Steven Avery Confessed to Prison Mate?

With all the news about politics lately, a letter written by a prison mate of Steven Avery barely made the news.  In January, The Rockford Advocate published a letter written by convicted killer Joseph Evans, Jr. The letter is nine pages long and in the letter Joseph says Avery confessed to killing Halbach.

Whoa!  Right.  Why didn’t this make the news?  The Avery case has been so huge!

Joseph said he talked to Avery for a period of six months and built a friendship with Avery, and that’s how he got the confession.  He also says he is a new Christian and felt obligated to come forward with this story now.

He tells a story that may be offensive for some people read.  Be cautioned.

Here is a link to the letter.

What do you see when you read it?

SFGate.com says that both men were housed together for a period of time at the same prison.

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17 replies
  1. Tracker
    Tracker says:

    My first thought is I’m alway skeptical of confessions to other inmates. It’s a technique that seem ripe for abuse.

    Upon reading the letter what he said about Brendan Dassey pretty much matched what I thought of him – someone not too bright, someone easily influenced by both Steve Avery and by the police detectives. I didn’t see any of the Netflix shows, I only watched the first interogation video of Brendan. It seemed to me he was tricked and pressured into saying he took part in the actual murder and not the cover up. It makes sense that Steve blames him for getting convicted and that’s why he won’t say anything. [to see the video google “Brendan Dassey Police Interview / Interrogation Part #1 ( Making a Murderer Steven Avery Case )”]

  2. ChicagoThoughts
    ChicagoThoughts says:

    Reading and seeing are so different. I have much more comfort in visual cues than in written, but how cool to look at the written and guess. Look forward to learning more about the written cues!!

  3. Sophie Mccoy
    Sophie Mccoy says:

    About 3 pages in, it started to ring untrue for me. Details such as taping over her mouth. Why do that if you know she is dead? And slitting her throat but not much blood. Would there be any blood at all in those throad vessels several hours after death? The shooting of her head, heart and genitals several hours after death. Why risk drawing attention to yourself and a dead body with a bunch of gunshots ringing out needlessly? I do believe Steven Avery is guilty of Theresa’s murder. I just don’t think I believe this confession is genuine or, rather, I don’t believe all these details are genuine. Interested to see what Eyes thinks.

  4. Mrs Odie
    Mrs Odie says:

    To me, the details make sense because Steven Avery is not smart. He thinks he is, but he’s not. It makes sense that he cut her after killing her because one of the big refutations of him cutting her was that there was no blood in the bedroom and cutting someone’s throat would cause blood to spray all over if they were alive. Shooting her dead body sounds like something a sadistic psychopath would do just to do it. She was an object to him. Same reason for cutting her. Because he felt like it. This account of this poor woman’s murder makes much more sense than anything I heard in the Netflix documentary. Part of the reason people had trouble believing he killed Teresa is because so many nonsensical things happened. But this inmate’s explanation makes sense to me. Having worked with teenagers who have very low IQs, Brandon’s actions and reactions also make sense to me. Very sad. I hope Avery dies in prison.

    • wttdl
      wttdl says:

      I’m surprised, mostly, with your certainty … from which, of course, all your certainty about his “misogyny” must stem.

      On a different note, there is no way to ever repay someone for the loss of 18 years in the prime of their lives (he had been wrongly convicted and was exonerated): from that standpoint, even if he is guilty this time around, he’s already served more than his time.

      And lastly, in 23 years, Kathleen T. Zellner has righted more wrongful prosecutions
      than any private attorney in America. Given your certainty about Avery’s guilt, and the reality that Zellner has actually chosen to take this case, makes me think you must be equally certain of her fantastical incompetence as well.

      • Mrs Odie
        Mrs Odie says:

        I don’t know what you’re talking about, honestly. The question was did I believe the confession letter. Did I think it sounded credible. I do. I watched all of the Netflix documentary and I believe Avery killed Teresa. He may have gone into prison innocent of rape, but he came out a criminal. I have not political views about the case, and my opinion is not of any value or importance except that I have it.

  5. Valerie Sherrard
    Valerie Sherrard says:

    I find too much to doubt to believe this is authentic. For one thing, the idea that Avery confessed his guilt during what was their very first meeting was extremely suspect. Any inmate would know better than to trust a stranger, and that would be especially true for someone who had previously done time. As well, the grammar and spelling throughout both the handwritten and typed sections are inconsistent, and suggest to me someone who is making deliberate errors to look uneducated, while it is clear in other places that is not the case.

    • killer instinct
      killer instinct says:

      Eyes doen’t reply to these cases any more. Cool huh? I think she took it personally that nobody signed up for her last master class. Honestly , Eyes, it is way overpriced. There are so many people who would like to go, but travels etc included, it’s like 3000 dollars for three days. And your loyal followers seem not to be swindlers, bankers or salesmen, who can invest that much money that easily, knowing they can get it back through work instantly. We know that becoming a human lie detector is a lifetime investment, but still, it’s not like one masterclass and poof all is good. It’s a lifetime of work – you are living proof. We all want to learn and we’re willing to pay for it – but you, or we, have to find some other business plan that will make everybody happy. These articles without Mentor input and arbitration will sooner or later degrade the fanbase. And there’s not many other places for wannabees like us to go to. So, like other before, I ask Eyes to reconsider her decision. Or maybe I’m wrong and she’s doing more than well and doesn’t have time for this anymore. That is also cool. Also long as there’s no lying…

      • Eyes for Lies
        Eyes for Lies says:

        Your response is baffling. One thing I teach is to base your thoughts off of evidence. What evidence do you have to your unfounded claims? I’m truly scratching my head at what you write as rather off-the-wall and baseless. It’s amazing to me when I offer a free service, or a choice for paid training how people want to tell me to do it differently because I am not meeting their (one person’s) needs. I would highly recommend looking within yourself. I sense you are not a happy person, and that I can assure you has more to do with you sadly than me. I think you need to find a new source for your information because I can see I will never please you. Best to you, KI, truly.

    • Eyes for Lies
      Eyes for Lies says:

      I don’t believe this letter can be conclusive for any decision on its face. I would need more information. Many people are conjecturing, which is fine, but you must conjecture with facts, evidence and piece it together from there. Whimsically making guesses is just that: a guess.

  6. melinda
    melinda says:

    I couldn’t read it very thoroughly without starting to get angry because it seems untruthful.

    In the explanatory letter, Evans says he’s asking nothing except the public acknowledge the victim — then mentions the Dassey case as if it were an afterthought. In the typed story, however, his motivation for clearing Dassey in the first meeting with Avery is *either* that Dassey didn’t really do it, or that as a prison convert to Christianity he is concerned for Avery’s well-being. He never again mentions the victim or expresses any sympathy for her.

    That’s at least three different motivations, all by page 2.

    The initial conversation Evans recounts is extremely specific, but it’s not the way people talk. Unnatural.

    The segue to the part about Avery showing Dassey Teresa Halbach’s vagina is bizarre. Yet this scene finally sounds true. It’s realistic because it’s such a vivid sensory image. It also seems as if Evans enjoys this image, because it doesn’t belong here but he brought it up, and later he repeats it.

    A few other thoughts:

    * After she’s probably already dead from being choked, why would Avery tie her up more thoroughly?

    * Why are there two times when he’s not sure if she’s dead?

    * As another commenter said, why does Avery get duct tape and rope for someone who is already dead?

    * Why did they cut the throat of an already dead woman? (Hint, they didn’t. This is when they actually killed her.)

    * He says he had sex with her probably dead body for 1.5 hours. There are no mentions of any postmortem changes in the body, such as reflexive muscle actions, and he says that he sodomized the body, but at death, a person pees and poops because the sphincters no longer work to hold in waste. There’s no mention of her releasing waste.

    * Do we have reason to think that Avery is a necrophiliac? Seems very unlikely, and it’s pretty unusual. It seems more likely that what he wanted was to experience power over Teresa Halbach while she was alive, then killed her so she couldn’t report the crime. This is more common. Two quite different things.

    * When Avery supposedly told Dassey that Halbach was dead, wouldn’t Dassey have been upset at the revealed information that he’d just had sex with a dead person? His reaction is not mentioned. By now, Halbach would likely have felt abnormally cold to touch for Dassey. There is still no mention of any postmortem changes.

    I’m sure there are more inconsistencies and problems, but these are the ones I see initially.

    • Mrs Odie
      Mrs Odie says:

      I think he expresses little sadness for the victim because he is a woman beater and woman killer himself. He sympathizes with the men, but not the poor woman. I think it’s possible for him to be both telling the truth and a self-serving person. They aren’t mutually exclusive.

  7. Pingy
    Pingy says:

    I think the 9 page letter makes sense because of all the detail in it. Besides, Avery fits the mold of a serial killer because he is abusive to animals. He was once convicted of throwing a cat into a fire. I believe the letter.

  8. Marsy
    Marsy says:

    I don’t think this is true.

    His claim that Avery admitted to him he did it and that he was planning on suing the county for millions on their first meeting seems implausible and kind of stupid for Avery to compromise his own lawsuit. If he’s going to spill the beans to some guy he just met, wouldn’t the entire prison yard have found out already?

    I also googled this man and an article came up about how his wife’s family knew he was abusive and on at least one occasion he grabbed her by the crotch.

    It’s seems like too much of a coincidence that Avery supposedly told him he also grabbed the victim by the crotch. It was all overly vulgar and unnecessary which makes me think the man writing it actually enjoyed adding these disgusting visuals.

    And, he’s also claiming Dassey was involved, and I just find that very hard to believe after watching the Netflix doc.

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