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On October 31, 2005, photographer Teresa Halbach was scheduled to meet with Steven Avery at his home on the grounds of Avery's Auto Salvage to photograph his sister's minivan for a sales ad in Auto Trader Magazine. She went missing the same day.

On November 11, Avery was charged with the murder of Halbach after her car and charred bone fragments were found at the salvage yard. He maintained that authorities were attempting to frame him for Halbach's disappearance, to make it harder for him to win his pending civil case regarding the wrongful sexual assault conviction. To avoid a conflict of interest, Mark R. Rohrer, the Manitowoc County district attorney, requested that authorities from neighboring Calumet County lead the investigation. Manitowoc County Sheriff's Department officials remained involved in the case, however, participating in searches of Avery's trailer, garage and property, leading to accusations of tampering with evidence.[13]

On March 2, 2006, Avery's nephew, Brendan Dassey, was charged with being a party to first-degree intentional homicide, mutilation of a corpse, and first-degree sexual assault after confessing to investigators; he was later convicted in a separate trial.[14] Dassey's attorneys have filed a writ of habeas corpus in the district court for his release or retrial, claiming constitutional rights violations due to ineffective assistance of counsel and a coerced confession.[15]

Trial[edit]
Ken Kratz, the district attorney of Calumet County, was assigned as special prosecutor in the case, and Manitowoc County Circuit Court Judge Patrick Willis presided over the trial.

During Steven Avery’s trial there was evidence found that Steven's Avery's blood was in Teresa Halbach's car. Defense lawyer’s Dean Strang and Jerome Buting obtained a court order to look at Steven Avery's 1985 case file which contained a sample of Steven's blood. Alongside Dean and Jerome, Investigator Mark Wiegert and Prosecutor Norm Gahn were there. When they retrieved the evidence box they had discovered that the outside had been resealed along with the styrofoam box that held the tube. The tube itself, had a tiny small hole at the top, the size of a hypodermic needle. They brought this evidence to the table at the trial since it was verified that LabCorp does not do that for sampling blood. The defense team wanted to test the blood in the car to see if it contained EDTA. The FBI created a new test to sample the blood and discovered there was no EDTA in the blood samples of the car, dismissing the evidence.

On March 18, 2007, Avery was found guilty of murdering Halbach and guilty of illegally possessing a firearm, but he was found not guilty of mutilating a corpse.[16] On June 1, 2007, he was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the murder of Halbach. He was also sentenced to five years for felony possession of a firearm, to run concurrently with the murder sentence. Initially housed at the Wisconsin Secure Program Facility in Boscobel, he was moved in 2012 to the Waupun Correctional Institution in Waupun.[17][18]

In January 2016, People reported on the makeup of the trial's jury, revealing that one of the jurors in Avery's trial was the father of a Manitowoc County Sheriff's deputy, and another juror's wife was a Manitowoc County clerk.[19] Juror Richard Mahler, who was excused from the trial after the jury had begun deliberations due to a family emergency, later commented on the trial and verdict. He stated that, in an early vote, seven of the jurors voted not guilty, and he was mystified as to how the jury eventually agreed on a guilty verdict.[19] Another juror told the filmmakers of Making a Murderer that he or she felt intimidated into returning a guilty verdict, fearing for his or her safety.[20]

Appeals[edit]
In August 2011, a state appeals court denied Avery's appeal for a new trial.[21][22] The Wisconsin Supreme Court declined to hear his case.

On January 11, 2016, Avery filed for a new appeal citing violations of due process rights.[4] The following day, attorney Kathleen Zellner announced that her Chicago-area firm would be representing Avery. She will be assisted by Tricia Bushnell, legal director of the Midwest Innocence Project.[23][24]

Petitions[edit]
On December 20, 2015, a petition was created at petitions.whitehouse.gov titled "Investigate and pardon the Averys in Wisconsin and punish the corrupt officials who railroaded these innocent men".[25][26] The White House responded to the petition on January 7, 2016, stating that, since Avery and Dassey "are both state prisoners, the President cannot pardon them. A pardon in this case would need to be issued at the state level by the appropriate authorities."[27][28] Wisconsin governor Scott Walker has stated that he would not be pardoning Avery.[29]

A second petition, titled "Initiate a Federal Investigation of the Sheriff's Offices of Manitowoc County and Calumet County, Wisconsin", was submitted to petitions.whitehouse.gov on January 7, 2016.[30] The petition was archived because it did not meet the signature requirements.