Kelly Pitzen, Teresa Halbach's Best Friend Forever

Kelly Pitzen Luedeke is a public school teacher in Wisconsin

Kelly Pitzen and Ryan Hillegas are key players. They phoned each other, for what appears to be the first time, in the days leading up to Teresa Halbach's disappearance. They called each other again on November 3rd, the day Teresa was reported missing. They were at Teresa's house together that same evening.

DCI agent Tom Fassbender wrote that Kelly advised him that Teresa "was one of her best girlfriends forever." And Kelly told him that she and Teresa shared a cousin on the Halbach side.



Is there a report that documents where Teresa's day planner page came from and how it came to be in possession by the police?

Here is Kelly Pitzen’s statement (excerpt) on which Kathleen Zellner’s theory is based:



Pitzen’s full statement about Ryan Hillegas having the schedule and calling a number on it (page 91 of Zellner’s October 2017 Motion - Exhibits):

http://www.stevenaverycase.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Oct-23-2017-Motion-for-Reconsideration-Exhibits.pdf

Pitzen’s statement about RH calling a number on the schedule makes no sense. The Sippel-Schmitz appointment in New Holstein doesn’t appear on the handwritten day planner:

http://www.stevenaverycase.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Exhibit-45-Halbach-day-planner.pdf

RH doesn’t have to be the one who removed the sheet from Teresa Halbach's RAV4. It could have been anybody, including Teresa.

Umbopus wrote at TickTockManitowoc

This post is about the fact that the phone call Ryan Hillegas made would have been to Sippel-Schmitz, and that information was not on the day planner. 

The call RH made was to Sippel-Schmitz and hence Pitzen’s testimony about the source of the ‘New Holstein stop’ is inaccurate.

Read Pitzen's full statement (page 91). Pitzen states that RH first phones a New Holstein number (Steven Schmitz in New Holstein) and then Scott Bloedorn phones another number.

Pitzen has no reason to state ‘New Holstein’ other than that she knows this from the appointment sheet or from the person they phoned saying so.

So Pitzen means Sippel-Schmitz.

I don’t think we have to strictly state that Zellner’s claims about RH having the handwritten planner on the afternoon of November 3 means she’s tying it to him retrieving it when the RAV4 was found.

Pitzen’s claims are from late afternoon of November 3, whereas the car can’t have been found till the night of November 3 or on November 4. Most logic points to the car being found on the afternoon of November 4, which I’m sure Zellner agrees with. So, hence, Zellner's accusations that RH had the handwritten planner on the afternoon of November 3 mean that her theory about ‘RH and the planner’ is separate from her theory about the car planting.

Again, I don’t think Zellner is necessarily stating ‘RH could only have made that call from the handwritten planner; rather, I think her interpretation of Pitzen’s statement must be that the handwritten planner is in his possession at that time because he made a call from it.

But my concern is that perhaps Zellner’s team hasn’t connected the dots that the ‘New Holstein’ call RH made was to Schmitz and hence cannot be from the handwritten notes on TH's day planner.

So deducing that RH had the handwritten copy at that time, because Pitzen says he made a call from it, is inaccurate logic since the call RH made was in fact to Schmitz.

I don’t think Pitzen is misremembering the call RH made: the ‘New Holstein’ detail she gives about the call is too accurate; she is remembering that correctly, I believe.

I am claiming that Pitzen is misstating where RH sourced the ‘New Holstein stop’ information from, because it is not possible that anyone could phone a New Holstein number based on the handwritten day planner.

The handwritten day planner references ‘Steve Sheboygan,’ which is Speckman; and Pitzen is not claiming RH (or Scott Bloedorn) phoned a Sheboygan number.

Pitzen is claiming RH phoned a New Holstein number (Schmitz) and Scott Bloedorn a Manitowoc number (Zipperer.) And I’m not refuting that Scott Bloedorn called Speckman in Sheboygan at some point (this is well documented).

But Pitzen mentions two calls:

1. RH to New Holstein (Sippel-Schmitz) - the phone number had to have come from the Autotrader fax sheet or from TH's phone records, but Pitzen’s statement leads me to believe it came from the fax sheet.

2. Scott Bloedorn to Manitowoc (George Zipperer) - the phone number could have come from either the Autotrader fax sheet or from TH's phone records, but Pitzen’s statement says it came from the phone records.

Here’s the clincher though: Pitzen says that they called the Manitowoc number because it ‘was an Autotrader number,’ which means they definitely had the October 31st fax sheet at that time.

Hence, my belief that that they used the October 29th fax sheet to make the New Holstein call to Sippel-Schmitz.

Scott Bloedorn calls Steven Speckman at some point, yes, but Pitzen never refers to this call.

Pitzen only refers to Sippel-Schmitz and Zipperer calls in her statement. As such, the handwritten day planner is not the source of either of Pitzen’s statement calls.

This is a murky question depending on where you stand with believing Wiegert at various stages of the investigation.

https://i.imgur.com/0x9ls5J.jpg

Wiegert's report, from the same time frame that Pitzen is referring to, indicates they did have incoming calls on her phone records that afternoon.

Personally, the tone of this early Wiegert report gives me the vibe that he’s fairly honestly reporting facts at this stage; that this is your garden variety factual police report.

I tend to believe Wiegert gets swept up in the tide of corruption at a later date. His initial attitude in the early days of the investigation appeared to be genuine and honest.

e.g. We hear him on a call saying he thinks Zipperer was after Avery. This is clearly before he starts playing into the dodgy and sneaky antics to frame Steven.

So I take that report as pretty pure and hence I feel there were incoming calls on the phone records. Others will disagree that nothing Wiegert says should ever be believed.

Notes:

a) It has been debated whether the ‘password’ story is even true. There are strong theories that RH/SB actually phoned Cingular and procured unlawful access to Teresa’s account, etc., which would explain why the miracle password story sounds so off. It would also explain why they had such comprehensive records, etc.

b) The Speckman calls are, in general, a mystery. Many question their validity/existence because they’re conspicuously absent from reports and records, etc. So that should be noted too.

I definitely don’t rule out that Kelly Pitzen might have some knowledge of the framing and it has contributed to her muddled details.

I believe a group was with RH at the vehicle in the Colborn call, hence RH hollering ‘the car’s here!’ to others: it makes sense Pitzen was part of that group.

We really have no reason to believe it was RH at all. He’s certainly a candidate, anyone that was an accessory to the car planting is a candidate.

Obviously, those 22 weird calls on his phone records point to him assisting with the planting, so he goes on the list of people that might have removed the day planner from the RAV4 (if that is, in fact, how it was obtained). But to be honest I don’t completely rule out other versions of events where Teresa made it home too (there isn’t really enough info around these topics to have a clear theory).

So honestly, this post has only one point to it: Pitzen’s statement is definitely muddled one way or another because the ‘New Holstein’ call RH made was Schmitz and that information is not on the day planner.

Teresa Halbach and Ryan Hillegas Talked by Phone Every Monday in October 2005 Except for October 31st

Fassbender wrote that Teresa "had been a childhood friend" of Kelly's and that "they went to school together right up to college and then kept in touch through college" (Teresa went to University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, and Kelly went to University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, the same school Ryan Hillegas attended).

The following is a summary of Kelly's calls to Teresa's cell phone (call duration in parentheses). Teresa never called Kelly's cell phone number ending in 3588 from her own cell phone in 2005, which strongly indicates that Teresa had another cell phone that she used for personal communications.

Kelly calls to Teresa:

9/2, 8:33 PM (1:00)
9/2, 8:34 PM (:46)
9/5, 2:32 AM (:07)
9/5, 11:19 AM (:29) from parents' land line
9/10, 1:30 PM (:29)
9/14, 9:32 PM (1:17)
9/23, 9:06 PM (:27)
9/26, 5:33 PM (:54)
10/7, 4:35 PM (:44)
10/14, 5:31 PM (:35)
10/28, 8:30 PM (:28)
10/28, 9:32 PM (:13)
10/28, 9:34 PM (:54)

On October 28th, Ryan called Kelly, who, after talking to Ryan, seemed determined to get in touch with Teresa.

Kelly called Teresa three times on the night of October 28th. The first call went to voicemail. The next two calls appear to be three-way calls initiated by Kelly.



A bartender who was an acquaintance of Kelly called CASO dispatch and said that Kelly and Teresa were at his bar around midnight on Saturday, which could have been Friday night, which became Saturday at midnight.



John Dedering, retired detective for the Calumet County Sheriff's Office (CASO), opened a new investigation into the Halbach case in 2017, and as part of the 2017 investigation he interviewed Kelly Pitzen.

The following images are excerpts from the CASO reports filed by Dedering in 2017.




In August 2005, Kelly and Teresa went on a road trip through central Wisconsin, according to Kelly's November 13, 2005, interview with Post Crescent.

From the Post Crescent interview:

It was that sense of adventure that made childhood friend Kelly Pitzen want to stay close to Halbach.

In an impromptu road trip in August through central Wisconsin, the two women camped one night in a tent Halbach borrowed by her younger brother, Mike.

Pitzen saw a hole ripped in the tent. Alarmed someone could have been trying to get in, she nudged Halbach.

"That's nothing. I clawed my way out," Halbach told her. She needed to go to the rest room and had not been able to find her way out.

The next morning, they patched the hole with duct tape.

"We laughed for weeks," Pitzen said. "We did a lot of laughing during that road trip that my stomach was hurting."

Friends Remember Halbach, Known for Her Kindness and Tender Photos (Excerpt)
By Ron Seely
November 13, 2005

Hillegas and Pitzen said they cannot look enough at the photographs Halbach leaves behind, the world seen through their lost friend’s eyes.

“I look at the pictures on her walls,” said Pitzen, “and I know the story behind every one of them.”

Pitzen said her friendship with Halbach goes back to preschool. She said she will always remember her friend’s smile, her sincerity, her willingness to drop everything when someone needed her.

“I want others to know that Teresa was always the kind of person that people just gravitated toward,” Pitzen said. “She was always bubbly and smiling. And she was always there to listen. If you didn’t go to her for advice, you could be sure she would search you down.”

To a person, Halbach’s friends also fondly remembered another surprising trait, one that says something about her enthusiasm for life and which made each of them laugh as they explained.

Halbach could not resist a karaoke stage. She was fabulous, Pitzen and Hillegas recalled, and became an absolute ham when she took the stage.

“I think she liked the freedom it gave her,” Hillegas said. “She’d dance and point and play the character of the person in the song. We’re all going to do a karaoke in her honor.”

Sarah Kluth now lives in Chicago but has remained close to Halbach since the two met in college in Green Bay.

“I’ll never forget her genuineness, her sincerity, and how she honestly loved people,” Kluth said Saturday. “And she was such a faithful friend. I remember once I had to visit dairy farms for my job and I called Teresa and asked if she would go along and take some photographs. And there she was with her camera tromping through manure with me. It was just so cool to have a friend like that, who would laugh and say, I don’t care where we are or what we’re doing, I’m with you and that’s what is important.’ “

So powerful was the connection Halbach had with her friends that many of them have spent the last couple of weeks tirelessly searching for her.

Hillegas has done nothing else. He was the one who organized the searches and spent long days afield looking for his friend. It was what she would have done, he said.

The search is over now, of course. And updated news on the search has been replaced on the family’s Web page with a poignant summation.

“It seems as though we have achieved our goal of finding Teresa,” the note reads. “The hearts of our family go out to everyone who has a missing loved one or have had to cope with the murder of a family friend . . . We know we will see Teresa again in Heaven.”

Is Sarah Kluth the "Sarah" on Teresa's day planner (image above)? Why would Karen Halbach have Sarah's stuff? Was Sarah at the Halbach party on October 30, 2005?



Kelly, what else do you and Ryan Hillegas know about Teresa Halbach's disappearance?

If TH was privy to the plan to frame SA, she would've left his appointments until last in the day, and then she would have turned off her phone, just in case this would be the day SA had no alibi. This is what she did on those ASY Mondays. #MakingAMurdererhttps://t.co/NAwxhpZ8aP

— Lick The Knife (@RenyRoha) April 24, 2019

What if? TH's family had her committed and their connections in high places decided to use the opportunity to "make" a murderer. There are claims of people being held against their will and drugged at the very same place as Carol's letter about TH at WMHI.https://t.co/uJubGmRUrl

— Lick The Knife (@RenyRoha) June 1, 2019