Steven Avery's former fiancee who was featured prominently in the "Making a Murderer" documentary now says she believes Avery committed the murder of Teresa Halbach.
In an interview with HLN TV, Jodi Stachowski claims Avery was abusive to her during their two-year relationship.
- SPECIAL SECTION: The Trials of Steven Avery
"He threatened to kill me, my family and a friend of mine," Stachowski said. "I was in the bath and he threatened to throw a blow dryer in there and he told me he'd be able to get away with it."
"He beat me all the time, punch me, throw me against the wall. I tried to leave, he smashed the windshield in my car so I wouldn't leave him."
Stachowski says she hasn't watched the Netflix documentary because she believes it's all lies.
She says she asked the filmmakers to take her out of the series before it aired, and that the only reason she stayed with Avery and cooperated for the documentary was because she feared for her safety.
"Steven called me and told me -- and it should all be on police records -- that if I didn't say anything good and nice about him, I'd pay," said Stachowski, adding that she believed Avery would be able to come up with the bail money to get out of jail.
In the documentary, Stachowski is heard having intimate conversations on the phone with Avery from prison.
"It was all an act. He told me how to act, smile, be happy. I didn't know what to do, I didn't want to get hurt," Stachowski said.
In the interview, Stachowski describes Avery as a "monster," and says at one point she ate two boxes of rat poison so she could go to the hospital and get away from him.
Stachowski says she asked Avery several times if he killed Teresa, but he always denied it. But even though she says she believed he did it, she never shared that information with investigators.
"He told me once that all bitches owe him, because of the one who sent him to prison the first time," Stachowski said.
Avery was convicted of first-degree intentional homicide in Halbach's death a decade ago. He'd been wrongfully convicted years earlier in a rape case and served 18 years in prison. He had sued Manitowoc County for tens of millions when he and his nephew, Brendan Dassey, were arrested in Halbach's death.
Avery filed a new appeal earlier this week.
