Steven Avery: Making of a Murderer

[eerok]

Here's an article on the documentary:

http://www.npr.org/2016/01/05/46190...ilmmakers-documented-the-making-of-a-murderer

I'm watching the end of the series right now. I see no compelling reason to conclude that Avery killed Halbach. The police work was terrible and the evidence was tainted. This conviction needs a serious review.

The poor kid was flat out bullied by those cops. Disgusting.

 

[lionking]

Here's an article on the documentary:

http://www.npr.org/2016/01/05/46190...ilmmakers-documented-the-making-of-a-murderer

I'm watching the end of the series right now. I see no compelling reason to conclude that Avery killed Halbach. The police work was terrible and the evidence was tainted. This conviction needs a serious review.

The poor kid was flat out bullied by those cops. Disgusting.

I assume you are referring to Dassey. I have far more sympathy for him than Avery. Although I don't think there's sufficient evidence to convict Avery, I think he's capable of the crime. Dassey? Not a hope in hell. And even if he was capable, the evidence is pathetic.

 

[truethat]

I found this interesting article that pretty much sums up how I feel.

http://www.pajiba.com/netflix_movie...-evidence-making-a-murderer-didnt-present.php

 

[Sergei Walankov]

Did he have any cuts on him?

He did actually - a fairly deep one on his finger. Not that this persuades me that the blood wasn't planted, by any stretch. I suspect he had a cut of some kind somewhere on his hands more often than not, given his line of work.

 

[SomedayGirl]

And the cut doesn't really fix a problem with the blood in the vehicle. No prints or anything else of Avery is inside the cabin of the RAV4. If he was wearing gloves so he wouldn't leave prints, how does the blood drip where it does? If he wasn't wearing gloves and just wiped everything down instead, how did he miss the blood especially next to the ignition?

The pajiba post has been pretty thoroughly answered elsewhere. Both the cat and threat are in episode one. Avery is on audio tape admitting both are true to the filmmakers.

He had called Auto Trader several times because the salvage yard had listed several vehicles with them over the previous year. Testimony at trial was he'd asked for Teresa once. Excluded testimony is where the towel story comes from and the context of it isn't that Halbach was frightened - it was from a conversation with a receptionist, not her boss, and the receptionist says they both said Ewww and laughed about it. Either way that testimony was not presented to the jury.

He did have cuffs and leg irons and those were swabbed. Avery and another person's (presumably Jodi) DNA came up on them, Halbach's did not. And finally the DNA on the hood latch could certainly have been planted, a solid swipe with a dirty sock would do it.

I think it's absolutely possible Avery killed Halbach, it might even be likely. It's pretty easy to construct how it plays out from the most solid of the evidence, it's when you try to shoehorn Dassey's multiple narratives into it that the whole thing becomes nonsense.

 

[truethat]

This is what I mean about weird. People are acting like "Hey we can trust him, he admitted he doused a cat in gasoline and threw it into a fire....see how honest he was? He admitted it..."

 

[SomedayGirl]

I can't speak for others but I will. LOL I've been reading alot about this case and if I had to estimate the way Avery's been characterized by most commenters 70% feel the way I do - Avery has warts, plenty of them. He's not an especially likable and certainly not an especially smart individual. The case against him however has some serious flaws and whatever one may think of Avery personally the whole thing is a troubling look small town justice. Avery had $400K to play with and was still convicted - imagine how it goes for people who don't have that kind of resource to draw from.

Brendan Dassey for example...the very first thing his public defender does is try to get him to plead guilty. He lets Dassey continue making statements to police. He sends in his own investigator to further pressure the kid. By the time Dassey gets new counsel, it's too late and the damage has been done. There's literally no physical evidence at all that ties him the the murder of Halbach. No witnesses that place them together. Zip. On the basis of his own muddled and manipulated statements and a pair of jeans with bleach on them, that kid was sentenced to life for raping and killing a woman.

To me that's the point the series is trying to make, it's showing how slanted the system is against people like Avery and Dassey - people who are not well connected, not wealthy, not well liked, not terribly bright.

 

[Azrael 5]

Im up to episode 6 great series thus far,I agree with all that treatment of Dassey was appalling and illegal.
I guess the kid wouldnt have requested an attorney regardless of his rights,haven't seen anything to suggest he did. Crazy hick town full of corrupt cops.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Fair enough. But what this documentary was really about wasn't the guilt or innocence of Steven Avery, but rather the dubious tactics the state used to convict him and his nephew.

Steven Avery might have killed Teresa Halbach (I would argue that no compelling evidence has been presented that he did), but your inclination to not be convinced that he didn't is exactly the problem this series is highlighting. Our criminal justice system is supposed to work the other way around.

While I'm empathetic to the cause the movie makers chose to publicize, they picked an odious poster boy when there are hundreds (maybe thousands) of suitable candidates where prosecutors have railroaded innocent people.

The claim the prosecutors moved the bones is not credible. The idea other people could have committed the murder is reasonable but the fact the victim had documented contact with the victim is troubling

Claiming this was to get out of the millions of dollars lawsuit is contradicted by the fact the lawsuit was settled for a few hundred thousand.

 

[JTF]

Open And Shut

The 10 part Netflix documentary is fascinating, but it ignored key pieces of inculpatory evidence.

Teresa Halbach told her supervisor that on 10/10/05, she went to the Avery residence and he opened the door wearing nothing but a towel. Halbach felt "creeped out" by Avery and requested that she never return to Steve Avery's residence.

In the weeks leading up to the murders, Avery called Halbach's workplace several times requesting that Halbach return to his residence. Avery called Halbach 3 times on 11/31/05, and he used the Star 67 feature for the first two phone calls. Avery lured her to the residence by claiming that his sister would meet Halbach at the Avery compound. Avery's last phone call was recorded approximately an hour after Halbach's arrival at the Avery compound. Avery did not use the Star 67 feature for this phone call. Avery left a message wondering why Halbach didn't show up in an attempt to create an alibi.

Brendan Dassey's confession contained details that were only known to case investigators. This included steel tire belts being used to burn the body more quickly; Halbach's cell phone being in the burn barrel; Avery opening the hood of Halbach's car to dismantle the vehicle; and Avery removing the license plates from Halbach's vehicle. Avery's DNA was also found under the hood of Halbach's vehicle and the license plates from Halbach's vehicle were found crushed inside another vehicle on the Avery compound.

Dassey stated that Halbach was shackled to his uncle's bed with handcuffs and leg irons. A few weeks before the murders, Avery was accompanied by his sister to a sex shop and he purchased handcuffs and leg irons.

A bullet containing Halbach's DNA was found in Avery's garage and was definitively linked to Avery's .22 rifle. Dassey claimed that they used bleach and ammonia to clean up Halbach's blood in Avery's garage. Dassey's mother asked her son why he had bleach stains down the front of his pants and he told her that he was helping his uncle clean the garage.

During a phone conversation with his mother, Dassey told her that Avery had touched him and other family members in their private parts. During his police interrogation, Dassey told investigators that the family was frightened of Avery due to his hair trigger temper.

There were also several disturbing allegations that arose during the course of Avery's trial that were not presented in the documentary.

A 23 year old woman reported to police that a year before Teresa Halbach was murdered, she was raped by Steve Avery. She states that she didn't report the rape back in 2004, because Avery told her that he would kill her if she reported him to the police.

A fellow inmate of Avery's during his original 18 year incarceration, told investigators that Avery showed him a diagram he drew of a torture room. Avery told this fellow inmate that if he was released from prison, he would use this room to rape women.

In 1985, Steve Avery was clearly railroaded by law enforcement and spent 18 years in prison for a crime he didn't commit, but it is equally clear that Avery is a rapist, sadist, and cold-blooded killer.

 

[lionking]

The 10 part Netflix documentary is fascinating, but it ignored key pieces of inculpatory evidence.

Teresa Halbach told her supervisor that on 10/10/05, she went to the Avery residence and he opened the door wearing nothing but a towel. Halbach felt "creeped out" by Avery and requested that she never return to Steve Avery's residence.

In the weeks leading up to the murders, Avery called Halbach's workplace several times requesting that Halbach return to his residence. Avery called Halbach 3 times on 11/31/05, and he used the Star 67 feature for the first two phone calls. Avery lured her to the residence by claiming that his sister would meet Halbach at the Avery compound. Avery's last phone call was recorded approximately an hour after Halbach's arrival at the Avery compound. Avery did not use the Star 67 feature for this phone call. Avery left a message wondering why Halbach didn't show up in an attempt to create an alibi.

Brendan Dassey's confession contained details that were only known to case investigators. This included steel tire belts being used to burn the body more quickly; Halbach's cell phone being in the burn barrel; Avery opening the hood of Halbach's car to dismantle the vehicle; and Avery removing the license plates from Halbach's vehicle. Avery's DNA was also found under the hood of Halbach's vehicle and the license plates from Halbach's vehicle were found crushed inside another vehicle on the Avery compound.

Dassey stated that Halbach was shackled to his uncle's bed with handcuffs and leg irons. A few weeks before the murders, Avery was accompanied by his sister to a sex shop and he purchased handcuffs and leg irons.

A bullet containing Halbach's DNA was found in Avery's garage and was definitively linked to Avery's .22 rifle. Dassey claimed that they used bleach and ammonia to clean up Halbach's blood in Avery's garage. Dassey's mother asked her son why he had bleach stains down the front of his pants and he told her that he was helping his uncle clean the garage.

During a phone conversation with his mother, Dassey told her that Avery had touched him and other family members in their private parts. During his police interrogation, Dassey told investigators that the family was frightened of Avery due to his hair trigger temper.

There were also several disturbing allegations that arose during the course of Avery's trial that were not presented in the documentary.

A 23 year old woman reported to police that a year before Teresa Halbach was murdered, she was raped by Steve Avery. She states that she didn't report the rape back in 2004, because Avery told her that he would kill her if she reported him to the police.

A fellow inmate of Avery's during his original 18 year incarceration, told investigators that Avery showed him a diagram he drew of a torture room. Avery told this fellow inmate that if he was released from prison, he would use this room to rape women.

In 1985, Steve Avery was clearly railroaded by law enforcement and spent 18 years in prison for a crime he didn't commit, but it is equally clear that Avery is a rapist, sadist, and cold-blooded killer.

I don't think it's clear at all. To start how did these two borderline mentally disabled idiots forensically clean the bedroom of all traces of Halbach's DNA? Where is the physical evidence anywhere of Dassey's involvement? As for Dassey disclosing details of the kill room, did you watch the interviews? They were criminal. The cops could have bullied him into saying the pope was involved.

 

[SomedayGirl]

JTF, just a couple points because I don't have time to address it all but most of that isn't true.

Teresa Halbach told her supervisor that on 10/10/05, she went to the Avery residence and he opened the door wearing nothing but a towel. Halbach felt "creeped out" by Avery and requested that she never return to Steve Avery's residence.

None of this is true. It wasn't a supervisor, no supervisor testified, it was a receptionist. The date wasn't 10/10 - there is no testimony about that date at trial and one of the reasons the receptionist's testimony about that was excluded is because she didn't know when the conversation happened. That date and the "creeped out" characterization come from the prosecutor, not the receptionist. The receptionist portrays it as she and Halbach laughed about the towel incident but that wasn't allowed before the jury.

http://chippewa.com/news/victim-s-c...cle_fb32d5b4-4569-53de-bb0c-c6e2beccd56e.html

A fellow inmate of Avery's during his original 18 year incarceration, told investigators that Avery showed him a diagram he drew of a torture room. Avery told this fellow inmate that if he was released from prison, he would use this room to rape women.

This has been floating around and I don't know the source for it (Kratz would be my guess) but there was no testimony at trial to this effect.

A bullet containing Halbach's DNA was found in Avery's garage and was definitively linked to Avery's .22 rifle.

Not a bullet but a fragment of one. Halbach's DNA was ID'd on it but the test was tainted with the tester's DNA. By her lab's standards it should have been labelled "inconclusive" but she decided to make a one time exception (this is in the documentary). The fragment was a from a .22 and there was a .22 at Avery's trailer. The fragment was not demonstrated to have come from that weapon.

Dassey stated that Halbach was shackled to his uncle's bed with handcuffs and leg irons. A few weeks before the murders, Avery was accompanied by his sister to a sex shop and he purchased handcuffs and leg irons.

Yes to both. The state lab testified they returned DNA for Avery and another person, not for Halbach or Dassey.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/mrlpwg8i7ijgl40/dassey_4_18_07.pdf?dl=0

Brendan Dassey's confession contained details that were only known to case investigators.

This is absolutely not true. Here's a page with links to all the Dassey interrogations. I've read them all and you can see how he's either directly fed answers to questions, is cued over and over and over until he guesses what they want to hear, or provides details that are uncorroborated by anything or anyone. If you start with the 5/13 interview he DOES seem to have a surprising amount of inside knowledge. But if you start at the beginning, you'll see how he got there.

http://www.convolutedbrian.com/dassey_confessions_links.html

Anyway, yes, I'm deep down the rabbit hole on this one. lol

 

[johnny karate]

No I don't disagree. But I don't think it's about him being "treated fairly" I couldn't care less how he was treated. I just think we need to be impartial and just in our systems.

Well, I think we’re just arguing semantics. The point is, the investigation and subsequent trials were not handled fairly or impartially.

It seems to me in watching the series that the outside investigators who came in know he did it. I do think they planted her key in his room and that the swipe of blood on the car seems suspicious.

Knowing he did it and planting evidence are at odds with one another. Rather, they believed he did it, and then manipulated the evidence to fit that belief.

Did he have any cuts on him? Where did the blood come from?

I’m not sure how far into the series you are, so I don’t want to spoil anything. But the source of the blood is dealt with in later episodes.

However, her burned body was found on his property, her car was there and he was the last person to see her alive.

Many people had access to that property, including the other people who lived there, two of whom had dubious alibis. Also, as has been mentioned previously, there was an incinerator on the premises. Weird that Avery would choose to burn his victim in a fire pit just outside his trailer instead.

And “last person to see her alive” isn’t particularly convincing evidence of… well, anything.

[When they were interviewing him before she was found, I felt like he was lying (Don't start flipping out on me, I'm not saying that means he was guilty! It's just my impression after watching years of cops interviewing liars)

“It’s just my impression” isn’t particularly convincing either.

If they planted the evidence but he's guilty it's a situation where the cops should be punished but in doing so the conviction would be overturned. That's a problem.

And that’s the whole point. Our criminal justice system is based on the premise that it’s better to let ten guilty men go free than wrongfully convict one innocent man. Again, this series isn’t about the guilt or innocence of Steven Avery, and I’m certainly not here to defend or attempt to exonerate him. This is about what the system did to secure these convictions. And guilty or innocent, no one should be comfortable with how this investigation was handled.

There are several things left out of the documentary that make me question their objectivity.

I don’t find a single piece of this so-called “evidence” the least bit compelling. A lot of it certainly points to Avery being a creep. None of it points to him being a murderer.

It’s been covered by other posters in this thread (SomedayGirl gives a nice rebuttal for most of it), so I won’t go into detail.

The two calls with the number blocked and then the last one with it not blocked (because he knew she wouldn't pick up) were interesting to me.

They were engaged in a business transaction. Not at all surprising he would call her.

As far as that last call supposedly made after she was already dead, as far as I can tell the only source for that claim is the prosecutor. Considering that he’s demonstrated himself to be an unethical scumbag, not really willing to take his word on anything.

 

[johnny karate]

This is what I mean about weird. People are acting like "Hey we can trust him, he admitted he doused a cat in gasoline and threw it into a fire....see how honest he was? He admitted it..."

It's not to point out that he's trustworthy, but rather to point out that it was dealt with in the series. And it was. So it's not like it's some big revelation.

 

[johnny karate]

To me that's the point the series is trying to make, it's showing how slanted the system is against people like Avery and Dassey - people who are not well connected, not wealthy, not well liked, not terribly bright.

This. Very, very much this.

 

[SomedayGirl]

As far as that last call supposedly made after she was already dead, as far as I can tell the only source for that claim is the prosecutor. Considering that he’s demonstrated himself to be an unethical scumbag, not really willing to take his word on anything.

That's corroborated by the cell record, both the *69 calls and the unblocked call at 4:35. The two blocked calls seem a bit weird but she was running late so perhaps he called to find out where she was (those calls were at like 2:10 and 2:20, she'd been due at 2) and he blocked it in case she was avoiding him for that reason. There are so many possibilities for the 4:35 call it helps/ hinders both sides. Accidental redial, checking to make sure it didn't ring after he burned it, calling after she left to ask a question (the call was 13 seconds long), calling it to locate it after he killed her. Just for myself, none of it looks terribly suspicious or concerning. To me the least plausible reason is he was setting it up to look like she'd left...honestly I just don't think he's that clever.

ETA: Here's her cell record.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7ymhHbxUJQ3SHBBTFFaRzJIc0k/view

 

[johnny karate]

While I'm empathetic to the cause the movie makers chose to publicize, they picked an odious poster boy when there are hundreds (maybe thousands) of suitable candidates where prosecutors have railroaded innocent people.

Well, they didn’t choose him. At least not for that. They starting filming his story after he was exonerated from his 1985 wrongful conviction and released from prison. The ensuing drama literally unfolded in front of the cameras.

And I think the fact that Avery and his family are odious is the point. It’s easy to rally around someone clean-cut and well-spoken, with an all-around good moral character. But the criminal justice system should work the same for everyone, and we shouldn’t just shrug our collective shoulders when someone unlikable is abused by it.

The claim the prosecutors moved the bones is not credible.

Why isn’t it credible?

The idea other people could have committed the murder is reasonable but the fact the victim had documented contact with the victim is troubling

His contact with her was within the context of a legitimate business transaction, and was not something he ever denied or was kept secret.

Claiming this was to get out of the millions of dollars lawsuit is contradicted by the fact the lawsuit was settled for a few hundred thousand.

The lawsuit was settled after the murder charge because Avery was desperate for money to pay for his defense. And the state ended up saving millions of dollars because of it, along with the individuals named in the lawsuit (including two Manitowoc County officers who worked on the murder investigation) escaping any liability.

So if someone wanted to make the argument that this was a frame-up in response to the lawsuit (which I am not): Mission accomplished.

 

[johnny karate]

That's corroborated by the cell record, both the *69 calls and the unblocked call at 4:35. The two blocked calls seem a bit weird but she was running late so perhaps he called to find out where she was (those calls were at like 2:10 and 2:20, she'd been due at 2) and he blocked it in case she was avoiding him for that reason. There are so many possibilities for the 4:35 call it helps/ hinders both sides. Accidental redial, checking to make sure it didn't ring after he burned it, calling after she left to ask a question (the call was 13 seconds long), calling it to locate it after he killed her. Just for myself, none of it looks terribly suspicious or concerning. To me the least plausible reason is he was setting it up to look like she'd left...honestly I just don't think he's that clever.

Just to be clear, I don't doubt that he called her (and I also don't find calling someone with whom you are engaged in a legitimate business transaction the least bit suspicious), but rather how it was determined the last call came after she was already dead. How do they know exactly when she died?

Sounds like something Ken Kratz pulled out of his backside.

And by the way, you're providing great info. I'm glad you went down that rabbit hole because it saves me from doing the same.

 

[SomedayGirl]

I don't think any tampering was motivated by the suit. I think if anything was planted it was to bolster their case, not to create one out of whole cloth for some nefarious reason.

If anything was manufactured or manipulated, however, that invalidates the whole case to me. None of it can be trusted and both Avery and Dassey should go free regardless of their guilt or innocence.

ETA: Ahhhh, I see your point about the call now.

 

[johnny karate]

I don't think any tampering was motivated by the suit. I think if anything was planted it was to bolster their case, not to create one out of whole cloth for some nefarious reason.

If anything was manufactured or manipulated, however, that invalidates the whole case to me. None of it can be trusted and both Avery and Dassey should go free regardless of their guilt or innocence.

Completely agree. It's clear they zeroed in on Steven Avery from the very beginning, and it's my belief that the investigation was not only steered towards him, but evidence was manipulated in the process.

Whether he did it or not will probably never be known, ironically enough, because of how compromised the investigation was.