Three Dumb Things Skeptics Need to Stop Writing About the Steven Avery Trial

Because I live on planet Earth I’ve watched the fascinating docu-series Making a Murderer on Netflix. Like anyone who possesses at least a modicum of logic, I came to the reasonable conclusion that Steven Avery was framed by the Manitowoc County sheriff’s department for a crime he probably didn’t commit. But some people remain unconvinced of his innocence. Which is cool. What’s less cool, and more importantly outside of what’s considered sane, rational thinking, are some of the arguments skeptics are citing on blog message boards and social media as proof of his having done it.

“I know who did it…it’s that bird there!”

Now these cotton-headed ninny muggins have cited a vast array of dumb reasons to prove Steven Avery’s guilt, but I like to keep my blog posts short. So I’m only presenting three of my let-a-bald-eagle-peck-my-eyes-out-from-frustration favorites.

Let’s jump right in, shall we?

1. “If Steven Avery didn’t do it, then who did!”

This argument doesn’t hold much water. No water, in fact. It goes without saying that just because you can’t think of anyone else who might have committed the crime, it doesn’t mean you should blame the only person who’s standing trial. This is a child’s way of thinking. A kid comes down the stairs on Christmas morning, sees presents under the tree. He thinks a second, then says to himself, “Mom and Dad were asleep last night, and the presents weren’t under the tree when I went to bed…so it must’ve been Santa!” If you’re a Steven Avery-innocence skeptic and my implying Santa doesn’t exist has let the cat out of the bag and ruined Christmas for you, my apologies.

“No, Mr. Avery, it isn’t ‘unfair’ that you’re the only one in the lineup.”

2. “But what about the sweat DNA evidence under the hood?”

Ken Kratz is a fine storyteller. Now that his career as a district attorney is over, he should really put that keen imagination of his to a more ethically-centric use, like thinking up ways of tricking old ladies out of their hard-earned retirement funds. One of his complaints about the documentary was that the film didn’t include the litigation of the prosecution’s “sweat DNA” evidence found under the hood of Teresa Halbach’s car. His argument being that they wouldn’t be able to plant sweat evidence. I’m not sure, and I can’t be bothered googling it, but I’m pretty sure the DNA under the hood of the car is mentioned in the film. What isn’t mentioned is the source of the DNA, which is probably what Ken Kratz, Mr. Ethics, has his panties in a bunch about. The source of the DNA isn’t mentioned for good reason: because it’s not identified. Not only that, but there’s no such thing as ‘sweat DNA’. I’ll let Jerome Buting, one of Steven Avery’s attorneys, do the explaining:

“It wasn’t sweat DNA. There’s no such thing as ‘sweat DNA.’ Their own expert, from the crime lab, testified that they never did a presumptive test on that hood latch to see if there was blood there. And she said, ‘I can’t foreclose the possibility that it was blood from which the DNA came.’ It was a discolored swab.”

“He did it for sure. I seen the magic fairy dust.”

3. “It would have been too difficult to plant the evidence!”

I imagine the people who believe this crock must exclusively wear Velcro-fastening footwear, because “Shoelaces are too difficult to tie. Believe me, I’ve tried.” Or I imagine they bring their laptops to PC World to have viruses removed, because “Them things are stubborn. You can download free software to remove them, you say? Horseshit!” Conversely, what is difficult is dislodging a car key from a piece of furniture and have it land underneath a slipper. If you’re a skeptic, give it a try—use a shoe if you don’t own slippers. They’re quite similar. I bet my last Jolly Rancher that you can’t get your car key to fall underneath your Velcro-fastening shoe when dislodging it from a piece of furniture.

“I found the key right there, underneath them ones in the middle. You see, with it being under the middle pair, we knew he had to have murdered her and put it there.”

So there you have it. If you’re a skeptic, feel free to call me an asshole in the comments section below. If you’re tired of hearing unconvincing arguments for Steven Avery’s guilt, do us all a favor and share this blog using one of the share buttons below.

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If my poking holes in fallacies has convinced you I’d make a pretty good comedic mystery writer, well this is your lucky day, because that just happens to be the genre of novel I write. They can be checked out here.

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