Teresa Halbach

Case background and investigation

Teresa Halbach, a 25-year-old freelance photographer from Calumet County, Wisconsin, was last seen on October 31, 2005, after driving to the Avery family's auto salvage yard in Manitowoc County to photograph a vehicle for Auto Trader magazine. When she failed to return home, her family reported her missing on November 3, 2005. Two days later, on November 5, her Toyota RAV4 was found partially concealed among vehicles at the Avery salvage yard. Investigators subsequently recovered charred bone fragments in a burn pit near Steven Avery's residence, and forensic analysis identified them as Halbach's remains. Blood recovered from inside the RAV4 was matched to Avery.

Steven Avery, whose family owned the salvage yard, was arrested on November 11, 2005, and charged with Halbach's murder, along with related counts. His then-16-year-old nephew, Brendan Dassey, was charged in March 2006 after telling investigators during recorded interrogations that he had helped Avery assault and kill Halbach and burn her body. The case drew heightened attention because Avery had previously served 18 years for a 1985 rape and attempted-murder conviction before being exonerated by DNA evidence and released on September 11, 2003 with assistance from the Wisconsin Innocence Project. At the time of his 2005 arrest, Avery had a pending civil lawsuit against Manitowoc County over that wrongful conviction.

Both were convicted in separate 2007 trials. On March 18, 2007, a jury found Avery guilty of first-degree intentional homicide and a firearms charge; he was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Dassey was convicted on April 25, 2007 of being party to first-degree intentional homicide, second-degree sexual assault, and mutilation of a corpse, and was sentenced to life with parole eligibility in 2048. Avery's trial defense argued that Manitowoc County officers—who were supposed to be recused because of the civil suit—had access to evidence and alleged that key items may have been planted, a claim the prosecution rejected. Jurors accepted the state's forensic case.

The convictions became internationally known after Netflix released the documentary series "Making a Murderer" on December 18, 2015. The filmmakers and Avery's supporters raised questions about police conduct, the handling of physical evidence, and the reliability of Dassey's confession, which critics said was coerced from a teenager with limited intellectual capacity. Prosecutors and law enforcement have consistently disputed the documentary's framing, arguing it omitted incriminating evidence and that the investigations and verdicts were sound. These remain contested allegations on both sides; the courts have not overturned either conviction.

Dassey's confession was the subject of extended federal litigation. A federal magistrate judge overturned his conviction in August 2016, finding the confession involuntary, and a three-judge appeals panel affirmed in 2017. But on December 8, 2017, the full Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals reversed 4–3 and reinstated the conviction, and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case on June 25, 2018. Meanwhile, attorney Kathleen Zellner has pursued numerous post-conviction motions for Avery, advancing alternate-suspect theories and requests for new forensic testing. On January 15, 2025, the Wisconsin Court of Appeals again rejected Avery's bid for an evidentiary hearing, calling his third-party evidence speculative. As of 2026, both Steven Avery and Brendan Dassey remain incarcerated and their convictions stand, while Avery's legal team continues to seek further review.