'Convicting a Murderer' Episode 6 challenges arguments for Steven Avery's innocence with phone call and car key evidence
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A detective's phone call and hidden keys in a trailer are not evidence of a homicide frame job, as Netflix's "Making a Murderer" suggests, according to the latest installment of the new docuseries "Convicting a Murderer."
Streaming on conservative media platform DailyWire+,"Convicting a Murderer" aims to dispute evidence from Netflix's wildly popular docuseries that brought international attention to the 2005 Manitowoc-area homicide of Teresa Halbach and convictions of Steven Avery and his then-teenage nephew, Brendan Dassey.
On Oct. 31, 2005, Halbach, a 25-year-old photographer, went missing. Her last assignment before her disappearance was to take photos of a vehicle at Avery's Auto Salvage, a family business near Two Rivers.
Searchers located Halbach's Toyota RAV4 on Avery's property on Nov. 5, 2005, and Avery was arrested shortly after and charged with Halbach's murder. Dassey was charged the following March, at 16 years old, after he told investigators he assisted Avery in sexually assaulting and killing Halbach, then burning her body.
Both were convicted after separate trials in 2007 and sentenced to life in prison. Avery claims this was the second time in his life he was falsely convicted — in 1985, Avery was sentenced to prison for a sexual assault he did not commit, and was only released in 2003 after DNA evidence identified the real perpetrator.
The first season of "Making a Murderer" shares what Avery's defense attorneys argued at trial: that Avery was framed by members of the Manitowoc County Sheriff's Office who were in hot water after locking Avery away for 18 years for a crime committed by someone else.
"Convicting a Murderer," which released its first three episodes Sept. 8 and has been premiering each subsequent episode every Thursday until the end of October, aims to highlight specific evidence that was left out of "Making a Murderer" but that played a role in the juries' guilty verdicts for Avery and Dassey. The docuseries gives voice to people involved in the Halbach homicide investigation and trial, as well as people who started heavily researching the case after watching "Making a Murderer."
The following are some takeaways from Episode 6: The Key & The License Plate Call:
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Phone call about license plate received unnecessary scrutiny
At the start of Episode 6, retired Manitowoc County Sheriff's Detective Andrew Colborn recalls receiving hateful and threatening phone calls from people all over the world who had watched "Making a Murderer."
He says the calls, which included threats to his family, came in to both his home and work phones "24 hours straight, midnight to midnight."
One of the reasons Colborn received so much hate for his role in the investigation was for a phone call he made to Manitowoc County dispatch asking a dispatcher to run a license plate number to verify that it was registered to Halbach's Toyota RAV4.
In a recording of Colborn's phone call, he is heard asking a dispatcher to run the license plate number "SWH-582." When the dispatcher tells him the vehicle with that number is registered to Halbach, a missing person, Colborn asks "'99 Toyota?" and the dispatcher confirms.
At Avery's trial, Colborn testified that he believes he made this call Nov. 3, 2005, while he was on duty. But Avery's defense attorneys questioned why Colborn was making that phone call two days before Halbach's vehicle was found.
In "Convicting a Murderer" Episode 6, one "case enthusiast" tells an interviewer they thought Colborn might have "found the car in some illegal way, and wants to verify it's the car so he can later find it in a legal way."
This theory plays into the belief that searchers locating Halbach's vehicle was a set-up, which "Convicting a Murderer" disputed in Episode 4.
Avery's defense attorneys not only questioned if Colborn was looking at Halbach's vehicle when he made this call, but also questioned why he used a cellphone to call dispatch instead of his radio, if he was on duty. It's likely, they argued, that Colborn actually made this call Nov. 4, when he was off-duty.
But no attorneys requested timestamps of Colborn's call to Manitowoc County dispatch to actually determine when the call was made, "Convicting a Murderer"'s host, conservative political commentator Candace Owens, says in Episode 6. Instead, people from the online "sleuther" community hunted down those records shortly after "Making a Murderer" aired, and in July 2019, received proof Colborn did make the call to confirm the plate numbers the night of Nov. 3, 2005.
In Episode 6, Colborn explains he received a call earlier that night from Calumet County Sheriff's Lt. Mark Wiegert, who was one of the lead investigators in the case, while he was driving his patrol car. Wiegert told Colborn the license plate of Halbach's vehicle, which they were searching for, and without pulling over, Colborn used one hand to quickly write it down, Colborn tells an interviewer.
“It was difficult for me to see the plate number that I had written down, I says ‘I better verify this,’ so I did call the dispatch center, I said hey, run this plate number, tell me what it comes back to," Colborn says.
Additionally, Colborn says in Episode 6 he called dispatch from the sheriff's office cellphone in his squad car rather than from his radio out of concern that Halbach may be harmed in the scenario that someone was holding her hostage and did not know law enforcement were aware she was missing, but heard over a police scanner.
'Making a Murderer' edits of trial footage left wrong impressions for some viewers
Part of what convinced some "Making a Murderer" viewers that Colborn may not have been completely honest on the witness stand was his body language, multiple fans of the show say in the latest "Convicting a Murderer" episode.
But some of that footage was edited out of place, "Convicting a Murderer" shows. In fact, one clip of Colborn straightening his posture, seemingly in response to an unexpected question from defense attorneys, was used three times in "Making a Murderer," none of which were at the point when that clip was actually taken — while Colborn was waiting for Avery's attorney, Dean Strang, to ask his first question, researcher and "Convicting a Murderer" producer Brenda Schuler says.
There was also at least one point in "Making a Murderer" where Colborn's answer to a question was edited out of place, "Convicting a Murderer" points out. The Netflix series includes footage of Strang asking Colborn, "You can understand how someone listening to that might think that you were calling in a license plate that you were looking at on the back of a 1999 Toyota?" with Colborn's answer of "yes."
In reality, the trial transcript shows Kratz objected to this question, and it was never answered. Colborn's "yes" was actually in response to Strang asking, "This call sounded like hundreds of other license plate or registration checks you've done though dispatch before?"
Colborn filed a lawsuit against Netflix and “Making a Murderer” filmmakers Laura Ricciardi and Moira Demos in April 2019, claiming that their editing together video clips from different portions of testimony from Avery's trial was defamation. But in March, a federal judge ruled in favor of the filmmakers, that the edits kept the essence of his testimony, and there was no proof of malice, which is a required element in showing defamation.
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Questions remain about Halbach's car keys in Avery's trailer
The controversy surrounding Halbach's car keys has already been introduced in earlier episodes of "Convicting a Murderer": On Nov. 8, 2005, during law enforcement's seventh visit to Avery's trailer, two employees from Manitowoc County Sheriff's Office, Colborn and Lt. James Lenk, found the key to Halbach's vehicle on the ground after going through items in and around Avery's desk.
Many Avery "truthers" cite this as a suspicious piece of evidence that points to the possibility Avery was framed.
But while seven visits to search a trailer may seem like a lot, each entry into the trailer was for a seizure of something specific, Colborn says in Episode 6. On Nov. 8, the investigators were tasked with collecting pornography found in Avery's bedroom. They took items out of and replaced some back in a desk and bookcase, Colborn says, "cramming" items "not gently." Colborn recalls moving the desk away from the bookcase and shaking it at one point.
However, some "case enthusiasts" interviewed in "Convicting a Murderer" argue pictures from before and after the key was found show a pile of coins on top of Avery's desk did not move, so Colborn must not have shaken the desk.
“I can’t explain why I’m cramming stuff into a bookcase and there’s change on top of it and it doesn’t look like it moved," Colborn tells interviewers. "I don’t recall change even being on there, but apparently there was.”
Colborn, Lenk and the other investigator present in the trailer when the key was found, Calumet County Deputy Dan Kucharski, said at trial while they didn't see the key fall out of the desk or bookcase, they assume it was dislodged during the search.
Blood stains in Halbach's vehicle would have been difficult to plant, forensic specialist says
Investigators identified blood stains in the cargo area of Halbach's vehicle in a pattern consistent with what hair would leave from a head wound, says Tom Fassbender, retired special agent with the Wisconsin Department of Justice Division of Criminal Investigation and co-lead investigator on the case. That blood, DNA analysts determined, was Halbach's.
Other blood stains in the vehicle were identified as coming from Avery. At the time of Halbach's disappearance, Avery had a cut on his finger, which he admitted himself and was seen in multiple press interviews following Halbach's disappearance.
In Episode 6, Ron Groffy, a retired forensic imaging specialist with the Wisconsin State Crime Lab, describes how he believes Avery's blood was left in the vehicle from a bleeding cut. He says he does not think the theory that blood was planted is logical, based on analysis of the bloodstains.
One stain in particular, near the driver's side, is in the right area to have been left by a finger when a key is turned in the ignition, Fassbender says.
The episode also includes trial footage in which state crime lab bloodstain pattern analyst Nick Stahlke says Avery's blood was found in similar patterns inside his own vehicle.
Contact Kelli Arseneau at 920-213-3721 or karseneau@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter at @ArseneauKelli.
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This article originally appeared on Appleton Post-Crescent: 'Convicting a Murderer' Episode 6 continues disputing arguments for Steven Avery's innocence
