Is Steven Avery Married? His Relationships Explained

The Short Answer

No, Steven Avery is not married. The Wisconsin man whose case became the Netflix phenomenon Making a Murderer has been divorced since 1988 and is currently serving a life sentence without parole for the 2005 murder of Teresa Halbach. Avery, now 64, was married to Lori Mathiesen in the early 1980s; they had four children before divorcing in 1988 — while Avery was serving time for the wrongful 1985 sexual assault conviction that would later be overturned by DNA evidence. After his 2003 exoneration and release, Avery became engaged to Lynn Hartman in 2016, but that relationship ended in 2018. Since his 2007 murder conviction, Avery's romantic life has played out through prison correspondence and media coverage rather than anything resembling a normal relationship. He is not married, is not engaged and, serving life without parole, is unlikely to marry again.

Who Is Steven Avery?

Steven Allan Avery is an American from Manitowoc County, Wisconsin, whose life became one of the most debated true-crime stories in history. In 1985 he was wrongfully convicted of sexual assault and attempted murder; after serving 18 years of a 32-year sentence, he was exonerated by DNA testing and released in 2003. Two years later, he was charged with the murder of photographer Teresa Halbach; convicted in 2007, he was sentenced to life without parole. Netflix's Making a Murderer (2015) turned his case into a global sensation, raising questions about the investigation and suggesting he may have been framed by local law enforcement — claims prosecutors and many legal analysts dispute. Born July 9, 1962, Avery is now 64 and remains incarcerated at the Waupun Correctional Institution in Wisconsin, where he continues to pursue appeals. His case has divided public opinion for a decade: to supporters, he is the victim of a corrupt system twice over; to others, a guilty man whose fame obscures his crimes.

Marriage to Lori Mathiesen (1980s-1988)

Avery married Lori Mathiesen (née Dassey) in the early 1980s, when both were young. They had four children together, including twins. The marriage collapsed under the weight of Avery's legal troubles: in 1985, he was convicted of the sexual assault he did not commit and sentenced to 32 years. Lori divorced him in 1988, while he was three years into a sentence for a crime DNA would later prove he did not commit — one of the cruelest footnotes in an already tragic story. She went on to remarry (to a man named Peter Dassey, linking the families further into the saga's tangled web). Avery's children with Lori were young when he went to prison in 1985 and grown when he was exonerated in 2003; the lost 18 years — the birthdays, the graduations, the entire arc of their childhoods — are among the most human costs of the wrongful conviction. Avery, now 64, has had limited relationships with his children as adults, and the family fracture caused by the 1985 conviction never fully healed, even after his name was cleared.

Engagement to Lynn Hartman (2016-2018)

After Making a Murderer made him famous, Avery began corresponding with supporters, among them Lynn Hartman, a Las Vegas legal secretary. The two developed a relationship through letters and prison visits, and in 2016 Avery proposed; Hartman accepted, and the engagement was widely covered — the unlikely prison romance of a convicted murderer and a paralegal 20 years his junior. For a time, Hartman was a fixture in Avery coverage, giving interviews about their plans and her belief in his innocence. But the relationship deteriorated: by 2018, Hartman ended the engagement, later describing Avery as controlling and saying the relationship had become unhealthy. She subsequently wrote about the experience publicly. The split was acrimonious, with both sides trading accusations in the press. For Avery, now in his mid-fifties at the time, it was another personal catastrophe layered onto the legal one: the engagement that had offered a vision of life after exoneration — had he ever been exonerated — dissolved into recrimination. He has not been publicly linked to anyone serious since.

Love Life Behind Bars

Since his 2007 conviction, Avery's romantic life has existed almost entirely within the peculiar ecosystem of prison relationships: pen-pal romances, supporters turned suitors and the intense parasocial bonds that Making a Murderer fame created. He has received thousands of letters, including marriage proposals from strangers — a common phenomenon for high-profile inmates. The Hartman engagement was the only one that progressed to a serious, public commitment, and its collapse in 2018 seems to have closed that chapter. At 64, serving life without parole at Waupun, Avery's prospects for a conventional romantic life are essentially nil; Wisconsin does not offer conjugal visits, and his appeals — though ongoing — face steep odds. His family relationships are similarly strained: his parents, Allan and Dolores Avery, were his most steadfast supporters — Dolores died in 2021, Allan in his nineties — and his siblings remain divided by the case's notoriety. The man who lost 18 years to a wrongful conviction and then lost his freedom permanently at 45 has, in the personal realm, lost nearly everything else too.

His Four Children

Avery's four children with Lori Mathiesen — including a set of twins — were small children when he was taken away in 1985 and adults when he walked free in 2003. The wrongful conviction stole their entire childhoods with their father, and the 2005 arrest stole any chance of rebuilding: by the time of the murder trial, they were grown, with their own complicated feelings about a father who was first a convicted rapist, then an exonerated hero, then a convicted murderer. Some have maintained contact; others have kept their distance. The children have largely avoided the media, and their names are not widely publicized — a privacy this coverage respects. What is known is that the family fracture is permanent: no exoneration can return 18 years, and no acquittal in the Halbach case — which has never come — could undo the second conviction. At 64, Avery is a grandfather, though the details of his grandchildren's lives are private. His children's story is the quiet tragedy beneath the sensational one: four kids who grew up without a father because the state took him, twice.

Steven Avery Today

At 64, Steven Avery remains incarcerated at Waupun Correctional Institution, serving life without parole for the murder of Teresa Halbach. His legal team continues to file appeals and motions — including challenges based on new evidence claims — but Wisconsin courts have repeatedly denied relief. His nephew Brendan Dassey, convicted alongside him at 16, remains imprisoned as well, his own appeals exhausted. Avery's parents, his fiercest advocates, have both died. He is not married, not engaged and not publicly linked to anyone; his romantic life, such as it was, ended with the Hartman engagement's collapse in 2018. Born July 9, 1962, in Manitowoc County, he has now spent more of his adult life in prison than out of it — 18 years for a crime he did not commit, and nearly 20 (and counting) for one the state says he did. Whether he is a victim of injustice or a guilty man, the personal ledger is bleak: divorced since 1988, engagement broken, family fractured, freedom gone. No, Steven Avery is not married — and at 64, serving life, he almost certainly never will be again.

The Ongoing Appeals Fight

Avery's legal battle did not end with the 2007 conviction. His current attorney, Kathleen Zellner — famous for exonerating the wrongfully convicted — took his case in 2016 and has filed a barrage of motions alleging new evidence, from alternative suspects to forensic challenges. Wisconsin courts have repeatedly denied relief, but Zellner persists, and the case remains legally alive. Meanwhile, his nephew Brendan Dassey — 16 at conviction, his confession the subject of intense scrutiny — has exhausted his appeals and remains imprisoned, his case a separate tragedy. Born July 9, 1962, Avery is now 64, with more adult years behind bars than free: 18 for the wrongful 1985 conviction, nearly 20 for the 2005 murder. Whether the appeals ever succeed, the personal ledger is fixed: divorced since 1988, engagement broken in 2018, parents deceased, children distant. The legal fight continues — but the life it might restore is largely gone.

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