Note: This article contains spoilers for Making a Murderer Part 2
Defence attorney Kathleen Zellner has been representing Steven Avery since 2016, and Making a Murderer part 2 followed her every move as she worked towards appealing his 2007 conviction.
Zellner presented a ream of new Making a Murderer evidence, also raising suspicion around Bobby Dassey (Brendan Dassey's brother) as one possible suspect.
But viewers, having digested the ten new episodes, were still left with lots of questions. The all important one: what is Kathleen Zellner doing now?
The final episode of Part 2 showed that Avery is still in prison, continuing to serve his life sentence for the 2005 murder of Teresa Halbach. The documentary may be finished, at least for now, but Zellner's journey in fighting for her client's freedom is only just beginning.
She's been sharing some pretty big updates with fans over on Twitter, and here are the biggest revelations to come from her Q&A.
1. Is Kathleen Zellner still being filmed by the Making a Murderer directors?
No.
Whilst filmmakers Laura Ricciardi and Moira Demos have spoken in favour of a Making a Murderer 3, Kathleen has confirmed that (as of time of writing) they're not currently documenting her movements.
However, with her own law firm, we know that she's likely to have a whole load of other cases to be going on with as well. So perhaps they're simply waiting for a breakthrough in Avery's case before getting out the cameras again...
2. Why is Steven Avery still in prison?
This is a very complicated question, and one that doesn't have just one answer.
This has an awful lot to do with the bigger picture surrounding the functionality of the US justice system – a theme that is explored particularly cleverly in the second instalment of the Netflix hit.
But now Kathleen has shared some new thoughts on the situation. On October 25, she wrote: "Wisconsin's AG [Attorney General] Schimel knows if SA [Steven Avery] were given a new trial he would win [because] he would have scientific experts...
"[He] would use the evidence Kratz concealed. Fighting us every step to keep 2 innocent men locked up."
3. What's next for Steven Avery's appeal?
His attorney has widely shared that she believes Avery to be at the "beginning" of his fight for freedom, not the end – despite the fact that, in episode 10, we saw his request for a retrial being denied by Judge Angela Sutkiewicz.
Since the release of MaM 2, Zellner has revealed that their appellate brief is due on December 20. For those unsure of the legal terminology, this is a document submitted to an appeals court, by a lawyer, containing all the legal arguments as to why their client should win the case.
"We have multiple opportunities to overturn this wrongful conviction," Kathleen said.
4. What's going to happen to Sergeant Colborn and those involved in prosecuting Avery?
Lenk, Fassbender, Kratz... There's a list of justice system employees who many believe might have hindered justice for Avery and his nephew.
Sergeant Colborn seems to have raised the most questions, what with the mysterious phone call identifying Teresa Halbach's car and the fact that some of the key evidence in Avery's trailer was discovered on his watch.
But will he ever face any kind of investigation? According to Zellner, that could be part of the plan a little later down the road – but it's not a possibility right now.
"Until we are successful in overturning Avery's conviction, we cannot proceed with a civil rights case against any of the bad actors," she explained. "Once the conviction if overturned [sic], we will definitely proceed against Sgt. Colborn in a civil rights question."
5. Kathleen Zellner said that *someone* admitted Steven Avery's innocence to her
The defence attorney alleges that someone, somewhere, presumably involved in the case, 'came clean' to her claiming that Avery is, in fact, innocent.
6. Halbach's RAV4 was checked for fingerprints
And, according to Zellner, Avery's prints were not found.
"There were eight sets of latent prints that were unidentified," she tweeted. "However, the prints ruled out Steven and Brendan."
By now we should all be aware that Avery's blood was found in the vehicle – the prosecution argued that this came from an open cut on his finger (therefore ruling out the idea that he might have worn gloves), and the defence claimed the blood was planted.
This begs the question: how was his blood there, but not his fingerprints?
7. There's other evidence pointing at Bobby Dassey as a Denny suspect
As if lying at trial and the horrific contents of Dassey's computer weren't enough, Zellner has now revealed that cellphone records undermine his story that he went hunting on the afternoon of Teresa's murder.
"We have been able to determine his location through cellphone pings, and he was not at the location he claimed to be," Zellner said.
What's more, she also revealed that "Bobby's vehicle has been crushed", and therefore cannot be forensically tested.
