Steven Avery’s lawyer allegedly has new evidence that’ll set the ‘Making a Murderer’ convict free

BY AARON PRUNER

In 2006, when Wisconsin was in the middle of the Teresa Halbach murder trial, Dateline NBC ran an expose on the case, exploring the conviction of Steven Avery and nephew Brendan Dassey in the allegedly grisly crime.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NJK1XsYYmM

It’s been a decade since the state’s biggest trial transpired and since then, Netflix’s Making a Murderer has placed new eyes on the case. Returning to Manitowoc County, the news series revisited the highly publicized trial of Avery and Brendan Dassey in Friday’s (Jan. 29) episode.

RELATED: ‘Making a Murderer’ Season 2 is ‘unfolding’ at Netflix

The entire episode is linked above, and the series presents an angle that mostly reaffirms the notion that Avery is guilty. Towards the end of the episode, Kathleen Zellner (Avery’s new lawyer) tells Dateline NBC’s Andrea Canning that there is new evidence that proves her client’s innocence.

“Generally, since 2007, there have been significant advances in forensic testing … the clearest way to do this is with scientific testing,” Zellner says. “Am I going to tell you exactly what it is? I am not. But it’s been a long time. There was a lot of evidence that wasn’t tested.”

Zellner goes on to explain her reasoning for buying a Toyota Rav4, similar to the one Halbach owned. She may not be on camera for long but her confidence seems to allude to something unexplored that will be presented to the court. It’s hard to get one’s hopes up, though, given the amount of issues exposed in the docu-series regarding the U.S. criminal justice system.

There’s also the bevy of evidence Jerry Buting and Dean Strang had during the original 2006 trial that seemed to point to Avery’s innocence and everyone knows how that panned out.

Will purchasing her own Toyota help in presenting this “new evidence” to the court? Is this evidence enough to raise an eyebrow and bring new scrutiny on the decade’s old case? One way or the other, Zellner definitely has her work cut out for her.

Screengrab via Bob Enyart Lies/YouTube