What did Steven Avery do?
Steven Avery is an American convicted murderer from Manitowoc County, Wisconsin. He had previously been wrongfully convicted for the 1985 sexual assault and attempted murder of Penny Beerntsen, but after serving 18 years of a 32-year sentence, DNA testing revealed he was innocent and he was released in 2003. However, 2 years later, he was charged with the murder of Teresa Halbach.
Avery was the poster boy for the wrongfully convicted and filed a lawsuit against Manitowoc County after his exoneration in 2003. With his civil suit pending, he was arrested for Halbach’s murder.
What happened in Halbach’s murder?
Photographer Teresa Halbach disappeared on October 31, 2005, and her last known appointment of the day was at Avery’s Auto Salvage to photograph his sister’s minivan that was up for sale. Halbach’s vehicle was found partially concealed in the salvage yard, and bloodstains recovered from inside the car matched Avery’s DNA. Investigators later identified charred bone fragments found in a burn pit near Avery’s home.
Avery was arrested and charged with Halbach’s murder, kidnapping, sexual assault, and mutilation of a corpse on November 11, 2005. Avery claimed the murder charge was a setup because of his pending lawsuit against Manitowoc county. However, Steven Avery was convicted and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole in 2007.
What happened when Making a Murderer was released?
Avery’s conviction wasn’t the end of the story, as his 2007 trial became the focus of Netflix’s true-crime documentary series, Making a Murderer in 2015, which also covered the arrest and conviction of Avery’s nephew Brendan Dassey as his accomplice.
The documentary series became a cultural phenomenon and launched a movement of viewers convinced Avery was framed for the murder of Teresa Halbach, thanks to some clever editing and biased opinions. The show ran for 2 seasons and covered the entirety of Avery’s story, from his wrongful conviction in 1985 to his conviction for Halbach’s murder in 2007, and his lawyer, Kathleen Zellner’s attempts to get him a new trial in 2017.
Where is Steven Avery now?
Steven Avery started his life sentence at the Wisconsin Secure Program Facility in Boscobel, before being moved to Waupun Correctional Institution in Waupun in 2012. He was moved again in 2022 to the medium-security Fox Lake Correctional Institution, and this is where he currently resides. He is 61 years old. He maintains his innocence, and he’s had several appeals turned down since his conviction.
A new 10-part Daily Wire original documentary series titled Convicting a Murderer was released in 2023 and challenged Making a Murderer‘s claims that Avery was innocent, detailing incriminating evidence that was left out of the 2015 Netflix documentary.
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