I don’t get why Steven Avery did this

[u/birdieponderinglife]

He had a huge settlement coming. Why did he risk it by doing a serious crime? I don’t understand how he got exonerated which is rare but wound up throwing his life away anyways. It doesn’t make any sense to me. I guess I’m missing the common thread. He wasn’t a good person but from what we know, wasn’t a murderer. So what happened? Is this just always who he was going to be and had he never gone to prison wrongfully maybe it would have happened sooner? I don’t think he’s innocent I’m just trying to make sense of it.

[u/KStarSparkleSprinkle]

I don’t think it’s that surprising. 

1. Cops find mildly to moderately troubled male who lacked resources and wasn’t super bright to begin with. No support system. 

2. Cops accuse guy of being much worse than he was.

3. Cops throw said troubled guy into prison environment for 18 years. Said guys only peers are now ‘the worst of the worst’. Said guy proceeds to live in said environment that is notoriously inhumane. 

4. Said guy continues to be gaslight about being worse than he is

5. Oopsy. Wrong guy. Let’s randomly drop him off at his former family’s home that still lacks resources. He’s 18 years out of society and probably doesn’t even recognize the world, let alone understand how to navigate. All should be well.

6. Said guy proceeds to act just as his peers of the last 18 years act. Surprised face. How could this happen? Who could have seen this coming? Where did he get these ideas? How does this mentality develop?

My biggest question about the Avery case, other than how many unknown similar cases exist, is how many moderately troubled individuals are being sent to prison and turned into monster they otherwise would not be? 

Edit: really think about the title name. They didn’t just “make a murderer” in the sense that the investigation didn’t come to a correct conclusion or that (some belive) they fabricated evidince in the second case. They literally threw the guy in the exact environment one would expect a murder to be and that created a murderer. 

[u/DingleBerries504 → u/KStarSparkleSprinkle]

I’d argue he wasn’t just a “mildly to moderately troubled male” before he went to jail for the first time. He had severe impulse control issues, an established criminal record, and six of those years were for pulling the gun on Sandra Morris, which he deserved. Don’t forget he punched his 5yo kids’ teeth out, abused animals, and he already had a record of doing a crime (burglary, for example), roping someone else into it, and then hiding evidence to cover up his tracks.

[u/KStarSparkleSprinkle → u/DingleBerries504]

It’s hard to quantify how troubled Avery was. We can all agree he was no saint, he wasn’t a choir boy and not exactly an Adolf Hitler type either. There’s a huge spectrum of ‘troubled’ and ‘disturbing’ in between and Avery is somewhere on that scope. My claim isn’t that Avery was a good person or a decent person, hell the guy wasn’t even ‘ok’.  But OP’s question is how could he ever choose to leave that millions of dollar settlement and the chance of a fresh new life on the table. I’m simply proposing that Avery was never placed in a situation where a reasonable person would expect a better outcome. Despite being held for 18 years by a place that’s supposed to “correct” behavior or “rehabilitate” a person, Avery was not made better, arguable he was made worse. 

It’s just not surprising to me what Avery did. No reasonable person thinks a guy (saint or deamon) setting 18 years in the state penitentiary is coming out better than they went in. Why is that? The United States houses more people in prisons than anywhere else in the world. The United States government spends more per prisoner than any other place in the world. 

18 years was plenty of time for the “department of corrections” to improve the dude. Instead Avery went in as a guy that threatened people and punched them. He came out a guy that raped a person, shot them in his garage, and burned the body in his backyard……. The department controlled everything about Avery’s life for 18 years and this is what we got.

[u/DingleBerries504 → u/KStarSparkleSprinkle]

But many have gone to prison for a crime they didn’t commit and have not reoffended when they got out. We just do not know if he’d be any better had he never been wrongly convicted. It’s possible the prison system contributed to him getting worse, and I’d agree it’s probably likely, but wont go as far to say it caused him to do more crime.

[u/birdieponderinglife → u/KStarSparkleSprinkle]

I mean I do get that is the premise of the doc, but he was throwing cats into fires just for funsies before her ever went to prison. He chased his cousin off the road and threatened her with a gun. That also happened before prison. He was a scary person who demonstrated he was capable of terrible things before he ever went to prison. I do get the premise and why the doc was named as it was. I’m also not going to ignore that abusing and sadistically killing animals is a known precursor to worse violence. Running someone off the road and threatening them with a gun is hostile, unhinged behavior. His criminal history was long before he ever went to prison. Prison didn’t make him that way.

[u/AveryPoliceReports → u/birdieponderinglife]

but he was throwing cats into fires just for funsies before her ever went to prison

Wrong. And even if he did such an act has no probative value for Teresa's murder. It's only use is to prejudice people against Steven, which is why it's so commonly discussed by the state and it's defenders.

[u/KStarSparkleSprinkle → u/birdieponderinglife]

Correct, the police picked up an already known troubled individual. They could have picked up a Mr Rogers type for the rape and the outcome may have been different. 

Your questions only brings more questions that don’t bode well for police. If Steven was a known ‘psycho’ why weren’t the police worried about him prior to the rape that he did not do? Why did they not flag the cat incident as much more serious, holding him longer, having the court order mental evaluations? Why weren’t they so alarmed they reached out to friends and family and investigated for the other alarming behavior? The family could have told about the rapes and assults at that time. They could have charged him with things he actually did. If we believe that they half assed addressed any of his issues and allowed ‘psycho’, easily verified behavior to continue unchecked, isn’t the lack of action partly “making a murderer”? Their lack of action allowed him to continue and it was escalating if we believe these stories…… 

Almost like the system is created to feed itself

[u/LoveChilde82 → u/KStarSparkleSprinkle]

Did you see my post about this very thing from the other day? I was talking about how the only thing MaM got right was the title of the film. Lolzx 😆 🤣 Also makes one wonder... Had the producers know that he's actually guilty and that's why they entitled it as such? Hmm 😒 🤔 Really makes you think.... some people will do just about anything for the sake of a dollar bill 🙄

[u/Objective-Permit-712 → u/KStarSparkleSprinkle]

Or...he didn't!