WRECKING CREW: Demolishing The Case Against Steven Avery

297 Pages·2018·2.44 MB·English

by  John Ferak

WRECKING CREW
DEMOLISHING THE CASE AGAINST STEVEN AVERY
JOHN FERAK
WildBluePress.com
WRECKING CREW published by:
WILDBLUE PRESS
P.O. Box 102440
Denver, Colorado 80250
Publisher Disclaimer: Any opinions, statements of fact or fiction, descriptions,
dialogue, and citations found in this book were provided by the author, and are
solely those of the author. The publisher makes no claim as to their veracity or
accuracy, and assumes no liability for the content.
Copyright 2018 by John Ferak
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by
any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief
quotes used in reviews.
WILDBLUE PRESS is registered at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Offices.
ISBN 978-1-947290-98-3 Trade Paperback ISBN 978-1-947290-97-6 eBook
Interior Formatting/Book Cover Design by Elijah Toten
www.totencreative.com
OTHER WILDBLUE PRESS
BOOKS BY JOHN FERAK
FAILURE OF JUSTICE: A Brutal Murder, An Obsessed Cop, Six Wrongful
Convictions
http://wbp.bz/foja
DIXIE’S LAST STAND: Was It Murder Or Self-Defense?
http://wbp.bz/dixiea
BODY OF PROOF: Tainted Evidence In The Murder Of Jessica O’Grady
http://wbp.bz/bopa
Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER ONE: TURNABOUT
CHAPTER TWO: BOBBY DEPARTS
CHAPTER THREE: ALIBI
CHAPTER FOUR: ZELLNER FACTOR
CHAPTER FIVE: SKINNY
CHAPTER SIX: AVERY’S PHONE CALL
CHAPTER SEVEN: COMPUTER BLUES
CHAPTER EIGHT: BOBBY'S OBSESSIONS
CHAPTER NINE: SHADY DEPARTMENT
CHAPTER TEN: RAV4
CHAPTER ELEVEN: BATHROOM SINK
CHAPTER TWELVE: BLOOD DOCTOR
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: TWO CARS
CHAPTER FOURTEEN: CANINE NOSES
CHAPTER FIFTEEN: COVER UP
CHAPTER SIXTEEN: NOTHING THERE
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: EVIDENCE PILE
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: HOSPITAL STOP
CHAPTER NINETEEN: SECOND TRY
CHAPTER TWENTY: GARAGE
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: HEROES OR GOATS?
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: THE CRIME
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: KEN KRATZ
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: CREEPY KRATZ
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE: COMPUTER DISK
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX: FANTASY LIFE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN: DAMAGED
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT: AVERY’S BRAIN
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE: BOBBY’S GARAGE
INTRODUCTION
When a Midwest farm girl named Teresa Halbach went off to college in Green
Bay, Wisconsin, she found her calling holding the camera. A short distance from
Lambeau Field, she started making money as a part-time photographer at Green
Bay’s west side shopping mall.
To her family, Teresa Halbach was the happy-go-lucky aspiring
photographer. She took photographs at weddings and also snapped children’s
photos.
But after graduating college, Teresa started dabbling in more risky,
provocative photography. She had a wild and crazy side. Future employment
prospects with X-rated magazines such as Hustler and Penthouse were not out of
the question.
“I gave my permission to Miss Halbach on a number of occasions to use my
photography studio for nude portraits of her clients. In fact, a portion of my own
business was taking nude photographs of my clients,” reflected Tom Pearce,
owner of Pearce Photography.(1)
During Teresa’s last year of life, she was sucked into some of the darkest
corners of the web. Her business, “Photography by Teresa,” was out hustling for
new sexually explicit photography clients, people who needed someone to
capture them in more daring and provocative poses.
“Photography by Teresa is Adult Entertainment Products and Services,
Photography, Portrait Photography, Professional Photography, Special Occasion
Photography, Visual Arts Company. Get in touch with Photography by Teresa
with contact details …” (2)
Many years after his understudy’s untimely and gruesome death, Pearce was
asked to review Teresa’s business profile advertising her adult-oriented
photography services.
“Based upon my personal knowledge of Ms. Halbach’s business (that) is an
accurate depiction of the services offered by Ms. Halbach in the regular course
of her business,” Pearce said.
Besides her nude photography business, Halbach also hit the backroads for
Auto Trader Magazine. She snapped photos of cars, trucks, and vans that people
desired to sell. This work was concentrated around the Green Bay area,
including Sheboygan and Manitowoc Counties to the south. With Auto Trader, a
number of the men she encountered found she had sex appeal. They were
attracted to her small frame and wanted to experience her wild side.
“In March 2005, Ms. Halbach told me that a male Auto Trader client made
sexual advances toward her and invited her into his residence,” Pearce recalls.
“Teresa told me that this advance made her feel uncomfortable. After this
incident, Ms. Halbach did not mention any problems with Auto Trader clients.
Specifically Ms. Halbach never expressed concern about going to the Avery
property.”
Yet before she disappeared, on Halloween 2005, Halbach had reason to be
apprehensive.
Her life was in grave danger.
“I was aware that Ms. Halbach was getting phone calls from someone who
was harassing her,” Pearce said.
At the same time, a messy divorce case at the Brown County Courthouse in
downtown Green Bay was also preoccupying her time.
A husband and wife who lived near Green Bay had used her nude
photography services at her Green Bay studio on Western Avenue. But when the
couple’s rocky marriage crumbled, Teresa began a romantic relationship with
the man, who was almost a decade older than her. He ran a wedding disc jockey
service and worked for a Green Bay television station.
“Teresa had taken nude photographs of Bradley and his wife … after this,
Bradley and his wife had broken up and Teresa started dating Bradley. Teresa
and Bradley would only have sex, and Teresa did not have any feelings for him
and it was only physical. Bradley and his wife were having problems at one time
and he would confide in Teresa about his problems.”(3)
On the day before she died, Teresa exchanged emails with a supportive
friend who encouraged her efforts to grow her adult-oriented photography
business.
“Hey Teresa, It was great to hear about your busy life! Sounds like so many
things have changed for you in the last year. I’m so happy to hear that business
is good. It sounds like you have many hobbies and things going on. It’s great!
I’m envious and wish I could make the time for that. … I wouldn’t have
imagined Adrianne asking you to take nude photos of her. That’s cool though
that she is comfortable enough. Maybe we could pass your name around for porn
shots.”(4)
Five weeks earlier, a guy named Ken sent an email to Teresa’s photography
business thanking her for the letter and package she sent him. “AND the
package, well, I think you take better care of me than my mother does, well, I
think that’s a good thing … I wouldn’t want my mom sending me a porn. I really
appreciate everything and damn it I really want to talk with you … I really miss
you and REALLY thank you for sending me messages to my beeper … I should
be back online on Monday, hopefully we can talk. I miss you and thank you very
much for the goodies. I’ll let you know the results! Bye, Ken.”
By November 4, 2005, four days after Teresa visited Avery Road in
Manitowoc County for a scheduled photo assignment, the Calumet County
Sheriff’s Office opened a trunk inside her bedroom. She had recently moved into
the two-story house on her family’s dairy farm, near the town of Hilbert,
population 1,100.
“I did locate in a trunk directly next to Teresa’s bed several nude photos of a
male and a female. Included with these photos were several negatives. There was
a portrait order from Pearce Photography which had the name Bradley and
Kaycee Czech.” (5)
At that point, nobody knew whether these nude photos of the divorced
couple were at the heart of her disappearance. The woman had taken out an
emergency protection order to keep her ex-husband away from her and out of
her life. The photographs recovered from Teresa’s bedroom were a focal part of
the bitter divorce case. Given Teresa’s disappearance, the police would attempt
to learn more about Teresa’s sexual intimacy with the Green Bay disc jockey.
“By the end Teresa was pretty much leading a double life,” Czech said. (6)
1. Affidavit of Thomas E. Pearce; April 21, 2017. All quotes from Pearce in this
book are from affidavit.
2. Exhibit from Affidavit with Pearce
3. Investigator Mark Wiegert interview of Jolene Bain, Nov. 4, 2005
4. Exhibit 56 Correspondence regarding nude photography
5. Wiegert’s activity report for Nov. 4, 2005
6. Bradley Czech interview with private investigator Jim Kirby
CHAPTER ONE
TURNABOUT
Green Bay’s television stations led off their newscasts with a chilling mystery on
Thursday night, November 3, 2005. A fiercely independent, happy-go-lucky
young woman from the heart of dairy country was gone. No one had seen or
heard from her during the past four days. Television anchors painted a grim
outlook as photos of Teresa Halbach flashed across the screen. Viewers were left
uneasy and fearful of a worst-case scenario. Surely someone watching the
distressing news would remember encountering Teresa over the past few days.
At least, that’s what the small-town Calumet County Sheriff’s Office in Chilton,
Wisconsin hoped.
But it was not Teresa’s face displayed on the television screen that drew a
red flag with one of the Manitowoc County residents. It was the image of her
missing sports utility vehicle, a Toyota RAV 4.
During that time frame, Kevin Rahmlow lived around Mishicot, a small but
proud Wisconsin town of 1,400, people of German, Swiss, and Bohemian
heritage. Back in the day, Mishicot had six hotels, three general stores, a movie
theater, a grist mill, and a brewery. By 2005, the community’s three original
churches still stood the test of time but Mishicot looked different. The town’s
gas station, owned by Cenex, was one of the local hangouts. People came there
for fuel, a cup of coffee, and to buy their cigarettes. The popular business was at
the corner of State Highway 147 and State Street.
Kevin Rahmlow vividly remembers when he pulled into the Cenex. It was
Friday, November 4. Inside the convenience store, the missing person’s poster
caught his eye. Teresa Marie Halbach, the flier noted, was 5-foot-6, 135 pounds.
Brown eyes and light brown hair. (7)
“I remember that the poster had a picture of Teresa Halbach and written
descriptions of Teresa Halbach and the car she was driving,” Rahmlow said.
As it turned out, Cenex was one of many small-town businesses, bars, and
cafes where Teresa’s concerned friends and family slapped up posters. They
were desperate for answers, hoping somebody, anybody, remembered a sighting.
And if the locals didn’t see Teresa, perhaps they saw her Toyota RAV4. It had a
large Lemieux Toyota sign on the back of her vehicle where the spare tire hung.
When Rahmlow saw the poster, he remembered something.
“On November 3 and 4, 2005, I was in Mishicot. I saw Teresa Halbach’s
vehicle by the East Twin River dam in Mishicot at the turnabout by the bridge as
I drove west of Highway 147. I recognized that the written description of the
vehicle on the poster matched the car I saw at the turnaround by the dam.”
That Friday afternoon, Rahmlow happened to spot a man in a brown
uniform. The man was sporting a badge. “While I was in the Cenex station, a
Manitowoc County Sheriff’s Department officer came into the station. I
immediately told the officer that I had seen a car that matched the description of
the car on Teresa Halbach’s missing person poster at the turnaround by the
dam.”
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.