Aaron Keller asked tough questions when he first reported on the Steven Avery case for a Wisconsin NBC affiliate roughly 10 years ago, but now he’s revealed which details about the case still nag at him a decade later.
Keller began reporting on the Avery case for NBC26 in Green Bay in 2005, the day 25-year-old Teresa Halbach was reported missing. He was featured numerous times in Netflix’s binge-worthy “Making a Murderer” series as a silver-haired reporter covering the case.
Keller, who admits he hasn’t seen the entire 10-episode docuseries, told Rolling Stone that while he asked a lot of pressing questions during the trial, there are still questions surrounding the case he never found answers to, including one about a piece of evidence used to convict Avery.
In the brief Q&A, Keller revealed that one of the unsolved mysteries in the case is whether Avery’s fingerprints could have “survived on the Halbach vehicle” despite stormy weather in the area around the time she went missing.
“If there was a deluge, would it have wiped away some potential evidence,” he told the magazine.
According to historical data from Weather Underground, records indicate there was a thunderstorm in Manitowoc, Wisconsin on Nov. 5, 2005, two days after Halbach was reported missing.
Keller also questioned the validity of a source that claimed Avery was the last person to see Halbach, saying it’s not clear if Avery reported that information or if law enforcement first reported it.
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The answer to that question “paints a picture, potentially, of the media environment in Green Bay at the time,” Keller said.
He added that because he and his coworkers “were mostly outsiders” to law enforcement in the area, they were “more apt to ask really tough questions because we weren’t friends with people from elementary school who worked other jobs in that area.”
Keller’s questions mirror those asked by Angenette Levy, a local reporter also featured in the series.
Levy told Rolling Stone earlier this month that she still wonders about the key that was found in Avery’s bedroom and the confession by his 16-year-old nephew Brendan Dassey.
She said she “didn’t come away with a sense about whether or not the evidence was planted,” and said “there were a lot of weird things in [Dassey’s confession], but the jury believed it.”
Levy also noted, however, the docuseries leaves out some notable parts of the state’s defense, including testimony that Avery allegedly requested Halbach come out to the Avery lot the day she went missing.
“Making a Murderer” debuted on Netflix last month. The series documents Avery’s 18 years in prison for a rape he didn’t commit, and his subsequent arrest on murder charges in the Halbach case shortly after his release.
He and his nephew are currently serving life sentences for the 25-year-old photographer's murder.
Avery filed an appeal earlier this month and Dassey is awaiting a judge’s ruling on a petition aiming to get him a new trial.
