Steven Avery Persuasive Essay

Steven Avery, Innocent Man or Murderer

Who exactly is Steven Avery? At one point, he was an innocent man from Manitowoc County, Wisconsin, but in July of 1985, that changed. Avery was not the brightest young man, but he seemed to be harmless. As he grew older, he began to make some thoughtless decisions that would land him in jail.

When Avery was eighteen he was sentenced to two years in prison for burglarizing a bar with one of his friends. He only served ten months of his sentence instead of the full two years. At the age of twenty, he took his cat and threw it in a fire. The cat was found dead and Avery was found guilty of animal cruelty. Two years later, his first cousin, Sandra Morris claimed that he tried to hit her car with his own

She contacted the police right away after the incident had happened. She described the man to the sketch artist and when he finished it closely resembled Steven Avery. Avery was already in the system so this made him the number one suspect. Avery denied that he did anything to Beernsten, but no one believed him except his immediate family. He did however have a strong alibi, as well as a total of sixteen witnesses to prove that Avery was innocent. The judge sentenced Avery to thirty-two years in prison for a crime that he may or may not have committed. He was told if he admitted to the crime they would release him from jail, but he refused because he did not want to admit to something he did not do. He and his wife got a divorce and he lost custody of all his children while he was in prison. Eighteen years later Avery finally got what he wanted and was proved to be innocent. There was one single hair from the case that was collected and was tested. The hair was a perfect match to a man named, Gregory Allen, who has been arrested for sexual assault before. Avery was released from prison on September, 11 2003. Two years later, a woman named Teresa Halbach disappeared. Avery was the last person to see her alive and this caused him to be the number one suspect again. Before he knew it Steven Avery was back in jail for the murder of Teresa

An example of this is in the first episode when Avery’s parents just wanted him to come home and be released from prison, because they believed their son. Even though he made mistakes in the past they loved their son and if he said he did not sexually assault that woman than that is what they believed. His mother did everything she could possible to get people to help her get her son out of jail, but no one would help her. Another example would be when they told Avery that if he admitted to sexually assaulting that he would be released. He would not admit it. As much as he wanted to get out he just could not go the rest of his life lying about it. Obviously those are examples of times when the audience felt sorry for him and possibly even thought he was not guilty, but there were times when the documentary made him look guilty. An example of this was his past. He had been to jail three times before he was accused in 1985. He is not that intelligent and seems to be influenced by the wrong people. This persuaded the audience to lean more toward him being guilty.

Anyone who watched the documentary can easily tell that a lot of research went into this. There were lots of detail that the directors included that really made it difficult to decide whether he is