Making A Murderer

[VladimirIlyich]

I totally agree, it was planted, but the lack of fingerprints means fuck all

My point is that a squirt of blood without a smudge of a fingerprint or even a palm print looks a bit 'out of sync' if there was so much in the back of the vehicle,no more than a couple of feet away. The corpse bled profusely in the back but not in the front? A little strange I thought.

[Bob]

As I say, defo planted, but the argument af blood but no fingerprints could be very easily countered.

[VladimirIlyich]

As I've mentioned earlier, I thought it was an outstanding series and it absolutely achieved it's objective in exposing the way that access to fair process and justice in that system is entirely dependant on wealth and power and did so brilliantly. But, it has left some collateral damage in the process which I'm not entirely comfortable with. One is the Kratz "sexting" scandal expose. Another is the portrayal of the Halbach family and the brother in particular. Another is the blatant finger pointing at the ex-boyfriend and her flatmate at the time.

 

I've read an interview with the producers where they explain their rationale for the Kratz expose:

 

http://www.buzzfeed.com/jarettwieselman/making-a-murderer-burning-questions-answered#.uiA4N2Oov

 

"......The case gained national attention and led to the governor of Wisconsin seeking Kratz’s removal from office in 2010 — a development the filmmakers had to figure out how to include without turning it into a “gotcha” moment. “It certainly didn’t shape how we portrayed what had already happened,” Demos said. “We made the decision that the only thing that mattered with that is the way it affected these cases. You could have had a whole 20-minute thing about it that would have just been a tangent, so we tried to include what was relevant to the story.”

Ricciardi added, “We did not want it to be perceived as a low blow for Ken Kratz. It really needed to be relevant to the story and we hope this story works on multiple levels: There’s Steven’s whole throughline, but then there’s also the opportunity to look at the system itself and the question was, How is this particular community going to respond when news like this breaks? What we thought was so interesting is after the AP reporter, Ryan Foley, broke the story, it became public soon thereafter that the Department of Justice knew for a year and covered it up.”

“That felt like, ‘Oh, here we go again,’” Demos said....."

 

That explanation is a bit thin to me. Okay, you can say the attempts to cover up Kratz's sexting scandal continue the theme of misconduct and abuse of power within those offices, but by episode 10 nobody needed convincing of that, so this was only adding about 0.1% more weight to the State corruption argument and definitely smelled of them taking an opportunity to land some blows on Kratz. I have no sympathy for Kratz - he's a cunt - and the irony of him now complaining about them using the media to frame a negative view of him when he can't defend himself is rib-bustingly hilarious given his own press conferences before the trial, but it definitely does detract from the overall objective of the film.

 

The Halbach's, and the brother in particular, seemed to simply do what any other family would do in those circumstances and go along with the police and the prosecutors and hope that there is a conviction and a sentence that is suitable. There's no doubt that the producers intended to portray the brother as a wholly unsympathetic character - almost to the point of inviting a level of culpability in the "framing" of Avery. These are professional film-makers and that simply doesn't happen by accident. They wanted viewers to view him in that manner.

 

Finally, I understand the need to establish one strand of the "framing" and misconduct theory as being the lack of investigation of other potential leads. However, it was surely possible to do that without blatantly shepherding viewers in the direction of the ex-boyfriend and her flatmate. Showing them so fleetingly and only within that specific context basically screamed out "Look how dodgy these ****ers are!" and urged us to immediately cast them as murder suspects with no attempt to offer any breadth of detail or any alternative viewpoint.

 

I mean, fuck Kratz, Lenk and Colburn - they can have all the fucking mud getting slung their way - but those are serious aspersions being cast at the brother, the ex and the flatmate with almost casual disregard for the lack of fair treatment they are attempting to highlight from Avery's point of view. That's pretty shoddy film making.

 

Overall, it's a superb series but it's not without some significant flaws.

I agree with some of this regarding maybe the brother and the Halbech family being treated a little unsympathetically but I'd also say that the State is at fault in this too.

The docu makers were most likely trying to say,and maybe the defence too? was that before going after Avery (5 months with no evidence at all) why werent others questioned and this questioning usually begins with family,boyfriend/girlfriend,spouse,close friends etc. Profilers also tend to say that this level of violence is more likely to come from people who are close to them and can get 'inside their personal space.' I'd imagine the victim was probably a bit wary of Avery due to his notoriety and being in the headlines and maybe wouldnt have let him get as close as a friend or boyfriend?

This could have been explored but simply didnt seem to have been.

[Scott_M]

http://www.nme.com/filmandtv/news/-making-a-murderer-s-steven-avery-s-ex-fiance-beli/397210?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=NME+News+Feed

[Kant]

If I'm Avery and I've killed that girl, I'm crushing her Rav4 into a small cube then placing that inside another car and then crushing that. I'm not parking it near the front of the yard with a couple of twigs thrown over it.

Yup. Wasn't there also a mention of him having some sort of smelter on his premises too?

If I'm Avery and I've got one of those I'm not going to try and burn a body on the ground next to my house.

[Barzini]

Was it ever explained how the victims blood came to be in the back of her car? If the prosecution case was that she was murdered in the garage and burned about 20m away, why was her blood in the car at all?

[Scott_M]

Just watched West Of Memphis. Very good.

 

Eddie Vedder. He's no Gazza with a KFC.

[Crazy Dave]

To be honest, I didn't pick up on the filmmakers portraying the victim's brother in a negative light at all.

 

I did find the Ken Kratz expose a little out of sync with the story but can't exactly feel sorry for him based upon his behavior. 

 

I'm surprised more hasn't been made of the bus driver's testimony that she saw the victim outside and taking pictures at 3:30PM on the Avery property an hour after those two blokes testified they saw her going into Avery's trailer. 

[Elite]

Scott Tardych and Bobby Dassey are dodgy as fuck in this.

[Total Longo]

Based on what exactly?

[Bobby Hundreds]

Scott Tardych and Bobby Dassey are dodgy as fuck in this.

 

 

Im suspicious of them from things Iv'e read after the documentary, that scott seems like a right bastard. He celebrated Avery going down too didn't he.  

[Bobby Hundreds]

I don't believe her, shes a bad alcoholic and stinks of piss.

[Dr Nowt]

Maybe he did, maybe he didn't.

 

Maybe following the series' popularity the good old boys of Manitowoc told her to give them some handy PR and say this shit or she got put back inside herself. Maybe everything she said is true. Maybe it's a bit of both.

 

They already fucked around with her life repeatedly to the point she got put back inside several times for continuing to see him, and put at risk her chances of a fresh start/new job. Seemed oddly happy enough to fight to keep seeing a monster who threatened to kill her then, til they broke her spirit.

 

Surely having watched a series like that no-one is going to take at face value anything any of the people involved in it have to say?

[Total Longo]

I finished it last night. I don't like Avery's face. So, based on that and the fact that he threw a cat into a fire, i'm saying he's guilty. Regardless of how dodgy old Ken Kratz and his bunch of smirking, cretinous colleagues may have thrown in a bunch of dubious scenarios.  

[Babb'sBurstNad]

Was he not the same kind of shitbag when he was wrongly convicted of rape though? 

[Stouffer]

I don't know; the documentary doesn't show all of the evidence though so it would be impossible to decide.

[KMD7]

Maybe he did, maybe he didn't.

 

Maybe following the series' popularity the good old boys of Manitowoc told her to give them some handy PR and say this shit or she got put back inside herself. Maybe everything she said is true. Maybe it's a bit of both.

 

They already fucked around with her life repeatedly to the point she got put back inside several times for continuing to see him, and put at risk her chances of a fresh start/new job. Seemed oddly happy enough to fight to keep seeing a monster who threatened to kill her then, til they broke her spirit.

 

Surely having watched a series like that no-one is going to take at face value anything any of the people involved in it have to say?

This

[Ted]

Fucking mad, that Paradise Lost.

[Barrington Womble]

I've just finished it. It's quite astonishing. I would love to know how Americans interpret the meaning of reasonable doubt. Aside from all of the key bits of prosecution evidence being debunked to greater or lesser degrees, I can't get my head around the idea that she was stabbed, mutilated, taken from the home to the garage, shot and killed and there be absolutely zero dna because avery is so good a cleaning a crime scene he could be dexter. Then after being so thorough, he would then go on to leave her car key in his bedroom and his own blood in her car which he had ample time to crush beyond recognition. The story itself doesn't make sense and that's before you consider everything else.

 

Maybe he killed her and maybe he didn't, but the documentary made it pretty clear there was reasonable doubt. It would seem the American justice system (maybe here too), the idea of the presumption of innocence just doesn't exist.

[Total Longo]

I've just finished it. It's quite astonishing. I would love to know how Americans interpret the meaning of reasonable doubt. Aside from all of the key bits of prosecution evidence being debunked to greater or lesser degrees, I can't get my head around the idea that she was stabbed, mutilated, taken from the home to the garage, shot and killed and there be absolutely zero dna because avery is so good a cleaning a crime scene he could be dexter. Then after being so thorough, he would then go on to leave her car key in his bedroom and his own blood in her car which he had ample time to crush beyond recognition. The story itself doesn't make sense and that's before you consider everything else.

 

Maybe he killed her and maybe he didn't, but the documentary made it pretty clear there was reasonable doubt. It would seem the American justice system (maybe here too), the idea of the presumption of innocence just doesn't exist.

 

Certainly in this case. The whole fact that there was a "conflict of interest" (based on the previous huge mistake) meant that they were out to secure a conviction by any means necessary.  

[Jack the Sipper]

He was the sole focus of the police investigation and they were throwing the kitchen sink at him to try and make him confess as they were convinced he was the guilty man - all of this was conducted in the full glare of the national media where his entire life, character and identity was irrevocably destroyed and there was a wholesale assumption of guilt simply for being charged and long before he would ever get any chance to put up any defence.

 

Sound familiar?

 

Fortunately, the police got an anonymous tip off about the actual murderer - who they'd cleared of involvement to go after Jefferies - and that was a game-changer.

 

And all of that happened to a man who wasn't involved in any of the previous convictions, grudges and civil lawsuits with the authorities that Avery had as a background.

 

There are plenty of people in the UK who've been fitted up with testimony and evidence being created and/or tailored to allow police to get the outcome they wanted. Jefferies was treated disgracefully, but in some ways he was much more fortunate than many others who find themselves falsely accused. 

 

But, as Chris said, he was never tried, so hardly 'exactly the same' as what happened to Avery and Massey.

 

Another similar case to the one you mentioned would be Colin Stagg; persecuted by the media and framed by the police - but when it went to pre-trial the Judge kicked it out at the first opportunity.

 

In both the Jeffries and Stagg cases, not only did they not face a trial, they also (rightly) received big compensation payouts. Yes, the police can be corrupt, and our justice system isn't perfect, but it's a damn sight better than Wisconsin's if the Jeffries (and Stagg) case are put up against Avery's and Massey's. 

[Anubis]

I don't think the film makers treat the brother unsympathetically at all. He was invited to take part in the documentary and declined. The footage shown are his press conferences and the footage from court TV. The speculation about him seems to have come from people on forums. I never once thought he was a suspect or that he was portrayed as one.

[Dr Nowt]

Thinking Barry George is perhaps the best parallel over here. Odd, had unsavoury habits, not the full shilling mentally, fitted up for murder despite there being glaringly obvious issues with the evidence, and an absence of others having been investigated properly if at all, then denied adequate compensation (in his case any) for having his life capsized.

 

The last point being more relevant to post-Avery's release from the rape conviction of course, but the attitude displayed on numerous occasions that the Manitowoc Sheriff's Office still didn't agree he was necessarily innocent of that attack, despite clear evidence proving it, spoke volumes.

[Stu Monty]

If he killed her then how do her bone fragments get miles away at the ash pit?

 

He's not burning her there then bringing her back to his own property is he?

 

Then the issue of him apparently managing a clean-up that even a forensic team couldn't have managed...then leaving a blood smeared car with a few branches on top of it.

 

It makes no sense. So much reasonable doubt.

[Ted]

Isn't the first course of action in any murder case to establish motive?

 

I'm struggling to find one.