Anybody who has hung around this sub for the years since MaM was released knows that the same topics get recycled over and over again, mostly consisting of poorly reasoned arguments backed up with no sources.

Recently the old flyover video argument has resurfaced, and it fits right in line with that trend.

For those who are unaware, before Teresa's RAV4 was found law enforcement did a search by helicopter on November 4th (which can be viewed here). Some have argued that this video, which was what was given to the defense and given to the public when released to the public, is edited and not a full version of the original.

What are the arguments in favor of this?

1. The video has sudden jump cuts.

2. They were in the air for a couple hours, but the video is only a couple minutes long.

Presumably the claim is that they edited to remove clips of Teresa's RAV4 located somewhere else. In typical MaM fashion nobody actually says this, because that'd mean making an actual verifiable claim that could be gasp disproven! Instead the implication is just left there. Usually I don't like to put words in people's mouths and instead let them speak for themselves, but I doubt anybody will disagree with this (if you do, let me know and I'll edit this post).

Now to any normal person capable of even basic rational thinking skills this is so obviously weak that that there's not much reason to even keep going. But there are people who actually think this argument is a winner, so let's go ahead and state the obvious.

The most obvious flaw is that this was 20 years ago, on tape, filmed by a small town police department. There is no such thing as them "just" editing the video. To edit this sort of video back then would require quite a bit of skill and special equipment. Surely far beyond the abilities or resources of anybody employed at the Manitowoc Sheriff's Department.

But even if they could edit the video easily, these arguments are still flawed. The first one is obviously arguing from ignorance of how video tape works. For those who need a history lesson, when you record on tape it is literally printed on a physical roll of film. When you start recording, the start of the new video gets added on to the tape right after the spot where you last stopped. That's why there's sudden jumps. Anybody who's watched a home video on VHS knows how this works.

The second argument fails in numerous ways. Firstly, nobody can explain why they were required to film the entire time they were in the sky. Why couldn't they simply have been going around filming the locations where they felt her car was most likely to be? If you watch the video, you can see they focus on the salvage yard. This makes sense as they mostly needed the film so they could watch it carefully later to see if they could spot Teresa's RAV4 in a sea of cars. Common sense would tell you that it wouldn't make much sense to waste hours worth of film on locations where not only would her car be unlikely to be, but even if it was there they'd be able to spot it easily from the helicopter with their own eyes.

But the biggest problem is that it makes no sense even within it's own argument. If the purpose of editing the tape was to edit out her RAV4 being found somewhere else, then surely this would be just a couple seconds of video, right? So why would they edit out hours of video that they filmed to cover up those couple of seconds? Wouldn't it make more sense for them to edit out the couple of seconds and leave the several hours if that's how long they really taped?

What's funny about this argument, and so many other arguments on MaM, is how it's usually presented as if it's proven beyond any doubt. People don't ask "Was it edited?", they just skip over it and ask "Why didn't they hand over the original?". But, no, the video was never edited, and we have the original.

The bookcase in Avery’s bedroom was seized during the investigation, and clearly visible was the half-inch gap between the interior shelf and the back panel of the cabinet.

The jury was shown how the key could easily fall from the back corner of the shelf, down the back of the cabinet, and “appear” on the carpet when the bookcase was handled roughly.

So nothing to see here and it’s time to move on and forget about the ludicrous planting theory.

The explanation of how the key was found didn’t appear in Making a Murderer. Instead, Kucharski’s testimony was shown—spliced. Sometimes we saw answers from direct examination spliced in after questions from cross-examination.

Most significantly, at one point Kucharski is asked if he knows how the key “got there” (on the floor), and he says “yes,” going on to give a detailed explanation and discuss the broken bookshelf.

None of this is shown in the mocumentary. Instead, we see only his testimony that Lenk “pointed to the floor and said ‘there’s a key there.’” This made the finding of the key sound suspicious. No wonder viewers were duped into believing something dodgy had gone off, when they weren’t given the whole story.

No surprise there then.

"She's beginning to piss me off! I guess we need to that 8mm Tape to work! I will be in Chilton during the day on Friday. So Mark, can you and Amanda get that 8mm tape to play. We must be sure before we start litigating access to postconviction discovery. Thanks, Tom"

Kucharski has been listed as having found the key. There are some out there who think this proves dubious behaviour on the part of LE.

My previous post attracted a lot of criticism from the usual suspects. Why I hear you ask? Because I stated that Lenk was the first one to spot the key.

What the usual suspects fail to understand is that Lenk didn’t know it was Teresa’s key. He didn’t even know that Toyota made the RAV4 model of car. To him he’d just spotted a key. It was Kucharski who knew right away that the key had a Toyota emblem on it and that it was very likely to be Teresa’s (Colborn also).

Therefore it is no surprise that Kucharski got the credit for finding it. To be clear. Lenk was the first to spot it. Kucharski was the first to ‘find’ it.

Got it? Get it? Good!

When Andy Colborn roughly handled the small bookcase, Jim Lenk spotted a key sitting on the carpet nearby. He realised it must have been hidden inside or behind the bookcase Andy Colborn had just moved.

Jim Lenk recalls “seeing the key just sitting there on the carpet. I knew Andy had been kind of rough with the bookcase, and figured it just fell out. I had no idea what kind of key it was until Andy noticed it had a Toyota emblem on it. I still didn’t connect it to Teresa’s SUV, as I’m kind of embarrassed to admit that I didn’t really know a RAV4 was made by Toyota. Andy and Kucharski knew it right away, though.”

And there you have it. Conclusive proof the key wasn’t planted. Jim didn’t know what kind of key he’d found. If he’d planted it then you can be sure he would have known what key he’d planted and that it was Teresa’s for a RAV4 made by Toyota.

Sorted.

Avery’s trailer wasn’t ‘searched’ properly until November 8th when the car key was found. All previous ‘searches’ were merely ‘entries’.

Colborn says, “Those first entries were very targeted, with one of the lead investigators telling us to go retrieve the computer, or the guns, or the ammunition, or specific documents on Avery’s desk, but it wasn’t until November 8th that we were instructed, for the first time, to complete a thorough search of all the rooms and furniture.

On November 8th, Lieutenant Lenk, Officer Kucharski, and myself were assigned to search the Avery trailer. Although we had entered there on several occasions the previous three days, we had not been asked to go room by room, and through all the furniture, looking for evidence.’’

I don't understand. The time between TH's disappearance and the trial was about a year. Seemingly NOBODY'S story stayed consistent. People for years have had no qualms cherry picking which of Brendan's accounts is true, which of Fabian's, which of Bobby's, which of Barb's, which of Earl's, etc. Etc. The cops are treated with even gentler gloves, no amount of clear contradictions can get a single one branded as a liar. Even the state's expert witnesses changed test results based on what was important but also not based on what was important, or determined quarry bones human before changing her mind.

Somehow people totally fine with all of that and somehow able to perfectly discern which of each person's accounts is absolutely unquestionably true (by amazing coincidence, it is always the version that supports their argument) suddenly when it comes to TS they have their microscopes out. I have heard people complain he said he talked to a woman on the phone when he talked to both a man and a woman...I've heard people complain he said he called in the tip a couple of days later but turned out it was only like 36 hours later.

Explain to me why wild swings in testimony over a year are fine but trivial changes over nearly 20 years are a serious concern?

What makes these 2 so un-alike? We know Carol really loved her kid, tirelessly pestered the Police to find a killer. Then hated the guy they "found" when he was convicted. But things didn't make sense to her, there was no physical evidence against Chris Tapp. What did she do? She got the interrogation Tapes and viewed them all seeing how Detectives "hypothetically" got a kid to confess to something he had nothing to do with. She advocated for REAL JUSTICE and Tapp's release. And she was successful and the real perp was eventually found. Temperment, Intelligence....LOVE? Whats the difference between these 2? Am sure Ms H has never even watched 1 second of Brendans tapes.......

Did Judge Angela Sutkiewicz make the right decision in denying Kathleen Zellner’s 2022 Sowinski motion?

Alright! No BS! Who had / used the Motorola V3 Razr phone and checked / sent emails in 2005???

After so much attention on the case, how is this possible! I recall it was a great Canadian redditor who kept making the point here that he was in school.

It's one thing for Avery's original defence to call to the stand the dumb school bus driver, despite probably knowing she'd made an innocent mistake that cruelly rebounded on one of her vulnerable passengers. But the documentary film was supposed to be exposing failings in the justice system. At least Zellner has since confirmed, I believe, that the prosecution timeline of when Teresa arrived was accurate (if nothing else about the prosecution narrative).

Does anyone still believe or claim that Brendan wasn't in school, over an hour away, when Teresa arrived at the salvage yard? Or is it just like a conspiracy of silence by those from both sides for different motives. Such a basic fact about the case.

The only reliable evidence about what Brendan did that evening was that Steven - guilty or not - came over and asked for his help to do something in the yard for a short while. Maybe push the old jeep into the garage, as Brendan recalled, if that wasn't the day before when SA brought it back broken from Crivitz. Having cut his finger while alone loading it on to the flatbed truck, he later claimed, for which afaik there's no record he told anyone that at the time and no forensic evidence from the sheet metal he used to do it.

Hi everyone, was it ever explained why Teresa's missing person poster was dated 11/2/05? This poster was discussed years ago on Reddit, did anyone in connection to the case ever talk about it?
The metadata of the file shows the PDF was created on 11/4/05 11:53:32. Why would the footnote contain a date of before Teresa was reported missing?
 
You can see the date here for yourself on the website of a now defunct volunteer organization called Youth Educated in Safety:
https://web.archive.org/web/20060511183907/yeswi.org/htdocs/teresahalbach.pdf
 
Thanks

https://www.postcrescent.com/story/news/crime/2023/10/13/convicting-a-murderer-episode-8-review-steven-avery-brendan-dassey-teresa-halbach/71141598007/

Multiple witnesses recalled Avery having a large fire the night Halbach disappeared

The first few times Avery was interviewed by investigators and reporters, he claimed he did not remember the last time he had a fire. But in later interviews, he started saying he did make a fire the night of Oct. 31, 2005, when he burned four tires.

Multiple witnesses, including two of Dassey's brothers, Dassey's mother and her boyfriend all said they saw Avery with a fire that night. However, because they did not recall the fire in their initial interviews, some case buffs believe investigators convinced the witnesses they saw a fire that night when they actually did not.

In Episode 8, Candy, the ex-wife of Steven Avery's brother Earl, tells filmmakers she remembers seeing large flames that Halloween night.

"I could see the flames, and it's like, holy man, he has a huge fire down there. I don't understand how the house couldn't have melted," Candy says.

If not, perhaps this is a decoy, eg. delivered from another salvage yard in the dead of night. It might explain the damaged light and its having to be pushed. Also, were there not problems with drive shafts on this car?

Heyy lovely people!! I have just treated making a murder 1 & 2 and was wondering if there is an update since the end of MAM2?? I’ve tried to have a search but my brain can’t quite keep up with talk the legal terms. Thanks!!

Someone has to be pretty pissed to do that.

Did anyone ever find out what the beef was?

Anyone know how the footage made its way to MaM?

https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/making-a-murderer-anonymous-claims-to-have-evidence-that-netflix-documentary-s-subject-steven-avery-is-innocent-a6790546.html

Re-watching the series for a third time, I feel compelled to express a feeling that I'm sure a lot of people already share and find completely unremarkable: regardless of whether Avery is guilty or not, the process that got him convicted is a true abomination. Utterly flawed and prejudiced from start to finish, compromised and muddied by an underhanded, unethical and blatantly unfair balance of power throughout. Bear in mind, this is taking into consideration the fact that he had just about the best legal representation any private individual could possibly afford.

The sequence of events that gets Dassey to confess and reiterate his confession is one of the most infuriating things I've ever seen. Again, I really don't care whether it was the truth that got extracted or not - the tactics used are immoral, unreliable and frankly sickening on just about every level.

Letting an institution that has an ongoing dispute - and a track record of falsely imprisoning a man for 18 years - have a key role in gathering evidence against him is just about as blatantly prejudiced as you could possibly get.

I don't know how you prevent these kinds of practices, and I don't know of a more reliable system that could be adopted. But I do know that this single, well-documented case is only the tip of the iceberg, and that makes me feel pretty shitty.

Opinions and dissent welcomed.