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Post by Graveyardbride on Sept 24, 2019 3:17:46 GMT -5
Alleged Confession in Making a Murderer CaseIt could be the ultimate twist in the Netflix documentary Making a Murderer. A Wisconsin man already in prison for a separate slaying has reportedly confessed to the killing of photographer Teresa Halbach (above) in 2005. If true, the admission could pave the way for convicted killer Steven Avery’s exoneration. The inmate cannot be named until he confesses to Wisconsin authorities.
Shawn Rech, the director of the upcoming true-crime series Convicting a Murderer – an unaffiliated follow-up to the cult Netflix presentation – told Newsweek the inmate confessed to murdering Halbach during a taped interview, which is now reportedly in the hands of Wisconsin authorities. “We haven’t confirmed the legitimacy of the confession,” he admitted. “But seeing as it was given by a notable convicted murderer from Wisconsin, we feel responsible to deliver any and all possible evidence to law enforcement and legal teams.” Rech also confirmed the confession did not come from Dassey or Avery. Convicting a Murderer will examine the famous case through the eyes of prosecutors and is expected to be released in 2020, website Digital Spy reported.
Steven Avery and his nephew, Brendan Dassey, have spent more than a decade behind bars for Halbach’s murder, but claim they are innocent. Avery, 57, is serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole.
The case made headlines when Making a Murderer first aired in 2016. The show’s creators charted the pair’s repeated unsuccessful attempts to clear their names.
Kathleen Zellner, Avery’s current lawyer, has several theories that point to other members of the Dassey family as Halbach’s killers. She has spent years recreating portions of the crime scene and evidence in hopes of proving her client couldn’t have committed the murder. Sources: Kelly Wynne, Newsweek, September 23, 2019, and Ebony Bowden, The New York Post, September 23, 2019.
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Post by catherine on Sept 24, 2019 13:21:38 GMT -5
Inmates are always making outrageous claims to get attention and make deals. If he's serving life without parole, he wouldn't have anything to lose by claiming he killed someone else and he may be looking for a transfer to another prison or some kind of perk.
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Post by Graveyardbride on Sept 25, 2019 1:58:25 GMT -5
Defense Attorney Says Inmate Expressed Interest in $100,000 Reward
In an interview with Dana Perino of Fox News, Shawn Rech, director of Convicting a Murderer, said the bombshell confession was taped and the tape has been turned over to investigators who “need to dig in.”
Steven Avery, 57, and his nephew, Brenden Dassey, 29, were both convicted of the murder of Teresa Halbach and sentenced to life in prison. They both maintained their innocence in the documentary Making a Murderer, which examined the conspiracy theories surrounding the convictions and explored whether the two were framed by law enforcement.
Rech, who has not released the inmate’s name, called the new confession “very strange,” and explained how it fell into his production team’s lap. “We’d been dealing with this inmate for about 18 months,” he said. “He’s a convicted murderer in the state of Wisconsin and he wrote us a letter trying to further implicate Steven Avery some time ago. So, we’re now wrapping up our 10-part series, which is an independent series of Making a Murder, and we’re fact-checking and trying to debunk certain information, and we set up a jail call to challenge him on some of the things he wrote in this nine-page letter, and rather than sticking to this letter, he immediately said the letter was false and took the blame for killing Teresa Halbach. He characterized it as a tragic accident.”
Still, Rech admitted he was apprehensive about the truthfulness of the confession. “He already admitted to lying, he’s a convicted felon, so that tells you maybe he’s not the most believable guy in the world,” he continued. “But, at the same time, he killed someone in the state of Wisconsin and he was walking around free when all this happened, and maybe this was the reason he was trying to point the finger at Steven Avery in the first place. So, it’s kind of a balancing act you kind of have to do.”
Rech claimed he turned over the audio recording, which was almost 10 minutes in length, to the Wisconsin Department of Justice; Kathleen Zellner, who represents Avery; and Laura Nirider, Dassey’s attorney, but has not heard from either of the accused. “They’re not involved in our project,” he said of Avery and Dassey. “They see it as an adversarial project because we are including the law enforcement point of view, which was not included in the original two seasons. They see us as kind of an adversarial series or they think that we’re an informercial for the police, which is very, very far from the truth.” He explained the new information did not change the angle of his documentary, but “obviously debunks the letter he wrote against Steven Avery because he abandoned it himself.”
The Wisconsin Department of Justice told Fox News it takes all reports seriously, but the new confession “directly contradicts information previously provided by the same individual.”
The Calumet County sheriff said he was not aware of any “new credible information.”
“We were skeptical anyway and we’ll see what happens,” Rech added. “We have to include this development in our project, but there’s an awful lot to what we’ve done in the past 20 months and there are 10 episodes just packed with information. This will be one small piece of that.”
Zellner also expressed skepticism concerning the confession, saying her firm also received a handwritten confession from an unnamed inmate who admitted to killing Halbach. She added that her firm announced earlier this month that a citizen was offering $100,000 for information related to Halbach’s “real killer.” The attorney explained that when the firm failed to respond to the inmate regarding the monetary reward, he approached the production company with his story. Zellner tweeted that the handwritten note was “worthless unless it is corroborated.”
Nirider also acknowledged on Twitter Monday that she was “aware of the alleged confession given by an inmate in Brendan’s case,” but did not elaborate
Former District Attorney Ken Kratz, who handled the Halbach case, tweeted Monday: “To be clear, like everyone else, this is news to me. I have NO COMMENT until I see the details.”
Source: Vandana Rambaran, Fox News, September 24, 2019.
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Post by madeline on Sept 25, 2019 9:09:09 GMT -5
Well, Catherine, it looks like you were right. That inmate has been changing his stories, which means he's lying.
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