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Hardly a recent invention, true-crime stories have typically been consumed in books, feature documentaries, or hour-long TV episodes. Now there’s been a surge of interest in a longer-form, more heavily detailed approach. From NPR’s Serial podcast to HBO’s documentary series The Jinx, viewers have jumped on board the same way they do with dramatic series like Mad Men or Game of Thrones, dissecting minutiae and arguing over the subject’s presumed guilt or innocence. The latest entry in the genre to grab the public’s attention comes from Netflix, the home of binge-watching, with Laura Ricciardi and Moira Demos’s 10-part, 10-years-in-the-making series, Making a Murderer.
The series covers the two trials of Wisconsin native Steven Avery. His initial conviction in 1985 for sexual assault was overturned in 2003 due to newly acquired DNA evidence. Two years later, almost immediately after Wisconsin passed a law bearing his name, intended to prevent wrongful convictions, Avery found himself the primary suspect in a grisly murder.
It’s the kind of story that lends truth to the old adage “you can’t make this stuff up.” The trick of a documentary, of course, is how you present that story. The first couple of episodes cover the initial trial and conviction and present a pretty compelling case for how the Manitowoc County Sheriff and District Attorney ignored possible exculpatory evidence in order to convict Avery. This opening paints Avery as a sympathetic, if not necessarily likable, guy who found himself on the wrong end of prejudicial law enforcement.
But then there’s a shift, as the series moves into its primary focus: Avery’s trial for the murder of photographer Teresa Halbach, who disappeared the same day she had been at Avery’s auto salvage business. Avery’s unique history makes this trial a tense, dramatic affair, and the filmmakers dive deep into it. From Avery’s beleaguered family and determined defense team to an increasingly hostile prosecutor and enthralled media, the series presents a parade of characters fit for a prestige drama. Avery’s lawyers present an alternative story of corrupt police officers and a system mired in class resentments.
The series has to navigate some tough situations over the course of its story. One of the more famous sequences involves Avery’s nephew, charged as an accomplice to the crime. Watching police interrogate the teenager, a socially awkward kid who really doesn’t seem to grasp the weight of what’s happening, works as both a compelling piece of the story and a reminder that all of this happened, and continues to happen, to real people.
It’s engrossing stuff, and it’s clear that Ricciardi and Demos lend some real weight to the defense’s theory that Avery and his nephew were caught up in some potentially dirty dealing by law enforcement more interested in putting him back in jail than solving this particular crime. Whether they lean too far in that direction will continue to be the subject of heated discussions, but that ability to grab the viewer’s attention and hold onto it through 10 full episodes can’t be discounted. They didn’t make Steven Avery a murderer or a victim of a rigged judicial system, but they’ve made his case into both a fascinating study of small town crime and a binge-worthy addition to many viewer’s schedules.
