Netflix: Making a Murderer -- My theory on the case (MAJOR SPOILER ALERT)

[Yavin4]

If you haven't watched the series, Making a Murderer on Netflix, stop reading now because I'm going to spoil it.

Okay?

Let's proceed. The key question in the case is not who killed Teresa Halbach, but where was she killed. Answering that solves the case. Where did the crime take place?

Eliminate crime scenes
We can clearly rule out Steve Avery's trailer and garage as possible crime scenes. None of Teresa's DNA was found at either site and no trace of cleaning liquids were also found. We can also rule out Teresa's car. Except for the one blood stain, there was no other evidence that she was killed in her car. Finally, we can rule out any area on the compound. With people coming and going, someone would have saw something or heard something.

By eliminating the above, we can also eliminate Brendan Dassey's role in the murder.

Crime scene was off the compound
Given the above, we can be sure that Teresa was killed outside of the compound.

Theory 1: She drove off the compound and Steve Avery was with her. He killed her off site, mutilated and burned her body. Then, drove the car back to his compound. This is very unlikely. Other people saw Steve at the compound, and we know that his then fiance called him from prison during this time. Steve was still on the property.

Theory 2: She drove off the compound alone. While on the road, her assailant made her stop. She either got out of her car willingly or was forced out. She was killed off site. Her body mutilated and burned. Who could make her stop? Who could make her get out of the car willingly? Her boyfriend? Her roommate? Her brother? All very unlikely. The only entity that could make her stop and get out of that car would be the Manitowoc County Sheriff's department.

This is my theory. Under the threat of paying a huge settlement to Steve Avery, the Sheriff's department kept his compound under constant surveillance. They saw Teresa pull into and out of that compound, and they pulled her over to talk to her about what she was doing on that property. Maybe they thought that she was on his legal team, who knows.

She gets out of that car, and something goes horribly wrong between Teresa and the deputy which winds up with her being killed. The Sheriffs then mutilate and incinerate her body. Drive her car onto the Avery lot. Plant bone fragments in the pit outside of Steve Avery's trailer. Plant the key in his room. Plant the spent shell in his garage, and smear the blood in her car.

The Sheriffs could do all of this because they committed the crime. The give away was Colburn's calling in her license plate to dispatch. He was looking at her car.

[Warren Stupidity]

1. I agree that they had motive and opportunity and that the massive evidence of a framing

would point in that direction. Proving they did it is another matter.

[Orrex]

2. Well...

That would mean that they either killed her on the road, took her somewhere, burned her and then planted her remains at the firepit, or that they picked her up, took her somewhere, killed her, burned her, & planted her remains.

I can see how police might have intercepted her as she left the compound, but I'm doubtful that they killed her, and I don't know where they would have burned her body.


Her ex-boyfriend seemed a little fishy IMO, and to be honest her brother gave me the creeps too.

[OilemFirchen]

9. Yeah.

I don't know why the seminal poster summarily dispatched the boyfriend, roommate and brother, but - were the defense allowed to suggest third-party responsibility, I suppose that one or all of them would have been the most obvious targets. I've read some of the voluminous commentary at Reddit but haven't seen any discussion about a potential relationship between any or all of these guys and the County law enforcement. It's an incestuous little town and easy to envision a scenario whereby one or more of these guys murdered her and the Sheriff's Department then killed two birds with one stone - covering up the murder by a friend and/or relative and framing Avery.

This isn't over. Jurors appear to be slowly emerging with stories about what went on during deliberations... and it ain't pretty.

[Logical]

3. My main take away is that the criminal justice system is seriously flawed! The Police and....

the judges and prosecutors are all part of the corruption.

Something seriously needs to change.

[justiceischeap]

4. My take/theory

I came away from the show not knowing whether Avery was guilty or not but believing there was enough "reasonable doubt" in his case to have at least caused a mistrial if not a not guilty verdict. For the things you mentioned mostly about the crime scenes and lack of any evidence that she was killed where the prosecution claims she was killed.

The second take away for me was that Brendan Dassey got screwed and no one even offered him lube. From his lawyer on up. If anyone deserves a retrial, it's that guy. The police claim they had permission from the mom to interview him the first time but once he had a lawyer, the FBI shouldn't have interviewed him without the attorney present. That should be grounds for a new trial.

I do find it hard to believe that a guy that had no real violent history (other than the one cat episode) suddenly decides to murder a woman so near to getting everything he wanted. But stranger things have happened, I guess.

[Yavin4]

5. Whoever killed Teresa had to be meticulous about it

And there is NOTHING meticulous about Steve Avery. Look at how he kept his home. If he killed someone, there would be mountains of evidence every where. He's just not that sharp of a guy.

The person or persons that killed Teresa knew how to do it without leaving a trace. They knew about DNA and splatter evidence. They knew that incinerating the body would destroy most of the evidence. They knew how to clean a crime scene. They knew that they had to remove the license plate.

The people with the most expertise in this regard would be the Sheriff's office.

[Cal Carpenter]

6. Well, it's more realistic than the prosecution's case that got them

convicted.

I don't know that I agree with you, but I haven't thought too hard about it. My assumption has been that the murder was somehow a coincidence but the cops just put it on him from the get go and went from there, with the real killer just skating away...

But just about anything is more likely than what the cops and courts have settled on. Yours takes the frame up to the extreme, but honestly I wouldn't put anything past cops, and the system protects cops, so it doesn't have to be a big conspiracy, just a coupla sick fuckers and the system working in their favor, lest the cracks in the facade bust wide open.

[Yavin4]

7. " just a coupla sick fuckers" Like the D.A. Ken Kratz?

Did you hear about his sexting scandal?

[Cal Carpenter]

8. No, actually I haven't read or heard much beyond the series

on Netflix, and even that I didn't watch closely all the time.

On rereading my post I want to add, it almost looks like when I said 'just a coupla sick fuckers' I'm hinting at the 'few bad apples' idea, and I want to clarify that I mean no such thing. It is corrupt from top to bottom, like dominoes, from the cops to the other cops to the prosecutor and DA and judge. The arrest, the investigations, the interrogations, the jury, the trial... Especially in this scenario, given its history, and given Avery's lawsuit, the local power structure. That backstory is cracks in the facade they are worried about. The conspiracy is inherent in the system so it all works to protect itself destroying lives as it goes.

[Yavin4]

10. Ken Kratz is one sick fucker

On edit: you may need a shower after reading the article below.

Kratz's 18-year stint as Calumet County district attorney came to an end in 2010 after The Associated Press reported that he sent a barrage of racy text messages to a 25-year-old woman a year earlier while he was prosecuting her ex-boyfriend for abusing her. Kratz, then 50, called the woman a "hot nymph" and advertised himself as "the prize" with a $350,000 house and a six-figure salary. He told her he wanted her to be "so hot" and "treat me so well that you'd be THE woman. R U that good?"

A former state prosecutor and victims' rights advocate who tried to spark a sexual relationship with a domestic abuse victim and made sexual remarks to social workers cannot practice law for four months, the Wisconsin Supreme Court announced Friday.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/ex-da-ken-kratzs-law-license-suspended-in-sexting-scandal/

[Ruby the Liberal]

11. Thanks for this. I made it 10 minutes into the 1st episode

Listening to him talk about throwing the family cat alive into a fire as a "stupid mistake" broke my give-a-shit o'meter. If he didn't kill her, then the universe laid out some serious karma on his ass for that kind of evil.

Of course, this is why I prefer to work with data than psychology/people. My switch is easily tripped with people who harm animals and it is really really hard to ever care about what happens to someone who blows off animal abuse as merely bad judgment.

All of the controversy had my curiosity up - so thank you for saving me 10 hours of having to pretend I care what happened to this guy.

I liked your analysis.

[Yavin4]

12. There are complete assholes in this world, and Steve Avery is one of them. However....

his guilt or innocence, or whether he's a good guy or not, does not really matter. What does matter is the integrity of our criminal justice system, and in this case, these cops were corrupt as fuck.

Our justice system has to work for ALL of us, assholes and non-assholes alike. It has to because one day your brother/sister/cousin, etc., may fall victim to it, and your life will be a living hell.