Steven Vail Case

Steven Avery returned to his family in 2003 after being exonerated for the 1985 rape and assault of a woman, Penny Beerntsen, in his home county Manitowoc County, Wisconsin. He had already served 18 years in prison for the crime. New DNA evidence proved him innocent. He's welcomed back by his family and friends and also with the full attention of media and state politicians.

Steven Avery's record before the rape arrest wasn't what you'd call clean. It included a few burglaries and cruelty to an animal — he doused a cat with gasoline and placed it in a fire. Avery, who's revealed to have an IQ of 70, chalks it up to hanging with the wrong people. But his family insists he would always admit to his wrongdoings if he actually did them. Avery

When she went to the hospital, Judy Dvorak, another Deputy Sheriff and Sandra Morris’s friend, prepared the incident report, and lead Mrs. Beerntsen into a very suggestive situation believing that Steven was her assailant. From the fact that the sketch artist made a composite sketch probably using a mugshot of Steven, to the Deputy Sheriff only focusing on Avery as a suspect. Sheriff Kocourek was warned from the Manitowoc police that the suspect for Beerntsen’s rape may have been Gregory Allen. Detective Thomas Bergner told the Sheriff that they usually have surveillance on Gregory Allen on a daily basis but at the time of the assault, he was not being watched. The Sheriff told the detective that they already had the right guy. Steven was taken into custody. The Sheriff kept him from having phone privileges and from seeing anyone, including his lawyer. He didn’t have a chance of communicating at

All of his time was accounted from his alibi, and he had witnesses to vouch. He was sentenced to 32 years in prison without a chance for parole, never admitting guilt because he did not commit the crime. Meanwhile Gregory Allen was freely out in Wisconsin, violently raping and assaulting women. At the time of his last rape in 1995, he was 57 years old. Steven and his wife Lori divorced while he was in prison. All of his appeals got denied. Then, his post-conviction lawyers Robert Henak and Stephen Glenn had the DNA evidence tested in 1995. The court shot down the evidence stating that the 3rd set of alleles from the test could have belonged to anyone and didn’t prove Steven’s innocence. Eventually, the Wisconsin Innocence Project got the rape kit tested again. The lab found a rooted pubic hair and tested it. This was the proof of Avery’s innocence. It was Gregory Allen’s DNA. Steven Avery was released from