John Ferak

USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin

MANITOWOC - After sheriff's deputies recovered Teresa Halbach's Toyota RAV4 on the Avery salvage yard property in early November 2005, signs of a grisly crime began to emerge — but not where you'd expect.

Less than a mile away, in northern Manitowoc County, authorities located blood. They recovered charred human bones. They hauled away a considerable amount of suspicious burnt material.

Surprisingly, none of this evidence came from their walled off 40-acre crime scene at Avery Road where Halbach's vehicle was found.

The clues were emerging around several nearby quarry sites. The Wisconsin State Crime Lab found flesh and blood at the Michels Materials quarry near State 147 and the east side of Avery Road, about a quarter-mile from the Avery salvage secured crime scene.

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"We were told of three areas where cadaver dogs had been interested," state forensic scientist John Ertl testified at Steven Avery's trial in 2007. "There was a gravel yard, gravel quarry. And there was a maybe 30-foot-tall mound of gravel and sand. And about 6 to 8 feet up the pile, the dog got excited about something."

Avery was eventually found guilty of murdering Halbach, 25, and is serving a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole. His nephew, Brendan Dassey, also is imprisoned for Halbach's murder, but his conviction has been overturned by a federal magistrate. Wisconsin Attorney General Brad Schimel has appealed that decision.

Back in 2005, Ertl's experienced team of forensic scientists found "reddish staining on some pieces of gravel." Preliminary tests gave off a positive reaction for blood, according to Ertl.

Furthermore, "we located a pink substance, perhaps three-quarters of an inch in largest dimension, looked like flesh," Ertl testified. "We found another piece of material about the same size; it was reddish and white in color. Both of those items ... tested presumptive positive for the presence of blood. We collected those. We didn't find anything more."

The blood and flesh — along with a number of charred bones that would also be recovered at Joshua Radandt's quarry directly behind the Avery Salvage — were downplayed by special prosecutor Ken Kratz at Avery's murder trial. By then, Kratz had already established his narrative for the high-profile murder case: Avery and Dassey raped, murdered and incinerated the photographer's body at the burn pile pit near Avery's garage.

Kratz speculated Avery and Dassey took turns thrusting a butcher knife into Halbach's naked body as she was chained to Avery's bedposts, screaming and begging for her life. Ertl, a blood-spatter expert, testified at Avery's trial that there was no evidence of any cast-off blood spatter inside Avery's bedroom or in the garage to corroborate Kratz's story.

Fast-forward nine years.

Avery's post-conviction lawyer, Kathleen Zellner, of suburban Chicago, is seeking a judge's permission to allow advanced DNA and scientific testing on several clues that were confiscated by Wisconsin law enforcement from the nearby quarries including what's known as the Radandt deer camp property off the seldom-traveled stretch of Kuss Road.

It remains to be seen whether Zellner's late August court filing in Manitowoc County will reveal the identity of Halbach's killer. If Zellner's on the right track, many of the overlooked clues from the quarries may play an enormous role in determining Avery's fate.

USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin reviewed the 1,100-page-plus Halbach murder investigation report, compiled by the Calumet County Sheriff's Department, plus other reports generated by the state crime laboratory, to identify a number of instances where potentially significant clues turned up at the off-site quarries.

Here are some of the notable examples:

When: Saturday, Nov. 5, 2005

People involved: Calumet County investigator John Dedering; DCI agent Al Hunsrader; Manitowoc County Detective Dennis Jacobs; Julie Cramer, Great Lakes Search and Rescue K-9 Team; and Brutus, a cadaver-scent dog.

Circumstances: After Manitowoc County seized control of Halbach's vehicle, Manitowoc County Sgt. Brian Nack obtained permission to search Radandt's quarry in connection with Halbach's disappearance. Although a cadaver-sniffing dog named Brutus "did show interest in several areas in the quarry or gravel pit south of the Avery Auto Salvage yard property, Brutus did not factually alert on anything in the area," Dedering wrote in his report. Meanwhile, authorities remained a continued presence in and around the quarry in the coming days. For reasons unclear, authorities from Calumet and Manitowoc County granted access to Radandt, on at least four different occasions, at their walled-off crime scene prior to Avery's arrest on Nov. 9.

In her motion seeking new scientific testing, Zellner stated that Halbach's blue-green RAV4 had been concealed on Radandt's quarry and that it was moved from Radandt's property on Friday night, Nov. 4, 2005, along the conveyor road, to incriminate Avery for the young woman's disappearance.

When: Sunday, Nov. 6

People involved: Joseph Tenor, Calumet deputy; Ertl and other Wisconsin State Crime Lab forensic scientists from Madison

Circumstances: Tenor was part of a group of searchers with cadaver dogs inspecting the Michels Materials quarry east of Avery Road, police reports show. One of the cadaver dogs "hit" on a pile of dirt and sand north of the quarry's weight scale area. "Where the dog alerted to, I located an item in the pile of dirt. The item was red in color, surrounded by pink material," Tenor stated.

As time went on, according to Avery trial testimony, the authorities leading the Halbach murder probe did not keep Ertl abreast of the evidence he helped collect at Michels quarry. "I don't know what happened to that sample after I collected it," Ertl testified during cross-examination. Reports show that these quarry clues were turned over to Sherry Culhane, state crime lab's DNA analyst. "Chemical analysis of reddish/brown stains from the rocks and possible 'tissue' indicated the presence of blood," Culhane wrote in her report, "however, these stains were not human in origin."

When: Monday, Nov. 7

People involved: Rick Riemer, Calumet deputy; Sarah Fauske, canine officer for Kaukauna Police Department; Loof, a scent-tracking bloodhound

Circumstances: Using the trained bloodhound, authorities walked between 5 to 10 miles of quarry trails and fields around Radandt's quarry property, which is south of Avery's property. "One of the more significant tracks that Loof and Fauske tracked was from the south entry door of the red house trailer near the concrete stoop," Riemer noted in his report. Loof tracked the scent to a cul-de-sac at the end of Kuss Road. "It was indicated by Fauske that Loof was very intense on this track," Riemer wrote. The Halbach investigation file does not explain whether authorities went ahead and entered the house trailer. According to trial testimony, the deer camp consisted of three mobile homes at that time.

When: Monday, Nov. 7

People involved: Mike Bushman, retired deputy inspector Manitowoc County; Dedering; Wisconsin State Crime Lab personnel

Circumstances: About 10:30 a.m. Bushman notified the mobile command post at Avery's property that his team of searchers discovered a potential burial site at the end of Kuss Road. The site drew heightened interest from "a bloodhound following the scent from Teresa's shoe insole and (was) of interest to a cadaver dog," Ertl's report showed. The Kuss Road site was about a half-mile from the west edge of Avery's land, police reports indicate. That day, Kuss Road was taped off and processed as a crime scene. However, Calumet and Manitowoc authorities waited another two hours before notifying the state crime lab to respond to the site. Ertl's team over in Chilton didn't arrive at Kuss Road until 1:40 p.m. Reports show that no human remains were recovered from the potential grave site, which encompassed a wooded area in close proximity to Radandt's quarry. "At 4:51 p.m. I was notified the excavation area was not pertinent to this case," Dedering stated.

When: Thursday, Nov. 10, 2005

People involved: Sgt. Bill Tyson, Calumet County; Ron Ebben, Wisconsin Division of Criminal Investigation; members of the Wisconsin State Patrol

Circumstances: Tyson and Ebben were at the command post when state troopers alerted them to a suspicious discovery at the quarry south of Avery's property. "The state patrol officers indicated they found, what they believed to be, a human vertebrae in the water," Tyson stated. Other troopers alerted Tyson to a possible burned human foot. Tyson took the charred object into custody, concluding it was burnt insulation. While at the quarry, Tyson photographed a red-stained rag that was taken into evidence. "Upon walking away from that object, I did locate, what appeared to be, fresh blood in the gravel," Tyson stated. Tyson took more pictures of the blood and he collected a swab of the stain. His report did not address what became of the suspected human vertebrae in the water. The state crime lab was not brought in to process the quarry site that day. Later, Culhane analyzed the stain, confirming it "indicated the presence of blood," Culhane wrote. The DNA tests indicated the quarry blood did not belong to Steven Avery, reports show. It came from an unknown male.

When: Saturday, Nov. 12

People involved: Lt. Kelly Sippel of Calumet County; Riemer; Ebben; Rodney Pevytoe, Wisconsin Division of Criminal Investigation

Circumstances: Nov. 12, three days after Avery's arrest, marked the last day authorities retained control of the 40-acre Halbach crime scene on Avery Road. However, reports reflect, many of these investigators weren't looking for evidence at Avery's, but were focused on gathering physical evidence at Radandt's quarry and at his deer camp site where Loof, the bloodhound, had tracked a scent to a secluded red trailer off Kuss Road several days earlier. "The first item of evidence they were able to collect would have been that of the burned garbage in an area that we refer to as the deer camp located on the Radandt property west/southwest of Steven Avery's residence," Sippel wrote. "The final two pieces would have been that of some bone and flesh located in the Michels Materials Quarry to the northeast of the Avery property." The Michels quarry was where the team of cadaver-scent dogs had fixated on a tall mound of gravel six days earlier. Riemer stated that he processed a container marked "deer camp burn barrel" along with several items of evidence labeled as burnt material and burnt bone from the deer camp area.

When: Feb. 27, March 1, 2007

People involved: Leslie Eisenberg, forensic anthropologist,

Circumstances: During Avery's murder trial, Eisenberg confirmed that she examined a number of charred bones that were recovered by Wisconsin law enforcement from Radandt's quarry property — including some pelvic bones. Additionally, a number of charred human bones turned up in one of the four burn barrels confiscated from behind the garage of Avery's sister, Barb Janda, who lived about 50 yards from Avery.

"There were some cuts, appeared to be some cuts on those pelvic bone fragments?" asked Avery's defense lawyer Dean Strang.

"That's correct," Eisenberg testified.

"But you weren't able to conclude, 100 percent certain, that these were human pelvic bone fragments. Do I understand that correctly?"

"That's correct."

"OK. Now you suspected them of being human pelvic bone. Am I understanding you correctly?"

"Yes."

Zellner has asked the court to order advanced DNA tests on the pelvic bones to determine their origin. She also sought testing on the suspicious burnt material from the deer camp to determine its evidentiary value.

"Most of Ms. Halbach's bones and 29 of her teeth were not found in Mr. Avery's burn pit," Zellner argued in her motion. "State expert Leslie Eisenberg testified that the volume of bones discovered in the burn pit was two- to three-fifths of what might be expected ... Dr. Eisenberg testified that she suspected that the bones found in the Radandt quarry, which included a pelvis, were human."

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