All language subtitles for making.a.murderer.s02e02.720p.web.x264-strife_1539945492

[somber music playing]

[indistinct chatter]

As our first witness,
the defense calls Kenneth Kratz.

[woman] Do you solemnly swear that the
testimony you shall give before the court

is the truth, and nothing but the truth,
so help you God?

Yes.

Be seated.

Mr. Kratz, at the time
that you made a decision

to charge Mr. Avery with the homicide
in this case,

you did not know exactly what had happened
to Teresa Halbach

prior to the time that her body
had been burned, correct?

- I think that's fair.
- [Drizin] OK.

And at the time that you filed
criminal charges against Steven Avery

for the murder of Teresa Halbach,

you did not have sufficient evidence

to support sexual assault charges
against Mr. Avery, correct?

- That's true.
- OK.

And so, would it be fair to say
that you did not get a narrative

of Teresa Halbach's final hours,
if you will,

until Brendan Dassey gave a statement
on March 1?

That was the first individual who was
involved in the criminal enterprise

to give me a narrative
of what had happened.

Narrative can be provided
by crime lab personnel...

"Here's what the physical evidence
suggests, and this came first, and..."

But prior to the time... prior to...

[Judge] Hang on here.
One at a time. Finish your answer.

[Ken] Right. I had received
a narrative in that respect

from the forensic scientists
that were involved.

[Drizin] You had some evidence,

you were getting some reports
from various crime lab people,

but there were significant gaps
in the narrative that were filled in

only when Brendan Dassey's statement
was presented to you.

I think that's fair.

Mr. Kratz, in order to convict
Steven Avery of first-degree murder,

did you need the testimony
of Brendan Dassey to do that?

No. It wasn't offered
at Steven Avery's trial.

Would it be fair to say

that the only benefit
to Mr. Dassey's testimony

would have been to support the charges
of sexual assault,

kidnapping and false imprisonment?

[Ken]
No. I think there were side benefits.

If we felt less comfortable
trying this case

from a forensic science standpoint

rather than a, um, you know,

statement of witnesses
or codefendant statement,

that certainly would have had
a collateral benefit.

Having said that, um,

as you and probably everybody now knows,

we chose to try the Avery case

very much as a circumstantial
forensic science case.

[theme music plays]

[Fassbender] Morning. Good to see you.

[Wiegert] Why don't you
just have a seat, Brendan?

Tom and I have to step out for a minute,
and then we'll be right in, OK?

- OK.
- [Wiegert] Alright.

[Laura] Steven Avery's attorneys
face a different task than us.

The case against Steven Avery
is a case that's built on forensics,

on blood evidence, on things like that.

[Fassbender] Soda? Water? You sure?

- Well, water maybe.
- [Fassbender] OK.

[Laura] The case against Brendan Dassey,

there's no scientific evidence
pinning him to this crime.

The case against Brendan Dassey
is words, and words only.

Why would someone falsely confess
to a crime they didn't commit,

especially one as horrific as this crime?

The reality is that the work
of organizations

like the Center on Wrongful Convictions
and the Innocence Project

have uncovered hundreds
of proven false confessions.

In fact, in murder cases,
homicide cases, like Miss Halbach's case,

we know that false confessions
are actually the most common cause

of wrongful convictions.

[Wiegert sighs]

[Wiegert] I just wanted to go over
this real quick again.

Do you remember these rights,
your Miranda rights I read you?

Yeah.

- [Wiegert] You still want to talk to us?
- Yeah.

[Wiegert]
OK. Just wanted to make sure of that.

[Drizin] If you believe that your client
has falsely confessed on videotape,

it's not enough to simply argue that.

You have to embrace that tape.

You have to accept that tape

as the best proof
of your client's innocence.

We want to talk today
about the three errors that occur

during police investigation

that can cause false confessions
to happen.

The first one
is the misclassification error.

Officers making wrong assumptions
about whether somebody is lying

and therefore guilty.

Police are trained to watch the ways
in which people answer questions,

to read their body language,

to notice their choice of words.

This is what's referred to as
"behavioral analysis."

And all it takes is proper training
for a police officer

to turn into a human lie detector.

[Fassbender] Be honest.

Because we're gonna be able to tell
when you're not being honest.

I'm telling you that right now.
So you're walking down the road...

This is a handout that is used

by a company called
John E. Reid & Associates.

They developed the most widely used
interrogation technique in the country.

This is the slide of characteristics

that are supposed to be shown
by people who are lying.

Let's look. It says "slouched."

Here's a screenshot
of Brendan's interrogation. He's slouched.

"Hand over mouth or eyes."

Sure enough.

"Rigid and immobile."

And as for these verbal things,

somebody who says, "I don't know"
must be lying?

Let me tell you, if there's one thing
Brendan Dassey said hundreds of times

during that interrogation,
it's "I don't know."

His ability to interact with other people
is limited.

But of course it feeds
right into these false narratives

that officers are trained in.

Somebody who can't make eye contact?

It must mean they're lying,
that they're guilty.

This failure to look people in the eye,
this withdrawing during social situations,

this is his disability,

and I think it also
is the misclassification error.

Then there's the coercion error.

Once you get that wrong person
in the interrogation room,

how are they convinced to say something

so dramatically against
their self-interest?

[Wiegert]
How did she get in the back of the jeep?

Tell us that.

- I don't know.
- [Wiegert] Did you help him?

No.

[Drizin]
At the beginning of an interrogation,

an innocent person's confidence

that they will emerge
from the interrogation process unharmed

is sky-high.

But the goal of interrogation
is to bring that confidence level down.

[Wiegert] We've been investigating this
a long time.

We pretty much know everything.
We already know what happened.

We already know what happened.
We already know.

Remember, we already know.
We already know.

- We already know.
- [Fassbender] We know.

We already know. You know we know.

- [Fassbender] We know.
- We know you were back there.

We know what happened. It's OK.

[Drizin] False evidence ploys.

Telling the suspect over and over again,
"we already know."

John E. Reid & Associates
cautions police officers,

"Deceptive tactics
should not ordinarily be used

with individuals
who have significant mental limitations

or with youthful suspects
of low social maturity."

You were there when she died.
We know that.

- Come on.
- [Fassbender] What he made you do...

[Fassbender]
We know he made you do something else.

We have the evidence, Brendan.

He says,
"There's all this evidence against me.

He's not believing me.
What am I going to do?

This is a serious problem.
What am I going to do?"

And that's when interrogators are trained
to give a suspect an out.

He made you do something to her,
didn't he?

So he would feel better
about not being the only person, right?

Yeah. What did he make you do to her?

[Drizin]
Did you want to participate in the rape,

or did your uncle force you?

The suggestion is,
if you accept the less heinous version,

that you will be treated more leniently.

[Fassbender] From what I'm seeing,
even if I fill those in,

I'm thinking you're alright.

OK? You don't have to worry about things.

[Wiegert] Honesty, Brendan,
is the thing that's gonna help you.

No matter what you did,
we can work through that.

The honest person is the one that's
gonna get a better deal out of everything.

Honesty is the thing that'll set you free.

It's OK. We're gonna help you
through this, alright?

[Drizin] Brendan here is a 16-year-old

who functions at a much lower level
than your average 16-year-old.

So he actually thinks,
"If I tell them what they want to hear,

I'm gonna go home."

[Fassbender]
You are doing the right thing.

We need to hear it from you.

Let's get it all out today
and this will be all over with.

It's OK. What did he make you do?

- Cut her.
- Cut her where?

On the throat.

[Drizin] While getting an admission
is powerful evidence,

what they need to get a conviction

is to have the suspect
give the police officer

the details of the crime

that only the true perpetrator would know.

Now, this is a real problem
for an innocent person.

How does that happen?

Well, it happens through the third error,
which is the contamination error.

Fact feeding.

John E. Reid & Associates
tells investigators

that they should hold back some facts,

because if the suspect
can give you those facts,

then you have a pretty good idea that
what the suspect is telling you is true.

What else happens to her in her head?

These officers fed him
the three critical facts

that were not publicly released
before Brendan's interrogation:

Teresa Halbach was shot in the head,

her personal items were found
in a burn barrel

on the Avery salvage yard,

and the fact that someone went underneath
the hood of the car

and did something with the engine.

[Fassbender] It's extremely,
extremely important you tell us this

for us to believe you.

Come on, Brendan. What else?

[Fassbender] We know.
We just need you to tell us.

Contamination occurs
when investigators grow frustrated

with an innocent person's inability
to give them those facts.

That's all I can remember.

[Wiegert]
I'm just gonna come out and ask you.

Who shot her in the head?

He did.

[Fassbender] Why didn't you tell us that?

Because I couldn't think of it.

[Fassbender] Now you remember it?

Tell us about that, then.

[Drizin] They wanted this information
in the worst way.

And they got it...

in the worst way.

Brendan has confessed.
They've got what they think they need.

They have that narrative,
a horrific narrative.

Note that he recants
at the very first opportunity,

when he and his mother are alone.

What'd happen if he says something,
like his story's different?

Like he says he... he admits to doing it.

What do you mean?

Like, if his story's, like, different.
Like I never did nothing, or something.

Did you?

Huh?

Not really.

What do you mean, "not really"?

They got to my head.

Huh?

...say anything.

[Drizin] "They got to my head."
This is Brendan's way of recanting.

What do you mean by that?

[Drizin]
And note how he shuts up immediately

when those interrogators rush back in.

What do you mean by that, Brendan?

[Drizin]
The best interpreter of what Brendan

meant by "they got to my head,"

the only real interpreter,
was Brendan's mother.

Were you pressuring him?

- [Wiegert] Who are you talking about?
- Him.

[Wiegert] What do you mean,
"pressuring him"?

When talking to him.

[Wiegert] No. We told him
we needed to know the truth.

We've been doing this job
a long time, Barb,

and we can tell when people
aren't telling the truth.

[indistinct chatter]

We have now determined what occurred

sometime between 3:45 p.m.
and 10 or 11 p.m.

on the 31st of October.

Brendan accompanies his sweaty
43-year-old uncle down the hallway

to Steven Avery's bedroom,

and there they find Teresa Halbach,

unclothed, completely naked
and shackled to the bed.

Both of her arms are shackled,
both of her legs are shackled,

with leg irons.

Teresa Halbach is begging Brendan
for her life.

[Drizin]
Once police officers get a confession,

the job of police officers
and of prosecutors does not end there.

Investigators need to see

if there's additional corroboration
of the confession.

They need to continue to investigate.

They need to test whether that confession
is reliable or not.

And so do prosecutors.

After the sexual assault is completed,

Steven Avery tells Brendan
what a good job he did.

[Drizin] Ken Kratz didn't do any of that,

and part of the reason
is because he held a press conference

within 24 hours after Brendan confessed

in which he announced to the whole world
that Brendan's confession was reliable.

New details laid out this afternoon
left us all gasping and shaking our heads.

[newscaster] Prosecutors revealed
disturbing new details

about how Teresa Halbach
was raped and murdered.

We now know what happened to a 25-year-old
Wisconsin woman who disappeared...

[reporter] It takes a lot to shake
the composure of a prosecutor,

but it happened today as this man
revealed new grisly details

about how Teresa Halbach was killed.

They knew that she probably suffered,

but they were not fully prepared to learn
how she might have been tortured.

This confession had not even
been ruled admissible by a court.

So, he's out there talking about it
as if it's coming into evidence.

Sixteen-year-old Brendan,
under the instruction of Steven Avery,

cuts Teresa Halbach's throat,

but she still doesn't die.

I thought that was one of the most
outrageous things I've ever seen,

pretrial.

I thought that was just unbelievable.

It was so much... He went so much further
than most prosecutors.

Most prosecutors would have said,
you know, "She was stabbed."

Of course, there's no evidence
that she was stabbed.

Or, "She was shot in the head."

But this, you know, prosecutor

creates this fantasy
about what has happened,

and then that spreads.

[newscaster] This picture of Steven Avery
and Brendan Dassey

makes more sense in hindsight.

[Jeff Phelps] You can see the connection
between the eyes,

and they obviously, without saying a word,

know what each other is thinking.

[newscaster]
Look at this photo of the two.

Notice what's on TV.

[Ken] There's additional information
in the complaint

as to additional torture,

as to additional mutilation,
as to additional mechanisms of death,

which includes manual strangulation
and gunshot wounds.

I can't think of a worse way to go

than what he described
in that press conference.

I mean...

that's a pretty gruesome picture to paint.

I believed him at first,
and now it's the other way around.

His friend coming out
and saying all that stuff...

I totally...
I totally think he did it now.

[Drizin]
It violated every sense of ethics

that governs the conduct of prosecutors.

Legal ethics and ethical rules
prohibit a prosecutor

from discussing the contents
of a suspect's confession.

The rules are crystal clear.

[Drizin] Ken Kratz just went way,
way overboard here.

And he had to know... had to know...

that what he was doing was wrong.

[Kathleen] Brendan was just a pawn,

just a tool that was used
by the investigators and the prosecution

to frame Steven Avery.

He was another piece
of the planted evidence.

You know, we've got the blood
planted in the car,

we've got the key in the bedroom,
and we've got Brendan Dassey,

because they planted this story
in his brain

and got him to agree with it.

And that it could have survived

through the court system in Wisconsin,
I think, is shocking.

[indistinct chatter]

And then if we can't find anything,
we'll just initiate.

Exactly.

[Karl] Miss Zellner called me
and asked me to look over the case

and find anomalies.

And in this case,
there are more than a handful of those.

And that's unusual.
One or two is expected.

People collect,
the documentation isn't perfect.

That's understandable.

But when there's a large number
of these anomalies,

these less-than-complete results which
don't quite fit into what you expect,

um, you want to look at those
in more detail.

[Kathleen] The blood in the car...

there was no mixture of the victim's blood
and Steven Avery's blood.

If you follow the logic of,
although it's horrible to say,

putting the victim in the back
while you're bleeding

and then getting in the car and driving,

and the victim's blood
is only in one spot,

and the supposed assailant
is always in another,

you know that they'd been in contact.

So, why isn't there a mixture?
Why isn't it spread around?

That's what you expect to see in something
as violent as what was described,

and that's really not what the DNA results
from testing the specific areas tells us.

I believe that the prosecutor
in Steven Avery's trial

had a strong suspicion
the blood evidence was planted.

All of Steven's blood
is in the front of the car,

all of Teresa's blood
is in the back of the car.

Any experienced prosecutor,

anybody who's done murder cases,
knows that's a huge red flag.

Because that was a huge red flag,

the prosecution needed
to have another body fluid

somewhere else on the vehicle.

What would be really ideal
would be if Brendan Dassey

could talk about Steven Avery touching
or doing something else in the car

that would leave DNA evidence.

[Fassbender] OK, what else did he do?
He did something else.

You need to tell us what he did.

After that car was parked there.
It's extremely important.

That he left the...

the gun in the car.

[Fassbender]
That's not what I'm thinking about.

He did something to that car.

He took the plates, and I believe
he did something else to that car.

I don't know.

[Fassbender] Did he...
Did he go and look at the engine?

Did he raise the hood at all
or anything like that...

to do something to that car?

- Yeah.
- What was that?

[Wiegert] What did he do, Brendan?

It's OK. What did he do?

What did he do under the hood,
if that's what he did?

I don't know what he did,
but I know he went under.

[Fassbender] He did raise the hood?
You remember that?

Yeah.

[Kathleen] And voilà.

Suddenly, Brendan Dassey is talking about

Steven opening up the hood
and touching the hood latch.

No one swabs the hood latch initially.

The hood latch isn't swabbed
until after Dassey's confession.

What's interesting is the crime lab
did the blood swabbing in the car,

but they did not do the swabbing
of the hood latch.

That was done in Calumet
and taken to the crime lab.

And magically, when they test it,
it's got Steven's profile on it.

Wow, what a piece of luck that is.

Now you're not dependent anymore
just on that blood evidence.

And kind of like Nancy Grace said,
"It's the sweat DNA that convinced me."

You heard a suggestion already,
which will be evidence in this case,

that the battery was disconnected
on Miss Halbach's vehicle.

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.

DNA evidence, again,
is not just from blood.

It can be from skin cells
which are left through perspiration.

Sweat.

Now, remember,
at trial they said it was sweat DNA

that was on the hood latch.

They locked into that.

That's just wishful thinking,
because you can't test for sweat.

So, the answer is,
we don't know the source.

- That's the honest, correct answer.
- [Kathleen] Right.

What about touch DNA?
Touching and opening it?

The amount of material you're gonna get
from handled objects is pretty low.

- Do it multiple times, you'll get more.
- Right.

But Liz's results were quite interesting

when you compare them
with what they found in this case.

[Liz] We were curious to see
what sort of results we might get

from having this hood opened
and the latch handled.

So, we had three volunteers
each do it five times.

We had 15 trials,
and I sampled the latch each time.

I only got a detectable signal
from four of those fifteen.

And those were very low quantities,

much less than even half a nanogram total.

[Kathleen] It's a rich source of DNA,
whatever is on that hood latch.

- [Karl] Right.
- [Kathleen] It's not touch DNA.

Blood and saliva,
very common forensic sources.

Lots of DNA in them.
Lots and lots of DNA in there.

OK, so, they fought the idea that
that was blood on the hood latch.

That contains a swab from the hood latch
of Teresa Halbach's RAV4?

Yes.

Do you recall,
when you looked at the swab,

did you notice any condition to it,
as far as color?

It was discolored,
but it did not have the appearance...

It was not a reddish-brown discoloration
consistent with blood.

So, it did not appear to have blood
on the swab?

Correct.

In the Avery case, there are a number
of DNA profiles that were obtained

that make you wonder what was the source.

They're pretty robust,
they're full profiles,

but they didn't do
body fluid identification.

So, where did it come from?

[Kathleen]
So, what source, right, of the...

- What's the source of the DNA?
- What's the source of the DNA?

In order to determine
the source of the DNA,

laboratories have four tests they can run:

one for blood, one for saliva,
one for semen, and one for urine.

Blood, that should show up.
Semen isn't an issue on this.

Urine doesn't count, either.
So you're left with one other test.

And it would be... it would be the saliva.

Of course.

Our laboratory has developed
a test for saliva that's very widely used.

And if I am able, with that test,
to detect saliva on the hood latch...

Well, then you're starting to build
a different story.

Now you're building the story

that Mr. Avery is spreading his saliva
all over the place.

- That's right.
- Or someone else is taking Mister...

He's licking hood latches.

An innocent explanation
or a not-so-innocent explanation.

And in any event,

it contradicts their original concept
of how it got there.

[Kathleen] It really profiles
like a buccal swab of saliva,

and it would be very improbable, I think,
that you wouldn't have had a mixture.

To me, it looks like a surface
that was cleaned off with diluted bleach,

and then the buccal swab planted
the saliva.

Because you just have Steven on there.

You don't have anybody else
who ever opened up the car.

And then, of course,
there's a hood release inside the car.

That's never swabbed for anything.

The prop that holds the hood up,
nobody ever swabs that.

Um, see, that's all things the defense
could have requested that they didn't.

So, I don't know if they were talking
to a forensic scientist,

but a forensic scientist
would have immediately told them that.

If his hand was there,
why didn't you find fingerprints?

Well, they're looking for DNA.

That's what was looked for and found.

- They didn't look for fingerprints?
- I don't know. I...

I imagine it would be
an important thing to know.

You're alleging
that he drove this vehicle and hid it.

I would imagine his fingerprints
would be all over the thing.

They might have.
Um, I don't have the case file.

[Steven] You know, these DAs
are just doing whatever they want to do.

Trying to make fit what ain't true.

You know, the DA's got too much power
for anything and everything.

You know, they're supposed
to protect the families.

You know, the citizens.

They gotta be accountable
for their actions.

We gotta change it.
This can't happen to somebody else.

He should be in here, where I am.

Put him in here and me out there.

So, as you understand, Steven, we're doing
brain fingerprint testing here,

and that detects concealed information
in your brain.

[Kathleen] I had learned about testing

that many authorities think
is superior to polygraph,

which is brain fingerprinting.

[newscaster] How often have we heard these
words from law enforcement officials:

"These are details
known only to the perpetrators"?

The latest technology in forensic science
uses those details

to prove a suspect's guilt or innocence.

Developed by Harvard-trained doctor
Lawrence Farwell,

brain fingerprinting uses brain waves

to measure what Dr. Farwell calls
the "Aha" of recognition.

[reporter]
Farwell says that when the human brain

recognizes important information,

it triggers a specific electrical signal
called a "MERMER"

that can be measured and analyzed.

[Kathleen] I told Steven
the CIA, the Navy, the FBI,

was using a very sophisticated test

to detect if someone was telling the truth
or not about being innocent,

and would he do the test.

Regardless of whether it would come
into court or not,

I convinced Steven Avery
that it was 100 percent reliable

and that if he flunked it,
we would have a big problem.

So, I laid all this on him.

So, he...

very enthusiastically agreed

to subject himself to this testing.

[chuckles]

[Kathleen] He was thrilled that there was
something like that that we could use.

Alright.

So, let's go over some things
that you know

and some things
that you couldn't possibly know

if you really haven't done the crime.

[Larry] The Steven Avery case was
very challenging for brain fingerprinting.

If we had gotten there on day one,

the perpetrator would have known
everything about the crime,

an innocent suspect would know nothing
about the crime,

and we'd have a wealth of evidence
that we could test.

Steven Avery has been through
a long trial.

He knows a tremendous amount
about the crime from the trial.

So, we had to find information
that was not presented at the trial,

or even information where what they
thought happened at the time of the trial

was not accurate.

It is consistent with a bloody object,
such as a body,

being loaded into the rear end
of this vehicle.

[Kathleen] When we did
the blood spatter analysis

and realized that the prosecution
had made a big mistake

about the blood spatter
on the rear cargo door,

we used the blood spatter pattern,

what it actually indicated,

to test Steven Avery's knowledge
about that cargo door being open

and where Teresa Halbach was positioned
at that point.

We wanted to know, was he storing
that information of hitting her,

knocking her to the ground,

and then repeatedly hitting her
in the head?

Because if he was, he'd be the killer,

because that's how the blood ended up
on the rear inside cargo door.

[Larry] We present
three different types of stimuli:

Things we know he knows,

things that are irrelevant,

where we won't get the response.

And then probes,

where we'll get the response
only if he knows it.

[Kathleen] We spent two days there.

We did 13 hours of testing on Steven.

[Larry] When we analyze the data,
we can make a mathematical determination.

Yes, this information is
stored in the brain.

Or no, the information
is not stored in the brain.

So, you've got no response
to the irrelevant things.

You've got this big response,
you can see in the red line,

to the things you know.

Now, the question we were asking
scientifically is,

do you know those details about the crime
that nobody ever told you

but the person who did it
definitely knows?

- See this blue line?
- Mm-hmm.

Now, that blue line doesn't show
that recognition response, does it?

It looks just like the green line.
It's basically a flat line.

So, what that means is,
according to your brain,

you don't know what happened
when she was murdered.

If you had been the perpetrator,
this blue line would have...

It would be like the red line.

Yeah, it'd be like the red line.
It would have that big response in it.

So, this is very powerful evidence that,
in fact, you're innocent of the crime.

I knew that already.

[all laugh]

Well, you knew that,
but, see, I didn't know that.

Now I know it, and anybody who understands
the science is gonna know it as well.

So, what does that mean to you?

It's good news.

[laughing]

[Kathleen] Steven has all the hallmarks
of someone who's innocent:

how cooperative he is,
the lengths that he wants us to go to.

There's nothing about him, um,

that I think is indicative
of someone who's guilty.

I mean, I am... I'd bet my life
on Steven Avery being innocent.

I'm positive he's innocent.
The question is, can we prove it?

This is excellent.
This is an excellent result.

I really didn't know until today.

Now we gotta find out who did.

- [Kathleen] Yeah.
- Mm-hmm.

So, I saw Steven last week on Monday,

and he seemed like
he was doing pretty well.

- Oh, yeah?
- Yeah.

[Kathleen] He was going over
to the doctor just because he's...

They're always trying to monitor
his blood pressure, so...

Oh, yeah, I heard it was high.

Yeah, he said it had gone up higher
just in the last couple of weeks,

so I was telling him he needs to relax.

Yeah, I know. I know.
That's what's wrong with him.

[Kathleen] It is.

It's amazing that he's just survived it
as long as he has.

He told me he got some new books
about building a house.

- What kind of house he'd like to build.
- Oh, yeah.

I said, "That's good for you to do that,

think about the future of being free
and being out."

He said, "Yeah, that's what I'm doing."

But I think we know more about everything,
how this happened,

so much more than they knew at the trial.

I wonder how those cops feel now.

- [Kathleen] I bet they're nervous.
- I bet.

Yeah.

- [Dolores] They should be.
- Yeah, Judgment Day is coming.

I want to catch who did it.

If there's any way we can do that.

- You know, it'd be good.
- Yeah.

Well, my goal is just to keep him calm
so nothing happens to his health.

[Kathleen] He could still have
a good life, live a long time.

If he got out and got good care...

- And got out of here.
- [Kathleen] Got out...

- He can't stay here.
- [Kathleen] No.

- I talked to him about where he would go.
- What did he say?

- [Kathleen] He talked about Michigan.
- Yeah.

You like that?
Yeah, because it's beautiful there.

He wants Chucky
to load up the whole junkyard

and take it to Michigan.

Oh, my God. I wonder how you'd do that.

- [Kathryn] That'd be a big project.
- A lot of trips.

Yeah, that's true.
It would be a lot of trips.

Well, we're gonna help him get that.

[chuckles]

I have one goal, and that's to vacate
the conviction of Steven Avery.

The steps I have to take to do that
are more involved.

But in a nutshell, I have to undermine
confidence in his verdict.

The way I undermine confidence is
I find new evidence

that shows that the verdict
wasn't correct.

I show that there were violations
of his constitutional rights,

that there was exculpatory evidence
that was concealed by the prosecution,

what we call Brady violations,

or ineffective assistance of counsel,

that the defense attorneys
didn't do their job.

The first thing that you do is file
a motion for new scientific testing,

if that exists, and I believe it does.

That will allow me
to have scientific testing done

that was not done previously.

Once those test results come in,

then I combine that
with the new investigation that I'm doing

into what's called
a postconviction petition.

Then, after that's filed,
the court will decide

if I have presented enough evidence

to justify what's called
an evidentiary hearing.

I see an evidentiary hearing
almost like a second trial.

That's what I'm envisioning.

So, then we have a hearing,
we call witnesses,

but we don't have a jury.

We just have a judge
listening to everything.

We present all the evidence.

We present all the new evidence,

the reinvestigation, any new witnesses,

any evidence that's been concealed
by the prosecution that we've discovered.

We present all of that.

If the defense
wants to put forth their defense

that they're suggesting and implying
in their pleadings today,

then they do so at their peril.

During late October of 2009,

I had engaged in an exchange
of text messages

with a domestic abuse victim.

[Ken] My behavior was inappropriate.

Here are two officers who are accused
of something just terrible.

That's terrible
that they would plant evidence

and try and frame someone

and basically ignore whoever it may
have been that murdered Teresa Halbach.

[reporter] Gahn was part of the team
that included Fallon and Ken Kratz

that originally prosecuted Steven Avery
and his nephew Brendan Dassey

for the 2005 murder of Teresa Halbach.

[second reporter] Because the trial judge
in this case has retired,

a Sheboygan County judge
has been assigned to it.

I spoke with the judge's office today

and was told there was no timetable
or schedule for what would happen next.

I'm Judge Angela Sutkiewicz.

I was a member of the Crime Victims
Rights Board for six years,

so I really carry a lot of what I learned
on that board with me.

I try to be interactive in criminal cases,

make sure
that the victim's voice is heard,

make mention of the impact on them,

praise defendants when they have
turned things around and done well.

I think if people know
that you've really listened to them,

you've read everything
that's come before you,

you know about their case,

you didn't just come out and say,
"It's because I said so,"

you give a reasoned decision
and you explain it to them,

even if they disagree with you,

I think they're a lot more likely
to go away happy.

[Steven] The judge in Sheboygan,

you know, I had the problem
with her before

when I was working on my case on my own.

It was 2013.

I was still at Boscobel.

She had my 974.06, the motion,

and she was looking at that

at the same time that she was looking
at the Halbachs' wrongful death suit

against me and Brendan.

I thought, maybe it'd go
to a different judge...

but she got them both.

But then the Halbachs
put in for a dismissal

on the wrongful death suit against me.

The judge, she thought
maybe I should pay...

pay some money to them
and everything else,

so she wanted to keep it open,
and she didn't want to let it go.

It didn't seem like
she was for me at all, or for justice.

That's the way I felt, you know?

One day, I got up and said,
"Well, this has been too long.

It's been over a year already."

So, that's when I filed
in the Court of Appeals.

I told them that she was being biased

because the Halbachs put in
for a dismissal, and she won't do it.

And then when I did that,
it only took a couple weeks.

I got a letter in the mail from the courts

that it was all dismissed,
that she signed the papers then.

[Steven coughs]

So I won that.

[Sandy] Are you playing cards now?

- [Steven] Yeah.
- Are you still winning?

Yeah, I'm still winning.
The game ain't over.

Uh-huh.

[both laughing]

Is it rummy?

[Steven] No, it's, uh...

Shampoo.

[Dolores] Shampoo?

[Steven]
That's what the game is called. Shampoo.

[Dolores] Oh, OK.

You don't have to worry, then, Steven,
because you have no hair to shampoo, so...

[Steven laughing]

[Steven] You know, with Sandy, kind of...
we had a perfect six years, you know?

There was no arguing, no nothing,
and we got along great.

Excellent.

She made me feel good,
and I made her feel good all the time,

and everything was good.

But these last two years,
a little over two years,

it's been on the rocks.

She's talking about, you know,
she's too old for me

and I need somebody my own age.

She threw that up at me,
oh, probably a million times.

[Sandy] After he moved to Waupun,
he had wanted to get married,

and he had figured out how to do it
and was happy about it.

But I didn't think it was a good idea.

I had health issues.
I didn't know what was gonna happen to me.

It was a big question.

And we did have religious differences,

and we had been going round and round
about that.

[Steven] She was trying to pull away
and she didn't come up for a while.

And then her health ain't good.
She didn't want me to worry about it.

And I always told her,
"That's what I'm for, you know?

We're supposed to be talking
and tell me all of this stuff."

Today we're talking about a story
full of twists and turns.

I didn't see it. Went to chow.

Everybody else seen it and told me.

Sandy, I've heard him say
that if he was out,

if he was able to get out,

he would love to go off
and live in the woods.

Is that what the two of you
plan to do if he is released?

[Sandy] That had been our plan,

however, I have broken the engagement.

I hate to say this on air, but I did.

We don't know what will happen
when he gets out.

[Steven] That was the sure thing
because she told everybody.

She told the whole world.

The other inmates, they said,
"Oh, we seen you on TV.

Looks like Sandy broke up with you."

[Sandy]
I didn't want to break our relationship.

I just wanted not to marry him right then.

That was the worst thing
I could have said, and I regret it...

so much.

That changed Steven's plans.

And so now his plans are just,
"I don't know what's happening.

You know, we had our plans,
and you broke them."

[Steven] That's where I kind of knew
that there was no future.

You know, I thought that future
was gonna go to the end.

But with Lynn, it's... it's different.

Lynn is my new girlfriend.

She wrote me.

I think it was February or something.

She was down in the dumps
because she got her divorce.

Then I wrote her back
and made her feel better,

and it's been like that ever since.

I got pictures of her on the wall.

And I had other women up there,

and I had to take the other women down

because it didn't feel right.

She's just stuck in me.

[telephone rings]

[ring]

[ring]

[ring]

[Allan] Hey. You got a minute?

Missed it. Yeah.

[Allan] Who in the hell...?

I just missed a phone call.

[Earl] How?

I was opening up the other door.

Oh, it's nice and cool out here.

What'd you get, six phone calls yesterday?

Well, if there ain't nothing, I'm gonna...

start on that radiator on that Bug.

[clanging and hammering]

- [Earl] It might be a brass one.
- Huh?

- [Earl] No, that's...
- No, wait a minute.

That's... That's lead.

- [Earl] That's lead.
- OK.

- [Earl] All of this can go.
- [Allan] Huh?

All of this here can go.

- Yeah, I just thought it was junk.
- [Earl] Yeah.

- Now, I talked to him yesterday.
- Yeah?

On them pumps...

two dollars apiece.

We'll scrap them, get rid of them.

- That's all he'll give you, huh?
- That's it.

And they're worth more than that,
especially the ones with copper in them.

The ones with copper
are worth more than two dollars.

Because there's a pound of copper
in there, ain't there?

- On some, yeah.
- Yeah.

[metal crunching]

[truck reversing beeps]

[Allan] The boys just crushed some cars.

We got to do that
every once in a while to survive.

This used to be all full here...

um, with some of our older Dodge trucks,

like, uh, in the '40s and the '50s,
Dodge trucks.

We used to have a whole bunch all in here.

And, uh, like,
a lot of our older Chevy trucks

were '55, '56 Chevys.

That's our bread and butter
because there's money there.

I mean, the chrome on them.
You can't find this stuff no more.

And we were the only ones around
that had it.

Now we don't got it.

[chuckles]

The rest of this is cleared right out.
Everything is cleared right out.

Just like there were no cars here.

[Allan] They sure took us down, and bad.

They wrecked our business.

The media, TV, radio.

Avery's Auto Salvage is the focus...

[Allan] That's all you saw.
"Avery's Auto Salvage."

And there's a lot of people
that won't come out here

on account of that.

When there was no reason for it.

Nothing happened here.

Nothing.

They wrecked us and they wrecked Steven
and they wrecked Brendan.

They wrecked them boys' lives.

But we're not gonna give up.

[Wiegert] Stay on the outside of the car.
Go to the front on the driver's side.

[Pam Sturm] OK, hang on.

The first... The last four digits:
three, zero, four, four.

- [Wiegert] OK, where are you?
- [Pam] Is that the number?

- [Wiegert] Where are you?
- [Pam] No, tell me if this is the car.

[Wiegert] OK, stop.
I can't tell you anything. Where are you?

[Pam] I'm at Avery Salvage.

[Jacobs] Other than the car,
do we have anything else?

[Remiker] Not yet.

[Jacobs] OK, is he in custody?

[Remiker] Negative. Nothing yet.

[Kathleen] The car is when
all the other agencies working on it

shift their focus to Steven.

All the other investigation
just grinds to an immediate halt.

But one of the things that happens is,

after the car is found,
they bring all the dogs in.

Well, the dogs...

they go right over the berm
into the quarry.

The quarry property
is a sand and gravel pit

adjacent to the Avery property.

The scent dogs are circling the trailer
owned by the owner of the quarry.

The dogs are in the woods there.

The dogs track deeper into the quarry
on the southwest section of it,

and then they come back up
to exactly where her car is found,

through that conveyor road
up onto the Avery property.

And those dogs are not reacting
to her remains.

They're reacting to her scent.

[Kathleen] What in the world
is she doing over there?

That's not part of the narrative.

Now, multiple dogs all tracking
the same tracks...

and that's never mentioned by the defense,

and of course it's not mentioned
by the prosecution.

Where Teresa's car was parked,
there was an east-west berm

that separated the Avery property
from the Radandt property.

But as you went further west,
there was a break in the berm.

And the break in the berm
was right on that conveyor road.

It was the quickest spot to unload the car
coming from the quarry.

What the Averys had done
was they took a '72 Pinto station wagon,

parked it horizontally to block

so that you couldn't squeeze
in between the cars.

But, in reviewing all of the photographs
and talking to witnesses,

it appears that the cars that were used
to block off that road had been moved.

What we started noticing
was that this car...

- See the hood on it, how it's popped?
- [men] Mm-hmm.

And see how it only has one tire?

Mm-hmm.

So, we started looking at the damage
on her car, and it's got...

See that bumper on it?
It's kind of a darker color.

[Kathleen] We have the parking light
in the back of her car

that's got the brown smudge on it.

OK?

And the thing that's significant is,

this car is pushed further back
into the Avery property.

It's not pushed from the Avery property
onto the quarry.

We think that the RAV damage

came from pushing the Pinto
bumper-to-bumper out of the way

to get into that road
that then curved around...

looped around the pond

and would have allowed someone
to park the RAV where it was.

And then the way they exited
was back over the berm

or back to the break,
back into the quarry.

That's how they got out of there.

[Kathleen]
That light is connected to the murder.

I think what we need to do
is try to link...

Somehow we have to get a link of her
to the people at that quarry,

somebody in that quarry,
why she would be there.

- Why...
- [Kathleen] Yeah.

And then, if we can find that,
that could lead us to motive.

- [Kathleen] Right.
- Right.

Somebody's gonna have to tell us.
We'll have to keep talking to people.

And someone may know,
that we haven't hit on,

that isn't making the connection.

And a lot of people, I think,
just heard her car's on Avery's property

and her bones are there,
so what's there to talk about?

I mean, why would anybody think back
about some connection to the quarry

unless we can develop that lead?

There's tons.

I was just
talking to somebody the other day,

and there's so many
misconceptions about this.

And they started rattling on,
"Well, what about this?"

And I'm like, "That didn't happen.
This didn't happen."

- So, people have misconceptions, you know?
- [Kathleen] Yeah.

Well, even talking with
some of the jurors we've spoken with

and we asked them about the quarry
and the relevance in the trial,

and they were like, "I didn't really know
it had much relevance."

- It was barely mentioned.
- [Kathleen] Yeah.

The defense attorneys
don't mention that...

I mean, there's nine dog handlers,

and there's probably
five to six scent hounds,

and then the cadavers, and they're
all over in the quarry, you know?

So, I think what we gotta do on her

is we've got to find people that
were close to her that will talk to us.

- It'll be her friends that'll tell us.
- [Kathleen] I totally agree.

It'll come from her friends.

[indistinct talking]

[Steven] Kathleen.

She makes me feel like
she cares about her clients,

what they're going through and everything.

You know, when you got a lawyer
that cares about you,

that's the lawyer that's good,
that's gonna do something for you,

you know, get the truth out
and get what happened.

[Kathleen] Remember that?

[Earl]
Was that vehicle there at that time?

The hunters said that it was,

but then they noticed it was pushed over
into your property.

Because I said to Steven,
"It's only got that one tire on it.

How would you guys move it?"

And he said,
"You could just use a car to push it."

Yeah, because there was no...

There was nothing in this thing.
It was gutted.

- It's only a shell.
- Oh.

[Kathryn]
So, it's just the body of the car...

That would make it really lightweight.

There was... There was...

Even the floor on the inside
was all cut out.

They were gonna make something out of it.

- So, it wouldn't be hard to push it.
- There was no motor.

No tranny in it, no nothing.

- [Kathryn] It would have been light.
- [Earl] Yeah.

[Kathleen] Show him her car, though.

[Kathryn] Here's a good one.
We can really see that damage there.

[Kathleen] And then it goes all the way up
onto the hood.

- [Earl] Mm-hmm.
- [Kathryn] Mm-hmm.

That smudge right there might be that...

That paint?

That might be this bumper.

- Yeah.
- That's true.

- And the right height.
- They push it from an angle.

The top of this bumper,
that could be that mark right there.

- Yeah.
- Mm-hmm.

I want to figure out what that berm...

Because I feel like that's where
they came through.

You know, we spent a lot of time
on those scent dogs

tracking in the quarry.

[Kathryn] That's where they're
really hitting, is that quarry.

And then there were bones over there.

That I didn't know, either.

- Yeah. There was a pelvis over there.
- OK.

So, there's a lot of stuff over there.

He's going just to the berm, right?

[Kurt] This is where the conveyor road
passed through.

This was... This berm wasn't up like this.
It was totally open.

It was the roadway with the conveyor
at that time.

- And the conveyor came through.
- Right.

[Chuck] My property ends right here.

Yeah, because they got pieces
of the conveyor on the other side yet.

[Kathleen] OK.

[Kathleen]
Whoa, look at that.

- [Kurt] Back down a little.
- [Kathleen] Let me come down.

Do you want a hand? Give me your hand.

- [Chuck] Right, here.
- Here we go. Thank you.

- Here, give me your hand. OK.
- [Kathryn] Thank you.

[Kathleen]
Are we on Radandt's property now?

[Kurt] Yeah.

[Kathleen] So, just point to the old road
coming in here.

[Chuck] It was on... Let's see here.

I'm not sure if it was on the left side
or the right side.

But it came straight in...

[Chuck] Straight from Highway Q.

[Kathleen] And you could come
right into your property.

There was no berm here, right?

- [Chuck] No. No berm, no nothing.
- [Kathleen] Yeah.

So, it doesn't take a rocket scientist

to figure out how the car was planted
back on the Avery property.

Every crime makes sense.
Every crime can be unraveled.

You can figure it out.

You have to understand the victim,

you have to understand
the nature of the crime,

and you must understand,
in intimate detail, the crime scene.

And I don't think any of that was done
in this case.

I mean,
you've really got to live the case.

You have to be an obsessive kind of
personality to do this, you know?

But there's no better feeling in the world

than walking out of prison
with someone who's innocent.

And when I get in the middle
of a case like this, and I...

You'll get to sort of a point
where you think,

"Is this gonna work? Do we have enough?
I need this to work."

And then I'll...

In my mind, I flash all those images

of me walking out the door with people,

you know, people in 15 years,
people in ten years.

Just over and over again,
I can flash through those.

When people said, "Oh, it can't be done,
you can't do this, you can't win this,"

it's ridiculous.

If someone's innocent, you find a way.

[theme music plays]