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Making a Murderer is returning to Netflix with new episodes

Making a Murderer is returning to Netflix with new episodes

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Making a Murderer, Netflix's popular true crime documentary series, will return for a second season. The show followed the arrest, trial, and conviction of Steven Avery, a man from Manitowoc County, Wisconsin, who was found guilty of murdering Teresa Halbach, a local photographer. Avery's nephew Brendan Dassey was also convicted as an accessory to murder.

Netflix says the new episodes will give viewers insight into Avery's life post-conviction, as well as input from Avery and Dassey's new legal teams. While the first season never explicitly argued for Avery's innocence, it did portray both him and Dassey as sympathetic characters who were maybe just in the wrong place at the wrong time — despite a build up of evidence to the contrary.

Avery was first convicted in 1985 for the sexual assault of another woman. After serving 18 years in prison for that crime, he was exonerated by DNA evidence. Then, in 2005, he was arrested as a suspect in Halbach's murder. Making a Murderer portrayed the Manitowoc County police as at least inept, if not willfully malicious; they were accused by Avery's lawyers of manipulating the crime scene and planting evidence. Video footage of Dassey's interrogation makes it look like the cops forced a confession from the teenager, who seemed to have no idea what he was confessing to.

After the series aired, public opinion of Avery wavered as it became clear the filmmakers had left some evidence out of the series. At the start of 2016, Avery's new lawyer, Kathleen Zellner, was granted a motion to present new evidence to the court involving an advanced test for blood residue on Halbach's car.

There's no word yet on when the new episodes will premiere, or how many there will be.

Correction, 3:56PM ET: Corrected to reflect that Steven Avery was convicted of sexual assault, not murder, in 1985.


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