Making A Murderer (Netflix)

[PseudoSABR]

 

I'm not suggesting there is a technological impasse that prevents the data from being meaningful, I'm saying it's higgghhly unlikely it has any meaning.

Without seeing what data they have, I don't know how you can make a probabilistic determination like that. (For my part, I think you're overestimating the precision in data they'd actually need for that data to have evidentiary value, but I don't really want to argue that point any further). 

 

And where's the implication that Zellner is somehow incompetent or grandstanding coming from?  I guess I just can't dismiss what she's saying about the 12 miles away from the property as an obvious falsehood or overstatement.  

 

[PseudoSABR]

 

And honestly, I no longer give a damn about this case.

But , as many of you know by now, I hate lazy/incorrect technical analysis.

And I hate cognitive bias and assumption-laden analysis.  Cheers.

[Brock Beauchamp]

For example, here's the math on such a data store:

 

Let's say a phone company needs to store user data of this kind. They record once per second. On the *light* side of this, we'll say this data store, captured once a second (not often by technology standards) consumes just 32 bytes of data (virtually nothing).

 

32 bytes

60 seconds

60 minutes

24 hours

365 days

 

Now multiply this by in-signal towers... In this case we'll say three.

 

That's 3.1GB per user, per year.

 

Verizon has 137 million users.

 

And this isn't even bringing up the pipes required to transfer this kind of data.

 

And that's what you'd need to triangulate.

 

So... No.

[Brock Beauchamp]

And I hate cognitive bias and assumption-laden analysis. Cheers.

What assumptions have I made? That triangulation in the past tense is impossible?

 

Please, refute that point. Have at it.

[PseudoSABR]

What assumptions have I made? That triangulation in the past tense is impossible?

 

Please, refute that point. Have at it.

That they'd need any where near the amount of data you're supposing. The cellphone need not ping the cell tower every second, it could be a much larger time frame than that; and the cell tower need not record every ping.  They need two pings from the same tower at even intervals from the outgoing phone, in order to indicate a radial distance.  That's really - a minimum - of six data points for triangulation, and I imagine the data has much more than that.   We don't know how much data they were collecting and in what intervals.

 

That the cell towers need to receive the ping at the exact same time - (that really wouldn't make much sense if they did), rather the towers need to receive the same outgoing ping from the cell phone in order be validly compared. Receiving the pings at different times would account for the disparate distances between the differing towers and the source of the ping.  Again, we don't know what the data precisely consists of and what auxiliary evidence would help ensure it's validity.

 

That regardless of the imprecision, such data could exists that would foreclose the possibility that the cellphone was on Avery's property throughout the affair.   Even if the area of the location is very large, Avery's property could lie outside of it, and that's the essential fact.   

 

The data already exists.  It was accumulated during the lead up to the trial. The defense failed to 'discover' it.  So I don't really understand your past tense point.

[Brock Beauchamp]

Just read this:

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/experts-say-law-enforcements-use-of-cellphone-records-can-be-inaccurate/2014/06/27/028be93c-faf3-11e3-932c-0a55b81f48ce_story.html

 

"Use of historical cell-site locator data is different than real-time triangulation of three cell towers to locate a phone, or GPS technology using satellites. The accuracy of those technologies is not in dispute, but phone companies do not save GPS or triangulation data for an individual phone — so that information is not used as evidence."

 

That's what I mean by "past tense". The amount of bandwidth and infrastructure required to record that data is overwhelming so companies don't do it. Without (nearly, for clarity) identical tower pings and exact response times, triangulation cannot happen. It simply can not happen. It's the very definition of "triangulation".

 

And you're misinterpreting what constitutes a "ping". A ping is a circuit. A phone cannot ping three towers with one signal. This is how a ping works:

 

Tower A --> Phone --> Tower A

 

If another tower wants to ping the phone:

 

Tower B --> Phone --> Tower B

 

It's only the corresponding signal return that can indicate distance with any accuracy. The tower registers how quickly the phone responds to its origin signal and then makes a judgment based on speed of light and system latency. If the ping originated with the phone, the phone would end up with the data, not the tower.

 

Which also makes the system somewhat prone to error because signal bounce, noise, weather, etc can alter response time.

[PseudoSABR]

So you doubt the data exists at all?  What data do you think Zellner has? The cell tower information was probably collected in the days following Teresa Halbach disappearance; there was an immediate search. You may doubt that the cell company kept such simple ping-data for a matter of days, but I think it's very possible that in the search for Halbach, authorities were able to get such data from the cellphone companies.  Of course, as Zellner indicates, the original defense may have blown it by overlooking the meaningfulness of such data.

[PseudoSABR]

 

And you're misinterpreting what constitutes a "ping". A ping is a circuit. A phone cannot ping three towers with one signal. This is how a ping works:

Tower A --> Phone --> Tower A

If another tower wants to ping the phone:

Tower B --> Phone --> Tower B

It's only the corresponding signal return that can indicate distance with any accuracy. The tower registers how quickly the phone responds to its origin signal and then makes a judgment based on speed of light and system latency. If the ping originated with the phone, the phone would end up with the data, not the tower.

Which also makes the system somewhat prone to error because signal bounce, noise, weather, etc can alter response time.

Fair enough (and your explanation makes sense, but...).  Such data is still easily collected. I doubt Towers are sending pings out every second, whatever data they have collected may be sufficient to account for the error. The data might be fallible within a given range, but that range might still preclude the Avery property.  

 

For me, why I keep living with the possible fallibility of the data is that evidence need not show where Halbach was at, but where she couldn't be. 

 

 

[Shane Wahl]

http://www.businessinsider.com/making-a-murderer-kathleen-zellner-new-suspect-2016-3

 

 

"In Halbach's phone records, Zellner discovered that the victim had made two calls a couple of days before she was killed to a man with a record of sexual-abuse crimes in Arizona.

"A well-trained investigator, they'd be all over that," Zellner said. "And they would have gone and talked to [that man], and they would have interviewed these other people that [Teresa Halbach was] talking to right before her death. She's like prey being stalked, and that's [the most likely type of] person who would have been after her."

[Brock Beauchamp]

 

Fair enough (and your explanation makes sense, but...).  Such data is still easily collected. I doubt Towers are sending pings out every second, whatever data they have collected may be sufficient to account for the error. The data might be fallible within a given range, but that range might still preclude the Avery property.  

 

For me, why I keep living with the possible fallibility of the data is that evidence need not show where Halbach was at, but where she couldn't be. 

1. While towers may not be sending out data to a phone every second - I haven't bothered to research this and don't know off-hand - they're communicating with the phone often. How do you think your signal bar changes or a specific tower knows to deliver a call to your phone? The phone and tower need to remain in near-constant contact for cell service to work. When someone calls a cell phone, it's not as if every Verizon tower in the world screams "Phone, where are you?" The phone is constantly in contact with local towers so that hand-off is smooth, instantaneous, and requires as few resources as possible.

 

2. Such data is easily collected but the transmission, storage, and maintenance of this data is costly and really, when you get right down to it, entirely pointless for a phone company to gather. You're grossly underestimating what is required to collect this kind of data: the network infrastructure, synchronized towers, vast data centers, support staff, etc. Verizon Wireless is not the NSA; they have no vested interest in storing gigabytes of data for every user on their network. And yes, it would require gigabytes of data. I deal with data every day. Collecting it is easy in 2016 but in the mid-2000s, it was an extremely expensive endeavor and companies collected only the data they required because "overhead".

 

3. That article was quite clear phone companies do not keep triangulation data. And that was my point all along: it makes sense that no company would record that kind of data in the capacity required to give us meaningful information (multiple towers, simultaneous contact, response time, etc). A triangulation ping is an active request from three towers at the same moment. The fact that it's an active request is right there in the name: "ping". Its origins come from sonar and the sound received when an active, directed signal hits an underwater object and returns to the source. The sound returned to the origin point was/is "ping!". It makes zero sense that a company would consume the massive amount of tower resources required to continually monitor triangulation of phones and then have to go through the effort of transmitting, syncing, storing, and maintaining data... A lot of data. Which brings me to the next point...

 

4. Does the lawyer have records of the phone contacting a specific tower? Sure, probably, I've never disputed that point. It makes sense... But there's a wide gulf between a phone initializing with a tower and keeping a record of it versus receiving "triangulation data" - the article's words, not mine. What is *likely* is that the lawyer has a record of a phone initializing contact with a tower. That means no response time, no triangulation, just a "Hi, I'm here. If someone calls me, you're the tower that needs to send me that call". Phone companies absolutely keep simple data logs of tower connections because it's impossible to run a reliable network without basic usage logs to monitor traffic, peaks/valleys, and then compare it to system capacity. It's how a company decides where to expand a network and in what capacity to expand it.

 

Now a simple initialization communication is problematic for several reasons:

 

- This is a rural area. For obvious reasons, in rural areas they build far fewer cell towers because the biggest limitation on a cell tower is often not its range but its capacity. Cities have loads and loads of towers to maintain 100,000 simultaneous phone calls at any given moment. Rural areas don't need this so they build towers further apart and put them on really tall poles so they only need to build a tower every 5 or 10 or 20 miles, not every few thousand feet.

 

- The less towers you have in the area and the further apart they are, the less likely it is for a phone to connect to enough towers in a short enough period of time to glean useful information. In a city environment, a phone might communicate with 5-6 towers in a, say, 20 minute span. At that point, you can probably glean where the phone is within a few square miles (we're still talking pretty massive distances here even under ideal circumstances). In a rural environment, there might only be one tower to connect to at all... Or maybe it can connect to two towers but they're both physically in-line with the phone. That doesn't give much in the way of useful data to glean from a simple "Hi, I'm here" connection.

 

- Without response time and/or real triangulation data, you know a phone is within speaking distance of a tower, nothing more. And, as I've pointed out, "speaking distance" can be a really long way. I think it's about 20 miles for GSM but much more for CDMA, upwards of 40 miles in real-world situations.

 

- Cell phones often fail to connect to the closest tower. There are a dozen reasons for this to happen. It could be weather, it could be terrain, it could be tower capacity, it could be the phone is just being stupid for a moment. A phone can easily overlook a tower two miles from it and instead connect to a tower 20 miles away. Ever been standing next to a buddy and your phone has one bar while his/hers has full bars? That's probably what happened. For whatever reason, your phone is being a dumbass and is shaking hands with a tower just *barely* within reach.

 

Here's another decent article on the subject. I'm basing most of my argument from actual reading I've done in the past but the more I dig into it, the more I believe this data is probably useless. Note that I said "probably" because there are a host of reasons for the data to be inaccurate but in very specific conditions, it *might* be useful.

 

But, again, that's really unlikely. Which is why it's likely this data will neither tell us where Teresa was located nor will it tell us where she wasn't located. Not with any kind of reliability, anyway.

 

http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/what-your-cell-phone-cant-tell-the-police

 

And keep in mind while reading these articles: they were written in the 2010s while the Avery crime happened in the mid-2000s. It's the cell phone equivalent of modern day versus the Victorian era.

[TheLeviathan]

http://www.businessinsider.com/making-a-murderer-kathleen-zellner-new-suspect-2016-3

 

 

"In Halbach's phone records, Zellner discovered that the victim had made two calls a couple of days before she was killed to a man with a record of sexual-abuse crimes in Arizona.

"A well-trained investigator, they'd be all over that," Zellner said. "And they would have gone and talked to [that man], and they would have interviewed these other people that [Teresa Halbach was] talking to right before her death. She's like prey being stalked, and that's [the most likely type of] person who would have been after her."

This article says the cell phone bing is her smoking gun.

 

Heh. Go ahead and rile yourselves up that it matters. It won't, that's some flimsy BS right there.

[nicksaviking]

"A well-trained investigator, they'd be all over that," Zellner said. "And they would have gone and talked to [that man], and they would have interviewed these other people that [Teresa Halbach was] talking to right before her death. She's like prey being stalked, and that's [the most likely type of] person who would have been after her."

I don't think anyone disputes the investigators were bad, but she didn't talk to this Arizona "sexual abuser" right before she died. She talked to Avery just before she died, she talked to the AZ guy a couple days before she died.

 

Seriously, this looks to be a pretty clear Occam's Razor situation.

[PseudoSABR]

I'll just say this I find it highly problematic that this evidence is being dismissed without actually knowing what it consists of (all the probabilistic supposition notwithstanding).  I also find it equally problematic to question Zellner's integrity.  Thank god Occam's Razor isn't a legal doctrine.  

[TheLeviathan]

 

I'll just say this I find it highly problematic that this evidence is being dismissed without actually knowing what it consists of (all the probabilistic supposition notwithstanding).  I also find it equally problematic to question Zellner's integrity.  Thank god Occam's Razor isn't a legal doctrine.  

 

As opposed to preparing for his parade upon release?  I admit, some of my saltiness with this is purely by how cultish the Avery support is.

 

This could be useful as part of a larger defense, but it looks mighty weak as a smoking gun.

[Brock Beauchamp]

I'll just say this I find it highly problematic that this evidence is being dismissed without actually knowing what it consists of (all the probabilistic supposition notwithstanding). I also find it equally problematic to question Zellner's integrity. Thank god Occam's Razor isn't a legal doctrine.

The thing is, it's not entirely probabilisitic supposition. I've linked two articles that plainly stated the kind of data required to accurately track a cellphone is not available after the fact. It needs to done in real time (or, in modern cases, lifted off the phone's GPS receiver) because it requires active, coordinated signal broadcasting from several towers.

 

Maybe the data is correct and Teresa's phone was 12 miles away immediately after the murder... But, unfortunately, that wouldn't matter because the data cannot be relied upon as a source of truth. It's a notoriously unreliable way to determine the location of a phone and is more of a guess than science.

 

It's akin to putting a fall-down drunk on the stand as an eyewitness. Hey, maybe the drunk is right and somehow clearly remembers the events that transpired.

 

But you can't rely on a fall-down drunk witness.

 

Hey, I hope Zellner can get a retrial because that original trial looked incomplete and stacked against Avery. But cell tower data isn't proof of innocence on its own.

[nicksaviking]

 

I'll just say this I find it highly problematic that this evidence is being dismissed without actually knowing what it consists of (all the probabilistic supposition notwithstanding).  I also find it equally problematic to question Zellner's integrity.  Thank god Occam's Razor isn't a legal doctrine.  

 

I just don't see how this is evidence of any kind. Why is it weird that her cellphone pinged a tower 12 miles away, and how does that even slightly suggest she left the property alive? Avery's original lawyers appeared passionate and committed, this new one sounds like she likes the spotlight for herself. Her characterizing his previous representation as lacking stinks of desperation which is going to rub off on to any "evidence" she brings forward.

[PseudoSABR]

 

I just don't see how this is evidence of any kind. Why is it weird that her cellphone pinged a tower 12 miles away, and how does that even slightly suggest she left the property alive? 

It doesn't suggest that she was alive - that's not why it would be useful as evidence.   It suggests that the cellphone left the property, which is a fact the prosecution's version of events would have to account for.  To use your Occam's Razor analysis, is it more assumptious to believe that Avery left the property with her cellphone even though he was about to murder her or already had; or is it more assumptious to believe that she left the property herself?  It doesn't mean that Avery didn't murder her, but it certainly casts doubt on the prosecution's version of events and timeline.  Although it's not smoking gun of innocence (which is silly concept anyway), if true, this evidence is unquestionably important.  (I don't get the tendency to want to dismiss the evidence, honestly.)

 

Could the data be unreliable? Sure. (And a judge ultimately decides this questions after arguments from each side - so it certainly might not get into "evidence," but it also could in few different ways).  On the other hand, how much should such data be trusted and what does it really prove? Well, those questions go to weight; they would be litigated in the courtroom and the jury would ultimately decide how much to trust it and what it means as far as proving Avery's guilty or creating reasonable doubt.  

 

 

 

 

[nicksaviking]

 

It doesn't suggest that she was alive - that's not why it would be useful as evidence.   It suggests that the cellphone left the property, which is a fact the prosecution's version of events would have to account for.  To use your Occam's Razor analysis, is it more assumptious to believe that Avery left the property with her cellphone even though he was about to murder her or already had; or is it more assumptious to believe that she left the property herself? 

 

As she turned up dead, I'd say it's much more likely that the murderer took her cellphone and did whatever it is that desperate and frantic murders do when they try to cover up an impulsive crime on the fly.

 

And that's if the cellphone actually left in the first place.

[PseudoSABR]

 

As she turned up dead, I'd say it's much more likely that the murderer took her cellphone and did whatever it is that desperate and frantic murders do when they try to cover up an impulsive crime on the fly.

Why the heck would the murderer kill her and then go do something with the cellphone yet hide the Rav4 on Avery's property? That doesn't make much sense (and probably defies the time-frame).  If Avery really did do it, and the cell phone data is credible, I'd find it more likely he followed her after she left, and then killed her somewhere off property. (Still I think this has time problems and witness problems).  We might be able to invent some sort of reality where the facts still fit the prosecution's case, but reasonable doubt begins to creep in pretty quickly when we start generalizing our explanations to what frantic murderers usually do...

 

If you want to argue that she wasn't killed on the Avery property, the placement of the cellphone is evidence towards making that case.   Therefore it has value in the court room.  The cellphone data does not need to by-itself unravel the prosecution's case; it's simply part of a larger defense to create reasonable doubt.   I think people are overlooking the fact that the burden of proof is on the prosecution, not the defense. 

[Brock Beauchamp]

 

I think people are overlooking the fact that the burden of proof is on the prosecution, not the defense. 

For good or bad, not anymore. He was found guilty. The burden of proof is now on the defense.

 

I hope he can get a retrial, someplace far away from Manitowoc county... But I'm skeptical any of this evidence is enough to sway a judge, who will be rightfully reluctant to call for a new trial.

[PseudoSABR]

 

For good or bad, not anymore. He was found guilty. The burden of proof is now on the defense.

 

I hope he can get a retrial, someplace far away from Manitowoc county... But I'm skeptical any of this evidence is enough to sway a judge, who will be rightfully reluctant to call for a new trial.

Oh I know.  And I made the point that I don't even think this evidence will satisfy the test for a new trial as it was available to the defense at the time of trial, not necessarily because of the questions about the data's reliability.   They will need other grounds for a retrial other than this, and they might have such grounds, though this evidence might be more useful to their overall defense.  In retrial, if granted, the burden, of course, falls back on the prosecution to make it's case beyond a reasonable doubt.

[nicksaviking]

Why the heck would the murderer kill her and then go do something with the cellphone yet hide the Rav4 on Avery's property? That doesn't make much sense (and probably defies the time-frame). If Avery really did do it, and the cell phone data is credible, I'd find it more likely he followed her after she left, and then killed her somewhere off property. (Still I think this has time problems and witness problems). We might be able to invent some sort of reality where the facts still fit the prosecution's case, but reasonable doubt begins to creep in pretty quickly when we start generalizing our explanations to what frantic murderers usually do...

 

If you want to argue that she wasn't killed on the Avery property, the placement of the cellphone is evidence towards making that case. Therefore it has value in the court room. The cellphone data does not need to by-itself unravel the prosecution's case; it's simply part of a larger defense to create reasonable doubt. I think people are overlooking the fact that the burden of proof is on the prosecution, not the defense.

 

If murderers made rational decisions, they wouldn't be murderers. We have no clue what was 12 miles away. Maybe it was a gas station and the murderer need gas for burning a body. Maybe he wanted to hide evidence but didn't know where to go and had second thoughts. Maybe he did hide the evidence but the cops found it and put it back to frame Avery. Maybe the murder decided to flee bit got cold feet. Who knows, either way her leaving alive doesn't seem as likely as only her cell phone leaving.

[PseudoSABR]

 

If murderers made rational decisions, they wouldn't be murderers. We have no clue what was 12 miles away. Maybe it was a gas station and the murderer need gas for burning a body. Maybe he wanted to hide evidence but didn't know where to go and had second thoughts. Maybe he did hide the evidence but the cops found it and put it back to frame Avery. Maybe the murder decided to flee bit got cold feet. Who knows, either way her leaving alive doesn't seem as likely as only her cell phone leaving.

All that's just speculation.  Like I said we can all invent scenarios to match the facts.  The prosecution, however, would need a specific narrative that is believable beyond a reasonable doubt.   (Again if what the data suggests is true,) you may find it more likely that murderer went parading around town with the cellphone, I find it more likely that the victim left with her own cellphone before whoever murdered her.  In any case, if the murderer or the victim left the property it creates doubt to the prosecution's version of the truth.  

[nicksaviking]

There has always been doubt about the prosecution, it's always smelled fishy, but as they already won I think the burden now shifts to the defense to prove that a new trial is warranted. I'm not sure the prosecution has to do anything at this point but provide a logical justification for why any new evidence the defense tries to present isn't valuable enough to host another circus of a trial at the cost of the taxpayers. It seems to me, motions for a new trial are rarely accepted, and they get rejected with much stronger evidence than this purports to be. I mean Dassey didn't get a retrial and they flat out proved the evidence used against him was due to illegal collaboration with the prosecution by his attorney.

 

If I were to guess, I would bet a new trial would occur based less on this new questionable evidence but instead because of the pressure the documentary put on Hicksville Wisconsin and the backward and corrupt image it painted of them.

[PseudoSABR]

As I've said a few times in this thread, this evidence wouldn't result in a new trial, because it was available to the defense at the time of the original trial.  They would need other grounds for a new trial, but this evidence would be useful (if true/reliable), no doubt. 

[Vanimal46]

This seems unnecessary, but it's happening anyway. Making a Murderer is returning for a 2nd season on Netflix. I'm not sure what new evidence came out that would justify a new season or a new trial for Steven Avery.  

[nicksaviking]

“This next chapter will provide an in-depth look at the high-stakes post-conviction process, as well as, the emotional toll the process takes on all involved.”

 

Oh yes, I'm sure the post conviction process is probably gripping and excellent TV for those folks who find CSPAN too intense.

 

With agreeing to do this and surely sensationalizing it for ratings, the filmmakers objectivity only looks worse and worse.

[Shane Wahl]

Paradise Lost 2 occurred and then 10 or so years later, the WM3 finally walked out of jail. Something similar will happen here. The Adnan Syed debacle reaffirms this for me.

[TheLeviathan]

 

“This next chapter will provide an in-depth look at the high-stakes post-conviction process, as well as, the emotional toll the process takes on all involved.”

Oh yes, I'm sure the post conviction process is probably gripping and excellent TV for those folks who find CSPAN too intense.

With agreeing to do this and surely sensationalizing it for ratings, the filmmakers objectivity only looks worse and worse.

 

And I'm absolutely positive Zellner won't try to turn this into her own 10 hour, over the top commercial......

[nicksaviking]

 

And I'm absolutely positive Zellner won't try to turn this into her own 10 hour, over the top commercial......

 

Is that the new defense attorney? Thankfully this stuff is all getting fuzzy already. I do seem to remember thinking the new defense attorney did give off a bit of a fortune seeker vibe.