Convicting a Murderer

The series is meticulously made, with great attention to detail, comprehensive interviews, and never-before-seen audio and video clips and court documents that belie the claims of Steven Avery and insinuations of the 'Making A Murderer' filmmakers, that Avery is innocent and that the police enforcement is corrupt. Candace Owens is a force in this film. They showed both sides of the argument and provided the facts that the Netflix film intentionally left out.

This film also shows the truth of the power of media to affect people's minds and lives, particularly for evil. It also shows how it's easy to fool people, and how difficult it is to convince them that they were fooled.

As a 20 year investigator, so many things about Making A Murderer didn't make any sense to me. Convicting A Murderer answered those questions for me and told the whole truth. Complete interviews, complete police reports, actual forensic evidence, and common sense are finally being shown to the public.

Candace Owens haters will be happy to find that she is only a small part of this. People who have actually been victimized, and/or their loved ones, comprise the interviews in the film and provide evidentiary support for the correct conviction that has taken place. Although justice has been served, to some extent, my heart breaks for the children involved.

Watched making a murderer? Get ready to get mad. Loads of evidence not shown. Interviews edited to fit an agenda. A history of violence and sexual assault never mentioned. These aren't just rumors being told, these are news clippings from the time of events, interviews, and cases he pled guilty to. Phone conversations from prison. First 3 episodes are infuriating because you thought for years that Steven Avery was innocent or at least needed a new trial. Now, you're getting a new look at this man. A man that went out of his way to see this young girl many times in the span of a couple of months before she was killed. Also this isn't drawn out like the two seasons of making a murder which is nice. Candace Owens does a great job getting to the point and proving that Steven isn't who we all thought he was. Run, don't walk!

For those interested in seeing more about the Avery case without having to deep dive into your own research, this is a good watch so far. I have no opinion on Candace Owens either way, but I will say she is my least favorite part of this show. Points of the case they want to hammer home shows her repeating herself multiple times, and I find a lot of the jumps to her talking are out of place and mess with the flow of the show.

I'm enjoying how the show makes the rebuttal to Making a Murderer (MaM). Showing scenes from MaM and how their recordings are edited was a nice touch. Making the case that MaM intended to leave out key parts of conversations and recordings is enough for to watch the show by itself in my opinion. I'm also thoroughly enjoying having interviews with people that support both sides of the case.

Overall, the pacing seems a little slow, and Candace's frequent appearances retract from my score. If you like true crime, definitely worth a watch.

Edit (10/5/23): As the series goes on, I like the pacing more. Definitely tuning in every week until it finishes!

If you were one of the many millions who watched Making a Murderer (MaM) back in 2015 and became interested in the Avery case, then you owe it to yourself to take a look at Convicting a Murderer (CaM) and compare the two before reaching any conclusions.

For me, after watching CaM, it would seem that the producers of MaM have some serious questions to answer. The Manitowoc Police Department are right to be angry for their deliberate misrepresentations in the Avery case, simply to garner more viewers and pocket a few extra bucks at the expense of the reputation of local law enforcement. Their defense always seems to be, "We are storytellers, not journalists", and that is exactly what they do: they tell a story. The only problem is, it is not an entirely true one, and CaM does an excellent good job of filling in the blanks that its predecessor chose to ignore.

As CaM reveals over the course of 10 comprehensive episodes, rather than simply tell the whole story of the case, the makers of MaM instead chose to leave many important details out, and flat out manipulated many of the actual courtroom interactions to fit their own agenda. Sure, the police did make some mistakes, and none of them will be rivalling Sherlock Holmes for plaudits, but it really isn't a very complicated case - though MaM made it seem so.

As someone who made up their mind about Avery years ago, I didn't need any further revelations from CaM to support my original position. But what CaM does reveal is just how easy it is for the media to manipulate people. Of course, there have always been such people in society. Rest assured, those protesting on the streets outside the courtroom are exactly the same kind of people who stood in the crowd 2,000 years ago pleading for another murderer to be set free.

Nobody likes to see anybody wrongfully convicted of any crime that they did not do. But, in this case, I am sure that the family of Teresa Halbach regret every day that Avery's original 1985 conviction was overturned.

And that is the sad, sad truth of the real story.