US: Making a Murderer (Netflix)

Nothing sigificant was withheld and all the Generation Why stuff has been explained by the programme makers.
 
v0n said:
I'm not communicating this well enough - I don't know if he's guilty or not, I wasn't provided with enough clear arguments from both sides to make such judgement and to be honest - it doesn't even matter - regardless of whether he is guilty or not, what was done to him is a crime.

However it's important to understand that prior to this filtered documentary for the armchair detectives like you and me, the entire neighbourhood, public, media and nearly all the people involved in the trial at the time, including people close to Avert and at some point Dassey's defence team, all believed him/them to be guilty beyond any doubt and actively participated in digging the hole under him.

Of course as I watched the documentary the conspiracy theorist in me wanted to scream "OMG, they all wanted to frame the *****!" but the humanist in me begged "please, let this be a failure of his defence team, tell me they just couldn't communicate everything we saw across as well as the documentary was able to and that's why all of those people reached the guilty verdict".

But every time I dismiss conspiracy of silence and sway to "bad defence" corner, I remind myself that even Jodi, his fiancee, claims she was abused and scared of him and believes he murdered that photographer (and you would not believe that at all after watching the documentary). And she's not alone. Every neighbour in this close knit community had either experienced something bad or heard a first hand bad story about him. Family members claimed they were abused by him. So it is highly plausible that they all looked at each other with that "now or never" look and pressed that button to purge the hatch as hard as they could...
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I really like that reasoning v0n it makes perfect sense to me.

But we have over 1000s hours of court testimony scrubbed down to what? 45 mins tops in a 10 hour documentary (the court case doesn't even start to ep 7-8?). Obviously there are going to be omissions from both sides and you are right guilty or not he didn't receive fair treatment and the show sadly didn't really delve into the aspects of why he didn't.

The makers had a couple of years to fine tune the story the defence lawyers didn't have this time so it's slightly unfair to blame them or compare them to the makers who had 7 hours of film before even showing the court.


Only one small point to pick up on and that is the judge forbid discussion or the defence presenting a third party defence at the trial during pre-trial meetings (I can't remember why this was the case perhaps lack of any evidence)

I've not used spoilers as it's been mainstream long enough and we are now on page 2 so anyone who hasn't watched wouldn't be reading so many posts unless they wanted to be annoyed. :)
 
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I think Making a Murderer will undoubtable become a kind of social meme. I think so many people got carried along by it's story while watching it but then start to do your own investigating and you feel a bit silly and are swayed back to a much more rational position.

A lessor version of watching Loose Change and then having a look at the evidence yourself....maybe that is too harsh but you know what I mean.
 
I'm up to Ep 5 at the moment and I don't think I even care if he did or did not murder Holbach. I find it utterly galling that there are people holding positions of authority that aren't in the cells alongside him.

Kratz, Lenk, Coburn, Kocourek. In the 80's and before I can probably see how this kind of set up would have gotten away with the big fish little pond mentality but for this to happen in such recent history utterly beggars belief. At times it just feels like pure fantasy, like reading a Jack Reacher novel but without a hero to stop an institutionalised corrupt organisation and save the ordinairy people.

Brendan's first lawyer clearly wanted the publicity and in my eyes is a vile human being. Fassbender and his partner could have written Brendan's 'confession' and it wouldn't have looked as coerced as they way they brought it out of him.

Even if there are snippets of evidence that do have some element of credibility against him, there is enough factual information to go way way past the point of reasonable doubt.

I know people are 'but Netflix left out this' etc. Regardless, there is evidence beyond reasonable doubt that there was poor policing, vendetta, fabrication, illegal practices, harrassment, all of which mean surely this case cannot be presented in State, by State, to State. A fair trial would have been 3 states over with a blanket media ban.

I don't think Avery did it, nor do I think Brendan has one iota of knowledge of the events surrounding Holbach. I do think Avery knows or has knowledge what happened to her though but also knows that if he speaks out he'll endager his family or himself.

As a side note, has anyone ever seen someone look more guilty in front of a camera than the brother and the ex?!??!
 
davisdavid said:
As a side note, has anyone ever seen someone look more guilty in front of a camera than the brother and the ex?!??!
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Brother and the ex of the victim, right? Brother character is something else - I mean just recall his first appearance on TV. She's missing for like, three, four days, nobody knows what happened and he appears on TV and just says something like - the family just wanted to find her effects so they could move on - as if he was sure, he knew or was told that she was dead..


You said up there that these people behave like it was still eighties. It is eighties over there. I cannot stress enough how closed up, isolated and intertwined that community is. It's like one movie set with the same extras. Ok - get this, maybe it will help - Brendan Dassey. Son of Steve Avery's sister. His biological father, Peter Dassey, is currently married to Lori. As in ex-sister-in-law Lori - Steven Avery's first wife, the one Steven divorced while doing life for rape. But then it seems like a sort of 1940ies honorary thing going on in the area, so for example after their biological father died at the age of 31 Teresa and Mike Halbach's mother married her own brother-in-law - her dead husband's younger brother. Deputy in the Manitowoc County police department Arland Avery, is Steve Avery's biological uncle. Sandra Morris - the lady Steven allegedly "flogged the dolphin" to and then tried to run off the road in a truck, wife of Manitowoc County police deputy Bill Morris, is Steven's cousin. Kim Ducat is her biological sister. Pamela Sturm, the "God showed me the way" lady who found RAV4, is Teresa father's cousin. Almost everyone in this story is interconnected via two, maybe three very short but weavey family trees.
 
v0n said:
Brother and the ex of the victim, right? Brother character is something else - I mean just recall his first appearance on TV. She's missing for like, three, four days, nobody knows what happened and he appears on TV and just says something like - the family just wanted to find her effects so they could move on - as if he was sure, he knew or was told that she was dead..


You said up there that these people behave like it was still eighties. It is eighties over there. I cannot stress enough how closed up, isolated and intertwined that community is. It's like one movie set with the same extras. Ok - get this, maybe it will help - Brendan Dassey. Son of Steve Avery's sister. His biological father, Peter Dassey, is currently married to Lori. As in ex-sister-in-law Lori - Steven Avery's first wife, the one Steven divorced while doing life for rape. But then it seems like a sort of 1940ies honorary thing going on in the area, so for example after their biological father died at the age of 31 Teresa and Mike Halbach's mother married her own brother-in-law - her dead husband's younger brother. Deputy in the Manitowoc County police department Arland Avery, is Steve Avery's biological uncle. Sandra Morris - the lady Steven allegedly "flogged the dolphin" to and then tried to run off the road in a truck, wife of Manitowoc County police deputy Bill Morris, is Steven's cousin. Kim Ducat is her biological sister. Pamela Sturm, the "God showed me the way" lady who found RAV4, is Teresa father's cousin. Almost everyone in this story is interconnected via two, maybe three very short but weavey family trees.
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Yeah the brother who always looks like he's trying too hard not to smile and the ex who can't recall whether he saw her last during the light part of the day or the dark part of the day. Throw in another lie - no we did not go back on the property, well we did but we were invited, yeah we went back on.

No I know about the inter-connectivity shall we say, I just mean how can this story play out from the mid 2000's onward, especially when it hit State level media so prominently, it's just absurd especially from a British perspective or indeed many States in the US.

It does make you wonder just how advanced we think we really are as a species when this is not unheard of in certain places and countries.
 
Just finished this, was engrossed all the way through. You knew he wasn't going to get let off.

My main questions would be:

1. If he did kill her why on earth would he plant the car right next to the entrance to his yard? From all the aerial shots, he has probably a couple of thousand cars there, yet he hides it in probably the easiest place to find it? With the worst camouflage in history.

2. More importantly, why wouldn't he crush the car?

3. Why would he burn the body right outside his trailer?

I appreciate he isn't the brightest chap in the world, but come on.

Few comments:

- Corbyn (I think his name was) and Lenk are clearly bent, with all the evidence of their involvement whether he did it or not they clearly planted evidence. What about the voice call from Corbyn where he is running a licence plate, and reads the car model back? How could he have possibly known what model the car was unless he was looking right at it.

- The prosecution were some of the smarmiest douchebags i've ever seen, as was 'Len' - Brendans 'lawyer'.

- The handling of Brendan by Fassbender was absolutely cringeworthy, how that statement has ever stood up in court i'll never know.

All in all though, a good but slightly infuriating watch. Police in being bent shocker.
 
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The police and prosecutors were a tad incompetent but there's no doubt in my mind that Avery murdered the woman. A pretty nasty piece of work all round.

The documentary is extremely biased - for example the blood vial turned out to be a normal bog standard vial. They all come with holes in the stopper!
 
i've just finished this i'm undecided

if avery didn't kill her, who did? i thought they'd have found something on her ex but they didn't ( or they covered it up ) but why would avery kill her, what would be the drive?
 
To crush the car you have to drain fluids, remove engine block, tyres, other bits. Is it possible that Steven was just that busy with the body, or drunk or just lazy on the night in question and the next day, and then just run out of time because search party already began?
 
I'm a bit late to the party here, but here'smy abstract thoughts.
by the way - what a fantastic series!

-I'm mostly concerned with the apparent brainwashing of Brendan Dassey.
-the story in his confession is the preface for the whole trial - the rape, the murder, the fire. without that story they would have nothing.
-The confession was clearly planted by a bent lawyer and a PI that did a sickeningly effective job of planting it in his fragile mind.
-there's a lot of anicdotes about Avery that have been coming out since the show. like:
- previously dipped an animal in fuel and burned it
- history with the girl
-*67 phone calls (caller widthheld)
- so called plans to make a 'torture chamber'
- reports from inmates about his intentions
- the family alienated their community, the girl didn't want to go there
etc (sorry this isn't evidence at all!)
-cuffs / shakles found (with no DNA evidence) (also, who doesn't have these kins of things? :P)
-porn found at his address (oh god! not... porn?!??)


a lot of those points seem to really damn his case, and help to draw conclusions.

- he burnt a cat, so he burnt a girl.
- he planned a torture chamber, so he tortured and raped her
- he had a gun, so he must have shot her too
- the girl seemed to have history with him, so he must have had his eye on her

pretty damning stuff! unless you knew all of that beforehand, and read it in a different order. I don't think it's an accident that the prosecution's story plays into the hands of Avery's past, to me it seems like they have made their stroy fit his. It fits his profile and character - imagine how much water this case would hold if the alleged story was totally different?

re: reports from his previous inmates? I think it's BS, especially if you choose to factor in what the DA had been up to with his female clients! it pretty much seems like that guy will do or say anything, and has a lot of power and influence. would inmates really say things like that without being influenced, persuaded, or bribed?

I cannot take into account any speculation about his past, or how his family are known to behave or the reputation they may have - it has nothing to do with this trial.

I'm cautiously on his side after all of this!
 
My fav "character" was the photofit guy who insisted he had NOT drawn the photofit from the old mugshot of Avery DESPITE the fact that when he drew the photofit Avery had a totally different look.

He insisted he drew what the victim had described.

Either the woman described the mugshot (which I don't believe) or he had the mugshot and copied it.

He even had the audacity to frame it :p
 
MookJong said:
I think Making a Murderer will undoubtable become a kind of social meme. I think so many people got carried along by it's story while watching it but then start to do your own investigating and you feel a bit silly and are swayed back to a much more rational position.

A lessor version of watching Loose Change and then having a look at the evidence yourself....maybe that is too harsh but you know what I mean.
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Acutally when you start doing your own digging you still come up with the same conclusion. The police were involved in planting evidence and the attorney was involved in planting a guilty verdict in the minds of the jury before the case went to trial. That's what the program is about nothing to do with his guilt or lack of it.
 
Did I read somewhere the theory that Avery did it, but wanted to get caught? Is this possible? Did he think he could dodgy a conviction? Did he think/know he would get famous?
 
AndyCr15 said:
Did I read somewhere the theory that Avery did it, but wanted to get caught? Is this possible? Did he think he could dodgy a conviction? Did he think/know he would get famous?
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Yeah I was thinking of possible stories and took inspiration from the life of David Gale but it's far too fetched!

I don't think we will ever know the full truth as to what happened!
 
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