I'm not convinced he did it ( not even close ) and I'm not crazy.
Before I put in my two pennies, I condone NO criminal activity whatsoever. AND, I am a LOVER of ALL animals. ( 3 cats, 2 dogs, 2 rats, 1 Bearded Dragon, 2 Ball Pythons, 1 Boa, 1 Turtle. Very large house ) I have rescued cats since I was small. I would use my allowance money to walk to the corner store, buy cans of cat food and piss off the neighbors. I would randomly set it out on decks for the strays. I would constantly hear " Don't leave it here! We don't want those cats thinking they live HERE! "
SA has owned up to and admitted everything he has done. Maybe not to YOUR standards. OR the public. Maybe he didn't WORD things the way YOU felt he should, or MYSELF. I honestly do not think he has the VOCABULARY to ARTICULATE the way most would like.
I DO think , He WAS young and we aren't all and were NOT all raised the same.
Some folks are prim and proper, some are loud and crazy. Some families, even now days, sex is taboo at age 40(to discuss) and beyond. Some families ( Ours, our best friends, who are Christian folks on the outside ) can discuss 50 Shades at Thanksgiving dinner. My husband grabs my tampons from the store on a regular basis. ( along with other adult stuff)
Some families, wouldn't think to swipe their cat with their foot CAREFULLY if it were under their feet in front of them. Or swat their doggie on the behind if he ate their favorite slippers. (These acts would be considered cruel.)
My Grandma, ( on the other hand ) was raised in the hills of Alabama and one of my girlfriends here in bfe MI.
BOTH of them only know animals as food, NOT pets. JUST to slaughter.
My Grandma, especially, has never had compassion toward animals. Ever. I NEVER understood it and always RESENTED her for it, until I got older.
I STILL HATE it, to be honest. I do though, understand it and do not blame her for it.
I remember her giving a " stray " antifreeze once. This affected me for a long time.
A couple of kids I grew up with tortured 2 cats. Kittens. They didn't survive. I saw it happen. My mom is the one that called police. Neither of them grew up to be murderers. We were all teens. One put a poor kittie in a pillowcase and smashed it. The other drowned it in a ditch. I can still see it's wet head. It brings me to tears. Sorry. I never wanted to tell that story. Second time I have, though. I'm going to sum it up by saying both of these MONSTER A$$HOLE kids, are productive ( successful & happy ) members of society. I must say though, I wonder if that ever bothered them :sigh: It sure does me.
I KNOW SA has been less than compliant. However;
He had an ALTERCATION with Stachowski, he didn't KILL her. He threatened his EX wife, he didn't KILL her. He threatened Sandra Morris, again, he did NOT KILL her.
He indeed has a terrible moral compass and is NOT very smart LACKING in the COMMON SENSE department. This does NOT make someone a MURDERER, it just DOESN'T.
It makes them ignorant, not very compassionate. Based on his reactions before prison likely to have some sort of mental illness/low IQ perhaps? Alcoholism in his late teens early twenties? ( speculating )
THIS way of thinking is part of keeping an OPEN mind. If I would have posted in my 20's I would have been THE MOST NARROWED MINDED person here. I wouldn't have considered HALF the evidence presented because his "past crimes" would have told me everything I needed to know, pffft.
Couple of things. 20, can be quite young and everyone MATURES on their own watch, not ours.
NOT everyone is raised the same. Has the same communication, or coping skills.
Just because SA's father thinks he's an Angel, or has spoken for him in interviews, doesn't mean SA thinks of himself as a gem, or anything of the sort.
I can interpret the Sandra Morris incident just as LE & she describe ( although she is proven to REALLY not like him, AND has had conflicting testimony compared to her deposition ) OR I can keep an open mind, look at both/multiple sides and think " this seems like a case of a young man with very poor communication/coping skills, NO/LOW intelligence, who seems to have been bullied had rumors spread about him in a small town for some time now, and had had enough. He wanted to scare her. Obviously she didn't care that WHAT she was saying, true or not. Then runs to her hubby, a Sheriff.
The " research " conducted on any sociopath behavior, psychopath behavior, animal cruelty, sexual violence and the like is always ongoing. It is never 100% accurate. I really hope everyone realizes this.
These behaviors can be observed, yes.
Take into consideration ( among many, many factors ) the two things that first enter my mind;
The person OBSERVING ( We all, OBVIOUSLY, perceive things differently. ( including behaviors )
The person ( Psychopath/Sociopath/Sexual Deviant ) People DO lie.
Wrt SA's trial.
I am pretty sure the primary reason SA did not testify is that, had he done so, it would have opened the door to the prosecution, as they could have challenged is claim of innocence by raising his past "
bad acts." An atty may, of course, correct me on this, but I'm pretty sure that's why he did not testify.
That said, one thing I notice is that SA never takes responsibility for his past "
bad acts." The guy has all sorts of reasons. They weren't that big of a deal, what he did was dumb but he was a kid, and so on an so forth.
For example, with regard to cruelty to animals claim? In the docuseries, SA glosses over the cat torture (see
episode one transcript):
Steven: Another mistake I did... I had a bunch of friends over, and we were fooling around with the cat... and, I don't know, they were kind of negging it on and...
Court Document (dated 1982) highlights: "a cat", "on fire", "party to the crime of cruelty to animal".
Steven: I tossed him over the fire... and he lit up. You know, it was the family cat. I was young and stupid and hanging around with the wrong people.
Young and stupid? The guy was 20 when that occurred. They doused the poor cat with oil and gasoline. What did he think would happen when they threw the poor thing over the fire? Moreover, he talks about it like it was "
no big deal."
Then, there's the bit involving running Sandra Morris off the road and threatening her with a shotgun:
The bad blood thickened between Avery and the Manitowoc County Sheriff’s Department in January 1985, when Avery ran a deputy’s wife off the road at gunpoint and tried to force her into his car. The woman, Sandra Morris, was Avery’s cousin and a friend of Manitowoc County Deputy Sheriff Judy Dvorak. Morris had complained to police that Avery had exposed himself in his front yard on several occasions when she drove past his house. Avery let the woman go when she told him her infant daughter was alone in her car.
But hey, it wasn't his fault! Or so says his father (see
episode one transcript):
Sandy Morris and Bill Morris, they were always picking on Stevie, more or less, you know. Saying stuff about Steve that... that wasn't true.
During prison and in response to the divorce filed by his then wife, he allegedly sent her threatening letters:
But the couple divorced in 1988 after Lori filed for a separation, and Avery lost contact with his kids. The divorce ended acrimoniously. According to prison records, Avery sent threatening letters to his wife.
“I hate you, you got your divorce now you will pay for it,” he wrote in an undated letter mailed to Lori from prison. In another letter, he wrote, “If you don’t brang up my kids I will kill you. I promis. Ha. Ha.” -- (see 2006, Chandler C, "Blood Simple," Milwaukee Magazine)
Moreover, he continued to engage in, at the very least, aggressive behavior after he was released from prison in 2003 for his false conviction.
In September 2004, sheriff deputies arrested Avery for violating a disorderly conduct ordinance after an altercation with Stachowski. The court ordered him to stay away from the woman for 72 hours and pay a fine of $243. -- (see 2006, Chandler C, "Blood Simple," Milwaukee Magazine)
After he is released for his overturned conviction, he has the audacity to contact the victim who misidentified him and ask her to buy him a house?
This is a guy who seems to have no moral compass whatsoever. Now, while I do think some of the evidence was planted, I certainly do not think it was planted with malice. I think LEOs truly believe they had their man, and simply wanted to ensure the charges stuck. And, I really get that.
And, as I have noted before, while I do think he murdered Ms. Halbach, i think he murdered her and burned her body elsewhere. Did he then bring her remains back to his property? I'm on the fence, with that bit. Still need to finish reading Brendan's trial transcripts. Bc, I do suspect Brendan may very well have helped conceal evidence and was potentially, at the very least guilty of assisting in a coverup.
And finally, as an aside. While some may believe animal torture is not necessarily relevant. That is, the view that an animal torturer does not a killer make. Research, which is an ongoing process, seems to be identifying correlations between animal cruelty and sexual violence. (see
2002, Gleyzer R, Felthous AR, & Holzer III CE, "Animal Cruelty and Psychiatric Disorders," The Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law)
Just some food for thought.
ullhair:
