Born in Manitowoc County, Wisconsin, Steven Allen Avery is an American convicted murderer, who had previously been wrongfully convicted in 1985 of sexual assault and attempted murder.
However, after serving 18 years of a 32-year sentence, he was exonerated by DNA testing and released in 2003, only to be charged with murder in a different case just two years later.
Growing up, Avery, who was born on July 9, 1962, reportedly, had an IQ of 70, and “barely functioned in school,” according to one of his lawyers. Soon enough he dropped out of high school.
From a very young age, Avery got involved in several criminal acts. In 1981, he was convicted of burglarizing a bar and later served 10 months in jail. The following year he pled guilty to animal cruelty after he poured gasoline on a cat and tossed it into a bonfire; he was sentenced to nine months. In 1985, he forced a car driven by Sandra Morris%u2014a cousin who was the wife of a sheriff%u2019s deputy%u2014off the road and pointed a gun at her.
Later, Morris alleged that Avery had exposed himself on several occasions. He received a six-year sentence for the car incident but was granted bail.
Then, on July 29, 1985, a woman was raped on a beach near Two Rivers. The victim. Penny Beernsten provided a description of the assailant and the police linked it to Avery.
Beernsten too picked him out of a photo lineup following which Avery was arrested, even though 16 people testified that he was elsewhere at the time of the attack. He was charged and ultimately convicted of rape and attempted murder, then sentenced to 32 years in prison.
But Avery continued to maintain his innocence. Finally, in 2001 the Wisconsin Innocence Project became involved in his case and the following year it was granted a court order for DNA testing of a pubic hair found on the victim.
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The newer technology matched the hair to a certain Gregory A. Allen, an area man who strongly resembled Avery and was suspected in other sex crimes. But the law enforcement officials never investigated had never investigated him.
All charges against Avery were dropped, and he was released from prison. Soon thereafter, he filed a $36 million wrongful conviction lawsuit against the county, the district attorney, and the sheriff.
However, while the civil case was still on, on October 31, 2005, a photographer, who had come to meet Avery at his home regarding the sale of a minivan, disappeared.
Later, her vehicle was found partially concealed in the salvage yard, and bloodstains recovered from its interior matched Avery’s DNA. Investigators later identified charred bone fragments found in a burn pit near Avery’s home as Halbach’s.
Avery was arrested and charged with Halbach’s murder, kidnapping, sexual assault, and mutilation of a corpse on November 11, 2005.
He had already been charged with a weapons violation as a convicted felon.
However, Avery maintained that the murder charge was a frameup, promulgated to discredit his pending wrongful-conviction civil case.
After a 27-day trial, Avery was found guilty of murder and illegal possession of a firearm in March 2007. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
The web series ‘Making a Murderer’, which aired on Netflix in 2015, brought global attention to the Avery case. Moira Demos and Laura Ricciardi created the 10-part show, which they started working on in December 2005.
