Day 10 - February 23, 2007

The court explained its earlier refusal to remove a juror who remembered Detective Remiker from a civil trial, then excused another juror after a family death. The defense maintained its objection to retaining the first juror. Dean Strang renewed Avery’s search-suppression motion, and Thomas Fallon opposed it. The court reserved a decision because testimony about the burn pit was incomplete. Katie Halbach said the jeans shown in court were a comparison pair she selected, not the pair she recalled Teresa owning. She also identified a lanyard she had given her sister. Ronald Groffy identified vehicle photographs and reported positive presumptive blood tests in two RAV4 areas. On cross-examination, he said he tested no other areas and did not know whether the test distinguished human from animal blood. Sherry Culhane presented DNA results from the RAV4 and other items. She attributed DNA from cargo-area stains and a soda can to Teresa Halbach, believed Halbach was the source of the bullet-fragment DNA, and attributed several RAV4 interior bloodstains to Steven Avery or found their profiles consistent with his. She said the hood-latch and key profiles were consistent with Avery’s reference sample. She qualified the charred-remains result as a partial profile and disclosed that her own DNA appeared in a negative control during bullet-fragment testing, not in the bullet sample. Culhane’s cross-examination was left for Monday; the defense requested her contamination log and remaining file.