Manitowoc County Sheriff Robert Hermann has watched “Making a Murderer,” telling TheWrap on Monday that he stands by a statement he had made prior to viewing the Netflix series, which he is “not pleased with.”
“Because of all the media stuff we’ve been getting, I actually did watch with it my inspector and I still stand by that statement,” Hermann told TheWrap. “In several areas throughout the film, you can see where they cut the tape and manipulated things. One place real evident is one of the interviews with Steven Avery in episode 5 — if you watch one video, it jumps from 3:20 to 3:21, then to 3:17, then to 3:22 and then to 3:18.”
On Dec. 22, Hermann told HTR News that he can’t call “Making a Murderer” a documentary because “a documentary puts things in chronological order and tells the story as it is … I’ve heard things are skewed. They’ve taken things out of context and taken them out of the order in which they occurred, which can lead people to a different opinion or conclusion.” At the time, he hadn’t yet seen the series.
“Making a Murderer” explores the case of Steven Avery, a Wisconsin man who was imprisoned for sexual assault for 18 years before being exonerated on DNA evidence and released — only to be charged and convicted for the murder of a young woman three years later. Kratz successfully prosecuted Avery for the rape and murder of photographer Teresa Halbach, the crime for which Avery is now serving a life sentence.
Since its premiere on Dec. 18, the series strongly suggests that Avery was framed for the crime by Wisconsin law enforcement.
“We’re not pleased with the way the film has portrayed us,” added Hermann. “We’ve noticed that the family of Avery and the attorneys are embedded with the film producers, and the attorneys from the get-go have portrayed us in a negative light, but there’s not much we can do to change it.”