Steven Avery Case: Halbach Murder, Evidence, and Appeals

The Steven Avery case is the Wisconsin criminal saga of a man wrongfully imprisoned for 18 years for a 1985 sexual assault he did not commit, exonerated by DNA in 2003, and then convicted in 2007 of murdering photographer Teresa Halbach on his family’s salvage property in Manitowoc County. Avery, now serving life without parole at Fox Lake Correctional Institution, maintains his innocence and argues that officers planted evidence to derail his $36 million civil lawsuit against the county. Every state court has rejected that argument. His attorneys have said they plan to file a federal habeas corpus petition, which would be the first time his case reaches federal court.

The 1985 Assault and the 18 Years That Followed

On July 29, 1985, Penny Beerntsen was attacked on a beach in Manitowoc County. Avery, then 22, was arrested. At trial, Beerntsen identified him from a photo array, and a forensic analyst testified that a hair on one of Avery’s shirts was “consistent with” hers. Sixteen alibi witnesses said Avery was elsewhere. A jury convicted him in December 1985 of attempted murder, first-degree sexual assault, and false imprisonment. He was sentenced to 32 years.¹

The actual attacker was Gregory Allen, a man with a history of sexual violence who resembled Avery.² In 2001, the Wisconsin Innocence Project took the case. A court order in April 2002 authorized DNA testing on 13 pubic hairs from the victim, and on September 10, 2003, the Wisconsin Crime Laboratory reported the DNA matched Allen. The next day, prosecutors and the Innocence Project jointly moved to dismiss. Avery walked out after 18 years.³ The wrongful conviction was later attributed to eyewitness misidentification and flawed forensic hair analysis.

The $36 Million Civil Lawsuit

After his release, Avery received $25,000 in state compensation. On October 24, 2004, he filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against Manitowoc County and several officials, seeking $36 million.⁴ Discovery was underway through 2005, and his attorneys took a significant deposition in late October of that year.

Halbach disappeared on October 31, 2005. Avery was arrested the following month. In December 2005 the civil suit settled for $400,000, with the county admitting no liability. Avery used the money to hire private criminal defense attorneys.⁵ The timing, and what it might have meant for county officials named in the suit, has framed the defense theory of the murder case ever since.

The Murder of Teresa Halbach

Teresa Halbach, a 25-year-old freelance photographer, visited Avery’s Auto Salvage on October 31, 2005, to photograph a vehicle for Auto Trader magazine. She was never seen again. On November 5, her Toyota RAV4 was found on the Avery family property, partially concealed by branches and plywood.⁶

Investigators gathered a wide range of physical evidence tying Avery to the crime:

Drops of Avery’s blood inside Halbach’s RAV4, along with blood identified as Halbach’s.
A key to the RAV4 discovered in Avery’s bedroom, carrying Avery’s DNA but not Halbach’s.
Avery’s DNA on the RAV4’s hood latch.
A bullet and fragments in Avery’s garage containing Halbach’s DNA.
Burned human remains in a burn pit near Avery’s residence, identified through DNA testing as Halbach’s.
Remnants of electronic devices and a camera in a burn barrel on the property.
Phone records showing Avery called Halbach three times on October 31, twice using a feature to block his caller ID.⁷

Avery was charged with first-degree intentional homicide as a party to a crime, mutilating a corpse, and being a felon in possession of a firearm. His five-week jury trial in 2007 ended in conviction on the homicide and firearm counts. The jury acquitted him of mutilating a corpse. He was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole.⁷

The Defense Theory: Planted Evidence

Defense attorneys Dean Strang and Jerome Buting argued that Manitowoc County officers planted key evidence, and that the pending $36 million lawsuit gave them a motive to do so. Three pieces of evidence carried most of the weight.

The Blood Vial

A vial of Avery’s blood drawn during his 1985 arrest had a small hole in its seal. The defense argued officers could have used a hypodermic needle to extract blood and plant it inside Halbach’s RAV4.⁸ Prosecutors had the FBI test the RAV4 bloodstains for EDTA, a preservative in stored blood samples but not in fresh blood. The FBI reported it could not detect EDTA, suggesting the blood had not come from the vial.⁹ Some scientists later noted that the FBI’s method had detection limitations and that the agency did not release its raw data for independent review.

The Key

The RAV4 key surfaced on Avery’s bedroom floor only after officers had already searched the trailer multiple times. Earlier searches by Calumet County officers had not turned it up. The prosecution said it had fallen from a gap in the back panel of a nightstand when officers moved the furniture. The defense pointed to a second oddity: the key carried Avery’s DNA and none of Halbach’s, on her own car key.¹⁰

The Bullet Fragment

Sherry Culhane, chief of the Wisconsin State Crime Lab’s DNA unit, testified that she identified Halbach’s DNA on a bullet fragment from Avery’s garage. On cross-examination, Culhane acknowledged she had inadvertently introduced her own DNA into the testing process, contaminating a control sample. She said the contamination did not affect her conclusion. Buting argued a contaminated result of this kind would ordinarily be considered unreliable.¹¹

Brendan Dassey’s Confession

In March 2006, Avery’s 16-year-old nephew Brendan Dassey told investigators Mark Wiegert and Tom Fassbender that he and Avery had raped and murdered Halbach and burned her body. His statements led investigators to the bullet fragment in Avery’s garage.¹² Dassey, whose IQ was estimated between 74 and 81, was questioned without a parent or guardian present. He later recanted. His attorneys argued investigators had fed him details, corrected him when his answers did not match their expectations, and offered false assurances of leniency.

Dassey was convicted in 2007 of first-degree intentional homicide, mutilating a corpse, and second-degree sexual assault, all as a party to a crime. He was sentenced to life with no possibility of parole until 2048.⁷

His confession then moved through federal court. In August 2016, a federal magistrate judge overturned Dassey’s conviction, ruling the confession involuntary. A three-judge panel of the Seventh Circuit affirmed in June 2017, with the majority writing that investigators had essentially crafted the confession themselves. The full Seventh Circuit reheard the case en banc and reversed in December 2017 by a 4-3 vote, holding that the state courts’ finding of voluntariness was not unreasonable under federal habeas standards.¹² The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case in June 2018.¹ Governor Tony Evers denied Dassey’s 2019 clemency petition on the ground that Dassey was ineligible for a pardon because he had not completed his sentence and had not registered as a sex offender.¹³

Why the Case Became Global News

Making a Murderer, a 10-episode Netflix documentary series by Laura Ricciardi and Moira Demos, premiered on December 18, 2015. It drew 19 million U.S. viewers in its first 35 days and set off widespread argument over police conduct, false confessions, and the fairness of American courts.¹⁴

Manitowoc County officials and prosecutors said the series was biased and omitted significant evidence against Avery. Prosecutor Ken Kratz, who declined to participate in the filming, said he thought the production was “too embedded with the Avery family and the defense team.”¹⁵ In September 2023, DailyWire+ released Convicting a Murderer, a counter-documentary directed by Shawn Rech and narrated by Candace Owens, presenting material left out of the original series. Strang called its content “rumors, speculation and corner bar gossip,” and Rech himself acknowledged that some information in the series “would not be admissible in a court of law.”¹⁶

Post-Conviction Appeals

Attorney Kathleen Zellner took over Avery’s representation after the documentary’s release and has filed a series of motions arguing that trial counsel was ineffective, that prosecutors suppressed evidence, that physical evidence was planted, and that another person committed the murder.

Bobby Dassey as an Alternative Suspect

Zellner’s filings pointed to Bobby Dassey, Avery’s nephew and a key prosecution witness at trial. A forensic analysis of the Dassey family computer revealed searches for violent pornography, which Zellner argued showed a “fascination with death and mutilation.” Courts found the argument unconvincing, noting the computer was accessible to multiple household members and there was no definitive evidence Bobby ran the searches.⁶

Central to the theory was an affidavit from Thomas Sowinski, a newspaper delivery driver who said that before sunrise on November 5, 2005, he saw Bobby Dassey and an unidentified older man pushing a dark blue RAV4 toward the junkyard. Sowinski said Bobby tried to block his vehicle and that when he called the Manitowoc Sheriff’s Office, he was told, “We already know who did it.” The affidavit did not surface in the case until April 2021, after Sowinski contacted Zellner’s team in December 2020. Courts found inconsistencies between Sowinski’s affidavit, a later amended version, and earlier emails, and held that even taken at face value his account did not meet Wisconsin’s Denny standard for admitting alternative-suspect evidence.⁶

The Bone Fragments

In 2011, the Calumet County Sheriff’s Department released suspected human bone fragments, found in the Manitowoc County gravel pit and separate from Avery’s burn pit, to a funeral home, which returned them to the Halbach family. Avery’s team learned of the transfer only after filing a motion seeking DNA testing on those bones. Zellner argued the state violated Avery’s due process rights by destroying potentially exculpatory evidence during his direct appeal, and that if the bones were Halbach’s and had been found away from Avery’s burn pit, they would undermine the prosecution’s theory about where the killing took place.¹⁷

New DNA Testing

In March 2024, Zellner filed a motion seeking touch DNA testing on items from Halbach’s RAV4 that had never been tested, including the steering wheel, gear shift, seats, and battery cables. Prosecutors argued the circuit court lacked jurisdiction to consider the motion while the case was pending on appeal.¹⁸ Zellner has said her team is evaluating “new DNA testing utilizing the substantial improvements made in DNA testing equipment since 2005.”¹⁹

Every Motion Denied

State courts have denied every post-conviction motion. Avery’s second motion, filed in 2017, alleged evidence planting and false testimony; the Wisconsin Supreme Court declined review in 2021. His third motion, filed in August 2022, centered on the Bobby Dassey theory and the Sowinski affidavit. Sheboygan County Circuit Judge Angela Sutkiewicz denied it in August 2023. The Wisconsin Court of Appeals affirmed on January 15, 2025, calling the arguments “insufficiently pled” and “conclusory and speculative.”²⁰ On May 21, 2025, the Wisconsin Supreme Court denied review in a one-sentence order.²¹

Where the Case Stands Now

Avery remains at Fox Lake Correctional Institution, a medium-security prison he transferred to at his own request in June 2022 from Waupun Correctional Institution.²² With his state appeals exhausted, Zellner has said she plans to file a federal habeas corpus petition, which would be the first time Avery’s case reaches federal court. As of December 2025, no petition had been filed, and Zellner has not given a timeline.¹⁹ Federal habeas review is narrow: under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, federal courts can only review claims involving violations of the U.S. Constitution or federal statutes, and the one-year filing deadline adds pressure. Avery also retains the theoretical option of seeking clemency from the Wisconsin governor.

1
Britannica. Steven Avery
2
Green Bay Press-Gazette. Rapist Linked to Avery Case to Get Parole Hearing
3
Innocence Project. Steven Avery
4
Boston College Law Magazine. The Two Sides of the Truth
5
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. What to Know About Steven Avery’s Ongoing Appeal Efforts
6
Wisconsin Court of Appeals. State v. Avery, Court of Appeals Decision
7
Post-Crescent. Steven Avery Continues Appeal Efforts Nearly 20 Years After Teresa Halbach’s Death
8
BBC News. Making a Murderer: Key Evidence Explained
9
National Institutes of Health. EDTA Analysis in the Steven Avery Case
10
ABC News. Making a Murderer Filmmakers and Prosecutor Respond to Claims Evidence Was Left Out
11
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. DNA Specialist Testifies in Avery Trial
12
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. Dassey v. Dittmann, No. 16-3397
13
Courthouse News Service. Wisconsin Governor Denies Pardon for Making a Murderer Subject
14
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Making a Murderer Cases Captivated the World 10 Years Ago
15
Time. Making a Murderer Prosecutor on Mistakes He Made
16
Wisconsin Law Journal. Convicting a Murderer Rebuttal Filled With Rumors, Speculation and Corner Bar Gossip
17
Post-Crescent. Steven Avery’s Attorney Says Suspected Human Bones Were Given to Halbachs
18
WMTV. State Responds to Steven Avery’s Latest Motion Requesting New DNA Testing
19
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Steven Avery Continues to Pursue Appeal but Routes Narrow
20
Post-Crescent. Wisconsin Supreme Court Won’t Review Steven Avery’s Latest Appeal
21
WEAU. Steven Avery’s Appeal Turned Down by Wisconsin Supreme Court
22
WBAY. Steven Avery Moved to Medium-Security Prison in Wisconsin