Making A Murderer - Netflix 10-part documentary series - S1 now streaming on Netflix
- Thread starter Armadilo
- Start date
Yes it was fucking gross.
RoadHazard
Gold Member
Having just watched the first four episodes, I'm... I don't know. Utterly in shock? This is just astounding, unbelievable, infuriating, fucking insane. I don't know how this will develop yet, and I obviously don't know what's actually true (and I'm not gonna read the thread until I'm done with the series), but what in all fuck. This is "better" than any crime drama I've ever seen. Holy shit.
Cymbal Head
Banned
There are a lot of people in the doc that clearly think of the entire Avery clan as either evil incarnate or as sub-human or both. To see that kind of frightening prejudice against the poor and uneducated so openly on display turns my stomach.
jellies_two
Member
I know online petitions are largely bs however in case people don't know, there is one at Whitehouse.gov that if it reaches the target by 19th Jan requires an official response:
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/pe...eir-alleged-involvement-murder-teresa-halbach
The petition is really all one can do, sadly. Defacing the Yelp page for the law firm now run by the prosecutor is kind of childish. Donating money is unlikely to change what the lawyer can actually do.
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/pe...eir-alleged-involvement-murder-teresa-halbach
The petition is really all one can do, sadly. Defacing the Yelp page for the law firm now run by the prosecutor is kind of childish. Donating money is unlikely to change what the lawyer can actually do.
onadesertedisland
Member
Childish, but funny.
SlickShoes
Member
At no point to they make him look like a decent guy though, the first episode has him chasing down a woman with a gun and setting a cat on fire and killing it.
The only horrible things that are left out are things like him owning handcuffs and chains, which present no evidence at all of any murder, they exist but that's it.
The documentary was made over the entire time this was all happening and I don't think it's that ridiculous to see that it turned out the way it did because when it was actually happening the media and police and avery hung drawn and quartered before the thing had even got going.
That's funny. I always pictured David Wallace when I looked at one of Avery's attorneys.
BronsonLee
Member
It's a lightning rod like Serial was, ramped up by several magnitudes because it's easily binge watchable (Serial was not) and has enthralling footage as well (The intro with Santaolalla's theme will haunt people for years).
Because he meticulously removed all trace of her dna, then just handled it casually without gloves and threw it behind his dresser, right? That just doesn't follow.
DietRob
i've been begging for over 5 years.
oh wow. very cool to find out the composer that did TLOU did the opening for this. I had no idea.
The opening reminded me so much of True Detective season 1 and that has stuck with me so I imagine you will be right about this theme.
Subpar Spatula
Banned
The agenda was to show justice not being properly done. This hits home in the final episodes where Brendan is convicted of her murder in the trailer when Steven was convicted of her murder in the garage months ago, and the same person was the prosecutor for both.
There wasn't sufficient evidence (even with the omitted stuff) to say without a doubt Steven and Brendan did it. The documentary has never argued they were innocent. You didn't understand.
Beyond that, I also wouldn't say they made it out as if Avery was clearly innocent of the murder of Halbach. What they did make clear was the absurdity of the investigation and the trial, but that isn't the same thing.
I understand why people are hung up on trying to figure out if Avery actually did do it, but the main point of the documentary to me is how law enforcement perverted justice to send Avery and Dassey to prison for a very long time.
With Dassey in particular, if someone included his confessions in a fictional story people would be incredulous. Yet in reality, the investigators blatantly fed him what they wanted to hear, his attorney happily went along with it, the prosecution had no qualms about using the information in court, the judge didn't toss out the confessions, and the jury went along with the pieces they did hear.
Ultimately, this is a story about getting crushed by the machine. If the machine wants you to go away, you are going away.
http://www.nbcchicago.com/entertain...er-juror-says-avery-not-guilty-364234661.html
Juror contacted filmmakers to say he/she only voted guilty out of fear for personal safety.
Juror contacted filmmakers to say he/she only voted guilty out of fear for personal safety.
Correct-people are hung up on "Who is the real killer" when that wasn't the point of the trial-the point of the trial was - "Is there any reasonable doubt that Steven Avery is the murderer?" Big difference.
I had to go modify my Top Ten TV shows of the 2015 list in the GAF thread to include this-I couldn't possibly not include this, because it's all I've been thinking about since I saw it.
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=189371762&postcount=17
BronsonLee
Member
It also isn't so much of a massive conspiracy as it is a whole lot of things coming together so everyone fails.
Manitowoc County didn't want to go bankrupt. Lenk and Colburn wanted Steven done for. Wiegert and Fassbender wanted a win. Kratz went for the jugular. Kachinsky wanted the fame and to butter up the prosecution. I have no fucking clue what O'Kelly wanted.
36 million dollars is a pretty effective reason to want someone done for.
Manitowoc County didn't want to go bankrupt. Lenk and Colburn wanted Steven done for. Wiegert and Fassbender wanted a win. Kratz went for the jugular. Kachinsky wanted the fame and to butter up the prosecution. I have no fucking clue what O'Kelly wanted.
36 million dollars is a pretty effective reason to want someone done for.
there it is.
So the cops wiped off her DNA and the DNA of everyone who ever touched it, and then planted his on it. Why not just plant his on it without cleaning it? You could say it was to get theirs off of it, but they were able to plant it without touching it, could they not collect it without doing so? The key proves nothing either way.
BronsonLee
Member
I can't believe the jury basically punted the fucking case
You're playing with a dude's life
You're playing with a dude's life
To be fair they could have logically feared what could happen if they came back with a not guilty verdict.
They were witnessing first hand what the system could do to someone.
MonorailCat
Member
I never understood the US jury system. The untrainined jury will be influenced by so many things. Just look at the media during that time. Even if you want to be unpartial .. there is no chance for that. The media, the police, the prosecution .. everything is stacked against the defendent.
Edit:
But the judge was cleary biased as well. So i don't know. Maybe don't have elected judges?
Edit2:
Thinking about it: The trial just had to be somewhere far FAR away. Having it placed in their city, which is very very clearly biased was just plain out wrong and a shitshow.
Edit:
But the judge was cleary biased as well. So i don't know. Maybe don't have elected judges?
Edit2:
Thinking about it: The trial just had to be somewhere far FAR away. Having it placed in their city, which is very very clearly biased was just plain out wrong and a shitshow.
I'd say there was strong incentive to not fuck with local law enforcement and the local populace. It is nice to imagine everyday people who are on a jury being strong and noble, but I can understand why fear would be an enormous motivation to try to kick the can down the road so to speak.
I'm only on this jury due to blind luck, after all. It isn't really my problem. What will the community think if I don't choose guilty? They'll know I held out. I have a family to raise here. If there is a split verdict the courts will handle it eventually anyway.
RustyNails
Member
Imagine you live in a podunk town in the middle of nowhere hearing those things about your sheriff and the county. Do you really want to cross their path?
onadesertedisland
Member
Just like A Thin Blue Line.
LaserBuddha
Member
Doesn't it seem odd that the bullet was found in the garage, where the complete lack of blood evidence makes it basically impossible that she was shot there?
I also find it strange that people think he used *67 to trick her, considering he had a normal phone conversation with her on 10/31 and there's not really a way to trick her into showing up there without her knowing where she is going.
I am curious about the personal calls she was ignoring before this, per her coworker. Did they not look back into her cell records to try to determine who might have been repeatedly calling her and presumably harassing her? My understanding is that Avery only called her on the day of her disappearance.
Someone earlier said the cops wouldn't have planted her car there because others might have seen her since the time she left the Avery property. But this was days later when the police probably already looked into other witnesses. How hard would it be, with all the planted evidence (there is no reasonable doubt in my mind that some tampering/planting occurred, regardless of who killed her) to say Avery tracked her down after she had left, after someone else had already seen her? Would that really change anything? If anything it would explain why her blood was in the back seat of her car, when to my mind there is no reason or proposed scenario for Avery to have put her in the car.
The Manitowoc police being given free reign at the house for days during the evidence search should have been enough to taint whatever they found and make it inadmissible. They were told to stay away by a D.A. for a reason. With all those cops having their pensions at risk, and many set to lose their jobs, and having a strong dislike of the Averys to begin with, it would surprise me if there was not a single cop on that force willing to kill someone to frame him, nevermind planting evidence.
I wish everything in this doc had come to prominence sooner, because the federal DOJ should have come in and gotten rid of that entire police force and DA's office based on the things they did, even presuming Avery's guilt. Brandon's first lawyer should be in prison along with several others on some conspiracy charges.
And that piece of shit DA telling the jury they could only decide if Avery is guilty OR the police framed him, and saying "reasonable doubts are for innocent people"? It actually angers me that sexual harassment texts are considered his most heinous offenses. I hope he gets no peace until the day he dies.
I also find it strange that people think he used *67 to trick her, considering he had a normal phone conversation with her on 10/31 and there's not really a way to trick her into showing up there without her knowing where she is going.
I am curious about the personal calls she was ignoring before this, per her coworker. Did they not look back into her cell records to try to determine who might have been repeatedly calling her and presumably harassing her? My understanding is that Avery only called her on the day of her disappearance.
Someone earlier said the cops wouldn't have planted her car there because others might have seen her since the time she left the Avery property. But this was days later when the police probably already looked into other witnesses. How hard would it be, with all the planted evidence (there is no reasonable doubt in my mind that some tampering/planting occurred, regardless of who killed her) to say Avery tracked her down after she had left, after someone else had already seen her? Would that really change anything? If anything it would explain why her blood was in the back seat of her car, when to my mind there is no reason or proposed scenario for Avery to have put her in the car.
The Manitowoc police being given free reign at the house for days during the evidence search should have been enough to taint whatever they found and make it inadmissible. They were told to stay away by a D.A. for a reason. With all those cops having their pensions at risk, and many set to lose their jobs, and having a strong dislike of the Averys to begin with, it would surprise me if there was not a single cop on that force willing to kill someone to frame him, nevermind planting evidence.
I wish everything in this doc had come to prominence sooner, because the federal DOJ should have come in and gotten rid of that entire police force and DA's office based on the things they did, even presuming Avery's guilt. Brandon's first lawyer should be in prison along with several others on some conspiracy charges.
And that piece of shit DA telling the jury they could only decide if Avery is guilty OR the police framed him, and saying "reasonable doubts are for innocent people"? It actually angers me that sexual harassment texts are considered his most heinous offenses. I hope he gets no peace until the day he dies.
Something like this was always going to come out. The initial poll the jurors took as soon as they began deliberations was 7 not guilty, 3 guilty and 2 undecided.
That is a huge swing to get to a guilty verdict, I guess now we know (partially) what caused it.
I'll just quote myself again to highlight what people should really be thinking about in response to this debacle, more than the specific question of the murderer's identity.
O'Kelly wanted to please Kachinsky since that's who's paying him. That, and well, he possibly believes the solution to certain socio-economic problems is extermination, or whatever comes closest.
I think Kachinsky and O'Kelly are the most explicitly corrupt participants in the entire case. These two shouldn't have careers anywhere near the legal profession, yet I know at least Kachinsky has continued to prosper, still working as a defense attorney and a part-time judge, which is fucking absurd. There's no shortage of blatant evidence that they were working against their client's best interests.
MonorailCat
Member
Jep, I really don't understand how Kachinsky still can have a job anywhere near the legal system. He clearly didn't give a fuck about Brendan .. the only thing he was interested in was his own career. He was slimiest scumbag of them all. I would literally love to punch his face if I ever met him.
Having heard nothing about this other than the name and that people were watching it on Netflix, we decided to watch the first episode since my laptop wouldn't play The Wire boxset I got for Christmas.
Goddamn, I was not expecting it to
.
The thing I found most impressive, as with most documentaries, is how fucking good the music is. You'd be surprised at how much tension and suspense you can add to a clip of a person just talking in a room with the right backing track.
Goddamn, I was not expecting it to
end on a cliffhanger! Are we doing spoiler tags for this by the way? Seems a bit weird to spoiler tag a real life event, but I bet there's a few people who don't want to know how the Steve Avery case twists and turns out early (me included), especially with that massive swerve of arresting him for murder without even having a body to pin on him
The thing I found most impressive, as with most documentaries, is how fucking good the music is. You'd be surprised at how much tension and suspense you can add to a clip of a person just talking in a room with the right backing track.
Daffy Duck
Member
Watched episode 2 just now, what a totally bizarre story this is.
I have no idea how this is going to go as I know nothing about this case at all.
I have no idea how this is going to go as I know nothing about this case at all.
i just said all i need is hearsay and conjecture. those are kinds of evidence!
It blew my mind the first time we see him and he's talking about how he took the case because he just came in third in an election and was trying to move away from that public loss. And he was just smiling while talking about how he was using this high profile murder case involving a mentally disadvantaged teen to shore up his image. He and his investigator tie the prosecutor as the biggest creeps in the justice system in this story.
What I still don't get is how the Manitowoc cops were allowed on site, even after they had openly announced that they wouldn't be involved. There was a conflict of interest, a higher authority (the state?) shouldn't have allowed any of those local cops on the case, especially those involved with Steve's prior case. I don't understand why they were allowed there (for days on end even), and their evidence is even allowed to be presented. All this could've been prevented if the Manitowoc cops were hands-off. That should've been an obvious decision from high-up at the start of the investigation.
I think Strang answered this in one of the itv's but I still don't see why they weren't excluded.
I think Strang answered this in one of the itv's but I still don't see why they weren't excluded.
RomanticHeroX
Member
Three episodes in and this highlights so, so many things that are wrong with small American communities. In particular it highlights how harmful local media can be. As someone who grew up in a small community, it's so easy to see how a community's view of an event can be completely determined by how it's presented on the 5 o'clock news, regardless of how biased or flawed that reporting is.
States really need to revise their laws with regards to mental competency. For most states, the cut-off Full Scale IQ score for Intellectual Disability is a hard 70 or below (with commensurate adaptive behavior deficits). I believe they said that Brendan had a 73 FSIQ. Not only is the confidence interval easily below 70 on the low end, but the standard error of measure on the WISC-IV (which is probably what they used in 2006) is somewhere between 3 and 4 points. Legislators are clearly bad at psychometrics.
ZQQLANDER
Member
I was referring to manpower in general terms, not the Avery case.
Evidently I didn't explain myself well enough as I don't think our view points are that different. In a previous post I noted good investigators run with their best possible option at the time (primary suspect) with alternatives on the back burners. When the primary suspect doesn't pan out either by alibi or the evidence doesn't fit then you can shift directions toward suspect #2. If you discover new evidence that suggests you should reexamine primary suspect #1 then you switch gears again.
I don't believe law enforcement planted any evidence, but if they did I would suspect the RAV 4 and/or the blood. This set the tone for the case and as far as the documentary portrayed it, the investigators didn't look back once they found it. Planting such a crucial piece of evidence at such an early stage directed law enforcement along a predetermined path. For me, the key is not as important. It's strange Teresa's DNA isn't on it, but at that point in the case, so much evidence had been discovered at that point. As a result, I don't see how someone would think planting that would really put the nail in Steven's coffin (after discovering the car, DNA, and bones).
The documentary presented plenty of examples, but reading the full transcripts of the interviews with Dassey is repulsive. It is incredible that people entrusted with upholding the law signed off on his "confessions" as being legitimate.
Avery may be screwed, but I'd be very surprised if something doesn't come of this for Dassey.
SneakersSO
Member
Started reading into new info stemming from stuff found in reddit that is being corroborated by ppl on twitter.
So it seems like the key that was found may not have actually been the original key for the car. Lock smiths have chimed in with stating the condition of the metal on the key from the trial picture shows that the key was either a backup or a copy, and would actually explain why no other DNA is found anywhere on it. This revelation then brought up another idea altogether (for me anyway) - where are all her OTHER keys? This thing just keeps getting more interesting.
So it seems like the key that was found may not have actually been the original key for the car. Lock smiths have chimed in with stating the condition of the metal on the key from the trial picture shows that the key was either a backup or a copy, and would actually explain why no other DNA is found anywhere on it. This revelation then brought up another idea altogether (for me anyway) - where are all her OTHER keys? This thing just keeps getting more interesting.
This is actually a pretty good point. I guess it's possible that Teresa just carried around a single car key by itself, but who does that? Wouldn't it be a key ring with her house key, work keys, etc?
SneakersSO
Member
For me, if this is indeed a copy, then I can only imagine this was planted. Why would Steven copy a key pertaining to a crime he is trying to cover up? And what motive would someone have to create a copy of her key, place his (and only his) DNA on it, then plant it in his room. If anything, this corroborates that the key was planted, and that he was being setup.
And yes, I would at least expect other keys to be present on this. At least 1 other one. I wonder if they asked her family if they could recognize whether this was the key ring she used daily.
But Brenden said he saw Steven hide the key in the bookshelf! And this was during his first confession how do you explain THAT.
(it was actually his second confession and the police had already found the key but who needs facts when you can just spew bullshit about Benden's confessions)
Orthogonal
Member
Crazy new revelation from that juror, I speculated something like that may have occurred. Its a question I asked myself immediately when watching.
I'll catch up on the past couple of pages shortly but I'm rewatching bits and.. something struck me as odd.
In Episode 2 they talk to Thersa's brother who, when asked 'How are you holding up?', starts talking about the grieving process and how long that might take.
Before quickly saying - then we can begin to move on... hopefully with Theresa in our lives.
It was a strange turn of phrase at best but... an odd thing to say given it was only a couple of days she had been missing.
In Episode 2 they talk to Thersa's brother who, when asked 'How are you holding up?', starts talking about the grieving process and how long that might take.
Before quickly saying - then we can begin to move on... hopefully with Theresa in our lives.
It was a strange turn of phrase at best but... an odd thing to say given it was only a couple of days she had been missing.
Orthogonal
Member
Thought that was strange too. The whole key situation is the most suspiciously looking planted evidence.
Looking back, Officer Colburn's testimony was so suspect. The guy was questioned on many different things and had a hard time recalling any event to any degree of specificity, but when it comes to looking at the dresser and key, well now he remember vigorously manhandling this tiny little dresser and twisting it about and the key must of somehow fell out in a corkscrew trajectory to land where it did. C'mon man.
SneakersSO
Member
Its amazing to me that two separate confession's were used to convict both Brendan & Steven. They convicted Steven with the first confession, and convicted Brendan with the 2nd. Meaning, according to the Justice Department of Wisconsin, Teresa needed to have been murdered twice that day (once in the bedroom, once in the garage).
Its obvious why they couldn't dismiss Brendan's confession in his case; if the Judge dismisses any of his confessions, you lose a key piece of evidence in the case against Steven, meaning he goes free, or at the very least gets a re-trial.
Its obvious why they couldn't dismiss Brendan's confession in his case; if the Judge dismisses any of his confessions, you lose a key piece of evidence in the case against Steven, meaning he goes free, or at the very least gets a re-trial.