'Making a Murderer' is coming back, because Steven Avery's story isn't over
LatestMaking a Murderer, the most talked-about work of true-crime storytelling this side of Serial, is coming back.
A harrowing portrait of our flawed justice system, Laura Ricciardi and Moira Demos’ 10-part investigative documentary series premiered on Netflix last December. It followed Steven Avery—a Wisconsin man who previously served 18 years in prison after he was wrongfully convicted of rape and attempted murder—through his trial for the murder of Teresa Halbach, for which he was ultimately found guilty.
Dean Strang and Jerry Buting, Avery’s defense attorneys (and the internet’s unlikely crush objects), argued that the Manitowoc County Sheriff’s Department, which was the subject of a pending $36 million civil lawsuit filed by Avery, had tampered with evidence to incriminate their client and robbed him of a fair investigation. Had an innocent man been framed?
The proceedings grew even darker and more complex when Avery’s 16-year-old nephew Brendan Dassey confessed that he was an accessory to his uncle’s murder of Halbach, although Making a Murderer raises suspicions that the boy was manipulated into making this statement, which he later recanted, by law enforcement. Avery and Dassey received life sentences, but both men are pursuing appeals.
According to a Netflix press release, Ricciardi and Demos are currently in production on new episodes that will follow Avery and Dassey’s “respective investigative and legal teams [as they] challenge their convictions and the State fights to have the convictions and life sentences upheld.” There is no date announced yet for the return of the series, which recently garnered six Emmy nominations.
We still don’t know what really happened on the night of October 31, 2005, and we may never know who really killed Teresa Halbach. But Steven Avery’s still fighting—and Making a Murderer will keep seeking out the truth.
Molly Fitzpatrick is senior editor of Fusion’s Pop & Culture section. Her interests include movies about movies, TV shows about TV shows, and movies about TV shows, but not so much TV shows about movies.