Australian Businessman Believes In Steven Avery's Innocence

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Hoddinott has done independent research into Halbach’s disappearance and slaying.

Hoddinott has visited the Avery Salvage Yard in rural Manitowoc County on multiple occasions. His exploration has brought him into downtown Manitowoc to meet local residents, as well as other supporters and advocates for Avery’s innocence. He’s watched court proceedings inside the Manitowoc County Courthouse and visited tiny St. John, Wisconsin, where Halbach lived.

He has visited her gravesite at the small Catholic cemetery and left flowers on her grave. He’s also made efforts to reconnect Avery with his family members outside the prison walls.

Hoddinott has been visiting Avery in person since February 2019. He used to drive Avery’s eldery mother to Waupun so she could also visit her son. Dolores Avery died three years ago this summer after lingering health problems.

“Steven needs to see his parents,” Hoddinott emphasized. “Steven’s an impatient little bugger, sometimes. He gets a little narky,” or irritable. “Then I tell him, ‘Steven, you’ve got the best lawyer in the world, just hold your tongue and be patient because the work that Kathleen does is breathtaking,'” Hoddinott said.

‘She’s Very Clever At Weaving A Narrative’

Since January 2016, Kathleen Zellner of suburban Chicago, has served as Avery’s post-conviction lawyer. Zellner’s efforts to overturn Avery’s conviction became the focus of the second season of “Making a Murderer,” which aired in October 2018.

Last week, Zellner filed her newest appeal with the Wisconsin Court of Appeals, arguing that the previous long-time judge in charge of Avery’s case, Sheboygan’s Angela Sutkiewicz, made six separate glaring factual errors about the evidence and facts of the Teresa Halbach murder when Sutkiewicz released her ruling rejecting Avery’s post-conviction appeal in August.

But in a shocking decision last fall, Sutkiewicz decided to take herself off Avery’s case. She claimed her case volume was too high. The Avery case is now reassigned to a newly elected judge, Anthony Lambrecht, out of Manitowoc.

When it comes to Zellner’s legal filings, “I love reading them,” Hoddinott explained this week. “It’s like reading a piece of literature, and she’s very clever at weaving a narrative that is based on the facts, and she weaves it in a way that a thinking court can’t resist.”

Hoddinott said he was glad Judge Sutkiewicz chose to relieve herself from handling Avery’s future court proceedings.

“She was clearly acting for the state,” he said. “I can’t grasp how she had such a poor grasp of the case facts, and it’s not Angela Sutkiewicz’s role to deny Steven his entitlements.”

Simply as a matter of fairness, Hoddinott argued, Avery should be entitled to an evidentiary hearing in a Wisconsin courtroom. Then a judge should decide whether to grant a new trial after hearing Zellner’s evidence and that of the state, the Attorney General’s Office, the Australian financial adviser explained.

What Happened To Avery, Brendan Dassey Can Happen To Anyone

As an Australian, Hoddinott has a unique perspective on the American criminal justice system, notably the Wisconsin judiciary where Avery and Dassey remain imprisoned despite calls for both to be released or given new trials, at least.

“It’s really easy to see how what happened to Steven and Brendan could happen to anyone if you have ill will driving the process,” Hoddinott explained. Hypothetically speaking, “I can come up with 10 reasons you were at the Avery Salvage Yard.”

In advocating for Avery’s innocence, Hoddinott noted there were two separate recorded phone calls, the first around 5:30 p.m. and the second around 9 p.m., in which Avery calmly talked on the phone with his girlfriend, Jodi, who called him from the Manitowoc Jail. The calls happened at the same time Avery was supposedly murdering and mutilating Halbach’s body, according to prosecutor Ken Kratz’s story of how Avery stirred a giant bonfire, with roaring 10 feet flames, on that cold Halloween night.

“I’ve been a very keen observer of Steven’s body language, and the way he would speak about October 31 (the day Halbach disappeared),” Hoddinott said. “Steven is quite astute when it comes to his legal matters. And he will say, ‘I don’t know.’ He never tries to blame anyone. He says, ‘All I know is that I didn’t do it.’ If Brendan Dassey does not give that confession, there’s nothing supporting the case against Steven. And I call it (the confession) child abuse.”

Avery Needed A Good Male Friend: Hoddinott

What was Hoddinott’s motivation for traveling from Australia to south-central Wisconsin to meet Avery?

“It strikes me that he could probably do with a mate, a good male friend,” Hoddinott said.

At first, the Wisconsin Department of Corrections rejected Hoddinott’s application to be put on Avery’s visitor list. The reason cited by the warden was “your presence may impede his development when he’s ultimately released from prison,” Hoddinott explained. “Then I had to bring to their attention that he was sentenced to life in prison without parole.”

Eventually, out of the blue, Hoddinott had a middle of the night phone call.

It was an office manager for the prison warden in Waupun — oblivious to the time zone difference between Australia and Wisconsin. But she had good news to share.

“The warden has approved you for Steven’s visitor’s list,” Hoddinott recalled. “And I’ve been on the list for five years now, February 2019, that’s when I started to go four times a year.”

Hoddinott’s first face to face visit with Avery happened in February 2019.

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By March 2020, the world-wide coronavirus pandemic hit. And that prevented Hoddinott from traveling from Australia to visit Avery in 2020 and part of 2021.

“I missed seeing him for one-and-a-half years,” Hoddinott said. “I still talked with him on the phone roughly once a week.”

Steven Avery Is A Real Human: Hoddinott

When Hoddinott started visiting Avery at Waupun five years ago, the separation process between prisoners and their families struck a nerve. At Waupun, the inmate comes out to you as you wait in a designated area of the prison building, Hoddinott explained.

Regularly, Hoddinott saw young mothers, bringing along their toddlers and babies for a short regular visit with the prisoner.

“Oh wow, this is a world I know very little about,” Hoddinott reflected. “So when I go into prison, I am very deliberate. I’m super nice to everyone and chatty. “

Hoddinott said he has tried to help Avery grieve the loss of his mother’s death, knowing how close Steven remained with his elderly parents.

“I try to create a sense of connection between Steven and his supporters that he’s a real human,” Hoddinott said. “We mostly talk about things he’s going to do when he gets out.”

What will Avery do when the Department of Corrections lets him out?

“Move out of Wisconsin,” Hoddinott responded without hesitation. “I think he will stay maybe in Minnesota or maybe Michigan. And his primary goal, fingers crossed, would be being with his dad.”

Avery would likely devote his freedom to the great outdoors, reconnecting with nature, fishing.

“He’s 61 now,” Hoddinott said. “He’s got children and grandchildren and I have had contact with some of his children.”

Manitowoc Billboard Campaign Offers $100,000 Reward

Hoddinott had a leading role in the erection of multiple billboards across Manitowoc County still offering a $100,000 reward for information leading to Halbach’s real killer. Billboards are along Lake Michigan between Two Rivers and Manitowoc and another one is in Manitowoc across from the Manitowoc Chamber of Commerce building.

“As far as the billboards, I organized that through a lot of people I know. And they’re seriously massive billboards, so that keeps the pressure on them, oh yeah, 24/7” Hoddinott pointed out. “It’s a just a reminder to people. I’m sure some of the inquiries that Kathleen Zellner has received have been triggered by the billboards. It was an awareness, thing, John. The more awareness you can keep this thing in people’s minds, the better.”

“I flew over to London and she said, ‘Dad, this documentary called ‘Making a Murderer,’ I think you will be interested in it. So we watched at her house two episodes. I watched two more and then before I made it to the airport, I subscribed to Netflix and I downloaded all the episodes and I started watching the remaining six episodes.

“Since then, I’ve watched the whole series and series two probably at least 15 times.”

Brings Flowers To Teresa Halbach’s Grave

One of Hoddinott’s key takeaways from “Making A Murderer” is how Americans vote on electing a sheriff, a district attorney and their judges. Instead of those roles being determined based on merit, they are a popularity contest.

“In America, there is a Wild West theme that still exists where the sheriff locks people up and throws the keys away, so people like the sheriff are elected based on who’s popular,” Hoddinott said. “It’s the haves and the have nots.”

During one of his visits, Hoddinott flew Steven’s father, Allan Avery, and long-time Steven Avery advocate Sandy Greenman, from Appleton to Illinois to visit an automobile museum in Chicago.

It became Allan Avery’s first airplane ride in his life.

“I am a big believer in creating memories. That is what life is, the accumulation of creating memories,” Hoddinott said.

When he is finished visiting with Avery at the prison, Hoddinott often drives in his rental car to small communities between Calumet and Manitowoc Counties, places central to the Halbach murder mystery.

Hoddinott has visited the Manitowoc County Courthouse several times. He watched a jury trial take place in the same courtroom where Brendan Dassey had his murder trial, back in 2007.

Hoddinott also visited the secluded stretch of Kuss Road, which is less than two miles from the Avery Salvage Yard. Kuss Road is where the police and their scent-sniffing dogs obtained several positive hits for Halbach, before her remains were found.

Zellner maintains that Halbach, the Auto Trader Magazine photographer, drove off from the Avery Salvage Yard on the afternoon of Oct. 31, 2005, and Halbach encountered danger along the seldom-traveled Kuss Road or the intersecting County Highway Q.

Why does Hoddinott explore so many of these locations during his trips to Wisconsin from Australia?

“To understand the whole environment,” Hoddinott explained. “So I would go to Kuss Road and the Chilton (Calumet County) Courthouse, I would go to Teresa’s gravesite, it’s in a Catholic church graveyard. I’ve went to St. John and bought some flowers and put it on the grave. To me, that’s all part of the understanding of what is going on there.

“Why would I be doing this if I didn’t believe in him? I probably have had 20 journeys over here and each one probably cost me at least five grand in air fare, fuel, accommodations and food. I usually do about 2,000 miles in my rental car in a two-week period.”

Related Patch coverage:

Zellner Exposes Judge Sutkiewicz’s Errors In Steven Avery Case: Ferak

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