'Convicting a Murderer' Episode 7 addresses Brendan Dassey's involvement in Teresa Halbach's 2005 murder
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After six episodes focused primarily on Steven Avery, the seventh episode of "Convicting a Murderer" addresses narratives around Brendan Dassey, Avery's nephew who was convicted along with Avery of the 2005 murder of Teresa Halbach.
"Convicting a Murderer" is a rebuttal to Netflix's "Making a Murderer," which since its premiere in 2015, has brought international attention to the Manitowoc-area homicide and convictions of Avery and Dassey.
Streaming on conservative media platform DailyWire+,"Convicting a Murderer" aims to highlight evidence that Avery and Dassey were rightfully convicted, after the Netflix docuseries garnered mass attention but omitted some of the evidence that ultimately led to two juries reaching guilty verdicts for Avery and Dassey. The docuseries' first three episodes premiered Sept. 8, and each subsequent episode is made available on the streaming service each Thursday until the end of October.
On Oct. 31, 2005, 25-year-old Halbach went missing. A photographer for Auto Trader Magazine, Halbach's 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 vehicle on Avery's property on Nov. 5, 2005, and Avery was arrested shortly after and charged with Halbach's murder. Dassey, at age 16, was charged the following March 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, he 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.
Here are some takeaways from Episode 7: The Vial of Blood.
Investigators say Brendan Dassey's confessions were backed up by evidence
"Making a Murderer" portrays Dassey as an intellectually challenged 16-year-old who was tricked by investigators into making a false confession to a rape and murder without understanding the consequences for him. Dassey made multiple conflicting statements about what happened the night Halbach was killed, and eventually recanted his confession.
It's not just the "Making a Murderer" filmmakers who found issues with Dassey's conviction. In August 2016, a federal judge overturned the conviction in a ruling that granted Dassey's petition for either release or a new trial. But prosecutors appealed this decision, and in December 2017, a further review by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit upheld Dassey's conviction, quashing hopes of release. The Seventh Circuit court made the decision in a 4-3 vote. While the majority opinion said they did not find that Dassey's confession to police was coerced, the dissenting opinion called the decision "a travesty of justice."
"Convicting a Murderer" doesn't entirely refute the claim that Dassey deserves sympathy. But it does present evidence that Dassey's confession about his and Avery's involvement in Halbach's murder may be true.
In March 2006, Dassey told investigators that he sexually assaulted Halbach at Avery's command. When Dassey knocked on his uncle's door the evening of Oct. 31, 2005, Avery brought him into the bedroom, where Halbach was restrained on the bed. Avery and Dassey assaulted Halbach, stabbed her and took her to the garage, where Avery shot her, Dassey said. Up until that point, investigators did not know how Halbach had died.
Investigators obtained a search warrant to conduct a thorough search of the garage. During that search, they located two bullet fragments. One, flattened in a crack on the cement, was too damaged to examine forensically, Tom Fassbender, retired special agent with the Wisconsin Department of Justice Division of Criminal Investigation and co-lead investigator on the case, says in Episode 7. But the second bullet fragment, found in the back of the garage under an air compressor, was checked for DNA. Experts determined it contained Halbach's DNA and was fired from a gun that hung above Avery's bed.
Based on a diagram Dassey drew for investigators showing where Avery, Dassey and Halbach were located in the garage when Avery shot Halbach, the bullet would have conceivably ended up around the back of the garage, where investigators found it, Fassbender said.
Additionally, a pair of Dassey's jeans he said he wore that night were presented as evidence because they had bleach spots on them. Dassey told investigators he helped Avery clean up the garage, and that Avery used gasoline, paint thinner and bleach on stains on the floor.
Investigators found evidence of what could have been blood spread on the floor of the garage near where Dassey said there was blood using a Luminol test, which can detect the presence of blood that has been heavily diluted. Defense attorneys, however, pointed out a Luminol test cannot differentiate between blood or other substances, like certain types of oil or cleaning agents.
“Oh, it’s just coincidental that Brendan turns over a pair of jeans that are stained with bleach because on the night of Teresa’s murder, he was helping his Uncle Steven clean the very garage where a bullet that was fired from Steven’s gun and contained DNA from Teresa Halbach was found?" legal reporter and conservative Milwaukee talk show host Dan O'Donnell says in the latest episode. "Weird how that works.”
When Dassey told investigators he saw Halbach tied to Avery's bed, he described the layout of Avery's bedroom. Investigators were initially skeptical of Dassey's claim that Avery moved furniture around, but Avery's former girlfriend, Jodi Stachowski, backed up Dassey's statements when she testified that Avery's bedroom layout used to look as Dassey described.
Additionally, in a recording of a Nov. 1, 2005, phone call between Avery and Stachowski, who was serving time at Manitowoc County Jail, Avery told Stachowski he "might have to take our Rug Doctor back" because it was "making noise." Avery also told his mother he washed his carpets around that time.
Fassbender says he believes Avery moved furniture in the bedroom to clean the carpets right after Halbach was attacked.
Contamination of test doesn't negate the fact that Halbach's DNA was found on bullet fragment
While prosecutors at Avery's trial presented evidence that Halbach's DNA was identified on the bullet fragment found in the back of Avery's garage, the defense team honed in on the fact that the DNA test was contaminated and thus should be considered inconclusive.
Sherry Culhane, a forensic scientist with the Wisconsin State Crime Lab who conducted the DNA test on the bullet fragment, accidentally got her own DNA in the negative control sample, which is supposed to contain no DNA to validate the test results.
Under crime lab protocol, that would render a test inconclusive. In a typical situation where a DNA sample was taken by swabbing an item, Culhane could have simply run the test again. But Culhane testified that she did not believe a mere swab of the bullet fragment would be adequate to detect DNA, so she washed the entire bullet fragment with a chemical mixture to retrieve DNA — meaning she could only do the test once.
Culhane requested supervisors allow a deviation from the protocol so the DNA could be presented as evidence. Only the control sample was impacted, prosecutors say, and the presence of Culhane's own DNA did not negate the fact that Halbach's DNA was found on the bullet fragment.
"Each case that we work and every situation is different. And sometimes there are circumstances that warrant deviating from the stated protocol," Culhane testified at Avery's trial. "My DNA was not in the evidence sample. It was only in the control. And it was a source that I could track. It was me.”
Ultimately, the DNA was allowed as evidence at trial. But for many people who believe in Avery's innocence, this was a glaring issue with the prosecution's case. "Convicting a Murderer" Episode 7 features thoughts from people with differing opinions on the DNA evidence.
RELATED: Steven Avery and Brendan Dassey remain imprisoned. Here's where their court proceedings stand.
RELATED: 'Making a Murderer' compelling, but is it a game-changer for Steven Avery?
The vial of Avery's blood found at the Manitowoc County Courthouse had non-suspicious explanation
"Making a Murderer" spotlights the argument Avery's attorneys made at trial — that employees of the Manitowoc County Sheriff's Office, disgraced by Avery's wrongful conviction and potentially on the hook for millions of dollars owed to him in a civil lawsuit, planted evidence to ensure a guilty conviction for Avery.
One of the key points of that argument is that law enforcement planted Avery's blood in Halbach's vehicle. "Making a Murderer" includes dramatic footage of Avery's defense attorneys, Dean Strang and Jeremy Buting, finding a vial of Avery's blood in a box in evidence storage at the Manitowoc County Courthouse. The blood vial has a puncture hole at the top, and the tape on the cardboard box has been cut and resealed.
But, as Episode 7 of "Convicting a Murderer" points out, the puncture hole in the blood vial was made when a phlebotomist extracted Avery's blood; that's simply how drawing blood works. Avery's own attorneys have admitted that, although it's not included in "Making a Murderer."
And court records show the evidence box holding Avery's blood vial was reopened in 2002, when DNA tests were run to exonerate Avery of his 1985 sexual assault conviction.
Prosecutors also had tests run on samples of Avery's blood taken from Halbach's vehicle to see if they contained a preservative that prevents blood from hardening or coagulating, which they argued would have been present in blood from Avery's vial. The tests came back negative for the presence of that preservative.
Read about the other episodes released so far:
Episode 4: 'Convicting a Murderer' Episode 4 discusses inconsistent statements made by Steven Avery
Episodes 1-3: Takeaways from first 3 episodes of 'Convicting a Murderer,' the response to 'Making a Murderer'
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 7 addresses Brendan Dassey's involvement in murder
