Federal court orders release of man featured in Netflix's 'Making a Murderer'



MILWAUKEE — A federal judge in Milwaukee has overturned Brendan Dassey’s conviction.

He will be released within 90 days, unless the state decides to retry him, according to WITI.

Steven Avery and his nephew, Brendan Dassey were convicted of murdering Teresa Halbach in 2005. They were featured in the show, “Making a Murderer.”

Avery is serving a life sentence — without the possibility of parole.



“Making a Murderer” debuted in December and quickly gripped holiday binge-watchers.

It told the complicated story of Avery, who is serving a life sentence in Wisconsin after spending 18 years behind bars because of a wrongful conviction in a separate case. The show called into question his current conviction.

The buzz around the series even led some viewers to petition President Obama to pardon Avery and other networks to do their own followup specials months later.

Netflix, however, isn’t keen on letting other networks have the last word. It promises that the new episodes will provide “exclusive access” to Avery’s legal team and “intimate access to the families and characters close to the case.”

Filmmakers Laura Ricciardi and Moira Demos will once again headline the project.

In January, four weeks after the series was released, Ricciardi and Demos said they had been following the updates in the case but had yet to get an official order for more episodes. They also said they were exploring the possibility of using the “Making” banner to explore new stories as well.

The decision by the filmmakers to continue following the Avery thread is not unlike the approach Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky took to their three “Paradise Lost” documentaries, which explored the case of the West Memphis Three.

In that case, three teenagers were convicted of the murders of three young boys, but were later released. Their story was told in three films between 1996 and 2011.