My review/analysis of Netflix's "Making a Murderer" S01-S02

[Sonny Crockett]

Part 1:

I watched the first season of MAM back in early 2016, and S02 in 2018. Extremely well-done.

However, it's hard to watch this show - given that it's so disturbing & unsettling. Obviously TH's death was horrific. But, it's also horrific that two innocent people are in jail for a crime they didn't commit. Even if they do both get out of jail at some point (which may actually never happen), their lives have been ruined & their reputations have been irreparably tarnished.

I definitely feel that SA & BD are innocent based on what was seen in SO1 - however, S02 is even more thorough & IMHO just solidifies their innocence. Their most recent?! defense lawyer KZ is very intelligent & a crusader for those who have no voice. I am extremely impressed at the thoroughness she displayed in doing painstaking & difficult research re: this crime, as well as all of the difficult re-enactments - including going out of her way to buy the same car that TH drove back in 2005.

Unfortunately, BD & SA are still in jail, despite all of KZ's efforts. However, what this Netflix series has done is at least made the general public aware of this. I.e., prior to this series I had never even heard of this case - not being local to the Wisconsin/Michigan areas.

The case against SA & BD has a lot of holes:

1) If SA did commit this crime - which I don't believe - he would already have had intimate knowledge of the CJS, due to having been wrongfully incarcerated for many years prior to the crime taking place. So, I don't see how someone like this would:

-Commit the crime in the first place. I.e., why would he do this on the verge of receiving a big settlement from the state for the previous wrongful conviction?! Especially given that he knew - from personal experience - that people already thought he was a criminal. So, you would think he would have gone out of his way to stay on the straight & narrow from then on.

-However - even if you buy that he did the TH crime, why would he leave the car intact (and I consider hiding this somewhere on his property intact), as well as leaving his blood all over the interior & exterior of the car?! This makes 0 sense to me, especially since he had easy access to a car crusher (on his property), and IMHO could easily have destroyed the car without anyone thinking he was doing anything unusual. I know nothing about car crushers (outside of seeing cars being crushed in movies/TV shows), but it seems these are (or at least can be) fully capable of crushing/destroying vehicles beyond recognition.

And, even if you buy that he left the car intact for whatever reason, why would he leave his blood all over the interior, without even making an attempt at washing it off?! Ludicrous.

2) Re: BD, I find it reprehensible that he was even interrogated without a lawyer - or at least a guardian (i.e., his parents) present. This seems illegal to me, given that he was a minor - and an apparently developmentally disabled one at that. If you pay close attention to the interview(s) in S01 especially, the interrogators are just feeding BD the info. they want him to say. He definitely doesn't seem like he's confessing to a horrible crime by any means, but more that he's telling the interrogators what he thinks they want to hear so he can go home.

So, obviously there are quite a few unanswered questions here, which may never be answered to satisfaction:

1) So, since BD & SA didn't commit this crime, who did?!

2) Going along with this, who planted SA's blood in TH's car?! When I finished watching S01 I thought it was the authorities - using blood from a vial that had been taken from SA in the prior case. However, after seeing S02 I now think the blood may actually have been taken (by someone on the property) from the sink and somehow planted in the car.

In any case, I feel that whoever framed SA felt that, due to his previous history, he would make a good scapegoat for this crime. Re: BD, I feel he got unintentionally got caught up in this because the authorities were looking for someone (in addition to SA) to pin this on, and took advantage of BD's intellectual slowness to "help" them create a narrative that fit what they thought happened.

This case just proves something I've always known anyway: i.e., if you're poor & are accused of a crime - it's irrelevant whether you're innocent or guilty. You will still get screwed by the system. Conversely, if you have $ and are accused of the same crime, there is a great chance you will go free. Very unfair, but unfortunately that's the way the unequal justice system works in this country.

 

[Sonny Crockett]

Part 2:

Though S02 has been criticized as not really going over any new ground, I found it quite enlightening. KZ's firm went over the existing evidence with fresh eyes, and she & her team did painstaking research regarding the events surrounding the death of TH - to the point that you were looking at everything from a different perspective.

Numerous points, based on what we saw in S02:

- It appears evident that KZ proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that TH did indeed leave SA's property in her car after meeting with him - due to the cell phone logs/history. This right there disproves that TH died on SA's property, which also lends credence re: his innocence.

Going along with this, I find it extremely suspicious that BD (Brendan's brother) evidently had two different stories re: seeing TH's car. I.e., he testified in court that her car was still on the property as he left to go hunting, and that he saw TH walk towards SA's trailer - this "claim" went a long way towards convicting SA & BD. However, it was later noted that BD gave a completely different story to his other brother (not Brendan), i.e. he evidently stated that there was no way that SA could have killed TH, given that he didn't see her car on the property anymore when he left to go hunting. So, which was it?! It seems evident that he was lying about something. If he's innocent of any wrongdoing, his story should have been consistent - you would think.

- A truck driver later saw what looked like TH's abandoned car on the side of the highway, a distance from SA's trailer - before the car was found on SA's property. He reported this to the authorities, but was ignored - convenient for anyone trying to frame SA. I am convinced (as I was from what was seen in S01) that TH's car was taken from another location & planted on SA's property.

- ST (the second husband of SA's sister) got enraged and accusatory towards SA (on the phone) when discussing KZ's new accusations against him & Brendan's brother. Sure, a completely innocent person may definitely get enraged like this if they were accused of a crime they didn't do. But, in this case....I'm not so sure what happened.

-I also find TH's ex-bf somewhat suspicious. It appeared that he may have been borderline-stalking her before her death, even though they had broken up some time before. In any case, his actions after her disappearance definitely seemed sketchy. For example, how did he get ahold of TH's day planner?!

-Very sad that the family of SA lost a lot of valuable business (that they will probably never get back) due to the crime & accusations/convictions against SA & BD. Seeing SA's elderly, infirm parents struggling was especially heartbreaking.

-It's telling that one of the judges (involved in one of BD's appeals) mentioned that the taped interview with BD made "her skin crawl" due to the obvious manipulation the investigators were orchestrating in order to convince BD to say what he did. Glad someone agreed this was coercive, though the appeals were still lost.

Side-note: Never heard of a "hustle shot" before S02, or what it meant. That being said, I'm not into professional photography. Interesting.

 

[Dnp2be]

I am halfway through season 2 and I also agree with you. At this point, I think BD’s brother, framed both BD and SA with the help of another individual I have yet to identify. I too think that SA was an easy target to take the focus off the real perps. Strange how BD’s name was only brought up to begin with by his brother during interrogation. He said his brother was acting funny that day and wala, now BD was going to be guilty before they even pretended to investigate him.

I am also sick to my stomach at how BD was illegally railroaded. There are so many things wrong with what they did and it makes me sick to think that the judge had even considered allowing it. The whole d*** system there appears corrupt. I wholeheartedly agree with your statement about $$. It does not matter if you are innocent or guilty, it only matters how much you can afford to buy off the powers at be. Regardless of BD’s innocent or guilt, his testimony should have been thrown out due to the way they obtained it over and over again.

I remember it being said that there were a lot of things the documentary left out and an accusation was made that the documentary was one sided. If this is accurate, I have yet to see proof. I am currently in the process of reviewing all the court documents that are available and I still have come across nothing that is a smoking gun proving either SA or BD guilty.

TBH, this scares the c*** out of me and it should everyone else too. How quickly our freedom can be ripped from us and our children and we are defenseless against it. We have no power and no say and we’d better hope we can come up with some money if we are going to have any chance at staying free. I can only hope for justice in another lifetime because we have ultimately placed the decision of right and wrong in the devils hands.

edited due to a typo

 

[scipio_usmc]

Part 1:
This case just proves something I've always known anyway: i.e., if you're poor & are accused of a crime - it's irrelevant whether you're innocent or guilty. You will still get screwed by the system. Conversely, if you have $ and are accused of the same crime, there is a great chance you will go free. Very unfair, but unfortunately that's the way the unequal justice system works in this country.

Steven Avery paid his lawyers hundreds of thousands of dollars. He was convicted because a mountain of evidence proved his guilt.

MAM is very one sided and never bothers to present the answers that were provided in court to the planting insinuations.

It never ceases to amaze me how people say poor Steven and say they believe someone else did it when there is far less evidence against the person they accuse than against Steven.

The real legacy of MAM and Zellner is that a large group of people believe innocent people are guilty of the crime without any evidence to support ruining the reputation of such people yet dismiss the abundance of evidence that establishes Steven's guilt.