Ever since Netflix’s Making a Murderer premiered back in December people have been throwing out their own theories about what really happened to Teresa Halbach – from Branden Dassey’s brother making a rap song about the case to Steven Avery’s mother having her own conspiracy theories, anyone and everyone have been weighing in with their own opinions. Hell, one scientist even came out to explain why the DNA evidence in the documentary is complete and utter garbage.
Unfortunately for Steven, none of his appeals have gotten him anywhere aside from prison, however new evidence discovered by Internet detectives (read: people on Reddit obsessing over the show) may prove fruitful. According to Jerry Buting, Steven’s 2006 defense lawyer via Rolling Stone:
“Dean and I worked on that case for 14 months before that trial, the last six months of which I did nothing but work on this case. We had 25,000 pages of discovery and police reports to go through, we had hundreds and hundreds of hours of tape recorded phone calls and interrogations and aerial footage, every salvage yard and expert opinions. But we were only two minds. What I’m discovering is that a million minds are better than two. Some of these people online have found things with a screen shot of a picture that we missed.”
“There’s a picture of [murder victim Teresa Halbach] that I’ve looked at a thousand times that shows her standing in front of her vehicle, the RAV4. She’s got a camera in one hand and she’s also got keys. And it’s like a key ring. You can see there’s a bunch of keys there like a house key, probably a photography studio key, maybe her parent’s house key. And those were never recovered. Instead we found this single key.”
“Now we did challenge that, about how unusual it was, why is she walking around with one key? But I don’t think I caught the fact that there was a photograph showing what she really carried around with her is a bunch of keys. And none of those keys were ever found.”
You know the photo he’s talking about – the one where Teresa’s standing in front of the Rav 4, camera in hand along with a set of keys. Multiple keys:
Compare THOSE keys to the one police found in Steven’s home…:
…and you realize things don’t quite add up. Besides, who keeps their car keys on a SEPARATE keychain from the rest of their keys? The most logical conclusion is that the Toyota key found in Steven’s home was a spare, not the one Teresa was using when she met her untimely demise.
Whether or not the spare was indeed planted by police or if this new(ish) revelation will end in Steven getting a new trial, only time will tell.
[H/T Uproxx and Rolling Stone]