« Man Found Guilty Of Drugging Young Men For Sex, Torture | Main | "Teresa Halbach's life was taken": Steven Avery to be Charged »
November 11, 2005
Teresa Halbach: Homicide Investigation
MISHICOT, Wis. - The hunt for a missing 25-year-old freelance photographer turned into a homicide investigation with the discovery of human teeth and bone fragments at an auto salvage yard owned by the family of a man who spent 18 years in prison for a rape he did not commit.
Calumet County Sheriff Jerry Pagel, heading the investigation into the disappearance of Teresa Halbach, said someone apparently tried to dispose of a body by burning it, "however that attempt was not completely successful."
Authorities were working to identify the remains found on the property of Steven Avery's family. Halbach's relatives had found her sport utility vehicle at the same salvage yard while searching for her last Saturday.
At a news conference Thursday, Pagel also said:
The key to Halbach's SUV was found in the bedroom of Steven Avery, who lives in a rented trailer home near the salvage yard.
Investigators found blood in Halbach's vehicle and in some buildings on the Avery property.
Pagel declined to comment on whether he thought the remains were Halbach's out of respect for her family. Investigators also would not say exactly where the remains were found, though Pagel said deputies focused on a burn barrel on the Avery property during their search.
The state crime laboratory was analyzing the human remains. It was not known when results would be available.
No one has been charged in Halbach's disappearance. Avery and his relatives have denied he was involved when contacted by news media.
---
MANITOWOC, Wis. (AP) - Although a man who was wrongly convicted of rape 20 years ago is under scrutiny in the disappearance of a woman, there is no question of his innocence in the 1985 crime, prosecutors say.
The DNA evidence used to free Steven Avery was irrefutable, said Manitowoc County District Attorney Mark Rohrer and Assistant DA Mike Greisbach, the two prosecutors who handled Avery's release.
"We filed a motion for his release because there is absolutely no doubt that Steven Avery did not commit that particular assault," they said in a statement Thursday.
Jerome Geurts, director of the state Crime Laboratory in Madison where the DNA testing was done, said DNA testing has reached the point of accuracy and sophistication that it's "almost impossible" for errors or wrongful conclusions, especially when testing excludes someone from a piece of evidence, such as hairs or blood, like happened in Avery's case.
"We have never found two people with the same DNA profile unless they are identical twins," he said.
The testing for cases like Avery's are accurate, he said. "For all practical purposes, it is 100 percent."
Avery, now 43, was convicted in 1985 of raping a woman on a Manitowoc County beach and sentenced to 32 years in prison. He was freed in September 2003 after a law school group convinced a judge to allow new DNA testing, which linked the crime to another man already in prison for another sexual assault.
http://www.duluthsuperior.com/mld/duluthsuperior/13142152.htm
Tags: Teresa Halbach, Steven Avery
Topics: Manitowoc, Madison, Wisconsin
Posted by Nealus at November 11, 2005 08:40 AM
Comments
Post a comment
Thanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (sign out)
(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)
