Doug Schneider

USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin

As Steven Avery sat in prison for rape committed by Gregory Allen, Allen committed a second rape

Allen, now 62, has served almost 19 years of a 60-year sentence for 1995 kidnapping, sexual assault

As controversy swirls over the "Making a Murderer" documentary, the rapist whose 1985 attack on a Manitowoc woman led to Steven Avery's wrongful conviction is quietly approaching his first shot at parole for a brutal sexual assault that sent him to prison almost a decade later.

Gregory Allen, formerly of Green Bay and Manitowoc, is almost two decades into a 60-year sentence for the kidnapping and sexual assault of a Green Bay woman. Allen, now 62, and an inmate at New Lisbon Correctional Institution in Juneau County, is eligible for a parole hearing Oct. 24, according to State of Wisconsin's Offender Database.

The Green Bay attack was committed almost 10 years to the day following the crime for which Avery was sent to prison.

Avery was tried and convicted in the 1985 attack on Penny Beerntsen, then a Manitowoc resident, who was attacked while jogging along the Lake Michigan shoreline. Avery served 18 years in state prison before a DNA test showed in 2003 that he was not the attacker.

The same test linked Allen, who lived in Manitowoc at the time, to the assault. But Allen was never charged with assaulting Beerntsen.

As Avery sat in prison, Allen had moved to North Locust Street in Green Bay and taken a job at a local coal company. Then:

► In June 1995: Allen broke into a house on the city's west side and sexually assaulted a 34-year-old woman who lived there.

► In July 1995: Green Bay police arrested Allen on a charge of lewd and lascivious behavior in an unrelated incident.

► In October 1995: Multiple felony charges are filed against Allen in connection with the June attack.

► In July 1996: A Brown County jury found him guilty of kidnapping, sexual assault and burglary. He was sentenced to 60 years in prison.

► In 2003: Steven Avery was exonerated of the 1985 rape committed by Allen. He forgave Beerntsen for testifying against him.

► In 2005: Avery was arrested and charged with murder in the slaying of photographer Teresa Halbach, whose remains and Toyota SUV were found on property owned by the Avery family in northwestern Manitowoc County. Despite Avery's claims of innocence, a jury convicted him of killing Halbach. His 16-year-old nephew, Brendan Dassey, also was convicted.

The case became the subject of the 10-part Netflix documentary, "Making a Murderer."

dschneid@greenbaypressgazette.com and follow him on Twitter @PGDougSchneider