I’ve read a couple articles about the so-called damning evidence that allegedly undoes everything presented in Making a Murderer. While some of it gave me pause at first, after thinking about it and reading some of what Dan Strang said in response, I don’t think it amounts to much. It certainly doesn’t overcome the issues I have with the overall case.
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Aside from that fact that, going into the second trial, it was a clear and undeniable fact that the local authorities had unjustly jailed him previously despite having overwhelming, solid evidence that he was innocent, had ignored subsequent proof that they had the wrong guy imprisoned, and were also in the midst of litigation over the previous case, there were a few things that stood out to me that were never adequately answered. A big one is when Colsom called in a license plate check on 11/3. If you listen to the call it clearly sounds as though he has the vehicle in front of him. If so, that indicates he found her car two days before it was discovered. If Lenk had given him both the plate number and a description of the car prior to that, why on earth would he need to call it in? There’d be absolutely no need to because he’d have that information on hand.
Regardless of what Kratz said in his closing arguments, the key is such a big deal that, if I were on a jury, it was enough to give me reasonable doubt. And it’s far from the biggest issue. However, they searched his bedroom seven times, which included them emptying out the nightstand at least twice (and photographing it at least once), and they never found it. It wasn’t found until Lenk and Colsom had pretty much free reign in the room. Plus, although it was covered in Avery’s DNA, it had none of Halbach’s DNA on it. There’s literally no legitimate, natural way for that to occur.
The vial of blood, in my mind, is a far bigger deal than the key. Not only had it clearly been tampered with, but someone had clearly removed some of it and not documented it. You’re dealing with an undeniably corrupt, or at least unethical police department. If the key isn’t enough for reasonable doubt, the vial most certainly is.
The biggest issue (and these four points aren’t all the problems I have) is the complete and total lack of Teresa Halbach’s DNA in the home and garage (excluding the suspicious bullet fragment). No matter which prosecution theory you want to go with, this had to have been a violent, excessively bloody murder. The quip about them having five days to clean up is ridiculous. If she really was stabbed and had her throat slit in the bedroom, the mattress would have been saturated. There would have been blood all over the place. They would have had to have gutted the entire bedroom to remove all traces of her DNA. Their final theory was that she was killed in the garage, being shot either 5 or 11 times. The garage was a mess. There’s no way the could have cleaned everything in there. There would have been blood spatter everywhere. It wouldn’t have been a matter of having to search for her DNA. Pretty much everything they swabbed would have given a positive result. Yet the only DNA they found was an undetermined variety of DNA found via a compromised/tainted test on a bullet fragment that was missed in multiple searches and not found until Lenk and Colsom were left virtually unattended in the garage.
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No matter how you slice it, the case has some gaping holes in it.
