criminal activity also included threatening a female relative at gunpoint.
How is this relevant?
-- In the months leading up to Halbach's disappearance, Avery had called Auto Trader several times and always specifically requested Halbach to come out and take the photos.
This is not true. He requested 'that girl who was out here before'...which could suggest he wanted her sent out specifically to murder her for some unknown motive, or it could mean he wanted a good picture taken of his vehicle.
-- Halbach had complained to her boss that she didn't want to go out to Avery's trailer anymore, because once when she came out, Avery was waiting for her wearing only a towel (this was excluded for being too inflammatory). Avery clearly had an obsession with Halbach.
Also not true. The only thing she did was tell a coworker when she got back about him answering the door in a towel and said 'ew'. She knew exactly where she was going that day, so why would she have gone if she never wanted to go back? And since when is wearing the door in a towel more than just weird? It's now somehow a sign the guy wanted to kill her?
-- On the day that Halbach went missing, Avery had called her three times, twice from a *67 number to hide his identity.
And again, she knew exactly where she was going. Avery had called Auto Trader to set up the visit (leaving a paper trail), and she told coworkers exactly where she was going. And she obviously drove there. I have no idea why he dialed *67, but it pretty clearly wasn't to hide where she was going.
-- The bullet with Halbach's DNA on it came from Avery's gun, which always hung above his bed.
How is this different from Steven's DNA being found on the car key, or from the blood found in her car? If the police are capable of planting that stuff, and it seems pretty clear they did, how is it a stretch to suggest they found that bullet and planted DNA on it? And it somehow had her DNA but no blood?
-- Avery had purchased handcuffs and leg irons like the ones Dassey described holding Halbach only three weeks before (Avery said he's purchased them for use with his girlfriend, Jodi, with whom he'd had a tumultuous relationship -- at one point, he was ordered by police to stay away from her for three days).
Please tell me you've seen a picture of these 'handcuffs and leg irons'. Here they are:
So yes, I'm sure he handcuffed her and secured her in leg irons specifically designed for sex that are easy-release. Do you realize how easy it is for a person to get out of these? And there is zero evidence suggesting they were involved in anything, including a lack of any DNA from Halbach on them.
-- Here's the piece of evidence that was presented at trial but not in the series that I find most convincing: In Dassey's illegally obtained statement, Dassey stated that he helped Avery moved the RAV4 into the junkyard and that Avery had lifted the hood and removed the battery cable. Even if you believe that the blood in Halbach's car was planted by the cops (as I do), there was also non-blood DNA evidence on the hood latch. I don't believe the police would plant -- or know to plant -- that evidence.
You believe they planted
actual blood in her car, but didn't plant that bit of evidence? And if you believe the cops planted the keys (and I think most do), then they'd already shown they had the ability to plant non-blood DNA. I honestly have no idea how this is some bit of compelling evidence if you're willing to throw things like the keys and blood out.
-- In this phone conversation (transcript in link) with his mother (which is not entirely included in the docuseries), Brendan told his mother that he did it, that Steven made him do it, and that Steven had touched him (and others) inappropriately in the past.
Brendan said a lot of things in those phone calls. The documentary even played the tape of him telling his mom he did it. After being told to do so by his own attorney. And he eventually, in the same call, said he didn't do it. He said a whole bunch of things, all of them contradictory, and pretty clearly had no idea what actually happened. I don't know why anyone would view anything Brendan ever said as trustworthy.
-- There's no denying that it was unethical as hell for the investigator of Dassey's own attorney to elicit a confession out of Brendan, but the documentary suggests that the investigator peppered Brendan with leading questions and basically fed him the answers. From the full transcript, that is not the case at all. Brendan not only confessed, he gave a very detailed account of what happened. They had sex with Teresa on the bed, then they carried her out to the garage, where they cut her throat, and that's where Steven shot her five times with the .22 Brendan said he pulled from above his bed. Then they threw her in the fire. She begged for her life through the entire ordeal. Brendan even cut off some of her hair. Then they cleaned up with bleach and burned all the clothes in the bonfire
So they slit her throat and shot her five times in that cluttered garage and somehow managed to clean up every single bit of blood and DNA in that garage (but not all of Steven's DNA). And then they just left her keys and a bullet sitting there. And they put her in the back of her own car parked outside only to later drag her to the backyard a few feet away. And then they managed to create a bonfire capable of completely burning a body, stoking it for 16 hours to create enough prolonged heat. And then they moved some of the bones to other locations but left a majority still sitting in that burn pit. They then cleaned all of her blood out of the back of her car but didn't clean Steven's blood, moved it onto his own property, and propped a few branches on top of it instead of crushing it. Steven did all of this to someone he didn't really know at the same time he was set to receive a massive settlement that would completely set him for life.
I find that story
far more unbelievable than the story that the police planted the blood, key, bullet, and hood latch DNA and moved the bones and car onto his property for the clear motive of saving their careers and avoiding having to pay Steven Avery for the rest of their lives. I just do.