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Speaker 1: You are now listening to True Murder, The most Shocking
Speaker 1: Killers in True Crime History and the authors that have
Speaker 1: written about them Gasey Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker VTK Every
Speaker 1: week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and
Speaker 1: infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your host,
Speaker 1: journalist and author Dan Zupansky. Good Evening.
Speaker 7: This is your host Dan Zupanski for the program True Murder,
Speaker 7: The most Shocking Killers in True crime History and the
Speaker 7: authors that have written about them. Michael Breeseback had been
Speaker 7: a prosecutor for twenty two years and thought he'd seen
Speaker 7: it all, but nothing prepared him for the case you're
Speaker 7: about to read and hear about a true crime story
Speaker 7: where the good guys are sometimes the bad guys, and
Speaker 7: the bad guys the good. It's a case of violent
Speaker 7: crime with a mind numbing twist, but mostly it's a
Speaker 7: case about innocence and guilt. On July twenty ninth, nineteen
Speaker 7: eighty five, Penny Beernstein set out for a late afternoon
Speaker 7: jog along a remote stretch of beach on the Lake
Speaker 7: Michigan shoreline, unaware that just minutes later, a deranged sex
Speaker 7: offender would shatter her world to pieces. It would be
Speaker 7: a jog that would change her life forever in more
Speaker 7: ways than she could have imagined. Within hours, police and
Speaker 7: prosecutors zeroed in on Stephen Avery, a known offender who
Speaker 7: was out on bail for another crime. Armed only with
Speaker 7: suspicion and lacking a warrant, they dragged their suspect from
Speaker 7: his home and took them to jail. What followed was
Speaker 7: a twenty year crime saga. The gripped the entire state,
Speaker 7: made Stephen Avery a household name in Wisconsin, and left
Speaker 7: the local justice system nearly in ruins. My special guest
Speaker 7: this evening is journalist and author and prosecutor Michael Breeseback,
Speaker 7: and we're going to try to connect with him again.
Speaker 7: We're having technical problems. I just was speaking with Michael
Speaker 7: breesback for the last ten minutes or so previous to
Speaker 7: getting the show back on the road again from being disconnected.
Speaker 1: So we.
Speaker 7: I can see the numbers on the screen, But.
Speaker 3: Yeah, are you there? Yes, I am okay, Dan, it's Mike.
Speaker 3: I hope we're on together.
Speaker 7: Okay, I hear you on the phone, So I'm hoping
Speaker 7: that our audience is hearing you live. So I'm sure
Speaker 7: that's what's going on. Okay, Okay, So I just introduced
Speaker 7: your book, So let's get down to a little bit
Speaker 7: of the introduction of this story. This story occurred in
Speaker 7: nineteen eighty five. But your book starts, you start, and
Speaker 7: I'll ask you to explain why it starts on July fourteenth,
Speaker 7: nineteen eighty five. So let's go back to that must
Speaker 7: be important why you started your book that and describe
Speaker 7: the scene that you first described in the very beginning
Speaker 7: of your book on July fourteenth, nineteen eighty five.
Speaker 5: Sure.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And it's a shocking start to the book. And
Speaker 3: the reason I started with it was it shows I
Speaker 3: think that there was this dangerous social path really on
Speaker 3: the loose on July fourteenth and nineteen eighty five and
Speaker 3: really all that summer. So I wanted the reader to
Speaker 3: see right out front that there is a very dangerous
Speaker 3: social path. Like I said, I'm the loose. The police
Speaker 3: had a pretty good idea of who he was, but
Speaker 3: they didn't have enough to bring him in. And so
Speaker 3: what happens after that the reader, hopefully in the back
Speaker 3: of his mind, is her his or her mind is thinking,
Speaker 3: I wonder if this guy's up to it again, because
Speaker 3: it quickly moves on today that you described that that
Speaker 3: the main part of the book opens.
Speaker 7: With Okay, now did you just call me and I
Speaker 7: we were connecting via that method?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think we were. We were on before and
Speaker 3: for some reason it got disconnected. I think, but we're
Speaker 3: we should be on together now hopefully.
Speaker 7: Okay, So the number you just called is this blog
Speaker 7: talk number right?
Speaker 3: Correct?
Speaker 7: Okay, got it. I'm just just just I'm a little
Speaker 7: you know, just frustrated from the glitious here. So I
Speaker 7: apologize to the audience for that. Now let's let's start
Speaker 7: with this. This where this uh story is actually set
Speaker 7: in Manuttoauck County, Wisconsin. I know the populations around eight thousand,
Speaker 7: if I'm not incorrect. Tell us what this little community
Speaker 7: looks like and what it's really like. Describe it for us,
Speaker 7: and geographically where is this county?
Speaker 6: Sure?
Speaker 3: Well, I live here. I'm still a prosecutor here, and
Speaker 3: it's a wonderful little county, little area. It's your listeners
Speaker 3: proudly are familiar with Milwaukee, Chicago, of course. And then
Speaker 3: two hundred miles Chicago's Milwaukee well Manach walks about another
Speaker 3: ninety eight miles north of Milwaukee, thirty miles south of
Speaker 3: Green Bay, the home of the Green Bay Packers, right
Speaker 3: of which we're all proud of here in Wisconsin, of course.
Speaker 3: And it's a community. It's actually about eighty thousand, that
Speaker 3: eight thousand and eighty thousand, quite right, and we're right
Speaker 3: on Lake Michigan, and it's a real scenic area and
Speaker 3: it's just you know, part of Wisconsin. The first crime
Speaker 3: occurred in a remote action as you were reading the
Speaker 3: beach on Wake Michigan in a state forest called Point
Speaker 3: Beach State Forest, with a woman who was jagging along
Speaker 3: the beach. She was in the habit of jagging. She
Speaker 3: was a fitness physical fitness instructor at the WAYNCAA, and
Speaker 3: she had a six mile jag per day, really up
Speaker 3: and down the beach, but a very desolate part of
Speaker 3: the Lake Michigan beach where the first crime occurred.
Speaker 7: Right now, you talk about her having this should be
Speaker 7: a dedicated jogger. And so she went on an one
Speaker 7: hour run that day. And that's important to this whole
Speaker 7: thing in terms of evidence later in terms of really
Speaker 7: defining when this attack occurred, which is again later important.
Speaker 7: So tell us a little bit more about Penny, what
Speaker 7: she's like, did, where was her family at this point?
Speaker 7: You say, she goes on this desolate part of the beach.
Speaker 7: Why would she run in this place that's out of
Speaker 7: the way. Tell us a little bit about a little
Speaker 7: bit more about Penny, why she was doing this, uh,
Speaker 7: this this hour run, and then what she finally encountered
Speaker 7: while she was jogging that night.
Speaker 3: Absolutely well, Penny and her husband, and they had two children,
Speaker 3: by the way, they were actually, uh, sort of some
Speaker 3: prominent people in the community. They were business people. They
Speaker 3: ran a confectionery or a candy store type of operation
Speaker 3: that that Tom Bernston's grandparents actually started. So then it
Speaker 3: talks a bit of a tourist area, and this candy
Speaker 3: shop was a tourist area, and they basically took their kids,
Speaker 3: their children to the beach that day. And as the day,
Speaker 3: late afternoon comes along, Penny decides she's going to take
Speaker 3: her her job. She was very fit, and the public
Speaker 3: beach where they were is a regular public beach, plenty
Speaker 3: of people there enjoying the day. But when she took
Speaker 3: her jag from that, she went north of there, and
Speaker 3: it very quickly becomes a desolate area. She had passed
Speaker 3: sort of a scraggly looking fellow on the way away
Speaker 3: from the beach as she continued jagging north. Didn't think
Speaker 3: too much of it, although he had a leather jacket on,
Speaker 3: and you know, it's in the mid eighties, and she
Speaker 3: kind of wondered about that, and the guy made some
Speaker 3: tim into him. But it's on her way back forty
Speaker 3: minutes later that this fella basically jumps out from behind
Speaker 3: a poplar tree or bush close to the water right
Speaker 3: at the beach. Penny, I don't want to give the
Speaker 3: whole book away, but I think that the people will,
Speaker 3: the readers and your listeners, though they need to know
Speaker 3: what the first crime's about, because this is kind of
Speaker 3: a templicated story. But Penny angles out into the water.
Speaker 3: She tries to run away from this high stepping over
Speaker 3: the waves, and not able to do it. She thought
Speaker 3: about diving into the water, but she was afraid he
Speaker 3: was going to grab her and strangle her. And now
Speaker 3: he overpowered her and manhandled her over the side the
Speaker 3: sand dunes. Basically, she's a very petite woman, but she's
Speaker 3: also a very strong woman. And by the way, Penny
Speaker 3: appreciates the fact that this book was written. She's very
Speaker 3: supportive of it. She wrote a blurb or a review
Speaker 3: on the back of the book. So she's fighting with
Speaker 3: us using her name, and she's gone on to do
Speaker 3: some really good things in the criminal justice system. But anyhow,
Speaker 3: despite her kicking and struggling and trying to push back
Speaker 3: against this assailant, he got her over the sand dunes
Speaker 3: header where no one could see her, then into the
Speaker 3: forest and just brutally attacked her.
Speaker 7: What if you don't mind, could you give us some
Speaker 7: of the details, some of the particulars, because they are
Speaker 7: important later in terms of the story.
Speaker 3: Sure, well, you know the claim itself, it was it
Speaker 3: turned into of course it was a sexual assault. You
Speaker 3: know that the law, at least in the United States
Speaker 3: doesn't really distinguish too much between a completed act of
Speaker 3: sexual intercourse frankly, or different types of sexual contact in
Speaker 3: terms of the charge. So you know, rape in Wisconsin
Speaker 3: or first degree sexual assaults is whether whether you know
Speaker 3: it's it's sexual contact without consent with force, or whether
Speaker 3: it's actually sexual intercourse without consent. And it really doesn't matter.
Speaker 3: It matters to the victim. And Penny fortunately was able
Speaker 3: just through kicking and screaming and pleating and not getting
Speaker 3: and in her mind she wasn't raped in the law,
Speaker 3: under the law's eye, she was because he pore off
Speaker 3: her clothes and when she said, my husband will come
Speaker 3: looking for me, he swore, used every name you could imagine.
Speaker 3: He pounded her brutally on her face. She received serious injuries.
Speaker 3: Tenny was left naked, bloodied, badly bruised, completely dazed, kind
Speaker 3: of staring off into the waters of Lake Michigan after
Speaker 3: this fellow left. It's just a horrible crime, as bad
Speaker 3: as it can get for any woman to experience.
Speaker 7: I'm sure certainly. Now, what are some of the things that,
Speaker 7: if anything, that he did say to the victim while
Speaker 7: he was, you know, inflicting this damage on this woman.
Speaker 3: Wow, Things like do it now, or I'm going to
Speaker 3: kill you, things like shut up you you know, and
Speaker 3: you can fill in the obscenities. Setty foul from there.
Speaker 3: Just an animal, cruel, kind of violent type of person.
Speaker 3: She I'm sure thought she wasn't going to live. He
Speaker 3: said he had a knife and that he was going
Speaker 3: to kill her. There's no indication the police didn't find
Speaker 3: a knife, but she certainly certainly felt that he had one.
Speaker 3: She kept her wits about her by telling, you know,
Speaker 3: she's going to be late getting back to her husband.
Speaker 3: She's sure he'll be out looking for her. The assailant
Speaker 3: to win, and in the end I think that's what
Speaker 3: saved her. But after a while, after he beat her
Speaker 3: basically to a bloody pope, he ran away, scampered into
Speaker 3: the woods.
Speaker 7: How good a look did she get at the perpetrator?
Speaker 7: In her mind, how good a look did she get
Speaker 7: if she did get a look at this this sailant.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well she felt she had a pretty good look.
Speaker 3: You know, they were face to face, and the attack
Speaker 3: it went on over a fifteen maybe twenty minute period.
Speaker 3: It was a This wasn't a real quick, short confrontation
Speaker 3: she had with him. Remember he had to drag her
Speaker 3: from the water up to the woods, and then of
Speaker 3: course the attempted rape or the actual rape under the lost.
Speaker 8: So she thought.
Speaker 3: She had a fairly good look. She knew that his eyes,
Speaker 3: for instance, were brown. She knew he had brown eyes,
Speaker 3: and she thought he was had what we referred to
Speaker 3: here in Wisconsin as a little bit of a beer belly.
Speaker 3: That was his firm. She used to describe to the police.
Speaker 3: He was bearded anyways, the medium medium height roughly, So
Speaker 3: that's the description she had of him. So, yeah, right
Speaker 3: in that area, is what she said. I think that's right.
Speaker 7: Yeah, okay. And so she was how does she is she?
Speaker 7: Who finds her on the beach? And how does she
Speaker 7: get to the hospital and how does how do things
Speaker 7: work from there?
Speaker 4: Uh?
Speaker 3: There was a couple sailing actually in the area, and
Speaker 3: she had tried to make her way, basically crawl to
Speaker 3: the water to wash the blood off of her face.
Speaker 3: She didn't want her children to see her that way.
Speaker 3: The couple saw her, came over, wrapped the towel around
Speaker 3: her real quickly, and about the same time, her husband,
Speaker 3: Tom Birdson came running up along the beach frantically looking
Speaker 3: for her. He had already sent some some kids on
Speaker 3: a jet ski north looking for her, and he had
Speaker 3: already called it's amazing, He had already called nine one one,
Speaker 3: and there was an ambulance waiting back at the parking
Speaker 3: lot at the beach. When when he tried, actually he
Speaker 3: carried his wife down the beach until she got sick,
Speaker 3: and then she walked the rest of the way. So
Speaker 3: that's how she was found. And then she was taken
Speaker 3: quickly to the hospital in Manitowac, which is a slightly
Speaker 3: larger city here where I live and work in and
Speaker 3: uh treated at the hospital.
Speaker 7: Now, how did people police proceed with the description that
Speaker 7: they did have? How did they go about? What's the
Speaker 7: next thing that they did?
Speaker 3: Well? Uh, they they took a you know, they they
Speaker 3: always take a physical examination. They have the physicians do. Uh.
Speaker 3: We cast that most forensic examination.
Speaker 9: Uh.
Speaker 3: And the sheriff and stuff got was not share knew.
Speaker 3: I think it was from church. And also the bag
Speaker 3: right there for Austin Long for Na doesn't involve investigations,
Speaker 3: but he did in this one. Uh. And Penny gave
Speaker 3: a description of her assailant. And at that point the
Speaker 3: police officer, the detective was there, a female detective, and
Speaker 3: the name Stephen Avery came to her mind almost to me.
Speaker 3: Uh And from then on, Uh, it was on the
Speaker 3: training she said, I bet it's Steven. Did just what
Speaker 3: police should not do. They closed their minds and they
Speaker 3: thought he had a bear after all, and he lived
Speaker 3: sworded near there. He was no lifer there, and I
Speaker 3: guess it's reasonable that they thought it was him, but
Speaker 3: they closed their their minds after their and just out
Speaker 3: up with just Avery must be the guy, basically.
Speaker 7: Right, We're having a little bit of problem hearing everything
Speaker 7: that you're saying, so I'm not sure if if it
Speaker 7: helps just staying in one position or what we can
Speaker 7: do to but we have a problem missing a little
Speaker 7: bit of the information that you're imparting here.
Speaker 3: So I ll let me try to media just a
Speaker 3: little bit. The connection will be better because we were good.
Speaker 7: We were good there for the first a little while there,
Speaker 7: for first fifteen minutes. So okay, okay, So now you
Speaker 7: say that we'll have to go back just a little
Speaker 7: bit to you say that there was a physical exam
Speaker 7: of Penny bernst In, and then the woman that was
Speaker 7: there was Judy, Deputy Judy de Vork and right away
Speaker 7: she said it came to mind for some reason, and
Speaker 7: you can tell us why. The reason is because her
Speaker 7: relationship to Steven Avery is important, like where she lives,
Speaker 7: So tell us why she thought that, and what was
Speaker 7: her relationship and what did she know or what she
Speaker 7: did she think she knew? About Stephen Avery.
Speaker 3: Sure, and this is one of those problems with smaller
Speaker 3: counties where everyone knows everyone, or at least a lot
Speaker 3: of the people do. Judy Devark the first police officer
Speaker 3: at the head.
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Speaker 3: Website for details hospital to interview Penny Burns and lived
Speaker 3: across the street from Stephen Avery, and she knew that
Speaker 3: he was on bail for trying to assault a different
Speaker 3: woman in the neighborhood. In fact, that in itself was
Speaker 3: a pretty serious crime. He had basically run down a woman,
Speaker 3: a neighbor, a different neighbor of his. He got in
Speaker 3: his pickup truck and rammed into her car, basically had
Speaker 3: her pull over the side of the road. He held
Speaker 3: her at gunpoint and clearly had in mind that he
Speaker 3: was going to assault her. She pointed out that her
Speaker 3: baby was in the car, even that he wouldn't go
Speaker 3: below a circle.
Speaker 8: Go.
Speaker 3: So here, this person was on bail on a pretty
Speaker 3: horrible crime. And Judy de Vorak, though knew about that crime,
Speaker 3: she knew more about mister Avery because she's his neighbor
Speaker 3: was and the victim in the case that Avery was
Speaker 3: on bail for the pending case was the wife of
Speaker 3: a deputy of a reserve deputy sheriff. So the police
Speaker 3: kind of had Avery in their consciousness, and I think
Speaker 3: that's largely why he came to her mind so quickly.
Speaker 7: Now the thing is, you say police, really it is
Speaker 7: more so a specific sheriff. And if I mispronounced this,
Speaker 7: you can correct me Cook Kerrick and really because you know,
Speaker 7: and you can explain this a little bit later as
Speaker 7: an unfolds. But the sheriff that goes along with Deputy
Speaker 7: Judy de Vork is the sheriff for Kirk and he
Speaker 7: ends up being you know, this is an interesting story
Speaker 7: where he the strange turn of events happens in this
Speaker 7: and a lot of things that aren't known in nineteen
Speaker 7: eighty five come out much later. So tell us a
Speaker 7: little bit about Sheriff Cook Kheric and hopefully that's the
Speaker 7: way you pronounce his name, So it's.
Speaker 3: Called the Sheriffseric Timeusuric. Yeah, he Sheriff Couseric. As soon
Speaker 3: as he heard hears the name Steven Avery, he he
Speaker 3: had the deputies at the Sheriff's department, Uh, bring up
Speaker 3: some photos, some mugshots, and basically I wanted them to
Speaker 3: include one of step and Avery. I believe the sheriff
Speaker 3: thought at the beginning it was Stephen Avery. As we
Speaker 3: indicated earlier. The other deputy who was on the scene,
Speaker 3: Deputy Boat Duty Devorrex, she thought it was Avery. She
Speaker 3: used the name Avery, and she found it pretty certain
Speaker 3: about it for whatever reason. So Sheriff Kusurrek at that
Speaker 3: point thought, oh, it's probably Stephen Avery. So he had
Speaker 3: a photo array prepared. But before he did that, he
Speaker 3: had a police artist, his detective Cuchet, do a composite
Speaker 3: with a description from Penny Burnsam And here's the thing
Speaker 3: where they blew it. At least in my opinion and
Speaker 3: in anybody's opinion, I think they had the mudshot of
Speaker 3: Avery on this scene when the composite sketch was drawn,
Speaker 3: and amazingly, the composite sketch, the police artist's sketch looked
Speaker 3: almost exactly like Avery's mugshot. So it makes you wonder
Speaker 3: whether the police artist didn't take a look at Avery's
Speaker 3: mugshot and kind of suggest to the victim while he
Speaker 3: was doing the composite sketch, well, maybe could the person
Speaker 3: look a little bit more like this? And I have
Speaker 3: to tell you it's hard. Composite sketches are tough when
Speaker 3: the person had facial hair, you know, because people with
Speaker 3: beards you're missing a large part of the features of
Speaker 3: their faces. So you kind of looked with eye color
Speaker 3: and length of hair and that sort of thing, and
Speaker 3: the sheriff sort of you know, he knew about the
Speaker 3: Avery's too, so he was more than happy to make
Speaker 3: a case as soon as he thought that Stephen Avery
Speaker 3: was his guy.
Speaker 7: Here, Now let's go back just a bit, because I
Speaker 7: think maybe the audience is not fully aware. Maybe I'm
Speaker 7: not fully aware too. At this point, we talk about
Speaker 7: this heinous crime where he pulls this sheriff or pulls
Speaker 7: this woman out of a car, and there is, if
Speaker 7: I'm correct, not correct, that there is talk about dragging
Speaker 7: her into his vehicle, so you know, and then you say,
Speaker 7: the sheriff knows about his past, and the woman that
Speaker 7: lives across the street, this is a deputy, thinks that
Speaker 7: she knows his family, so that they instantly think that
Speaker 7: that this person that's capable of this rather heinous rape
Speaker 7: and assault on the beach has to be this guy.
Speaker 7: Is there a sexual Does this Stephen Avery have a
Speaker 7: sexual history? Maybe fill us in on all the criminal
Speaker 7: past that he has so that maybe we can understand
Speaker 7: what they think that this person is capable of. And
Speaker 7: certainly as soon as there is some suspicion, they pick
Speaker 7: him up and run with it. So what is it
Speaker 7: about his criminal past, that implies that he's able to
Speaker 7: do this crime of this nature.
Speaker 3: Well, I tell you he was a disturbed individual. There's
Speaker 3: no doubt about that. He had an incident when he
Speaker 3: was about nineteen years old where he was involved in
Speaker 3: a cat burning incident. He had also threatened to start
Speaker 3: his parents' home on fire. He had what had been
Speaker 3: convicted of burglary in the past, and you know, most important,
Speaker 3: he did have this case pending that happened six months
Speaker 3: earlier where he was, you know, he was awaiting trial.
Speaker 3: He was out in the community. But when this crime occurred,
Speaker 3: but he had been charged six months earlier with this
Speaker 3: incident of basically ramming this woman's car, neighbor's car off
Speaker 3: the side of the road, and he had kept an
Speaker 3: eye on this woman for the month's preceding. I said,
Speaker 3: was very disturbed individual, and really he was. He would
Speaker 3: watch her with binaculars down the road as she left
Speaker 3: her vehicle five thirty six in the morning in the summertime.
Speaker 3: He ran out to the road naked right in front
Speaker 3: of her car. One time he masturbated at the hood
Speaker 3: of his truck while she drove by. I mean, one's
Speaker 3: sick puppy, I guess is the best way to put it. Yeah,
Speaker 3: So I called it reasonable that it's.
Speaker 7: Personally Yeah, so that's what I wanted to make clear
Speaker 7: that the audience knows that. Yeah, that's you know, because
Speaker 7: in the in the description that talks about well, he
Speaker 7: hasn't been convicted of a violent crime, but those are
Speaker 7: all the hallmarks of a guy that's capable of what
Speaker 7: they're looking looking for a suspect. So again, it's a
Speaker 7: little more reasonable why these police coil could jump to
Speaker 7: these conclusions. However, that's not the way things are supposed
Speaker 7: to work. Now, what happens when now continue with the
Speaker 7: story then, and what do police do now that they
Speaker 7: think they have Steven Avery in their sights?
Speaker 3: What do they do? Well, they go and pick them up.
Speaker 3: The sheriff doesn't do it for an arrest warrant, which
Speaker 3: in the United States and I'm sure in Canada too,
Speaker 3: if you break into somebody's home, you need to get
Speaker 3: a neutral, detached magistrate they call him a judge to
Speaker 3: allow that and to say that there's probable cause that
Speaker 3: that person committed this crime and that the police can
Speaker 3: barge into his house and arrest them. In this case,
Speaker 3: they didn't. They used kind of a trick. I think
Speaker 3: they had Stephen Avery's uncle, who also was a sheriff deputy,
Speaker 3: and they used him to get into the house and
Speaker 3: then they arrested Avery, the only thing they had at
Speaker 3: that time. And again, you know, you can look at
Speaker 3: what they did at that point is reasonable. At this point,
Speaker 3: I think what they did is still reasonable. Other than
Speaker 3: that getting a warrant, I guess that's one hundred pound
Speaker 3: gorilla right there. But in terms of thinking Avery was it,
Speaker 3: it was reasonable because at this point the victim, remember,
Speaker 3: had done the composite sketch with the police, and she
Speaker 3: actually picked Avery out of a photo array where there
Speaker 3: were six or eight suspects and she was able to say, yep,
Speaker 3: that's the guy who did it, and that was Stephen
Speaker 3: Avery's mugshot. However, it became pretty clear a trial that
Speaker 3: once they did the composite sketch, in her mind, that
Speaker 3: composite sketch not the real one, but in her mind
Speaker 3: that sort of became her assailant. But at any rate,
Speaker 3: you know, they had an identification, so they felt they
Speaker 3: had enough and they made an arrest.
Speaker 7: Now, going back just a little bit, when you talked
Speaker 7: about the the Eugene Koch, I think you pronounced his name,
Speaker 7: the fellow that did the composite drawing, and he had
Speaker 7: just been out of the FBI Academy for about a month.
Speaker 7: Let's let's talk about that as well, because he was
Speaker 7: totally I think this was his first drawing, wasn't it
Speaker 7: for the police itself? Now, what do you, like, you know,
Speaker 7: for those people, maybe even myself? What are you insinuating
Speaker 7: happened there? Like, not to say, not to accuse, but
Speaker 7: say an assumption of what may have happened with this
Speaker 7: young guy and the sheriff and the deputy and a
Speaker 7: small place and a character like Steven Avery. What do
Speaker 7: you think happened?
Speaker 3: Well, I don't. I don't know for sure, and I
Speaker 3: try to let the reader set out in the book
Speaker 3: as they look at it. But but I can't say
Speaker 3: a few things about that competitive Eugene Cuche, the detective,
Speaker 3: the artist police artist's sketch, very proud of that sketch,
Speaker 3: a sketch removed from evidence, and was allowed to do it,
Speaker 3: and had it hanging up on as well as yours. Afterwards.
Speaker 3: The judge at the trial mentioned that that sketch, and
Speaker 3: these are the judges' words, bore an uncanny resemblance to
Speaker 3: the mugshot was in the sheriff's pocket that night at
Speaker 3: the hospital. And the last thing to sit here is
Speaker 3: that eventually and we had too far ourselves here but
Speaker 3: in the wrongful conviction lawsuit, because you know, we might
Speaker 3: as well let the cat out of the bag. Here
Speaker 3: it's called unreasonable inferences, of course, because in the end
Speaker 3: it wasn't Aver that did this, but it draw suit.
Speaker 3: The defense lawyers convinced that they pretty well had it proven.
Speaker 3: Jeane Cuchet, the police art a sketch pretty much either
Speaker 3: traced it or not quite traced, but drew it off
Speaker 3: of or had some access to that mug as he
Speaker 3: was doing this sketch, right, misketch, I can't prove that.
Speaker 3: And you know, and Jeane Cluchtes and no with us,
Speaker 3: he was actually a very nice person. I did some
Speaker 3: work with him, but he was a character. And I
Speaker 3: will say that sometimes police, if they think they have
Speaker 3: the right guy, some of the rules get bent a
Speaker 3: little bit in their minds just to do what they
Speaker 3: think is is justice. Getting a bad guy like Stephen
Speaker 3: Aby off the.
Speaker 7: Streets, yeah, and then I mean the prosecution can be
Speaker 7: prosecution can be also accused of that as well. Yeah, okay, Now,
Speaker 7: so what happens with Stephen Avery is is arrested, Where
Speaker 7: is it that he is arrested, and in terms of
Speaker 7: when they obviously have to question him as to terms
Speaker 7: as to where he was at the time of this
Speaker 7: this crime. And as we remember from the earlier in
Speaker 7: the story, this woman knows specifically when she was attacked
Speaker 7: and the duration and everything else. So we know the
Speaker 7: timeline tell us what happens with Steve Avery and police
Speaker 7: arresting him.
Speaker 3: Sure, well, he arrest him in his bedroom at night.
Speaker 3: He's sleeping with his wife on the upstairs. They had
Speaker 3: five children, and they had just come home from a
Speaker 3: shopping trip basically up in Green Bay, about thirty minutes
Speaker 3: north of where this crime occurred. Dan, it was virtually
Speaker 3: impossible for Steven Avery to have committed this crime based
Speaker 3: upon when the crime happened and where Avery was able
Speaker 3: to prove he was. There was a receipt from the
Speaker 3: shop Ghost Store, which is a department store here chain
Speaker 3: basically in Wisconsin, showing five thirteen pm and the assault.
Speaker 3: Tenny Burnson did keep very good track of her time.
Speaker 3: She was a routine runner. She ran, she knew how
Speaker 3: long things took, and she had her watch. The act
Speaker 3: ended at four to five pm, so within about an
Speaker 3: hour and thirteen minutes, Stephen Avery with his family, including
Speaker 3: the newborn twins, are at the checkout counter of the
Speaker 3: shop Ghost Store, thirty miles north of where the assault occurved.
Speaker 3: But he also would have had to have gotten from
Speaker 3: the location of the assault back to the parking lot,
Speaker 3: because that's the only place to park there in street shoes,
Speaker 3: and that's about a three quarter mile walk, and given
Speaker 3: home to where he would have had to pick up
Speaker 3: his wife and children, or actually to his parents' house
Speaker 3: excuse me, which is about twelve miles away. The police
Speaker 3: ran a kind of a check if it was possible
Speaker 3: for him to commit the crime, given the receipt at
Speaker 3: chap Go ten or fifteen miles over the speed limit,
Speaker 3: just to make it possible. And that doesn't even include
Speaker 3: a staff to pick up the kids and get him
Speaker 3: in the car, and that sort.
Speaker 7: Of thing so pretty implausible. And the other thing was,
Speaker 7: we originally heard that this scraggly man at the beach
Speaker 7: had a leather jacket on, and so tell us a
Speaker 7: little bit about that intriguing part of the description, and
Speaker 7: and the leather jacket.
Speaker 3: Sure, Tenny Bernson was clear he had a black leather
Speaker 3: jacket and a pretty good description of the black leather jacket.
Speaker 3: When it got close to trial, the police didn't find
Speaker 3: any leather jackets when they did a search warrant at
Speaker 3: Steven Avery's house, and when it got to trial, all
Speaker 3: three or four days before the trial, the prosecutor, Dennis Vogel,
Speaker 3: the DA at the time, sent a letter to the
Speaker 3: defense lawyers saying, oh, by the way, I'm going to
Speaker 3: call some witnesses. These two officers that say they know
Speaker 3: they had seen Steven Avery with this black leather jacket
Speaker 3: that matches the description perfectly of the black leather jacket
Speaker 3: that Penny said her assailant was wearing. I can interject
Speaker 3: here really quickly too, that Stephen Avery had blue eyes
Speaker 3: Penny burns. And the victim immediately told the police and
Speaker 3: told them several things that her assailant had brown eyes.
Speaker 3: She also told the police that the assailant had a
Speaker 3: sort of a beer belly, sort of pudgy, and that
Speaker 3: he was about five six. I believe well, Steven Avery's
Speaker 3: only five feet one inches tall and at the time
Speaker 3: he wasn't a pudgy and Steven Avery, as I said,
Speaker 3: had blue eyes. She also told the police, and the
Speaker 3: police were very interested in this issue. They were hoping
Speaker 3: that she would say that the assailant's hands were greasy
Speaker 3: and that they were smelly, that he was kind of
Speaker 3: he smelled head because they knew that Steven Avery's hands
Speaker 3: were always greasy because he worked at a car a
Speaker 3: salvage shop, and he professionally had greasy hands. Kenny Birds
Speaker 3: had said, now her assailant had perfectly clean hands, no grease,
Speaker 3: no dirt, no grime, and her assailants smelled, frankly smell good.
Speaker 3: He said. There was nothing, no how older, about her assailant.
Speaker 3: There are lots and lots of inconsistencies, including the alibi
Speaker 3: that Avery had twelve or fifteen. I think witnesses had
Speaker 3: said he couldn't have done it because he was with
Speaker 3: them all day at the salvag.
Speaker 7: Yard, right, and what does his wife say? What does
Speaker 7: Stephen Avery's wife say? And you know with the five kids,
Speaker 7: I mean, what we did I haven't mentioned as well.
Speaker 7: It's just six days before they have twin boys, his
Speaker 7: wife and Stevens. So that's another just another thing to
Speaker 7: put to the story as well.
Speaker 3: Add yeah, yeah, and I try to give somewhat of
Speaker 3: a description of the Avery family, you know, as also
Speaker 3: you wanted your readers to know what these people are like,
Speaker 3: but you don't want to make it real boring. You
Speaker 3: try to get out of you kind of unusual things.
Speaker 3: And I try to give somewhat of a description about
Speaker 3: that by by explaining how they named their children, the
Speaker 3: two twins that were born. Yeah, they named them William
Speaker 3: and Billy Junior. So I don't know if any of
Speaker 3: your listeners are familiar with the American movie Deliverance, but
Speaker 3: it's close to that kind of there at the old
Speaker 3: Avery salvage here.
Speaker 7: Yeah, yeah, you get that picture with the Bill and William,
Speaker 7: and they're just totally oblivious that this is the same
Speaker 7: name or that anyone would consider it the same name.
Speaker 7: So it's it's yeah, there's there's some there's some antidotes
Speaker 7: that kind of properly illustrate that.
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Speaker 7: Sure now, so how else do how else do police
Speaker 7: proceed with this continua?
Speaker 1: Please?
Speaker 3: Okay? Sure? Well, you know they don't have a lot
Speaker 3: of evident really. Other than the the identification by the
Speaker 3: victim by Penny Burnson, they ignore a few other things.
Speaker 3: They ignore the fact that Penny received a phone call
Speaker 3: from somebody who she believed was her assailant a couple
Speaker 3: of days after the crime. Not an unusual thing, as
Speaker 3: you know with sexual assaults or other sociopaths, to call
Speaker 3: their victim after a crime. And you can imagine Penny
Speaker 3: at home recovering a couple of days after leaving the hospital,
Speaker 3: receiving this call from this guy who says, you know,
Speaker 3: is Penny there and or is Tom there? And he
Speaker 3: knows her number, he knows where she lives, presumably, and
Speaker 3: this is the mo of who had turned out actually
Speaker 3: did assault Penny Burson. But anyhow, Stephen Eavery was in
Speaker 3: jail with no access to a phone, so it couldn't
Speaker 3: have been him. But the police ignore that. They tell Penny,
Speaker 3: you know, you must you have the right guy. Let
Speaker 3: us handle this. So the police did their thing. And
Speaker 3: when it gets to the prosecution, that's when the trial
Speaker 3: is when the case I think, really takes off in
Speaker 3: terms of how the system is not supposed to work.
Speaker 7: Yeah, no, like tell us about the trial. We have
Speaker 7: some interesting characters at trial. At first we have the
Speaker 7: court appointed defense attorney is a woman named Reesa Evans Marcignik. Again,
Speaker 7: I'm probably mangling that name. But she's a court of
Speaker 7: appointed lawyer. Tell us what happens there. I mean, that's
Speaker 7: an unfortunate thing. She seems to be a real fighter
Speaker 7: and believes that Steven Avery is innocent, So tell us
Speaker 7: what happens there and who ends up being tell us
Speaker 7: about Judge Fred Hazelwood and his reputation as a judge
Speaker 7: before all of all this occurs.
Speaker 3: Sure, Avery's first court appoint lawyer Evans Marcius, which she
Speaker 3: ended up telling reporters and other people years later that
Speaker 3: she wouldn't even go to the beach where Avery was
Speaker 3: where the assault occurred. She would never go there because
Speaker 3: she still believed the real assailant was out there. So
Speaker 3: this is somebody who really believed in her clients innocence. Frankly,
Speaker 3: you know, most of us in the system down here
Speaker 3: as prosecutor or as a defense lawyer. Even the defense
Speaker 3: lawyers get pretty jaded after awhile and they don't really
Speaker 3: believe their clients, and they say they're not guilty. Hopefully
Speaker 3: we're not charging people they're guilty. But she was so
Speaker 3: convinced that her client was innocent that she would not
Speaker 3: go down there to investigate the case or take pictures
Speaker 3: or talk to people or anything. Penny filed eighteen motions.
Speaker 3: Excuse me that Penny Resa, the first attorney, filed eighteen
Speaker 3: motions in court. I think one was granted and it
Speaker 3: was a fairly meaningless motion. And then she became ill,
Speaker 3: there was a physical illness, and she had to leave
Speaker 3: the case. So another public defender was then appointed and
Speaker 3: had to come up to speed really quick. Judge Fred
Speaker 3: Hazelwood was the judge in the case, a trial judge,
Speaker 3: and I think it's I'm hoping that it comes out
Speaker 3: in the book what kind of judge he is, you know,
Speaker 3: and there may not be too many of those left,
Speaker 3: the very kind of down to earth, friendly, humorous judge
Speaker 3: trying to do his best. And the trial. You know,
Speaker 3: it's really a book that includes a lot of the
Speaker 3: trial and how trials work, how jury selection works, how
Speaker 3: jury gets sequestered, and was in the United States. You know,
Speaker 3: they spend the time in a hotel, and of course
Speaker 3: it's a cold time. It's in January. When this or December,
Speaker 3: I should say when the trial occurs. And I'll say
Speaker 3: one other thing, just that maybe there's some interest from
Speaker 3: your listeners here too. The time of This trial was
Speaker 3: about two weeks before Christmas in December of nineteen eighty five.
Speaker 3: And if you're a criminal defendant and a serious case
Speaker 3: like this one was, it's hard to get a worse
Speaker 3: time to have a trial than around two weeks before Christmas,
Speaker 3: because the last thing the jury wants to do is
Speaker 3: send a victim like Tenny Bernston home with a not
Speaker 3: guilty verdict. Penny got up on that stand and explained,
Speaker 3: you know, and was so good at explaining the trauma
Speaker 3: of everything that happened to her and was a very
Speaker 3: very sympathetic person. And as much as the jury would
Speaker 3: look at this and say, you know, we can't find
Speaker 3: guilt unless it's proved beyond a reasonable doubt, it would
Speaker 3: be really tough for them to send that not guilty
Speaker 3: verdict because that would just crush her. And right around Christmas, people,
Speaker 3: the people are you know, sugar problems are dancing in
Speaker 3: their head, and they're worried about their shopping, and they're
Speaker 3: not paying perhaps quite as close attention as they should
Speaker 3: be to legal issues like proof beyond a reasonable doubt
Speaker 3: and circumstantial evidence and credibility and that sort of thing.
Speaker 7: Sure, so, now, what are the charges officially that are
Speaker 7: levied against Stephen Avery. What is he potentially up for
Speaker 7: to be convicted of.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's charge of a first degree sexual assault and
Speaker 3: attempted murder. Well, so those are the charges that he's facing,
Speaker 3: including the attempted murder.
Speaker 7: Yeah, okay, Now, how does the trial proceed? There is
Speaker 7: obviously some things that a judge can't allow in a
Speaker 7: trial unless there is something in the deer in terms
Speaker 7: of the jury selection that you found interesting. Tell us
Speaker 7: how the trial proceeds or starts off. Tell us about
Speaker 7: some interesting aspects of the trial right at the beginning.
Speaker 3: Sure, Well, first of all, the jury in a relatively
Speaker 3: small county like ours, eighty thousand people, there's a pretty
Speaker 3: good chance that some of the jurors might know some
Speaker 3: of the police officers with a name family like the Avery's,
Speaker 3: who had a lot of troubles. A few of the
Speaker 3: jurors knew of Avery's, and and you know, those things
Speaker 3: come out, So there's sort of a built in prejudice.
Speaker 3: As much as you you try to make sure that
Speaker 3: doesn't happen a child, but you know, so you had
Speaker 3: jurors answering questions about, well, do you know the Averis
Speaker 3: and how well sure I used to you know, know
Speaker 3: them from school before you know, Johnny got kicked out
Speaker 3: of school or something like that. So some of those
Speaker 3: things that come out. And then at the same time,
Speaker 3: a few of the jurors were, you know, this police
Speaker 3: officer I go to church with, and this was my
Speaker 3: boy scout, my son's boy scout leader, things like that.
Speaker 3: So it's a tough jury for the Avery, for Steven
Speaker 3: Avery to have as far as the trial itself. You know,
Speaker 3: if you don't have the goods on a trial side,
Speaker 3: what you do is you play to emotion. It's the
Speaker 3: thing that prosecutors should not do. We're supposed to be
Speaker 3: interested in, you know, truth and justice and frankly it
Speaker 3: has more to do with reason. And this is the proof,
Speaker 3: you know. But this prosecutor knew he had a weak case,
Speaker 3: and he really played on the jury's sympathy, including to
Speaker 3: the point where he had the victim, Penny and her
Speaker 3: husband Tom, basically reenact the crime in front of the jury.
Speaker 3: Not quite all the way, but he had Penny's husband
Speaker 3: show how her assailant grant her and what you know,
Speaker 3: how he pushed her onto the ground and their Penny
Speaker 3: is on the growth with her husband on top of her,
Speaker 3: only using this to try to show the jury how
Speaker 3: horrible this claim was and really rely just and sympathy.
Speaker 3: So the prosecution didn't have much. And when you don't
Speaker 3: have much, you know, you explain to what you do it?
Speaker 7: Sorry, explain why that is a problem. Why do you
Speaker 7: have a problem with the I mean, I thought it
Speaker 7: was quite unusual having someone other than someone from officially
Speaker 7: from the court being part of the reenactment and putting
Speaker 7: their the husband in there seems to be an emotional ploy.
Speaker 7: But other than that, or you speak to why specifically
Speaker 7: this is so wrong that the not only did the
Speaker 7: prosecution resort to but then again, how did the judge
Speaker 7: allow it, and how did the defense not object to it?
Speaker 7: And how was it not grounds from some form of appeal?
Speaker 7: And for us simplistic folks, how to explain why this
Speaker 7: is wrong?
Speaker 3: Well, you know, it's it's it's a close Oh, it's
Speaker 3: a gray area. It's not a question of you absolutely
Speaker 3: can't appeal to emotion or you absolutely can't reenact the
Speaker 3: crime with a husband. A lot of this is in
Speaker 3: the discussion of the child court. If they're going to
Speaker 3: allow that sort of thing. This judge thought, I guess
Speaker 3: that it would help the jury be able to see
Speaker 3: what occurred more helped the jury understand the crime. Perhaps,
Speaker 3: I think, you know, with the attempted murder charge, the
Speaker 3: prosecution could argue that exactly how the beating occurred would
Speaker 3: be relevant because we have to show what's called unequivocal
Speaker 3: intent to commit the murder, that he absolutely intended to
Speaker 3: kill her. So exactly how the assailant grants her and
Speaker 3: what he did with her, I suppose, you know, could
Speaker 3: be deemed relevant and not just an appeal to emotion.
Speaker 3: But as a prosecutor and as a lawyer, you know,
Speaker 3: it just didn't pass the smell test. I know, when
Speaker 3: a prosecutor is doing something just to show emotion, and
Speaker 3: having her husband there and these are wonderful people, and
Speaker 3: having her basically re victimized in court and bringing that
Speaker 3: picture to the mind of the jury. It really isn't
Speaker 3: what we're supposed to be about. The jury should be
Speaker 3: looking at evidence based on you know, mostly reason. You know,
Speaker 3: what does this really show? And most of this trial
Speaker 3: was met so much about reason is what a horrible
Speaker 3: crime this was, and we think this guy did it,
Speaker 3: so therefore, please just sign him guilty and we'll put
Speaker 3: him away.
Speaker 7: Is there any responsible responsibility I'm part of the judge
Speaker 7: for not being able for allowing this type of evidence
Speaker 7: in this questionable You say it's a gray area, which
Speaker 7: so it can be open to some interpreting. I would think,
Speaker 7: is there any responsibility for the judge in this decision
Speaker 7: to allow this information in this way.
Speaker 3: Stepped in and not allowed the re enactment. But you know,
Speaker 3: the judge doesn't know anything about the case other than
Speaker 3: that he's given in court, so he's not privy to
Speaker 3: all the information the police have. He's not privty other
Speaker 3: information that that might cast doubt on the States case.
Speaker 3: You know he did he didn't know that the real
Speaker 3: assailant called Penny while Avery was in jail. So judge
Speaker 3: is not quite in the same position.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 3: We can kind of Monday morning quarterback, I guess, and say, well,
Speaker 3: maybe the judge shouldn't have allowed this that or the
Speaker 3: other thing. But they're there, I don't want to say,
Speaker 3: just as a referee, but they're not the the main party.
Speaker 3: They could and I think a good judge will limit
Speaker 3: that kind of appeal to emotion if unless there's some
Speaker 3: good reason to do it. You know, there are some gory,
Speaker 3: gory pictures of Penny shown to the jerk here was
Speaker 3: that necessary? I don't know? Close call?
Speaker 7: Yeah, yeah, okay, So now what's what's Steven Avery?
Speaker 9: Is he?
Speaker 7: Is he who is his supporters other than his lawyers
Speaker 7: obviously acting on his behalf? Is there any interest and
Speaker 7: is anybody looking at this guy as an innocent person?
Speaker 7: Does he have any supporters other than his Is his
Speaker 7: family there to support him? I would imagine they would be.
Speaker 7: But tell us about what what kind of support is
Speaker 7: Stephen Avery getting.
Speaker 3: Well, it's a large kind of extended family kind of
Speaker 3: Avery client is what it came to be known as.
Speaker 3: And and friends too. They had some different people who
Speaker 3: were at the salvage yard that particular day when this
Speaker 3: crime occurred with Steve and so they had about fifteen
Speaker 3: witnesses actually testified that Avery was working with them on
Speaker 3: a project that his haden on at this salvage yard,
Speaker 3: and a lot of women who were inside a house
Speaker 3: watching I think it was divorce court actually a show
Speaker 3: we have down here. And then I'm sure there were
Speaker 3: other people in the audience at the time too. And
Speaker 3: then of course, you know, his lawyers both believed so
Speaker 3: strongly in his innocence and bothered them for years as
Speaker 3: every's appeal failed. After he was I've taught one of
Speaker 3: these latters, and it just it severely affected him as
Speaker 3: years went on. It just bothered him immensely to know
Speaker 3: that he represented some guy who he was sure was
Speaker 3: innocent but was spending year after year after year in
Speaker 3: prison behind bars.
Speaker 7: Okay, well we've got ahead of us a little bit,
Speaker 7: so we now know that tell us, with these this
Speaker 7: cast of characters, exactly how this trial gets to the
Speaker 7: point that he is sentenced, What is he sentenced to?
Speaker 7: And tell us the wrap up of the trial? What
Speaker 7: you know, you put it in the book that Stephen
Speaker 7: Avery and his family, especially Steven Avery, were totally surprised
Speaker 7: by the outcome of this. But how does the trial
Speaker 7: fair in terms of somebody just being an observer in
Speaker 7: terms of Steven Avery's chances? And then ultimately you've you've
Speaker 7: already alluded to that he is ultimately sentenced. So tell
Speaker 7: us what happens in the trial wrap up and what
Speaker 7: is he sentenced to?
Speaker 3: Sure the jury goes out kind of in the in
Speaker 3: the in the late afternoon one day, and they can't
Speaker 3: reach a verdict that first night, and then they asked
Speaker 3: for some evidence. They want to see his shoes or
Speaker 3: his boots, and I think it was to see we're guessing,
Speaker 3: I guess, but they wanted to find out if there
Speaker 3: was any sand on those shoes, is what most people
Speaker 3: would have thought. The police had confiscated his shoes that night,
Speaker 3: and they're looking for sand that was on the beach,
Speaker 3: I suppose, and they wouldn't have seen any sand, so
Speaker 3: that wasn't didn't do much for him. And then they
Speaker 3: were out another later that next evening, the second day
Speaker 3: at deliberations. I believe it was when they walked Avery
Speaker 3: over from the jail. It was a sun was setting
Speaker 3: kind of four point thirty at night and winter time,
Speaker 3: bitter cold. Here he and his family stood to hear
Speaker 3: the jury pronounce the word guilty of both counts attempted
Speaker 3: murder and first degree sexual Judge Hazelwood two or three
Speaker 3: months later, at the sentencing hearing, sentenced mister Avery to
Speaker 3: thirty six years excuse me, thirty two years prison in
Speaker 3: prison in the Wisconsin State Prison. So he was shipped
Speaker 3: off to a Dodge Correctional Institute, and here in Wisconsin
Speaker 3: is the receiving institution for anyone who sent to prison
Speaker 3: from Milwaukee or any other part of the state.
Speaker 7: Now we are only have a few minutes left, but
Speaker 7: we're going to go a little bit extra if you
Speaker 7: can stay with us for another few minutes after that,
Speaker 7: because sure we're nowhere near into the This is incredible
Speaker 7: story and that's why it's so involved. Now he is sentenced,
Speaker 7: he's shipped off the prison. I thought was interesting part
Speaker 7: of your book too, is that Alan Avery, his father
Speaker 7: called the judge immediately after the sentencing. And maybe you
Speaker 7: can tell us this little antidote, because again it shows
Speaker 7: the character of the family and the father.
Speaker 3: Uh. Yeah, Alan Avery, Stephen Avery's father called the judge
Speaker 3: asking for his guns. Back is his weapons and uh
Speaker 3: And the judge basically said he needed more information, uh
Speaker 3: and uh and he they weren't his guns. And then
Speaker 3: Alan Avery said that he's going to start making his
Speaker 3: own probable cause determinations if he doesn't if he doesn't
Speaker 3: get the guns back. So and he said this letter
Speaker 3: and actually called I should say he called the judge
Speaker 3: at night and asked for his guns. Back, and the
Speaker 3: judge sent a letter back about probable cause and and
Speaker 3: Anne Avery's response was, well, I'm going to start making
Speaker 3: my own probable cause determinations if you don't get those
Speaker 3: guns back to me.
Speaker 7: Yeah, yes, that's interesting. Now tell us how you became
Speaker 7: involved in this case at what point and and how
Speaker 7: do you proceed with this and why. I mean what
Speaker 7: I talked first, I think to the audience maybe was
Speaker 7: the first introduction, but I'll talk about it now. I
Speaker 7: found it very, very unusual. I don't know how often
Speaker 7: this would happen, but a prosecutor trumpeting the case of
Speaker 7: a convicted person is usually done from the defense attorneys
Speaker 7: that are digging some up or from law schools where
Speaker 7: you know the innocent projects where people are looking into
Speaker 7: cold cases where people claim that they are innocent and
Speaker 7: they look at the merit of those cases. Tell us
Speaker 7: how you got involved with us and why.
Speaker 3: It's funny ask that because my wife and I are
Speaker 3: at a prosecutor's conference right now, and I'm wondering how
Speaker 3: some of my cohorts throughout the state of Wisconsin are
Speaker 3: thinking of this, because it's known that I've read in
Speaker 3: this book and this TeV Maviy case was a very
Speaker 3: high profile case, and I just have an article that
Speaker 3: I wrote in our Wisconsin By monthly magazine. But I
Speaker 3: tell you I became involved, and I wrote it because
Speaker 3: of what happened is I became involved. I wasn't here
Speaker 3: obviously when the runfel conviction occurred, but I was here
Speaker 3: in two thousand and three when we got a call
Speaker 3: from the State Crime Laboratory in Wisconsin saying that the
Speaker 3: DNA evidence on this case, evidence from a HARE that
Speaker 3: was located on the victim's body Antenny's person on her
Speaker 3: back in nineteen eighty five. It's still preserved in evidence.
Speaker 3: And the call was that the DNA came back not
Speaker 3: to Stephen Avery, but to a different sex offender, a
Speaker 3: known sex offender who was in prison, and his DNA
Speaker 3: was on the prison DNA bank, the sex offender bank,
Speaker 3: and it was a guy by the name of Gregory Allen.
Speaker 3: So here we are, eighteen years after Avery was first
Speaker 3: sentenced to prison, proof coming out in the form of
Speaker 3: DNA that it was a different guy. It was Gregory
Speaker 3: Allen and Dan we started this show. The first question
Speaker 3: you asked me was that first scene I started with
Speaker 3: that crime before the crime to Penny Burnson two weeks
Speaker 3: before in July of nineteen eighty five, and that was
Speaker 3: Gregory Allen. Gregory Allen had been committing horrible crimes worse
Speaker 3: than Avery leading up to Penny Bernson's attack deck in
Speaker 3: nineteen eighty five. And I don't know how much time
Speaker 3: we have and I don't want to be too conclusive,
Speaker 3: too much conclusion here ahead of time, but you know
Speaker 3: the police were really watching Gregory Allen, and the other
Speaker 3: police departments were convinced at the time it was Gregory
Speaker 3: Allen and that's Stephen Avery. But they didn't go after
Speaker 3: Gregory Allen. They went after Stephen Avery.
Speaker 7: You talked about Gregory Allen as well. That the one
Speaker 7: interesting part of this, you know, was that you had
Speaker 7: spoken to a woman and then you also happened to
Speaker 7: find a file that wasn't supposed to be where it
Speaker 7: was where you did find it, where a complaint that
Speaker 7: had been put into another file. So explain that turn
Speaker 7: of events, because I think that was a little bit
Speaker 7: of well as a turning point. You know, that was
Speaker 7: a turning point in terms of information for you.
Speaker 3: You bet it was. It was actually while we were
Speaker 3: still on the conference call with the Attorney General's Office
Speaker 3: and the crime lab from Madison with hants and indicating
Speaker 3: that the DNA belong to this Gregory Allen. So I
Speaker 3: went back and pulled the file, the nineteen eighty five
Speaker 3: file back on the Stephen Avery prosecution. And while we're
Speaker 3: still on the phone, I came across a complaint against
Speaker 3: Gregory Allen, the name she had just used, the name
Speaker 3: I never heard of before, and this criminal complaint was
Speaker 3: in the Avery file. And I looked and it was
Speaker 3: the same date of birth. And what it was is
Speaker 3: a criminal complaint where Gregory Allen, the real assailant here,
Speaker 3: had been charged with trying to commit the same type
Speaker 3: of offense, basically lunging at a woman who was walking
Speaker 3: her dog along the same stretch of beach on Lake Michigan.
Speaker 3: So here it gets a little complicated. But here now
Speaker 3: I know that the prosecutor who prosecuted Avery, Dennis Vogel,
Speaker 3: had also prosecuted Gregory Allen, the real assailant, for a
Speaker 3: very similar crime that occurred almost exactly a year earlier,
Speaker 3: on the same beach. And the Allen complaint was in
Speaker 3: the Avery file. And I tell you my aren't just drapped.
Speaker 3: I knew something wasn't looking right here at that point,
Speaker 3: that that this just wasn't an accident. It was just
Speaker 3: way too coincidental.
Speaker 7: Right, Yeah, Well that's it's it's just amazing that that
Speaker 7: turning point and how you've conveyed it in the book
Speaker 7: as well, is very very important. And it's just a
Speaker 7: little bit of chill up your spine when you realize
Speaker 7: you can you can this more than an inference. You know,
Speaker 7: you're putting this two and two together. So they've railroaded
Speaker 7: this guy when they had a real credible, dangerous person
Speaker 7: that easily they could have figured out who this was.
Speaker 7: It's very it's very strange, very strange tale. Now the
Speaker 7: thing is that we go ahead, well, I'm just going.
Speaker 3: To see it as you know, Dan, the Gregory Allen,
Speaker 3: the actual assailant who they who they did not prosecute
Speaker 3: because they railroaded avery. He was left free, he was out,
Speaker 3: not imprisonedly belonged, and he brutally raised a woman in
Speaker 3: Green Bay eight years later because he wasn't in prison
Speaker 3: where he belonged from this case, he broke into her
Speaker 3: house and attacked her while she was sleeping, So here's
Speaker 3: a case and one other thing if I could. The
Speaker 3: prosecutor at the time in the Avery case, Dennis Vogel,
Speaker 3: who is the one who wrongfully convicted Avery. He staff
Speaker 3: members of the DA's office actually came up to him
Speaker 3: during that case and said, look, we think you have
Speaker 3: the wrong guy. We think it's Gregory Allen. Because Allen
Speaker 3: was in court on other things and the DA lied.
Speaker 3: The DA said that, now I checked with Gregory Allen's
Speaker 3: probation officer, and the agent said that the approbation officer
Speaker 3: said he had an alibi that he was with He's
Speaker 3: sure that he was in Kiwani, a different city thirty
Speaker 3: miles north all day. Well, the Attorney General's report, after
Speaker 3: we took it to the Attorney General's office, ended up
Speaker 3: making it clear that Gregory Allen wasn't even on probation.
Speaker 3: So it's pretty clearly intentional at that part that the
Speaker 3: district attorney, although he and the police probably I'm sure
Speaker 3: they thought it was Avery in the first couple of days,
Speaker 3: they soon discovered that it wasn't Avery. But that whole
Speaker 3: feeling of well, he's a bad guy and we can't
Speaker 3: turn back now, so too bad, so sad, let's send
Speaker 3: him the prison. That's exactly what occurred here.
Speaker 7: Wow, incredible malicious prosecution certainly, and with devastating our repercussions.
Speaker 7: Now it takes you a few years to get Steven
Speaker 7: Avery out of prison? How many years exactly is the
Speaker 7: fight to finally you say, at this time he's in
Speaker 7: there at eighteen years, how long does it take to
Speaker 7: finally release him.
Speaker 3: Well, we moved quick once we got the physical evidence.
Speaker 3: He had been appealing twice. It went up to the
Speaker 3: State Supreme Court and it was denied by the first
Speaker 3: by the Court of Appeals, and the State Supreme Court
Speaker 3: did that one hear it, and then it came back
Speaker 3: again to the Court of Appeals. It gradually became apparent,
Speaker 3: even during those appeals that the state was maybe not
Speaker 3: sharing all evidence what's called exculpatory evidence, the evidence that
Speaker 3: has a tendency to show that the defendant is mass guilty.
Speaker 3: The appeals were based upon the state withholding or at
Speaker 3: least allegations that the state was withholding some of that evidence.
Speaker 3: But anyhow, those appeals failed, and then the Innofence Project
Speaker 3: finally got a hold of it, and the DNA was
Speaker 3: determined to be Allen. At that point, we did not
Speaker 3: feel comfortable just based on the DNA to just release
Speaker 3: mister Avery immediately, because you know, we didn't know all
Speaker 3: this at the time. And it's funny how one piece
Speaker 3: of physical evidence, the last hair, it was a pubic
Speaker 3: hair to be tested in this whole five well eighteen
Speaker 3: years later, was one thing we had linking the real assailant,
Speaker 3: Gregory Allen. But before we did that, we wanted to
Speaker 3: look at the whole file to make sure that just
Speaker 3: because that one here was there, that that doesn't necessarily
Speaker 3: mean that Avery wasn't somehow involved. So we looked through
Speaker 3: those boxes of evidence, poured through them all night actually,
Speaker 3: and it became pretty clear that no, Avery wasn't guilty.
Speaker 3: There was no other evidence other than a faulty identification
Speaker 3: of him under weird circumstances with the composite drawing, and
Speaker 3: we quickly did a stipulation with the Innocence Project and
Speaker 3: Avery was released from prison about three or four days later.
Speaker 7: It's not mean, of course, right, what was the last
Speaker 7: thing you just said? Sorry?
Speaker 3: His release was with a lot of media attention, cameras,
Speaker 3: TV cameras and newspapers all from all over the state,
Speaker 3: and even the New York Times had an article about
Speaker 3: this person who had had in prison for eighteen years.
Speaker 3: So when Avery walked out of prison, he was almost
Speaker 3: an instant celebrity in Wisconsin.
Speaker 7: And he got himself a good attorney, and he was
Speaker 7: looking at a fairly sizable income or a compensation for
Speaker 7: his time in prison, wasn't.
Speaker 3: He He was asking a thirty six million dollar lawsuit
Speaker 3: is what they had filed. I'm sure they wouldn't have
Speaker 3: got that, but it would have been well into the
Speaker 3: double digits million dollars.
Speaker 7: I'm sure now they're into This story comes in and
Speaker 7: this is a huge surprise in this story and just
Speaker 7: an amazing, amazing part of the story is a woman
Speaker 7: named Teresa Hallback and how does she want to why
Speaker 7: does she want to go to the Avery residence, the
Speaker 7: scrap yard? What's her reason for being anywhere near that property?
Speaker 6: Right?
Speaker 3: So this is about two years after Avery's released from prison,
Speaker 3: and in the book, I go through a few occasions
Speaker 3: that I had contact with Avery at one point in
Speaker 3: the deposition in the runfel conviction lawsuit and a different
Speaker 3: trial I did where I think he perjured himself. But
Speaker 3: this is now it's two years after he's released from prison.
Speaker 3: And Paul Back was a freelance photographer from this area
Speaker 3: of Wisconsin, Appleton, Wisconsin actually, and she is called out
Speaker 3: to the Avery Salvage Yard, sent there by her employer
Speaker 3: after Stephen Avery called and specifically asked for her to
Speaker 3: come out and take some pictures of a vehicle that
Speaker 3: he was putting up for sale and the Car Trader magazine.
Speaker 3: So she had been out there a few times before
Speaker 3: to do the same thing. And then on this particular
Speaker 3: date happened to be Halloween actually of two thousand and
Speaker 3: three October thirty one, two thousand and three, she went
Speaker 3: out to the Avery salvage Yard in rural Manitoa County
Speaker 3: to take this picture of a car that Avery was selling.
Speaker 7: And what happened to Teresa Hallback.
Speaker 3: Well, Teresa had gone missing on that day and about
Speaker 3: three days later, her mother called the authorities and told
Speaker 3: the police that she hadn't seen her daughter in three
Speaker 3: days and that was very unusual. Teresa didn't live with
Speaker 3: their parents, she lived on her own, but she had
Speaker 3: kept in close contact with them, and immediately a manhunt started.
Speaker 3: It became clear after not too long that she had
Speaker 3: disappointment at the Avery salvage yard. The police went out there,
Speaker 3: they did a quick look. They did not see her vehicle.
Speaker 3: She rove a Suva rav four think is what it was.
Speaker 3: And they, you know, they of course look at the
Speaker 3: last place she's known to be and that was the
Speaker 3: avery seller Jayard. But at first they did not see
Speaker 3: her vehicle, so they loved you know, as time goes on,
Speaker 3: it's getting worse. The story is getting media attention throughout
Speaker 3: Wisconsin because this is a you know, anyone that goes missing,
Speaker 3: of course, it's a story. Teresa Halbach was. I don't
Speaker 3: know how to say. She's a beautiful young woman, well known,
Speaker 3: well liked, and she was missing and days went by
Speaker 3: and she still wasn't found. So her family and friends,
Speaker 3: there was a group of volunteers that were searching for her.
Speaker 3: And eventually that group, about a week after she went missing,
Speaker 3: we're on the Avery sellar Jard property. They let him
Speaker 3: come on and they are the ones that found her
Speaker 3: suv garry and concealed with is a corner of the
Speaker 3: w yard.
Speaker 7: Right, and so they do they find when do they
Speaker 7: find her body on the property.
Speaker 3: They do what they should have. They backed off right away.
Speaker 3: They called police and I was on call at the
Speaker 3: time myself. So the police arrived high and the DA
Speaker 3: and myself, I'm an assistant DA, we arrived at the scene.
Speaker 3: I had actually kind of a long story, but I
Speaker 3: had run for DA and was the DA and my
Speaker 3: friend ended up doing the job anyhow, But long story,
Speaker 3: but the two of us arrived there and lots of police,
Speaker 3: lots of media, helicopter full in the air. It's a
Speaker 3: scene I'll never forget. Police dogs as as it turned
Speaker 3: into night, kind of a nice fall day turned into
Speaker 3: a driving cold rain as we were searching for what
Speaker 3: everybody thought was likely to be Teresa's body. You know,
Speaker 3: we didn't We didn't have that. We had our vehicle.
Speaker 3: But that night the police dogs hit on a burning
Speaker 3: barrel basically, and in that burning barrel, Teresa's remains were
Speaker 3: were discovered, along with parts of her cell phone.
Speaker 7: Now we will leave the story here for right now,
Speaker 7: and I'll just add for the audience, is is that uh,
Speaker 7: The fact is that when he got out of jail,
Speaker 7: he got the he was looking at the huge settlement.
Speaker 7: You said he was an instant celebrity. There was a
Speaker 7: lot of sympathy for, of course what he endured, being
Speaker 7: wrongfully convicted and railroaded and being in prison. And it
Speaker 7: was really accepted that there had been a police conspiracy
Speaker 7: obviously the sheriff and the deputy and everyone else, So
Speaker 7: that was an accepted thing. And now with the Teresa
Speaker 7: hallback and her body being found on the property, we're
Speaker 7: hearing the same story. So again I won't give the
Speaker 7: rest of the book away because there's still a lot
Speaker 7: more to happen. It's such an ironic twist, I think,
Speaker 7: and I think if people can keep that in mind,
Speaker 7: they'll when they finish this book, they'll realize, my god, yeah,
Speaker 7: that's that's an ironic twist if there ever was one.
Speaker 7: So I want to thank you Michael for coming on
Speaker 7: and weaving the story of this book Unreasonable Inferences. It's
Speaker 7: a great book, and I want to thank you very
Speaker 7: much for coming on and explaining it so very well
Speaker 7: for us.
Speaker 3: So all right, I really appreciate you having me Dan,
Speaker 3: It's a pleasure. Of course, people can can get the
Speaker 3: book if they want at Amazon sure it's or at
Speaker 3: our website. They could look at www. Unreasonable Inferences dot
Speaker 3: com are one word unreasonable inferences. I don't want to
Speaker 3: toot my own home horn, but people do say they
Speaker 3: you know, it's one of those things you just don't
Speaker 3: put down. And it's the story I think more than anything.
Speaker 3: It really is an unusual stranger than you know truth.
Speaker 3: You can't make this stuff up kind of a story.
Speaker 7: Absolutely, and and you know it's just a story that is,
Speaker 7: like you say, a page turner. I was. I got
Speaker 7: to thank Kim Katrell at two True Crime Book Reviews
Speaker 7: for turning me on. I probably wouldn't have known, or
Speaker 7: I would have known a lot later, let's put it
Speaker 7: that way. So I would really want to thank her
Speaker 7: for introducing us and and and as a result of
Speaker 7: you're one of a great guest and talking about a
Speaker 7: great book, and it's very well deserved. If this book's
Speaker 7: a little bit different than a lot of books because
Speaker 7: of the perspective that you you have being a prosecutor,
Speaker 7: and then again later like the person that gets them
Speaker 7: out of prison, then later is going to an investigate
Speaker 7: a crime that again this guy's accused of again. So
Speaker 7: it's an amazing twist. It's one of the most incredible
Speaker 7: stories with just when you think the thing has ended
Speaker 7: now it's more to come. So thanks very much, Michael,
Speaker 7: and have yourself a great evening. Great you too, day,
Speaker 7: Thank you very much. You've been listening to the program
Speaker 7: True Murder, the most shocking killers in true crime history,
Speaker 7: and the authors that have written about them. Thank you,
Speaker 7: good night,