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Making A Murderer - Netflix 10-part documentary series - S1 now streaming on Netflix

Yeah, everything he said doesn't mean shit.

Didn't they search his house before talking to Brandon? Which means they saw the supposed handcuffs and iron legs at location before they tricked him into saying it was used? And if they did use it as evidence, let me guess. No DNA from Theresa, right? Ya know despite blood all over the place.

Did Brandon even bring up bleach in any of his confessions? His pants are circumstantial evidence at best. And i don't see why how a cell phone or a camera being burned counts as key evidence. Especially since that's where the fucking body was found. These cops are goofs.

There is only 4 key pieces of evidence that shows Avery is possibly the killer imo.

1. Her car is hidden in the lot. Clearly the murderer put it there. But unfortunately there was no fingerprints. Just small spots of DNA from Theresa and Avery. The defense was able to prove that Avery's blood sample was in fact fucked with. But since the judge is an asshole he let an expert tell the jury this was impossible despite the fact the testing was supposed to take weeks, then all of a sudden turned into few days. Also pretty weird the cop called in about the car and how the lady found it 5min within the search. The car key was nothing. Even if he did kill her that shit was so obviously planted it's not worth discussing.

2. She was last seen/heard from the Avery residence. My gut is saying she was killed there. So either Avery did it or someone literally parked the car and her cut up body into the Avery lot. Of course the easy logical answer is Avery did it. But due to the massive size of the lot, it's not entirely impossible for the body to be planted.

3. The bullet. Planted or not, I believe she was most likely shot. They were able to find an expert who said it is likely that the gun he owned matched with the bullet. So either he shot her with his gun, someone used his gun, or the murderer had a matching gun. Again since they had no proof despite a bloody bullet, Brandon's confession was supposed to wrap this up. But the cops couldn't get out of him....Because none of this shit he said was true.

4. Obviously the biggest evidence is the burnt up body. Also looks bad for him that he coincidentally had a bonfire within that time period. However, A. his family was there so he's either a sick fuck or dumb and B. it was on Halloween so yea, not that crazy to host a bonfire.

They suckered Brandon into a story because they had no direct evidence pointing to Steve. Brandon was their key into getting him locked up. And guess what? His confession wasn't even used because they knew the defense would poke holes all over the place. Yet, they somehow convinced a jury to vote guilty despite no direct evidence. Which honestly isn't surprising since it's well known the jury was tainted anyways.
 

Kuro Madoushi

Unconfirmed Member
Of course I put stock in his statements. He states things that only a person at the scene of the crime would know. Unless of course he was just lucky in his guesses about what all of her clothing looked like. Or where Teresa's key would be. Or where Steven touched her car. Or why there was blood in the back of it. Or how Steven got the cut on his hand that day that led to there being blood in her car. Or how blood and bleach magically got on his own jeans. Or how he got all the info that he shared with others prior to the police questioning him. For someone who is supposedly too dumb to know what he's saying, he sure concocted quite the believable tale. A tale that fit a lot of the evidence as well.
I admit, that confession is pretty damning. However, a few points.
1. No amount of bleach and meticulously is going to clean up ALL that blood. If she was shot in the head or stabbed, that's a lot to clean up considering there was no blood in the cracks and no other DNA was found.
2. I don't recall reading anywhere there was blood on his jeans.
3. His tale did not fit the evidence. The investigators verbally led him to it after a series of interrogations.
4. He always had a guessing tone in his voice and he got the impression they'd let him go if he just said what they wanted.

The biggest holes in that poor kid's confession is the lack of DNA and blood in the trailer and garage. No knives were found with TH's blood or DNA according to the documentary. No mention was made of damage to bed posts if she was in fact tied there. None of her DNA was found on the restraints in the home.
 

Hazmat

Member
I'm hoping that someone writes a well-sourced article about the stuff that was left out of the series. It seems pretty clear that there was stuff left out, but I'm hesitant to trust a Reddit post.

Also, what makes some of you think that some of the other family members might have done it? I didn't get that vibe at all, but it's definitely possible that in ten hours of depositions, courtroom testimony, and prison phone calls that I missed a few things.
 

cwmartin

Member
I'm hoping that someone writes a well-sourced article about the stuff that was left out of the series. It seems pretty clear that there was stuff left out, but I'm hesitant to trust a Reddit post.

Also, what makes some of you think that some of the other family members might have done it? I didn't get that vibe at all, but it's definitely possible that in ten hours of depositions, courtroom testimony, and prison phone calls that I missed a few things.

I'm no detective, but when an ex boyfriend tells me he guessed his dead ex-girlfriends cell phone account password by using the combined birthdays of her alive sisters, and there are missing voicemails, I raise an eyebrow.
 

JBuccCP

Member
I haven't read all of Dassey's transcripts yet but I've started reading through the 2/27 interview at the high school and I'm not understanding why people are saying the earlier interviews weren't corerced or were better. For example here when the cut on the finger is first brought up, Brendan says it was from cutting it on glass. But apparently that's not good enough because they immediately change that to it being cut on the knife:

ed9gDBq.png

It's like this through the whole interview. Brendan rarely says anything without them bringing it up first (seriously reading his interviews is like playing a jrpg, so much "...."). With seeing body parts in the fire for example they basically just start listing off all the body parts he saw and prodding him about other pieces of her he saw and eventually he just says "toes". Beyond that from the word go they're fucking with him, saying they already know all this stuff and they're on his side and are going to bat for him and just need him to get it off his chest. They even tell him they think Steven did it on accident at one point. I'm sure this stuff is police interrogation 101 but it's still shitty to see it used on a minor with a lower mental capacity.

So far the only thing he's brought up on his own was the car being covered with sticks and a car hood, but I don't know if he could have seen that on tv or been told it by someone else since the car was found months before this interview.
 
I'm no detective, but when an ex boyfriend tells me he guessed his dead ex-girlfriends cell phone account password by using the combined birthdays of her alive sisters, and there are missing voicemails, I raise an eyebrow.

Yeah, that was certainly strange, but there was literally zero other evidence that pointed to him. Granted that could have been because of the shortcomings of the police investigation.
 

Kuro Madoushi

Unconfirmed Member
I'm hoping that someone writes a well-sourced article about the stuff that was left out of the series. It seems pretty clear that there was stuff left out, but I'm hesitant to trust a Reddit post.

Also, what makes some of you think that some of the other family members might have done it? I didn't get that vibe at all, but it's definitely possible that in ten hours of depositions, courtroom testimony, and prison phone calls that I missed a few things.
Because the other family members were...also less than pristine citizens apparently and no other suspects were ever considered and the cops had motive to single out Steven Avery and not his family.

There are a lot of theories going around
Avery did it
Avery and Brendan did it
Scott and Bobby did it
The cops did it
The ex boyfriend did it
The ex boyfriend and brother did it
Teresa committed suicide and this was used to frame Avery
There is also another theory going around about a man called Mr. German or something like that which also is a pretty crazy read.
 

Hazmat

Member
I'm no detective, but when an ex boyfriend tells me he guessed his dead ex-girlfriends cell phone account password by using the combined birthdays of her alive sisters, and there are missing voicemails, I raise an eyebrow.

Oh, I meant other members of Avery's family. A close friend guessing someone's password doesn't raise any red flags for me. Lots of people's passwords are their birthdays or pet's names.
 

Dalek

Member
I'm no detective, but when an ex boyfriend tells me he guessed his dead ex-girlfriends cell phone account password by using the combined birthdays of her alive sisters, and there are missing voicemails, I raise an eyebrow.

I know right? I can't get this part out of my head-it is so strange. He's not guessing her numeric pin code on the phone-he's guessing her account password.
 
Yeah, that was certainly strange, but there was literally zero other evidence that pointed to him. Granted that could have been because of the shortcomings of the police investigation.

Yeah, I thought that was weird, but in terms of suspects, I think the two dudes (whose names escape me) living on the Avery property and whose alibis are exclusively tied to each other strike me as the best "who else" option if Avery didn't do it (which, honestly, I don't know or care about at this point, since the major issues in my mind are poor Brendan, and the obvious planting/tampering with evidence.)
 

TheYanger

Member
The point of the series, even if you want to play devil's advocate and ask what it left out (and you should, documentaries are always inherantly biased) - it does not matter if we have a theory as to who else did it, it's not the defense's job to tell you who else did, it is only important that you could believe that someone else could have done it, and there's no reasonable way to look at what the prosecution presented and NOT believe that. There is definitely some stuff that makes Steven look guilty, but for every thing that does there's something that directly contradicts that exact piece of the prosecution's case. That's textbook reasonable doubt.
 

mernst23

Member
What I took away from this documentary is that at best, the avery case is not proven without some omitted details that we haven't heard of yet. I'm still 50 50 on his guilt at this point.

The dassey conviction is what makes me furious. He did not offer a single piece of evidence unknown to the public or not floated by the interrogators. Thr confession is pure garbage and he needs to be released now. There is zero evidence tying him to the crime.
 

Dalek

Member
The point of the series, even if you want to play devil's advocate and ask what it left out (and you should, documentaries are always inherantly biased) - it does not matter if we have a theory as to who else did it, it's not the defense's job to tell you who else did, it is only important that you could believe that someone else could have done it, and there's no reasonable way to look at what the prosecution presented and NOT believe that. There is definitely some stuff that makes Steven look guilty, but for every thing that does there's something that directly contradicts that exact piece of the prosecution's case. That's textbook reasonable doubt.

Absolutely. It's crazy how many people don't understand how the justice system should work. Burden of proof, reasonable doubt-all gets thrown out the window. Instead it's -if he didn't do it-WHO DID? Convict him!

Also:

9rzD5mn.jpg
 

aerts1js

Member
Absolutely. It's crazy how many people don't understand how the justice system should work. Burden of proof, reasonable doubt-all gets thrown out the window. Instead it's -if he didn't do it-WHO DID? Convict him!

Also:

haha I laughed at the Toyota one.
 

D4Danger

Unconfirmed Member
But the brother didn't delete anything

Goddamnit Internet, you were so close!

I thought he did (or that it was implied)? He said he accessed her phone and then they proved someone must've deleted messages when they brought in that engineer and phone records
 

Nyx

Member
Yeah, I thought that was weird, but in terms of suspects, I think the two dudes (whose names escape me) living on the Avery property and whose alibis are exclusively tied to each other strike me as the best "who else" option if Avery didn't do it (which, honestly, I don't know or care about at this point, since the major issues in my mind are poor Brendan, and the obvious planting/tampering with evidence.)

Yup, Scott Tadych and Bobby Dassey.
 

aerts1js

Member
I remember that as well.

Yeah; it was implied that he did. Another weird thing (if you go that route) is that in all of her videos she never mentions her brother.

It's weird at the very end when she's being recorded and she's telling everyone who she loves.. she mentions her sisters and a couple of other people.

No mention of the brother.
 
He said he did access the phone, but also that he didn't delete any messages. He also mentioned the mailbox being full, though. The ex also said he accessed the phone. Didn't seem like it was hard for someone who knew her to get into her voicemail.
 

JaseMath

Member
About the key...

Am I right in remembering that the key had only Steven Avery's DNA on it? How is that even scientifically possible?
 
About the key...

Am I right in remembering that the key had only Steven Avery's DNA on it? How is that even scientifically possible?

He bleached it, burned it, reassambled the molten mass but forgot to wear gloves and then put it behind the bookcase with a slingshot mechanism, that catapults the key out into plain sight on on a day where he knew in advance the great Detective Lenk will find it after the 7th search.
 

Dalek

Member
About the key...

Am I right in remembering that the key had only Steven Avery's DNA on it? How is that even scientifically possible?

I mean...I think that's obvious. The key was planted. There's no other reasonable explanation other than the victim wore gloves the entire time she owned the key. I believe the police wanted to make sure the conviction stuck-and they believed Steven was guilty-so they planted the key to ensure a conviction. There's no other reasonable explanation-and that's not even going into how ludicrous the circumstances of finding the key were.
 

yyzjohn

Banned
I admit, that confession is pretty damning. However, a few points.
1. No amount of bleach and meticulously is going to clean up ALL that blood. If she was shot in the head or stabbed, that's a lot to clean up considering there was no blood in the cracks and no other DNA was found.
2. I don't recall reading anywhere there was blood on his jeans.
3. His tale did not fit the evidence. The investigators verbally led him to it after a series of interrogations.
4. He always had a guessing tone in his voice and he got the impression they'd let him go if he just said what they wanted.

The biggest holes in that poor kid's confession is the lack of DNA and blood in the trailer and garage. No knives were found with TH's blood or DNA according to the documentary. No mention was made of damage to bed posts if she was in fact tied there. None of her DNA was found on the restraints in the home.

I didn't want to jump back into this again but since we're talking about DNA. There was no DNA of Brendan found anywhere in this case. Not in Avery's house, not in the garage, not in the car. For those who believe Brendan's confession because "he knew things only the killers could know", how do you explain not a single trace of Brendan anywhere at all? Surely Avery didn't meticulously clean up Brendan's DNA but leave some of his own behind did he?
 

Hazmat

Member
I mean...I think that's obvious. The key was planted. There's no other reasonable explanation other than the victim wore gloves the entire time she owned the key. I believe the police wanted to make sure the conviction stuck-and they believed Steven was guilty-so they planted the key to ensure a conviction. There's no other reasonable explanation-and that's not even going into how ludicrous the circumstances of finding the key were.

But it was her key, right? If the cops wiped it clean then Avery could have as well. I definitely think it was planted, but the DNA on it doesn't prove/disprove anything to me, unless I missed something.
 

GPsych

Member
I'm no detective, but when an ex boyfriend tells me he guessed his dead ex-girlfriends cell phone account password by using the combined birthdays of her alive sisters, and there are missing voicemails, I raise an eyebrow.

To be fair, the brother said that he thought he didn't delete any voicemails. He easily could have deleted some by accident. I used to have a cell phone around that time period that if you pressed "1" to go to the next message it deleted the current one you're listening to.

If I were trying to find my missing sister and the messages were all, "Hey girl! It's your bestie. Just seeing what's up?" I would be hitting "1" over and over again until I hit something weird. He might have just thought he was skipping messages.

Also, after the fact, his friends could easily have told him that deleting messages was a bad idea and he just changed his story to protect himself. Deleting some message doesn't necessarily mean he had any kind of criminal intent.
 
was Steve Avery really calling her cellphone using a *67 function multiple times? And he bought shackles at a store in town the same week Halbach was scheduled to come take the picture of the van?
 

Dan

No longer boycotting the Wolfenstein franchise
Len Kachinsky shouldn't be allowed to practice law. How many other clients has he railroaded into plea agreements or convictions?
 

beelzebozo

Jealous Bastard
I'm confused, what does season 1 mean? There will be more seasons?

i think that's just a netflix designator. there was another thing i noticed had a "season 1" tagged onto it that seemed inappropriate. probably more for their sorting system or something.
 

Dalek

Member
was Steve Avery really calling her cellphone using a *67 function multiple times? And he bought shackles at a store in town the same week Halbach was scheduled to come take the picture of the van?

In the interview with Dean Strang from this week, he said Steven used *67 all the time because he was very private. In as far as the shackles-yes, I believe I read that he and his sister (!) went to purchase them.
 

Erigu

Member
I haven't read all of Dassey's transcripts yet but I've started reading through the 2/27 interview at the high school and I'm not understanding why people are saying the earlier interviews weren't corerced or were better. For example here when the cut on the finger is first brought up, Brendan says it was from cutting it on glass. But apparently that's not good enough because they immediately change that to it being cut on the knife:
At another point, Brendan says that Steven told him he got it "from a fingernail or somethin'". When asked to clarify, he then says that Steven told him he "got it from someone scratched, someone scratchin" um". Asked to clarify again if Steven told him who it was who scratched him, Brendan finally says "Teresa".

Basically, it's all over the place, and there are parts that really feel like Brendan is (sloooowly) making things up as he goes, or merely trying to guess what the detectives said they already knew.
And of course, as you pointed out, that's when he actually brings something up instead of simply nodding at the detective's story...
 

Moobabe

Member
I haven't finished the series yet, but I'm aware of the case etc (so don't worry about spoilers in your answers) but...

Would Avery really be so stupid as to kill this woman? I mean REALLY? He must have known the eyes of the world, so to speak, would be on him.
 

Hazmat

Member
I haven't finished the series yet, but I'm aware of the case etc (so don't worry about spoilers in your answers) but...

Would Avery really be so stupid as to kill this woman? I mean REALLY? He must have known the eyes of the world, so to speak, would be on him.

People who rape and murder other people don't act rationally. I'm not convinced Avery did it, but I don't think that thinking that other people will think you do it prevents semi-random rape-torture murders.
 

Moobabe

Member
People who rape and murder other people don't act rationally. I'm not convinced Avery did it, but I don't think that thinking that other people will think you do it prevents semi-random rape-torture murders.

I get that - but surely it's in his mind that this county is just waiting for an excuse...
 

Alienous

Member
I haven't finished the series yet, but I'm aware of the case etc (so don't worry about spoilers in your answers) but...

Would Avery really be so stupid as to kill this woman? I mean REALLY? He must have known the eyes of the world, so to speak, would be on him.

There'd be a lot of undone murders if people thought like that.
 

Nafai1123

Banned
No, I don't buy any theory were Teresa makes it off of the Avery property alive. Just think about it for a second. Once she leaves the property she could've been seen by dozens of people, including friends and family, for all the cops would know at that point. The cops find her body in the back of her RAV4 a few miles from the Avery property, days after she was last seen at Stevens house. Then they think to themselves, "I don't know who might have seen her, or talked to her since she left Stevens house, or who killed her, but let's frame that motherfucker! Grab the lighter fluid, let's burn her body and bring the bones to his house. I think I saw someone having a bonfire at the Avery property the night that she was there. It'll be perfect!"

She was on assignment, not near her hometown of family and friends.

Let's look at the actual physical evidence and completely disregard Brendan's inconsistent testimony. We have no blood from Teresa in Stevens home or garage. We have the key to her car (with only Stevens DNA) in his home, and a bullet that supposedly has Teresa's DNA in his garage. That's it.

Now, we can largely agree that if Teresa was killed in the garage or house, there would be DNA evidence of it. Since there is no DNA evidence, it's probable she was killed elsewhere; however, there is absolutely no other evidence on the Avery property. Zero, zilch, despite the fact they spent an inordinate amount of time searching the property. That seems EXTREMELY unlikely given we KNOW she was shot in the head. In fact, that's the ONLY physical evidence we have for how she was killed. If she was indeed killed by a shot to the head, there would be massive amounts of blood evidence at the sight of the shooting.

So, if there's no scene of the crime evidence, and in fact the only blood evidence is in her car, indicating she was moved, why is it that hard to believe that the scene of the crime was elsewhere?

Imagine Colborn is searching around the area close to the Avery property (because we know he was) and discovers the car in the woods or near the quarry. Go ahead and look at Google Maps around that area, you'll clearly see how little there is around there and how many small, dirt roads are around that area. He calls dispatch to confirm the identity of the car, and calls Lenk to report that he found the car/body extremely close to the Avery property. Without sufficient evidence, they know they won't be able to convict Steven, but they "know" he did it! "Damn fucking Avery piece of shit. He's not going to get away with it."

So....instead of just reporting the crime scene like they SHOULD do, they ensure Stevens conviction by creating their own crime scene. They use her car to transport her to the quarry where they burn her body, plant Stevens DNA evidence, and move the car to the Avery property during the night. Maybe Colborn tips off the woman that finds the car, maybe she just gets lucky. Once the Avery property is officially designated as the crime scene, they have free reign to plant evidence as they find necessary, which includes planting Steven (and ONLY Stevens) DNA evidence on the key, and planting Teresas DNA evidence on a fired bullet found on the Avery property.

Now, regardless of whether you want to believe this story or not is up to you. Ultimately it doesn't matter, because the fact is that this is how it COULD have happened...and if it could have happened this way, Steven should not have been found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

I have no idea why this story is less believable than the bullshit the prosecution came up with, unless you honestly don't believe that police officers or people in positions of power are capable of lying and deceiving.

I mean, it's not like cover-ups have ever happened before....right?
 

PopeReal

Member
He's a judge now, can you imagine?

What???? Can you imagine going to trial and you see that your judge is goofus mcdoofus???? Might as well just give up at that point. Guy is a beyond stupid "yes man" who did whatever people told him to do to railroad a kid. Fuck.
 
She was on assignment, not near her hometown of family and friends.

Let's look at the actual physical evidence and completely disregard Brendan's inconsistent testimony. We have no blood from Teresa in Stevens home or garage. We have the key to her car (with only Stevens DNA) in his home, and a bullet that supposedly has Teresa's DNA in his garage. That's it.

Now, we can largely agree that if Teresa was killed in the garage or house, there would be DNA evidence of it. Since there is no DNA evidence, it's probable she was killed elsewhere; however, there is absolutely no other evidence on the Avery property. Zero, zilch, despite the fact they spent an inordinate amount of time searching the property. That seems EXTREMELY unlikely given we KNOW she was shot in the head. In fact, that's the ONLY physical evidence we have for how she was killed. If she was indeed killed by a shot to the head, there would be massive amounts of blood evidence at the sight of the shooting.

So, if there's no scene of the crime evidence, and in fact the only blood evidence is in her car, indicating she was moved, why is it that hard to believe that the scene of the crime was elsewhere?

Imagine Colborn is searching around the area close to the Avery property (because we know he was) and discovers the car in the woods or near the quarry. Go ahead and look at Google Maps around that area, you'll clearly see how little there is around there and how many small, dirt roads are around that area. He calls dispatch to confirm the identity of the car, and calls Lenk to report that he found the car/body extremely close to the Avery property. Without sufficient evidence, they know they won't be able to convict Steven, but they "know" he did it! "Damn fucking Avery piece of shit. He's not going to get away with it."

So....instead of just reporting the crime scene like they SHOULD do, they ensure Stevens conviction by creating their own crime scene. They use her car to transport her to the quarry where they burn her body, plant Stevens DNA evidence, and move the car to the Avery property during the night. Maybe Colborn tips off the woman that finds the car, maybe she just gets lucky. Once the Avery property is officially designated as the crime scene, they have free reign to plant evidence as they find necessary, which includes planting Steven (and ONLY Stevens) DNA evidence on the key, and planting Teresas DNA evidence on a fired bullet found on the Avery property.

Now, regardless of whether you want to believe this story or not is up to you. Ultimately it doesn't matter, because the fact is that this is how it COULD have happened...and if it could have happened this way, Steven should not have been found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

I have no idea why this story is less believable than the bullshit the prosecution came up with, unless you honestly don't believe that police officers or people in positions of power are capable of lying and deceiving.

I mean, it's not like cover-ups have ever happened before....right?

This is somewhat along the lines of what I tend to lean towards. Although I would think the police's view would be more malicious than thinking that he's the right guy rather just to take him down because of the up to $36m they were soon going to need to dish out.
 
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