Making a Murderer subject Steven Avery’s ex-fiancée Jodi Stachowski revealed during an interview on HLN’s Nancy Grace on Wednesday, January 13, that she not only believes that Avery killed Teresa Halbach, but claims that he also threatened to kill her.
Stachowski, who defended Avery in the widely popular docuseries, said during the interview that he forced her to lie to Netflix producers or else she would “pay for it.”
“He told me how to act,” Stachowski, who was in jail for a DUI at the time of Halbach’s death in 2005, claimed during the interview. “[He told me] ‘Smile, be happy’ — it was all lies.”
When one of Nancy Grace’s producers asked if she believes Avery killed the 25-year-old photographer, Stachowski said: “Yes, I do, because he threatened to kill me and my family and a friend of mine.”
According to Avery’s former fiancée, the convicted murderer also threatened to take her life once. “I was in a bath and he threatened to throw a blow-dryer in there and he told me that he would be able to get away with it,” Stachowski said during the interview. She added that Avery also once told her “all bitches owe him because of the one that sent him to prison the first time and that he could do whatever he wanted.”
Prior to his conviction for Halbach’s murder, Avery was wrongfully convicted of rape and spent 18 years in prison before DNA evidence exonerated him.
Stachowski also claimed that her ex-fiancé was physically abusive and that she once ate rat poison in an attempt to be hospitalized and escape Avery. “He beat me all the time. [He’d] punch me, throw me against the wall,” she continued. “He’s like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Seminice person and then behind closed doors, he’s a monster.” Stachowski and Avery split in 2007.
As previously reported, Grace told Us Weekly that she believes Avery is guilty.
Tell Us: Do you believe Jodi?
