With Steven Avery’s lawyer claiming to have new evidence that points to a new suspect in the murder of Tera Halbach, she also seems to be seeking a deeper resolution for the Making A Murderer subject. Kathleen Zellner is now seeking further evidence testing on existing evidence from the case, citing the advancement of techniques since the original investigation in 2007. The new motion follows up on Zellner’s suspicions that evidence was planted during the Halbach investigation and that Steven Avery was not the one behind the murder according to Variety:
“The most reassuring thing is that we are going to get to the bottom of who killed Teresa Halbach,” Zellner told reporters outside Manitowoc County courthouse on Friday. “And we firmly believe that we will establish it was not Steven Avery.”
Newsweek got their hands on a copy of the motion, highlighting that Zellner is contending the vehicle was moved from the nearby Fred Radandt Sons, Inc. quarry to Steven Avery’s property and that blood evidence was planted in the vehicle:
“Since 2007, more sensitive forensic DNA techniques have been developed that can recover sufficient DNA for profiling from…fingerprints,” states the motion, which also requests fingerprints from Colborn and Lenk, the two Manitowoc County Sheriff’s Department deputies. “If the unidentified fingerprints on the victim’s vehicle match either Officer [Andrew] Colborn or Officer [James] Lenk, it would be significant evidence of their involvement in moving the victim’s vehicle onto the Avery property.” (Both Colborn and Lenk have denied they planted evidence.)
The motion asks to perform DNA tests on a lug wrench found in Halbach’s car, burned items found at the Radandt deer hunting camp and three locations inside Halbach’s car. “According to the State’s theory, Mr. Avery was not wearing gloves and bled from his cut finger inside the RAV-4,” the motion states, implying the state’s case would be undermined if Avery’s blood is not found in those locations.
Zellner spoke with ABC News about the motion and noted that the suspect she believes is truly behind the murder was never investigated and the identity will be included in the legal team’s petition once testing is completed:
The motion “covers all types of testing” but the main “effort here is to date the blood,” Zellner said. “How old was the blood that was found in the car that linked Mr. Avery? Mr. Avery’s never given a confession in this case and all that links him to the crime are few pieces of evidence. And we start with his blood in the victim’s car.” Zellner, who has been involved in the case since January, said in the last 7 months she’s re-investigated the case and has developed evidence against another suspect.
She said collected evidence “points to one person. And that’s a person that I think was right there the whole time but never investigated. Because Mr. Avery was framed on this case right away.”
As we reported earlier, Zellner is 17-0 when it comes to overturning wrongful convictions. The lawyer has made many bold claims since taking on the case in January and seems more confident following the events that have occurred in the case of Brendan Dassey, whose conviction was overturned earlier in August.