Teresa Halbach
| Steven Avery | |
|---|---|
| Born |
July 9, 1962 Manitowoc County, Wisconsin, United States |
| Criminal penalty | Life imprisonment without parole |
| Criminal status | Incarcerated at Waupun Correctional Institution |
| Parent(s) | Allan Avery Dolores Avery |
| Conviction(s) |
Sexual assault (exonerated, September 2003) First-degree murder |
Steven Avery (born July 9, 1962) is a man from Manitowoc County, Wisconsin, who was convicted of sexual assault and attempted murder in 1985, at the age of 22, served 18 years of a 32-year sentence, was exonerated by DNA testing, and convicted of murder in 2007.
After his release from prison in 2003, Avery filed a $36-million civil lawsuit against Manitowoc County, its sheriff, and its district attorney. In November 2005, while his civil suit was pending, he was charged and later convicted of the murder of a Wisconsin photographer and sentenced to life imprisonment without possibility of parole. Although the conviction was upheld by higher courts, a new series of appeal motions was filed in January 2016.
Avery's 2003 exoneration prompted widespread discussion of Wisconsin's criminal justice system. The Criminal Justice Reform Bill, enacted into law in 2005, implemented reforms aimed at preventing future wrongful convictions.
The 2007 murder trial and its associated issues are the focus of the Netflix original documentary series Making a Murderer, released in December 2015. Also covered in the series is the arrest and prosecution of his young nephew, Brendan Dassey, convicted in 2007 as an accessory. In August 2016, a federal judge overturned Dassey's conviction on the grounds that his confession had been unconstitutionally coerced.
Steven Avery was born in Manitowoc County, Wisconsin, to Allan and Dolores Avery. Since 1965, his family has operated a salvage yard on the 40-acre property where they lived outside town. Avery has three siblings: Chuck, a younger brother Earl, and Barb (Barbara). He attended public schools in nearby Mishicot and Manitowoc, where his mother said he went to an elementary school "for slower kids". According to one of his lawyers in 1985, school records showed that his intelligence quotient (IQ) was 70, and that he "barely functioned in school".
On July 24, 1982, Avery married Lori Mathiesen, who was a single mother. They had four children together: Rachel, Jenny, and twins Steven and Will.
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