Dean A. Strang

Dean A. Strang defended Steven Avery at his 2007 Wisconsin trial. In his opening, Strang argued that Teresa Halbach had left the Avery property and that the searches and physical evidence warranted scrutiny. He later tested the timing of Halbach's visit, Bobby Dassey's opportunity to observe events and hear a garage remark, and the difference between a constructed scene model and a photograph.

Strang's questioning of officers focused on who entered the property, how searches were documented, and when evidence was found. He used a dispatch recording to test an account of the first roadblock, questioned Colborn and Lenk about the bedroom key, and examined the gap between garage shell casings and the later discovery of a bullet fragment. He also renewed a challenge to successive searches under the November 5 warrant. The court later denied the renewed search-suppression motion.

He challenged the limits of the forensic evidence rather than treating each finding as conclusive. The judge sustained the defense objection to a proposed opinion linking a photographed cut to a RAV4 dashboard stain, and Strang questioned what the vehicle's bloodstains could establish. His examinations addressed the documentation and original positions of burned material, bone findings at separate locations, and whether skull wounds could be dated to before death. He also tested witnesses' fire accounts against earlier interviews. In the defense case, he elicited a bus driver's sighting of a woman photographing a van, though she could not fix the day, and examined Scott Fairgrieve about why the recovery record could not establish where the remains were originally burned. The court allowed Fairgrieve's disputed opinion while finding its disclosure slightly misleading.

At the close of evidence, Strang moved to dismiss the remaining counts; the court denied that motion. During the instruction conference, the court approved a defense-theory instruction but declined separate exhibit-weight and spoliation instructions. Strang objected when the State described facts as uncontested in closing. The judge found no improper comment at that point but cautioned against implying that Avery had to testify or produce evidence. In his own closing, Strang urged reasonable doubt, including on the State's timeline, the distribution of blood and bones, and whether a test that did not detect EDTA could establish its absence.