Joseph Wayne Evans And His Involvement In The Steven Avery Case
Yet another strange individual in the Making a Murderer drama AKA Steven Avery's tragic life
Many people who have followed Making a Murderer also know that Joseph Wayne Evans is a convicted murderer who not long after the debut of Making a Murderer on Netflix on December 15, 2015. Here is an imgur link to the first two letters-one is dated August 2016. https://imgur.com/a/KRZkp These letters are to simply put it bizarre and are packed full of weird and outrageous claims. It may be hard for some to believe that these letters were used for many months on social media platforms by the small group of devout guilt supporters as evidence against Steven and Brendan. Surprising to this group but not to the rest of the world when a supporter for Steven, Brendan and Teresa announced a $100,000.00 reward for information leading to the killer of Teresa Halbach Evans did a complete about face and decided to confess to th killing of Teresa and the framing of Steven Avery.
Neither confession is IMO worth the paper it is printed on-but one thing that I have learned researching true crime and wrongful conviction cases is that all sorts of bizarre individuals and events will be found. Another rumor is that the new documentary Convicting a Murderer spent many months interviewing Evans for their version of the investigation and trial prior to his confession and the producer is the person who actually reported his confession to the authorities. Convicting a Murderer has struggled to find a distributor ad has undergone a name and point of view change in the 5 years since the project was announced.. The latest was that it was to be released in late 2021. The documentary is going to have a tough sell if the purpose is to convince the public that two wrongfully convicted men are guilty with all the evidence that shows that they are innocent that has been released.
Here is a little bit of historical info on Joseph Wayne Evans Jr. for those who may not know. Joseph Wayne Evans Jr. was arrested on August 4th, 2008 for first degree murder in the death of a 40 year old woman in Marinette County, Wisconsin. He was convicted of first degree murder on September 24, 2009 and sentenced to life in prison on December 1, 2009. He was transferred to Waupun, Wisconsin on December 17th, 2009. For the official reason of overcrowding this prisoner who had recently been informed he was going to die behind bars became a guest of the Manitowoc County jail] from January 22, 2010 until June 11, 2010.
Now I did a little digging in the newspapers archived from 2010 trying to find any mentions of overcrowding to the point that the DOC was transferring recently sentenced prisoners who were never going to leave prison alive from a state prison in Wisconsin to a county jail and was unsuccessful. In fact it appears that there was legislation passed to allow early release of non violent minor offense prisoners to help with the overcrowding problem.
Why would this maximum security life sentence prisoner be housed in a facility where many inmates are not even convicted of a crime yet? It seems like a unnecessary time risk- prisoners who are recently sentenced and looking at dying behind bars are at their most unpredictable behavior. They are more likely to harm themselves or others or attempt to escape custody.
Now here is a recap of the coincidences that are found in this event as they relate to the Steven Avery case:
- Marinette County is also where the Avery's have property (Crivitz) as well as the county location of the Manitowoc County fictitious police report written by Officer Judy Dvorak stating that Steven Avery was seen in the area of a child abduction in May of 1985. We now know that the witness who was used in the report as having info about Steven being in the area has repeatedly denied ever stating any such thing to Dvorak. RM was adamant that she never had a discussion with Dvorak at any time about this.
Manitowoc County is the county where Steven resided and was in the midst of a wrongful conviction civil suit when a woman is said to have disappeared after visiting his property. Steven will be arrested the day before the former Sheriff (named as a defendant in the civil suit) is scheduled to be deposed.
2. At the end of 2009 beginning of 2010 Steven is in the midst of his first rounds of appeals after his second wrongful conviction in the murder of Teresa Halbach.
3. Evans will first come forward claiming that Avery confessed and admitted the killing to him. His snitch letter has to put it mildly some very odd claims in it. Also we know that in the 1985 wrongful conviction case another inmate will also claim to have received a confession from Steven Avery in the Penny B assault. This snitch letter will apparently be kept in the sheriffs office safe until Wisconsin S/A Deb Strauss discovers it in her interview of Manitowoc County Sheriff Ken Petersen.
4. Waupun, WI is about 85 miles from Manitowoc County. Why would anyone think that taking a prisoner who has just been informed he will never leave prison alive back out of prison and transport him 85 miles away to be housed with jail inmates many of who are not convicted of a crime is safe for anyone involved? Prisoners who have been given life sentences are statistically at their most emotional and are more likely to harm themselves, others or try to escape. Was there not another facility more equipped to house him? Would it not have been safer to “relieve over-crowding” by moving low risk, minor felony prisoners who had short prison sentences to serve?
The Wisconsin DOC will only release the movement sheet available online and will not provide any other information regarding this transfer. They also have denied records requests this author has submitted asking for documents on who approved this request as well as for phone calls made by this inmate.
DO all wrongful convictions have all these "coincidences" at all levels? It does not matter what you choose to investigate in this case-evidence or witnesses or testing. If the prosecution is using it as evidence to show” guilt it simply is either falsified, inaccurate or someone like Evans here-simply not credible. It is apparent that no matter what or who one researches in this case there will always be many things found that do not make sense.
If the convictions of Brendan Dassey and Steven Avery are indeed as the state of Wisconsin claims rightful and just convictions why not allow Kathleen Zellner an evidentiary hearing? Why not allow these cases back into court and show everyone all “the evidence Making a Murderer left out”? The evidence that for some reason prosecutors didn’t bother using at trial and instead chose to use alien dropped keys and bones in a burn pit that there is not one single photo of?
Every single thing is just terribly wrong in this case-not one item of evidence is without a multitude of problems, not one witness statement used as proof of guilt is in any way credible or reliable. The officers have all conducted themselves as if they are in this case the criminals and the prosecutors have blatantly lied over and over again, Then there are the few judges who have reviewed ignored all the motions that Zellner has filed on Steven's behalf and have simply rubberstamped this verdict-almost as if they have forgotten what justice truly stands for-that at the heart of this is a missing/murdered woman- and they like all the rest attached to the state of Wisconsin in this case are only concerned with getting as far away from this dumpster fire as possible.
Does not one person in the state of Wisconsin care enough about Teresa Halbach to want to find out the truth?? We are so far past the excuses made after MaM came out-no one is buying the documentary made us look awful but we really aren't speech. You look like terrible human beings because you genuinely are..
About the Creator
SunshineChristina
I am a social and criminal justice reform advocate and researcher. I love true crime and also fighting to help bring and spread awareness to the myriad of troubling issues that are effecting American society.
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