‘Making a Murderer’ Making a Buzz

Type the name “Steven Avery” into a Google search and an innumerable list of articles will appear about  Netflix’s new ten hour docuseries, Making a Murderer.  In the mid 80’s, Avery was wrongfully convicted of assaulting a woman, and spent 18 years as an innocent man in prison in Wisconsin.  After DNA evidence exonerated him, and he was released in 2003, he filed a $36 million dollar lawsuit for wrongful conviction against the Manitowoc County Sheriff’s Department.  Two years later, he was arrested for the murder of a photographer who worked for Auto Trader Magazine, Teresa Halbach.  Avery was tried and convicted of the murder, and is now serving a life sentence. Setting the stage as a frame-up job by the Manitowoc County Sheriff’s Department,  Making a Murderer is a rally cry for justice using Steven Avery as an example of what can happen to innocent people when the system we trust to protect us becomes corrupt.  But will all this buzz be enough to actually lead to eventually proving his innocence?

After being released for less than a month, the movement resulting from Making a Murderer has already reached the President of the United States.  A petition was started on December 20th on the official Whitehouse Petition website, http://petitions.whitehouse.gov and after getting over 100,000 signatures, has received an official response.  The response noted that Steven Avery and his nephew, Brendan Dassey, who was said to be an accomplice, were held as prisoners by the State of Wisconsin, and are not under federal jurisdiction.  Therefore the President does not have power to grant clemency in this case.

However, the message is still getting out.  Forbes.com labeled Making a Murderer “Netflix’s Most Significant Show Ever.”  Still, there are articles, podcasts, and debates all over the internet talking about this less than a month old docuseries.  CNN.com, Rollingstone.com, abcnews.go.com, and PopSugar.com are just a handful of the websites that are in one way or another getting the word out.

So what makes this show what it is?  It is composed of interviews of family members, attorneys, friends, and relatives of the victim, as well as the woman Steven Avery was originally accused of assaulting, but for which he was exonerated. There is old news footage, footage from the trial itself, and even clips of Dassey’s interrogation where the investigators are clearly manipulating him into telling the story they want to hear.

During these interrogations, it quickly becomes evident that Dassey must have some sort of intellectual disability, and really doesn’t understand what is going on.  He shows no sense of fear or concern for the situation, and readily changes his story at key verbal queues issued by the interrogating officers.  One of the facts regarding Halbach’s murder is that she was shot in the head.  However, that piece of evidence was not released, and the two officers tried for some time to get Dassey to confess to that.  Dassey, trying to give them what they wanted (but not knowing what it was), would respond with gruesome answers as he was asked what they did to Halbach’s head.  Dassey would take some time and think like he was making up a story to please his interrogators.  With each answer the police would tell him that they knew the truth, and like a puppy begging for a treat, Dassey would come up with something new.  Exasperated that they weren’t getting the answer that they were looking for, one of the officers came right out and said that they knew she had been shot in the head, and asked him who did it.  If the few clips of Dassey’s interrogation were not enough, online articles are linking to Dassey’s entire interrogation videos on YouTube.

Also in this docuseries, it is shown how the initial murder investigation of Teresa Halbach was handled.  To avoid any apparent conflict of interest due to Avery’s then pending lawsuit with the MCSO, the investigation was conducted by the Calumet County Sheriff’s Office, and Manitowoc officers were not supposed to be on site.  However, two Manitowoc officers who were involved in Avery’s original assault charge, and also individually named on the lawsuit along with Manitowoc County Sheriff’s Office, began assisting with the investigation.  In fact, it was one of these two officers who found the key to Halbach’s Toyota RAV4 laying on the floor of Avery’s bedroom after Calumet had already been searching the room for several days.  Another interesting note is that only Avery’s DNA was found on the key.  It is noted in Making a Murderer that Halbach’s key was old and well used, and therefore her DNA should have been on the key as well, suggesting that the key had been wiped clean of any DNA, and then Avery’s DNA had been added.  This series also points out that there is no blood nor DNA of any kind belonging to Halbach at the alleged crime scene.  It is details like these that make up this series that point to Avery being framed.

Of course, there is the possibility that Avery and Dassey are in fact guilty of an incredibly horrific crime.  If that’s the case, then pushing the buttons too much, and their potential release would only let two very dangerous men out from behind bars.  Perhaps this docuseries left out some very important information that influenced the jury to come to a guilty verdict.  Although it is important to note that there were jurors on Avery’s trial that were employed by the Manitowoc County Sheriff’s Office.

Either way – truly guilty or not – Making a Murderer is gaining traction and support for Avery and Dassey.  Kathleen Zellner is an attorney who has the highest number of exonerations of any lawyer in the country, and she has taken over Avery’s case since the airing of this show.  In an article on thewrap.com, Zellner states that there is “new evidence” and she is “…confident Mr. Avery’s conviction will be vacated…”