A cool wind swept through the woods and fields of rural Northeastern Wisconsin last November, over searchers already chilled by the possible answers to a looming question: What happened to Teresa Halbach?
Tirelessly, volunteers passed out fliers, canvassed town after town—but it seemed the trail was as cold as the dipping November temperatures. There was no trace of 25-year-old Teresa or of the blue Toyota Rav 4 she’d been driving on the day she vanished.
As day turned to night, searchers only stopped to warm themselves and to pray. It wasn’t hard to find volunteers: Teresa had a wide circle of friends and one of them was Ryan Hillegas. He couldn’t believe anyone would want to hurt Teresa.
Ryan Hillegas, Teresa Halbach's friend: She got along with everybody. She always knew what to say. She was extremely confident in everything she did, and everything she’s ever done.
Three years ago, Teresa started her own photography business in Green Bay, about 30 miles north of her home. She never strayed far from her large, close-knit family. She even took the time to coach her sister’s seventh grade volleyball team.
By all accounts, she presented the image of wholesome Midwestern family values—hardworking, admired and seemingly destined for happiness—until last fall when so many feared that some awful fate might have intervened.
Victoria Corderi, Dateline correspondent: Did you get a feeling in your gut?Mike Halbach, Teresa's brother: I was like there definitely is something wrong here.
Her brother Mike and her best friend Ryan organized the search effort after family and friends compared notes and realized they hadn’t heard from or seen her for a few days.
Corderi: She’s not a person who would just disappear and not tell anybody?Mike Halbach: She wasn’t that type of person. She would let someone know. I certainly tried to put pieces together in my head where Teresa could have been. And I couldn’t put pieces together. We knew that we had to search everywhere we could.
The Halbach family also called the police who immediately began investigating Teresa’s sudden disappearance.
She had been out that day on three appointments, photographing cars for sale for auto trader magazine, something she frequently did to supplement her income as a portrait photographer. After that, she vanished. The mystery deepened as each anguish-filled hour took its toll on her parents.
But this isn’t just the story of Teresa Halbach and the frantic search to find her. That’s just the starting point. It’s also the story of another woman— a crime victim from 20 years ago who never met the missing photographer, but whose story, through a dizzying series of twists and turns, may be connected to Teresa’s disappearance.
It’s a tale of crime and punishment and redemption, misguided justice, DNA, and wrongful imprisonment that would leave many scars and many victims...
A story that starts 20 years ago
Penny Beerntsen used to live just 12 miles from where the search for Teresa Halbach was in full swing—in Manitowoc, another small town where people knew their neighbors and walked the streets unafraid.
Penny Beerntsen: [It’s a] great place to raise a family and children, excellent schools, great YMCA.
Penny says life was simple and rewarding with her husband and two children, until a vicious crime took away that security in 1985. She was 36 years old back then, and had almost died at the hands of a stranger. But that was just the beginning of her long, strange story.
Beerntsen: It’s caused me to sort of look at what I’ve done. What’s the meaning of all this?
Now, Penny would learn, a new chapter was beginning. It turns out what happened to her so many years ago and what has happened since— might have played a role in the Teresa’s disappearance. It’s a connection that may haunt her for rest of her life.
As the search for Teresa Halbach progressed, it became clear to authorities that the woman who had been missing since Halloween was not likely to be found alive. Penny Beerntsen was following the news closely—and grew increasingly distraught.
Penny Beerntsen: My first prayer was that she would be found quickly, that she would be safe, and that she would be reunited with her family.
Penny did not know Teresa, but she did know what it was like to wait for answers and to search for the truth. And she certainly knew what it was like to endure life-altering trauma.
The brutal attack
The hunt for Teresa was taking place only 12 miles from where she herself had been brutally attacked two decades. Penny now lives in another state. But still, she felt deeply connected to the Halbach case, and to understand the reason why, you’d have to go back to a summer’s day in 1985.
Beerntsen: I don’t know how many times I’ve said that, if I had an opportunity to take back one day, I wouldn’t have to think twice about what day I would take back. It would be July 29th, 1985 because of everything that’s unfolded in the 20 years since then.
That day, Penny Beerntsen had gone to the beach with her husband and one of her two children. A dedicated runner, Penny left her family to go for a jog.
Beerntsen: And when I was within about a half a mile from the starting point. there was a man standing probably 20 yards away with a leather jacket slung over his shoulder. And as I ran past him, he said something to the effect of, “It’s a great day, isn’t it?”
She continued her run down the beach and was turning around to head back to her family when the same man suddenly reappeared.
Beerntsen: He ran out from behind the bush and was headed towards me, and I immediately knew what he wanted. And I thought I got to get out of here.
She says she panicked and headed for the water, then doubled back to the beach—a strategic error that gave her assailant enough time to reach her and drag her into the nearby dunes, hidden from sight.
Beerntsen: I said, “I’ve got two young children, please let me go.” And the more I talked, the more frustrated he became.
Penny says he began choking her, demanding sex. She says she made one last desperate attempt to defend herself.
Beerntsen: I kicked him in the groin. Unfortunately it didn’t incapacitate him but it did enrage him. And he said, “Now I’m gonna kill ya, now you’re gonna die.” And he began beating me primarily about the head. And then eventually he strangled me until I believe I lost consciousness.
Her last thoughts, she says, were of her family.
Beerntsen: My daughter was with us at the beach, and that her last vision of me would be my beaten strangled body lying naked in the sand. My husband was now going to have to raise two young children on his own.
Penny says when she came to, she was naked and alone—bleeding, her vision blurred by the blows to the head. She began to crawl through the sand. Eventually, she saw a young couple and summoned the strength to holler for help.
Beerntsen: And I remember the woman saying, “Oh my God.” And they wrapped me in some towels.
An ambulance rushed Penny to the hospital. As doctors treated her numerous injuries, the sheriff’s department questioned her so they could begin the search for her attacker.
Beerntsen: When he grabbed me, one of the first thoughts that went through my mind was I got to get a good look of this guy.
Penny provided a description of the attacker that produced this sketch. She says the sheriff then asked her to look through nine photos to see if she could id her assailant.
Penny: I looked carefully at each photo and I selected Steven Avery’s photo.
Within a couple hours, sheriff’s deputies arrested 23-year-old Steven Avery at his home.
Beerntsen: I think my confidence that I had selected the right person was boosted when I was told that the person they arrested was the suspect that they had in mind.
Penny also viewed a live lineup several days later and again picked out Avery.
Beerntsen: When I came to Steven Avery in that lineup, literally the hair on the back of my neck stood up. I started to shake. It felt like the color drained from my face. I felt nauseated. I had a visceral reaction to looking at Mr. Avery.
Avery had a police record that included burglary and animal cruelty. And several months before this arrest, he had been charged with pointing a gun at a sheriff deputy’s wife and trying to force her off the road.
This time, Steven Avery was charged with attempted murder, false imprisonment and sexual assault. He was tried in December of 1985.
It was not an open and shut case. Avery had numerous alibi witnesses that placed him far away from the crime scene. Still, largely on the strength of Penny’s identification and unwavering testimony of the attack, he was convicted and sentenced to 32 years in prison.
Victoria Corderi, Dateline correspondent: Did you feel like, “Okay, now I can try to start putting my life back together?” Beerntsen: I had a sense of, “This is just beginning because I knew I was an emotional mess.”
A long process of healing
During the years that followed, Penny says she was plagued by depression, by nightmares of Steven Avery and flashbacks of the crime.
Beerntsen: Anger and hatred was eating me up. I needed to somehow let go of this anger, but I wasn’t sure how.
Therapy helped, Penny says, but the real solution came when she volunteered to work with crime victims, and then later at a program called “Restorative Justice,” which tries to get prisoners to understand the impact of their crimes by listening to the stories of victims like Penny.
Beerntsen: If I ever thought part of my healing was gonna take place in a maximum security prison... if someone had told me that years ago, I would have said, “Are you out of your mind?”
Penny says that the years she devoted to visiting prisons and volunteering to help victims of crime and their families gave her a new purpose. That was one reason she was so concerned about Teresa Halbach’s family—how they were handling their daughter’s disappearance...and the strong possibility she was dead.
Beerntsen: We need to accept the anger and the rage that I’m sure will come. That it’s important to feel that anger and that rage. It’s also important not to let it destroy you, but you have to feel it.
Penny says as part of her own recovery from the trauma of her assault, she considered meeting with Steven Avery. But it would have been pointless because he would never admit his guilt through all his years in prison. Avery continued to appeal his case to try to get a new trial.
Beerntsen: It seemed like there were endless appeals. And, Steve was turned down on every appeal.Corderi: And, you were glad.Beerntsen: I was glad… a sense that maybe I can start to put this behind me.
Steven Avery is set free
But that was not to happen—in fact something else, something totally unexpected took place years after Avery was convicted. It was something that would shake up Penny’s world once again in a way she couldn’t have even imagined. In 2001, a group called the Wisconsin Innocence Project at the University of Wisconsin Law School in Madison agreed to take on Avery’s case.
Keith Findley, co-director, Wisconsin Innocence Project: Steven Avery’s case came to us, because both his trial lawyer and his appellate lawyer contacted us, and said they were really troubled by this case, that they were convinced that this man was innocent of this crime.
DNA technology could now analyze evidence—in this case a single hair found on Penny after the attack in 1985 -- to prove if it belonged Steven Avery. If it turned out the hair was not Avery’s, the hope was he could get a new trial.
Beerntsen: I was angry again. Do we keep going to court over and over and over until, you know, is there no end to this?Corderi: Why can’t this guy just admit guilt and give up?Beerntsen: Absolutely. That’s what I was feeling.
The process took 29 months. Then in September 2003, the results of the DNA analysis were revealed.
Beerntsen: I said to my pastor, “What if I’d made a horrible mistake? What if I’ve identified the wrong person? I don’t think that I have, I’m really confident, but I’m human. What if I made a mistake?”
DNA would hold the key to Penny’s case, just as it would so many years later in the search for Teresa Halbach.
Authorities announced that though they hadn’t found Teresa’s body, they’d uncovered some crucial DNA evidence that they believed pointed to murder...and even the identity of the murderer. The Halbach family would never see their daughter again.
Corderi: What would you want them to know? Beerntsen: I would want them to know how deeply saddened I am by Teresa’s murder.
It wasn’t just one mother feeling another mother’s grief. Penny’s anguish had deeper roots that led back to her own case. This would be exposed after she learned the truth about what happened on that beach in 1985. It would tie both of these cases together.
Any hope of finding Teresa Halbach alive vanished after authorities found the young photographer’s car, and publicly revealed their suspicions: Halbach had been murdered and her killer had left a trail.
Penny Beerntsen, still following the Halbach case closely, remembered that day two years earlier that the results of the DNA analysis in her case came in—the evidence that would prove once and for all, if Steven Avery had been her assailant. Penny’s husband and a friend broke the news to her.
Penny Beerntsen: And I knew that I had identified the wrong person before they told me, just by the fact that neither one had any color in their face.
Steven Avery, the man who had haunted her dreams all of these years, the man she had identified in court—was not the man who had attacked her. For 18 years, Avery had languished in prison for a crime he did not commit.
Beerntsen: To find out that I was 100 percent wrong was just like I was on a parallel universe where the usual rules didn’t apply anymore. I questioned everything. I literally wanted the earth to open and swallow me. That day was much more difficult than the day of the assault for me.Victoria Corderi, Dateline correspondent: The day that you heard the news was worse than that day of that horrible assault?Beerntsen: Absolutely. I just couldn’t grasp the magnitude of being, you know, an unwitting participant in this huge miscarriage of justice.
The DNA finding not only proved that Avery had not committed the crime, it revealed the true identity of Penny’s assailant. His DNA was in a data bank of criminals and it was a clear match. The evidence was so conclusive that a judge signed an order not just freeing Steven Avery, but exonerating him, so there would be no question about his innocence. Avery emerged from prison after 18 years of darkness and despair into the light of the media glare –
A man of few words, Avery always managed to express his relief over his freedom in interviews.
But he also was angry: Not at Penny Beerntsen, but at the system that he said had railroaded him. After 18 years of being a labeled a sexual predator, Steven Avery was now the poster child in Wisconsin for wrongful convictions. His case made headlines. Lawmakers began drafting legislation that would prevent similar miscarriages of justice, as well as a bill that would provide compensation for Avery.
He appeared at the state capitol several times to testify at what was dubbed “The Avery Task Force.”
Attorney Steve Glynn has been involved with this case since 1995. He says while Avery was incarcerated, his wife divorced him and he lost contact with his young children. And, he says, because Avery kept insisting on his innocence, he faced numerous consequences in prison, especially when he was required to attend a program to help rehabilitate sex offenders.
Steve Glynn, attorney: The point is to convince people that they committed the crime. But imagine what that does to somebody who didn’t commit it. And who was not involved in the crime. And is told again, and again, and again and again, that he will not be considered for favorable treatment. Certainly parole is denied again and again. Corderi: So someone might even advise him to “Look, just say you did it, take responsibility and you can get out on parole.” Glynn: He had that opportunity more than once.
But Glynn says Avery told him he couldn’t do that.
Glynn: “I can’t. I didn’t. I’m not going to. I don’t care what it takes, how long I have to sit here, I’m not gonna say I committed a crime I didn’t commit.”
So how could this have happened? The crime and the investigation by the Manitowoc County sheriff’s office were suddenly cast in a new light: Penny Beerntsen may have identified Steven Avery as her attacker, but there were other issues at the time that critics say might have changed the outcome of the case -- crucial facts that had been ignored, doubts that had been raised and dismissed, and mistakes made that caused Steven Avery, a father of five, to lose his family and his freedom.
Glynn says Avery was an easy target when the sheriff’s office began looking for penny’s assailant. Avery’s criminal record was one mark against him, Glynn says, and the other - the town’s attitude toward the Averys and their sprawling auto salvage yard.
Glynn: You hear witnesses describing Steve Avery as always having dirty hands. And always having oil beneath his fingernails. Corderi: So people look down on the Averys.Glynn: I think so. I think so.
By contrast, Penny Beerntsen was an active and respected member of the community. Her family owned a popular candy store that had been in Manitowoc for generations. The sheriff attended the same church as the Beerntsens and personally took over the investigation—and Glynn says, was gunning for Avery from the start.
Glynn: There was a focus on him that was immediate. It wasn’t just a matter of looking at him. It was a matter of sinking claws into him.
The Manitowoc County sheriff’s office told “Dateline” it did consider other suspects. But, it turns out,not the one they should have been looking at. Another local law enforcement agency, the Manitowoc city police department—believed a man named Gregory Allen was likely Penny’s assailant. He fit the description she’d provided, and officers suspected Allen of being a sexual predator. Glynn says a city police detective even paid a visit to the county sheriff to tell him about Allen.
Glynn: He went to him to say, “Look, we think that you have the wrong guy.” And the answer from the sheriff is, “We know what we’re doing. We’ve got the guy that we’re interested in. We think we have the right guy.” That was it.
The sheriff’s department did not include Allen’s picture in the photos shown to Penny at the hospital and he was not included in the live line-up either. In fact, Steven Avery was the only person to appear in both.
Penny first heard about the possibility of another suspect when someone from the police department called her after the attack, after Avery was already in jail.
Beerntsen: He identified himself, and said, “We have another suspect in mind who is not Steven Avery, but looks a great deal like Steve. And we’d like to ask you some questions.”
Penny says the detective never named the suspect, just asked questions about whether she was being followed or had noticed a certain car outside of her house. Penny said she hadn’t, but the phone call rattled her.
Beerntsen: I remember hanging up the phone thinking, “Oh my God, maybe the wrong person’s in custody.”
Penny says she called the sheriff.
Beerntsen: And I said to him, “What’s this about another suspect?” And he said—“The Manitowoc Police Department doesn’t have jurisdiction. We will look into this. Don’t talk to them, it will only confuse you.”
Even though the two law enforcement agencies disagreed, only the sheriff’s department’s opinion that mattered since it was in charge of the case.
Penny did not learn the name of that other suspect until 18 years later, when Steven Avery was exonerated. Gregory Allen, the man that Manitowoc city police had suspected all those years ago, had been her assailant after all. His DNA matched the DNA a taken from a hair found on Penny after the assault. Allen is currently serving a 60-year sentence for sexual assault. He wasn’t caught until 10 years after Avery was imprisoned.
Beerntsen: A known sex offender remained in the community for ten years. And how many women were assaulted in those ten years. And not a day goes by that I don’t think about those women. Corderi: You carry the weight of that, too?Beerntsen: Absolutely.
Allen was not charged with the crime against Penny because the statute of limitations was up and he was already serving a lengthy sentence.
Corderi: Do you have anything to say to Penny Beerntsen?Gregory Allen: I’m sorry for whatever happened to you. I’m not the person that committed the crime.
We spoke with Gregory Allen in a medium security prison in Wisconsin.
Corderi: How did your hair end up on Penny Beerntsen?Allen: I have no idea that my hair was found on her. I didn’t commit the offense. Steven Avery did. He got out somehow and got me hooked up in it.
Despite the certainty of DNA evidence, Allen would not admit he attacked Penny.
Corderi: All this scientific evidence went before a judge, it was irrefutable. It was your DNA. Allen: I didn’t commit the offense.
Regardless, Gregory Allen has 50 years left on his sentence, and because of the new DNA evidence that he attacked Penny Beerntsen, authorities say there is little chance he ever will be paroled.
And as for that flawed investigation that zeroed in on Avery? The Wisconsin attorney general reviewed the case and found that the Manitowoc County sheriff’s department and the prosecutor’s office did not act criminally nor could they be charged with ethics violations, though they “...failed to investigate a viable suspect...” and should have “...taken more time in exploring potential suspects...”
Beerntsen: Looking back, it seems like there are a lot of dots that weren’t connected, and I wish someone had connected those dots.
Penny says that she had wanted badly to make amends to Steven Avery after his release. He agreed to see her in a legislator’s office before a meeting of the Avery Task Force.
Beerntsen: I began by apologizing and saying how inadequate as I knew my words were. I said, “Is it alright if I give you a hug?” And he didn’t wait for an answer. He hugged me and then I said so only he could hear, “Steve, I’m so sorry.” And he said back—“It’s okay, Penny, it’s over.”
Little did she know that would not be the last time she’d hear about Steven Avery.
Steven Avery becomes a suspect again
By the time authorities had begun to search for Teresa Halbach last November, Steven Avery was out of prison a little more than two years.
He was rebuilding his life after being incarcerated for almost two decades, once again working and living on his family’s compound at the salvage yard. And he had gotten engaged.
But that new life began to unravel when police zeroed in on Steven Avery as a suspect in Teresa’s disappearance.
Penny heard news accounts that Avery had met with Halbach at the salvage yard the day she disappeared.
Penny Beerntsen: She had an appointment to photograph a car at the Avery property and that Steven indicated that he had spoken with her. But then she had left.
Penny, who thought she’d heard the last of Steven Avery, was floored. What was he doing in the middle of this story?
Within days, a search party had made an important discovery amid the junked cars at the Avery salvage yard: Teresa’s blue Toyota Rav 4, hidden under branches, the plates removed. They called the authorities, who cordoned off the large property and began an exhaustive search.
Beerntsen: It doesn’t make sense. My first thought was, “Oh my gosh, this is horrible.”
During the search of his family’s property, Steven Avery did not hide. He even spoke to local reporters. He did not act like a suspect, though he said being one was a familiar and painful role for him...
Six days after Teresa’s SUV was found, authorities held a news conference. The Manitowoc County sheriff’s department was charging Steven Avery with first degree intentional homicide.
And there was more damning evidence: In Avery’s trailer was the key to Teresa Halbach’s Toyota along with some possible bloodstains by the washer and dryer, handcuffs, leg irons and firearms. Teresa’s license plates were found crumpled and dumped in another scrapped car on the Avery property. And adult human female bone fragments were recovered in a burn barrel used to get rid of tires and scrap. Steven Avery was arrested.
It was a shocking turn of events. Steven Avery went from being a celebrated poster child for wrongful conviction to being charged with first degree murder. He steadfastly maintained his innocence and claimed that authorities were unfairly targeting him again—this time because they were angry about a $36-million civil lawsuit he had filed in 2004 against the Manitowoc County sheriff’s department and the district attorney’s office for his wrongful conviction in the Beerntsen case—an accusation he’d made publicly even before he was arrested.
NBC (news footage): Do you have any idea how her SUV ended up on your family’s land?Steven Avery: You got me, I don’t know, I got a hunch Manitowoc County planted it.
Attorney Steve Glynn, who has known Avery for 10 years and represented him in the civil suit against the County, says the news about Teresa Halbach stunned him.
Corderi: Knowing what you know of Steve Avery, do you think he’s capable of having committed this crime?Steven Glynn, attorney: Not in a million years. I don’t care how much physical evidence they come in with. Until he says to me, “I committed that offense,” I won’t be able to not have doubt.
And as for Penny Beerntsen, she is once more suffering in her own private hell—the man she wrongfully identified 20 years ago—stands accused of killing a vibrant young woman.
Beerntsen: And whether or not Steve is involved in Teresa’s death—this is just surreal.
In January, an FBI lab confirmed that the human remains found at the Avery salvage yard were indeed Teresa Halbach’s.
In early March, nearly four months after Avery was arrested, authorities revealed startling details about the last hours of Teresa Halbach's life.
Details were allegedly revealed by someone authorities accuse of being Avery's accomplice -- his 16-year-old nephew Brendan Dassey. At a press conference, district attorney Ken Kratz told reporters how the crime allegedly happened.
What Steven Avery does then, while Teresa is still begging for her life, is he hands the knife to the 16-year-old boy, and instructs him to cut her throat.
She still was not dead, authorities say, so Avery then strangled her. And he and his nephew allegedly carried her to the garage, where Avery repeatedly shot her. The D.A. says they disposed of her body by burning it.
Avery's new defense attorney turned down Dateline's request for an on-camera interview but told us in an e-mail that the allegations "are sensational, indeed, incredible" and that a "rush to presume someone guilty on the basis of ugly accusations is exactly what led 20 years ago to Steve Avery being convicted of a crime he did not commit."
Avery now faces new counts of sexual assault, false imprisonment and kidnapping - and will plead not guilty as he did in the previous charges. His nephew was charged with murder, rape and mutilating a corpse. He has already pleaded not guilty.
Kratz: I do very much intend to introduce evidence throughout these proceedings to hold each of these defendants accountable and to prove their guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
While the nephew's statement could be damning evidence, a jury may never hear it at Avery's trial, according to the nephew's lawyer.
Dassey’s lawyer: At Avery's trial, Brendan's statement could not be admitted against Avery unless Brendan was available and subject to cross-examination as a witness.
In other words, if Avery's nephew invokes the Fifth amendment against self-incrimination, he won't have to testify at his uncle's trial. The nephew's previous statement then could not be used against Avery.
Still, the prosecutor's evidence in the murder case includes his blood in her car, her key in his trailer, her car and bone fragments found on the Avery property and spent rifle shell casings in his garage.
As a result of the latest charges, Avery's bail recently was raised to $750,000...meaning he'll remain in jail and miss Easter with his family as he did Christmas and Thanksgiving, a point made by his attorney at a recent hearing. But the Halbach family has no sympathy for Avery.
Mike Halbach, Teresa’s brother: I spent my Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter without my sister and from here on out, I'll never be able to enjoy those days with my sister again. So I think my family's loss is much greater than Steven Avery's loss.
Penny Beerntsen has continued to follow the case and says she was horrified to hear the latest details. She says she thinks about the Halbach family every day and wants them to know she keeps them in her prayers.
Victoria Corderi, Dateline correspondent: You feel a lot of pain about Teresa?Beerntsen: Absolutely. There's still such a sense of unreality about it to me. I honestly, some mornings I wake up and think, this must have been a dream.
Keith Findley of the Wisconsin Innocence Project says there's been only one other case in the country where someone exonerated by DNA was later charged with a serious violent crime. Ironically, DNA science once freed Steven Avery — and now it may be what helps convince a jury to send him back to prison. Still, Findley says, as shocked as he is by the latest allegations, the charges Avery now faces have no bearing on the Beerntsen case.
Keith Findley, Innocence Project: The fact that Steven Avery has been charged now with Teresa Halbach's murder doesn't do anything to change the fact that he was exonerated of the prior crime.
In this complicated story of guilt and innocence, there is grief to spare for the Halbach family, still stunned by the loss of a daughter and sister — a young photographer, both admired and loved.
Penny Beerntsen is a psychologically scarred woman, now trying to cope with fresh wounds. She says she will continue to search for some meaning in this bizarre series of events.
Beerntsen: I'm grateful that I am still standing. I'm at a loss right now. Where do I go from here? And where do all of us go?