Doug Schneider

USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin

'Redditors' say cuts on Steven Avery's thumb match those on fingerprint on Teresa Halbach's phone

Brendan Dassey's imprisonment for the 2005 murder of photographer Teresa Halbach has members of the public calling on Wisconsin legislators to pass a law prohibiting police from questioning minors without a lawyer present.

Dassey's "confession" — later recanted — regarding Halbach's killing sparked significant outrage among viewers of the Netflix documentary "Making a Murderer," which examines the Halbach killing and subsequent prosecution of Dassey and his uncle, Steven Avery. Dassey's lawyer, Len Kachinsky, allowed his then-16-year-old client to be interrogated, alone, by two detectives, at which point he said he had been involved in Halbach's killing.

"Wisconsin law currently fails people like Brendan, as it only requires law enforcement to immediately attempt to notify the child’s parent or guardian," GroundReport.com writes about the petition. "The current law does not specify whether juveniles have the right to the presence of an attorney or a parent during questioning.

"Thankfully, in 2005, the Wisconsin Supreme Court exercised its supervisory power to require that all custodial interrogations of juveniles be recorded. The recording of Brendan Dassey’s interrogation provides a clear-cut example of why new legislation is desperately needed."

Bills that would prohibit questioning of minors without an attorney present have been introduced in Tennessee and Minnesota.

Dassey and Avery were convicted of murdering Halbach, who had gone to the Avery family salvage yard in northwestern Manitowoc County to photograph a vehicle Avery wanted to sell. Avery, Dassey and legions of their supporters insist that they didn't commit the killing.

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Timeline: History of the Steven Avery case

Related: “Making a Murderer” coverage, archived stories and more

In other news related to the case today:

One of the truly interesting aspects of the worldwide reaction to "Making a Murderer" is the Internet-based "crowdsourcing" approach to examining evidence used in the criminal case.

Reddit, the popular discussion site, has dozens of threads devoted to the Halbach slaying and the Avery prosecution. Several involve claims by "Redditors" who believe they have made discoveries that shed new light on the case.

The latest claims aim to link Avery to the killing, citing an image of cuts on Avery's thumb. The cuts, the theory goes, match a thumbprint left on Halbach's cellular phone.

"Fingerprints can be seen on the Motorola Razr V3 battery compartment cover in the evidence photos," Redditor "wewannawii" writes in an email to USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin. "The scars in that print correspond with the scars that can be seen on Steven Avery's thumb in another evidence photo."

One of Avery's former defense attorneys has acknowledged that people in a discussion thread at Reddit uncovered evidence — a photo of Halbach with a key ring holding multiple keys — that could have supported the defense claim that Manitowoc County sheriff's investigators planted evidence in Avery's trailer. That evidence, a key to Halbach's Toyota Rav4, was the lone key on the ring. Police found it in Avery's bedroom after a half-dozen searches.

Finally, Bustle.com recaps some of the interviews that former Avery attorney Jerry Buting has given in Ireland, including this wonderful quote from an interview with UTV:

"In America last year, we had 150 exonerations of people who were wrongly convicted … That’s like three a week or something. I’d like to see us get to the point where we don’t have to talk about exonerations, where instead we just avoid the wrongful conviction at the front end.”

dschneid@greenbaypressgazette.com and follow him on Twitter @PGDougSchneider