"He's a monster." The story of Steven Avery's former girlfriend, Jodi Stachowski.

Interest in Steven Avery’s case had picked up once again after he was granted the right to appeal his 2007 conviction for the murder of Teresa Halbach.

But one woman who doesn’t want to see the Making a Murderer subject released is his former partner Jodi Stachowski.

Fans of the Netflix documentary series might remember Stachowski as the woman who Avery lived with after his release from prison in 2003 when his conviction over the 1985 rape of jogger Penny Beerntsen was overturned.

In interviews aired as part of the series, Stachowski appears to stand by Avery and protest his innocence, despite them breaking up before the last episode ended.

But in the years since those statements were given, Stachowski has seemingly changed her mind about her former fiance.

In fact, she says she suspected all along he was guilty of Halbach's murder, but put up a smiling front to make him look good. Behind closed doors, she claims, Avery was abusive throughout their two-year relationship.

Stachowski broke her silence in 2016 after the first season of Making A Murderer aired.

In an interview with HLN’s Nancy Grace, she described Avery as a "monster".

“[The documentary interview] was all an act. I — he told me how to act. You know, smile, be happy. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to get hurt.

"Steven is one person I don’t trust. He’s like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. A nice person, semi-nice person and then behind closed doors…he’s a monster.

"He told me once — excuse my language — 'all b***** owe him' because of the one that sent him to prison the first time. We all owed him — and he could do whatever he wanted."

Stachowski said that she believes he did kill the young photographer whose charred remains were found at his family's auto salvage yard in 2005.

Why?

"Because he threatened to kill me and my family and a friend of mine," she said in the interview.

"I was in a bath, and he threatened to throw a blow dryer in there and told me he’d be able to get away with it."

She said that wasn't the only terrifying moment in their relationship, and she even took drastic measures to escape him.

"I ate two boxes of rat poison just so I could go to the hospital and get away from him and asked them to get the police to help me."

In that same episode, the show reported that police reports corroborated Stachowski's story.

Also in 2016, Stachowski told TMZ that the account of Halbach’s rape and murder that Avery's co-convicted nephew Brendan Dassey gave - that Avery tied Halbach up before raping her - sounded eerily familiar.

Stachowski said Avery once tied her to a bedpost with rope before sex and wanted to film it. But because she was so against it, he backed off.

More recently, in the book Indefensible: The Missing Truth About Steven Avery, Teresa Halbach And Making A Murderer, author Michael Griesbach reports Stachowski was forced to call the police on Avery after a string of violent incidents, including one occasion when Avery strangled her, making her lose consciousness, then later threatened to get a gun and kill her.

So why did none of this make it into the Netflix series?

Avery’s lawyer Kathleen Zellner told Mamamia the explanation was simple.

"The anti-Avery forces have mobilised to launch baseless attacks because they know that the appellate court is going to reverse Mr Avery’s conviction because it is based on planted evidence and false testimony.

"Making a Murderer presented the evidence that Judge Willis allowed the jury to hear, not what he deemed inadmissible."

On 11 March, Zellner filed a supplemental motion on March 11, which asks for the court to reverse Avery's conviction and sentence as well and requests a new trial.

Avery will now wait to see what form appealing his 2007 conviction will take.

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