It’s been a while since there were any updates in the cases made famous by the Netflix docuseries Making A Murderer. Last November, Brendan Dassey was granted supervised release, and three days later, the state of Wisconsin moved to prevent Dassey’s release. When we spoke to Steven Avery’s attorneys, Dean Strang and Jerome Buting, about a year ago, they thought that Dassey had a much better chance at freedom than Avery did, but today, Steven Avery’s attorney has dropped a 1,272-page bomb in the form of a post-conviction notice—one that effectively points a finger at Teresa Halbach’s ex-boyfriend as a suspect in her murder.
Avery is serving a life sentence for the murder of photographer Teresa Halbach in 2005. Avery’s nephew, Brendan Dassey, was convicted in a separate trial for his role in the murder. He had confessed to helping his uncle rape and murder Halbach, and the circumstances of his police interrogation have been the subject of both legal and internet interest.
Avery’s current attorney, Katherine Zellner, has a long history of righting wrongful convictions (according to her website, she’s righted more than any private attorney in America). According to the Manitowoc, Wisconsin ABC affiliate, her argument comes down to five points, including ineffective counsel from Strang and Buting, who she claims did not put expert witnesses on the stand to talk about DNA and blood spatter evidence, and ethical violations by prosecutor Ken Kratz. (You can read about those points in more detail on the WBAY website.)
In the document, Zellner effectively—though not explicitly—accuses Halbach’s ex-boyfriend of her murder, saying only that he was never eliminated as a suspect, and that Avery’s jury never heard evidence on him:
You can read the first 200 pages of Zellner’s motion on her site. WBAY in Manitowoc says it has reached out to both Strang and Buting, who have declined to comment until they can read the motion in full.
[via WBAY]