Brendan Dassey, who was convicted of rape and murder as a teenager, will remain behind bars after a federal appeals court blocked a judge’s order to release him from prison this week.
In August, a lower court judge overturned Dassey’s life sentence stemming from the rape and murder of 25-year-old aspiring photographer Teresa Halbach in 2005.
But the state prosecutor’s office appealed the overturned conviction. A Wisconsin federal appeals court ruled that Dassey will remain in prison until the appeal is heard.
Dassey, 27, was profiled as an innocent man in the Netflix documentary TV series Making A Murderer.
Dassey was just 16-years-old when he and his uncle, Steven Avery, were arrested for raping and murdering Halbach.
According to court documents, in 2005 Avery telephoned Auto Trader magazine, where Halbach worked, and specifically requested her to photograph a car that he had for sale on his property. Avery was familiar with the young photographer from an earlier visit she made to his property to photograph a car.
Halbach’s family reported her missing 3 days later.
Police quickly focused their search on the Avery family’s auto salvage yard in Chilton, Wisconsin.
After days of exhaustively searching 4,000 junk cars on the sprawling 40-acre property, 2 volunteers located Halbach’s Toyota RAV 4 parked on the perimeter of the salvage yard.
Inside the car, forensics investigators found blood which was later linked to Avery and Halbach through DNA testing.
Police also found a bullet and car key smeared with Halbach’s blood. The crumpled license plates from Halbach’s truck were found inside a station wagon on the property.
Halbach’s charred remains were recovered from a burn barrel near Avery’s trailer.
Despite the overwhelming evidence, Avery’s defense lawyer insisted the evidence was planted by police.
Avery, then 44, was sentenced to life in prison in April 2007. His nephew, Dassey, was convicted of helping Avery rape, murder and burn Halbach’s body. Dassey was also sentenced to life in prison in August 2007.
