THE INNOCENT KILLER-Michael Griesbach

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who had gone missing several days earlier. The innocent man had turned into a cold blooded killer or had he. This is narrative nonfiction at its finest and a true crime thriller. The book that we are featuring this evening is The Innocent Killer, a true crime, a true story of a wrongful conviction and its astonishing aftermath, with my special guests, journalist and author and prosecutor Michael Greesback. Pardon me, Welcome to the program, and thank you for agreeing to

this interview. Michael Greesback, Hi, Dan, Thanks thanks for having me on the show. Thank you very much. I just got you late coming onto the program. So I just introduced a program and read about the synopsis of the book and what a heck of a book it is. Welcome back to the program and glad to have you back on this updated version of the book. So tell us before, without giving really anything away, the last time I interviewed you was the book was called Unreasonable Inferences.

So tell us what the new title is and what has happened in your book writing career that this book has been re released and updated, and tell us about that absolutely well.

was later arrested and convicted of a subsequent murderer. And the book also has a PostScript from the victim who survived the first crime for which mister Avery was wrongly convicted. That's Penny Bernson. So it's a complicated tale, one that has a lot of lessons for the criminal justice system, I think, and one that is just hard to make this kind of horrific story up. It really is stranger and more frightening than fiction in a lot of ways.

basically after Steven Avery is released. And I don't want to jump ahead for the audience that doesn't know anything about this case at all. So let's go back to Penny Bernston and the beach, and let's start there. Let's start with who she was and what was she doing that day, and what was her routine, and tell us a little bit about the background of the community itself a little bit as an introduction, and then tell us introduced Penny and what happened that faithful day on the beach?

collar town and some tourist areas as well. But that day, back in July of nineteen eighty five, Penny Bernston, who ran with her husband a chocolatestionionary basically a candy store, a real popular spot of ice cream parlor and tourist attraction in its own right right downtown in our historic downtown, and they were start of prominent members of the community.

Tom her husband his grandparents actually started the old candy store back in the I think nineteen twenties, and Penny was a YMCA fitness instructor in addition to running the

day of the operations at the candy store. She was roughly thirty if memory serves years old, had a few children, a young son and a young daughter, and together the Burnston family went to the beach, the Lake Michigan Beach about ten miles north of Manitoac and a very isolated stretch of a state forest called Point Beach State Forest. Penny ran daily because she had this exercise class at the YMCA. She was very fit, very attractive, young young woman.

She ran north from the beach into the isolated stretch, pine trees towering pines to the left and Lake Michigan sparkling Lake Michigan to the right. She ran barefoot in her bikini north along and passed the scraggly looking fella in street clothes. It was about eighty five degrees, but he had street as she ran up, and she was sort of taken aback, but he said nice day or something,

and she said, yeah, nice day for a run. But on her way back, the scraggly looking fella in street clothes had walked about a mile further north, or a half mile further north at any rate, her run was six miles and she had made the turnaround and made it about halfway back when she saw him again, this time though hiding in the midst of a popular tree close to the shoreline, and Penny knew pretty quickly that she was in trouble. She tried to run away toward

the water. She even went into the water. He followed her. She was running, got up about five deep, considered diving into the water, but then thought she drowned in a struggle, so she angled back toward the shore and the assailant grabbed her. A small person in stature, I think she was probably like one hundred five pounds, and she fought back, struggled back, kicked everything, but he man handled her over the sand dunes and tore off her clothing and tried

to rape her. Penny fought back, amazing how hard she fought back with the getting what he wanted. He beat her to a bloody pulp. Inexplicably, really he ran away. I don't know if he thought somebody saw him or what. Penny was dazed, totally naked, just tried crawling if he can imagine that, to the water, but gave up halfway and basically passed out for a while, just staring off into the into the sparkling Lake Michigan waters, and then finally made it down a half hour later to the beach.

After she came to that was time a couple in a sailboat saw her, and you know, she was rescued. Basically, her husband and the e MTS rushed her to the hospital then, and she had she had received numerous various severe injuries. So that's how all this started.

you know, with her arms wrapped around him. Her husband Tom saw them as he's running north and ran up, of course, and ended up carrying Penny part way back to the to this park where they were, and then the ambulance rushed her, rushed her to the to the hospital in Mantuat.

efforts to prevent that, and for imprisonment as well. She thought he had a knife, or at least he talked about a knife. He had banged her head up and down on the sand, the hard sand over these dunes, and just bloodied, badly bloodied and badly bruised in some fractures, but alive.

Penny very intelligent woman, very intelligent person, and took pains during the assault to try to get a good look person, knowing that if she survived, you know, she'd like to obviously have the person arrested and convicted. He had a beard, though, and anytime in police work and investigations there's facial area, it's more difficult to really get a real good description. But she had his eye color as hair color. She said. He had what we here in Wisconsin referred to as

a beer belly. It's kind of a punchy kind of guy. She had a height of rough height, I think it was five five six seven, and brown or sandy hair and brown eyes. The police, irrationally, in my view, came up with a name almost right off the bat, a person by the name of Stephen Avery, who's the main character in this book, both a villain and well first a hero sort of him in a villain. But they

had their eyes on Stephen Avery. He was out on bail for actually assaulting or attempting to assault the deputy sheriff's wife, and the Avery clan was known to the sheriff's department. He lived about ten miles from the beach. But for whatever reason, they thought it sounds like Stephen Avery. He has appeared. Although never mind that his hair or his eyes are blue, they're not brown, and he's short. He's he's about five foot two versus five foot seven

or so that Penny thought her assailant was. But at any rate, so the sheriff had a mug shot brought down of mister Avery from his prior arrest a few months earlier, and numerous other photos, and they conducted a photo array. Now, Dan, this was nineteen eighty five before. Photo arrays are now done much better in the United States, partially because of this case in terms of how things are presented to a witness or a victim. But they did show Penny the photos. Excuse me. First, they actually

did a composite sketch, and this is important. The composite sketch artists from the Sheriff's department. First composite sketch he's ever done. He received some training at Quantico FBI in Washington, d C. But it's the first composite sketch he ever

did on a case. He met Penny, and many people believe that he actually looked at the mugshot of mister Avery before he met Penny being told that he's a suspect, which is a big no no. And he started drawing this artist sketch of an assailant with Penny chiming in you know, giving him a brief description, and they ended up with a composite sketch of someone who the picture was later commented to be an uncanny resemblance was the

word the child judge used to mister Avery's mugshot. And once that image was in Penny's mind, its thought, and there was psychological testimonies from a UW University of Wisconsin and Harvard Law and psychiatrists. Psychologist, excuse me. Once a person has an image in their mind of the assailant, that becomes their assailant from that point forward, and it might not be the right person. But if there's a photo array or a composite sketch like this, everything after that,

that is the assailant in that person's mind. So when they brought the photo array, including Avery's mud shot, up the penny after she did the composite sketch, she picked out mister Avery as her assailant.

that one of these people is the suspect. That's the first thing, and then you know, just pick out the one that's sort of in their mind. Now, partially because of the Avery Task Force, which we'll get to later, and other cases throughout the United States too, there are new policies and procedures where they sequentially show the suspects to the victim or to the witness. So it's one at a time. It's not here six or seven people.

Can you pick up one and then it's not so much a comparison between six or seven to see who looks most like this aspect, but now it's is this the person? Also, the best practice is not to have the investigating officer but a different officer who doesn't even know about the case of the suspect conductive photo array.

So those are two big changes. And you never ever tell a witness or a victim that the suspect is in this lineup, that they have a suspect in mine, because then the victim's job is sorted to confirm for the police and the victim. You know, let's face it, we all think, oh, the police know what they're doing, they care, they want to get this guy. And I'm sure they got it right. They know so much more and I just want to make sure I help out.

So things have improved quite a bit on photo or rays, Thank goodness.

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in front of her. He on this particular occasion, got in his truck, got up to highway speeds behind her, rammed into her car. His pickup truck into her car. She lost control for momentarily, but was able to regain control pulled the car over. He approached her Stephen Avery, the suspect in the other case, with a rifle excuse me, a shotgun. He approached her with a shotgun, held it to her head. He wanted her to get into his car.

He was clearly going to assault her. She pointed to the back seat and said, my one year old babies back. So I'm dropping my daughter us at my grandmother or my mother's for babysitting before I get to work. And if you take me, this baby will freeze. And this was January in Wisconsin. Maybe not quite as bad as Winnipeg, but close and and avery. You know, let's give a little credit where credit is due. Even he had some

some standard below which he wouldn't go. He let her go, but the police, you know, she knew exactly who he was. He was arrested, charged with all kinds of curious crimes and was on bail somehow posted well, bail was only set at five thousand cash, and he came up or his parents came up with the five thousand cash bail, so he was free this next summer, at the time that Penny burns and was was assaulted.

was there a psychological element to this? Tell us a little bit more about mister Stephen Avery and his criminal background, and if there is any psychological background.

or gas tank and kind of a fascination with fire. Really, no particular sex offenses that he was convicted of, at least he had a burglary conviction prior to that and this most serious, obviously sex motivated, alcoholic crime when he rammed into this woman's pickup truck.

zeroed in to some extent. It's understandable how they zeroed in and mister Avery after all, uh you know it was his Uh it was a sheriff deputy's wife. And police, uh, you know, they protect their own. Uh, they were aware that he was out on bail for that. And another interesting twist here is Stephen Avery's uncle, Ireland Avery, was a deputy himself at that time, one of the few Avery's who is kind of on the right side of the Uh. I know, Ireland neat guy. Actually he's retired now.

But so the Avery clan was certainly within the consciousness of the of the police. And uh, I guess a bearded person. You know, that's about as close as the description came, frankly, and then they just right off the bat pinned him to it in their mind, with very little, andsumed very much evidence to suggest that he didn't do it, but they went ahead anyhow.

now call a forensic sex assault examination of Penny. After the assault, they did a pubic hair combing and they found one hair that there was testimony a trial serology was the science back then, You're right, DNA evidence hair or otherwise did not make it into the court system until about five years later, the late the late eighties and early nineties really, so it was seven or so

years before that's started. But they had this other hair examination science called zerology, and a crime lab analyst did testify that a hair found on Tenney did not match. They can never say match, but they could say basically as consistent with the type of hair of Stephen Avery, not March. You know, it doesn't really say March. It could be just as easily many many more people. But at least Avery couldn't be ruled out by the hair.

So the DA used the crime lab analysts to examine the hair, and then the only other bit of evidence, physical evidence are otherwise there were no other witnesses was the leather jacket that popped up just before trial. The DA sent a letter to the Defense Council saying, oh, by the way, there's going to be evidence from three of our officers that they have often seen Steven Avery wear a leather jacket that matches the description of the

leather jacket that Penny said the assailant had on. I forgot to mention, in addition of street clothes on this eighty five degree day, whoever the assailant was, they had a leather jacket on with the pretty specific description It was waste length, it was I don't know button then it was just a pretty clear cut specific leather jacket and lo and behold. Right before trial, three cops end up saying that, yeah, in the earlier context, we saw

mister Avery with a similar leather jacket. That's about all the evidence there was.

away he didn't do it. His alibi was unbelievable. About twelve relatives and friends were together with him at his father's salvage art pouring cement that day for some foundations, for some sheds or something like that, and most important for the defense, Avery had a receipt from a shot ghost store at department store up in Green Bay that showed that he and his wife were it the checkout Rhine because the clerk remembered them with the little kids at exactly I believe it was five seventeen pm on

the day this happened. And Green Bay is about thirty miles north of where the assault occurred. And the assault occurred at I think four or five it was four or five pm it was over. That's when the assailant and it lasted about fifteen minutes and for him for Avery to get from the location of the assault on the beach back to his residence to pick up wife and five children and get them in caire seats, et cetera, and then drive up to Green Bay and be in the shot go check out Rhine at that time was

next to impossible. The police ran a dry run and said that they made it if but they had to speed, as the officer said, no more than ten miles per hour over the limit, So we got sixty five miles per zone and the freeway, so the caps that going seventy five, claimed that they could make it, but they didn't do the trip back to his residence to pick up the kids like he did. So really, the evidence that he did not do it, I thought would overwhelmed me when I read the transcript.

at this suspect. But now how to get a DA on board?

he thought that Avery was the person. The victim did identify Avery after all, although he could have backed off and saw what else there was perhaps, but you know, within a few days he had all the alibi information. And I let the reader decide for themselves in the book as to whether mister Vogel knew that Avery was innocent. But there's certain things there that I actually say that,

you know, I certainly think he knew. Many people thought they knew who the real person was, and the staff in the DA's office at the time and different police agencies even thought that. And the staff actually went up to Vogel and said, look, I think he got the wrong guy. We think it's this person he manches the description, not Avery, and he's been involved in more serious stuff this summer leading up to this sort of thing, that

police were even trailing him. But Vogel in response told them the staff that now it can't be this other guy. His name is Gregory Allen. Can't be Gregory Allen. I checked, or we checked me and the sheriff, and he's on probation for a different crime. And I checked with his probation agent and he's got an air tied out by that day. So the DA is telling all these people, Nope, it's impossible. It's him. He's got an alibi. I checked,

he's on probation. Well years later when I get into the picture, we had to have an independent investigation by the Wisconsin Attorney General review all this turns out that uh, mister Allen, Gregory Allen wasn't out on approbation at all. So it's pretty clear mister Vogel was was either making that up or wrong. There was some other evidence to Dan Kenny Burnson received telephone calls a couple of nights after the bald many calls late at night, uh, asking

you know where's Tom or husband? And I know where you live? That sort of thing. Typical behavior by assailants on these type of cases to sort of threaten and intimidate their their their victim.

and all these things bothered her. So she went in and talked to the sheriff, and the sheriff's response was, don't listen to anybody else. This is our investigation, it's not the City Police Department's investigation. And once a prosecutor and a sheriff sit you down and say, look, you know you did this compositive sketch. You picked him out Kenny, not only on a photo ray, but on a live lineup too, because they did one of those, you know.

And in Penny's mind, that's why that psychological testimony is so important. That became mister Avery's face for years. She told me that was her imagination of her assailant. He was her assailant in her mind, and the picture of Avery was in her mind, even though he wasn't her assailant. So Penny did what she could, but she was manipulated.

because they don't have the money to defend themselves. If that's the case, And he had two lawyers, and tell us what happened with the first lawyer and what kind of lawyer did did they have nothing completely fault them or anything when you're getting exculpatory evidence withheld but tell us about the tale of the two defense attorneys.

they believe. And Reesa firmly believed that Avery was innocent, actually told him stigators later that she would never go to the crime seem to check it out, because she was afraid the assailant was still out there somewhere. And Resa filed I think eighteen motions to suppress all sorts of things and to move the trial and et cetera, including of course, suppressing the photo identification. She got ill before the motion hearing and has since moved on or

long ago moved on. So successor counsel was appointed a fellow by the name of Jim Bolgert, who now is actually a judge one county south of here. You know, I thought Jim did a good job with what he had, and like you say, if you don't have all the evidence. If exculpatory evidence is withheld, you had a disadvantage. He firmly believed also in his client's innocence, fought like crazy, you know, bothered him so much for years after this conviction.

This case will never go away in mind, because there's a lot of pressure on a defense lawyer, more pressure when the person they believe is innocent, because they look at it as their job and if they fail, an innocent person is going to prism. And that's what happened here to the tune of eighteen years in prison.

I don't recall. But there was other evidence. Avery's description did not match the initial description that Penny gave to the police, so they were able to point out to the jury or Jim Bolger was look, Penny, you know you said your assailant had brown had brown eyes, but my clients are blue. Avery's eyes were real blue. And you said he was five foot seven, but he's only five foot two. There was another topic of greasy hands.

I don't know if you remember that when you read it, but okay, the Avery clan they all work on cars as a selogyard, so their hands are perpetually greasy, like never clean, and they smell greasy, and they are greasy. Penny was asked several times by the police at the time, you know, were your assailant's hands. Did they smell like any thing you know where they dirty? And Penny repeatedly said no, they in fact, they smelled very clean. So they saw that the defense layers got at least that

kind of evidence from the state. They the state hid some things or didn't turn over some things, right, but those kinds of things whenever, So at a defense layer you get those kinds of things, and the phone calls and the alibi the time slipped, the receipt from the shot coat store in Green Bay, and you have a

client who's adamant that he's innocent. I can see how they were certain that their client was innocent, and I can see why Jim Boger felt horrible when the jury two weeks before Christmas in nineteen eighty five found Mystery guilty of this crime he did not commit.

put him away eighteen years. Now, how do you how do you get involved, when do you get involved? And what was your take on this case previous to you being involved?

election against the DA and I became. I won the election, but actually did not take office, but stayed here to help the DA as a prosecutor. Shortly after that, this new DA took over. He was actually my campaign manager at the time. In the election, we got a call from the Wisconsin Crime Lab and now this is what

is this two thousand and two? They'll pardon me. The election was two thousand and two, two thousand and three, and the crime lab called and said, hey, this old case that your former DA there convicted this person of and it's actually two DA's earlier. Ay, we've got the innocence Project has been filing motions and the former DA had fought tooth and nail retesting of any of the evidence.

But anyhow, the crime Labs on the phone and they tell us that this hair the same hair that was used against mister Avery under the old science of hair examination, was retested and using DNA technology, and that hair matched not to mister Avery, but to a known sex offender by the name of Gregory Allen. And remember this hair was a hair found on the victim on the night of the assault at the hospital and in the sex

assault investigation. So now we have a hair of this knownender by the name of Gregory Allen, who is the one that everyone else in MANITOAC, the staff of the DEA and the other police agency were saying they thought was the assailant his hair DNA evidence one in thirty billion or whatever. The chance is that it's wrong was I'm Penny Burnson. So what do you do as a prosecutor when you get that news. You know, this person who spent eighteen years in prison, but who had a

jury convicted, who the Court of Appeals twice affirmed. You know, we wanted to make sure before we agreed to release mister Avery. So the two of us split the file and spent the whole night. Essentially, I brought it home. I'm sick of working in the office. Brought it home and went through the entire transcript of the first trial and became convinced very early on that there's no way

Avery did this. It's obviously this other person, mister Gregory Allen, and Avid I even became convinced matches that they probably knew that the sheriff and the DA probably knew that mister didn't do it. But when the head and convicted him anyhow, so we quickly agreed and signed the stipulation to release mister Avery from prison.

what is this doing in the Avery file? And I asked the crime live analyst on the phone store, what's his date of birth? And she gave me the date of birth and it matched this well. That was a criminal complaint signed by Dennis Vogel, who was the DA who wrongly convicted Avery of an offense, charging Allen with a very similar attempt anyhow, on the same beach a

summer or two earlier. So Gregory Allen had lunged at a different woman on the same Lake Michigan beach, the same stretch of beach, had dropped his shorts and lunged at this woman who was walking her dog. Two years four, he assaulted Penny Burnson. And it was signed by the district attorney himself, vogo who went ahead and convicted Avery. And I did some further investigation. My heart just at that point I thought, this is this really smells bad.

I mean, this is worse than smelling bad. This is just, you know, beyond pale.

assaulted and he wasn't. So it took about a week and basically we just we had a stipulation signed by the Wisconsin Innocence Project attorney and myself and the other prosecutor here, one of the other prosecutors here, and Avery was released under great fanfare. The TV stations flacked up to this northern Wisconsin community where he was in a prison and had pictures of him with his daughters, at

around his arms, leaving with a big smile. It was a huge story in Wisconsin, really the first exageration of a Wisconsin person. And he there's something about Steven Avery. He became kind of a quick folk hero and uh, you know, a person who withstood a great injustice and people just liked him. He's kind of a character. I meant to correct one thing Dan real quick. The Gregory Allen on the case where I saw the complaint in Vogel's file. He just got a fine for that. Vogel

amended the disoria conduct and gave him a fine. But Alan Gregory Allen was in prison though when I came into the picture, when when Avery was exonerated because after uh this after he assaulted Penny Burns and then got away with it, because they went after Avery, uh, seven or eight years later, left free to you know, roam the streets and repeat his crime. He broke into an apartment in Green Bay and viciously raped the woman inside.

He was charged with, among other offenses, wearing a bullet proof garment, which I had never seen before, but I think it in case the police came after him or something. We also found out he was wanted suspect on a murder in North Carolina. So when we got his DNA, we checked him out too, and he was in prison. I think he's serving still. It's a forty five year prison sentence based upon the crime he committed after he

was not prosecutor for Avery. So you know, for every wrongful conviction, the real assailant is left free, and sometimes that results and new victims, and that's what happened in this case.

don't know how to live. And Avery, because he was exonerated, wasn't done parole, didn't receive any services, so his life went quickly downhill. The public didn't know that, they did not know that they had you know, he was still a folk hero and it was a charity put up for him so he wouldn't have to live in a

nice anybody wanted to anyhow. But he started to commit some minor offenses and then on September excuse me, October thirty, first Halloween Day, October thirty, first of two thousand and five, just over two years after Stephen Avery was exigerated and released from prison, a freelance photographer by the name of Teresa Halbach from this part of Wisconsin went missing. Her mother reported to the police about three days after she had seen her last that she was gone. She was missing.

She's never gone that long. Teresa lived in a different place but kept in close to contact with her mother. She's at least she was twenty three years old. The last person or the last assignment Theresa had with her photography business was to take a photo of a vehicle, a buick. I believe that Stephen Avery was putting up for sale at the car at the salvage yard for Auto Trader magazine, and the police traced down that she indeed did go that day to the salvage yard and

took and that's the last anybody knew of her. They searched Avery's the salvage yard and did not on the initial search she find her car I have for suv. It wasn't there or they missed it at the time they searched it. But a few days later, a volunteer search party that was organized by Teresa's family and her friends. And by the way, she's just a wonderful young lady. Was a wonderful young lady, just an amazing person in

so many ways. But this volunteer search party found her vehicle in the corner of this vast rural salvage yard, covered in branches, partially concealed. And then I was on call, actually the police called me and we all went to the salvage yard and a massive search. One hundred more than one hundred cops from different jurisdictions in this area

conducted a search. News media helicopters were circling overhead because you have to remember Avery was already this well known figure in Wisconsin, and then this story of this young lady missing was already out on the news a few days and then the two came together on this day this I think it was October October fifth or so, about five days after Teresa went missing, excuse me, that would be November fifth or so, about five days after

Teresa went missing, that her car was found. That we were out at this salvage verge, and I remember it being a beautiful sunny day to start with. When we got out there, it was a Saturday, and the search police thought. We all kind of thought, we're going to find Teresa's remains. You think the worst because we knew what Avery was about, and it just the whole thing. There was a feeling that this wasn't going to be good. And the day turned into a cold front went through

and driving wet, driving rain, windy, colder temperatures. We had a crime lab unit, a mobile crime lab unit from the state crime Lab in Madison set up at sort of the headquarters with all these police going out from there, big lights, floodlights, and the canopy. I'll never forget that

flapping in the wind. Late at night, you know, still nobody, no nothing, until about midnight or so one of the police dogs hit on a burn barrel and then a fire pit a little bit later, and soon charred bones of a young adult female were located, as well as pieces of a cellphone and a camera and later determined to be Teresa's bones.

wrongdoing in the wrongful conviction. Was there a little bit of that involved.

blah blah blah. But I'm sure I know that, you know, they they didn't suspect him specifically, but they knew he was beloved this and after he was the person that had called Teresa to take the photo shot. But as soon as they found her car, then it became likely that, you know, possibly the murder happened here in Manitoa County, where the every salvage yard is located. Then the Manitoa County, our county police and sheriffs and state patrol and our

office got involved. And yeah, there was right from the start a skittishness. I'll admit that I and the other prescutor we both instructed the police. Look, you know, we need to always a Calliumett County officer with a Manitoa County officer as we search this because no matter what happens, the claim is going to be made that we did it again that we set up mister Avery, and sure enough that was exactly the claim after Avery was was arrested in the claim a trial.

did have. Finally, in the murder case, Yes.

digit millions. And as soon as the murder happened, that runfel conviction lawsuit, the value of it of course went way down as soon as Avery was arrested, and he ended up settling for four hundred thousand and all of that, all of that went to pay for his legal defense team. So you're right. In the American system of justice, if you have money, you get a better lawyer. And these two that represented him really are very excellent attorneys and

excellent people. They believed strongly in, you know, putting the state to its proof and making sure the justice system works right. But they sure did mount and aggressive defense and avery before he was arrested because he was hold up in his cabin up North after Teresa's car and the body parts were found. Police Bill didn't feel they had enough, so they didn't arrest him for about a week and n one of those nights, he called in to the Nancy Show of All Things Wow and proclaimed

proclaimed is innocent Live out of the Blue. He just calls Nancy Grace and she had a guest host on at the time, and he was talking about the police starts setting them up again and he doesn't know what they're doing on his salvage air. They've got the whole thing cordoned off. They could be planting evidence and unbelievable, how interesting all that was to watch it happen.

it's called. And who knows if any of this evidence ever would have been found, and maybe mister Avery wouldn't be in prison now. But anyhow so there's these spots of blood that no question were Avery's, although where it came from we'll get to later in terms of the

blood vile defense. But the other physical evidence was Teresa Hawbucks keys the keys to the raft four after five or six searches of his bedroom by Calumet County officers, two Manitoa County officers, did a final search of the bedroom and in kind of shaking or the dresser, they some keys popped out or a key popped out and landed on the floor and they picked it up and that key was Teresa Hobbock's key ignition key to the

raft four. So now you have Avery's blood in her car and you have her car key in his bedroom. You can see where this is going. I mean, either you know the defense they planted at all, yep, and

that it's enough. Yeah, that that with him thing her in the first place to take this photo and specifical way asking for her because in addition to the freelance photography business she had, she worked for this this Car Trader magazine or this photography company that took pictures for Car Trader, and Steven had had her there before and specific way asked that Teresa come out to take the shot at the vehicle, the picture of the car.

was mad admitted in the trial. But that is really the evidence that convinced most people that mister Avery was innocent. It was guilty, excuse me of the murder. His seventeen year old nephew, Brendan Dacy, was repeatedly contacted by the police because the police thought he knew more about it than he was telling them. And he denied knowing anything about it many times, but the police would bring him in in three hours of questioning and another instance more questioning,

and eventually he told them. He confessed essentially that he, along with his uncle Stephen, both raped and killed Teresa Holbach. And in an incredibly vivid press conference that was live all over the major TV stations here in Wisconsin some beyond that, DA prosecuted Avery for the murder. We had to fire him the case out, we had a conflict of interest, so the calliu Met County District Attorney ended

up prosecuting. This went through and vivid detail, this confession and this lengthy statement that Avery's nephew, Brendan Darcy gave, and he was sixteen years old by the way, about how he came home from school and heard this woman crying in his uncle Steve's trailer, and how both of them. I really don't even want to go into detail. It's as bad of a rape, of a death, a knifing and a shooting and the torturing as you can think of it.

for long drive sometimes. He was sort of reminiscing about the days in prison, out in the prison yard looking at the jets to gole by, and said, sometimes just you know, put me back in there. I just can't

handle it. So I think, you know, Avery's proclivities, his sexual deviance, mixed with his not being able to handle being out after eighteen years of being in when he shouldn't have been in, all came together and obviously wax any kind of human conscious to be able to do what he did here, because you know, you know how she ended up, how trees ended up in a burn barrew, charred bone fragments, so you know, the nephew went into

great detail about how they disposed of the body. It wasn't it was almost dimarresque, which, by the way, as another Wisconsin the product.

represented through this woman. Is there no that I mean, yeah, but that's a.

had some interference on this end. But Anyhow, he after he was out, I had charged his girlfriend, who he just met this one night at a gas station and they were both kind of lonely folks, and he ended up dating her after that. But she was charged with drunk driving sixth offense, and it went to trial, and Steven Avery actually testified at the trial and perjured himself. I believe this is after he was this folk hero, but before the murder and basically said, no, she wasn't driving.

I was driving, and I put the car in the ditch accidentally, and et cetera. They didn't believe him. It wasn't a credible story. But what I'm trying to say is, yeah, I think he did think that the system owes him. He understandably had no respect for the system. I think he had respect for you know, judges more or less because because they didn't do this to him, but prosecutors and police who could blame him for having no respect and the anger that built up in him during those

eighteen years in prison. He got divorced, he got so angry at his wife for not staying with him, and the entire time in prison, you could only imagine how prison itself affects someone for eighteen years, but knowing that you didn't do it, and you're sitting there for all

that time. So yeah, whether it's a reaction out against the system or I tend to think it's more not caring if he went back to prison with that secondary to his main problem since birth, probably psychological difficulties or not since birth, but since five or six years old. Probably There's another side to this that I've learned since writing this book, to running into people who knew the he's his mother used to tie him to a leash as a form of punishment outside to a tree naked

when he was five or six. You know, if you're going to act like an animal, I'm going to treat you like an animal. That's what was reported to me anyhow, as to what she told him and what she did, And you know, you can't it's hard to imagine much of a worse childhood in terms of, if this is true, a mother and who should be nurturing instead doing things like that, tying a young child naked to a tree in the front yard like a dog on a leash.

You know, So who knows what drives this, but you know there has to be something doesn't there no matter how your childhood was, that should go off in your mind that what he did, what he was doing. I don't, you know, want to go into the detail on the radio, frankly about how bad this was in that bedroom and how they killed her and how they disposed of her body. But some has to go off in one's mind, I would think, even though they're messed up, to say this

is just wrong. You have this woman pleading for her life and you're treating her like a piece of meat or worse. It just it's as bad as it gets.

about all family, close family, close knit family. But it started with the deputy and the sheriff in the district attorney Vogel not doing their job, not doing what they were entrusted to do of a system that they believe in, that they work in, that they that we pay honor to. They didn't do what they were supposed to do, which led to Gregory Allen continuing his reign of terror. And we could have had ten murders, we could have ten more rapes, we could have had all kinds of things

that he could have done because he wasn't stopped. And then we have an innocent man, pardon me. And then we have an innocent man, yes, And then we have an innocent man railroaded and that damage. And we talked about his wife leaving him, but this is a guy that did seem to have, you know, some semblance of a family life. I mean, he had friends and relatives, and he had family, and he had five children, and his life was ruined with those children.

get caught for everything. And Teresa Halbach, the way life works, I mean, only Stephen Avery and Brenda Dacy's nephew are responsible for her death. But had the sheriff and the DA not did what they did, Teresa Holbock would be alive today. Avery could have ended up in prison for something else, or he could have had his life gotten straight, you know, together, if he wasn't ruefully convicted, who knows what would have happened. But one thing always leads to another,

doesn't it. What I had for breakfast is more affected what I had for lunch, and Avery would not have been in a position to murder Teresa Halbach. So yeah, it's an amazing story about consequences and what happens. One thing leads to another, to another or to another, and it all kind of comes around, good and bad.

We're not going to release this guy easily. We're not going to exonerate this guy, and we're not going to clear this guy completely or we're just not going to pursue it, or you know. So I was surprised that and probably the way of having somebody like you involved that he was really at least quickly, which probably didn't do them any good either. But that still that I think that this is a story of injustice, but justice served. But in the end, the damage had already been done

and regardless, Avery still is a guilty man. Teresa Hallback is an innocent victim along with her family, and Penny Burnson and her husband were also manipulated and used and traumatized by this entire system. So again, it's an incredible story. And I congratulate you on a spellbinding book about a spellbinding case. And I want to thank you very much Michael for coming on talking about the Innocent Killer. Very engaging book. Thank you very much.