Since Making a Murderer’s premiere on Netflix back in December the show has caught on like wildfire, from Internet sleuths trying to figure out who really killed Teresa Halbach (if indeed it was not Steven Avery) to FBI cold case investigators throwing out their theories on the case, people haven’t been able to let it go that a potentially innocent man is currently rotting behind bars.
However, according to the two filmmakers behind Making a Murderer, Laura Ricciardi and Moira Demos, the documentary almost never made it to air. Why? Because authorities reportedly tried to shut them down before they even had the chance to compile the footage into the series we’ve all come to know. According to Mirror, Laura and Moira were both served with legal papers with the intent to keep them from airing Steven Avery’s story:
“When I [Laura] received calls on my cell phone from one of the lead investigators on the case asking where I was so he could serve me with a subpoena.
“Lots of things were going through my mind at that point. We were already financially-strapped, but I have a legal background.
“How would we come up with retainer [for legal representation]?
“I just wasn’t sure how we were going to be able to fund and respond to this—they were seeking categories of our footage [for the trial].
“We had about 300 hours of it.(via)
Laura goes on to say that had the aforementioned authorities succeeded in their request they effectively would have been “shut down” due to the fact that neither Laura nor Moira had the infrastructure to provide the amount of footage they were asking for. In the end, the judge ruled in their favor and the series made it to air — and Shaun Attwood, the ex-convict behind the online blog “Jon’s Jail Journal,” believes it’s because the corruption displayed in the documentary reaches higher levels within the government than previously thought:
“Freedom of expression is guaranteed under the US constitution and the fact they are putting up so much resistance shows that the whole hierarchy has something to hide.
“This isn’t the case of one or two people involved, it’s becoming more and more apparent that more and more people are up to their necks in it.
“People probably in political office are involved and that can apply all the way down to the judicial system itself.
“The Avery family have been used as disposable people – the authorities never imagined in their wildest dreams that Netflix would release a show and that it would be so popular.
“The fact that they tried to stop the show going ahead is a worry – and it would not surprise me if more legal action befalls Netflix to prevent a season two.”(via)
As of right now Steven Avery remains in prison – however if his new defense attorney Kathleen Zellner is to be believed, he’ll be released in due time.
[H/T Mirror]