John Ferak

USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin

MANITOWOC - Is Steven Avery's high-profile post-conviction lawyer Kathleen Zellner all bluster?

It's been 17 months since the suburban Chicago lawyer took Twitter by storm. She vowed to prove Avery's innocence in the Oct. 31, 2005 death of Teresa Halbach and unveil the real killer. Her law firm continues to solicit online donations for the Steven Avery Legal Defense Fund to help pay for Avery's defense.

Over the past two years, Zellner, who has 175,000 followers on Twitter, has made a number of bold declarations that have yet to materialize.

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Here's a sampling:

Jan. 2, 2016: "Whoever deleted Teresa Halbach cellphone calls is either the murderer or part of cover up. Either way the killer is free."

May 9, 2016: Zellner posted a photo of exonerated former inmates hugging their mothers on Mother's Day. "Steven Avery needs to be in next year's photo - plan to make that happen."

July 5, 2016: "If you think we are just tweeting ... think again. A tsunami of new evidence is on the way."

Jan. 17, 2017: "Not 1 but 8 plants: bullets, bones, blood, camera, cellphone, PDA, key, car + false confession. World's best experts on it."

But the court of public opinion and a court of law are two different universes.

Zellner has yet to file a post-conviction petition on behalf of Avery, who turns 55 in July. He remains in prison, insisting he is innocent.

"The prediction that he'd be out by Mother's Day is slim to none," said Rob Bellin, a Neenah attorney who has closely followed the Halbach murder case over the years.

USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin reached out to Zellner late last week for comment regarding her predictions about the case and the criticism she has received from Avery supporters for not filing her long-awaited post-conviction motion in Manitowoc County court.

"Next time you hear from me will be when I file Steven Avery's motion," Zellner wrote in her email response. "I could care less what Steven Avery's supporters think. They have absolutely no comprehension of the procedural and forensic complexity of this case."

Zellner did not specify when she plans to file the motion.

The last significant legal filing on Avery's case was last Nov. 23. That's when she and the Wisconsin Attorney General's Office reached an agreement for independent scientific testing on nine items of evidence from the Halbach murder investigation.

"Mr. Avery will present his third party theory in his post-conviction petition that he will file once he obtains the new test results," Zellner wrote in her legal briefs last August.

Johnny Koremenos, director of communications for the state justice department, said "we have been informed that testing on the agreed upon evidentiary items is nearly complete."

Koremenos added that the state has "reason to believe that the defense will file a new motion within the next 45 to 60 days."

Zellner previously told USA TODAY NETWORK that the independent scientific testing should be finished in March.

On March 18, she tweeted, "To all the skeptics, doubters & haters just be patient because we are really going to make you mad." Zellner did not again tweet about Avery's case until last Friday, when she posted this: "Would not still be rep. SA if the test results proved his guilt. Winning takes a little longer than losing."

In her email last week to USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin, Zellner said "this is not a simple DNA case where I submit samples and await the results."

"My only obligation is to Mr. Avery," Zellner wrote. "My predecessors all failed because they did not do a thorough and comprehensive job. I will not be making the same mistake."

Some are questioning her strategy in making such bold statements on social media.

"People have been kind of still waiting for what we thought we would be getting last summer, last August, and we still don't even have a motion or a brief," said Matthew J. Haiduk, a veteran criminal defense attorney in Chicago's western suburbs.

"I'm hoping she's busy," Haiduk said. "You've said all you've had to say on Twitter. It is sort of unfortunate that the sales job seems to be obscuring what is probably very good lawyering. It's going to take some sort of evidence that was not available at that (2007) trial and being able to point to someone else who may have committed the crime."

Others wonder whether Zellner's strategic decision to seek the court's permission last August to conduct the independent scientific testing did not pan out as she hoped, leaving her in a tough spot in trying to regain Avery's freedom.

From attorney Bellin's perspective, "if the tests came back as either inconclusive or not conclusive for the defense, then obviously she is going to re-evaluate the motion, which is going to take up even more time as well."

Avery's supporters continue to take notice of the continued inactivity.

"How long did some of her other cases take?" asked one Reddit poster Friday. "Just think, we were waiting on the brief around this time last year ... and we thought it was going to be over and done with that quickly lol."

One of Zellner's most widely-known exoneration cases took four years to accomplish.

She took over Ryan Ferguson's post-conviction appeals in November 2009 after a jury found him guilty in 2005 in the parking lot killing of Kent Heitholt, 48, a newspaper sports editor in Columbia. A Missouri appeals court overturned Ferguson's murder conviction in November 2013. The Ferguson case proved to be a long legal journey. Zellner had to overcome a couple rulings that went against her client. In the end, Zellner presented strong circumstantial evidence pointing to a former sports writer as the real killer.

During last August's media spectacle at the courthouse in Manitowoc, Zellner was asked about alternative suspects in Halbach's murder. "We're looking at multiple people, but we have narrowed it very dramatically," Zellner said.

But after 17 months on the case, it remains to be seen whether Zellner has a prime suspect. With Avery's case in a prolonged hiatus, a growing number of her supporters are taking to social media, trying reassure themselves that Avery's case is not struggling to come together.

"Just remember that KZ has 18 exonerations under her belt," one Reddit poster wrote."There is NO way she is gonna spout off these confident tweets if they are in error. Her reputation is at stake."

"I think everyone saying 'Hey testing was meant to finish in March, it must be bad news because we still haven't heard anything' needs to take a chill pill," another Redditor responded. "It's probably just taking KZ a while to finalize her petition ..."

Given that it's May, any talk of an Avery exoneration between now and the year's end "is very wishful thinking," Haiduk said.

"Some of her tweets seemed to have a target or a person in mind, but was that the best idea to put that out there when here we are a year later?" Haiduk asked. "I would not be surprised if Avery is still in prison in five years, and they are still arguing about his innocence. I'm hopeful for him that it will be a lot quicker. Unfortunately, nothing happens quickly in court."



John Ferak of USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin: 920-993-7115 or jferak@gannett.com; on Twitter @johnferak