“Making a Murderer” Episode 4
When we left off the last episode of “Making a Murderer,” Steven Avery was in deeper trouble due to his own nephew, Brendan Dassey turning into the prosecution’s star witness.
*By the way, I’m making every effort not to get spoiled by reading current information about this case.
We see more details concerning Dassey’s lack of mental horsepower as he is heard opining about missing Wrestlemania and asking his mom what the word “inconsistent” means after hearing it in reference to his statements to police.
Mom couldn’t define this common word either. This family is simply overmatched in this battle with the authorities.
A conspiracy theorist could almost argue that Brendan Dassey is just acting ignorant in these recorded phone calls from jail to get sympathy in court. However, this kid simply lacks intelligence.
It does make me wonder about all the recorded calls from Brendan that got edited out. The ones we have heard so far are favorable to Steven Avery’s defense team.
Len Kachinsky, an alleged “defender of justice,” allowed his 16-year-old client to be interrogated by the prosecution’s investigators without Kachinsky present.
That three and a half hour interview was likely an improvement on the pieced together rough draft of a confession they had initially obtained from Avery’s nephew. Gotta make this case look proper you know.
Not only that, Kachinsky’s own investigator questions Brendan in a manner that makes it clear they are looking to push the young man into a plea deal.
This investigator tells Brendan to “draw a picture of Steven stabbing Ms. Halbach,” and “draw of a picture of you having sex with her.”
With a defense team like this, who needs a prosecutor?
It’s clear to me that Brendan’s mom isn’t the best person to be advising her kid. Every time he changes his story from not seeing anything at all the day of the murder to telling her he did help his uncle brutally kill an innocent woman, his mom just believes either story.
Seems like she would ask him directly why he keeps changing his damn story and ask for the truth once and for all.
At least, she was smart enough to see Brendan needed a new lawyer. She wanted a defender like Steven had. Someone who could turn this case around like a Cousin Vinny of sorts.
Even without Brendan’s alibi, we learn that Steven still has evidence that puts him in a favorable light the day of Teresa Halbach’s murder. We hear audio from jail recordings when his fiance Jodi calls him as she awaits release after her incarceration for the DUI.
I don’t know what a man sounds like immediately after raping and killing someone, but Avery’s voice didn’t give that vibe to me.
Maybe this guy is a cold-blooded killer who was rinsing blood off his hands with a hose pipe while sweet talking his girlfriend over the telephone. It’s unlikely though and the exact time of the murder comes into play as well. The timeline in any case like this is so crucial.
I know nothing of search warrants and hope it stays that way. From this film, we do learn that these warrants shouldn’t be allowed to last for days on end. This from Avery’s defense team’s investigator who was a retired police officer. He states that the police searched Avery’s property 18 times!
He also mentions Halbach’s Rav 4 key that only held DNA from Steve Avery, none from Halbach herself who had touched the key every day that she owned the vehicle!
More and more suspicions are raised about the so-called evidence against Avery, like why would he leave the murder victim’s car on his property when he could have crushed it into nearly nothing with the business’ car crusher.
The blood belonging to Steven found in the Rav 4 is supposedly from a cut on the man’s finger, yet not one fingerprint from Avery is found on the vehicle. Wearing gloves answers the fingerprint question. But gloves make it highly unlikely he would have left a blood trail from his finger.
Framing by the police may seem like a longshot defense strategy. But there is no doubt that Avery’s defense team would not employ that tactic if they didn’t feel it was their best shot at a “not guilty” verdict.
I love the glimpse into the mind of the Manitowoc County Sheriff Ken Patterson when he states on camera that he and his crew could have killed Steven Avery. He says that would have been easier than framing him! He’s probably right, but having the arrogance to say it aloud is amazing.
I don’t know that Avery being whacked would have stopped the lawsuit in the same manner that possibly framing him did. And maybe the authorities had more experience with planting evidence than they did with actually murdering citizens who were thorns in their sides.
We see more chess moves by the entire system when Steven’s girlfriend gets locked up for drinking, a probation violation for her. She is instructed to stay away from Steven by her probation officer which is likely to make Steven give up any remaining hope he had left. A good move possibly orchestrated to make Avery give up the fight or maybe just to fuck with the guy.
I don’t know how this case will end up. I do know it’s hard to root against the defense team though, especially hearing the passion in Dean Strang’s voice when he discusses how Brendan Dassey is not receiving proper legal representation.
Yes, it would be nice if good guys like Stang and Jerry Buting would just volunteer all their time to help poor people in court. Brendan could sure use a real lawyer. However, these guys have bills to pay just like everyone else and a limited amount of free time to fight injustice.
Brendan’s mom gets her boy to write a letter to the judge stating he is innocent and wants to fire his lawyer. The motion is denied, and Len Kachinsky mocks the letter as being “dumb.”
If Jodi was Steven’s only anchor, then he is in bad shape after the continual harassment of his lady by the cops causes her to stay away from him.
We finally witness some justice when the judge, in this case, dismisses Brendan’s lawyer after the judge learned about the interrogation that was allowed by Len Kachinsky without counsel present. As dimwitted as this kid is he would have been better off representing himself as opposed to a lawyer only interested in him admitting guilt.
Episode four wrapped up with the biggest bang yet. We learn that Lieutenant Lenk of the Manitowoc County Police found the Rav 4 key on the seventh search of Avery’s trailer. The first six times the key, which was under a pair of shoes, was somehow overlooked….or simply not there.
Avery’s lawyers assume the worst about Lenk and rightfully so. They proceed to get a court order to examine Avery’s DNA from the old Beernsten case.
With the prosecution’s investigations on hand Strang and Buting show that a box containing Steven Avery’s blood has been opened then resealed by someone. Not only that but the vial of blood has what appears to be a needle hole in the top of it.
I thought Jerry Buting was gonna have a legal orgasm right then and there!
If you suffer from a 72 IQ, let me break this finding down. The Avery legal team believes this shows that someone with access to the evidence room from past cases took some of Avery’s blood and placed it in Teresa Halbach’s Rav 4 and on her key.
If that’s what happened then it would be a safe bet to assume it was either Lieutenant Lenk or Officer Colburn who used Avery’s old DNA to set him up….allegedly. What irony that a man’s DNA from a case in which he was wrongly convicted was possibly used to try to get him sent back to jail for yet another crime he didn’t commit.
Tough to use the word allegedly with these two cops as I head into episode five. Stay tuned for more.
SIDE NOTE:
Our editor was able to raise enough awareness about the West Memphis Three kids (Damien Echols, Jesse Misskelley Jr & Jason Baldwin) when he was developing his film based on their story to get Peter Jackson‘s attention, so hopefully, he could spare a little bit of his “Lord of the Rings” residual money to help out Steven Avery. Between him and Anonymous, this case would be figured out in no time.
When Jackson hired a private detective, it opened up a whole new can of worms that the town of West Memphis, Arkansas and the entire state wanted to keep shut. It wasn’t long before deals were made and the guys were out of prison after spending all of their adult life there. Avery’s been punished enough for no reason so this would be more than a great ending for him. I just hope he moves far far away from that place.