4.State’s Opening Statement

MR. KRATZ: We're all a little nervous this morning. And I think that if we admit that, we, being the lawyers, and the jurors asked to decide this important matter, I think we're all going to be better off.

And on behalf of the State, let me first start by thanking you, thanking you for your jury service, thanking you for your attention that you are about to give in this case, and thanking you in detail for what in jury selection we talked about may perhaps be the most important decision that you will ever make, at least for the rest of your lives.

You will note, and we have already introduced, that there are three attorneys on this case, myself, Ken Kratz, the Calumet County District Attorney. This is my courthouse. And I'm joined by Mr. Fallon who is seated directly to my right. Mr. Fallon is an Assistant Attorney General with the Department of Justice. And joining us also is Mr. Norm Gahn.

MR. KRATZ: Mr. Gahn is an Assistant District Attorney in Milwaukee County, Wisconsin. You will learn that each of us are special prosecutors in this case. But what's so special about a special prosecutor? Why would some small town lawyer from Chilton be in charge of this entire prosecution, this big of a case? Why would Ken Kratz be asked to lead up this prosecution?

We'll talk about how this case was assigned over, but just understand, at least for this person, that although we are all experienced prosecutors, we're doing a favor for Manitowoc County. It's a rather big favor for Manitowoc County, but it's a favor nonetheless. It is helping the Manitowoc County District Attorney's Office in presenting this case.

Mr. Rohrer, your District Attorney, asked me to take over the case early on. You will learn about when that happened. But it is still something that we were simply asked to and we did, in fact, perform.

There's two investigators in this case. Now, you are going to hear that there were hundreds of law enforcement officers involved in this investigation, but these kinds of cases require direction. They require leadership by law enforcement officials that have experience.

The first lead investigator in the case who is seated in the courtroom is Mark Wiegert.

MR. KRATZ: Mr Wiegert is an investigator with the Calumet County Sheriff's Department.

The other lead investigator in this case is Tom Fassbender. Mr. Fassbender works for the Department of Justice. He works for a law enforcement branch of the Department of Justice which is called the Division of Criminal Investigation.

And, again, knowing who we are, knowing who the five of us are, the prosecution team, we hope may help in determining what's important in these cases.

The Judge has told you, at least in brief terms, what an opening statement is. But often times evidence comes in in bits and pieces, especially in a six week trial. That isn't something that you will expect all of the evidence to come at you at once. And so if we can provide a road map or an overview of what the evidence is going to show, that should be helpful for you.

Some juries that I have spoken to, it's been helpful to describe this process as the provision of the cover of a jigsaw puzzle box. All right. You think of evidence as pieces in a jigsaw puzzle. You wouldn't tell, if you were handed one piece of a jigsaw puzzle, where that's going to go. But if you got the box and if you have the box, some of the pieces are obvious where they go; some are not so obvious, but at least it's a guide. It's a help for you as to where these pieces all fit.

Now, before I go any further, I want to talk to you about something that I know some of you, in your specific questions, expressed as some concern and that's the nature of the evidence that's going to be presented. This is a very, very serious crime and potentially has very, very graphic kinds of details that may be involved or may be presented.

But there is some uncertainty about how much evidence is going to be presented. And I wanted to assure you, as the lead prosecutor, as the person responsible for the presentation of the case a couple of things.

Number one, and perhaps most importantly for you, as the jury, I'm only going to present those pieces of evidence that are necessary; those pieces that are necessary to tell you the entire story. My job is not to present gruesome, or overly graphic information for you.

And I think as we go through this process, you are going to find that the evidence is pretty straight forward. It is not necessarily gruesome or graphic, isn't something that you should fear at this early stage. All right.

I understand the sensitivities not only of you, but of most of the people seated on the left hand side of the courtroom. And I -- actually, I want you to look over to the left side of the courtroom. That's the Halbach family.

You are going to see them throughout the case, friends and family. And I want to assure you that before the first piece of evidence is ever introduced in this case, everyone of those people: The mother, the father, the brothers, the sisters, the friends, and any other family members that wanted to, have already seen all of this evidence. All right.

I sat down with them and as sensitively as I possibly could, allowed them an opportunity to review the evidence. That's just something that a prosecutor should do and that's all been done. So as you see photographs being presented, as you see physical evidence being brought into the courtroom; I want to assure you that the Halbach family already has seen it.

They have already known the kinds of evidence that are going to be presented. And I think that that was necessary for you to hear and necessary for you to understand that this family does have that information.

The Judge has told you that there's four charges. I'm very, very briefly going to talk about those four, because I don't want to reiterate what the Judge did. But there are four separate charges that the defendant is charged with: First degree intentional homicide, mutilation of a corpse, felon in possession of a firearm and false imprisonment.

Now, the Judge instructed you and my job today in opening statement, again, this isn't evidence, but it is a help for you; it's the cover if you will; it's the road map; it's the overview, to talk about the first legal concept that you as a jury has to understand. And that's the concept called being a party to the crime.

The Judge has told you that that can be satisfied either if the defendant committed an offense himself or if the defendant aided and abetted another in the commission of the offense. Now, the first two counts, the homicide and the mutilation of a corpse are charged as a party to the crime. And so you will learn, at the conclusion of the case, six weeks from now, if you fast forward six weeks from now, that the jury instructions will tell you that if the defendant committed any of those elements himself, or if the defendant aided in another -- another -- excuse me -- aided and abetted another in the commission of those offenses, that you can and should find him guilty.

Now, I can't stand up here and predict what the defense is going to bring into this case, what cross-examination they may encounter, or if they even choose to present any kind of defense, nor should I. That isn't my job.

My job, as the prosecutor, is to present our case, to present the physical evidence that we have developed, to present the witnesses that we have developed to prove our case. But just understand, and just remember this concept when it comes time to deciding whether or not the defendant is guilty.

The Judge also told you about something called elements of the offense. The State has the burden of proof here. The defense has absolutely no burden. And our burden is to prove the case, beyond a reasonable doubt.

The Judge explained to you already that beyond a reasonable doubt means a doubt for which a reason can be given when considering all the evidence. Let me tell you what it is not, though. Beyond a reasonable doubt is not beyond all doubt. It's not 100 percent. And when we are dealing with a human justice system, you can't expect beyond all doubt, or beyond a shadow of a doubt, or comments sometimes that we have heard about that.

It's beyond a reasonable doubt. A doubt for which a reason can be given. And I'm standing before you, members of the jury, telling you that I accept that burden. I will prove this case, beyond a reasonable doubt. But we didn't want you going into this case expecting one hundred percent, or beyond all doubt, because there are human factors or dynamics that go into these cases.

Each charge, the Judge told you, has elements of those offense, we're going to go through those in just a minute. But, also, each of the four charges should be considered separately. You shouldn't group them together and decide if he is guilty of all four or none. Each of the four counts are to be considered separately. And, in fact, there is separate evidence for all four of those counts.

And, finally, the defendant is presumed innocent. As Mr. Avery sits here today, because you have heard no evidence in this case, he is presumed by you, or should be presumed by you, to be innocent. However, and this is a big however, that presumption disappears at that very moment when the evidence in this case satisfies you, beyond a reasonable doubt, that he is guilty of that offense. That presumption disappears at the moment that the evidence proves that he is guilty.

Count 1, the Judge instructed you, has two elements. And why I'm telling you this and why I'm showing them on the screen or on a PowerPoint presentation is because these are serious, serious crimes; in fact, the most serious crimes that we have in the State of Wisconsin.

The legal concepts aren't all that complex. We are talking about two things that we have to prove, caused the death of somebody and did it intentionally. Nothing magic about that, nothing complex about that and all of you should be able to understand that.

The same thing with mutilation of a corpse, just the two elements; that he mutilated a corpse and that he did so to conceal a crime that had been committed. You will hear evidence in this case about what that crime was that he was trying to conceal. The crime, as you may have already guessed, is the first degree intentional homicide.

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

Now, the Judge has told you that that second element is stipulated. Stipulation means that the facts are agreed to by the parties; that you can take that as already having been proved, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Mr. Avery has that felony conviction. And so it's just the first element of that offense that the State has to prove. Do you all understand that? All right. Now, false imprisonment has five separate elements to the offense. Those five elements are that he confined or restrained, note that that's in the disjunctive; he either confined or restrained Teresa Halbach, intentionally, without her consent. He didn't have authority and he knew that he didn't have authority to confine or restrain Ms Halbach.

All right. Enough of the civics lesson. Let's talk about what the evidence is going to show. On Monday, October 31st, 2005, beginning at approximately 2:45 p.m., the State intends to prove to you that the defendant restrained, murdered, and mutilated a 25 year old photographer named Teresa Halbach.

We're going to prove to you what happened. We're going to prove to you who committed this crime. We're going to prove to you where it happened. We're going to prove to you when, specifically, it happened. And those will prove all of the elements of the offense.

What we're not going to prove to you, what the Judge has already told you we don't have to and, in fact, can't prove to you, is why. We can't prove the why in a case like this. That's called motive, the reason behind the killing; what was in Mr. Avery's mind when he decided to kill this lovely young woman.

I'm going to introduce you to somebody. This remarkable young woman was 25 years of age; she was single; she was a freelance photographer. She had her own photography business that was, although in its infancy, was doing quite well.

This woman, and I will remind you several times in this opening and throughout the trial, I will remind you that we're talking about a real person. We're talking about somebody's daughter, somebody's sister, a lot of people's friend. Teresa Halbach had her whole life in front of her and the evidence is going to show that on Halloween of 2005, that all ended, that ended in the hands of the defendant, Steven Avery.

It's such a big case, with such a big job that we have to try to present all of this investigation. I'm going to start from the beginning and I'm going to start talking about the investigation itself.

Ms Halbach was reported missing on the third of November, 2005. Ms Halbach worked for a -- at least part of her photography business was that she worked for a publication called Auto Trader Magazine. You are going to learn through the case and you are going to hear from several witnesses from Auto Trader that it is a magazine that, basically, is responsible for selling automobiles, some other things, trailers and the like, but mostly automobiles. And it's a publication that Teresa supplemented her income with.

Teresa was mostly responsible or mostly enjoyed taking photographs of weddings and was already developing quite a niche and quite a specialty taking pictures of little kids, of babies and young children. But to supplement her young business, she worked for Auto Trader Magazine. So to understand how this case transforms from a missing person investigation into what became one of the largest criminal investigations in Wisconsin history, starting from the beginning, we're starting from the investigation, is important for you to understand.

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

The investigation early on determined that this man, Steven Avery, called Auto Trader Magazine at 8:12 that morning, on that very day, on the 31st of October. And Mr. Avery asked, specifically, that the same woman who has been out here before, the same woman who on at least six and perhaps more occasions had come out to take pictures. Mr. Avery wanted her out there the afternoon of the 31st.

Now, two very critical findings very early on in this investigation came to light: Number 1, that Steven Avery was the one who lured Ms Halbach out to the property on the 31st. But number 2, and perhaps as importantly, Steven Avery was the last person to see Teresa Halbach alive. Who is this man? The Judge told you that there was a lawsuit which was filed against Manitowoc County and many of you, in fact, virtually all of you, knew something about Steven Avery before serving on this particular jury. Mr. Avery achieved some degree of notoriety back in 2003 when he was exonerated for a 1985 sexual assault conviction.

You should know that that exoneration was based upon DNA evidence. You should know that that DNA evidence was performed by the Wisconsin State Crime Laboratory and it was performed by an analyst, the head of the DNA unit in Madison, a woman by the name of Sherry Culhane. I want you to remember that name because you are going to hear that name later on in this case.

Mr. Avery, as you already heard, later filed a civil lawsuit against Manitowoc County seeking compensation, seeking money for the -- excuse me -- for the time that -- that he was wrongfully convicted. And it's that degree of notoriety, that's how Mr. Avery comes to you in this case. That may or may not have some things to do with this case.

Now, we understand and the evidence is going to be clear, that Mr. Avery never should have been convicted in 1985 based upon eyewitness -- or mistaken eyewitness testimony; that there wasn't any DNA evidence, at least the DNA analysis wasn't to the level or to the point that it is now and certainly isn't anything like you are going to hear about in this case; and, in fact, should have been exonerated and was in 2003.

We'll also tell you and at the close of this case I'm going to point to everyone of you presenting jurors and say that that has absolutely nothing to do with this case. When deciding who is accountable for the death of 25 year old Teresa Halbach, Mr. Avery's past and his past exoneration have nothing to do with this case.

Ms Halbach, as you have heard, or she comes in this case as the -- part of a missing persons investigation. Now, Calumet County, and Mr. Wiegert, as a matter of fact, was in charge of that missing persons investigation early on. That's through the 3rd and the 5th. Those parts of the missing persons investigation that happened in Calumet County are Calumet County law enforcement's responsibility. Those parts of the missing persons investigation that happened in Manitowoc County necessarily and appropriately are Manitowoc County's responsibility.

When looking for a 25 year old freelance photographer, there is nothing improper about Manitowoc County being involved in that case. You are going to learn, however, that on the 5th, on the 5th of November, at about 2:00 in the afternoon, Judge Jerome Fox, another judge from Manitowoc County, one of the three sitting judges in Manitowoc County, assigned me to be responsible for the prosecution and to assist in the investigation of this particular case.

You have already heard that the reason for that was something called a perceived conflict, an apparent conflict; that is, it may look bad if Manitowoc County remained involved. You are going to hear evidence from many law enforcement officers; in fact, the lead investigators in this case, that there was no actual conflict.

There was nothing that prohibited, or precluded, or legally made it impossible for Manitowoc County to keep performing or keep assisting in this case. But we all felt it better; myself, Mr. Rohrer, the two district attorneys, Sheriff Pagel and the law enforcement officials for Manitowoc, that the case be transferred over to Calumet County and to DCI, the Division of Criminal Investigation, with the State to lead up the investigation.

Now, you are going to hear that Manitowoc County officials remained involved in the case. They remained involved in the investigation that when manpower, and we are going to be talking about how many police officers were necessary, that they remain in a helping or a support role, but the case is, in fact, turned over to Calumet County.

This particular photograph, I want you to look at for quite a bit of time as I'm talking. This is the Avery Salvage Yard, located in the Town of Gibson. This is a photo that you are going to see a lot during the course of this case. And this is, for the next six weeks, a property that you are going to come to know very, very well.

And so as Mr. Fallon and Mr. Gahn and I were talking about this opening statement, we thought it appropriate that we introduce you to the Avery salvage property. First of all, it's a 40 acre property. The entire square here is 40 acres. What you also need to understand is that all of these, appear to be little dots, are cars. These are all junked vehicles in the Avery salvage property. And a number that you are going to hear is that there are about 4,000 junked vehicles on the Avery Salvage property.

There's four residences, four places where people live on the Avery salvage property. The first, in the lower left hand corner, which is the northwest corner of the property, is Steven Avery's trailer. That's where Steven Avery lived on the 31st of October.

Living next to Steven was his sister, Barb Janda. Barb had four sons that were living with her at the time. But when you kind of look at this property it's important to know where Barb Janda's trailer is.

Steven's parents, Allen and Delores Avery, also had a trailer, had a residence on the property. And that was up closer to what you will find out are some business buildings, the salvage business itself was kind of up in this quadrant, or this corner of the yard.

And, finally, Steven's brother, Charles Avery, Chuck, also had a trailer on the property. All right.

Now, you are going to hear that surrounding this property on three sides was an active, working gravel quarry. And so we're going to have some larger aerial photos that we're going to show you in just a minute, but just to give you an idea of what's around this property, not just the 40 acres of search area, but hundreds of acres that surrounded that that were also included in the search.

Members of the jury, the evidence is going to show and you are going to hear from officers, when they talk about the search efforts in this case, that a search area this size is nothing short of overwhelming. All right. All of the places that the officers can look is absolutely overwhelming.

If you know anything about the case you will understand this event. But on Saturday, the 5th of November, Pam and Nikole Sturm, two citizens, two citizen searchers, were given permission and did search the Avery salvage property.

Pam and Nikole found the needle in the haystack. Pam and Nikole Sturm found the one vehicle on the property that all of the citizen searchers that you are going to hear about were looking for.

Now, there are several things that the evidence is going to show. And as you look at this photograph, several things about the attempts at whoever placed this vehicle here, to disguise it, to hide it, attempts to obscure its detection, you are going to learn, members of the jury, through this evidence in the case, that the vehicle was locked, that the four doors on this vehicle were locked when Pam and Nikole came upon it.

You are going to learn that the license plates were both removed, both the front and back license plates were removed from the vehicle. You are going to learn the battery was disconnected and you are also going to learn that the vehicle identification number was necessary to, in fact, identify this as Teresa Halbach's vehicle.

Now, the evidence is also going to show you where on the property Teresa Halbach's vehicle was found. It was found in -- not accidentally -- the furthest point from the defendant's trailer. Again, you are going to find that it was intentionally obscured, that it had immediate access to something called a car crusher on the property.

And, again, just to orient you, Steven Avery's trailer is in the lower left hand portion of this particular photograph. Where it was found was not an accident. We'll also tell you, during the course of the introduction of the testimony, that it's important where it wasn't found. It wasn't found on a roadway. Wasn't found in some mall parking lot. It was found on the Avery salvage property, the family business property.

I talked about the car crusher; you will hear a little bit about that piece of equipment that was near or right next to Teresa Halbach's vehicle. You are going to learn and you are going to hear evidence sometime through this six weeks how this piece of equipment works, how a regular looking vehicle, car, SUV, truck, starts out looking like a regular vehicle and ends up flattened or smashed.

You are going to learn why it's important that Teresa's vehicle was next to the car crusher and you are going to learn the numbers of crushed vehicles and how easily Teresa Halbach's vehicle could never have been found in this case. Could have been slipped in between, if you will, one of those other cars. You will hear about a lot of professionals that were asked to perform assistance in this case. You are going to hear about law enforcement professionals; you are going to hear about Crime Lab analysts; you are going to hear about some very, very, well qualified expert witnesses.

And all of those professionals have two legs. One of them, though, has four. It's a Belgian Shepherd named Brutus. Brutus is a search and rescue -- or search and recovery dog that is insensitively called a "cadaver dog".

What Brutus does is one thing. Brutus is highly trained. And you are going to hear testimony from Brutus' handler, Julie Cramer. Brutus does one thing and that's find where a deceased person has been.

The first official, first professional, to approach this vehicle after it's found, after law enforcement secures that area so nobody else can get around there, the first professional was a four legged variety. It was Brutus. It was a canine.

And Brutus, you are going to hear, was asked -- not directed towards this vehicle, but asked to just search around this particular location. You are going to hear evidence that late in the afternoon on the 5th, after the vehicle was found, after a search warrant was already obtained in this case, that Brutus, when approaching Teresa Halbach's vehicle, alerted.

It's called hitting on the vehicle. It was quite a dramatic alert. And you are going to hear from Ms Cramer about that. Sadly and unfortunately, that meant one thing to the handler and that meant one thing to the lead investigators in the case. Early on, they suspected, because of Brutus, because of this search and rescue dog, because of this cadaver dog, that a deceased individual either was in the back of this SUV, or at some point had been in the back of that SUV.

Now, importantly, you are also going to hear that the police decided not to touch the vehicle at that time. The police decided not to process it even when the Crime Lab was on the scene.

You are going to hear that the Crime Lab loaded this vehicle onto an enclosed trailer, trucked the enclosed and intact SUV all the way to Madison, where on a Sunday, for a very brief amount of time, but mostly on Monday, that vehicle was processed by the experts. Processed by those state agents, by those State Crime Lab expert employees, analysts, when they made some very dramatic and very important findings in the case.

I don't want to get ahead of myself. Because on November 5th, on that first night, on that first afternoon, there were places to look, as you can imagine. After Teresa Halbach's vehicle was found on the Avery salvage property, Mr. Wiegert, Mr. Fassbender, directing many law enforcement officials, had a job to do.

Now, you saw the size of the Avery salvage property. You are going to hear testimony from Mr. Fassbender. He's going to provide you with an idea about the methodology, about the plan, the search plan in this case.

You are going to hear Agent Fassbender talk about missing persons investigations and when they go from missing persons to criminal investigations, how their thought process changes. But at that early stage, when they find the vehicle, when they don't know that there is any blood in the back of the vehicle, when they don't know if a body is involved in this case, that Agent Fassbender and every other law enforcement officer, you will hear, at that scene, had one thing in mind and that was to find Teresa. The job of the police at the time was to find Karen Halbach's daughter.

And you are going to hear the evidence that the officers made very, very quick work of searching all of the residences on the Avery salvage property, all of the four residences, all of the outbuildings. They are searching for Teresa Halbach and the search plan, again, is to find the victim, find the victim's body.

But a secondary obligation of theirs is also to look for obvious signs of evidence, right? You don't have to watch CSI to know that. At least a first kind of sweep, or a first kind of look through, or a first kind of search of all of these residences are to try to find obvious signs of a crime if, in fact, a crime did occur, or something that is going to help law enforcement find Teresa Halbach. Why I say all that is because Steven Avery -- With search warrant in hand, Steven Avery's residence was searched on the 5th. Now, again, we're looking for Teresa's body, hopefully alive, but if not, it is important to find if she's on that property. Steven Avery's garage is searched, other residences, all of the other buildings on the residence are searched, the salvage business itself. But the 4,000 vehicles, in what you will hear was a torrential downpour, were also examined for the first time on the evening of the 5th.

Now, law enforcement officers were involved in that, but Brutus' friends were also involved in that, other canines, the rest of the team, the other search and rescue animals, the canines, were taken in a downpour, in the pitch dark, out on a 40 acre property. And everyone of these cars was encircled by one of those dogs trying to find Teresa Halbach.

Please recall, at this early stage, the police don't know what they are looking for yet. They don't really have an idea yet of the kinds of things that they are looking for. So when you remember this search plan, you will hear evidence and some officers may even call it the funnel approach, nothing fancy about calling it the funnel approach, it makes sense.

It's a way to describe search efforts. It is actually an interviewing technique as well. But it's a way to find evidence in a funnel type of approach. We're looking for the body first. Then we're looking for obvious signs of evidence. Then as you get closer and closer into more detail, more thorough, more directed searches, because you are able to go back into all of those places and all of those properties, that's the methodology.

And as you hear officers testify throughout this case, when they testify on the witness stand, remember that funnel approach. Remember that kind of methodology as they talk about these kinds of things. But make no mistake, that on the first night, they are looking for Teresa and they are hoping to find Teresa alive.

When that was unsuccessful, the next morning, on the 6th, Mr. Fassbender, Mr. Wiegert, were able to secure some help. They needed bodies. They needed some cops. They needed some volunteers. And so they got volunteer firefighters from all over the Manitowoc and Calumet County areas.

And they all showed up in force, en masse, on the morning of Sunday, November 6th. And for the first time, everyone of those 4,000 vehicles was opened up. Everyone of those 4,000 trunks was opened by a firefighter with a police officer with them, looking for the body of Teresa Halbach.

Also on Sunday, November 6th, a firearm was found, or recovered; it was actually found the evening before. But it was seized; it was recovered. It was hanging over the bed of the defendant, Steven Avery. He thought it was appropriate to recover that as a piece of evidence and, in fact, it was.

You are going to hear that the brand name of this semi-automatic .22 caliber rifle is Marlin. You are going to hear that it is something called tube loaded. Not that any of these things are going to mean much to you at this point, but there are a number of bullets that are able to be loaded into this semi-automatic rifle.

You are going to hear, by the way, although hanging over Mr. Avery's bed and his exercising control over that, should be obvious that on the 31st of October, Mr. Avery exercised a great deal more control.

A deserving piece of evidence was seized on the -- Sunday, the 6th of November. And it is, what we believe, the last recorded voice of 25 year old Teresa Halbach. When Mr. Avery, the evidence will show, made arrangements to have this young woman come out to his property that afternoon, he didn't use his own name.

He didn't use the name Steven Avery. Even though Ms Halbach had been out to the property, as I told you, on a number of occasions before; Mr. Avery used a different person's name. He used the name B. Janda, the initial B. Janda, J-a-n-d-a. That's Barb Janda, can be Barb Janda, but when we called the Auto Trader Magazine people in Milwaukee, and you are going to hear from Ms Schuster and Ms Pliszka, two employees of Auto Trader, Mr. Avery used the name and used the number for B. Janda.

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

This will be important for you in determining a timeline. Where was Teresa all that day; was this before or after she went to the Schmitz photo shoot and the Zipperer photo shoot. That's going to be uncontroverted. Absolutely, this is the last stop that she made on the 31st of October.

Two days into this, folks, we're now on Monday, the 7th of November, and the first results come from the Wisconsin State Crime Laboratory. The first results find several things.

First of all, in the back cargo area of Teresa's SUV, they find that there's female blood. They find there is a lot of female blood in the back of Teresa's SUV. But they also found, interestingly, male blood, at least at that early stage with their early typing, they could find that it was male blood.

And interestingly and importantly that already on Monday, the 7th of November, there is male blood found in the victim's vehicle in at least six different locations. Six different places they find male blood. Mr. Wiegert, Mr. Fassbender, all of the investigators don't understand the significance of the male blood being in six different places. They do, however, understand the significance of a lot of female blood. And they suspect early on that something horrible has come to Teresa Halbach.

Also on Monday, a burn barrel was discovered, not just any burn barrel. Again, here's a picture, an overview, a part of the aerial photograph of the Avery property itself. There is Steven Avery's trailer and located outside of Steven Avery's trailer was a burn barrel that was recovered.

Now, again, not just any burn barrel, but Steven Avery's burn barrel. And you will hear later in my opening and you will hear a lot of evidence about the trial, about what critical pieces of information were found from that burn barrel. But put it in perspective, on Monday, that was found.

I provide this slide just as another example for you of where that burn barrel was in relationship, not only to the proximity of Steven Avery's trailer, but the proximity to this red Dodge Caravan. You may also have guessed, this is the car that Steven Avery asked Teresa Halbach to come take a picture of. All right. So the proximity of the burn barrel to his front door and also to the Dodge Caravan will be important in the determination at the close of this case when you decide who was responsible for these crimes.

The next day, three critical pieces of evidence are found on Tuesday, the 8th. Now, we talked about these more detailed searches. On Tuesday, one of these more detailed searches occurred in Mr. Avery's trailer.

You are going to hear evidence that this bookcase was pulled out, was jostled about. You are going to hear evidence about this particular binder having been pulled out of the bookcase. And after the officers looked through it, how it was slammed back in as the book case was actually pulled out from the wall.

And after jostling and after searching it, after slamming things around and after putting the bookcase back in its location, you are going to hear this is what the officers saw. They saw a Toyota vehicle key in the bedroom of Mr. Avery. You are going to hear evidence that it had obvious evidentiary value, that the officers at that time stopped what they were doing and Investigator Dan Kucharski of the Calumet County Sheriff's Department seized or took control of that key during that more detailed search.

More detailed searches were also occurring at the same time of the entire Avery Salvage Yard, which included now officers, volunteer firefighters, going through all of the cars again; 4,000 searches occurred again, on Tuesday. But you are going to hear this time they weren't looking for a body, at this time they were looking for stuff. They were looking for evidence.

After the body wasn't found in their first search, they are going back and they are looking for items of obvious evidentiary value. You are going to hear testimony they found something of obvious evidentiary value; they found the victim, Teresa Halbach's, license plates crumpled up in a station wagon. I just show you this slide to show you what the vehicle looked like, the station wagon that the license plates were found in. And also provide this aerial photograph to give you an idea of the vehicle that the license plates were found in.

Very quickly, I want to remind you of Steven Avery's trailer is down in the lower left hand corner; that the access road leading to Mr. Avery's trailer comes from the top of this figure down towards the right. Teresa Halbach's vehicle is found in the first vehicle (sic) next to the access road on its way to Steven Avery's trailer. Again, the evidence is going to show, not by accident, the proximity to the defendant's roadway, the proximity to the defendant's trailer, all becoming important.

Now, I told you that there were three important discoveries on the 8th. And the third and perhaps the most important discovery that day is something that's being referred to as a burn area. Again, just to orient you, it's the same kind of picture that we have been looking at: Steven Avery's trailer; Steven Avery's garage. The Dodge Caravan, the van that Ms Halbach was taking pictures of, was located right there; and there's the burn area.

The proximity of this burn area to the garage is obvious; the proximity of this burn area to Mr. Avery's trailer itself is obvious. To provide you with another view of this burn area, again located -- you can see his trailer, you can see the garage on the right.

But, importantly, that burn area contained human remains. It contained obvious bone fragments. Even to the untrained officers that stumbled upon this particular burn area, even when they called over the Crime Lab to process this particular location, it was obvious that there were human remains in this particular burn area.

Now, this next picture is particularly important because it was taken before any processing begins. There's the burn area that we're talking about. That's the burn area that contained the obvious human remains. You will see and you will hear from the officers who were at the scene, that this burn area, from the first night, was guarded, was guarded by Mr. Avery's German Shepherd. I believe his name was Bear.

But this particular German Shepherd, not of the friendly sort, did not allow law enforcement officers to get close to this burn area. Did not allow any of the canine help that was out there to get close to that area. And any time -- excuse me -- law enforcement even got close to the burn area, Bear made sure that they were shooed away.

But I think it's also important about this case, when we talk about proximity, there isn't any question who exercises control over this burn area. And in the background, just -- just see how close it is to that van that Teresa Halbach was asked to take a picture of.

The next day, Wednesday, November 9th, was the first time that recovered bone fragments from that burn area are identified by an anthropologist. An anthropologist is a professional who looks at bones and can identify whether they are human, or that they are non-human, where they go. We'll talk about that a little bit later.

But even though these fragments are small, even though they are burned almost beyond recognition, on Wednesday, the 9th, they determined that those were, in fact, adult female remains found right behind the defendant's garage.

All right. This is the first image that is not a photograph that I'm showing you. This is computer generated. And we're going to hear from a man who created these images. His name is Tim Austin. He works for the State patrol, the State of Wisconsin, in scene reconstruction.

And what Tim Austin will tell you is that he was out at the scene -- and we'll talk about this a little bit later -- but he was out at the scene and took over 4100 measurements out at the scene. And after taking his own photographs and after taking over 4100 images -- excuse me -- measurements, he was able to recreate some of these scenes for you, for the jury.

And these are created for the jury so that you can see things that the naked eye can't see; so that you can see things that photographs can't show; so that you can see relationships between some evidence and fixed objects or other evidence that's found. And so as you see this perspective you will see that you are up, you know, dozens of feet above the ground. And it's something, again, unless you are that tall, you are not going to be able to see this kind of location. But this particular computer generated animation is important to embrace or to -- for a jury to look at in the case because the burn area is clearly visible. How close it is to Mr. Avery's garage; how close it is to the trailer; how close it is to the other area, what's called the curtilage, that is the area that surrounds Mr. Avery's property, all becomes important.

All right. So these are -- And when something is not a picture, when it, in fact, was created through computer animation or computer generation, I will let you know that.

One of the bones that was recovered was a long bone. And I'm showing you this for a reason, in my opening statement, so that you understand what we're looking at here. That we aren't just looking at some bone in abstract. We're not just looking at some DNA profile.

It's Teresa Halbach's shinbone. All right. It's Karen Halbach's daughter's tibia. And attached to Teresa Halbach's tibia was some tissue. Now, despite Mr. Avery -- The evidence will show, that despite Mr. Avery's effort to completely obliterate all these bones, by burning, to incinerate these bones completely, this bone survived.

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

Now, the standard is also called an exemplar. You are going to hear those two statements, but Teresa Halbach, before the 31st of October, had a Pap smear performed, a cervical swab that was performed. And thankfully for us, that was kept at Bellin, up in Green Bay. Well, Sherry, also -- Ms Culhane, also, was able to develop a DNA profile from the Pap smear.

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

The first 11 days of this case become extremely important. And for just about five minutes here, I want to give you those 11 days in. And what you have just heard, that part of the investigation, you have only heard 11 days worth of investigation, which has gone on 15 months now. But the first 11 days are important and I want to just run through those for you.

Ms Halbach is killed on the 31st of October, at the Steven Avery salvage property, sometime after 2:45 p.m. You are going to hear from a gentleman by the name of Tom Pearce, who is Teresa Halbach's business partner, that she doesn't show up for work on the 1st or 2nd.

And on the 3rd, Teresa Halbach is reported missing to law enforcement authorities. That's when the missing persons investigation, from a law enforcement standpoint, begins. I think, if you will, as to the feelings of the Halbach family and friends and how worried they are even on the 3rd.

But on the 4th, you are going to hear from a witness named Ryan Hillegas who helped coordinate the citizen search efforts.

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

We also looked at those early stages for whether or not she used any of her credit cards. Where is Teresa Halbach? We try to find that out.

You are going to hear that a gentleman by the name of Curt Drumm, a pilot in the Manitowoc area, volunteered his airplane and helped law enforcement fly over Mr. Zipperer's residence and Mr. Schmitz's residence and the Avery compound and any of the roads that may have led to and from there to try and find Teresa Halbach.

On the 5th, we know that Teresa's vehicle was found at the Avery salvage property. You will hear that search warrants were obtained. You will hear during the course of this case that a search warrant is nothing more than a piece of paper. It's a judicial authorization; a judge authorizes law enforcement officers to search the property, in private areas. And we got many, many search warrants in this case and searched for her body. You have heard already, that on the 6th, firearms are obtained or taken from Mr. Avery's bedroom; his garage is searched, at least the first search of the garage for those items of obvious evidentiary value. But remember, on that Sunday we don't have any results yet, from the Crime Lab. Those don't come until sometime on Monday, when the Crime Lab determines that both male and female blood is located in the SUV.

We search, for the first time, all of the junked vehicles, at least all of the trunks are searched.

And Mr. Avery's burn barrel is discovered and searched.

And other things will happen and you are going to hear from other officers that the surrounding areas, not just the 40 acres, but hundreds of acres of gravel pits and the like are being searched in these early days.

On Tuesday, perhaps the most important of all the days as far as discoveries go, those three critical discoveries are made: The Toyota key, the license plates, and the burn area behind the defendant's property.

On Wednesday, the 9th, there is an identification made of male blood in the victim's vehicle. That blood matches the DNA profile of the defendant, Steven Avery. And bones are recovered and determined to be that of an adult female.

You will hear on the 10th, on Thursday, the burn area is further excavated by arson investigators and other Crime Lab and other types of officials but, interestingly, the defendant's DNA is now found on the key.

And, finally, on Friday, the 11th, the female blood that was found, the great pool, if you will, of female blood, in the cargo area, is now matched. It is determined to match the soda can -- the saliva from the diet Wild Cherry Pepsi, I believe, soda can in the front of Teresa's car. The blood is now presumed to be that of the victim, Teresa Halbach.

You have heard the term that they told me there would be no math, well, there is going to be some science. And here's where I have to at least give you an overview of what the science of this case is going to be.

The science, the blood part of the science, the DNA analysis and explanation of this case is going to come from this gentleman right here, Norm Gahn. Mr. Gahn, you will learn by his examination, is quite knowledgable in DNA and DNA from a prosecution standpoint. And in all honesty and in all candor, that's why he was added to the prosecution team, because this is such an important part of the case. The science becomes very, very important.

You are going to hear about a DNA analyst from the Wisconsin Crime Lab named Sherry Culhane. Again, Ms Culhane, almost unbelievably, is the very analyst that exonerates Mr. Steven Avery several years earlier. She's the same analyst that does the detailed DNA work on Mr. Avery's work with the Innocence Project and frees Mr. Avery from his incarceration.

Well, that same woman, Sherry Culhane, processes this vehicle. Because she's the unit head, because this is such an important case, she does the work herself. She does all of the analysis of all of the blood that's found in these cases.

You are going to hear from Ms Culhane, through the assistance of Mr. Gahn, what DNA is, that it is a genetic fingerprint, if you will. Provides an opportunity, as most of you may already know, to take a sample and to take a unknown sample, something like blood that's found in the back of an SUV and to take a known DNA sample, since our DNA is all the same in all of our bodily fluids.

Our blood has the same DNA as our saliva, as our semen, as the skin cells, as our tissue; it's all the same DNA. So once you develop a profile, each of us all has different DNA; it's unique to each of us. And Mr. Gahn will explain all of that for you.

But with that as the background, Ms Culhane was able to establish all of the places in that SUV that had Teresa Halbach's DNA. You are going to learn that they found a large quantity of the blood and DNA in the cargo floor and the side panel. The back cargo door, you are going to hear that there were splatters, spatters of Teresa's blood in the back cargo door.

You are going to hear that on the rear tailgate there were droplets of Teresa's blood; her DNA is found on the door handle; and, also, as I have already alluded and you might expect, the saliva from the soda can, Ms Culhane will find DNA evidence. I told you about male blood that was in the SUV. On Wednesday, the 9th of November, Steven Avery subjected to a very thorough medical examination, again, as result of a warrant, as a result of a judicial authorization to do that particular kind of examination. And what they found was a very, very deep cut to Mr. Avery's right middle finger but, importantly, on the outside of his right middle finger. And that's where the cut was.

This cut was actively bleeding on the 31st of October. And I guess, thankfully, for the State. And as a jury, I hope at the conclusion of this case you will say thankfully for you. Because DNA analysis was then possible because of his actively bleeding, of his leaving his DNA behind, inside of Teresa's vehicle.

Ms Culhane will tell you that the defendant's blood was found in at least six places in Teresa Halbach's SUV including the rear passenger door, smeared or wiped on the rear passenger door. Okay. There's a front door; there's a back door; kind of like a four door car. It was in the backdoor and it's along the edge or along the metal of the rear passenger door. That's Steven Avery's blood. That's how much blood he left on the side of the door.

We have heard about the defendant's blood on the ignition. That positively matched that of Steven Avery. As you think about this case and I will argue at the end of the case, but there isn't any secret and the defense understands this is as well, an actively bleeding middle right finger. And when you look at the -- excuse me -- When you look at the smear, kind of visualize turning the ignition and how that can smear from the outside of the middle finger and leave that particular kind of DNA evidence.

Other places that the defendant bled inside of the victim's car included blood on her CD case in her front seat. Both front seats had droplets of Mr. Avery's blood on it. The rear tailgate, remember I told you there was a droplet of Teresa's blood; because Mr. Avery is actively bleeding, there is a droplet of his blood as well. And also on the front console floor, is kind of up in that particular area.

Sherry Culhane and Mr. Gahn are better able to explain all those for you, but it's important for you to know. Now, again, the jigsaw puzzle, when you hear the evidence and when you have to decide who killed Teresa Halbach, this evidence points to one person.

Now, Mr. Gahn and his questioning, and Ms Culhane is going to tell you, that DNA evidence, again, is not just from blood. It can be from skin cells which are left through perspiration, sweat, okay, saliva and sweat and all those other kinds of bodily fluids that we talked about. So when somebody's hands are sweating and you handle something, it's possible that you can leave your DNA on that thing that you handled.

You heard a suggestion already in which there will be evidence in this case that the battery was disconnected on Ms Halbach's vehicle. We'll tell you, or at least we'll argue as to why that happened. 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. Okay. That will come from Sherry Culhane as well.

In handling Ms Halbach's key that starts the ignition and putting it into his bedroom, Mr. Avery was kind enough to leave his DNA on that portion of the Toyota key that was found. So that's part of the science.

Other science is going to include things like teeth, teeth that were recovered from the burn area. This part of the science, by the way, will be handled by Mr. Fallon, and other expert witnesses, but most importantly, through somebody called a forensic odontologist.

That's a big word, kind of scared me when I first heard it. Gentleman's name is Dr. Donald Simley. Mr. Simley is a odontologist. From a forensic standpoint, it's kind of a dentist who matches stuff up.

So Mr -- or Dr. Simley, the dentist, the odontologist, will show you a -- what's called a panorex x-ray. We went to Teresa's dentist. We got her x-rays from when she had work being done and Dr. Simley will show you tooth number 31, which is the second last tooth in the bottom left jaw.

Dr. Simley will also tell you that x-rays were taken of teeth that were found from the burn area. He will show you tooth number 31 that was actually recovered from the burn area and will allow the jury to make their own comparisons. We talked about an anthropologist. Our anthropologist is Dr. Leslie Eisenberg. Dr. Eisenberg will tell you about her credentials, about how she does this -- this whole kind of work. And although, unfortunately, the bones that she had to deal with and, again, we aren't talking about a full skeleton that was found in that -- that bone (sic) pit.

If we did, by the way, we may not be including a charge against Mr. Avery for mutilation of a corpse. But mutilation of this little girl -- excuse me -- not this little girl, but this young woman, absolutely occurred. Because this is what's left, small tiny pieces of bone fragment.

And when you talk about a jigsaw puzzle, when you talk about trying to put all of this together; it's a very, very difficult process. And when I asked -- And the testimony, actually, of Dr. Eisenberg is going to allude to this jigsaw puzzle kind of analogy and we don't even have a box or a cover to go on. Luckily for us and luckily for you, Leslie Eisenberg is your jigsaw puzzle covered box.

In other words, Dr. Eisenberg knows where everyone of these bones goes. Dr. Eisenberg will identify all of these bone fragments. She'll identify, from a female skeleton and from examples that are used, all of the different parts of Teresa that were found. Okay. And it will help you as far as identification processes go, as to what parts of Teresa's bones and what parts of the body were actually recovered in this case.

Now, not all evidence is of equal weight. And two really important pieces of bone were found. And those were two pieces of what are called the cranium, the skull, that were burned very, very badly but were identified as such by Dr. Eisenberg.

The parts of the skull, this picture that you are looking at is actually a part of the skull now. This brilliant woman is going to tell you that this isn't just part of the skull, but this is a little piece of the skull that's just on top of or over somebody's left ear.

How do you tell that kind of thing looking at a bone like that, but that's what an anthropologist apparently -- apparently does. And that's why she's an expert, and we're not, in this area. But, importantly, the damage, the defect that's caused, the evidence is going to show that you are looking at the inside, from the inside out, the inside of Teresa's skull out; that the circular or half circle -- because this isn't the full piece, this is half of the important piece here -- is extremely important.

The defect, the damage here, the testimony will be, is caused by a high velocity projectile. We take this same bone fragment and you are going to hear evidence about other experts and it allows some other analysis of this particular piece of bone, this particular piece of cranium.

You are going to hear from a gentleman by the name of Ken Olsen from the Crime Lab; he is an expert in trace evidence, the CSI kind of stuff, but the trace from an elemental standpoint. When you x-ray something, the evidence is going to show bone and other kinds of vascular or veins and things show up after you x-ray even a burned piece of bone.

But what also shows up are things that don't burn up. All right. When Mr. Olsen testifies, he's going to point to these little bright dots. See those okay from there? These little bright dots that are right on the lip of the cranial defect.

Those little bright dots he's going to say he examined. He recovered those and he did his analysis on them, elemental analysis, and found that they are lead. These little dots are lead, what's called lead spray. You are going to hear testimony that there's only one thing, only one item that can travel fast enough, as a projectile, to cause this kind of a defect and also leave lead. And as you might predict, that's a bullet. All right. Lead spray is left by bullets.

Dr. Eisenberg, then, with the assistance of a gentleman by the name of Jeffrey Jentzen, is the Milwaukee County Medical Examiner. Dr. Jentzen, has -- and you will hear he has a great deal of experience nationally, a national expert in things like gunshot wounds.

Dr. Jentzen and Dr. Eisenberg will render two expert opinions: First of all, that the left parietal region, the region just above the left ear, the thing that you just saw, the combination of the projectile and the lead spray, leads these two experts -- and especially the pathologist -- especially Dr. Jentzen, who will tell you that that's an entrance wound, just above the left ear of Teresa Halbach. They will also find a second and we will show you a second entrance wound, similar kind of defect that's found in a recovered bone that is on what's called the occipital region of the skull. That's to the back and just to the left side of the back of the skull and that was a second entrance wound.

Finally, their opinion, when they put together -- when you ask of the State, what was the cause of death, what was the mechanism of death, at the conclusion of this case I will be able to tell you, this was a homicide and it included at least two gunshot wounds to the head of 25 year old Teresa Halbach.

I'm almost done so hang on. Remember this burn barrel, remember found outside of Mr. Avery's trailer, well, this burn barrel, as I told you, was examined. And although Mr. Avery, the evidence will show you, attempted to burn up all of the stuff that was in the burn barrel, it didn't burn. It didn't burn up.

And the things that didn't burn up were electronic components. All of these electronic components were found in Mr. Avery's burn barrel. This is other evidence. This is more evidence, not just the science, not just the DNA, not just the blood, but at the conclusion of the case will be other evidence that will be able to assist you in pointing to who killed Teresa Halbach.

Of those electronic components, included Teresa's cell phone. You will hear evidence that Teresa had a Motorola V3 RAZR cell phone. And when we look at and when the experts show you those electronic components that are found within the burn barrel, you will recognize or some of you might, the Motorola sign.

But for those of you that don't, we're going to have a gentleman by the name of Mr. Thomas from the FBI come here from Virginia and he's going to show you all those components and he's going to show you what they looked like when they were recovered from Mr. Avery's burn barrel and what they used to look like on a Motorola V3 RAZR cell phone. All right. So you are going to be able to match up the components itself and what it used to look like before Mr. Avery's attempts to destroy that evidence as well.

You are going to hear about a digital camera that Teresa Halbach had; digital camera that she used to take pictures was a Canon A310, PowerShot A310. You are going to hear all kinds of interesting evidence about how a digital camera -- and some of you may know this and certainly our media friends know this. But when you take a picture with a digital camera, that photo, that image that you take with a digital camera leaves a signature. It leaves an electronic imprint on the image itself.

And so, if you put that picture on a laptop computer or your home computer and you take your little mouse and put what's called the cursor, the little arrow thing, over the picture itself, it gives you an incredible amount of information. Gives you the date that that picture was taken. It tells you things about the picture itself, including what kind of camera was used.

And you are going to learn and you are going to see at least six different pictures that were taken at Steven Avery's property by Teresa Halbach. And all six of those include that little imprint, include that signature, will tell you conclusively that Teresa uses the Canon PowerShot A310. All right.

We'll have these even more blown up for you, but that says PowerShot A310. There isn't going to be any question at all about whose camera it was that Mr. Avery burned in his burn barrel on the 31st of October.

You are going to hear about those other electronic components, by the way. I don't know if you use a palm pilot or a PDA, a personal data assistant. Teresa had one of those. That was also burned up and found in that burn barrel with some other information.

But when on the topic of what other evidence, what additional evidence, we're not done there folks. All right. We have other evidence that we have developed in the last 15 months. You are going to learn that in Mr. Avery's garage, after shooting the bullets into 25 year old Teresa Halbach, they ejected what are called shell casings.

Those are the little brass casings that come out of a gun after you shoot the gun. Well, it's possible for experts, for toolmark experts from the Crime Lab to match up those shell casings with a specific gun. And they will, in fact, match that .22 caliber rifle that's hanging over Mr. Avery's bed. Now, March 1st and 2nd, 2 bullets were found, also, in Mr. Avery's garage. Through a more detailed search, you will find out why that happened. Through a more detailed search of the garage, two bullet fragments were found in Avery's garage. One of those bullet fragments, after going through Teresa Halbach, included Teresa's DNA.

And so as a matter, through Mr. Gahn and through his experts, you will learn that Teresa helped you too, that she left behind some evidence for you to consider in this case. Teresa left behind her DNA for you to consider on one of the bullets that's found in the defendant, Mr. Avery's, garage.

You will hear about things like phone calls. You'll hear about how phone calls can't be changed in the records and we can provide a timeline as to when certain things happened; when Mr. Avery called for Teresa; when he called her two times before she ever got there; and when he places a -- what we're going to be called an alibi call, two hours after she's already at the property. You are going to hear about all those kinds of phone calls.

And as I mentioned, at least briefly, before other analysis of bone and tissue, other things to point to, if in fact the State even question whose bones and whose tissue it is behind Mr. Avery's property.

Lastly, I just want to remind you of the kinds of exhibits that you are going to hear in this case. You are going to see items that were seized, stuff that was seized from the scene, from Mr. Avery's property. You are going to get photographs from out at the scene, but you are also going to see photographs after the evidence was already obtained so that you have a more pristine or a better view of some of this evidence.

You are going to look at documents and records. You are going to hear from experts. And they will provide some written expert reports and also summary and demonstrative exhibits.

Just a little bit on summary exhibits. When there's lots of evidence like documents; lots of things in documents, phone records, you know, things like this; when it's hard for you to digest, we'll try to create a one or a two page summary of all that information to help the jury and find out exactly what all of it means.

And, finally, audio and videotaped kinds of evidence, you would expect to find those kinds of things.

Remember I told you before, just talking about different kinds of photos, about those pictures that Teresa took, those six different pictures; this is one of them. It was taken on June 20th, by Teresa Halbach.

I use this as the example because -- because I wanted to. But it shows very clearly Mr. Avery's trailer, his garage. It's clear through Auto Trader Magazine, when Mr. Avery, in June of this year tried to sell this particular trailer, Teresa Halbach took this picture, again, with a Canon PowerShot A310. You will hear all those kind of things.

But the reason, at least for this part of the presentation, I'm showing you this, is it tells you a difference between a scene photo and things that I mentioned at least briefly before; computer generated scene models. Again, this isn't a picture. This is a -- provided by Mr. Austin, but you will note that it's something that you couldn't see with your eye.

Again, usually there's elevations that are involved. These kinds of models are, by the way, within an inch, you will hear, accurate. Every measurement is within an inch. So this isn't some blackboard that was taken down and you just do the best you can.

And these are 4100 measurements that make everything geometrically perfect, geometrically accurate to within an inch. But these kinds of models should assist you. Since it's the middle of February, we're not going to be traipsing off to the Avery property.

These kinds of things may help you in understanding better and getting a better tour of the Avery property. But just this model, as an example, shows you how close Mr. Avery's burn barrel is to his front door; how close it is to the vehicle that Ms Halbach took pictures of. And even things like after taking the pictures, the path that Teresa Halbach took as she walked towards Mr. Avery's property.

For those of you big picture people, not detail oriented people, you all were asked that question, we'll have aerial photographs for you. Again, when we look at all of the surrounding gravel pits on at least three sides of the Avery property and how that may fit into some of those kind of things. We have interior photos as well. Photos of the inside of Mr. Avery's garage. Now, you will note a couple things about this photo. First of all, you will note how cluttered, to say the least, that it is. And this might help you understand how difficult it was for officers, not knowing what they are looking for, in November, to kind of go through this garage, not knowing that the shooting -- not knowing that the shooting happened in this garage. The officers didn't really know what they were looking for.

But in March, when this picture was taken, and they know what they are looking for and they know where to look in the garage, these kind of pictures should be able to help you. But Mr. Austin also will help you in giving you a geometric perspective, ripping the roof off, if you will, of the garage and show you models of the insides of the garage.

By the way, just so there isn't any question why I'm showing you this exhibit, one of the bullets, number 9, which was found in the crack of a -- the cement, that was not cleaned up in this case. And tent number 23A, underneath what was a air compressor, the evidence is going to show, is the bullet that Teresa left her DNA for you. Underneath that air compressor is where they recovered that second bullet.

Other interior photos, you are going to see photos of the interior of Mr. Avery's bedroom, the gun rack that hangs over Mr. Avery's bed with two firearms, one was a .50 caliber muzzleloader and on top of that was a .22 caliber automatic -- semi-automatic rifle.

But Mr. Austin, again, provides you with, ripping off the roof, if you will, interior scene models, where you are going to be able to look at the living room of Mr. Avery and his spare bedroom and his bathroom and Mr. Avery's master bedroom, be able to kind of walk around within that space. So it will help you understand where some of these evidence -- or some of this evidence was found.

Finally, the kinds of witnesses that you are going to hear from, include citizens and law enforcement officers and records kinds of people; although, most of those will be agreed to between Mr. Strang and us, as well as expert witnesses.

You will hear from various kinds of citizens like Bobby Dassey, who is one of the sons of Barb Janda, who you will hear testimony about, that at about 2:45 on the 31st of October, Bobby saw a young girl drive up to the Avery property.

Bobby Dassey saw this young girl, later identified as Teresa Halbach, get out of her teal, or blue, or green colored SUV and actually take pictures of the van that her mom had for sale. Bobby Dassey is going to tell you, that after looking out the window and after seeing Teresa Halbach take these photographs of this vehicle and finish her job, that Teresa walked towards Steven Avery's trailer.

You will hear evidence that she was walking towards the main entrance of Steven Avery's trailer and that Bobby thereafter took a shower and left to go deer hunting, bow hunting, about 15 minutes later. You are going to hear from Bobby that when he left 15 minutes later, Teresa's SUV was there, but Teresa was nowhere to be found.

You are going to hear that Bobby Dassey was the last person, the last citizen that will have seen Teresa Halbach alive. You are going to hear from other citizens like that, other people that will help place this case into context for us.

Juries are triers of fact. You don't decide what the law is, the judge does that. But you decide what the facts of the case are. And the facts in this case aren't just going to point to who did it; it's not just a who done it case. It's a what happened and where it happened and when it happened.

But we're also going to provide you evidence, not just that Steven Avery did it, but to the exclusion of other people as well. In other words, positive evidence about who done know it, but also negative evidence of why that necessarily excludes others. And so you get to find those facts and at the end of this case, you will search for the truth. You are not to search for doubt, you are to search for the truth.

I told you when you started this case and when this opening statement started, that this may, in fact, be the most important decision that you will ever -- going to make. That leaves us, then, with the end. I'm going to remind you through this case, I'm not going to apologize about it, but this is Teresa Halbach. I'm not going to apologize about the fact that this is not a DNA profile number. This isn't a box of recovered bones, but as I have mentioned before, remembering the humanity of Teresa Halbach. Remembering who she is, what she meant to these people, is an important part of this process.

Ultimately, this process includes assigning accountability. It will require you to assign responsibility for the murder and mutilation of an innocent 25 year old young lady. I'm confident, members of the jury, that after the conclusion of this, what could in fact be a six week trial, that you are going to agree with me. You are going to agree with the State that we have met our burden, that is, beyond a reasonable doubt. I will ask at the conclusion of this case, that you return verdicts of guilty. Thank you. Thank you, Judge.