CRIME

'Making a Murderer' Season 2: Here's your guide to all 10 episodes

Tom Kertscher
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter Tom Kertscher, who covered the Steven Avery trial and wrote an analysis of Season 1 of “Making a Murderer,” watched Season 2 of the Netflix documentary and shares his observations of each episode here.

The first four episodes of "Making a Murderer" Season 2 continues to chronicle the case of Steven Avery and his murder conviction for the death of Teresa Halbach.

Here’s a quick review of the key people involved in Season 2:

Teresa Halbach: Murder victim

Steven Avery: Convicted in Halbach’s murder

Brendan Dassey: Avery’s nephew; convicted in Halbach’s murder

Kathleen Zellner: Avery’s current lawyer

Halbach’s burned remains were found outside of Avery’s trailer in Manitowoc County, Wisconsin, after she visited him on Oct. 31, 2005. She was working as a photographer for a publication that advertised vehicles for sale and he had called her to take photographs of a vehicle he was selling. DNA evidence implicated Avery. A confession led to Dassey’s conviction.  

Episode 1: Blood

Highlights

Steven Avery, Teresa Halbach and Brendan Dassey are reintroduced, all sympathetically, with audio from each of them, and with interviews from Avery’s family members and from a friend of Halbach’s. Also introduced are the new attorneys for Avery and Dassey and their efforts to get the murder convictions overturned. Then blood evidence becomes the focus.

Avery’s lawyer, Kathleen Zellner, begins casting doubt about how Avery’s and Halbach’s blood were found in Halbach’s car. Blood on a mannequin is used, sometimes awkwardly, in an attempt to re-enact part of the crime. “All of this blood testimony is just a complete lie,” Zellner says, vowing to expose what she said was egregious misconduct of the prosecutor in both cases, Ken Kratz. (Kratz, a huge target of criticism after Season 1, wrote a book refuting rebutting the first season.)

What to know

The allegation of planting evidence to frame Avery is not new. At his trial, Avery’s lawyers had argued that law enforcement investigators planted Avery’s blood. But an FBI expert testified that Avery's blood almost certainly was not planted in Halbach's car.

Zellner’s bloodstain-pattern expert, Stuart James of Florida, helped in the re-enactments and is prominent in Episode 1. Among other murder cases, James testified for the defense in the 2007 murder trial of music recording legend Phil Spector. As part of her efforts to get Avery a new trial, Zellner used James’ opinion that Halbach was beaten on the head, not shot in the head, before dying; and Zellner argues that Halbach’s blood should have created different patterns when Halbach’s body was put into her car.

At Avery’s trial, a State Crime Lab expert had testified that a bullet found in Avery’s garage almost certainly was fired from Avery’s gun, and a state DNA expert testified that the bullet had Halbach’s DNA on it.

A Sheboygan County judge overseeing Avery’s case has rejected Zellner’s requests for a new trial for Avery, but she is still pressing her case.

Read more

Original Journal Sentinel coverage of the Steven Avery murder trial

Journal Sentinel: ‘Making a Murderer' compelling, but is it a game-changer for Steven Avery?

Timeline: Key updates on Steven Avery and Brendan Dassey sincedebut of 'Making a Murderer'

Zellner bloodstain-pattern expert’s court filing in the Avery case

Episode 2: ‘Brain fingerprinting’

Highlights

Dassey’s lawyers discuss how a person can falsely confess to a murder. Video clips of Dassey’s questioning by law enforcement investigators are shown, with an emphasis on how they appeared to feed details to Dassey about Halbach’s murder with questions such as: “Who shot her in the head?”

Zellner raises questions about why law enforcement dogs searching the crime scene were drawn to a quarry next to the Avery property. Avery loses a girlfriend. And Avery is shown undergoing a “brain fingerprinting” test. The tester, Seattle neuroscientist Larry Farwell, says his analysis shows that Avery didn’t know what happened to Halbach when she was murdered. He tells Avery: “This is very powerful evidence that you’re in fact innocent of the crime.”

What to know

On Dassey: In 2016, a federal magistrate judge in Milwaukee determined that Dassey’s constitutional rights were violated and he threw out Dassey’s conviction, finding that the prosecutor’s investigators made false promises to Dassey during multiple interrogations. But in 2017, a federal appeals court in Chicago, ruling 4-3, reinstated Dassey’s conviction, concluding that his confession had not been coerced. The U.S. Supreme Court refused to consider the case — a big blow to Dassey’s chances of getting out of prison.

On Avery: Zellner used the brain fingerprinting as part of her attempt to get a new trial. A Sheboygan County judge has rejected Zellner’s requests for a new trial, but she is continuing to press her case. Lawyer Monthly magazine has reported that although brain fingerprinting has been used in court, its validity is still in question.

Read more

Journal Sentinel: How Brendan Dassey was implicated inmurder

Journal Sentinel: Judge overturns Dassey conviction in Halbach murder

Journal Sentinel: U.S. Appeals Court upholds conviction of Brendan Dassey in 'Making a Murderer' case

Zellner expert’s court filing on “brain fingerprinting”

Zellner’s June 2017 court motion for a new trial for Avery

Judge’s ruling in November 2017 denying Avery new trial

Episode 3: Fire and freedom

Highlights

There is exhilaration over the judge’s decision to overturn Dassey’s conviction. Dassey makes plans for his first meal outside of prison to be a hamburger and curly fries.

Talking on the phone with Zellner on his 54th birthday, worrying that his mother will die before he gets out of prison, Avery breaks down. An expert hired by Zellner, forensic fire scientist John DeHaan, contends that a burn pit outside of Avery’s home “cannot be the primary burn site” of the incineration of Halbach’s body; and Zellner declares that Halbach’s bones were not burned there, raising the question of whether they were planted.

The episode also points fingers at Avery’s trial lawyers, Dean Strang and Jerome Buting, raising questions about how they handled the case.

What to know

At Avery’s trial, a forensic anthropologist had testified that skull and bone fragments recovered from the burn pit were from a woman under 35 who had suffered two gunshot wounds to the head. That expert also said Halbach, who was 25, had been shot twice in the head. A forensic dentist identified teeth fragments from the burn pit as Halbach's.

A federal magistrate judge in Milwaukee in 2016 determined that Dassey’s constitutional rights were violated and threw out his conviction, finding that the prosecutor’s investigators made false promises and coerced his confession during multiple interrogations. But in 2017 a federal appeals court in Chicago, ruling 4-3, reinstated his conviction, concluding that his confession was not coerced. The U.S. Supreme Court refused to consider the case — a big blow to Dassey’s chances of getting out of prison.

In Avery’s case, a Sheboygan County judge has rejected Zellner’s requests for a new trial.

Read more

Journal Sentinel: Experts testify at Steven Avery trial on Teresa Halbach's remains

Court filing by Zellner’s fire expert

Episode 4: Bones

Highlights

Dassey makes plans for what he expects will be his release, including leaving behind his dominoes for his fellow prisoners. His hopes fall after the state announces it will appeal a federal judge’s ruling overturning his conviction.

Zellner goes to court to file a motion seeking to get Avery a new trial by asking for permission to do new testing on evidence from the murder scene. She says she believes Halbach’s bones could have been planted on the Avery property even while the property was secured by law enforcement investigators in the days after Halbach’s murder. “I believe the killer plants (Halbach’s) car and the killer plants the bones,” Zellner says at one point. Later she says maybe the planting was done by cops.

Avery gets a new girlfriend from behind bars. She says she knew that if there was a Season 2 of “Making a Murderer,” she would be in it as his girlfriend.

What to know

On Dassey: Dassey appeared to stand a good chance of being released from prison after his conviction was initially overturned. Had that ruling been upheld in the appeals court, the state would have had to release him or put him on trial again. A retrial would have been extremely difficult, given that his confession had been judged to be coerced and there was no physical evidence linking him to the murder.

Dassey’s lawyers, Laura Nirider and Steven Drizin of the Northwestern University School of Law, don’t appear in Season 2 nearly as much as Zellner does.

On Avery: At Avery’s trial, two Manitowoc County sheriff’s investigators testified that they did not plant evidence. Avery’s trial lawyers argued that the investigators had the opportunity to plant Avery’s blood from a vial in Halbach’s car and to plant the key to her car in Avery’s trailer. A jury convicted Avery of Halbach’s murder after three days of deliberation.

Avery had become the public face of efforts in Wisconsin to free wrongly convicted prisoners after DNA evidence exonerated him in a 1985 sexual assault that put him behind bars for 18 years. He became only the second person to be convicted of a serious crime after being freed from prison through DNA testing and the first such person to be subsequently convicted of killing someone, according to the national Innocence Project.

Read more

Journal Sentinel: How Brendan Dassey was implicated in murder

Journal Sentinel: Judge overturns Dassey conviction in Halbach murder

Journal Sentinel: U.S. Appeals Court upholds conviction of Brendan Dassey in 'Making a Murderer' case

Journal Sentinel: No Steven Avery evidence planted, officers say

Episode 5: More blood, and an ex-boyfriend

Highlights

On Avery: Zellner continues with the theory that Avery’s blood had been planted in Halbach’s car as a way to frame him. She theorizes that someone entered Avery’s trailer several days after the murder and took blood from his bathroom sink. Avery had said at the time that he remembers a cut from his finger had bled into the sink and that he didn’t clean it up, but he later noticed it had been cleaned up. Zellner removes the sink and brings it to her blood-spatter expert for experiments. Zellner also says she needs to point to a different possible suspect in the murder and identifies Ryan Hillegas, Halbach’s former boyfriend. She notes that Hillegas temporarily moved into Halbach’s apartment after the murder and would have had access to things such as a spare key to Halbach’s car, like the key law enforcement investigators later found in Avery’s trailer.

On Dassey: Dassey and his family expect he will be released from prison any day, after the federal judge in Milwaukee who threw out his conviction orders him freed. But the State of Wisconsin appeals that order, meaning there will be more court arguments, this time before a three-judge panel at the federal appeals court in Chicago, one level below the U.S. Supreme Court. Upon learning of the state’s appeal, Avery says: “Every time you turn around, you think something’s positive, then you just get kicked in the face again.”

What to know

After Halbach had been reported missing, Hillegas organized a team of volunteers that searched the Avery property. Zellner identified Hillegas as the murder suspect in court papers she filed in 2017 seeking a new trial for Avery. A Sheboygan County judge overseeing Avery’s case has rejected Zellner’s requests for a new trial for Avery, but she is still pressing her case.

Read more

Post Crescent: Avery's lawyer: Ex-boyfriend killed Halbach

Journal Sentinel: Alternate suspects named by Steven Avery

Episode 6: Groin swab; confession or coercion?

Highlights

On Avery: Zellner does more experiments on evidence. This time, she has Avery handle for 12 minutes a key she says is identical to the one to Halbach’s car. Zellner also makes an allegation regarding another piece of evidence where investigators say they found Avery’s DNA: the hood latch on Halbach’s car. Her allegation is that an investigator didn’t actually send material found from the hood latch to the State Crime Lab for testing  — but rather, he sent a swab taken from Avery’s groin after he was arrested.

On Dassey: Extensive audio is played from arguments made in 2017 in front of a three-judge panel of the federal court of appeals in Chicago. Cameras weren’t allowed in, so the audio is supplemented with artist sketches. Lawyers for Dassey and for the State of Wisconsin argued over whether the judges should uphold a Milwaukee federal judge’s decision overturning Dassey’s conviction. That judge had ruled that Dassey’s confession to the murder had been coerced.

What to know

At Avery’s trial, the chief of the State Crime Lab's DNA unit testified that Avery’s DNA was found on the hood latch and the key. She also testified that Halbach's DNA was found on bloodstains from several areas inside Halbach's car and on a bullet fragment that other witnesses said was found in Avery's garage.

The Chicago hearing was notable for how the three-judge panel questioned the attorneys. An attorney for the State of Wisconsin had barely started his argument on why Dassey's conviction should be reinstated when one of the judges stopped him cold. She wanted to know if Dassey would have concluded that he could go home after answering questions by investigators, instead of being arrested. After all, he was a low-IQ, "extremely suggestible" 16-year-old, she noted. The exchange highlighted a critical issue: Even if Dassey wasn't given an explicit promise of leniency, did the way he was questioned — including lines such as, "The truth will set you free" — produce an involuntary confession? The judges later voted, 2-1, to uphold the reversal of Dassey’s conviction. But their decision was later overturned, and Dassey’s conviction was reinstated, by the full seven-member Chicago appeals court.

Read more

Journal Sentinel: DNA specialist testifies in Steven Avery trial

Journal Sentinel: Judges question investigators' conduct in Brendan Dassey 'Making a Murderer' case

Episode 7: No bone on the bullet?

Highlights

This episode focuses on Avery. Zellner does another experiment in testing, again aimed at backing her argument that investigators planted evidence to frame Avery. She goes to a forensic ballistics consultant in Carefree, Ariz., who shoots a gun in the desert like the .22-caliber identified as the one used on Halbach. The purpose was to see if a bullet would go through two layers of bone, given that prosecutors said Halbach had been shot in the head. A forensic microscopist says there is no evidence of bone on the bullet fragment that was recovered from Avery’s garage and that had Halbach’s DNA on it. Zellner contends that’s proof the fragment didn’t go through Halbach’s head. Zellner is also shown filing her 2017 court motion seeking a new trial for Avery.

What to know

At Avery’s trial, a gun expert with the Wisconsin State Crime Lab testified that he couldn't conclusively link the bullet found in Avery's garage to a .22-caliber rifle that was seized from Avery’s bedroom. But the bullet likely was fired from it, the expert said. That bullet had Halbach’s DNA on it, according to other expert testimony. Also at the trial, a forensic anthropologist testified that Halbach was shot twice in the head before her body was nearly incinerated.

A judge so far has rejected Zellner's requests for a new trial.

Read more

Zellner's 2017 court motion requesting a new trial for Avery

Journal Sentinel: Prosecutors link gun found in Steven Avery's room to bullet with Halbach's DNA

Journal Sentinel: Experts testify at Steven Avery trial on Teresa Halbach's remains

Episode 8: Win, win ...

Highlights

Elation felt by Dassey and his lawyers gives way to more anxiety. First, a panel of the federal appeals court in Chicago rules, 2-1, to uphold the reversal of Dassey’s conviction. The three judges agreed with a federal judge in Milwaukee that Dassey’s confession had been coerced by his interrogators. Steven Drizin, one of Dassey’s lawyers, notes that the panel referred to the interrogation techniques as “death by a thousand cuts.” But Dassey remains incarcerated as the State of Wisconsin vows to challenge the decision. Then anxiety for Dassey and his family resurfaces when the full court of appeals, one step below the U.S. Supreme Court, decides it will review the panel’s decision.

What to know

It was extraordinary that Dassey won not once, but twice, before federal judges in making the case that his confession had been coerced. Freedom seemed a real possibility. Later, however, the full appeals court voted, 4-3, to reinstate Dassey’s conviction. The majority concluded that Dassey had freely confessed, not that his confession had been coerced. And the U.S. Supreme Court would decide not to consider Dassey’s case.

Read more

Post Crescent: Dassey wins in federal appeals court

Appeals court 2-1 decision upholding reversal of Dassey’s conviction

Journal Sentinel: U.S. Appeals Court upholds conviction of Brendan Dassey in 'Making a Murderer' case

Episode 9: After 2 wins, Dassey loses

Highlights

On Dassey: Lawyers for Dassey and for the State of Wisconsin give their competing arguments to seven judges of the federal appeals court in Chicago. Tension is high, as the case is one level below the U.S. Supreme Court, and it’s widely believed that the decision of the seven will be final, because it’s unlikely the Supreme Court would take up the case. In other words, Dassey’s fate likely hangs in the balance. The seven judges are reviewing a 2-1 decision by a three-judge panel of the court that upheld the reversal of Dassey’s conviction, based on the conclusion that his confession was coerced by his interrogators. No cameras were allowed, so the arguments are presented with audio and sketches by an artist. Some of the judges are appalled by the questioning done by the investigators, saying they pressured and misled Dassey, then 16, into his confession.

On Avery: Zellner continues to suggest that Dassey’s older brother, and Avery's nephew, Bobby Dassey, should be considered a suspect in the murder. She speculates that investigators pressured him into implicating Avery prior to Avery's trial. In the previous episode, she cited what she said were thousands of images of pornography and violence to women found on Bobby’s computer.

What to know

One of the judges, during the oral arguments, recalled that an investigator had told Dassey during questioning that he was speaking to Dassey as a father. The two investigators “made my skin crawl," the judge said. In contrast, another judge said: "There was no promise of leniency. There was a vague suggestion, at best."

When the 4-3 decision of the seven judges was later handed down, reinstating Dassey’s conviction, the majority concluded that Dassey’s confession had not been coerced. "Dassey spoke with the interrogators freely, after receiving and understanding Miranda warnings, and with his mother’s consent," the decision said. “The interrogation took place in a comfortable setting, without any physical coercion or intimidation, without even raised voices, and over a relatively brief time." The majority was also swayed that Dassey gave "many of the most damning details himself in response to open‐ended questions" and resisted suggestions of other particular details.

At Avery’s trial, Bobby Dassey had testified that he saw Halbach walking toward Avery's trailer and a few hours later noticed that Halbach's Toyota RAV4 was gone. He also testified that three days after Halbach disappeared, Avery made a comment about disposing of a body, but appeared to be joking.

Read more

Journal Sentinel: Judges speak to both sides of Brendan Dassey's confession in 'Making A Murderer' case

Journal Sentinel: U.S. Appeals Court upholds conviction of Brendan Dassey in 'Making a Murderer' case

Journal Sentinel: Nephew implicates Steven Avery

Episode 10: The end?

Highlights

One of the most dramatic moments occurs. It’s audio of a profanity-laced phone call between Avery, from prison, and Barb Tadych  — his sister and Dassey’s mother.  Tadych is angry that Zellner’s efforts to win Avery a new trial continue to raise as possible suspects in the murder two family members: her husband, Scott Tadych, and her son and Brendan Dassey’s older brother, Bobby Dassey. Tadych wants Avery to get Zellner to stop; Avery says Zellner needs to go where the evidence takes her.

As expected, the U.S. Supreme Court refuses to hear Dassey’s case. That means the decision by the seven judges on the federal appeals court in Chicago stands, as does Dassey’s conviction.

What to know

Season 2 ends without Zellner having put forth a cohesive case for why Avery’s guilty verdict was wrong, or who, in her view, killed Halbach. She has vowed to continue to seek new evidence and to press for a new trial for Avery. It’s not clear there are any legal options left for Dassey. 

Prominent lawyer and former U.S. solicitor general Seth Waxman says before the film reports that the Supreme Court would not take Dassey's case:

“It’s really very, very important that the court take this case and model for state and federal courts how one evaluates a confession by a juvenile, and a juvenile with rather significant intellectual and social deficits.”

Read more

Post Crescent: U.S. Supreme Court denies Brendan Dassey's appeal in 'Making a Murderer' case

USA Today: 'Making a Murderer Part 2' proves you can't re-create a phenomenon