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

Permanently A

Junior Member
I've been thinking about this series so much and it just gets me heated how much fucked up shit people got away with.

  • Colburn knows about the Rav 4 2 days before Teresa went missing
  • Colburn neglects to report the phone call from the detective saying they had the wrong guy
  • Colburn writes the report on the phonecall the day after Steven was released
  • Detective Fassbender tells the DNA Analyst to "put her in the bed or garage"
  • Fassbender and Wieber blatantly coerce multiple contradictory confessions out of Brendan WITHOUT permission from his parent or a lawyer present
  • Len Kachinsky is working for the prosecution instead of his client Brendan
  • Len Kachinsky hires a guy that forces Brandon to choose from "I'm sorry I did it" or "I'm not sorry I did it"
  • said guy writes in an email he thinks the Avery's are devils and evil incarnate (keep in mind this is Branden's defense team)
  • Manitowoc county says they will only provide equipment to the search
  • Lenk pretty obviously plants the key (has none of Teresa's DNA, found after 7 searches when no one is watching Lenk)
  • judge dismisses Len Kachinsky for allowing Brendan to be interviewed without a lawyer, yet allows the coerced interview to be used in the trial
  • judge cites Steven's "previous criminal history" as reason for giving him life in parole, when he was exonerated for the rape
  • two of the jurors on the jury are directly related to Manitowoc County Sheriff's Department

And what's crazy is I'm sure I missed something else. So many lies. So many questions. No answers. No justice.
 
I honestly have no idea how they could convinct the kid beyond a reasonable doubt. No DNA, fingerprints, or other evidence. A story that didn't match the evidence in Avery's case.

I mean why not test the mattress and sheets for DNA? If there's DNA, his story is true. If not, at least the rape was made up.

How could anyone say they believe without a reasonable doubt that this kid raped, stabbed, choked, and shot a woman and left no evidence behind because this below average kid had 5 days to clean up.

Apparently being tricked into confession doesn't fly for some people. No one is "dumb" enough.

Brandon came off borderline mentally retarded sometimes. All he does is say what he thinks the other person wants to hear even if it's a complete lie. Just watch all the interviews and conversations with his mother. People forget the cops LIED about contacting the mother (twice) so they can grill him. How the hell do you confess about murdering/raping a girl then worry about homework and wrestlemania right after? Then his own damn lawyer is proven to be against Brandon and completely fucked him over. It was crazy seeing all these lawyers give their opinion about how shocking/illegal his whole case went but then a judge simply says no kthxbye for a retrial.
 
If people think false confessions are somehow new, please lookup the case of the Central Park Five. I just did. 5 young black men, all convicted of a brutal rape off of their initial interrogation that occurred when they were all picked up. Meanwhile, not one piece of physical evidence connected any of them to the crime.

If a crime ever enters the public domain, and you become a person of interest to the cops, it doesn't matter if you did it or not, they will make sure people think you did & that you go away for it.
 

lt519

Member
t was crazy seeing all these lawyers give their opinion about how shocking/illegal his whole case went but then a judge simply says no kthxbye for a retrial.

That's the worst part, every time they elevated it the court system wanted nothing to do with it. The fallout of a retrial and a wrongful conviction would crucify a ton of people and cost the state a shit load of money. I can just see these judges with their ten foot poles pushing the documents off their desk into a waste bin. It's crazy.
 
If it wasn't covered in the documentary, it's garbage? So 99.99 percent of the trial is garbage then? That purposely biased documentary sure worked its magic on some people.

It is garbage, not because it is not in the documentary, and I showed why with respect to what was posted in the thread. There is absolutely no basis for the claims made in the poster's source. There are no supporting statements. That poster responded reasonably to the fact there is no evidentiary support, whereas you just take it as yet another opportunity to be condescending.
 

Kevtones

Member
I hope everyone that watched this has seen the Paradise Lost trilogy. It should and I hope will serve as an inspiration to bring some form of justice here.
 

RedShift

Member
She had already been reported missing when he made the call. The person he called said that the car's owner was listed as missing.

There are only two reasons he'd know the car's details:

1) He'd just looked up what Teresa's car was, in which case why would he then need to call dispatch and ask who the car belonged to?

2) He was looking at a 99 Toyota
 

Kevtones

Member
I can't believe it. What did they not show? Was this manipulative? How can the juror of Wisconsin be this fucking stupid.


This was a show about evil.
 

bebop242

Member
There are only two reasons he'd know the car's details:

1) He'd just looked up what Teresa's car was, in which case why would he then need to call dispatch and ask who the car belonged to?

2) He was looking at a 99 Toyota

The arguement you qouted was based on the previous poster's misstatement that the cop knew about the car days before she disappeared which is incorrect. In actuality he called about the car a couple days before they found it. Why call it in like he did if the car was presumably still missing?
 
This. The bullet fragment they found seemed more suspicious than the key in the bedroom. You almost have had to come across some blood spatter around the area it was found, or at least noticed evidence of a massive clean up job.
If you had just meticulously cleaned up evidence of millions of flecks of blood then somehow re-coated every surface of every floor, wall, ceiling, car part, broom handle, box, and whatever the fuck else was in the garage with dust, and made sure to get your own DNA back onto everything (because it sure would look fishy if there was nothing there!) you would simply be too tired to scour the floor to search for a bullet sitting there in plain sight.

The prosecution in this case was relying on people either being too fucking stupid to see through their shit, or too invested to rock the boat.
 

Zemm

Member
people keep saying she was harassed by phone calls from Avery, but watching the part with her boss in court as well as the brother and ex boyfriend, it seemed pretty clear they were hinting that it was the ex boyfriend that kept calling her.
 

Erigu

Member
people keep saying she was harassed by phone calls from Avery, but watching the part with her boss in court as well as the brother and ex boyfriend, it seemed pretty clear they were hinting that it was the ex boyfriend that kept calling her.
I don't follow you. Who was hinting at that? The filmmakers? They don't know who it was.
 

Zemm

Member
Yeah I mean they don't know who it was but they (the defence and even the boss I think) believe it was the ex calling her.
 

Homeboyd

Member
Here's your hood latch explanation:

http://www.msnbc.com/hardball/watch/-making-a-murderer---filmmakers-discuss-documentary-598845507868

The crime lab investigator was examining Steven's Pontiac Grand-Am, and then immediately went over to investigate TH's Rav4 WITHOUT changing gloves. Of course one of the things he would do while inspecting the car would be to open the hood. The defense even argued in court there was potential for contamination. But you never saw this in the documentary, helping prove it wasn't completely biased for the defense as Ethan Couch in here would have you believe.

Oh and one other thing:
http://www.superiortelegram.com/new...59-suspended-former-da-sets-practice-superior

Kratz was abusing Xanax and Vicodin DURING this trial. It says in the interview: "Kratz says he doesn’t pose a risk to anyone" and yet "the Wisconsin Public Defender’s Office has certified Kratz to try criminal cases, but he is restricted to serving only male clients." No risk to anyone... except women and the innocent of course.

Dude is an actual piece of shit.
 

y2dvd

Member
Augh, Kratz makes me sick. I wonder can the petition actually lead to an investigation of Kratz and co. Please come to fruition.
 
  • judge cites Steven's "previous criminal history" as reason for giving him life in parole, when he was exonerated for the rape

He was serving 6 years jail time concurrently for his convictions for assaulting his cousin and illegally possessing firearms.

Then there was also the incident with the cat.
 

The Beard

Member
Did they ever explain why Teresa's key was a standalone key? I've never seen anyone carry around a single key for their car. It was like Lenk went to Teresa's apartment and got her spare key, cleaned it, rubbed it on Stevens dirty clothes to pick up a little of his DNA, and planted it in Stevens room.

Did they ever find her other keys. Like her apartment key, maybe a key to her parents house, key for work, etc? All the women that I know look like janitors with the amount of keys that they carry around.
 

ink4n3

Member
Did they ever explain why Teresa's key was a standalone key? I've never seen anyone carry around a single key for their car. It was like Lenk went to Teresa's apartment and got her spare key, cleaned it, rubbed it on Stevens dirty clothes to pick up a little of his DNA, and planted it in Stevens room.

Did they ever find her other keys. Like her apartment key, maybe a key to her parents house, key for work, etc? All the women that I know look like janitors with the amount of keys that they carry around.

I don't know, both me and my wife just carry one key. Technically she has zero since her car is push button start.
 

Homeboyd

Member
It's the spare (or a replica of the spare). The spares have a shorter cut than the main key. I saw a comparison somewhere. It was also attached to a lanyard found somewhere. I can't remember all the details... but basically it seemed like this was not a key she used to drive her car which would make sense since it didn't have her DNA on it (nor any other keys with it).

#lenkisthelink
 

Permanently A

Junior Member
He was serving 6 years jail time concurrently for his convictions for assaulting his cousin and illegally possessing firearms.

Then there was also the incident with the cat.

Do you have a source on that? I was unable to find an assault charge on his record and the felony possession of firearm charge appears to have been dismissed.

I'll give you the cat incident though I don't think its enough of a criminal history to give him life without parole. But maybe I'm wrong, please let me know about the assault and illegal possession charges.
 

Permanently A

Junior Member
l3rLK6P.jpg

Steven has new lawyers.
 

oti

Banned
Sooo... is every American trial like this "let's see who can entertain the juror crowd the most" circus?
 
Do you have a source on that? I was unable to find an assault charge on his record and the felony possession of firearm charge appears to have been dismissed.

I'll give you the cat incident though I don't think its enough of a criminal history to give him life without parole. But maybe I'm wrong, please let me know about the assault and illegal possession charges.



It was in the documentary, but here's the wiki link

At age 18, Avery pleaded guilty to burglary of a bar and was sentenced to 10 months in prison. When he was 20, Avery and another man pleaded guilty to animal cruelty after pouring gasoline and oil on Avery's cat and throwing it, alive, into a fire; Avery was again sentenced to prison. In 1985, Avery was charged with assaulting his cousin, the wife of a part-time Manitowoc County sheriff's deputy, and possessing a firearm as a felon. The same year, he was also convicted of raping a Manitowoc woman, Penny Beerntsen, of which he was later proven innocent. He served six years for assaulting his cousin and illegally possessing firearms, and 18 years for the assault, sexual assault, and attempted rape he did not commit.
 

UFO

Banned
Sooo... is every American trial like this "let's see who can entertain the juror crowd the most" circus?

Not even close. Most murder trials are very open and shut cases, with tons of evidence and eye witnesses. A lot of defendants will also take plea deals to prevent the death penalty.

This trial was so weird because of Stevens prior exoneration, and the the prosecution having no case what-so-ever so they tried to sway the public mind with dramatic stories.
 
Not even close. Most murder trials are very open and shut cases, with tons of evidence and eye witnesses. A lot of defendants will also take plea deals to prevent the death penalty.

This trial was so weird because of Stevens prior exoneration, and the the prosecution having no case what-so-ever so they tried to sway the public mind with dramatic stories.

Except in every little town and municipality across america, the interest of self preservation and the assertion of your authority and your actions as the law where you live, is just as powerful and just as possible as it was in this case.

The assumption that it's never this bad, or not just any department would do something like this, is not an assumption we(I) as americans can make unfortunately.
 

The Beard

Member
Sooo... is every American trial like this "let's see who can entertain the juror crowd the most" circus?

Trials without hard evidence, or reliable witnesses, are often like this because both sides are trying to prove something that's literally unproveable.

There was a great episode of Dateline that aired last night. It was a new episode, so for those of you that haven't seen it but want to, don't read this.
A man was killed in his home. They had a suspect that by all accounts seemed to be the person that killed him. The prosecutions theory and timeline seemed absolutely air tight. At trial, this man's defense team introduced a second suspect, and a different timeline which created a ton of reasonable doubt. I went from, this dude is guilty as fuck, to holy shit maybe it was that other guy. And the jury voted not guilty.
Avery was robbed of that chance. Nothing was airtight about the prosecutions theory of what happened that day. One alternate suspect, and a theory that made even just a little bit of sense, very well could've gotten Avery a not guilty verdict.
 

Frodo

Member
OMG just saw the first episode and my blood is LITERALLY boiling. I can't handle this.

On to the second episode now.
 
Trials without hard evidence, or reliable witnesses, are often like this because both sides are trying to prove something that's literally unproveable.

There was a great episode of Dateline that aired last night. It was a new episode, so for those of you that haven't seen it but want to, don't read this.
A man was killed in his home. They had a suspect that by all accounts seemed to be the person that killed him. The prosecutions theory and timeline seemed absolutely air tight. At trial, this man's defense team introduced a second suspect, and a different timeline which created a ton of reasonable doubt. I went from, this dude is guilty as fuck, to holy shit maybe it was that other guy. And the jury voted not guilty.
Avery was robbed of that chance. Nothing was airtight about the prosecutions theory of what happened that day. One alternate suspect, and a theory that made even just a little bit of sense, very well could've gotten Avery a not guilty verdict.
Why were they not allowed to present an alternate timeline with a different suspect? Is it a Wisconsin thing?
 
I'm not sure exactly what happened here...but I feel that Brendan's confessions, the key, and the bullet, all should have been thrown out.

You can't tell me Lenk didn't plant that key and bullet.

And Brendan's "confessions", and everything involved with them, were infuriating.

Has there been any movement on the EDTA testing? Was gutted when that came up in the documentary, knew he was gonna get convicted at that point, even with the other chemist saying it wasn't conclusive.

Also, I haven't read much about the making of this, but I'm assuming that this started as a documentary about Steven's exoneration, but later turned into this project once he was arrested for the murder? I was kinda surprised how they had so much footage. Really well done on the filmmakers behalf.
 

UFO

Banned
Avery was robbed of that chance. Nothing was airtight about the prosecutions theory of what happened that day. One alternate suspect, and a theory that made even just a little bit of sense, very well could've gotten Avery a not guilty verdict.

That judge was disgusting. Hand-cuffed the defense team at every opportunity. DIdn't want the truth, just wanted an easy conviction.
 

TTOOLL

Member
I want to start this today, but I saw some people saying it wasn't completely accurate. Is this the real thing? Should I watch it?
 

FlyinJ

Douchebag. Yes, me.
I want to start this today, but I saw some people saying it wasn't completely accurate. Is this the real thing? Should I watch it?

There is evidence that wasn't shown in the doc, but you will be able to easily find articles describing it when you are done.

The main people saying it isn't accurate are the DA and MCSD, who also refused all interviews by the film makers during its production. You can make your own judgement.

The documentary is incredible.
 

The Beard

Member
Why were they not allowed to present an alternate timeline with a different suspect? Is it a Wisconsin thing?

I have no idea, but I'd like to find out. It really doesn't make sense.

That judge was disgusting. Hand-cuffed the defense team at every opportunity. DIdn't want the truth, just wanted an easy conviction.

It was an absolute handcuffing. The only way for the defense to introduce reasonable doubt was to claim it was all a frame job by Manitowoc PD. Which was a very steep, and icy hill to climb in a small town like that.
 

Zemm

Member
I want to start this today, but I saw some people saying it wasn't completely accurate. Is this the real thing? Should I watch it?

Yes it's the real thing. It's 10 episodes which are packed full of content, they had to cut some stuff if they didn't want to do 15+ episodes but all the key (heh heh) evidence is there.

It's kind of crazy how much stuff is there, I thought they'd struggle to get 10 episodes worth of good content but I have no doubt they could have done even more if they wanted.

It's the best, well made tv show I've seen since The Wire.
 
I hope everyone that watched this has seen the Paradise Lost trilogy. It should and I hope will serve as an inspiration to bring some form of justice here.

I would recommend people do some additional research after watching that trilogy and then forming their own opinion on the matter. While the narrative it portrayed of people judging those 3 based on their music/clothing wasn't entirely inaccurate, there was alot more going on there.
 
Just finished and thought it was merely OK. Felt like it was about 6 episodes of content stretched way to far to get it to 10. Nowhere near as good as the Paradise Lost trilogy
 
people keep saying she was harassed by phone calls from Avery, but watching the part with her boss in court as well as the brother and ex boyfriend, it seemed pretty clear they were hinting that it was the ex boyfriend that kept calling her.
All I know is that the coworkers story COULDN'T have been Steve if he was calling her using *67. The coworker said she looked at phone and recognized the number calling. Well....the number wouldn't show if it was Steve using *67

Just finished and thought it was merely OK. Felt like it was about 6 episodes of content stretched way to far to get it to 10. Nowhere near as good as the Paradise Lost trilogy
Yeah. The last 3-4 really stretched it out for no good reason.
 

Dalek

Member
Looks like Kratz tried to prevent this documentary from being made and tried to subpoena all their footage. No wonder he's bitter.

http://www.indiewire.com/article/wh...thru_newsletter&utm_source=iwDaily_newsletter

Two months before Steven Avery’s trial for the murder of Teresa Halbach — a trial that would become the centerpiece of Netflix's brand new and very popular 10 part docu-series, "Making a Murderer" — and two months after filmmakers Laura Ricciardi and Moira Demos requested an interview with lead prosecutor Ken Kratz, co-director Ricciardi received an ominous phone call. It was the co-lead investigator of the Halbach case, asking where he could find Ricciardi so that he could serve her with subpoena for any footage related the investigation.

The filmmakers panicked, knowing that for all practical purposes, this subpoena had the ability to shut down their film.

We were two independent filmmakers," co-director Demos told Indiewire in a recent interview. "We wouldn't have had the money, and certainly it would have taken a ton of time to duplicate our footage, close to 300 hours of footage at that time, just to produce all of that for the state would have shut us down."

It’s important to remember that in 2006 the two documentarians didn’t have Netflix, who didn't get involved in the project until 2013, and the company’s deep pockets to lean on. They were two filmmakers trying to make their first film after grad school. Luckily, Ricciardi had been a practicing lawyer for four years before going to Columbia University to study film, and she would serve as the film’s production counsel until Netflix came aboard.

"Ken Kratz was alleging in [the subpoena that we were] acting as an investigative arm of the defense," explained Ricciardi. "So we brought the motion to quash the subpoena, refuting Mr. Kratz’s accusations as baseless."
One of Kratz’s claims was that he believed the filmmakers might have evidence related to the murder of Halbach, a claim the filmmakers are emphatic was impossible.

"We were not trying to investigate the Halbach case in any way, in fact we were being very careful to avoid any discussion of the case because we didn't think that was our place," explained Ricciardi. "The case was pending, the stakes were very high and we did not want to put anyone in jeopardy. So that wasn't our role."

And had they come across evidence that would have helped prove Avery's innocence or guilt?

"I think we would have thought it through had that happened, and I think we would have sought legal advice and tried to do the legal and ethical thing," Demos said.
Another aspect of Kratz’s subpoena was that he wanted any electronically recorded material of the filmmakers' communication with Avery which, as Ricciardi explained, caused the filmmakers to be suspicious of the prosector’s motivations:

"What's really interesting about that is, any of the statements Steven would have made to myself or anyone working for our company would have been recorded by the jail itself. All of the calls Steven was able to make and all the visits were being monitored and recorded. So our argument in the motion to quash was [that] the state does not need these materials from us because the state already has these materials. When considering that, it's interesting because then you think, 'Okay, what's really the real reason behind the subpoena?'"
 
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