Recently, it seems like you can't avoid the newest binge-watching fad on Netflix: "Making A Murderer." The show is a documentary consisting of ten episodes following the story of Steven Avery, a Wisconsin man who was falsely imprisoned on a sexual assault conviction for eighteen years in 1985. Upon exoneration in 2003, he filed a civil lawsuit against the Sheriff’s department and the district attorney of Manitowoc County. However, he was arrested for the murder of Teresa Halbach, a photographer who had last been seen at his residence, in the middle of depositions in 2005. In 2007, he was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
One of the biggest developments in the case was when Steven Avery’s nephew Brendan Dassey came forward, claiming that he had been in Steven’s trailer while he had been assaulting Teresa Halbach and that Brendan himself assisted Steven in torturing and murdering her. With a witness who could place Halbach not only on the property, but also in the trailer, it seemed like the prosecution had a case. Some of the key pieces of evidence included Halbach’s Rav4 car key in Steven Avery’s bedroom, blood in her vehicle matching Steven Avery's, and her remains found in the Avery’s burn pit. Although the defense argued that Brendan Dassey was coaxed into saying what the police wanted to hear, that he was not being truthful about what he saw, and that there was a possibility that the Manitowoc County Police Department was tampering with or outright planting evidence, the jury found without a reasonable doubt that Avery was guilty of this crime.
It is apparent that the viewpoint of this documentary series is in favor of Steven Avery’s innocence. You want to pull for him and believe him when he says that he did not do this. However, there are many details missing and there are many unanswered questions that I would have raised had I been a juror or a member of the prosecution or defense. Steven Avery believed that the Manitowoc County Police Department was “out to get him” and that he was being framed. As absurd as this seems, why did they continue to investigate after the case was handed over to Calumet County? How was it that one of the key pieces of evidence, the Rav4 key, was found in plain sight by a member of the Manitowoc County Police Department after the trailer had been searched multiple times? I do not believe that officers of the law who take an oath to keep us safe would do what Steven Avery is claiming, but it does seem suspicious.
Another issue that I had was with the blood sample. How did Steven Avery’s blood end up in Halbach’s car? Why did his blood sample from a previous crime have a tiny hole poked in the top of the vial as though a syringe had been inserted into it? It was brought up in court that a preservative called EDTA is added to blood samples in tubes and that no EDTA was found in the sample from the car. The defense stated that if EDTA shows up in samples, then it was definitely there, but if it does not show up, then it could either have not been there or it wasn't identified. There is a large margin for error and this test is not reliable. Along the same lines, if the crime happened as Brendan Dassey claimed, then why was there no blood in Steven Avery’s bedroom? If anyone has their throat sliced, there would have to be copious amounts of blood. It would have been far too much for Avery to have completely cleaned out. If he could have eliminated every trace of her blood from his room, then why would he carelessly leave his own in her car? I believe that it didn’t happen. There is no physical evidence of it.
What's also suspicious is that, like in his previous case, it's almost as if the police wanted Avery in specific to be at fault. Instead of trying to find Teresa Halbach’s killer, it is as though they are trying to ensure that the killer is found to be Steven Avery. Fassbender gives the woman testing the DNA on the bullet found in Steven Avery’s garage orders to "place Teresa Halbach in the garage." This seems like an odd request, especially after learning that she had contaminated the DNA sample with her own DNA and that she had broken protocol by still using it as evidence, instead of ruling the sample as inconclusive like she should have.
There are so many fan theories, opinions, and viewpoints on this case that I’m not even sure what I fully believe. Did Steven Avery murder Teresa Halbach? If he did, did he do it in the manner that Brendan Dassey suggested? Why would someone rape, slice the throat of, shoot, and burn another human being without a clear motive? Some questions about the Steven Avery case will never be answered and when it comes to the police tampering with the investigation, you may as well not even try to get to the bottom of that one. "Making A Murderer" leaves out pieces of evidence that were brought up in trial and I would suggest doing a bit of research of your own after watching the series in order to form a more educated opinion. I think that we can all agree on one thing, though. Ken Kratz is the worst and we were all happy when it surfaced that he had an inappropriate sexting relationship with a younger client.
