Colleen Henry says she was cornered by a fellow customer at a Starbucks last week who wanted to share views on the popular Netflix documentary series “Making a Murderer.” He suggested Henry sit down with him and his wife to dissect the criminal case at the heart of the series that for many viewers has become an obsession.
She politely demurred. “I said, ‘How about we just talk while we’re standing here?’ “
Henry’s been getting that a lot lately. She’s a longtime reporter for WISN-TV, the ABC network affiliate in Milwaukee, and is a prominent member of the group of journalists who appear as they cover the sensational crime and trial explored by the documentarians.
The story, in brief: In 2003, Steven Avery of Manitowoc County, Wis., was released from prison after DNA evidence cleared him in a sexual assault case for which he’d been locked up for 18 years. He was a cause celebre for critics of the justice system until he was arrested in 2005 and charged with murder in the slaying of a photographer, Teresa Halbach, after police found her remains and vehicle at the Avery family’s auto salvage yard.
Avery’s prominence and the sickening irony of his alleged commission of a murder just as he was poised to collect a substantial civil settlement for his wrongful conviction drew reporters from all over Wisconsin, as well as filmmakers Laura Ricciardi and Moira Demos, to the 2007 trial.
Their resulting 10-part documentary series, which was released by the online streaming service in mid-December, does as good a job as I’ve seen of showing the behind-the-scenes role journalists often play in big, lengthy and often tedious trials as they press the advocates for clarity in group interviews and work with one another to try to make sense for the public of the odd developments.
“Making a Murderer” has no narrator, so, as others have said, the throng of reporters serves as the show’s Greek chorus — bit players whose comments on the action give voice to what the audience may be thinking. And as such they’ve developed followings of their own.
Angenette Levy, the reporter who covered the Avery trial for WFRV-TV in Green Bay and who bears a strong resemblance to actress Rashida Jones, told me by email that she’s lately been inundated with social media messages and interview requests where she now works at WKRC-TV in Cincinnati. “Pretty wild,” she wrote. “I’ve received a handful of marriage proposals.”
Henry, who’s already married, said she hasn’t received any proposals yet but has gotten plenty of requests for her opinion on the verdict.
If you’ve managed to avoid hearing the outcome and want to be surprised, skip ahead to the next item.
Avery was convicted. The documentary presents evidence suggesting that law enforcement officials framed him for the Halbach murder because they were angry at him for suing them over the bogus rape charge. More than half a million people have signed online petitions demanding Avery be pardoned, and fiery attorney Kathleen Zellner, of Downers Grove, has signed on to represent him in an appeal.
Yet supporters of the conviction have countered online with arguments for Avery’s guilt that include the citation of important evidence against him that wasn’t included in the documentary — evidently the filmmakers thought it better to show numerous and repetitive aerial views of the auto salvage yard than to complicate their story.
So …?
“I don’t know,” said Henry, though she hinted that she might be a supporter of the conviction when she noted that her view of the frame-up allegation changed the day an FBI expert testified that a sample of Avery’s blood found in the victim’s car did not contain traces of a preservative. Such a preservative would have been present if someone had taken his blood from a crime lab specimen and planted it at the scene, as the defense implied.
She added her belief that online outrage over the case would not be as great had the documentary given a more complete picture of what she and her fellow reporters and the jurors heard at trial. But she also spoke highly of Ricciardi and Demos, whom she described as “humble, gracious and professional” as they went about their work.
After the trial, Henry said she all but forgot about the aspiring filmmakers and assumed, as the years went by, that, like many who set out to make documentaries, they’d run out of money or ambition. She said she was surprised in December to hear from one of the defense lawyers that not only was the show going to air, but that she and other reporters had numerous cameos.
“It was an old story for me, many hairstyles ago,” she said. “I had no intentions of watching it. But then I binge-watched it after people started texting me, tweeting at me and emailing me. Many of them I didn’t even know. They were saying, ‘You were there. What really happened? Is he guilty?’ “
Her answer: “I’m a reporter. I’ll tell you what I know. You make up your own mind.”
Re: Tweets
The winner of this week’s online poll for funniest tweet of the week was “Father, pardon, excuse, exonerate, absolve, acquit, forgive me, for I have synonymed,” by @Puncroaker. My favorite came in a close second out of 19 finalists: “The Republicans haven’t got a single candidate who could survive a Willy Wonka factory tour,” by @KagroX.
Want an early alert when the next poll goes live? Write to ericzorn@gmail.com and I’ll put you on the notification list.
Twitter @EricZorn
