If you have yet to watch Making a Murder and plan on doing so, you might want to quit reading now because there are many spoilers ahead.
Now that the spoiler notice is out of the way, it's time to get to my new favorite show. Well, it's more like my new obsession. Netflix's wildly popular new documentary series Making a Murderer has taken the country by storm since it's debut on Dec. 18. You can't get on Twitter without seeing something about the addictive documentary.
The hit series follows the story of Steven Avery, a man from Wisconsin. The peculiar story begins with a few episodes dedicated to Avery's early adulthood. in 1985 Avery was accused of sexually assaulting a woman he didn't know. Despite no evidence of placing him at the crime and an alibi supported by many of his family members, he was convicted of the crime. According to the docuseries, it seemed Manitowoc County Sheriff's Department had a grudge against Avery since the beginning and were determined to get him behind bars. The police work done in this case was very poor. Yet through it all Avery continued to profess that he wasn't guilty. After 18 years in prison, Avery was exonerated based off of new DNA testing. A known predator was actually the culprit and continued to assault women while Avery sat in prison.
Yet there is another strange twist. The Manitowoc police was notified in the mid-90s that there was a strong chance they had the wrong man for the crime and the actual offender had admitted he had done it. But what did the police do? Nothing. Avery stayed behind bars until the new evidence was released. Why would they hide a tip that would free an innocent man? But this is only the beginning.
Understandably, Avery sued the county for his wrongful conviction. For his 18 years lost, he seemed $36 million in damages. In the midst of the suit and depositions of members of the Manitowoc Sheriff's Department, a young woman named Teresa Halbach went missing. Then it was discovered that she had visited Avery's property that was work related. Of course, this put him as a primary suspect in her disappearance. Searches of the property led to investigators finding Halbach's car and bone fragments in a fire pit in Avery's backyard. He was quickly arrested for murder.
The twists kept coming when Avery's nephew, 16-year-old Brendan Dassey, admitted to police that he helped his uncle with Halbach's murder. Dassey, shortly after this confession, said he actually didn't have anything to do with the murder and only said what he did because he felt coerced by the investigators. Perhaps he was. Teachers reported Dassey had a very low IQ and had a fourth grade reading level at the time of the crime. He wasn't exceptionally bright and was shy. Maybe the police took advantage of a young, inexperienced boy.
What took place over the trials for Avery and Dassey was wild. Avery's defense professed that he was framed for the murder by the Manitowoc police over the law suit and their dislike of him. Honestly there were moments when I thought this was true. But there were other times I thought he was guilty. This flip flop of beliefs is what makes Making a Murder so good and addicting. It keeps you guessing and trying to piece together what really happened to Halbach.
Did Avery and Dassey kill Teresa Halbach? I really don't know. It has been noted that the filmmakers didn't mention all of the evidence, which makes Avery look more guilty. The author of that article makes many good points and I'm in the same boat as him. This case is certainly sketchy. And there was definitely wrong doing by the police in both cases against Avery. In the murder case, they didn't really consider any other suspects. They went straight to Avery. They took advantage of Dassey, who was incapable of standing up for himself and was very impressionable.
The theme at the core of Making a Murder is highlighting the flaws in our justice system. The results of a unstable and inconsistent system can be devastating. We rely on the justice system to be far but is it truly fair? Does it protect us? Perhaps Avery was in fact guilty, but what led up to his conviction was not done correctly. The evidence wasn't strong enough and the statements made my Dassey weren't properly collected. There was no presumption of innocence until proven guilty in this case at all.
We may never know the whole truth of the Halbach murder, but it's created a conversation of the holes in the system. And it's created a gripping, crazy documentary.
