In 2005, Teresa Halbach’s Toyota RAV4 was found on Steven Avery’s property just days before he was arrested for her murder. Finding the vehicle on his property was one of the most incriminating pieces of evidence used against Avery during his trial, and although there are certainly no doubts that the vehicle was indeed found in his salvage yard — the way it got there, and when it got there, remains controversial.
Rolling Stone revisited information provided by former Avery’s neighbor, Wilmer Siebert, who lived close to the entrance of the quarry road that led to Avery’s property. Siebert, an elderly man now in his 70s, wanted nothing to do with the publicity that surrounded Avery in 2005, and at the time, didn’t think much about what he witnessed.
Yet, like millions of others, Siebert watched the popular Netflix docu-series, Making a Murdere r, and a numbers things mentioned by law enforcement in the film didn’t sit right with him.
During a recent visit to Manitowoc County, Seibert provided a public interview with Canadian photojournalist and writer Jeff Klassen. He spoke publicly about what he saw just days after Halbach went missing: someone driving Halbach’s RAV4, or at least what he thought was her vehicle, down the quarry road that he once lived by. Seibert indicated that the driver was zooming down the road, as if in a hurry, followed by a white jeep. Since both vehicles were driving at least 40 miles per hour, Siebert couldn’t identify the drivers.
Some people have speculated from the beginning that the RAV4 was planted on Avery’s property, and Pamela Sturm, one of the volunteers on the Halbach search team, was deliberately led straight to the area where the vehicle was located. It took Sturm only 30 minutes of searching to find the RAV4, hidden in the massive, 40-acre salvage yard, among around 400 other vehicles.
Seibert said after he witnessed the two vehicles speed down the quarry road , a lady appeared around 30 minutes later driving. It was long after, that Sturm announced she found the RAV4.
“It was a white Jeep, just a smaller Jeep, and it looked liked the paint was peeling off the hood. You could see like an undercoating on the hood. The Jeep was what I saw come back out but I didn’t see the (the RAV4 come out).”
Although it’s not uncommon for people to drive down the quarry road, Siebert said the two vehicles stuck out to him because of how fast they were going. Access to the salvage yard from the rear entrance was easy during 2005, according to Avery’s brother Chuck, who indicated that the entrance has since been blocked off.
Earlier this year, investigative reporter John Ferak, of Post-Crescent , visited the Avery property himself. While looking over the back entrance and the area where Halbach’s vehicle was found, Ferak surmised that “somebody could have easily sneaked onto the back of the Avery Salvage Yard to hide her RAV4 there without drawing suspicion from the Averys.”
He also surmised that if Avery was not the killer, it would have taken two vehicles to get Halbach’s RAV4 on the property: one person to drive the vehicle and leave it on the property, and another vehicle driving out. Ferak’s observations closely resemble was Siebert witnessed that day.
So, what does this mean for Avery’s case? Since Siebert can’t be 100 percent sure that the car he saw was actually a RAV4 and indeed Halbach’s RAV4, his information has fallen on deaf ears, at least as far as Manitowoc County law enforcement is concerned.
Meanwhile, as Steven Avery sits behind bars today on his 54th birthday, a number of supporters who believe in his innocence posted well wishes and Happy Birthday memes online, hoping at least, in some way, to keep his name out there and boost the morale of those who are closely following the case. Avery currently remains in a Wisconsin prison, serving a life sentence for Halbach’s murder.
[Photo by Netflix]