The Netflix series Making a Murderer does not address several facts that took place originally in the incident of murder of Teresa Halbach in 2005 and convictions of Steven Avery and Brendan Dassey in 2007. These issues are highlighted in a book based on the incident called Rush to Judgement, according to one of the authors, Jessica McBride, who is also a columnist for OnMilwaukee.com.
Documentary distorted the facts: McBride
“When I started looking into the case file for OnMilwaukee.com, I was rather shocked to see how much the documentary distorted things,” McBride said, adding that a fuller view of the evidence leads to a different conclusion than what Netflix portrayed.
She took the example of the infamous hole in the blood vial and said that a prison nurse claimed she had put it there. McBride talked to national experts who said it was common to find such holes and that they “are how the blood gets into the vial.”
“I was first to report this that I know of, for OnMilwaukee, and turned it into a full chapter,” McBride said.
McBride said that Avery’s defense counsel had exaggerated the mysterious disappearance of the phone records also. In Netflix’s documentary, defense attorney Buting tells Rolling Stone that the day before Halbach disappeared, someone accessed her voicemails. In reality, neither was this proven, nor was there any evidence supporting it. According to the wireless expert who testified, it was not possible to tell the time when the voicemails were accessed. All they could tell was when they were left, McBride said.
What Netflix missed?
Another major incident that Netflix left out in its docu-series was Steven Avery’s alleged molesting of Brendan Dassey, McBride says. In reality, Dassey had reported the incident to his mother and authorities that Avery touched him inappropriately. And one of Dassey’s defense attorneys — Len Kachinsky — has been completely misportrayed in the documentary.
“Kachinsky was trying to get his client a 20-year plea deal yet he’s become the villain,” the author said.
In Netflix’s documentary, there is also a scene in which law enforcement is interviewing Dassey in Kachinsky’s absence, but the truth is that Dassey had already made his confession on video to law enforcement before Kachinsky was even assigned the case, and Netflix’s filmmakers failed to show this.
