what's happening.

You know, we had our plans, and you broke them.

" [STEVEN]

That's where I kind of knew that there was no future.

You know, I thought that future was gonna go to the end.

But with Lynn, it's it's different.

Lynn is my new girlfriend.

She wrote me.

I think it was February or something.

She was down in the dumps because she got her divorce.

Then I wrote her back and made her feel better, and it's been like that ever since.

I got pictures of her on the wall.

And I had other women up there, and I had to take the other women down because it didn't feel right.

She's just stuck in me.

[TELEPHONE RINGS]

[RING]

[RING]

[RING]

[ALLAN]

Hey.

You got a minute? Missed it.

Yeah.

[ALLAN]

Who in the hell ? I just missed a phone call.

[EARL]

How? I was opening up the other door.

Oh, it's nice and cool out here.

What'd you get, six phone calls yesterday? Well, if there ain't nothing, I'm gonna start on that radiator on that Bug.

[CLANGING AND HAMMERING]


- [EARL]

It might be a brass one.


- Huh?
- [EARL]

No, that's
- No, wait a minute.

That's That's lead.


- [EARL]

That's lead.


- OK.


- [EARL]

All of this can go.


- [ALLAN]

Huh? All of this here can go.


- Yeah, I just thought it was junk.


- [EARL]

Yeah.


- Now, I talked to him yesterday.


- Yeah? On them pumps two dollars apiece.

We'll scrap them, get rid of them.


- That's all he'll give you, huh?
- That's it.

And they're worth more than that, especially the ones with copper in them.

The ones with copper are worth more than two dollars.

Because there's a pound of copper in there, ain't there?
- On some, yeah.


- Yeah.

[METAL CRUNCHING]

[TRUCK REVERSING BEEPS]

[ALLAN]

The boys just crushed some cars.

We got to do that every once in a while to survive.

This used to be all full here um, with some of our older Dodge trucks, like, uh, in the '40s and the '50s, Dodge trucks.

We used to have a whole bunch all in here.

And, uh, like, a lot of our older Chevy trucks were '55, '56 Chevys.

That's our bread and butter because there's money there.

I mean, the chrome on them.

You can't find this stuff no more.

And we were the only ones around that had it.

Now we don't got it.

[CHUCKLES]

The rest of this is cleared right out.

Everything is cleared right out.

Just like there were no cars here.

[ALLAN]

They sure took us down, and bad.

They wrecked our business.

The media, TV, radio.

Avery's Auto Salvage is the focus [ALLAN]

That's all you saw.

"Avery's Auto Salvage.

" And there's a lot of people that won't come out here on account of that.

When there was no reason for it.

Nothing happened here.

Nothing.

They wrecked us and they wrecked Steven and they wrecked Brendan.

They wrecked them boys' lives.

But we're not gonna give up.

[WIEGERT]

Stay on the outside of the car.

Go to the front on the driver's side.

[PAM STURM]

OK, hang on.

The first The last four digits: three, zero, four, four.


- [WIEGERT]

OK, where are you?
- [PAM]

Is that the number?
- [WIEGERT]

Where are you?
- [PAM]

No, tell me if this is the car.

[WIEGERT]

OK, stop.

I can't tell you anything.

Where are you? [PAM]

I'm at Avery Salvage.

[JACOBS]

Other than the car, do we have anything else? [REMIKER]

Not yet.

[JACOBS]

OK, is he in custody? [REMIKER]

Negative.

Nothing yet.

[KATHLEEN]

The car is when all the other agencies working on it shift their focus to Steven.

All the other investigation just grinds to an immediate halt.

But one of the things that happens is, after the car is found, they bring all the dogs in.

Well, the dogs they go right over the berm into the quarry.

The quarry property is a sand and gravel pit adjacent to the Avery property.

The scent dogs are circling the trailer owned by the owner of the quarry.

The dogs are in the woods there.

The dogs track deeper into the quarry on the southwest section of it, and then they come back up to exactly where her car is found, through that conveyor road up onto the Avery property.

And those dogs are not reacting to her remains.

They're reacting to her scent.

[KATHLEEN]

What in the world is she doing over there? That's not part of the narrative.

Now, multiple dogs all tracking the same tracks and that's never mentioned by the defense, and of course it's not mentioned by the prosecution.

Where Teresa's car was parked, there was an east
-west berm that separated the Avery property from the Radandt property.

But as you went further west, there was a break in the berm.

And the break in the berm was right on that conveyor road.

It was the quickest spot to unload the car coming from the quarry.

What the Averys had done was they took a '72 Pinto station wagon, parked it horizontally to block so that you couldn't squeeze in between the cars.

But, in reviewing all of the photographs and talking to witnesses, it appears that the cars that were used to block off that road had been moved.

What we started noticing was that this car
- See the hood on it, how it's popped?
- [MEN]

Mm
-hmm.

And see how it only has one tire? Mm
-hmm.

So, we started looking at the damage on her car, and it's got See that bumper on it? It's kind of a darker color.

[KATHLEEN]

We have the parking light in the back of her car that's got the brown smudge on it.

OK? And the thing that's significant is, this car is pushed further back into the Avery property.

It's not pushed from the Avery property onto the quarry.

We think that the RAV damage came from pushing the Pinto bumper
-to
-bumper out of the way to get into that road that then curved around looped around the pond and would have allowed someone to park the RAV where it was.

And then the way they exited was back over the berm or back to the break, back into the quarry.

That's how they got out of there.

[KATHLEEN]

That light is connected to the m*rder.

I think what we need to do is try to link Somehow we have to get a link of her to the people at that quarry, somebody in that quarry, why she would be there.


- Why
- [KATHLEEN]

Yeah.

And then, if we can find that, that could lead us to motive.


- [KATHLEEN]

Right.


- Right.

Somebody's gonna have to tell us.

We'll have to keep talking to people.

And someone may know, that we haven't hit on, that isn't making the connection.

And a lot of people, I think, just heard her car's on Avery's property and her bones are there, so what's there to talk about? I mean, why would anybody think back about some connection to the quarry unless we can develop that lead? There's tons.

I was just talking to somebody the other day, and there's so many misconceptions about this.

And they started rattling on, "Well, what about this?" And I'm like, "That didn't happen.

This didn't happen.

"
- So, people have misconceptions, you know?
- [KATHLEEN]

Yeah.

Well, even talking with some of the jurors we've spoken with and we asked them about the quarry and the relevance in the trial, and they were like, "I didn't really know it had much relevance.

"
- It was barely mentioned.


- [KATHLEEN]

Yeah.

The defense attorneys don't mention that I mean, there's nine dog handlers, and there's probably five to six scent hounds, and then the cadavers, and they're all over in the quarry, you know? So, I think what we gotta do on her is we've got to find people that were close to her that will talk to us.


- It'll be her friends that'll tell us.


- [KATHLEEN]

I totally agree.

It'll come from her friends.

[INDISTINCT TALKING]

[STEVEN]

Kathleen.

She makes me feel like she cares about her clients, what they're going through and everything.

You know, when you got a lawyer that cares about you, that's the lawyer that's good, that's gonna do something for you, you know, get the truth out and get what happened.

[KATHLEEN]

Remember that? [EARL]

Was that vehicle there at that time? The hunters said that it was, but then they noticed it was pushed over into your property.

Because I said to Steven, "It's only got that one tire on it.

How would you guys move it?" And he said, "You could just use a car to push it.

" Yeah, because there was no There was nothing in this thing.

It was gutted.


- It's only a shell.


- Oh.

[KATHRYN]

So, it's just the body of the car That would make it really lightweight.

There was There was Even the floor on the inside was all cut out.

They were gonna make something out of it.


- So, it wouldn't be hard to push it.


- There was no motor.

No tr*nny in it, no nothing.


- [KATHRYN]

It would have been light.


- [EARL]

Yeah.

[KATHLEEN]

Show him her car, though.

[KATHRYN]

Here's a good one.

We can really see that damage there.

[KATHLEEN]

And then it goes all the way up onto the hood.


- [EARL]

Mm
-hmm.


- [KATHRYN]

Mm
-hmm.

That smudge right there might be that
- That paint?
- That might be this bumper.


- Yeah.


- That's true.


- And the right height.


- They push it from an angle.

The top of this bumper, that could be that mark right there.


- Yeah.


- Mm
-hmm.

I want to figure out what that berm Because I feel like that's where they came through.

You know, we spent a lot of time on those scent dogs tracking in the quarry.

[KATHRYN]

That's where they're really hitting, is that quarry.

And then there were bones over there.

That I didn't know, either.


- Yeah.

There was a pelvis over there.


- OK.

So, there's a lot of stuff over there.

He's going just to the berm, right? [KURT]

This is where the conveyor road passed through.

This was This berm wasn't up like this.

It was totally open.

It was the roadway with the conveyor at that time.


- And the conveyor came through.


- Right.

[CHUCK]

My property ends right here.

Yeah, because they got pieces of the conveyor on the other side yet.

[KATHLEEN]

OK.

[KATHLEEN]

Whoa, look at that.


- [KURT]

Back down a little.


- [KATHLEEN]

Let me come down.

Do you want a hand? Give me your hand.


- [CHUCK]

Right, here.


- Here we go.

Thank you.


- Here, give me your hand.

OK.


- [KATHRYN]

Thank you.

[KATHLEEN]

Are we on Radandt's property now? [KURT]

Yeah.

[KATHLEEN]

So, just point to the old road coming in here.

[CHUCK]

It was on Let's see here.

I'm not sure if it was on the left side or the right side.

But it came straight in [CHUCK]

Straight from Highway Q.

[KATHLEEN]

And you could come right into your property.

There was no berm here, right?
- [CHUCK]

No.

No berm, no nothing.


- [KATHLEEN]

Yeah.

So, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out how the car was planted back on the Avery property.

Every crime makes sense.

Every crime can be unraveled.

You can figure it out.

You have to understand the victim, you have to understand the nature of the crime, and you must understand, in intimate detail, the crime scene.

And I don't think any of that was done in this case.

I mean, you've really got to live the case.

You have to be an obsessive kind of personality to do this, you know? But there's no better feeling in the world than walking out of prison with someone who's innocent.

And when I get in the middle of a case like this, and I You'll get to sort of a point where you think, "Is this gonna work? Do we have enough? I need this to work.

" And then I'll In my mind, I flash all those images of me walking out the door with people, you know, people in 15 years, people in ten years.

Just over and over again, I can flash through those.

When people said, "Oh, it can't be done, you can't do this, you can't win this," it's ridiculous.

If someone's innocent, you find a way.

[THEME MUSIC PLAYS]