[Dr. Howard]

(01-04-2016 05:15 PM)la bodhisattva Wrote:  

Dr Howard,

I assume you mean for me to elaborate on why I felt the Avery family brought a lot of their problems on themselves?

I'm not suggesting that Steven Avery killed the woman, but I am saying that throughout the 10 episodes, the Avery family (their insular existence, atrocious education levels, and operating a salvage yard notwithstanding) displayed behaviors that would make them logical culprits for wrongdoing within the community. Hell, as shallow as it is, their dress for court proceedings just made me suspicious.

I grew up in a smaller county than Manitowoc, and certain families carried certain reputations. They were usually crass and boorish and ultimately stupidly aggressive in their behavior. Some of these families were not necessarily living criminal lives, but they would often be associated with people with nefarious pasts. When you have a bottom of a hollow populated with five trailers housing an entire extended family, and that bottom often has some shady things going on, not always criminal, but those strange parties with large fires, moonshine, and party goers ranging from 13-65 years old, it would come under the microscope of local law enforcement. Now imagine that family has an uncle who burned a cat alive and served over a year for animal cruelty. Another uncle has been locked up for a view legit domestic disputes. An aunt with three kids by three different men is always causing trouble with school administrators because her children wreck havoc in school because they have no home structure. And those kids getting in constant fights at school. This hypothetical family is a bane on the community. If some shady shit went down within that community that included a "poorly" thought out and planned murder, a shady group of people would naturally be on the cops' radar.

I believe Dassey's mother's, distressed though she was, screaming that the family of the victim planned the whole thing to be quite telling.

Thanks for elaborating, I think what you are saying is that the Avery family was bound to find some sort of trouble eventually, given their socioeconomic status and lack of education. I agree with that. In terms of who did it

SPOILER REPLY******






Yep, the brother/family spokesperson for the victim and the victim's ex boyfriend are incredibly suspicious. Deleting phone records, voicemail and emails etc.

My bets are on the brother and ex boyfriend actually doing the murder and the cops finding the vehicle with the body in it after she was reported missing. The cops, knowing that she was last seen at the salvage yard decided to move the body and the vehicle to the salvage yard to frame Avery. The cops had no intention of finding who actually killed the girl, they were just too excited to have something they could frame Avery for.









END SPOILER REPLY*************

[porscheguy]

I definitely think the ex boyfriend had something to do with her murder. I'm not sure what motive the brother would have, but anything is possible. There's the cellphone issue. There's the fact that the search party homed right in on the Avery's junkyard, and two untrained civilians(women btw, who tend to know jack shit about cars) were able to locate the vehicle within 15 minutes of their arrival.

One thing that pissed me off with the Brendan Dassey trial is that his attorneys didn't point out that during his interrogations, he never made any statements other than yes or no. They had seen the videos of the interrogations. The cops fed him statements and he agreed with all of them, but he never actually said the words himself.

I'm getting ready to watch the last episode now. Unbelievable.

[CH-Toronto]

The new information on the case is definitely starting to sound like a big conspiracy (if true)

1 - It's possible that the juror who was excused for a family emergency was "staged" by the police.
http://jonsjailjournal.blogspot.co.uk/20...crash.html

2. Husband/Wife reported seeing Steve Avery on the night of the murder, but were ignored by the police.
http://www.femalefirst.co.uk/tv/woman-sa...html?f=rss

3. The big bombshell. A juror has come forward claiming they felt threatened to vote anything but guilty - and that they traded votes. (Note how Steve got off on his mutilation of a corpse charge oddly)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-HH3yDH...e=youtu.be
https://twitter.com/TODAYshow/status/684373410038718464

For those that binged through this and are looking for something similar I recommend watching The Staircase
LOGLINE: Man gets charged for murder by throwing his wife down the stairs. His defense is that she fell. The story follows the trial etc.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n061fS38...tdsZ0z4Z7D

The full series is on You Tube - plus the follow-up Documentary. I don't want to spoil the twists of what happens, but I'd say overall it's ALMOST as captivating.

[HectorLavoe]

(01-02-2016 12:10 PM)Foolsgo1d Wrote:  

Is it something to do with turning what could be normal people into savages? Don't have access to Netflix.

http://www.primewire.ag/watch-2772099-Ma...nline-free

For those without netflix. Use ad block pro.

[El Chinito loco]

Thanks for recommending this.

This is what happens when you have shitty law enforcement with a grudge who holds prejudicial power and near omnipotence over a relatively small area.

You also have stupid rubes as both the defendants and those being selected to be put on juries.

This is what happens when you combine power tripping officials with U.S. law enforcement bureaucracy and an indifferent system that screws its own citizens.

Small town cops will always have some degree of corruption but it's more interesting how badly the FBI dropped the ball. They should be investigating all special agents involved and then maybe firing them for incompetence.

[renotime]

Speaking of corrupt cops, I watched a great documentary the other night called The Seven Five.

It's about a cop operating out of a district police house in East New York (The Seven Five) and the guy is basically Henry Hill if he decided to become a cop instead. He was a cop in the 80s and 90s so it is real gritty shit. One of the stories he tells actually reminds of the when Henry Hill is running from the helicopter all coked up in Goodfellas.

I highly recommend it.

[ElFlaco]

When a documentary presents such a consistent narrative, it's healthy to keep an open mind. When I looked around for the other side of the story, here's what I found:

1. As a young man, Steven Avery tortured a cat more gruesomely than depicted in the documentary. (But what does that have to do with proving his guilt in the murder case?)
2. After the release of the documentary, the prosecutor referred vaguely to evidence unseen in the documentary (but didn't mention what it was, which he would have done if it were strong).

Now there's this, from The Federalist, arguing that "to believe Avery is innocent, a person must believe that an implausible number of conspiracies had been unfurled in the case."

Steven Avery is Guilty As Hell

The author mentions several pieces of evidence that were downplayed in the documentary or were omitted from it altogether, including:

1. Avery made several suspicious phone calls to the victim on the day of her visit.
2. Avery's sweat was found on the hood of the car.
3. Restraints and chains were found in Avery's trailer.
4. Ballistic evidence linked the bullet to Avery's gun.

The trouble is, once you believe that a frame job may have occurred, it's reasonable to doubt the evidence as a whole. You can see with your own eyes that the nephew's confession was created by the investigators. So right there, we know to what depths the authorities will go. And if you don't buy the DNA results of the bullet, why would ballistic evidence linking the bullet to Avery's gun be relevant? Worst of all, the author doesn't attempt to resolve the various weaknesses in the prosecutor's case, especially the lack of blood in the garage.

So dishonest.

[CH-Toronto]

(01-06-2016 11:14 AM)ElFlaco Wrote:  

Now there's this, from The Federalist, arguing that "to believe Avery is innocent, a person must believe that an implausible number of conspiracies had been unfurled in the case."

Actually what makes the case very interesting (to me) is that if there were a conspiracy/frame job, only one or two people could feasibly do it and the rest would fall into place.

[Hotwheels]

(01-06-2016 11:14 AM)ElFlaco Wrote:  

When a documentary presents such a consistent narrative, it's healthy to keep an open mind. When I looked around for the other side of the story, here's what I found:

1. As a young man, Steven Avery tortured a cat more gruesomely than depicted in the documentary. (But what does that have to do with proving his guilt in the murder case?)
2. After the release of the documentary, the prosecutor referred vaguely to evidence unseen in the documentary (but didn't mention what it was, which he would have done if it were strong).

Now there's this, from The Federalist, arguing that "to believe Avery is innocent, a person must believe that an implausible number of conspiracies had been unfurled in the case."

Steven Avery is Guilty As Hell

The author mentions several pieces of evidence that were downplayed in the documentary or were omitted from it altogether, including:

1. Avery made several suspicious phone calls to the victim on the day of her visit.
2. Avery's sweat was found on the hood of the car.
3. Restraints and chains were found in Avery's trailer.
4. Ballistic evidence linked the bullet to Avery's gun.

The trouble is, once you believe that a frame job may have occurred, it's reasonable to doubt the evidence as a whole. You can see with your own eyes that the nephew's confession was created by the investigators. So right there, we know to what depths the authorities will go. And if you don't buy the DNA results of the bullet, why would ballistic evidence linking the bullet to Avery's gun be relevant? Worst of all, the author doesn't attempt to resolve the various weaknesses in the prosecutor's case, especially the lack of blood in the garage.

So dishonest.

1. Phone calls shortly before she arrived. She was late. Big deal.
2.Sweat on the hood latch. Yet no fingerprints. Nothing about sweat on the battery cables which is odd as the battery had been removed. Should have been DNA or prints there...
3. No TH DNA on the sex toy handcuffs/restraints
4. Linked to the type of gun as I recall. They never said it was that particular gun. Of course his BIL had the same gun while Avery's had been in the possession of the cops for several months. Plenty of time for them to get their evidence, which magically showed up 4 months after she disappeared.

I recall one writer saying he was found to have porn, so that was a strike against him. lawlzzz. The lengths some will go.

He's supposedly is such a mastermind criminal that he has the skills and talent to remove all of her DNA from the garage/bedroom yet is dumb enough to leave her vehicle on the property (with his blood in it) and dump her bones in the fire pit next to his trailer.

As stated earlier, I don't know if he is guilty or not. I do know the cops really fucked up the investigation and he should have been found not guilty.

And as lawyers will tell you; not guilty is not the same as innocent.

[porscheguy]

(01-06-2016 11:14 AM)ElFlaco Wrote:  

When a documentary presents such a consistent narrative, it's healthy to keep an open mind. When I looked around for the other side of the story, here's what I found:

1. As a young man, Steven Avery tortured a cat more gruesomely than depicted in the documentary. (But what does that have to do with proving his guilt in the murder case?)
2. After the release of the documentary, the prosecutor referred vaguely to evidence unseen in the documentary (but didn't mention what it was, which he would have done if it were strong).

A prosecutor who resigned in disgrace after getting caught telling a domestic violence victim that if she didn't fuck him, he'd drop the charges against the guy who used her face as a punching bag.

(01-06-2016 11:14 AM)ElFlaco Wrote:  

Now there's this, from The Federalist, arguing that "to believe Avery is innocent, a person must believe that an implausible number of conspiracies had been unfurled in the case."

Steven Avery is Guilty As Hell

The author mentions several pieces of evidence that were downplayed in the documentary or were omitted from it altogether, including:

1. Avery made several suspicious phone calls to the victim on the day of her visit.
2. Avery's sweat was found on the hood of the car.
3. Restraints and chains were found in Avery's trailer.
4. Ballistic evidence linked the bullet to Avery's gun.

The trouble is, once you believe that a frame job may have occurred, it's reasonable to doubt the evidence as a whole. You can see with your own eyes that the nephew's confession was created by the investigators. So right there, we know to what depths the authorities will go. And if you don't buy the DNA results of the bullet, why would ballistic evidence linking the bullet to Avery's gun be relevant? Worst of all, the author doesn't attempt to resolve the various weaknesses in the prosecutor's case, especially the lack of blood in the garage.

So dishonest.

You must not have watched the series.

If their case was so airtight, why did they resort to tactics that in many places would have resulted in the evidence being ruled as inadmissible? How did they get a search warrant that barred the entire family from the business and property for 8 days? Why wouldn't Avery have destroyed the girl's SUV? He had the time, and he had the ability. How did he get convicted of a trumped up version of the same kind of crime he had been cleared of? Why were detectives who had been deposed for his civil case a few weeks prior, being allowed almost unsupervised access to his home and property? Why were they given any access at all since they had handed the investigation over to Calumet County due to the civil suit?

The evidence that links him to this crime is rather weak, and far outweighed by the heavy handedness and unethical practices of the judicial system where this took place.

There was only enough DNA on the bullet to run one analysis. It was contaminated by the analyst. Normally, this would result in an inconclusive finding. Instead, they got a waiver and used it anyway. Although this is always an option, it was the first time the analyst did this in years of doing her work. Reasonable doubt? Certainly.

No DNA evidence in the garage or the bedroom where she was raped, had her throat cut, and then shot. NONE. Not one single drop of blood anywhere.

The car key with Avery's "sweat" DNA was the primary key for the vehicle this girl had owned for a few years. Take your car keys and look at them. Notice all of that greasy yet powdery shit in the nooks and crannies of your key. Do you know what most of that is? Your DNA. Your dead skin. Oils you secreted. Unwavering proof that your keys have been traveling with you for a long time. Not a single trace of her DNA was found on her keys, and yet his was? And how come the keys were only found on the 6th visit to the house, by one of the more corrupt detectives who had just been deposed 3 weeks prior for the civil suit? And how come they were found in plain sight? How did they miss the keys on the first 5 visits? I'd have a hard time buying that as a juror.

How come there's not a single piece of recorded evidence with the boy saying "we did X?" In all of the interrogations, the cops feed the kid everything so he can respond yes or no. This is a kid who is borderline retarded. A kid who clearly has no grasp of the situation as indicated by his lack of any apparent concern or stress. He was interrogated in this manner 4 times. Not once did he ever have legal council present. In fact, in one instance, his attorney arranged an interview between the kid and the investigator, and the attorney didn't bother to show up.

The burden of the defense is not to find out who did it. It's not their job to explain the evidence. The job of the defense is to show reasonable doubt. They did a pretty convincing job of showing reasonable doubt IMO.

[Hotwheels]

The following was posted on another forum I frequent.

Quote:

I grew up in Manitowoc County and currently live in Calumet County (where the trial was held, less than a block from the courthouse).

Everyone obviously has the right to have their own opinion on this matter. Growing up in this area, mine sways heavily one way. And in all honesty, its probably 50/50 for my friends and family that live in this area wether or not Avery did it. This basically all stems from everything you hear about the "shady" shit that goes on in Manitowoc Law Enforcement. I am pretty close to a female who's brother worked in Manitowoc County Law Enforcement, who ended up leaving due to some things he called "not right".

When I had heard that Avery was implicated in this, my thought was immediately that there was no way in hell he was getting out of this, wether he did it or not.

Stories about "shady" practices have gone on as long as I can remember. For those who want to find it online (I'm sure you can), there was a 17 year old boy back in 1999 that was killed by a drunk driver at around 4:00 a.m. one morning in Manitowoc. This happened to occur on the same road that a Law Enforcement sponsored party was taking place. I've been to this location that the party was at on many occasions, and it is in the middle on nowhere. The person responsible for causing the death of the 17 year old was never found and prosecuted. Law Enforcement never solved this. A couple of the main players from the Manitowc Sheriff's Department, who were in the documentary, who would have been in charge of the investigation were at this party. Now, there is obviously no way to prove that anybody at that party was responsible for this, but these are the types of stories that I have heard for years.

This is the type of thing that really pisses off residents of this area, which I think tends to point people in one direction of thinking. They could not solve this murder, but can find 3 underage kids drinking beer somewhere hidden in the woods.

It should be noted that in another post he claims the guy which left the Manitowoc Sheriff's Dept specifically mentioned Link and Colburn as two of the guys he was not comfortable working with. They are the two Manitowoc County guys that play such a huge role in the investigation.

The locals know how the cops are around that area.

[Hotwheels]

This is hot

[CleanSlate]

Didn't read the thread/spoilers, but

It is nothing short of incredible how much people, especially in positions of authority, LIE under oath on the witness stand. So obvious they're lying that I want to throw the TV out the window.

[BIGINJAPAN]

I think the one thing that didnt get a lot of attention is Colburns phone call regarding the womans SUV. I think the defense should have asked him 100 questions or so and try to get him to slip up... clearly he knew the whereabouts of the vehicle prior to them finding it.

also another great mini doc series by HBO is " the Jinx" if you havent see it. I actually think that is a far more fascinating story than this one. Robert Durst is one interesting man.

[BambiNotForLong]

If anyone's interested here's another documentary about a false accusation. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWwf-uHrCIA

[Latinopan]

The kids shitty's lawyer

--------------

The prosecutor is claiming the filmmakers were biased, while the filmmakers are saying they requested the prosecutor team to give its side but they deny.

-------------------

The guy is getting new defense team


Something I notice in all of this, is how women are almost on his side or at least the people involved in this, the filmmakers were young college graduated when they started this 10 years ago, now his new defense team is 2 women, if the filmmakers were men the misogyny card would be placed in the table, but attacking college educated middle class filmmakers for making a documentary about a low IQ from low socioeconomic guy does not play very well.

[Blaster]

(01-04-2016 01:29 AM)MasterBacja Wrote:  

What I think is hilarious is that the people on social media I see talking about wanting a full pardon for this dude after seeing the documentary (without any consideration to the implications of that) are frequently the same people who are commenting on how Bill Cosby is guilty and how it's ridiculous he isn't already just locked up for his crimes.

The irony, predictably, is lost.

In my experience, people are much less passionate about wanting a pardon for Avery as they are about wanting to punish the hell out of a long list of corrupt and/or incompetent abusers of public power: Law Enforcement, District Attorneys, and Judges.

As for the whole conspiracy angle: there's no way there wasn't a conspiracy. But it wasn't a big conspiracy. It probably involved 2-3 people directly who knew how to push buttons the right way to manipulate the system to get what they wanted.

At least one important person behind the scenes with mostly full plausible deniability. I don't have knowledge to speculate about who they might be other than the one original Manitwoc Sheriff from the 1985 case. But it'll be someone with a stake in the $36 million lawsuit, and someone with some ability to influence the Judges and Calumet county Sheriffs. It probably wouldn't take a lot of pressure or coercion to accomplish this. Unless any of them were unusually dedicated to principals, at most all you'd need to do is make a vague reference to the huge stakes and consequences of a failure to convict Avery. There wouldn't be anything recorded or written down.

The Sheriff of Manitwoc County. His only essential role is that the officers on the ground trust that he will not throw them under the bus if shit hits the fan. He also may have had a hand in restricting the investigation to Avery to the exclusion of others. This is the "It would have been easier to just kill him" guy. Once Law Enforcement (Manitwoc + Calumet) is committed to investigating just one suspect, 90% of the "conspiracy" battle is won.

One or two cops on the ground: Probably Lenk and Colburn. And maybe just Lenk, with Colburn just someone who can be trusted to be discreet and loyal to the department. Frankly, the conspirators probably could have gotten a conviction without these two jokers bungling around with the evidence. But evidence points to them having an active role in framing Avery (though they certainly may have believed him guilty, they also knew that what they were doing was dishonest and possibly illegal).

The Judges? Hard to say. It's possible they were just biased. But they made a number of decisions, especially the Dassey Judge, that make me suspect that they're either incompetent or corrupt.

From there, nearly everything else is just the system functioning as you would expect, with the character of the players involved. Members of Law Enforcement often tend to have each other's backs and stick up for each other. No need to actively conspire about anything when the default behavior is to cooperate. The Calumet Detectives are trained to gather evidence to help the DA make the case for conviction, and that's exactly how they behaved. They send an email to a state crime lab saying "Try to put Avery in the _____", probably without any real comprehension about how that biases the test. They are trained to interrogate the way they interrogated Brendan Dassey. The DA just went after a conviction using every dirty trick he could. There's no reason to believe he ever questioned that his role was to get a conviction for Avery, and thus would not need to be party to any conspiracy. The hardline "guilty" jurors were likely either corrupted by pre-trial press or family members (one was a relative of a Sheriff's Deupty).

[Blaster]

(01-06-2016 02:18 PM)Hotwheels Wrote:  

He's supposedly is such a mastermind criminal that he has the skills and talent to remove all of her DNA from the garage/bedroom yet is dumb enough to leave her vehicle on the property (with his blood in it) and dump her bones in the fire pit next to his trailer.

As stated earlier, I don't know if he is guilty or not. I do know the cops really fucked up the investigation and he should have been found not guilty.

And as lawyers will tell you; not guilty is not the same as innocent.

Yeah exactly. The documentary, however biased it may be, presents a really solid case that the verdict should have been "Not Guilty" and that Law Enforcement bungled the investigation. Also, the documentary's position is hardly unique among people who have access to the facts. The Convoluted Brian blog is another great source and was out long before the doc.

[porscheguy]

At this point, apart from confessions by the guilty parties, there's no way of ever knowing who actually killed that girl. Unfortunately, our system doesn't like to let "guilty" people go free, if they can't replace them with another "guilty" party.

I shook my head in disbelief at the people who posted petitions asking the president to pardon the guy. Presidents can only pardon federal criminals. The petitioners may have gotten a better response had they simply asked for a DoJ investigation of the shady antics of law enforcement in those two counties.

At this point, the guy has two new attorneys, but I'm not sure what they can do for him. IIRC, he's exhausted his appeals at the state level. I don't know what it takes to get any aspect of this case in front of a federal judge. In addition, at some point this is all bound to stagnate again unless they can find a way to fund their efforts. Attorneys will do pro bono work while the case is being talked about at the national level, but eventually a new story will come along. They need to strike while the iron is hot and get some money raised for this guy.

How come no A-list celebs have joined the cause like they did for the West Memphis 3?

[Hotwheels]

(01-10-2016 02:35 PM)porscheguy Wrote:  

How come no A-list celebs have joined the cause like they did for the West Memphis 3?

He's not black?

[Brodiaga]

I watched the whole thing...well, the last few episodes I just played as background while reading RVF and other things on my laptop.

I should say that this is the most boring documentary I have ever watched in my life. If you watched the award winning film "The Art of Killing" about Indonesian anti-communist murderers and thought that was boring, this one takes it to a whole new level.

I understand that Avery and the young kid got fucked over, but for guys who are considering watching it and don't have any connection to that community or interest in watching hours of court footage, let me summarize the takeaways:

-Don't talk to the police
-If you are accused of a crime, make sure you hire the best lawyer you can afford

That's it. I just saved you a few hours of your time.

[El Chinito loco]

(01-10-2016 03:35 PM)Hotwheels Wrote:  

(01-10-2016 02:35 PM)porscheguy Wrote:  

How come no A-list celebs have joined the cause like they did for the West Memphis 3?

He's not black?

You're probably thinking of another case.


The west memphis 3 was just as fucked as this case in Wisconsin. I recommend watching the paradise lost documentaries. The reason why celebs flocked to that one was because one of the main defendants (Damien Echols) was a metal head and there was a "satanic music" angle to the trial. A lot of musicians and actors hopped on board after Kirk Hammet did.

[Hotwheels]

(01-10-2016 04:22 PM)El Chinito loco Wrote:  

(01-10-2016 03:35 PM)Hotwheels Wrote:  

(01-10-2016 02:35 PM)porscheguy Wrote:  

How come no A-list celebs have joined the cause like they did for the West Memphis 3?

He's not black?

You're probably thinking of another case.


The west memphis 3 was just as fucked as this case in Wisconsin. I recommend watching the paradise lost documentaries. The reason why celebs flocked to that one was because one of the main defendants (Damien Echols) was a metal head and there was a "satanic music" angle to the trial. A lot of musicians and actors hopped on board after Kirk Hammet did.

Ahhhh. I was being sarcastic as I know nothing of the West Memphis 3.

[Dr. Howard]

I also recommend "in the name of the father" Daniel Day lewis play Gerry Conlon. Member of the "guilford four" falsely accused of IRA bombings in 1975

[Blaster]

(01-10-2016 03:59 PM)Brodiaga Wrote:  

I watched the whole thing...well, the last few episodes I just played as background while reading RVF and other things on my laptop.

I should say that this is the most boring documentary I have ever watched in my life. If you watched the award winning film "The Art of Killing" about Indonesian anti-communist murderers and thought that was boring, this one takes it to a whole new level.

I understand that Avery and the young kid got fucked over, but for guys who are considering watching it and don't have any connection to that community or interest in watching hours of court footage, let me summarize the takeaways:

-Don't talk to the police
-If you are accused of a crime, make sure you hire the best lawyer you can afford

That's it. I just saved you a few hours of your time.

It's interesting if you care about identifying and recognizing systemic flaws and problems.

Quote:

-Don't talk to the police
-If you are accused of a crime, make sure you hire the best lawyer you can afford

Avery said nothing incriminating to police and had fantastic lawyers. He's still doing a life sentence. Were you so actively bored that you didn't catch the part where Strang says flat out that systemic flaws make it so that being accused is all it takes to have your life ruined?

To effect systemic change in a democracy, people have to be aware of the problems. Corruption must be exposed. Abusers of power must be held accountable. That's the role of media in a democracy, whether you personally find it entertaining or not.