mobanmarketMILWAUKEE — Kathleen Zellner, regarded as one of the world’s leading wrongful conviction lawyers, filed an unexpected motion Friday in Wisconsin bolstering Steven Avery’s innocence claims in the Halloween 2005 murder of Auto Trader free-lance photographer Teresa Halbach.
Zellner’s motion revealed that a tow-truck driver named Thomas Buresh just came forward on May 10, revealing that he saw Bobby Dassey driving Teresa Halbach’s RAV4 vehicle in the days following her gruesome death. There was also a second person riding as a passenger with Dassey, according to Buresh, and that second person was not Steven Avery, either.
On Friday afternoon, Zellner informed Patch that she “believes this witness is very important in adding to the growing evidence of Bobby Dassey’s involvement in the Halbach murder.”
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Avery remains in a Wisconsin prison as state of Wisconsin officials continue to fight back against Zellner’s efforts to prove her client’s innocence and get him a new trial.
Zellner has insisted that Steve Avery’s nephew, Bobby Dassey, who testified as a prosecution witness, is the real killer.
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This week, Buresh signed an affidavit, swearing under oath he is telling the truth.
Zellner’s motion informs the Wisconsin judge handling Avery’s post-conviction petition “that Mr. Thomas Buresh corroborates the previously filed affidavit of Thomas Sowinski that Bobby Dassey was driving the RAV4 vehicle of Teresa Halbach on Friday night, Nov. 4, or early Saturday morning, after her disappearance on Oct. 31, 2005.”
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According to Buresh’s affidavit that Zellner filed on Friday afternoon:
Buresh was employed in 2005 as a self-employed repossession agent and on Friday night, Nov. 4, 2005 or early Saturday morning, Nov. 5, 2005, — sometime before 2 a.m. —Buresh was driving his tow truck looking to repossess a vehicle in Larrabee, Wisconsin, in the area of Highway 147 and County Road Q in rural Manitotoc County.
That area is in proximity to the Avery Salvage property as well as the Josh Radandt gravel pits.
“I noticed a vehicle in the Park N Ride on Highways 147 and 43 that had just struck a deer and had a broken headlight. I gave the driver a roll of duct tape to repair the car.”
Buresh remembered that he kept on driving on Highway 147 and made a wrong turn and that made him go south on County Road Q.
“After I realized my mistake, I turned around and was heading back north,” Buresh testified in his affidavit for Zellner. “As I was heading back north, I noticed a RAV4 driving south on County Road Q. The RAV4 turned left off of County Road Q after it passed me.
“I noticed the RAV4 because it was unusual to see any other cars out on the road at that time of night.”
Buresh noted that his tow truck had bright, beaming lights that illuminated the RAV4 and that allowed Buresh to see the occupants inside the vehicle as it passed him.
Buresh also pointed out that he had his helper named Mike with him and Mike, who has since passed away, also saw the RAV4. Buresh didn’t know Mike’s last name.
Back in the fall of 2006 and 2007, Buresh watched the TV news reports of the Steven Avery murder trial and “I noticed Bobby Dassey and recognized him as the driver I saw that night in 2005.”
In November 2006, Buresh was lodged in the Brown County Jail, in Green Bay, facing a domestic battery charge and Buresh was back in the jail again in February 2007 for bail jumping.
“During the time I was incarcerated, I told a Brown County detective that I had information about the Halbach murder but was ignored and told ‘that I was already in enough trouble’ and ‘to shut up,” Friday’s affidavit of Buresh revealed.
“I could not recognize or identify the passenger in the RAV4 but I am 100 percent sure it was not Steven Avery.”
Then in 2017 or 2018, Buresh told his brother Ron about his observation of Halbach’s RAV4 from back in 2005. “I do not know any of the Avery or Dassey family members personally, but I may have dropped towed vehicles at the Avery Salvage Yard on a few occasions,” Buresh noted.
Also, “I believe I may have encountered Steven Avery on one occasion at a local McDonald’s, but did not converse with him. I do not know Mike Osmunson.”
Osmunson, according to Manitowoc County court files, was a friend of Bobby Dassey around the time frame of Halbach’s disappearance and murder.
The final sentence of Buresh’s affidavit reads, “Nothing has been promised or given to me in exchange for this affidavit.”
Friday’s motion was sent to Wisconsin Judge Angela Sutkiewicz, the Circuit Court Judge at the Sheboygan County Courthouse, as well as Assistant Attorney Generals for Wisconsin, Lisa Kumfer and Tiffany Winter.
Winter and Kumfer are responsible for trying to keep Avery locked up in prison.
To read Friday’s entire post-conviction motion from attorney Kathleen Zellner, read it here on the website for Kathleen T. Zellner & Associates.
Previous Patch coverage of Steven Avery case:
Kathleen Zellner Wants To Face Teresa Halbach’s Killer In Court
Zellner Drops ‘Biggest Evidence Bombshell In Steven Avery’s Case’
Kathleen Zellner: ‘Killers Always Talk To Someone’
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