Could Steven Avery be getting another chance at freedom? His new lawyer, Kathleen Zellner, sure thinks so. In a new interview with Newsweek, the high-profile attorney — who, according to her bio, is known for having righted more wrongfully convicted men than any private attorney in America — claims that her team has identified more than one new suspect.
According to Zellner, the suspects are all men who knew Teresa Halbach. Avery was convicted in 2007 for the 2005 murder of the young photographer. His case became the subject of Netflix’s hugely popular 2015 docuseries Making a Murderer, which documented his trial and left viewers wondering whether Avery is actually guilty.
“We have a couple” of suspects, Zellner told Newsweek. “I’d say there’s one, leading the pack by a lot. But I don’t want to scare him off. I don’t want him to run.”
The attorney is known for obtaining evidence to exonerate her clients, and that’s exactly what she plans on doing with the Making a Murderer subject.
“We have to have new evidence that could not have been obtained before that would result in no juror believing that Steven Avery committed the crime,” Zellner continued of her plan to free Avery, who she believes has once again been wrongfully convicted.
As documented on Making a Murderer, Avery served 18 years in prison for a rape he didn’t commit prior to being charged with murder.
“So that’s the standard — it’s kind of a high hurdle to jump, but we can jump it with the new technology. With someone who’s innocent, you can definitely jump that hurdle.”
According to Zellner, she’s already made headway on obtaining such evidence, including Halbach’s phone-call records.
“We’ve got access to documents the public doesn’t have,” she said.
