A junkyard. Row upon row of car carcasses spread across acres of land. That’s Avery’s Auto Salvage, the setting of the Netflix documentary miniseries Making a Murderer. But it’s more than just a place—it’s a visual symbol for the state of a town and its people.
Freed, Avery hopes to lead a happy, uneventful life. But first he wants to settle the score with those who wronged him. He becomes a poster boy for the Wisconsin Innocence Project and sues the Manitowoc County police department to compensate him for his 18 lost years. But shortly thereafter the remains of Teresa Halbach, a young photographer for Auto Trader magazine, are found on Avery’s property and he’s back behind bars. The sequence of torments that this slight, barely educated man endures beggar belief, but the filmmakers don’t ever portray Avery as a saint—even when they seem to advocate on his behalf. There’s equally little sympathy shown to the prosecutors, sheriffs, investigators, judges, and various other functionaries of the local and state law enforcement agencies—they come off as callous, conniving, or just plain ignorant. Whether or not Avery is guilty, no one who watches this miniseries will come away believing the way he’s convicted to be just.
