Teresa Halbach was murdered in 2005.
Steven Avery was convicted of her murder.
Now, with renewed focus on the case following the release of the Netflix documentary Making a Murderer, it has emerged that Halbach had tried to quit the job that saw her at the Avery’s auto yard on the day she disappeared.
Listen to Mamamia Out Loud’s bonus episode on Making a Murderer:
Halbach, 25, was a photographer and had started her own business that was growing steadily.
She no longer needed to work for Auto Trader, and was trying to quit.
“The sad part was that at the time of her death, she was getting more and more clients and couldn’t take care of Auto Trader at the same time,” a longtime friend of Halbach’s told PEOPLE magazine.
“She had told Auto Trader she was going to quit in two weeks and just work out of her studio because she was burning the candle at both ends.”
PEOPLE reported that Halbach had told all her Auto Trader clients that she could no longer do work for the magazine.
She had photographed cars for the Averys 15 times before and had told friends she no longer wanted to go to their auto yard because she was worried about Steven Avery’s behaviour towards her.
Halbach reportedly became concerned when Avery came to the door on one of her last visits to the salvage yard, “wearing just a towel”, PEOPLE reported.
“She was worried about that. She said, “I am not going back to the Averys”.”
Steven Avery and his nephew Brendan Dassey were convicted of Halbach’s murder in 2007. The prosecution argued that Avery was fixated on Halbach and had assaulted and restrained her, before violently murdering her and burning her body in a bonfire.
His nephew, they said, had been enlisted by Avery to help.
Avery continues to deny any involvement in Halbach’s murder, and says he was framed by local law enforcement who were out for revenge after his conviction for a 1985 rape was overturned in 2003.
Avery had spent 18 years in jail for the crime, which DNA evidence proved he did not commit.
He was in the process of suing Manitowoc county for wrongful conviction when he was arrested for Halbach’s murder.
Making a Murderer has thrown intense scrutiny onto the Halbach case and the conduct of police and the local prosecutor.
Avery has appealed his conviction, and in recent weeks suggested that it was his brothers who were to blame for Halbach’s death.
Top Comments
now I'm even more confused!! i was leaning towards innocent.. but to point the blame at his brothers like that seems like the desperate act of a guilty person. i hate/love this whole damn series!
I'm with you, going back and forth. But there is a link on reddit to the brief this refers to, and it's interesting reading. It's basically an argument that police erred in not investigating other viable suspects by identifying who else had access and opportunity, and some did demonstrate suspicious behaviours around the time of the murders. It left me undecided as to who did it but still convinced the jury should have found there was enough reasonable doubt not to convict.
Warning, if you go to reddit to read about this case you will get caught down the rabbit hole all over again.
They do say the criminal always returns to the scene of the crime. This is so often true for child abductions, missing people and bushfires. They often join in the recovery efforts. The police had a responsibility to investigate the search party.
Well that makes no sense at all. If she was going to quit and was so freaked out by Steven Avery as the prosecution claimed, then the question remains WHY did she go there at all?? The friends comments just give rise to more questions rather than answers.