‘Making a Murderer’ Update: Judge Orders New Testing of Steven Avery Evidence

Zellner’s motion, filed in August, sought testing for scientific evidence that the attorney said didn’t exist during Avery’s trial. According to the Post-Crescent, most of the evidence that will undergo new testing relates to Halbach’s RAV4, which was found along the outskirts of the Avery Salvage Yard days after her disappearance. The evidence includes blood flakes from the floor of the vehicle, bloodstains from the driver’s and passenger’s seats, a swab from the car’s ignition area, and a bloodstain swab from the rear passenger door. Avery became a topic of national conversation late last year, when the Netflix docu-series “Making a Murderer” premiered and threw his guilt into doubt for many viewers. While Avery received good news on Wednesday, his nephew Brendan Dassey — also convicted in Halbach’s 2005 death, and featured on “Making a Murderer” — was not so fortunate. After a judge overturned Dassey’s conviction and ordered him to be released, a different judge ordered that he remain behind bars, granting Attorney General Brad Schimel’s emergency motion for a stay of Dassey’s release. The ruling, issued last week, ordered that Dassey remain in prison pending the outcome of the attorney general’s appeal.