Making a Murderer Discussion (spoilers)

[rtstr]

you need to exercise some critical thinking here.

2. Why could sweat not have been found somewhere else and put onto the key? This guy is fat and cruises around shirtless, there is probably sweat on most of the things on their property.
3. I read that the whole towel thing was dropped because the details were all blurry, so it was deemed inaccurate/irrelevant. Asking for ONLY Teresa also says nothing. There could be 1000 reasons why he preferred her over other photographers (do you know how many they were to choose from? Was it 2? Did he have any reason to prefer her over the other? Was she in fact the only photographer they worked with? I'm sure you don't have any of these answers). Also, a young girl being creeped out by an older lower class junkyard owner isn't exactly surprising, but old lower class junkyard owners aren't necessarily killers.
4. This is a little suspicious, but doesn't prove murder. If she wouldn't answer his calls for one reason or another, hiding his number isn't that unusual. Maybe he was creepy towards her, but again there is a big difference between that and murder.
5. Big deal! Nobody is saying he doesn't have a gun or that he doesn't shoot it off all over his property. They found shells all over the damn place.

The whole idea here is that he was framed to some extent. So in theory your points 3 and 4 only help make that framing more possible. He's creeping out this girl, girl ends up dead, bingo.

What do you have to say to the evidence pointing to his innocence? The blood tube that was clearly tampered with? The lack of dna evidence in the trailer? The rest of it? You seem like one of the people who has made up their mind and looks only for information to confirm your bias.

You seem like one of those people who signed a petition and sent it to the White House. Agree to disagree. That's what makes it fun... neither of us know who's right.

But anyway, your responses above are a little ridiculous.

2. you say that as if harvesting sweat and planting it on something is a realistic and easy thing to do. Unfortunately, forensics don't work that way, so no, they can't just "get sweat from something on his property".
3. 1000 reasons? Are you kidding me? Who on earth has a preference with AutoTrader photographers? You think Steven "IQ 70" Avery liked the angles and lighting in her work? Even if there were 1000 reasons I'd bet the vast majority of them were creepy as hell. Give me a break. We all know why he was requesting her.
4. This is REALLY suspicious, but I agree that it does not prove murder. Although... "if she wouldn't answer his calls for one reason or another, hiding his number isn't that unusual". Think about that statement for a second.
5. Actually, the fact that the bullet with Teresa's DNA was matched to Steven Avery's rifle is a very big deal. That's usually something that prosecutors would call a "slam dunk". What it means is that the bullet was 100% fired from his gun. If you want to chalk that up to another conspiracy, go ahead, but unless Manitowok has James Bond working for them, the conspiracy list is getting a little unbelievably long.


Sidenote: not trying to discredit your opinion-- if there weren't multiple sides of the fence then we'd have nothing to talk about. Ideally I'd like to learn about why you're so sure he's innocent instead of argue about it. But it's tough for you to take the argument that "I'm biased and made up my mind" when you're going to look at the harrassment things that I said in points 3/4 and brush them off as normal everyday happenstance. I know you don't honestly think it's normal that he did that stuff, but you need to pretend it's not noteworthy so it's easy to view him as the victim and hammer home those points. Come on dude. He requested her and only her multiple times, she told her boss he made her feel weird and she never wanted to go there again, when he booked the appointment he used a fake name, and the day she died he just happened call her from a blocked number three times. Pretty telling if you ask me.

I think at the end of the day what we really can agree upon is the fact that this tv show definitely did it's job one way or another.

[rtstr]

To your other point, I thought you meant you wanted more narrative about who she was as a means of 'honoring' her in some way, which is why I called you out. If you meant that you think more details about her life leading up to her murder are relevant to the murder itself or potential motives, then yes I agree that those things may have been useful. At the end of the day the filmmakers had to choose what to leave in and what to omit, and nobody is stopping anyone from making a new movie that frames the events differently.

I should have clarified. I don't give a shit about her favorite colors and animals, I'm sure she was appropriately honored... But yes, I wish that they clued us in to what was going on in HER life leading up to the murder-- not only to prove Avery's guilt (which is my belief) but it would've been a great way to introduce ideas that someone else could've killed her, too. The fact that the documentary didn't do that says something in my eyes. When evaluating a crime, the first place you look is the victim.

[forumname]

You seem like one of those people who signed a petition and sent it to the White House. Agree to disagree. That's what makes it fun... neither of us know who's right.

I certainly did not. I don't argue in favor of guilt or innocence, as I recognize we don't have nearly enough information to make the call, and that even "truths" in the case seem to be half-truths at best.

But anyway, your responses above are a little ridiculous.

2. you say that as if harvesting sweat and planting it on something is a realistic and easy thing to do. Unfortunately, forensics don't work that way, so no, they can't just "get sweat from something on his property". What about the blood and other DNA evidence? also not "realistic" or "easy" to do? Nobody said it was easy.

3. 1000 reasons? Are you kidding me? Who on earth has a preference with AutoTrader photographers? You think Steven "IQ 70" Avery liked the angles and lighting in her work? Even if there were 1000 reasons I'd bet the vast majority of them were creepy as hell. Give me a break. We all know why he was requesting her. Maybe the other guy is a dickhead, maybe he was black, Who knows?! I don't know anything about why he preferred her, but surely there are other possibilities than that he wanted to kills her.

4. This is REALLY suspicious, but I agree that it does not prove murder. Although... "if she wouldn't answer his calls for one reason or another, hiding his number isn't that unusual". Think about that statement for a second. I've hid my number from people before. Killed 0 of them so far
5. Actually, the fact that the bullet with Teresa's DNA was matched to Steven Avery's rifle is a very big deal. That's usually something that prosecutors would call a "slam dunk"

"Slam dunk"? Seems to me like there was a whole lot of fumbling going on with the DNA, so the fact that hers was found on the bullet shows nothing. Why no DNA in other critical locations?Not only is there the chance that it was planted, but it seems that the person doing the testing may have also caused 'errors' with a lot of this stuff.

Sidenote: not trying to discredit your opinion-- if there weren't multiple sides of the fence then we'd have nothing to talk about. Ideally I'd like to learn about why you're so sure he's innocent instead of argue about it. But it's tough for you to take the argument that "I'm biased and made up my mind" when you're going to look at the harrassment things that I said in points 3/4 and brush them off as normal everyday happenstance. I know you don't honestly think it's normal that he did that stuff, but you need to pretend it's not noteworthy so it's easy to view him as the victim and hammer home those points. Come on dude. He requested her and only her multiple times, she told her boss he made her feel weird and she never wanted to go there again, when he booked the appointment he used a fake name, and the day she died he just happened call her from a blocked number three times. Pretty telling if you ask me.

He didn't use a fake name, he used his sisters name (or something like that) - presumably because it was her car they were selling. Also not indicative of any wrong doing.

^ My responses are in bold, in case that was confusing.

Yes, the show left out some elements pointing to his guilt, but in doing so they also left out the defense teams rebuttal to those points. And vice versa. We never got to learn the states excuse for why the blood tube had clearly been tampered with, among other things.

Did he do it? Who knows. But at the very least there was some bullshit used against him.

[rtstr]

^ My responses are in bold, in case that was confusing.

Yes, the show left out some elements pointing to his guilt, but in doing so they also left out the defense teams rebuttal to those points. And vice versa. We never got to learn the states excuse for why the blood tube had clearly been tampered with, among other things.

Did he do it? Who knows. But at the very least there was some bullshit used against him.

Appreciate the bolding. I agree there was lots of bullshit used against him. I said that from square one. But that doesn't really change anything when it comes to his innocence or guilt.


-First thing, the sweat: I'm sorry, but it simply is not even possible to do what you're suggesting they did. It's just not. If you think it is, you watch too much Law and Order.
-Surely there are possibilities outside of him wanting to kill her. But to ignore the evidence of their relationship prior to the crime and on the day of the crime, ignoring the parallels between him being a prime suspect and her being the victim is naive, to say the least.
-I've hid my number before too. When I was 14, maybe? Funnily enough I didn't kill the person either. Not sure how that's even remotely comparable to Steven Avery and Teresa.
-Yes, it's a slam dunk when you match a bullet with victim's DNA to a gun from a suspect. I'm not saying it was a slam dunk here, I'm saying in the court of law, it is.
-His sister's name is not his name so yes it's a fake name. But agreed that it's explainable


This all boils down to one concept for me:

-All of the evidence/theories/arguments that suggest he is guilty have to do with real things that actually happened, real scenarios that existed, and proven facts-- a good amount of which are left out of the "documentary"
-All of the evidence/theories/arguments that suggest he is innocent focus only on hypothetical scenarios and obsess over him being setup by police (which has 0 relevance whatsoever as to whether he's guilty or not). People think "he was set up, that means he's innocent"... which just isn't true.



After a while, you gotta come down to earth and focus on the things we actually know instead of saying "well it coulda been this or this or this or this!". Yea, it could've, but there's nothing really to back it up other than one's gut feeling. It's a natural progression to think being framed = innocence and I think that's what is the biggest problem with this story.

[forumname]

Appreciate the bolding. I agree there was lots of bullshit used against him. I said that from square one. But that doesn't really change anything when it comes to his innocence or guilt.


-First thing, the sweat: I'm sorry, but it simply is not even possible to do what you're suggesting they did. It's just not. If you think it is, you watch too much Law and Order. Why not possible? I'm no dna expert, but it seems like it should be possible to rub sweat from one object onto another. Or if not, the shady operations of the people doing the testing could also easily account for this.
-Surely there are possibilities outside of him wanting to kill her. But to ignore the evidence of their relationship prior to the crime and on the day of the crime, ignoring the parallels between him being a prime suspect and her being the victim is naive, to say the least. Yes it is certainly fishy.
-I've hid my number before too. When I was 14, maybe? Funnily enough I didn't kill the person either. Not sure how that's even remotely comparable to Steven Avery and Teresa.
-Yes, it's a slam dunk when you match a bullet with victim's DNA to a gun from a suspect. I'm not saying it was a slam dunk here, I'm saying in the court of law, it is. Ya, but like I said, can the dna testing hold any water in this case? Clearly it did, but I question the legitimacy of all of it.
-His sister's name is not his name so yes it's a fake name. But agreed that it's explainable It was not a fake name. He used the name of the car owner, much the way I would use my wifes name if I was booking some kind of appointment for her.


This all boils down to one concept for me:

-All of the evidence/theories/arguments that suggest he is guilty have to do with real things that actually happened, real scenarios that existed, and proven facts-- a good amount of which are left out of the "documentary"
-All of the evidence/theories/arguments that suggest he is innocent focus only on hypothetical scenarios and obsess over him being setup by police (which has 0 relevance whatsoever as to whether he's guilty or not). People think "he was set up, that means he's innocent"... which just isn't true. Agreed that they don't have any evidence to prove his innocence, but you can't prove innocence the way you can prove guilt. You can prove the existence of something, but you can't prove that something doesn't exist. That's just a logical fact. I've yet to see any kind of reliable "proof" that he is guilty. I suppose the only way to "prove" his innocence would be to find out who really did it and prove their guilt (if it was in fact someone else). The idea is to prove beyond a reasonable doubt, and every piece of evidence against him is soaked in doubt if you ask me.



After a while, you gotta come down to earth and focus on the things we actually know instead of saying "well it coulda been this or this or this or this!". Yea, it could've, but there's nothing really to back it up other than one's gut feeling. It's a natural progression to think being framed = innocence and I think that's what is the biggest problem with this story. Agreed, but what are the things we know???? The argument is that while in some ways the evidence certainly seems to point to him, the evidence itself was clearly handled in a poor and biased way, so at what point does it lose its legitimacy? If it was planted/tampered with/misrepresented, why is it still "evidence" against him??

Comments in bold again

[forumname]

All fair points that I mainly agree with. Although the name thing is still weird to me because he wasn't making an appointment for his sister, it was 100% for him. Do you think every time he had people take pictures of the tons of cars on his lot, he used the name listed on the car title? Anyway the name thing is nitpicky i agree, I'm just using it as a way to demonstrate the steps he took in advance to remove himself from the situation. Which I find shady. Wouldn't it be futile to try to hind his identity in this way? The car is on Avery's property, and the name he gave was a relative of his. It's not like he had her sent to a different county and used the name Dick Fury (that would have been bad). This piece of 'evidence' is junk if you ask me. Some people would argue that by saying "ya but he has a 70 IQ, so he wouldn't think of that" - but if that's the case, then how the hell was he smart enough to get all of her dna out of his house? And to somehow erase any shred of blood evidence from the tangled mess of stuff in his garage? Among other things.

Like I said I agree with most of your points. I'll sum it up this way which I think is a sort of middle ground:

Do I think he should've been found innocent based on the principles of a fair trial, reasonable doubt and the rules of a court room? Absolutely! No question about it.

Do I think he killed the girl? Absolutely.

Do I think he should've been found innocent based on the principles of a fair trial, reasonable doubt and the rules of a court room? YES

Do I think he killed the girl? Eeehhh 50/50

[Axeman33]

I am on the side that thinks he was set up.

I honestly think the two relatives of Averys, the ones with the same alibi that they saw each other on the highway in passing, had something to do with it and were in cohoots with the police.

I mean, the evidence against Avery was just too convenient for me. Why would he kill her when he knows that was her last place of work and all eyes would be on him in the middle of his big lawsuit. Its not like this was the first time she was ever in there for work. He had access to a crusher but just "parked" the truck on the side of the lot and covered it with a few things?? Yet he burnt the body? The keys miraculously being found in his trailer after it was searched how many times????

I get that he wasn't the most educated man on the planet, but he wasnt the dumbest either. Some of those things simply didnt add up for me. It was just too convenient to find Avery as the guilty party.

- - - Updated - - -

I am on the side that thinks he was set up.

I honestly think the two relatives of Averys, the ones with the same alibi that they saw each other on the highway in passing, had something to do with it and were in cohoots with the police.

I mean, the evidence against Avery was just too convenient for me. Why would he kill her when he knows that was her last place of work and all eyes would be on him in the middle of his big lawsuit. Its not like this was the first time she was ever in there for work. He had access to a crusher but just "parked" the truck on the side of the lot and covered it with a few things?? Yet he burnt the body? The keys miraculously being found in his trailer after it was searched how many times????

I get that he wasn't the most educated man on the planet, but he wasnt the dumbest either. Some of those things simply didnt add up for me. It was just too convenient to find Avery as the guilty party.

[TheBadger]

Don't worry folks!

Wife just informed me that Dr.Phil is on the case, airing tomorrow afternoon.

[forumname]

Don't worry folks!

Wife just informed me that Dr.Phil is on the case, airing tomorrow afternoon.

Oh thank god. Finally some reality and truth will be brought to the issue.

Maybe the Kardashians or Vanilla Ice can help shed new light as well.

The funny thing to me is that, while Dr. Phil and similar outlets get laughed at (by some at least), the 'news' is still widely regarded as truth. It's all for entertainment, and it's all about making money. Everything we see involving this case included.

[Thunder]

Compelling TV, even with the obvious bias.

As for avery's guilt, I'm on the fence. The show does not provide the whole picture. But the nephew's conviction seems absolutely outrageous.

in the same vein, I highly recommend the first season of a podcast called Serial. It looks into a case of a Baltimore teenager convicted of killing his ex-girlfriend in 1999. (There's also a spinoff podcast called Undisclosed that goes further into the evidence and uncovers pretty compelling evidence that the State's theory is not credible.)

[The Comish]

I have yet to watch any of this, so I found the back and forth between rtstr and forumname highly entertaining! It's pure awesomeness when two guys can be on opposite ends of an argument and not let it devolve into stupidness and name-calling. So thank you both for making good arguments and keeping it respectful.

I think OJ was guilty.

[Wrist_Shot]

I binged watched this series over a two day period. The case is fascinating to me...it's just unreal, like something that could only come out of a fiction novel.

I give Avery an innocent/guilty odd of 70/30. It seems clear to me that Manitowoc County law enforcement had the motive and opportunity to manipulate evidence in favor of a guilt. It is also apparent to me that Brendan's coerced confession (four months later) and subsequent dramatized press conference by the prosecutor made finding an impartial jury nearly impossible.

If the standard of conviction is "beyond a reasonable doubt", I think the average person has to find Avery not-guilty given all of what was put forth during the trial.

I could go on and on about this case...most important might be that it's made so many view the criminal justice system in a different light.

[Pengwin7]

I think guilty. Avery & Massey.
90% confidence that they are both guilty.

I enjoyed the entertainment value of the series, but even just from the 10-episodes, I figured he did it based on a feeling of entitlement.
After his life, I think somebody like him could think that the pretty, well-to-do people of the world owed him something... and he could take what he wanted.
Pretty terrible/sad story.
I don't think Avery was a good person to start with... but the "system"... society... it can turn somebody into even more of a monster by framing them that way.

Call somebody a duck enough... they'll think they are a duck.

I feel bad in different ways for all parties of this story, but both Avery/Massey are where they need to be - in jail.

[Nikerato]

I recently watched the whole series, and I wasn't satisfied with it, so I too have read pretty much everything I could find afterwards.

To me, the documentary was edited and presented in a way that implied Steven's innocence; Brendan's too. The title: "Making a Murderer" is already suggestive of the fact that whoever made the series believes to some degree that Steven and Brendan are not actually murderers.

My thoughts after watching the series is that you can't say that Steven is guilty, but that you also can't say he's innocent. The most I could say is that I simply don't know who did it. That is reasonable doubt, which puts a burden on the prosecution to remove because otherwise he would be innocent in the eyes of the law. How a jury was able to come to the opposite conclusion is deeply worrying to me. Now I'm not saying he's innocent, but I can say with confidence that there is more than enough to doubt his guilt. The system doesn't account for these situations though. You have to either be guilty or not.

As for all the new "evidence" that has popped up in the media, it's interesting but it's all pointless to debate over. All of it is speculation. We don't know the veracity or context of any of these "facts," and we simply cannot make any judgement based on them. I think it's vital to give pause to these speculations for the same reasons why Brendan's original statements were deemed not admissible in Steven's case; the reason being that Brendan's "confessions" were heavily influenced by the people interrogating him. Investigators can influence a confession to great success just like the media (and every other interested party) can influence "facts."

It's very dangerous to vehemently suggest that Steven and Brendan are guilty or not guilty based on just the documentary and what we see and read on the internet/tv. Why? Because we don't know the facts; we the public, we the jury, we the prosecutors, we the defendants, we the judge, we-everybody. I truly believe the judicial system should be set up in such a way that the most important goal is to discover the truth. The country that is pretty close to this is France, if you want to research their system. It doesn't work that way in the USA and Canada and many other countries. The most important goal here is to reach a verdict and this is how the vast majority of cases play out.

There's just not enough evidence going either way, and unfortunately the investigation was thoroughly incomplete about discovering the real truth; because of this lack of discovery or truth, if Steven is "really guilty," well then a potentially innocent man has had his life taken away. If Steven is really "not guilty," then the judicial system has potentially failed in so many ways that the mind boggles at just how civilized we could ever believe we are. This is why it is so dangerous to call it either way.

I will always maintain that I would rather want the truth - or as close to the truth as possible - instead of a verdict, even if that means investigations lasting for years. Decades. The system would need to be revamped in so many ways that it just seems impossible. Anyways I just want to see people stop saying "oh guilty for sure" or "there's no way he's guilty" when any reasonable person can see that there's just not enough solid evidence going either way. I don't see how we can morally make a judgement in light of that conclusion.

[Pengwin7]

^Excellent post. (and some REP)
Now, time to get off the fence.

You are part of the jury as a resident of Manitowac County or neighboring county.
Given everything you know, from all sources ("documentary" and all other internet things)...
Guilty or Not Guilty?