On the face of it, the Netflix documentary serial Making a Murderer should only take up ten hours of your life. Judging from my experience, though, its ten episodes will prove so overwhelmingly riveting that you’re going to need at least two more days to scour the internet in an obsessive quest for every scrap of information about the Steven Avery case — and several evenings to discuss it with any fellow viewers you can find.
If the fuss about the series has so far passed you by (and if it has, it probably won’t for much longer), you may have to trust me that the story it tells — through such unspectacular old-school methods as assiduously researched footage, talking heads and the occasional caption — is from real life. In 1985, Steven Avery, of Manitowoc County, Wisconsin was arrested for a particularly violent rape. The sheriff’s department made few bones about how much they disliked Steven and his extended family, who lived in trailers on a nearby scrapyard and were clearly (and perhaps not inaccurately) regarded as white trash. The local police suggested that a known offender called Gregory Allen might also be worth investigating, but the sheriff and his men took no notice and continued with their successful mission to ensure Avery was convicted.
After 18 years protesting his innocence in prison, Avery was freed in 2003, when improvements in DNA science meant that the rapist was revealed to have been Gregory Allen. Once released, he then set about suing the sheriff’s department for $36 million — until he was arrested and charged with the murder of 25-year-old Teresa Halbach.
This time, the evidence appeared rather more convincing: Teresa’s charred remains were found near his trailer, drops of his blood in her car, and her key in his bedroom.
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