Making a Murderer

None of us are going to research all the facts, nor should we be expected to before forming an opinion - the series shows enough of them regardless of the obvious skew towards the convicted. It will be interesting to hear what you think after you’ve seen all the undisputed evidence that is presented over those 10 hours of riveting manipulative television. :)

In Strang’s recent interview he does address the ‘cutting room floor’ stuff the prosecution claims should be in there - he glosses over it though and says it’s not particularly revelatory in terms of balancing what was shown. He agrees with the film-makers statements - he doesn’t know whether the two parties committed the murders or not, but the way the case was handled was extremely suspect, opening the doors to reasonable doubt.

I do agree with your point though, on the danger of film-makers manipulating popular opinion to further an agenda. I’m not sure this is an example of that, but it was a well-made show and I thank the people here for putting me onto it.

Watched the first episode last night. I was expecting the reasons for Avery’s arrest to be more nefarious. But I’m guessing that small town rivalries and long simmering feuds are the reason behind many injustices when one side has connections to authorities. It all came down to pissing off the wrong person.

Very well done show so far.

Yeah, I have yet to hear of a court case with a musical score.

One also has to remember that the defense’s evidence is placed in nice logical order in the film, where as it is the varying unedited dispersed testimony that is presented to a jury.

That being said, there are definitely bad issues with what went on. From what I have heard there is some other evidence indicating some premeditation on Avery’s part. I am sure some sort of rebuttal will be released, beyond an appearance on Nancy Grace by the former prosecutor.

HEPCAT: The second episode is the hook.

Well, guess I’ll be watching episode two tonight. :)

I think it’s after Ep2 that things descend into serious WTF territory. I’m on Ep6, and loving the show while hating how it’s destroying what little faith I have in the justice system.

I’m on Episode 4 and am well into WTF territory. There’s a reasonable chance that Avery is guilty, IMO, but it’s hard to believe that he was convicted in the face of mountains of reasonable doubt…except of course that the US justice system isn’t anywhere close to deserving the name.

I just saw Ep 4, and this show just makes me so upset.

Episode 4

[spoiler]Before this episode, I was sort of on the side of thinking Steven was guilty, especially after Brendan’s confession in the previous episode. But then his lawyer’s investigator sits him down, forcefully makes it clear that he’s not interested in anything but the absolute truth. And then when Brendan writes the truth down, he’s all “No, this isn’t the truth, you don’t even mention Teresa”. Arrrgh. And then after he gets the confession he wants out of him, the cops do it again for 3.5 hours, and then really smartly make him confess to his Mom too. When he finally comes clean with her later, that conversation is so heartbreaking.

And then later in the episode they basically harass Jodi (Steven’s girlfriend) constantly and keep sending her to jail until she finally breaks up with him. I don’t blame her. Law enforcement has way too much power that can be abused like this. If cops harassed me constantly like that, and kept sending me to jail, I’d break up with whoever they want. No love is worth that. I can’t believe it took her 3 times in jail before she finally broke.

[/spoiler]

Such a brutal show.

I love the way people talk on this show. Especially the Avery family. Those lilting sing-songy accents are so pleasing on the ears.

I just finished episode 3 last night (I’m spacing 'em out). I’m guessing there’s a lot of twists and turns to come as he looks pretty guilty to me so far.

I honestly don’t know if Steven Avery is innocent or guilty of killing that woman. I do think the Manitowoc County Sheriff’s Department should not have been all over that crime scene for weeks. I definitely think there was some shenanigans there. Whether that was overzealous cops making sure there was enough evidence to nail their perp, or corrupt cops looking to frame Avery for his lawsuit is a question for others.

I think the nephew got screwed by the investigators and his lawyer. His confession was nuts and didn’t fit the evidence at all. I’m blown away that anyone can talk to him for more than ten minutes (let alone hours of interrogation) and not realize that the kid is developmentally challenged.

Yep. Is it possible that Avery did murder her? Sure. It’s even possible that he did it and actually believes he’s innocent due to some psychological condition and having been behind prison bars for 18 years for something he didn’t do. However, I don’t buy in the plausibility and credibility of the scenario the prosecution laid out.

The sequence of events sketched out by them rests on Dassey’s statements, and he doesn’t seem like a reliable witness. Much has been written and researched about how police interrogation can be easily used to plant information and coerce people into a confession. Even people with high or normal levels of intelligence can be susceptible to this, and Dassey–politely said–clearly is not a bright kid.

I really have a hard time believing that they’d cut her throat without there even being a single hint of blood/DNA in that room. It’s not like the carpet was new or that Avery had bought specific chemicals required to clean the place. And Avery isn’t the smartest guy either.

the final episodes

Really, Dassey … man! I can’t wrap my head around the fact that the appeal that was supposed to prove that his first lawyer didn’t work in his client’s interest got turned own. It wasn’t until that episode that I realized that the other guy–the one that should have conducted a polygraph test with Dassey, but didn’t–wasn’t a cop, but a partner of that lawyer. And even if that lawyer was convinced that pleading guilty is the best thing for Dassey - deciding to not be around when his (clearly incoherent and not very clever) client is being questioned by the police seems like definite misconduct.

There was apparently quite a lot of evidence that was simply left out of the movie, which makes the case pretty rock solid against him. Bear in mind that making a movie about a murder where the bad guys are caught isn’t going to get the same attention as one where it supposedly sites an innocent man convicted.

The prosecuting lawyer was on smirconich’s show on POTUS and pointed out a number of things which make it fairly clear that the guy actually did it, not the least of which would be that if he didn’t do it, then framing him would have involved murdering the victim and planting her remains, which is really not a reasonable thing to believe.

Folks may way to investigate the case in a bit more detail beyond a Netflix documentary series.

I’ve only watched this interview outside the show so far, but this former juror didn’t think that the documentary left out anything important. But then, he also admits that he thought Steven was innocent based on the defense’s evidence, so maybe that’s his bias talking. Apparently the other jury members were really hostile towards him for being on the not-guilty side.

This is a pretty bullshit argument though. It’s not like the first time they went after him so aggressively in 1985 that it was really the police that assaulted and attempted to rape that woman. Just because you don’t have another suspect doesn’t mean your suspect must be guilty, or that the police did it. What a stupid false choice.

That’s the whole point of framing somebody.

— Alan

Framing someone in no way implies that the person or persons doing the framing committed the crime themselves. If that’s his best argument, he’s going to have to do better.

I fairly strongly believe Colburn (sp?) found the victim’s truck, either with her in it or not and had it placed on the avery property. i also think either he or lenk placed avery’s blood in the truck and the key in the house. I don’t really know/think they had anything to do with the actual murder though. There were a fair number of suspicious types that it’s a real shame the leads were ignored. Ex-boyfriend, brother, roommate, Bobby, Bobby’s step-dad, all seemed suspicious at best.

We’ll likely never know, but I do think it seems fairly clear that there was a lot of improper police work and there is at least a shadow of a doubt on Steven and a HUGE amount of reasons Brenden shouldn’t be in there, not the least of which is that apparently it’s ok to say ‘x happened’ when at trial for the same incident you already convicted someone for saying ‘y happened’ when y and x are mutually exclusive.

But in order to frame him in the way that was shown to have occurred, they’d have had to have somehow found the woman’s remains from the crime, which would have either been dismembered, or they’d have to dismember then themselves, and then burn them at Avery’s salvage yard.

Which kind of means that, yes, they would have had to murder her themselves, or else basically the entire police department and every single person including folks like coroners would have to be in on it, because they would have had to find her remains wherever they were first located, recover them, transport them to Avery’s salvage yard and burn them there, to later recover them there… And somehow no one knew about the body when they first recovered it? Or I guess it just happened to be burnt in Avery’s salvage yard, in a fire that they know Avery started himself? The idea that was presented, that the cops were somehow framing him to avoid paying for the previous wrongful conviction, just didn’t really make sense, because it would either involve the aforementioned recovery and transport of the victim’s body to Avery’s place, or just a totally coincidental murder of somehow on Avery’s property.

Of course, he actually did present other evidence that was even more damning, like apparently non blood based evidence found inside the rav4’s trunk from Avery, which couldn’t really be explained even if you believed the notion of planting blood on the scene.

And then there were various things which are presented in the movie that really don’t reflect reality, like the idea that the key just magically appears. It didn’t, it has hidden on a small ledge behind a cabinet and feel to the ground when they moved the cabinet. It didn’t just appear or something.

Like I said, you can look into it yourself, but I’d be really wary of basing an opinion on a movie that really isn’t even a documentary. I mean, they actually denied the prosecutor an interview, and refused to even talk to him. That’s kind of absurd if you are trying to do a serious documentary.

Edit:
Here is an article taking about some of the evidence, but not nearly all of it, which was presented at the trial but is conveniently left out of the movie. Again, it’s just a movie. It’s made for entertainment.

Guilt or innocence aside, I also liked the brief bits peeking into the media frenzy behind this. For instance, there’s that part when it is being reported that Avery asked one of Dassey’s friends to help him get rid of the corpse, and you’re like “WTF” - and then you hear the context of the actual conversation which makes it clear that Avery was making a joke. Or when, during one phone interview, the reporter asks Avery about Dassey’s intelligence, and Avery (correctly) answers that he isn’t a very smart kid, this is quickly framed as a threat to Dassey.

What movie? It’s a ten-part series.

That said, yeah, they’ve surely left out some things. And as I said previously, I think it’s possible that Avery killed her, but the sequence of events the prosecution illustrates doesn’t add up. It’s not just about Avery - Dassey was found guilty, too. By his own questionable confession, the victim had been shackled to Avery’s bed, then raped, then they cut her throat. If that version is supposed to be credible - when did Avery shoot her?

Speaking of Dassey - someone put the full 4 hours of interrogation footage online.

Thanks for the link. I knew some would start popping up in this regard. there really needs to be some rebuttal to the film.

I completely disagree with the statement “Again, it’s just a movie. It’s made for entertainment.”. That dismissive statement is incorrect. It is ten hours of testimony, depositions, news reports, recorded phone calls, and interviews. Sure it is presented from a defensive perspective. But it is not fiction. Not even close. No actor portrayals. And by saying it is “only a movie” is an improper deflection of some interesting reporting, regardless of whether or not you agree with the conclusions they are trying to argue.

The reason I’m saying that it’s just a movie made for entertainment is that it’s not really a documentary. It’s a movie based on a true story, but it seems like they took some liberties that you wouldn’t normally expect in a documentary.
(Movie meaning series in this case)

It’s not just about Avery - Dassey was found guilty, too. By his own questionable confession, the victim had been shackled to Avery’s bed, then raped, then they cut her throat. If that version is supposed to be credible - when did Avery shoot her?

This was covered in the court as well. The “cutting her throat” was really just a scratch, and they actually killed her in the garage. And while they found no blood in the garage, it had been recently cleaned with a ton of bleach, and they found recently bleach stained clothes from Avery and Dassy with splash patterns consistent with cleaning the floor with bleach

The issue here with only seeing a series, is that they simply didn’t include everything that was presented in court. So it’s impossible to judge whether the prosecution case was complete or not, since you aren’t actually seeing their whole case. I mean, hell, they specifically refused to even interview the prosecuting attorney even when he went to them.