I ended up watching season 2. I have two episodes left. I'm blown away at the amount of evidence/violations Zellner's team has presented. How both Steven and Brendan are still in prison is beyond any injustice I've known about in my short 35-year-old life. This is insane.
The problem with Avery is his past. It's checkered to say the least. If he hadn't had a violent history he might be believable.
A couple of items of note from an article..............
In the summer of 2004, a relative of Avery’s under the age of 18 claimed he sexually assaulted her. (Warning: this links to an interview with the girl, where she graphically describes the rape and Avery’s threats.) The girl’s mother did not want her identified, and said the girl did not want to talk to detectives because Avery told her if she “told anyone about their activities together, he would kill her family.” Avery's fiance Jodi claimed Avery had admitted sleeping with the girl to her. Avery's friend Tammy Weber had also heard Avery admit to sleeping with the girl, as well as Tammy's mother. Avery claimed he spent time with the girl hunting and fishing, but they never had sex.
The prosecution in the Halbach case filed statements from prisoners Avery had served time with, claiming he had talked to them about his plans to rape and torture women when he was released. The affidavits claim Avery showed them drawings of his planned torture chamber. The prosecution also filed an affidavit from a childhood friend of Avery's who claimed he took her virginity by raping her, and he threatened to hurt her if she screamed.
From The Huffington Post.....
The documentary “Making A Murderer” follows the story of Steven Avery, who was convicted of raping Penny Beerntsen in 1985. He spent 18 years behind bars before being exonerated by DNA evidence. After release from prison, Avery filed a multi-million dollar lawsuit against those responsible for his lost years: Manitowoc County, along with its former sheriff and district attorney.
In 2005, he was arrested in the rape and murder of Teresa Halbach, a photographer who was last seen on his property. The documentary suggests that a vindictive and corrupt police department may have framed Avery because of the looming lawsuit.
Stachowski, Avery’s former fiancee, appears in the documentary as one of his strongest supporters. Now, she says she was lying in the footage used in “Making A Murderer,” and that Avery coerced her into saying positive things about him.
“He told me how to act,” she said. “I didn’t know what to do, I didn’t want to get hurt.”
Stachowski described one incident in which Avery beat her and then strangled her. Police records show that in September of 2004, she reported that Avery pushed her to the floor, hit her and told her he was going to kill her. She then said he strangled her to the point where she lost consciousness. When she woke up, she told police, Avery was dragging her to his car. They were eventually stopped by an officer and Avery was taken into custody.
Police records also document another incident where Stachowski said she received a verbal threat from Avery while she was out of jail on work-release privilege.
There’s also evidence that Avery may have abused his former wife, Lori. In a police report from 1983, Avery’s sister-in-law told police that Avery “beat up on his wife, and she left home and went to a domestic violence center.”
Then in 1984, police responded to a “family trouble” incident at the Avery residence, but Lori declined to give a written statement.
After Avery was imprisoned for the 1985 rape of Penny Beerntsen, Lori reported to police that she received threatening letters in the mail from her husband — a fact the documentary breezes over quickly.
“Fuck you if you dont brang up my kids I will kill you I promis. Ha Ha (sic)” one reads. Another one says simply: “I will get you.”
Of course, even if Avery is guilty of domestic violence, it doesn’t mean that he is guilty of murder. But it’s a relevant part of the puzzle, as it’s not uncommon for men who commit violent crimes to have a history of abuse against intimate partners.
“Men who commit violence rehearse and perfect it against their families first,” wrote activists Pamela Shifman and Salamishah Tillet, who explained the phenomenon in the New York Times. “Women and children are target practice, and the home is the training ground for these men’s later actions.”
It’s worth noting that strangulation is a known predictor of future homicide, meaning that some men who strangle will go on to kill. As Gael Strack, one of the nation’s leading strangulation experts, told The Huffington Post in a previous story, “The minute you put pressure on someone’s neck, you are really announcing that you are a killer.”
Stachowski said she is speaking out now because she wants people to know the truth. “He is not innocent,” she said.
Avery’s defense attorney, and filmmakers Moira Demos and Laura Ricciardi could not immediately be reached for comment.
