Making a Murderer

I'm glad you said that because I felt the same along with the ex-boyfriend. The brother was just a media *****.

 

I think people are being very harsh on the brother. It's not like in the UK where the media aren't allowed to approach the family during the trial and this was the highest profile murder trial in the history of Wisconsin. I imagine he agreed to give the interviews as the voice of the family so that they weren't all hassled for their thoughts all the time.

As for his support for the prosecution, it's completely understandable. The family want someone to be found guilty of the murder - the alternative is they never know who killed their sister/daughter and how she died - a horrible state of limbo to be faced with. Just because he believed the prosecution case and gave the family viewpoint, I can't see that as a reason to hate him. The only emotion I felt for him was sympathy.

 

This is true, but given how the case unfolded and the evidence was presented wouldn't the brother start to have doubts that they had the right man? And wouldn't you want to know the person actually responsible for your sisters death was the one being brought to justice rather than someone that the police appear to have framed?

Knowing that the person who's responsible for the murder has got away with it must be very difficult to deal with, even if another man is being punished for it.

 

Normally I would agree, however his behaviour is suspicious. Whilst his sister is still classed as a missing person he talks about needing to grieve and how long should he grieve. Most people would fear the worst but still hold out some form of hope.

Also, why delete some of her voicemail messages and deny it? If you look at him when Ryan Hillegas is testifying, his body language is some one who seems tense. Basically, he was the spokesperson for the family and what he did was act as prosecution in the media trial.

Ryan Hillegas, the ex boyfriend he's dodgy as feck.

 

People need to consider when they are watching this that it is a documentary made to firmly push the 'miscarriage of justice' angle for entertainment purposes

That isn't to say that Avery isn't innocent, just bear that in mind

You essentially have 3 scenarios here:

1) Avery is innocent and evidence was planted to frame him
2) Avery is guilty and evidence was planted to secure the conviction
3) Avery is guilty and evidence wasn't planted

From what I have seen in this documentary, only number 3 seems impossible.... However, from what we have seen in the documentary (and coming back to my first point, we don't know what the makers have left out) it doesn't appear that his guilt was proven beyond a reasonable doubt either way

 

Well we do know the evidence that was left out as Kratz has been doing a media tour to highlight the omissions, however at the time of the trial the evidence included was deemed by the prosecution as their 'smoking gun'.

The 3 phone calls he made to her are painting him to be 'stalkerish' yet the she was late arriving and also he made the appointment with the office. If he was going to lure her then surely he wouldn't have left a paper trail and contacted her direct. As it happens asking for her specifically is redundant as she's the only photographer who covers Manitowoc County.

Now Kratz is asserting that the hood latch DNA was the most important evidence not shown, yet during the trial it was discredited.

The fact that the judge would not let the defence introduce alternative suspects, which is a major strategy for all defence lawyers, and a highly questionable confession and the prosection effectively poisoning the jury pool with the pre-trial press conferences, then the documentary achieved what it set out to do which was shine a light on the criminal justice system.

It also highlighted extremely questionable and sloppy investigation processes. I read a newspaper article from a retired English detective (can't remember which paper) and he said based on the confession alone he would never have handed it to the CPS. He would want concrete DNA evidence which he went on to say was never provided and they would have eliminated all family and friends as suspects first.

If anything, this documentary has left me thinking how many more cases are like this? And that in my opinion was the point.

 

I can't stop thinking about this. It gets right under your skin doesn't it? I don't even like Steven Avery, but I am still appalled by the fact that his life has been destroyed by ass covering people whose job it is to protect and serve their community.

 

I know what you mean, it just beggars belief that in a world of supposed increased intelligence this sort of thing can happen.

 

At the time of the trial, not even close.

Perhaps that was true of Manitowoc at the time, but that's like saying "the highest profile murder case in Amersham". It doesn't mean a lot.

 

I'm only catching up to this latest theory...but it is fascinating...and could it be true?

I've looked at the photgraphs and for me it's inconclusive, yet it fits the MO of Edward Wayne Edwards and I didn't realise that he was responsible for the West Memphis Three murder.

[YT]watch?v=BU94s8b7EZY[/YT]

 

I thought I heard it described as such on the series. Perhaps they said that it was one of the highest profile murder cases. Either way, it was clearly very high profile and doesn't change the point I was making. Top nitpicking though!

 

Probably true for Manitowoc. It's a small rural town (by US standards) mostly populated by rednecks. We often used to tease a co-worker from Manitowoc about how a night out in Manitowoc meant cruising the strip in a tractor. It's a bit of a backwater place.

Not really nitpicking - this is the state which has seen trials for the likes of Ed Gein and Jeffrey Dahmer (random aside, my wife met him a few times before he was caught).

Avery was small potatoes on the state level, although the documentary has certainly changed that now.

 

Don't want to keep banging on about it, but Serial is similar. The evidence against Adnan is so dodgy, yet he's convicted for life, essentially from one person's testimony.

 

I've downloaded it, just need to find time to listen to it.

 

A critical bit that most non-US residents aren't fully aware of is that US judges are elected officials, unlike the UK.

This has a significant impact on the legal system, because judges have to stand for re-election. They're appointed to make tough decisions in court, but the tough decision and the popular decision with the public who elect them are often very different things. This means judges are very susceptible to being influenced by public opinion.

Look at Dassey's first lawyer, for example. He stood to become a judge and lost. It's pretty clear from his conduct that he was trying to get Avery and Dassey put away to help with his next judicial election run..."look at me, I'm the guy who got Dassey to own up and help put Avery away". A loathesome, squirrelly little *******.

John Oliver had a good bit about US judges last year, which puts the whole thing into perspective.

[video=youtube;poL7l-Uk3I8]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=poL7l-Uk3I8[/video]

 

I love Last Week Tonight.

I did think of this when they gave the background on Kachinsky.

 

I've just started listening to it, and my first instinct is 'Honour Killing'.

 

Interesting theory, coming from an FBI cold case detective it certainly seems possible. Although to me that mystery man looks like the dodgy juror related to a Manitowoc Deputy (and also a volunteer for the Sheriff's Dept at the time of the trial), Carl Wardman.

Mystery man: https://wronglyconvictedgroup.files.wordpress.com/2015/12/edwards3.png

Dodgy juror: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nat...ror-ties-manitowoc-sheriffs-article-1.2489520

 

That's not a bad shout although I can make out if the court room picture is wearing glasses.

Problem is Edwards died in 2011, so unless he kept trophies or a journal, I guess we'll never know.

 

I didn't really think of it before, but the bones are so shattered an explosion seems possible. Would a fire do that?

 

Have to admit the Edwards theory does sound plausible.

It's not like this particular FBI agent wasn't familiar with Edwards' MO, so it's hardly out of nowhere.

It would provide some explanation for the key mysteriously appearing in Avery's room. Edwards planted it, rubbed it against Avery's dirty clothing to get sweat on it, and maybe anonymously tipped off Lenk.

One of the theories I read pretty early on was that there were two parties planting evidence against Avery, not one. One party was the killer(s), and the other the police trying to pin the crime on Avery after finding the evidence initially planted to frame him. This theory is actually consistent with the Edwards theory - he planted the key, cremains and personal effects. The cops couldn't link Avery to the crime despite the cremains and personal effects, so Lenk/Coburn broke out the blood vial and planted the blood, convinced he was guilty.

It doesn't explain why Coburn called the RAV4 into dispatch earlier, though. That is a truly bizarre one to explain.

I don't think so. My understanding is that while longer bones (e.g. leg bones) will crack if exposed to high heat, they don't actually shatter.

 

As Arakel said no it wouldn't. To turn it to ashes it would have to burn at around 1600 to 1800 degrees. A barrel burn will reach around 1200 max.

 

The more I read about it, the more it sounds possible.

If he blew up the body at the gravel pit burn site then that might explain why they found a piece of the pelvis there, he didn't police up the all the bits to plant at the Avery site.

I mean Edwards, he's evil, cruel and crazy but he's not stupid, in fact I would go as far to say he's an evil genius.

What's frightening is how many people have been wrongly executed because of him?

 

Ooh...this is a good theory....it'll explain the call from Colbourn running the plates 2 days befor it was found.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/201...r-steven-avery-brendan-dassey-_n_9048104.html

 

The thing I find "amusing" about both the Edwards and the Tadych/Bobby Dassey theories is that they're both more plausible than the version of events the prosecution used to pin things on Avery.

I say "amusing" because it's not actually funny, but I struggle to come up with a better word that sums up how I feel about it.

 

Ironically amusing...

 

If anyone without access to Netflix is interested the entire series is online free here:

http://projectfreetv.so/making-a-murderer-season-1-episode-1/

 

Halfway through the podcasts and it's weird because I get the feeling that the narrator was being swayed one way or the other.

Interesting to read he's been granted a court appearance to produce new evidence just waiting for a date.

Also came across the case of Ryan Ferguson and there's a new documentary about him called 'Dream Killer' and was convicted based on the testimony of his stoner friend who dreamt they had killed the victim and went to the police completely baked. Was railroaded into confessing and implicating Ryan Ferguson.

Ferguson was convicted aged 19 and served 10 years before Kathleen Zellner (Avery's new layer) got the conviction vacated. If you think Kratz is a slimey scumbag, wait til you see the DA in that case...he's a grade 1 cahunt.

 

There were dodgy things about the Adnan case, but I also thought he was more aware of what was going on (even if he didn't murder her himself). His relationship with the drug dealer (can't remember his name) was definitely being underplayed. The story that he leant his car and his phone to a drug dealer he barely knew (in response to mobile phone mast evidence) seemed completely implausible.

 

In MAM, I struggle with a number of things:

I do not think I have read one comment about Dassey's guilt, so it is fair to say that we can take his evidence out of the equation.

Either we agree that Steven was a master cleaner of evidence, or the killing did not take place as the police said, indoors. If he is so careful, clever and able to cover his tracks, then why wouldn’t he also wipe the most obvious (and only visible) DNA in the car, his blood?

Disregarding the evidence on Steven’s property then, we have the burn pit bones, the car and the circumstantial evidence that Avery was the last known person to see her alive.

It is difficult to explain why his blood can be inside the car, but his DNA isn’t. There is certainly reasonable amount of doubt regarding DNA contamination and the opened vial of blood with the needle *****.

The key is ridiculous and the most conclusive proof that Avery was trying to be set up by police. As is the whole reported car thing (with plates later removed I believe). Dassey, and before him the little girl, were being targeted as tools for their set up too (they were fully aware they were questioning minors who were vulnerable without a fair lawyer or parental access).

Was the car found on an illegal search of the Avery property, or found elsewhere and moved? I wish that the location of the car had been reported (when first called in).

I’d like to know more about the car. I’m guessing that there were no bullet holes found, but I think that there was a specific amount of blood on the back of the front seat; suggesting that the body had been in the back, but only after she had bled out.

So who was capable of pulling this off? Burning the body offsite and bringing it to the fire surely has to either be someone on the Avery plot, or something allowed through police misconduct?

Avery

Spoiler

Logically, somebody could have tried to burn the body on the fire and then moved it to the quarry when it wasn’t burning at hot enough temperatures (might fit the blood stains in the car). But the fire was not that high according to initial evidence and it was bonfire night, so an entirely legitimate time to create a large fire.

I’m not sure that Avery could have crushed the car, as this might have been the first place the police would have searched and then he would look extremely guilty if caught. I could see how it might have been better with a scrubbed down car, to leave the car amongst others, but this is countered by the bloodstain evidence and the way the car was more obvious than those around it (I suppose he might have thought that covering it from above was a good idea, although it was very stupid in practise). Avery knew that her office knew her whereabouts, so probably would not have felt confident that he had a lot of time to destroy evidence.

Conclusion: very unlikely to have committed the murder by himself on the day suggested. No motive, no timeline of the murder: lots of reasonable doubt.

The Police

Spoiler

I don’t think we can rule the police out. The first thing you look for in a murder enquiry is motive. The police had all the motive in the world to set Avery up for murder (an ‘inbred’ criminal, with rapist family members, was going to destroy the local police department, probably resulting in a loss of jobs for many) and had free reign to do whatever they pleased. They controlled the media, the forensics and who to question, the property and could go on the attack. Even now, many do not think that they murdered her; which is not to say that the theory isn’t unlikely, just a testament to how confident they must have been that they would not have been accused of murder.

I don’t think the police would have burnt the body in the quarry and then moved it, but they might have found the bones and moved them.

If the police are capable of going against their 'professional integrity' and are willing to lie under oath (2pm/ 6pm etc.) then they will also do everything in their power to cover up these cover ups.

The agency was practically going bust, and you cannot tell me that under such pressures, I do not believe that people were not looking to pin a horrible crime on Steven Avery.

Conclusion: might have carried out the murder. Had motive, gave contradictory evidence under testimony, framed another: certainly possible.

 

Motive is very incidental when it comes to presenting evidence. It sounds good to a jury if the lawyer proclaims the defendant had the means, motive and opportunity; but motive doesn't need to be proven or even explained from the prosecution nor should all the motive under the sun be considered anything more than circumstantial.

 

Very good point.

Having seen a few news videos where they have their legal analysts give a bite sized simplified summary of a complex case, I came across this webcast between a blogger Stefan Molyneux and a former prosecutor and current attorney just known as Lionel. It was interesting in terms of how the jury could find someone guilty despite some holes in the case.

It actually opened my eyes to the US Criminal Justice system. It's an 1 hour and 23 minutes long, so I don't expect you to watch it all, but the relevance is perception and Lionel makes really interesting points which start at 2:00 minutes and then skip to around 10:00 minutes (after Stefan sets up the question with some of the things that defy logic), but the response is very interesting.

Bottom line, it doesn't have to make sense, the prosecution presents the facts, based on the facts Avery is guilty...and I can see that even though every screams out this is wrong.

[YT]watch?v=QsM1kBpzJSo[/YT]

 

Most interesting about that video is that on 14:04 Lionel manages to physically cross the video link with his right hand.


But I actually could watch the whole thing. Very interesting analysis with a real character in Lionel.