Steven Allan Avery was born on July 9,1962 and is an American from Manitowoc County, Wisconsin who was convicted of murder in 2007.
28 Facts About Steven Avery
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Steven Avery was born in 1962 in Manitowoc County, Wisconsin, to Allan and Dolores Avery.
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Steven Avery attended public schools in nearby Mishicot and Manitowoc, where his mother said he went to an elementary school "for slower kids".
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On July 24,1982, Steven Avery married Lori Mathiesen, who was a single mother.
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In March 1981, at age 18, Steven Avery was convicted of burglarizing a bar with a friend.
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Steven Avery was found guilty of animal cruelty and was jailed until August 1983.
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In January 1985, Steven Avery ran his cousin's car off to the side of the road.
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Steven Avery was upset and alleged that she had been telling people he had been masturbating on the front lawn, which he stated was not true.
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Steven Avery was sentenced to six years for "endangering safety while evincing a depraved mind" and possession of a firearm.
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Steven Avery was arrested after the victim, Penny Beerntsen, picked him from a photo lineup, and later from a live lineup.
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Steven Avery continued to maintain his innocence in the Beerntsen case.
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Allen, who bore a striking physical resemblance to Steven Avery, had committed an assault in 1983 at the same beach where Beerntsen was later attacked in 1985, and was under police surveillance during the period of Beerntsen's assault due to his history of criminal behavior against women.
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Steven Avery had already been charged with a weapons violation as a convicted felon.
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Steven Avery maintained that the murder charge was a frameup, intended to discredit his pending civil case.
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Steven Avery's attorneys said there was a conflict of interest in the participation of Manitowoc County and suggested evidence tampering.
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Steven Avery's attorneys discovered that an evidence box containing a vial of Steven Avery's blood, collected in 1996 during his appeals efforts in the Beerntsen case, had been unsealed and contained what they believed to be a new puncture hole visible in the stopper.
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Steven Avery later recanted his confession, claiming that it had been coerced, and refused to testify to his involvement at Avery's trial.
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Steven Avery testified at his own trial and never mentioned coercion.
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Steven Avery stood trial in Calumet County in March 2007, with Calumet District Attorney Ken Kratz leading the prosecution, and Manitowoc County Circuit Court judge Patrick Willis presiding.
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Steven Avery was sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole on the murder conviction, plus five years on the weapons charge, to run concurrently.
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In January 2016, after Making a Murderer had been released, People magazine reported that one of the Steven Avery trial jurors was the father of a Manitowoc County sheriff's deputy, and another juror's wife was a clerk with Manitowoc County.
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In 2022, Steven Avery was transferred to Fox Lake Correctional Institution, a medium-security prison.
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Steven Avery last filed for parole in 2021 but was denied.
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Steven Avery is still currently trying to file for parole to this day.
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On February 26,2019, the Wisconsin Court of Appeals granted Steven Avery's petition requesting that his case be remanded back to the trial court for an evidentiary hearing on his motion for a new trial.
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Jodi Stachowski, an ex-fiancee of Steven Avery, reported in 2016 in an interview with Nancy Grace on HLN that her support for Avery in the documentary was "all an act".
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Steven Avery further reported that she personally believes he is "not innocent" in Halbach's murder because "he threatened to kill [her] and [her] family and a friend of [hers]" in the past.
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Steven Avery alleges that Avery had written her threatening letters from prison.