‘Making a Murderer’: Steven Avery Spars With Sister, Brother-In-Law Over Halbach Killing

In a bizarre turn of events, Making a Murderer subject Steven Avery was involved in a heated exchange with his sister and brother-in-law over a motion filed by his attorney.

The motion, filed by Kathleen Zellner late last month, claimed Avery’s brother-in-law Scott Tadych and nephew Bobby Dassey committed perjury and put themselves in the same place as Teresa Halbach when she was killed on October 31, 2005.

Zellner also claimed in that motion that Bobby Dassey used a family computer to search for violent pornography, pedophilia, and images of Teresa Halbach before and after she was killed.

According to an amendment filed November 1, the accusation triggered a phone call between Barb Tadych (fka Barb Janda), Steven Avery, and Scott Tadych. The call came from the Waupun Correctional Institution and was recorded.

Barb wasted no time firing at Avery, asserting that he is “starting up with Scott and Bobby again.” Avery responded by saying he was only interested in where the “evidence” takes the investigation.

“So, you are going to take down my f*cking family again?” Barb asks, referring to past rifts among relatives, including the charge that nobody came forward to help her son Brendan Dassey before he was also sent to prison in the Halbach case.

The exchange didn’t sit well with Scott Tadych, long suspected by “truthers” as a person who may have “really” killed Halbach.

Congratulations to the #MakingAMurderer filmmakers on their #Emmy nomination for Outstanding Documentary. pic.twitter.com/FRG8UDq4dc

— Making A Murderer (@MakingAMurderer) July 14, 2016

“Let me talk to him,” Scott says several times. Put him on speakerphone.”

Finally injecting himself into the conversation, Scott Tadych reiterates his longstanding disdain for Avery in a series of profanity-laden rants. He even told Avery he’d “put him in the ground” in response to a remark about Scott’s mother.

“You ruined my f*cking life,” Scott says. “You ruined by f*cking name, jailbird motherf*ck.”

Avery accused Barb of chasing people off the family property during the Halbach investigation, something she and Scott Tadych say is not true. Neither helped him, Avery said, when police were “pressuring” everyone in his family.

“It took the documentary to bring this sh*t out to where you guys realize,” Avery says. “Otherwise, right at the first start, you were blaming me. And [Scott] should [have] known from the first time what happened to me. But, no.”

Barb reminded her brother during the call that he’s never seen the docu-series, to which Avery said a woman in the United Kingdom sent him the “transcripts.”

“I know what’s in there,” Avery states.

One of the most telling parts of the exchange centers on the computer searches and Avery’s assurance that Barb’s machine was connected to the internet in 2005, and that he used the service. Although Barb says she has no recollection of her brother accessing the web from her house, Avery says he, Barb and “a woman” used Barb’s desktop to search the internet.

Avery says the searches in question, which included his image, were made at times when Bobby Dassey was the only one home. Avery had a computer in his trailer, but it is not known if it had internet service.

Avery said he had a problem with Barb’s overnight stay at Fox Hills Resort back in February 2006, too. Despite Barb’s claim she would have been arrested had she fled the resort, Avery said she should have left to ensure police did not enter her home. Records show that Barb’s computer was seized on April 21, 2006. The graphic images were discovered this year, using technology that did not exist a decade ago.

The call between Steven Avery and the Tadychs occurred October 24, 2017, a day after Kathleen Zellner filed a motion asking a judge to vacate an October 3 ruling in the case.

In Brad Dassey’s affidavit, he says Barb told him that she hired someone to reformat her computer during the Halbach investigation. Brad, Barb’s stepson when she was married to Pete Dassey, is an aspiring rapper. He contends that Barb said there were viruses and pornography on the hard drive, and that she wanted to know if reformatting would delete files.

“She said she didn’t want anyone to get what was on her computer,” Brad Dassey said. “Shortly after my conversation with Barb, I contacted authorities because I thought Barb was trying to remove evidence relevant to the Teresa Halbach murder from her computer.”

Other than Barb’s reported belief that there was pornography on her Hewlett Packard desktop, Brad Dassey presents nothing conclusive to show she hid evidence. Expert witness Gary Hunt says in an affidavit that he found evidence that files were deleted from the machine between August 23 and December 3, 2005.

The main player in the November 1 motion, Brad Dassey claims Bobby Dassey told him Teresa Halbach left the Avery property after taking pictures of Barb’s van. Bobby testified that he saw her walking toward Steven Avery’s trailer after she snapped the photos. When he left to go hunting moments later, he saw her Toyota RAV4 but did not see Teresa.

The theory that Bobby Dassey, Barb Tadych and Scott Tadych may be linked to Halbach’s death is the second floated by Avery’s lawyers this year. In June, they alluded to the killer being her on-again, off-again boyfriend Ryan Hillegas.

Hillegas is still directly linked to the crime in the new theory though. Hillegas, who just graduated from nursing school at the time of the murder, turned a page from Halbach’s day planner over to a mutual friend, who later gave it to police. He obtained the one-page document because he was in possession of the planner when Teresa Halbach was killed, Zellner alleges.

[Featured Image by Bruce Halmo/AP Images, Pool]