7.Defense Opening Statement

MR. STRANG: Thank you, your Honor. Good afternoon. This summer it will be 22 years, 22 years since a woman running on the beach in Manitowoc was raped and beaten nearly to death. The Manitowoc County Sheriff's Department investigated those awful crimes and they charged Steven Avery with rape and attempted murder on that Manitowoc beach, 22 summers ago.

He said consistently that he was innocent, that he had not done it. No one believed him, no one but his own family believed him.

And as that case was making its way through the Manitowoc County Circuit Court, just one county over, Teresa Marie Halbach was five and was starting kindergarten. Somewhere else, somewhere we don't know, a man named Gregory Allen, presumably, was laughing and planning his next violent rape.

Eleven years later, in 1996, Steven Avery was trying, still, to make people understand that he was innocent. DNA testing was in its infancy. It was beginning to move into courtrooms, out of scientific laboratories. But we have come a long way, just a few years since 1996, and it was not as advanced as it is today.

But in 1996, Steven Avery took a chance and had blood drawn, a little vial of blood. It was sent off, through the help of his lawyers, for early DNA testing. It couldn't clear him entirely. It helped, but it did not conclusively prove Steven Avery's innocence of the attempted murder and rape on the Manitowoc beach.

And when the tests failed to prove him entirely innocent, that blood was sent back, in a box sealed with evidence tape, to the Manitowoc County Clerk of Court. And there, in 1996, that blood vial, sealed in the box with evidence tape, took up residence in the now 11 year old file of the 1985 case; in a box, in the open, in the Manitowoc County Clerk of Court's Office. And there it sat.

And in 1996, here, just a few miles north of here, Teresa Marie Halbach was learning to drive at age 16, I assume. And the irony --

Could you hear me before? Can you hear me now?

MR. STRANG: All right. Is it the Verizon guy who says that?

Teresa was learning to drive, I assume, at age 16. And the irony -- the irony is that the blood vial in the Clerk's Office probably is what ends up in her car, eventually.

And time moves forward, though, to 2002. Science also has moved forward. DNA testing has improved, and a new effort is made to exonerate Steven Avery.

Now, the blood in the vial, in the box, under the evidence tape, in the Clerk's Office, is not, you will learn, what is used for the 2002 and 2003 DNA testing. But, some materials from that box, that file, the overall file from the 1985 case, some are sent to the Wisconsin State Crime Laboratory in Madison, to Sherry Culhane, to whom Mr. Kratz introduced you.

And the person from the Manitowoc County Sheriff's Department involved, low these many years later, the department was, but a person from the Manitowoc County Sheriff's Department who documented the things that were sent from that old court file to the Crime Laboratory and, therefore, presumably looked at the box and assisted in deciding what to send. That person was, by that time, a lieutenant -- or a detective, now a lieutenant, named James Lenk.

Now, Detective Lenk was with the Manitowoc County Sheriff's Department, had his office in the Sheriff's Department that adjoins, or is connected by a small courtyard, to the Manitowoc County Circuit Court and the Clerk's Office, by a small courtyard to the south of the courthouse. He was, as I say, a detective with the Sheriff's Department. Today he is the lieutenant of the detectives and leads the Detective Unit.

He documented, in 2002, what was sent to the State Crime Laboratory from that file. 2002 is the year that Teresa Halbach graduated from the University of Wisconsin at Green Bay and came home a short distance back, here to Calumet County, to start off a promising career.

In 2003, nearly a year after the necessary DNA samples were sent, the Wisconsin State Crime Laboratory was able to establish that Steven Avery did not rape and beat the woman on the Manitowoc beach, as he had been saying all along. And because of the advance of science, the Crime Lab was better -- was able to do better than that. It was able to establish that Gregory Allen did.

Now, unfortunately, in the time that passed, Mr. Allen had raped violently, again, because he had his liberty while that man did his time. But in the fall of 2003, as the weather was cooling, the State of Wisconsin at long last joined Steven Avery in a motion to set aside his conviction, and an innocent man also went home.

Home for Steven Avery, home is the salvage yard of which you have seen, now, many glorious pictures, from up high, from down low, from angles all over. The pictures are a good deal more glorious looking than the salvage yard itself, but this was home. It's the only home that would take him back after this time.

Allen Avery, Steven's father, back there in the working shirt, just as you might expect; Allen Avery started that business nearly 40 years ago on the 40 acres that he scrimped to buy. He raised sons and a daughter. And they didn't wander far from the business.

Chuck and Earl joined it, Barb works elsewhere, works a factory job, but lives on the property. And this is the sort of business where the family, as you saw, shares the perimeter of this property with the 4,000 rusting, decaying cars that are the refuse, the wreckage of other people's lives.

This is not a glamorous business, but it is a necessary business. It is a good business. And, yes, as you will learn, you have got to get your hands dirty if you're going to be in the salvage business. Not just dirty, you get your hands bloody, because you are working with rusted, jagged metal disassembling cars. And the dirt that grinds into your palms and that you find under your fingernails doesn't wash off at night.

But this was his family's business and this was home. And he rejoined his brother's, Chuck and Earl; and his father, Allen; his mother, Delores, on the family's property and at the business. He became, again, one in the Avery clan, one man in the Avery clan. And tried to resume some normalcy of life, sharing the perimeter of that salvage yard, not in a pretty house in town, on a nice stone foundation, but in a trailer home, down from his sister's trailer home. Both of them down from the doublewide that mom and dad have, and Chuck's trailer toward the back, on the path toward the crusher. And it is, although not glamorous, a worthwhile business and it's work with its own dignity. What would we do, if we didn't have the salvage yards in which to find spare parts. I guess we would be reliant entirely on the big corporations that make the cars, to continue to make spare parts for them and sell them at such prices they might see fit.

So it would be pretty tough without the Allen Averys and the Steven Averys of the world. It would be pretty tough for the guy who is restoring the 1968 Pontiac GTO hard top, in his garage, to do that economically. It would be pretty tough for the guy working on a 1965 Mustang convertible, in his spare time, to do that.

Maybe more importantly, it would be pretty tough for the woman who's got young kids to feed, and a job to hold down, and medical bills, and she just has to get another 50,000 miles out of that 1988 Oldsmobile. And for these people, maybe for you, for many of us, it's a good thing that that young woman's father, or brother, or maybe she, can go to the salvage yard and keep the 1988 Oldsmobile running a little while longer.

Now, in 2003, when Steven went home, Teresa Halbach also was home. Her photography business was flourishing and things were going reasonably well. In 2004, Steven Avery filed a lawsuit seeking some recompense for the hole in his life, the time he had spent as an innocent man, for the crimes that Gregory Allen committed.

This was a serious lawsuit. It was in federal court, down in Milwaukee, and there was no question but that a Manitowoc County Sheriff's Department and, in the end, the court system, had gotten the wrong guy.

And as that lawsuit crept forward, as lawsuits do, we came to October 2005. In October 2005, about the middle part of the month, James Lenk and another ranking officer of the Manitowoc County Sheriff's Department, Sergeant Andrew Colborn, Mr. Lenk and Mr. Colborn both were pulled into the lawsuit, not as defendants or parties to the lawsuit, but as witnesses, witnesses who had their depositions taken in the middle of October, 2005.

Now, a deposition, typically in a civil lawsuit, is an event where you get a subpoena as a witness; you come normally to a lawyer's office, the conference room, the library, the lawyer's office; lawyers from both or all sides are there.

A court reporter is there; these days often a videographer as well. And the court reporter swears the witness under oath, the lawyers ask questions of the witness under oath and they are recorded, much as Mrs. Tesheneck is recording what we're saying here. There's no judge; it happens, as I say, typically in a lawyer's office.

And these two men, Lenk and Colborn, were witnesses. They were witnesses about their own conduct. Neither had been with the Manitowoc County Sheriff's Department in 1985, but an event in 1995 or 1996 came up in that lawsuit. And as to that event, both of them were witnesses being questioned about their own activity and conduct with respect to Mr. Avery's imprisonment.

By the end of that month, unfortunately, those depositions would begin to matter. And indeed, from the time it was filed in 2004, you will learn, the lawsuit itself mattered. This sort of lawsuit, or the public cry of the innocent man wrongly convicted and imprisoned has to be, as you will see here I think, it has to be, as you get into the heads of law enforcement and begin to understand the process of law enforcement, this kind of thing has to be a nightmare for every good law enforcement officer.

These folks do not want to put innocent people in prison. They want to put guilty people in prison. And when they get it wrong, when the whole system gets it wrong, there understandably are feelings of shame, of embarrassment, anger, humiliation, conflicting feelings about this.

This is a good cops worst nightmare, made all the more worse by the fact that Gregory Allen, free, thanks to Steven Avery being convicted instead, Gregory Allen went on to rape and beat again.

This lawsuit kindled real difficult emotions. And the focal point of those emotions, naturally, was the Manitowoc County Sheriff's Department which had investigated the rape many years ago on the Manitowoc beach.

And so when October 31, 2005, Halloween, rolls along, Lieutenant Lenk and Sergeant Colborn not only have the lawsuit to contemplate, but now, within the last three weeks, have been made witnesses in it and had their depositions taken. October 31, 2005, began at the Avery Auto Salvage Yard, much as any workday would. This was a Monday, the yard was open. Not long after 8:00 in the morning, about 8:12 in the morning, Steven Avery called Auto Trader down in -- actually I think in Hales Corners, Highway 100 down on the southwest side of Milwaukee, called Auto Trader, as he had done a number of times before, and said, we need a photographer, we have a car for sale.

Now, the car belonged to Barb Janda, the van, the mini van you saw computer images of and actual photographs of. It was there. It was hers. It was for sale. I don't expect there will be any dispute about that. And it was Barb's to sell. The calls about it were Barb's to take, the price was Barb's to dicker or negotiate with people interested in making an offer, on the used van.

Steve left B. Janda as the name because that was the name of the seller. But Barb works during the day at a factory in town. She does not work at the salvage yard as Steven did. He leaves her telephone number because that's where the phone calls have to go if there's an interested buyer.

And this, you will find out, is not at all unusual or sinister. It doesn't involve luring anyone anywhere. There was a car for sale. There were photographs to be taken. And, indeed, on that day alone, for Teresa Halbach, with the three appointments we know about; this was not the only appointment where the seller of the car was not the person whose name was given to Auto Trader.

The Schmitz car was called in by and listed as an appointment for a Craig Sippel (phonetic). And that little bit of confusion was quickly cleared up by the police. Wasn't really Sippel's car; it was Schmitz's car, no big deal. But she thought she was going to see a Craig Sippel, not a Steven Schmitz.

She thought that she was going to see a B. Janda, I suppose, not a Steven Avery. But here's what she knew, she knew the address. Steven gave the address. This is an address, as Mr. Kratz explained to you and I agree, to which Teresa Halbach had been a number of times, probably about a half dozen, five, six, maybe more times, to take photographs of cars or the trailer for sale, for example, the photograph you saw.

She knows the address. She knows where she's going. As you will see, this is not a surprise, or a secret to her or to anyone else. And at 11:45 that morning, she called Barb Janda's number and evidently left a voice mail message saying that she would be able to get there that day, sometime after 2:00.

Now, this Manitowoc County area was Teresa's territory so to speak, for Auto Trader. This was her freelance work as I understand, not her main source of income. Her photography studio work I think probably was her passion and this was a side job for a young photographer to generate some more money.

She has a territory for Auto Trader. Steven Avery wouldn't necessarily know what her territory is or whether she's the only photographer working it. And sometime close to 2:30, he's obviously getting fidgety. He makes two phone calls to her cell phone from his cell phone and he uses the *67 feature, you will find out, which as I understand it on the -- on Teresa's telephone, then, no telephone number would come up; come up is unavailable, or something like that, or blocked.

But he is on his own cell phone and he may not want, not being entirely sure whose number he is calling, he may not want to be giving out his cell phone number. At least the second of those calls goes unanswered.

And the time frame gets fuzzy here. Mr. Kratz said that it was late afternoon that Teresa arrived and I'm inclined to agree with that; although it is difficult to nail down. But I think the best evidence you will hear is that although Teresa Halbach is in the neighborhood of the Zipperers, who are really just -- I don't know how far, but not too far down Highway 147 and then south toward Manitowoc a little bit. So they are in the general vicinity. And I think at about 2:15 she's near the Zipperers, trying to figure out exactly where she's going to get to the Zipperers to take that photograph of their car. But I think the best -- the best estimate we'll get out of the evidence of when she actually arrives at Avery Road, which is that gravel road that leads down towards, first, Barb Janda's trailer and then Steven Avery's trailer, which you saw on the north edge of the 40 acre parcel; the best estimate of when she swings her Toyota down that gravel road is probably shortly before 3:30, probably not 2:45, as one of Barb Janda's sons, Bobby Dassey, recalls it.

Why do I say the best estimate, because there is a school bus driver. Two of Barb Janda's boys, Brendan and Blaine, are still in Mishicot High School and it's Monday, as I said. And they ride the school bus. And school schedules being what they are, of course, unless there is really terrible weather or something, school lets out at the exact same time every day, the bell rings and kids run out the door.

The bus is going to be leaving about the same time and the bus driver will be driving the same route every day. So this bus driver, who's no relation to the Avery family, or the Halbachs, or anybody else for that matter, just happens to be the school bus driver; her name is Lisa Buchner.

Lisa Buchner, when interviewed by the police says, you know, about 3:30 when I dropped the Dassey boys off at the head of Avery Road, I looked down the road and I saw a young woman taking a photograph, or photographs, of a van. Now, Buchner actually isn't sure when she's questioned about this whether it's Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday of that week.

But Monday is the day that a young woman would have been taking a photograph of the van, down near the end of Avery Road. So she's got a pretty good reason to have a good bead on the time. She's going to know her route, this is something she's doing five days a week. And it's about 3:30 that she sees this young woman down the road, taking a photograph of the van.

Teresa Halbach does her business. And the way this works is the person selling the car then gives the photographer $40. The photographer makes out a receipt for the transaction, typically also offers the customer the current copy, current edition of the Auto Trader Magazine and leaves.

And that's what Teresa Halbach did. Steven Avery last sees her going back out Avery Road and about to turn left to go back out to Highway 147.

Now, somebody clearly sees her later. We don't know who, I don't know where, I don't know when. And I, like Mr. Kratz, don't know why.

I do know this and can tell you that you will hear this about the evidence. One of the things that the photographers who freelance or work for Auto Trader do, is to go take photographs on appointments that have been set for them through the Auto Trader office.

But there is another thing they can do, they get some money for that, obviously. Some of the $40 goes to the photograph. But there's another thing they can do and that's called a hustle shot. The hustle shot is exactly that, it's business that the photographer hustles up for herself, or for himself.

And as an incentive for the photographer, to hustle a little bit and, you know, thicken the Auto Trader Magazine with new customers selling cars, or boats, or trailers, or whatever, as an incentive for their photographers to do that, Auto Trader gives the photographer a little bigger cut on a hustle shot.

You are going to learn that Teresa Halbach was good at hustle shots. She drummed up a lot of these. She was likeable. She was hard working. She was good at getting hustle shots.

I have no idea -- I have no idea at all and I don't think you will either, unfortunately, whether she had a hustle shot, or two, or three, that day or not. It would not have been uncommon. But if, in fact, she's near the Zipperers at 2:15 and as I think is probable from the evidence, she doesn't show up to the Averys until about 3:30, it's possible there's a hustle shot in there or I suppose stopping for lunch or something, we don't know.

It's possible there are hustle shots that are not scheduled through Auto Trader after the Avery shot. Because after all, I mean, if we're at 3:30, there's a good bit of daylight left in the working day, I suppose. But we don't know. What we do know is that someone sees her later. And Steven Avery calls her later, as a matter of fact, from his cell phone. Again, he calls her cell phone at about 4:35 that afternoon. Why, because he thought, I have got another car I would like to sell. I might as well, if she's still around, or if she can swing back, I might as well have her shoot that one too.

But he doesn't get an answer from her, doesn't answer the phone, when he calls at 4:35. He sticks around. And at that point his girlfriend, Jodi Stachowski, is in jail serving some time for a drunk driving conviction. She's in the Manitowoc County Jail.

Jodi, you will learn, calls Steven regularly. Because she's in jail, she has to call collect. And you can't call collect from a jail to a cell phone. I don't know if you can call collect to any cell phone from anywhere. But in any event, you can't call a cell phone from the jail, calling collect. So you have got to call a land line.

So that's exactly what Jodi Stachowski does, first a little bit after 5:30 in the evening she calls. And jail systems, I don't know if you know this, but jail systems, typically, and the Manitowoc County Jail clearly does this, cut off phone calls after 15 minutes. Inmates have a lot of time on their hands, sometimes people they are calling don't. So the call just ends at 15 minutes.

So Jodi calls about a little bit after 5:30 on the land line. And then she calls again just shortly before 9:00 p.m. And Steven is home. Steven answers the phone in his little red trailer there, both times. And both of those conversations go 15 minutes, almost to the second.

He tells her that he's been doing a little cleaning. He tells her that Brendan, his nephew, Brendan Dassey, is over. They hassle. These are inane conversations, honestly, but they are tape recorded, because every phone call out of the jail is tape recorded, so we know they happen.

Does it sound like he's just killed someone, no. Does he hide the fact that his nephew, Brendan, from 50 yards away, or whatever it is, Barb's trailer, has come over, no. Doesn't have to tell Jodi that, if they were up to something no good, but he does. Brendan is around.

And for all the world, as I say, these conversations simply are inane, they don't ring of someone who has committed a murder or in the midst of committing a murder, or in the midst of mutilating a corpse or falsely imprisoning anyone, no screaming in the background. They are just inane telephone conversations between a squabbling boyfriend and a squabbling girlfriend.

And October 31 comes to a close. It's about three days later, Thursday evening about 5:00, November 3, when Mrs. Halbach reports Teresa missing. Teresa lives almost next door to the elder Halbachs; I mean, the two houses, you can see the one from the other, on the dairy farm, up north of here, in Calumet County.

So the report goes to the Calumet County Sheriff's Department. It's a missing person report. No one has seen Teresa since Sunday, actually. And the Calumet County Sheriff's office responds, interviews the family, a couple of close friends, and learns very quickly about these three appointments that Teresa had on Monday. Now, at least two of those -- at least two, maybe the third even, but at least two, are in Manitowoc County; Zipperers and Avery, or B. Janda.

So the Calumet County Sheriff's Department calls for help from the Manitowoc County Sheriff's Department on this missing person report; that very night, 5:00, the report is made. By the end the of the dinner hour, Calumet County is calling the Manitowoc County Sheriff's Department for a little bit of help.

And who do we get? We get Sergeant Andrew Colborn. And he's told, look, two places we would like to sort of check out and see if Teresa Halbach showed up on Monday, the Zipperer residence and Steven Avery. Well, that's a name that rings a bell, you better believe; less than three weeks, or about three weeks, after his deposition.

And it is interesting that of those two places that Sergeant Colborn is asked to check out and inquire after Teresa Halbach, he only goes to one. He goes to Steven Avery's home and Steven cooperates with him. Tells him essentially what I have told you about Teresa Halbach coming to take the picture of Barb Janda's van. Doesn't clam up, doesn't seem nervous, isn't uncooperative; that very night, November 3, around 7:00, when Sergeant Colborn knocks on his door. Out of the blue, the same night, Lieutenant James Lenk, now the head of the Detective Unit in Manitowoc County Sheriff's Department, calls Calumet about this missing person report. Now, at this time, on Thursday night, November 3, this is -- let's be clear, this is just a missing person report, a young woman who hasn't been seen for three days.

It's in another county. It's not even Manitowoc County at all. And nobody has called for Lieutenant Lenk. And nobody's called looking for him. But the chief detective of Manitowoc County takes it upon himself, that night, to call Calumet and offer to get involved in the missing person investigation where one of the appointments that was to be kept was Steven Avery.

And the next morning, Lieutenant Lenk does one better than that, he goes out himself to Steven Avery's trailer with another officer from Manitowoc. And he knocks on the door again, just as Sergeant Colborn had done the night before, inquiring after Teresa Halbach. Again, Steven Avery is cooperative.

Lieutenant Lenk asks, could I take a walk through your trailer, can I look around, do you mind? No, I don't mind. Come on in. Lieutenant Lenk walks through Steven's trailer, sees nothing amiss, thanks him for his cooperation and leaves.

November 5, Saturday, Steven has left to go to the family cabin up in Crivitz, early that morning, where Allen goes every weekend and most of the family goes up too. Steven has gone up on Saturday morning. But about 10:30 on Saturday morning, Pam and Nikole Sturm find the Toyota they suspect, correctly, as it turns out, is Teresa's. As it turns out, is Teresa's, in the far diagonal corner of the salvage yard from Steven Avery's trailer.

As you might expect, law enforcement officers descend on the property and the first to arrive are Manitowoc County Sheriff's Department officers at just about 11:00, in the morning, on the nose. And, folks, from that point forward, from 11:00 a.m. on Saturday, November 5, 2005, this is not so much a funnel approach, as you will see. It is a tunnel approach. It is a tunnel vision approach to this case.

All of the feelings about Steven Avery, all of those churning emotions, all of that, within the Manitowoc County Sheriff's Department, floods out. You can call it tunnel vision, you can call it investigative bias, but from that point on, this investigation is about Steven Avery and not much else.

From 11:00 in the morning on Saturday, November 5, 2005, before the police say they have even opened the car; before they say they know of any blood of any sort in or on the car; before anybody even knows whether this young woman has been hurt or killed, the focus is on Steven Avery.

Other people are asked, her male roommate; former boyfriend and current friend, Ryan Hillegas; others are asked: Do you know anything about her disappearance? Did you have anything to do with it? All of them say no. And those denials, those statements are accepted.

Not Steven Averys, not Steven Avery's denials or expressions of innocence. Time and again the police go back to Steven Avery and ask the same questions. And he talks to them every time.

Even by the time his lawyers in the civil lawsuit down in federal court in Milwaukee find out about it and are trying to encourage him not to the talk to the police, he talks. On the 3rd to Colborn, on the 4th to Lenk, on the 5th to officers up in Crivitz, on the 6th, on the 9th, he talks. And he is not believed. Do they want to go through his house, sure, come on in my house, on November 4, Lieutenant Lenk.

After the Toyota is found and the police arrive at about 11:00, that Saturday morning, Lieutenant Lenk and Sergeant Colborn come in to work and they too arrive at the Avery property. You will hear that Lieutenant Lenk now has changed his sworn version of when he arrived that afternoon.

And he has the ability to change his sworn story about when he arrived that afternoon at the Avery property, because somehow he avoided signing in on the log, the log sheets that the Calumet County Sheriff's Department was keeping of that potential crime scene. He signed out, but somehow he managed not to sign in. And on that 40 acre parcel, after the Toyota has been turned over to the Division of Criminal Investigation in Madison, now, as search efforts are to be begin on that parcel, now the Manitowoc County Sheriff's Department nominally turns over control of the investigation to Sheriff Jerry Pagel of the Calumet County Sheriff's Department, this county's sheriff's department. Nominally, that afternoon, control of this investigation was turned over to Calumet from Manitowoc because of the apparent conflict of interest that Mr. Avery's lawsuit represents for the Manitowoc County Sheriff's Department.

Now, if you are thinking, though, that the evidence will show you that Manitowoc County bowed out because of the conflict of interest after it turned the investigation over to Calumet County; if you are thinking that, it's reasonable, but you are wrong. Manitowoc County Sheriff's Department stays very much involved in this investigation.

And what does Lieutenant Lenk and what does Sergeant Colborn do by way of volunteering to help, that very afternoon, Saturday November 5. Do they volunteer to help look in the 4,000 cars? No. Do they volunteer to search Allen and Delores Avery's home? No. How about the pole barns or the outbuildings of the salvage property's business itself? No. They volunteer to search Steven Avery's trailer. And they do, on November 5.

And once they get into that trailer with the search warrant, well, then, what these two do -- and there are two other officers with them, one from Manitowoc and one from Calumet -- what Lenk and Colborn do is, they say, don't worry, we'll take Steven's bedroom. And they search this bedroom.

Now, this is a mobile home. If the bedroom itself is 10 by 12, or 12 by 12, or 10 by 10, I would be surprised if it was much bigger than that. From me to the wall in front of you is about the depth and roughly the width of that bedroom in the small trailer in which Steven Avery lives.

They search, that is, Lenk and Colborn search his bedroom on the night of November 5. And they find nothing of interest. They see the guns; they stay on the wall. But don't bother seizing guns on the 5th, come back to those the next day. And it is Lenk and Colborn who come back the next day, not somewhere on the property, but to Steven Avery's trailer.

On November 6, they search his garage, garage is actually between him and his sister Barb's trailer, but for our purpose here, let's call it his garage. You will find out that the Dassey boys have access to the garage, Barb has access, the family has access to this garage.

But it's Lenk and Colborn and another detective from Manitowoc County named Dave Remiker who searched the garage on Sunday, the 6th. They find 10, maybe it's 11, something, 10 or 11 spent .22 casings. And they pick all of those up.

But remember -- remember the bullet that's found under little tent number 9 on the picture that Mr. Kratz showed you? The bullet that's apparently in a crack in the floor, right smack in the middle of the garage near the front where the door is? That, no one sees or picks up on November 6th, November 7th, November 8th and so forth through November 12th.

Neither does anyone see a bullet back under the air compressor. But you will see photographs of that garage as it was in November 2005, not as it was in March, 2006, when, finally, low and behold, why there's bullets, why don't we pick up these bullets.

You will see the garage in photographs, not computer simulations, photographs, as it was in November, 2005. You will be able to see, that although the garage is very cluttered, there's no clutter under the air compressor. There's no clutter there, where four months later someone finds a magic bullet, there, as you walk into the garage, looking at the floor.

November 7, Steven Avery's trailer is searched again, guess who; Lenk and Colborn. Now there probably -- There certainly are over 50 law enforcement officers on this property, 24 hours a day, well before November 7th, probably by sometime late the night of the 5th, certainly by the 6th. There may be over 100 law enforcement officers working this property.

They have got the family excluded. They have got a perimeter around the entire 40 acres and more. They are controlling traffic and entry. They are logging in who comes and goes. They control this place. And as you heard Mr. Kratz say, they have got any number of people searching, but it's Lenk and Colborn, again, who are searching Mr. Avery's trailer, there in the northwest corner of that salvage yard. And on November 7th, they find nothing of interest in his home.

Tuesday, November 8, they are back. They are back in Mr. Avery's home, back in that small bedroom. And now, Lieutenant Lenk, on what you will hear is probably the seventh search of that small bedroom, Lieutenant Lenk, now, when he's the only one in that room, says, why, my gosh, there's a key sitting in plain view, next to the night stand.

There is, you saw a picture of it as he says he found it, one solitary key on a ring, connected to a fob. That key fob is just like, and probably is, the one that Teresa Halbach's younger sister bought her as a little present. One key, and one key only, on the ring connected to that fob, it's a Toyota key.

And the man whom the State would have you believe bled all over Teresa's car, manages not to bleed on her key. His blood isn't found there, although, apparently, somehow his DNA is, but not his fingerprints. And more interestingly, although this is a 1999 Toyota and I gather she's been using this key, the State believes, every day to start her car and turn it off, Teresa Halbach's DNA and fingerprints are not found on her key.

For good measure, on November 8, Lieutenant Lenk and Sergeant Colborn searched Steven Avery's garage yet again. No bullets, no nothing. And the case against Steven Avery, largely, is made at that point. And a whole lot of it, as you will see, depends on lieutenant James Lenk, Sergeant Andy Colborn.

And they, both of them, have elected never to tell Sheriff Jerry Pagel, the man in charge of the investigation for Calumet County; they have elected not to tell him that they had their depositions taken in Steven Avery's case probably three weeks earlier. They didn't tell anybody in the Calumet County Sheriff's Department that.

November 8 is also the day that the bone fragments are found in a burn area hardly 20 yards outside Steven Avery's master bedroom window. Hardly 20 yards. Small burnt bone fragments, human burnt bone fragments. But what you will learn and you do not hear this morning, what you will learn is that burnt human bone fragments also apparently are found in one of the burn barrels behind Barb Janda's house.

Burnt the same way, fragmented about the same way, and apparently human in origin. Not Steven Avery's burn barrel, not the one you heard about, but there are four burn barrels to the southeast, that is the most distant corner of Barb Janda's trailer, from Steven Avery's trailer. Four burn barrels back there for Barb Janda and the Dassey boys. Burnt bone fragments.

And there are what seem to be probable human burnt fragmented bones found in the Radandt Gravel Quarry, probably a quarter mile south of Steven Avery's property.

Now, I don't think that the State has been able to link, through DNA analysis, those burnt bone fragments conclusively to Teresa Halbach.

But how many burnt human bone fragments are there supposed to be, and when you only have one person missing. And the burnt human bone fragments in the Janda burn barrel, about which you did not hear this morning, those are fragments from bones that are not connected, not part of one limb, not connected to one another within the human body. Sort of a random mix of bone fragments, as apparently are those that are found a quarter mile to the south in the Radandt gravel pit.

And as you piece this evidence together, here's what you are going to have to conclude, bone fragments, parts of this body were found where they were not burned. They were burned and moved because, again, the fragments aren't connected to one another.

It's not that, you know, it's not that an arm could have been removed and burned one place and the rest of the body another place. We have got the fragments themselves mixed up and found in three different places. The body couldn't have been burned in that way, in three different places or even two, if you set aside the Radandt gravel pit. These bone fragments were moved.

The question then becomes, the question you will have to decide eventually is, were they moved from Steven Avery's burn area to the Janda burn barrel or the gravel quarry, or were they moved from somewhere else to Steven Avery's burn area and maybe to one of the other places where bone fragments, burnt, are found. At least, did they start in the burn area and get moved somewhere else, or did they start somewhere else, burned somewhere else and get moved to the burn area. Now, an expert -- experts here, in what scientists will call thermal injuries to bodies, cremation, an expert or two, to the extent you hear that, may be able to give you some help on that question, some help, but I'm not sure that an expert can answer this conclusively.

In the end, you folks are going to have to do the hard work and the hard thinking on that. But I think when you have heard it all, you will conclude that it's at least most likely, more probable, that the bones were moved to Steven Avery's burn area, not burned there and moved from that area to another place or two.

Why? You are going to find out that there are better places, even on the Avery salvage yard property, in which to incinerate a body. The burn area is relatively flat and scooped out a little bit, but it's relatively flat and open. It's a burn area, like many farms or rural homes have, just folks have burn barrels.

It doesn't have well developed sides to focus heat back inward on the fuel or things being burned. Neither does it have a ready external source of fuel. But the aluminum smelter, the aluminum smelter at the Avery Auto Salvage property does. Big propane jets, an enclosed area, it will take an aluminum transmission down to liquid in a few minutes.

The wood furnace that heats the outbuildings of the Avery Auto Salvage business; Chuck's home; Allen and Delores' home, that's an enclosed area that will incinerate fuel in it very quickly.

And because we have got probable human burnt bone fragments found on the adjoining property, the gravel quarry to the south, we can't rule out other possible burn sites. And an expert won't be able to tell you what other possible burn sites there are. Expert or not, that's not something he or she will be able to tell you.

But once it's more likely, as I think you will find it to be more likely, that the body is burned somewhere else and bone fragments then are brought to Steven Avery's burn area, then he's not guilty. Because if he's the one who burned the body somewhere else, he's not going to bring the bones back to dump them 20 yards outside his bedroom window.

Neither is he going to dump a cell phone and a digital camera and a palm pilot in his own burn barrel. Too many other places where these things could be disposed of out in the salvage yard, whether the retention pond, whether the gravel quarry, or some other burn barrel in the woods. So once you understand that those bones probably were not burned in that burn area, the fact that they are found there, you will see tends to suggest he's not guilty, not that he is.

It is perfectly clear to anyone around this investigation on whom the focus of the Manitowoc County Sheriff's Department and the other investigators, to the extent that tunnel vision, that investigative bias bled over, it's perfectly clear on whom the focus of this investigation is.

The police didn't kill Teresa Halbach, obviously, they have that in common with Steven Avery, but they wanted to believe he did. They very much wanted to believe that he did. And whoever did kill her, or burned that body, exploited that tunnel vision pretty skillful.

Suggesting this sort of tunnel vision, suggesting this kind of investigative bias, planting blood in her car, fairly serious allegations to make. In fact, I will take away the fairly, they are serious allegations. Understand them, that bias and tunnel vision are human anomalies.

And if you conclude, reluctantly, that Mr. Lenk or Mr. Colborn, in addition to all the other interests they took in searching and focusing on Steven Avery, planted blood in her car, you will also conclude that they put it there because they figured it had to be there. It should be there. It must be him.

This wasn't so much, I think the evidence will show you, an effort to frame an innocent man, it was an intense, intense desire to conclude that he, in fact, was the guilty man; all other possible leads for information not withstanding. It was an immediate focus on this man, starting shortly after 11:00, Saturday, November 5, 2005. But you do not have to take my word for that.

I can make this work; I'm not as adept at it as I should be. I'm going to play for you, two tapes, a part of it, just excerpts, short excerpts of two tapes. The first one is Saturday, November 5, 2005, at 11:35 in the morning, 35 minutes give or take a minute or two, after the Manitowoc County Sheriff's Department first has arrived at the Avery property, because that Toyota has been found; well before the police say they opened the Toyota; well before they say they knew of any blood; well before Brutus, the friendly cadaver dog comes along and hits; 35 minutes after the first officers arrived when the Sturm's called and said, hey, we think we found something.

What I'm going to do is scroll through a transcript that we prepared and then I will play the excerpt of the tape for you. It is not a great recording. The transcript is not evidence, the tape will be, I expect. So if you think my transcript is wrong, listen to the tape; it's the evidence, or it will be. That's the tape that matters. The transcript may help you in understanding it or hearing it.

Detective Remiker is calling in, he's asking for dispatch. Dispatch responds, I put unintelligible, I think it's go ahead, but I'm not sure, you can decide. Maybe you won't understand it for sure either.

Detective Remiker says to the dispatcher, you will need to get ahold of the Crime Lab for their evidence response team to start responding to this location. Now, he's out at the Avery Salvage Yard. As you will hear. Dispatch says, 10-4, Crime Lab out of Madison, Milwaukee, where?

Our Crime Lab has branches in Wausau, Madison and Milwaukee. The main one is in Madison. Detective Remiker says, it's going to be the Madison response team and he was right.

Now, Detective Jacobs joins in, this radio traffic, radio conversation. Calls in with his badge number, his squad number, I'm in code, you will find out what that means, anything you need other than a portable for Schetter. And what you'll find out is he's talking about a portable radio for Deputy Inspector Greg Schetter of the Manitowoc County Sheriff's Department who is, I think, the number two or three ranking officer in the Department and who's probably also going out to the Avery property. Detective Remiker, not that I can think of right now, Dennis. Dennis Jacobs. Let's see if this work.

MR. STRANG: It cut off. Sorry about that, you will hear -- You will get a chance to hear the whole conversation. And it continues, Dennis Jacobs says, okay, other than the car, do we have anything else. He's talking to Remiker here. Dave Remiker says, not yet. Detective Jacobs, Okay. Is he in custody? Detective Remiker, Negative, nothing yet.

Not who, not is who in custody, but negative. He is not in custody, nothing yet. Detective Jacobs, Okay. I'll gather my stuff and head out.

MR. STRANG: Now, that's 11:35, is he in custody yet. Detective Remiker, clearly, I gather, as I hear it, knows who Detective Jacobs is talking about, but we don't, 35 minutes after the police have arrived.

And to get a better feel for that conversation at 11:35, we have to go back five minutes earlier when Detective Jacobs is calling in on the land line, 5 minutes earlier, 30 minutes, 30 minutes after the police have arrived at the Avery property after Teresa's car has been found there.

Dispatcher answers the phone. Detective Jacobs, Katie -- the name of the dispatcher -- just rolled into the parking lot. Can you tell me, do we have a body or anything yet? Do we have a body or anything yet? This is 30 minutes after they found the car.

I don't believe so. I believe they wouldn't find the first bone fragment for three days. Do we have Steven Avery in custody, though? I have no idea. You can hear it yourself.

MR. STRANG: Now, I will finish it out so you can link it up to the call -- the discussion with Detective Remiker 5 minutes later. Oh, I heard him say pick up that party. Oh no, the dispatcher says, Pete, who is just another Manitowoc County Sheriff's officer, is sitting up there waiting and stopping people from going in and that. He found someone with a body only warrant for our department.

A body only warrant is an arrest warrant or a bench warrant where they are going to take the person into custody, rather than immediately grant him bail. Okay. Do we have -- All right. I will talk to Remiker. Yeah, your best bet is to talk -- because nothing has come through. We have the vehicle, that I know. But more than that, I don't know. All right. Bye. Bye.

MR. STRANG: So you can take the tunnel vision and investigative bias from them, not from me. Now, in the end here, in the end, when you have heard it all, there's not a speck of Teresa Halbach's blood anywhere in Steven Avery's trailer. There's not a piece of hair, nothing, nothing to suggest she's ever been in the trailer. And only the magic bullet found 4 months later to suggest she's ever been anywhere near the garage.

And when you consider the forces, the emotions, the very human failings at work here, it's no surprise that the blood from that unsecured vial, in the box, in the Clerk's Office, that Lieutenant Lenk examined back in 2002, ends up in that Toyota. Because that's where it ought to be. Is he in custody yet?

Jerome Buting and I will not ask you to make that kind of snap judgment here. The Halbachs deserve better than that. The police deserve better than that. You owe it to yourselves, in making this decision, to do better than a snap judgment, a snap judgment 30 minutes after that Toyota is found.

Jerome Buting and I are going to ask you to do your job right. Think long and hard about all of the evidence. But in the end, after the full and fair consideration of everything and everyone, the full and fair consideration that Steven Avery did not get in 2005, from the Manitowoc County Sheriff's Department; we're going to ask you to send him home. We're going to ask you to send him home, again. We're going to ask you to get it right this time. We're going to ask you to set it right when this case is over.