Steven Avery’s Ex-Fiancé Says She Lied in ‘Making a Murderer”
Jodi Stachwoski now believes Avery killed Teresa Halbach.
Jodi Stachowski, the ex-fiancé of Steven Avery who insisted he was innocent of the murder of Teresa Halbach, has done an about-face. In an interview on Nancy Grace’s HLN show, Stachowski said she was lying in interviews shown in Making a Murderer in which she was supportive of Avery.
Stachowski claimed in the Netflix documentary series that she spoke to Avery on the phone in two separate conversations the evening of October 31, when Teresa Halbach was murdered. At the time, Stachowski was behind bars for a DUI conviction.
“I called Steven at 5:36 p.m. — supposedly when all this murder or whatever was supposedly happening,” Stachowski said in Making a Murderer. “And we talked for 15 minutes, and the conversation was normal. He didn’t sound rushed or like he was doing anything. And if he was in the middle of doing something, we wouldn’t have talked for 15 minutes.”
But today, Stachowski insists that she has always believed Avery was guilty of the murder. “He did sound funny,” during those phone calls, she said on the HLN show. “He didn’t sound rushed or whatever, but he did sound funny – like he was lying or hiding something.”
Stachowski explained her change of heart by claiming Avery pressured her to advocated for his innocence and “make him look good,” and threatened to “make her pay” if she didn’t.
Stachowski seems rather unsure of herself in the interview, where she is often light on specifics. But she speaks repeatedly of Avery’s abusive tendencies towards her during their two-year relationship, and said she once ate two boxes of rat poison so that she could escape to a hospital. “Behind closed doors he’s a monster,” she said.
She also said she believes Avery’s nephew Brendan Dassey should not be accountable. “I believe Steven threatened Brendan to do it…if Brendan didn’t do what Steven said he’d hurt him,” she said, “probably end up killing him too.”
According to Stachowski, Avery’s rage stemmed from his wrongful rape conviction 20 years earlier. He served an 18-year sentence before DNA evidence finally exonerated him. His ex-fiancé said Avery believed “all bitches owe him” because of the mistake made by the woman who wrongly accused him of rape. “We all owed him, and he could do whatever he wanted.”
Stachowski said she was approached by the Making a Murderer filmmakers to do a final interview before the project was completed and she declined, while also requesting that none of her interviews be featured in the final product. She was somewhat vague about the explanation she gave them, but if her HLN interview is to be believed, it seems possible that the Making a Murderer team knew she wasn’t standing by her original story.
Watch the full interview here:
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