Pathological

by Henry Cordes

  After speaking with the uniformed deputy, Rahmlow went on with his life.

  He had no idea whatever became of the matter. He later moved to another Midwest state. He even missed the initial Making a Murderer craze on Netflix that captured world-wide attention.

  ***

  In December 2015, a true crime documentary about the Steven Avery murder case was released on Netflix, but Rahmlow didn’t get swept up in the media frenzy. An entire year passed before he finally turned on Netflix to watch it. And as he watched Making a Murderer, the Minnesota man had a flashback. He remembered his encounter at the gas station in Mishicot from more than a decade ago. And besides being familiar with Manitowoc County, Rahmlow knew some of the key people who worked hand in hand with special prosecutor Ken Kratz to cement the guilt of Steven Avery. Avery, as the world now knows, was a previously wrongfully convicted man who lost eighteen years due to a barbaric daytime rape along the Lake Michigan shoreline during the summer of 1985. This was the crime that allowed dangerous sexual predator Gregory Allen to get away by the forces who ran the Manitowoc County Sheriff’s Office, notably Sheriff Tom Kocourek, who was about forty years old at the time.

  Fast-forward to 2007. Avery stood trial in Chilton for Teresa’s murder even though the prosecution’s evidence was like a piece of Swiss cheese. And yet despite his side’s many holes, Ken Kratz overcame his murder case’s numerous physical evidence shortcomings thanks to the unbelievable eyewitness testimonies from a number of unscrupulous people who very much had a stake, a big stake, in the desired outcome of an Avery guilty verdict.

  December 12, 2016

  Two weeks before Christmas, Rahmlow sent a text message to someone he recognized from Making a Murderer. By then, Scott Tadych was happily married to Steven Avery’s younger sister, Barb. At the time of Teresa’s disappearance, Barb Janda lived in one of the trailers at the Avery Salvage Yard compound, a forty-acre tract out in the middle of nowhere surrounded by large gravel pits. At the time of Teresa’s disappearance, Barb and Scott Tadych were steady lovers and she was in the process of getting another divorce, this time from Tom Janda.

  After watching Making a Murderer, Rahmlow informed his old acquaintance how “I need to get in touch with one of their lawyers.”

  Rahmlow explained in his text message to Scott Tadych how he recognized Teresa’s vehicle as the one he saw by the old dam, either November 3 or 4. He also remembered having a conversation with a man whose face regularly appeared during the Making a Murderer episodes.

  Scott Tadych did not respond.

  Rahmlow reached out again, ninety minutes later. The second time, he texted his phone number to Tadych. He wanted to discuss the matter over the phone.

  “OK, I will I am really sick now can hardly talk so I will call tomorrow,” Tadych texted back.

  But Tadych never did call back.

  “I did not hear from Mr. Tadych the next day or any other day responsive to my request for attorney contact information for Steven Avery or Brendan Dassey,” Rahmlow said. “I received another message from Mr. Tadych on December 19 (2016) at 6:10 p.m., which was not responsive to my request.”

  There is no doubt in his mind that Rahmlow saw Teresa’s RAV4 along the rural stretch of two-lane State Highway 147 near the East Twin River Dam. The turnaround on the highway was barely a mile from Avery Salvage.

  A licensed private investigator in Illinois and Wisconsin, James R. Kirby was hired by Kathleen T. Zellner & Associates to investigate Teresa’s murder case.

  “I requested abandoned and towed vehicle reports for the time period of October 31, 2005 through November 5, 2005, from the following agencies: Mishicot Police Department, Two Rivers Police Department, and the Manitowoc County Sheriff’s Department,” Kirby said.

  This, of course, was the period when Teresa was last seen in Manitowoc County, near Mishicot. On a Saturday morning six days later, under highly suspicious circumstances, her Toyota RAV4 turned up, double parked, on the far back ridge of Avery Salvage, near a row of junked vehicles. The spot of the find bordered the massive sand and gravel pit operated by Joshua Radandt.

  The question lingered. Who moved Teresa’s SUV to the far outer edge of Avery Salvage? Was it the killer working alone? Was it the killer working in tandem with an accomplice? Or was it somebody affiliated with the volunteer search party? Or was it one of the Manitowoc County Sheriff’s deputies?

  Incidentally, at the time of her disappearance, Teresa’s RAV4 had no front-end damage. This small but critical detail is substantiated by the fact that the missing person fliers made no mention of any broken auto parts or wreckage. But when her sports utility vehicle surfaced on the Avery property, it showed heavy front-end damage. Weirdly, the broken blinker light from the driver’s side was neatly tucked away into the rear cargo area of the murdered woman’s auto. Why would the killer do something so strange? Of course, the logical scenario was that the killer had nothing to do with moving the vehicle to Avery’s property, and that the mishap occurred, late at night, during the clandestine efforts to sneak the vehicle onto the Avery property without Avery or his family members catching on.

  In any event, private eye Kirby’s inquiry into the RAV4 spotted by Rahmlow on Friday afternoon, November 4, 2005, revealed the “Mishicot Police Department had no responsive records. Based upon the response of Two Rivers Police Department and Manitowoc County Sheriff’s Office pursuant to my request, none of these agencies logged an abandoned vehicle on Highway 147 near the East Twin River Bridge.”

  Obviously, one of the most plausible scenarios for why the police did not log the abandoned vehicle spotted near the Old Dam on Highway 147 in rural Manitowoc County, which was Manitowoc County Sheriff’s territory, was because the auto belonged to Teresa, and it got moved as a direct result of Manitowoc County’s intercession.

  CHAPTER TWO

  BOBBY DEPARTS

  The four Dassey brothers were: Bryan, twenty, Bobby, nineteen, Blaine, almost seventeen, and Brendan, sixteen. As mentioned earlier, the Dasseys occupied one of the mobile home trailers along Avery Road at their family’s Avery Salvage Yard compound. Bryan, the oldest brother, worked in nearby Two Rivers at Woodland Face Veneer, a factory overlooking the scenic Lake Michigan.

  Regarding the day in question, Oct. 31, 2005, Bryan Dassey told Wisconsin’s Division of Criminal Investigation special agents Kim Skorlinski and Debra K. Strauss that he left for his job at 6 a.m. and visited his girlfriend afterward. He was not on Avery Road “except for waking up and going to work. Bryan said he got home sometime after supper but could not recall when that was.”

  Eventually, the questions steered toward the missing photographer. She had been a regular visitor to the Avery Salvage Yard during the past year without any problems or hassles, unlike at some of her other unnerving Auto Trader assignments where men tried to proposition her or invite her inside their homes for an alcoholic beverage. Whenever Teresa visited Avery Road, she was given courtesy and respect.

  “Bryan said he heard from his mom and Steven that Halbach was only at their residence about five minutes. He heard she just took the photo of the van and left. Bryan said the investigators should also talk to his brother Bobby because he saw her leave their property.”

  At Avery’s five-week murder trial in 2007, prosecutor Ken Kratz chose to keep Bryan Dassey off his side’s witness stand. Therefore, the jury deciding Steven Avery’s fate never heard the following account:

  “In October and November 2005, I lived with my girlfriend but I kept my clothing at my mother’s trailer, which was on the Avery’s Auto Salvage property. On or about (Thursday) November 4, 2005, I returned to my mother’s trailer to retrieve some clothes, and I had a conversation with my brother, Bobby, about Teresa Halbach. I distinctly remember Bobby telling me, ‘Steven could not have killed her because I saw her leave the property on October 31, 2005.”

  Bryan Dassey’s October 2017 sworn aff
idavit recalled how he was pulled over by police on November 6, 2005. He was behind the wheel of his uncle Steven Avery’s Pontiac.

  “My brother Brendan was in the car with me, and he was interviewed by other officers at the same time as me. I told the investigators that they should talk to my brother Bobby because he saw Teresa Halbach leave the Avery property on October 31, 2005.

  “I was not called as a witness to testify at my Uncle Steven’s criminal trial.”

  ***

  Most of the world who watched Making a Murderer fell in love with Steven Avery’s private counsel, Dean Strang and Jerome Buting. The two criminal defense lawyers worked closely together, putting forth a heroic defense for their client at his murder trial, but even they now admit that, in retrospect, they overlooked some things along the way.

  They had hired Conrad “Pete” Baetz, a retired police detective, as their investigator in preparation for trial. Baetz had moved back to his native Manitowoc County after his retirement in downstate Illinois. He had spent many years at the Madison County Sheriff’s Office near St. Louis.

  “I have reviewed the police report of the November 6, 2005, interview of Bryan Dassey where he said that Bobby Dassey saw Teresa Halbach leave the Avery property on October 31, 2005. I was unaware of this report. I never tried to interview Bryan Dassey about Bobby Dassey’s alleged statement. I was never instructed by trial defense counsel Buting and Strang to interview Bryan Dassey,” Baetz said.

  “Bobby Dassey was the key prosecution witness at Steven Avery’s trial who testified that he saw Ms. Halbach walk towards Mr. Avery’s trailer after taking photographs of his mother Barb Janda’s van. Bobby also testified that when he left the Avery Salvage Yard, Ms. Halbach’s vehicle was still on the property.”

  In hindsight, Baetz realized that the statement had major significance.

  “If the trial defense counsel could have impeached Bobby Dassey with Bryan Dassey’s testimony that Bobby admitted he saw Ms. Halbach leave the Avery Salvage Yard, it would have undermined the State’s entire case against Mr. Avery, and there would have been a reasonable probability of him being found not guilty.”

  ***

  One week after the horrifying news of Teresa’s disappearance, two key developments occurred. First, Steven Avery, who was perhaps the second to last person to see Teresa alive, was taken into custody and jailed for her murder. This standalone event set the wheels in motion for the collapse of Avery’s $36 million federal civil rights lawsuit against Manitowoc County whose insurance company had already chosen to deny coverage of the civil rights lawsuit based on Avery’s allegation the misconduct on the part of former Manitowoc County Sheriff Tom Kocourek and prosecutor Denis Vogel was intentional, not just negligence on the part of these former county officials. The insurance company’s denial of coverage served to greatly increase the pressure on the individual defendants who were named in Avery’s lawsuit because they could have been bankrupted by an adverse jury award in the high-profile wrongful conviction case.

  Second, nineteen-year-old Bobby Dassey, who may be the last person Teresa ever saw, was confronted by Wisconsin police investigators on November 9, 2005, a Wednesday afternoon.

  “You’re not under arrest. You understand that,” said John Dedering, a middle-aged, bald detective for the rural Calumet County Sheriff’s Office. “This isn’t an arrest. But … we need to hold on to you so we get our blood, our swabs and our prints and such. Okay?”

  Dedering had a search warrant for Bobby Dassey, who was 5-foot-10, 180 pounds, brown hair and blue eyes. At the time, Dedering and the other police officers trying to find Teresa did not know that Bobby Dassey was an awkward social misfit, a sexual deviant who had recurring sexual-fueled fantasies involving bestiality, mutilating naked women, torture, and drownings. Bobby’s obsessions were being shielded from the police and the special prosecutor directing the murder probe. Obviously, Bobby was not about to volunteer such deviant information when he sat down for a formal face-to-face police interview regarding the events in question.

  At any rate, the search warrant gave these Wisconsin investigators permission to get Bobby’s DNA including a saliva and blood sample. Additionally, “Bobby A. Dassey is ordered to provide a forefinger and thumb print evidence. The physical person of Bobby A. Dassey shall be searched and documented including but not limited to scratches, bruises, and bite marks.”

  Manitowoc County Judge Jerome Fox signed the order on November 7, 2005, at 7:08 p.m. On a side note, Fox’s legacy in the case would be his decision to sentence Brendan Dassey to remain incarcerated at a Wisconsin penal institution until at least 2048, when he will first become eligible for parole.

  It’s unclear why Dedering and the other investigators chose to drag their heels and not move with expediency to obtain Bobby’s DNA samples on the night of November 7, 2005. After all, this was an open and unsolved murder. Nobody was arrested yet.

  Of course, there may have been some discussions among the Manitowoc County Sheriff’s officials who were quietly calling the shots and directing the Avery investigation because they wanted Avery’s $36 million lawsuit to implode. Their professional livelihoods were at stake if Avery’s civil suit was a success.

  Sure enough, the next day, November 8, turned out to the most fortuitous day of the continuing murder saga at Avery Salvage. That Tuesday morning, the front and back license plates to Teresa’s RAV4 suddenly appeared inside an abandoned station wagon that had its windows shattered. It was an easy place to plant evidence, especially when you consider that the station wagon was one of the several thousand wrecked cars that were searched by the police two days earlier, on Sunday, November 6.

  But that initial police and volunteer firefighter canvass of the entire Avery salvage yard harvested no damning murder clues. No legitimate reason was given to explain why the authorities, at the recommendation of dubious Calumet County Detective Mark Wiegert, were summoned again, two days later, to search the same junked cars shortly after the crack of dawn.

  Nov. 8, 2005, was also the same morning when the Manitowoc County Sheriff’s Office’s crackerjack evidence collection team of Detective James Lenk and Andy Colborn were back at Avery’s. As far as they wanted the public to know, they had reached the conclusion that they just had not done a thorough enough of a job during their previous several days of constantly searching through Steven Avery’s tiny bedroom and his book cabinet dresser for physical evidence. This time, this Tuesday morning, they were certain that disturbing clues fingering Avery for Teresa’s murder were still being concealed inside their murder suspect’s bedroom. Colborn maintained that he shook the wooden magazine cabinet near Avery’s bed that contained all of Avery’s Playboys. Then, out of nowhere a single key, a spare key, shot out of the cabinet at an angle. The spare key landed softly on the blue carpet where the sharp-eyed Detective Lenk walked back into Avery’s bedroom and exclaimed, “There’s a key on the floor.”

  That afternoon, another Manitowoc County Sheriff’s deputy, Sgt. Jason Jost, happened to be aimlessly wandering around the Avery property. Jost wrote in his reports that he had a suspicion from walking outside that perhaps some of Teresa’s bones were here on the property waiting to be found. And Jost was right. He supposedly found a couple of large charred bones out in the grass in Steven Avery’s backyard. Because the charred bones were not symmetrical, this raised questions about their baffling discovery. On top of that, the Manitowoc County Sheriff’s Office chose not to capture any photographs or make any videotapes showing the condition and location of these human bones being recovered near Avery’s burn pit. Instead, the authorities took photos of other things such as dried leaves and other debris used to ignite a bonfire.

  In sum, the recovery of the spare key, the bent up license plates, and the backyard bones helped the Manitowoc County Sheriff’s Office finally get even with their bitter enemy. Equally important, Steven Avery’s arrest signified to Bobby Dassey that he
was essentially off the hook as the prime suspect. He could breathe a sigh of relief, a deep sigh.

  At the time of Teresa’s disappearance, Bobby was proficient at dismembering the carcasses of wild animals, unlike Steven Avery, who didn’t have much of an interest in hunting. And unlike most of Manitowoc County, Bobby was developing an appetite for devouring the flesh of road kill. Bobby claimed he came across a deer carcass on one of the roads near his house in the aftermath of Teresa’s disappearance. Bobby claimed he grabbed the deer off the road and hauled it back to his family’s garage to slice it up. How many nineteen-year-olds do you know who cruise around their gravel roads and side roads looking for dead deer to scoop up and take home for grub? And why all of a sudden during the first week of November, just days after Teresa vanished?

  During a subsequent interview with police, Bryan Dassey, the oldest of the Dassey boys, was asked by the detectives “if he could remember anything strange that had stuck out in his mind during that time after Halloween.” He said the incident “when Bobby had hung the deer in his mom’s garage.”

  But back in November 2005, nobody was giving serious thought to the scenario that the deer carcass was a crafty ruse, a cunning way to mask the blood spatter and other evidence that may have pointed to Bobby instead of his always unlucky uncle.

  Here were some of the key facts about Teresa’s disappearance:

  She vanished on a Monday afternoon after being on Avery Road.

  In the wake of her disappearance, Bobby is on record as having been busy carving up and dismembering animals.