Image: Courtesy of Netflix.Keller began reporting on Teresa Halbach's disappearance the day she was considered missing in 2005. Covering the Steven Avery trial incidentally inspired Keller to become a lawyer himself, following in the footsteps of Dean Strang and Jerry Buting. Keller has since gone on to become a professor.
Though the reporter turned academic hasn't watched the Netflix series in its entirety, he did recently open up to Rolling Stone about his longtime relationship with the case. "I remember being there [in the NBC26 newsroom] with the fax came in," Keller told the magazine. "I remember holding it in my hand, looking at it and discussing it. And we had the resources to cover the story, so we were the first ones on the air with it."
He also talked about some pieces of evidence — and the lack thereof — that nag him to this day.
"At one point we had to pull out of a live shot because we couldn't have the mast for the live truck up in the sky when there's lightning," Keller recalled. "I'm trying to remember when that was, because one of the big questions has been whether Avery's fingerprints could have, in theory, survived on the Halbach vehicle — assuming that he had touched it — and I'm trying to remember whether there was a really bad thunderstorm within those first couple of days when she was reported missing, and when they were looking for her, because my memory seems to indicate that there might have been. Because if there was a deluge, would it have wiped away some potential evidence? But it might have been when they were searching like a year later, because there were a couple of searches in there."
Keller also revealed his reservations about a source who named Steven Avery as the last person to see Halbach alive.
"The next major element in the story was actually broken by a competitor and, to this day, I'm not quite sure where the information came from," he explained. "The next element of [the story] was that Steven Avery was the last person to have seen her, and that story was broken by WBAY-TV in Green Bay. And I remember we immediately called and confirmed it and had it on the air within a couple of minutes of when they had it on the air, but I want to know how they got that."
Why? "Because it raises the question of whether Steven Avery called them and told them he was the last one to see her, or did law enforcement call them and tell them that he was the one who had seen her? And the answer to that question — I don't know if it's worth anything. To some conspiracy theorist it might be."
Keller also pointed out that because his station wasn't as friendly with law enforcement agents, it potentially lost out on scoops. "We [employees of the NBC affiliate] were mostly outsiders," he pointed out. "They"— meaning local station reporters — "were insiders. We were more apt to ask really tough questions because we weren't friends with people from elementary school who worked other jobs in that area. So there were some elements of stories that the NBC station was not able to break because we didn't have entrenched friendships."
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