Pretty sure the doc mentioned how Steve settled just so he could get money to pay the lawyers for the murder trial. Pretty convenient how it all worked out for Manitowoc County.
Making a Murderer
- Thread starter chemmie
- Start date
Yes it did. But Steve was never suing over the money (according to the documentary). He was suing to try to make sure it didn't happen again and really wanted the County to be found negligent. The settlement offer was made by the County and Steven had no choice but to take it and he lost his one true battle cry - the County absolved themselves of wrongdoing. If the goal of the County was to stop the lawsuit, why offer to settle at all? The process had basically stopped with Avery in jail. It would have basically gone away or been a surefire loser for Avery.
They conspired to send Avery to prison for 18 years simply because he was a dick to his cousin, who happened to be married to one of the cops.
They knowingly put him in jail by not arresting a known rapist, in their town, who then went on to rape other women.
If they'll do all of that over a family grudge, they sure as hell would conspire against him if their entire funding and existence was threatened, not to mention their reputations.
They were definitely inept in that case, too Malicious? Maybe. One-track investigation? For certain. Conspiracy? I don't think so. I think that case was one of where the police made up their minds quickly and didn't do a good job of vetting the evidence. Ineptitude and incompetence for sure, combined with arrogance and probably some bias (Avery was arrested a few times prior), which compounded the problem. But I don't really know if there was a concerted effort to "get" Avery, but rather the stereotypical cops' attitude of "let's get the first guy we think of and have some evidence to tie to this" especially in an era before DNA evidence was better utilized. Let's not pretend Avery was a squeaky clean guy here.
And isn't it ironic that he was exonerated by DNA evidence, then later convicted because of it.
Funny that you bring up Casey Anthony. She wins her case because her lawyers were able to establish reasonable doubt. I believe the doubt they established was completely unreasonable, as do many other people.
Amazingly, the jurors in this case didn't find any reasonable doubt from Avery's lawyers, because there was a metric shit-ton of it.
In the rape arrest, one of the Sherrif's office guys took a previous picture of Avery, drew that as a composite sketch, then coerced the victim into believing that this was the person who raped her, despite the fact that her OWN description of the suspect did not match the description of Avery.
Please stop trying to convince people that this is just being "inept". These assholes WERE out to get Avery and it isn't hard to understand that. Why else would you literally invent evidence to present to a woman that was just savagely assaulted and raped, knowing you're going to free a rapist, all to assure that Avery went to jail?
Well, maybe. That's Avery's defense's theory - and it sounds plausible and really bizarre that the deputy who did that had the composite and mugshot framed in his office as some sort of trophy - but that's not ever been proven. Maybe they were out to get him because they really thought he did it, rather than some vendetta against him for threatening a cops wife - his cousin - with aggressive driving and a shovel. The witness did somewhat describe a guy who could have looked like Avery (and Gregory Allen kind of did) and the cops basically went with their first inclination, which they often do. It wasn't like the woman was raped and they immediately sad "let's pin this on Avery even before we get a description." No doubt there was prejudice involved, but some of that Avery brought upon himself by getting arrested for other crimes in the recent past.
LOL
They drew a sketch that mirrored EXACTLY the mugshot of him from years prior and presented it to the rape victim. They didn't even attempt to listen to her description!
Yea, Avery looked a lot like Allen, except for having a different eye color, much different height, different weight, different hair style, and much different facial hair. Besides those things they were nearly identical*
As for Casey Anthony, I totally agree that the doubt was simply bullshit. Baez basically threw anything up against the wall to deflect the jury away from the facts of the case. And Jeff Ashton did a horrible job of reeling them back in.
The doc mentions that the initial straw poll at the beginning of deliberations was 7-not guilty 3-guilty 2-undecided and the one juror who was dismissed basically said the 3 who thought guilty berated and threatened the rest of the jurors into changing their vote.
Also, it's come out that one of the jurors was a Manitowoc sheriffs volunteer WHO HAS A SON who is currently working for the sheriffs office!
How the **** does this guy get to be a juror???
Again, that's Avery's defense's side of the story - maybe true, maybe not - and Avery didn't even look like that sketch at the time either. They both had a full beard, they had similar hair color, and unfortunately for Avery, the cops didn't know much about Allen's presence in the area at the time. As for the discrepancies in eyes, height and weight, police often are of the understanding that victims seem to forget these sorts of details under duress of the crime.
As Clay Travis points out, the defense attorney got the venue moved, but not the jury pool, which was stupid. That totally defeats the purpose of moving the venue.
Yea, they didn't know about Allen's presence, except for the fact that the city PD was following him every single day, sometimes 6-7 times per day.
A monster was in their city which warranted nearly around the close surveillance, and you're telling me the Sherriff's Office didn't know?
Not to mention there was a file that directly showed that the Sherriff's office knew of the Allen surveillance.
Right. And during the time of the rape, they were not surveilling him. They did not know where he was at the time.
The bottom line, the SO didn't due their due diligence in the investigation for whatever reason. They settled on Avery as a suspect and progressed from there without considering anyone else. Mailicious, probably. Biased? For sure. But a vendetta is the conclusion the directors wanted you to think - and apparently they succeeded in your case. I'm not discounting that, but I am keeping an open mind that there may be a different conclusion. Again, the documentary only presents Avery's side of the story.
Most reasonable people will conclude there is a vendetta when it's shown that the Sherriff's department received a call from another officer, stating that a sex offender claimed he committed a rape in Manitowoc and another man is in jail for it, yet the SO decided to do absolutely nothing with it in order to allow Avery to continue to rot in prison. And then drew up hurried, BS reports on that call, the day after Avery was released.
Really? Or maybe it's that the SO was arrogant (after all, he already had his guy in jail) and didn't want to be bothered to do the work. It's still a travesty, but I don't think it necessarily points to being a vendetta because
A) that was 10 years after the conviction (and then 18 years for the reports) and the officer on the phone call was not the same as involved in the rape investigation
B) why even write up a report if it's a vendetta? All they had to say was (if it even ever got brought up) "I don't recall that conversation."
C) why were those officers not named in the lawsuit?
There was so much wrong with this case. Several things stood out to me that I haven't seen much more detail on:
1) Finding her bones in 3 burn pits. They sorta glossed over this in the documentary, but really want to know more detail of what the state's explanation on this was, as it makes no sense. Even if Avery did kill her, why would you burn the body (or take the burned remains) and spread them out to 3 different locations (that are all obvious as they were all burn pits). You just give the cops more opportunities to find remains (which makes sense if you are framing someone).
2) Was there ever any actual follow up to the harassing phone calls that the victim was getting for the month leading up to her murder? Kratz says they can look into it to the judge, but never hear anything more on this in the documentary or I haven't seen much written anywhere else. If someone's murdered and witnesses say that person was receiving harassing/annoying phone calls she was avoiding for the past month, it would seem to be like detective 101 to look into this.
To me two huge red flags are the officer calling her car in 2 days prior to it being found. He called in the make/model and license plate, there's no other way he's doing this other than he was looking at the car at the time. And two, the key. Found on the 6th search, in plane sight, with no DNA from her. And i don't think it gets pointed out enough that it was simply the spare key with no other keys on it. I'm sorry, there's no way that key wasn't planted. Doesn't prove Avery is innocent, but proves the cops were out to make sure he went down for this murder whether he did it or not.
1) Finding her bones in 3 burn pits. They sorta glossed over this in the documentary, but really want to know more detail of what the state's explanation on this was, as it makes no sense. Even if Avery did kill her, why would you burn the body (or take the burned remains) and spread them out to 3 different locations (that are all obvious as they were all burn pits). You just give the cops more opportunities to find remains (which makes sense if you are framing someone).
2) Was there ever any actual follow up to the harassing phone calls that the victim was getting for the month leading up to her murder? Kratz says they can look into it to the judge, but never hear anything more on this in the documentary or I haven't seen much written anywhere else. If someone's murdered and witnesses say that person was receiving harassing/annoying phone calls she was avoiding for the past month, it would seem to be like detective 101 to look into this.
To me two huge red flags are the officer calling her car in 2 days prior to it being found. He called in the make/model and license plate, there's no other way he's doing this other than he was looking at the car at the time. And two, the key. Found on the 6th search, in plane sight, with no DNA from her. And i don't think it gets pointed out enough that it was simply the spare key with no other keys on it. I'm sorry, there's no way that key wasn't planted. Doesn't prove Avery is innocent, but proves the cops were out to make sure he went down for this murder whether he did it or not.
Last edited:
Cops found her car, and possibly her body, on the day the cop phoned in the plates. They suspected Avery already, and wanted to make it an easy case. They moved the car, planted the blood and key, possibly burned the body, and moved the burned bones. Even if Avery did do it, he still got royally screwed.
As bad as the Avery case was, the fact that the kid is in jail is even more maddening and insane. He's a kid that can barely read or think, and the only evidence against him in the entire case was that coerced, forced confession which he contradicted on taped calls like 7 times, yet he's still in prison and can't get a re-trial.
Not even after the appeals lawyers proved that his shithead first lawyer was there to sabotage him, to get the DA something on Avery to use.
The kid and his mom didn't know what "inconclusive" meant. He thought that his CD player was the same as having a weapon on him. Avery wasn't any smarter. It's therefore insane and asinine to think that these people, who maybe have a combined 120 IQ, can mastermind a scheme whereby they kill and rape a woman, burn her remains, and sanitize their home so insanely well that there is absolutely no DNA or blood found.........anywhere.
Not even after the appeals lawyers proved that his shithead first lawyer was there to sabotage him, to get the DA something on Avery to use.
The kid and his mom didn't know what "inconclusive" meant. He thought that his CD player was the same as having a weapon on him. Avery wasn't any smarter. It's therefore insane and asinine to think that these people, who maybe have a combined 120 IQ, can mastermind a scheme whereby they kill and rape a woman, burn her remains, and sanitize their home so insanely well that there is absolutely no DNA or blood found.........anywhere.
Yes, really. That is what I think happened. It isn't far fetched.
1. Moved the car
- 3 days before the car was found, one of the officers who was deposed in the lawsuit called in the make, model, and tag number.
- No fingerprints of Avery's found in the car.
- Avery's blood found in the car, supposedly from a cut on his finger...but no fingerprints. He was wearing gloves, but not good enough gloves to keep blood from coming out?
- Victim's blood in the car, post mortem. As if the body was transported in the car. (this contradicts the prosecution story that everything happened in either the trailer or garage)
- key was found on the 7th search of his tiny trailer, laying in easily visible eyesight, by another cop who was deposed in the lawsuit
- this cop was told to stay away from the investigation site, and disobeyed that order multiple times
- a vile of Avery's blood, locked in an evidence room, was opened and tampered with, including a needle hole in the rubber top of the vile
- that same vile of blood was locked in the evidence room by the exact same cop
- the burned bones were found in three different locations: a burn pit on Avery's property, a barrel on Avery's property, and a third burn pit at a quarry down the road.
- the quarry makes no sense if everything happened on Avery's property, as the prosecution insists.
- Easiest explanation: she was burned at the quarry, bones were transferred and dropped into the pit and barrel at Avery's house
There is more evidence to suggest police wrongdoing than there is against Avery. But, the police weren't on trial.
This isn't even mentioning Dassey's case, the coerced confession as an obvious attempt to get him to testify against his uncle with the made-up story.
Dassey is legally mentally retarded. Below 70 is mentally retarded. Avery was only 76, so he is boderline mentally retarded.
The cops found their marks, who were smart enough to create this entire scheme, but too dumb to get away with it?
Oh, and the DA was later found to be using his position and power to sexually harass a rape victim, whose case he was in charge of.
And you can tell the officer on the stand who called in the plates is lying. It's so obvious that he is by his body language and his slow, measured responses. The defense had their hands tied by not being able to suggest alternate suspects, which I don't quite understand the reasoning behind that and all the documentary shows is the lawyers stating it - they did not show the pretrial motion hearing for whatever reason. That was basically the defense of Casey Anthony.
And one thing that really stuck out to me was that the filmmakers were filming and recording everything the Averys, their families, and their lawyers did from the moment Steve was arrested. The filmmakers were going from the beginning that they were biased towards the defense.
Uh, that's because the filmmakers intended to follow the progression of the case and obviously they couldn't film the DA or Sherriff's office full time.
The defense had a vested interest in airing their points of view and highlighting the massive errors and flaws with the investigation. The State had every reason to shut up and not speak since they were the ones benefiting from these errors and flaws.
Do you really believe the cops killed Halbach and then planted everything to frame Avery? If they were willing to kill someone to make the lawsuit go away, it would have been far easier to kill Avery.
No, it wouldn't have. They'd be the first ones people look at if Avery turned up dead in the middle of suing them.
They'd be in the spotlight. By planting evidence, they put Avery back in the spotlight.
Not if they simply made him disappear. If he's just gone, then there's nothing to trace. And as evidenced by how Halbach was killed, you can do it without any trace at all.
A conspiracy at this level takes such an overwhelming effort with dozens (if not hundreds) of people and many of the conspirators really see no benefit from participating. How do you keep all of them (and their loved ones, friends, etc.) quiet? The documentary insinuates that the conspirators involve the FBI, the DOJ, several sheriff's offices and police departments, the crime lab, the DA's, the judges, and to some extent, the jury. That's quite a lot of people.
No, there is no evidence to suggest that the cops killed her. There is plenty of evidence to suggest they were framing Avery.
I think the more likely scenario is what I stated: somebody else killed her, and the cops found her car and confirmed it when they called in the plates. Possibly at the quarry where she may or may not have been burned already. Avery was already their prime suspect, because he was the last to see her. So, they moved the car, grabbed some bones or burned her and grabbed the bones, had the key and wiped it clean, then planted the key, bones, and car, on Avery's property.
I think the major conspirators were the two cops, and possibly their Sheriff. Those two cops were a part of every single part of BOTH cases against Avery. The other people involved were just incompetent assholes trying their damnedest to get a conviction. They were conspiring to get their conviction, even involving Dassey's public defender.
The only real questions the documentary wants you to take away are these:
Should the Avery case be re-examined and put to a re-trial?
Same for the Dassey case?
I think in both cases, there is plenty of reason to answer Yes to both. The case for the Dassey re-trial is even stronger.
Should the Avery case be re-examined and put to a re-trial?
Same for the Dassey case?
I think in both cases, there is plenty of reason to answer Yes to both. The case for the Dassey re-trial is even stronger.
Very plausible. But if the initial intent was to frame Avery, they could have doctored all the same evidence at the quarry that they did on the Avery property and it would have been far more believable, especially since they could have doctored the scene in a more expeditious manner that didn't raise as much doubt. Moving the car onto Avery's lot would have been risky in that someone could have seen them moving the car. I think the actions later in the investigation show a desperate police department itching for a conviction and planting evidence to assure that. That doesn't mean Avery didn't kill the girl. It just means the cops wanted to make sure they got a conviction and not have the case go cold and Avery go free for it.
Last edited:
I agree on Dassey. That kid got railroaded big time and Kratz should be ashamed to have put forth that case. Kachinsky should be disbarred for what he did. I think Avery warrants further investigation for sure, but at this point I am not sure what anything else could possibly turn up.
"He's a kid that can barely read or think"
Go look up how many people with autism are in mental institutions if you want to be angry.
You know I find the faux internet outrage to be hysterical. After a few months people will forget it and move on.
Go look up how many people with autism are in mental institutions if you want to be angry.
You know I find the faux internet outrage to be hysterical. After a few months people will forget it and move on.
Wait, you mean things don't stay relevant forever? Shocking.
Despite your negative nancy pissing and moaning, it's a highly interested documentary that most intelligent people are choosing to discuss. Deal with it.
That reminds me of one of the parts that I couldn't understand and would love to know how the decision was made and how the testing occurred. The tests for the preservative in the blood samples found in the car and the garage were originally deemed unreliable by the FBI and hadn't been in use for years and took months to perform were all of a sudden reliable and only took days to perform. How in the hell did that not get thrown out?
Yes because watching a tv show and sitting on a computer all day crying conspiracy constitutes intellegence.
