What Happened to Teresa Halbach? Inside Her Halloween Murder — and the Questions That Still Remain 20 Years Later By Nicole Briese

Teresa Halbach died on Oct. 31, 2005, but questions about exactly what happened to her still remain 20 years later.

The 25-year-old photographer disappeared from an auto salvage yard belonging to a Wisconsin man, Steven Avery, while on assignment.

Days later, her remains were found in a firepit on the property, and two men, Avery and his nephew Brendan Dassey, were convicted of her murder.

The details surrounding the case, which became the subject of Netflix’s 2015 documentary Making a Murderer, remain unclear, with no official cause of death apart from homicide and no eyewitnesses to the crime.

The impact Halbach had on her friends and family members, however, is clear. “She just radiated happiness and life,” her former college paper editor-in-chief, Andy Behrendt, told PEOPLE in 2016. “Even after she died so tragically … I still can’t picture her without a smile on her face. In the end, nothing can take that away.”

Here’s what to know about what happened to Teresa Halbach after she went missing at Avery’s Auto Salvage.

Who was Teresa Halbach?

Halbach was a 25-year-old photographer and entrepreneur whose murder became the subject of the 2015 Netflix documentary, Making a Murderer.

A summa cum laude graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, Halbach was also one of five children, raised in a small Wisconsin town.

According to Halbach’s former co-worker and classmate, Kimberly Peterson, she had hoped to expand her family ahead of her death. “She wanted to be a mom someday,” Peterson told the Post-Crescent in 2016.

Her obituary stated that Halbach was also a volleyball coach and an avid traveler.

“She just enjoyed life, she enjoyed new experiences,” Halbach’s college friend Kate Uttech told PEOPLE. “She was always very positive. I don’t ever remember her being mad about anything. She just had this positivity about herself. She didn’t have a bad bone in her body.”

What happened to Teresa Halbach?

On the day of her death, Halbach went to Avery’s Auto Salvage on a photography assignment for Auto Trader.

As reported by the Post-Crescent, she was requested by Avery, whose phone records showed that he had called Halbach three times on Oct. 31, 2005, including twice from a blocked number.

When Halbach didn’t return home from the assignment, she was reported missing on Nov. 3, 2005.

Two days later, her car was found on Avery’s lot in a thicket of branches with a disconnected battery. Pieces of her camera and cellphone were found in a burn barrel on Nov. 6.

Several days later, the bone fragments of an adult woman, which were later confirmed to be Halbach’s remains, were found in a burn pit.

The Post-Crescent also reported that a piece of her tooth had been found and matched to her dental X-rays.

Halbach’s official cause of death was listed as “homicide.”

The Associated Press reported that medical examiner and forensic pathologist Jeffrey Jentzen testified at Avery’s trial that he found skull fragments with beveled edges consistent with possible gunshot entrance points, but did not confirm shooting as her cause of death.

According to forensic anthropologist Leslie Eisenberg’s testimony at Avery’s trial, Halbach’s body was burned to the point that no complete bones remained, per the Journal Sentinel.

Who killed Teresa Halbach?

Avery, who previously spent 18 years in prison for a rape he did not commit before being exonerated by DNA evidence and released in 2003, was convicted of Halbach’s murder, along with a felony firearm possession, in March 2007, as reported by NBC News.

His nephew, Dassey, was also convicted of her murder, along with her sexual assault and mutilation of a corpse, both of which he confessed to, in April 2007.

Avery was sentenced to life in prison with no chance for parole on June 1, 2007, with an additional 10 years for his firearm possession, per NBC, while Dassey received a life sentence, as reported by the Associated Press.

Evidence pointing directly to Avery’s involvement included drops of his blood that were found in Halbach’s Toyota RAV4 and her keys, which were found in his bedroom along with his DNA, per the Post-Crescent.

Additional circumstantial evidence included the presence of Halbach’s license plate, which was found in another vehicle on Avery’s property, a bullet fragment that was found in his garage with her DNA and Halbach’s remains, which were located in and around a burn pit.

The 2015 Netflix series raised questions about the validity of the evidence against Avery, revealing that he was in the middle of a $36 million lawsuit in connection to his previous wrongful conviction against Manitowoc County, its former sheriff and its former district attorney at the time of Halbach’s disappearance.

Though Dassey, who according to his lawyers has intellectual disabilities, confessed to raping Halbach and helping his uncle kill her, he recanted and changed his confession multiple times. No DNA or fingerprint evidence linked him to the murder.

Avery’s lawyer, Kathleen Zellner, has argued that other members of Avery’s family may have been involved in Halbach’s death, including his nephew, Bobby Dassey, who was reportedly seen “suspiciously pushing” Halbach’s car by a newspaper delivery driver named Thomas Sowinski, according to a court motion submitted by Avery’s team.

Zellner previously filed a motion against Halbach’s ex-boyfriend Ryan Hillegas, listing “jealousy” as his motive.

Halbach’s family members told PEOPLE that they are convinced of Avery’s guilt, however. “He is 100% guilty. No doubt about it,” Halbach’s aunt, Kay Giordana, said.

Her brother Mike expressed a similar sentiment to NBC News following Avery’s conviction, stating, “He got what he deserved. He murdered my sister. There’s no doubt about that. … I hope we never hear from Steven Avery again.”

Though a Wisconsin inmate confessed to Halbach’s murder in a handwritten letter in 2019, Zellner called it “useless unless corroborated” in a since-deleted post on X.

Where do Steven Avery and Brendan Dassey’s convictions stand now?

Avery maintains his innocence in Halbach’s murder. His latest appeal was denied for review by the Wisconsin Supreme Court in May 2025, at which time Zellner announced her intent to file a petition in federal court, per the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Dassey’s conviction was overturned in August 2016, and a judge agreed in a June 2017 panel that his confession had been illegally obtained and that he should be released or retried within 90 days unless the case was further appealed.

The state appealed the decision, and the BBC reported that his original murder conviction was upheld by a panel of judges from the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in December 2017, who ruled that Dassey’s confession was voluntary.

The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear Dassey’s case in 2018, per NPR.