The community of Manitowoc County, Wisconsin received global attention this year after Netflix put out the 10-part true-crime documentary series Making A Murderer.
The documentary raises questions about the actions of local officials and the county’s police force in the handling of the 2005 murder investigation of Theresa Halbach and the subsequent trial that found Steven Avery and his nephew Brendan Dassey responsible.
Because it was such a big story that happened within driving distance of Sault Ste. Marie I drove down to Manitowoc County in January, just a few weeks after the release of the documentary, to talk to Manitowoc locals during the peak of a surreal media situation about the case and how their community was handling the attention.
Located between Green Bay and Milwaukee on the western shores of Lake Michigan, Manitowoc County is about a six-hour drive from the Sault.
The biggest city in the county, The City of Manitowoc, is about half the size of the Sault but, possibly because it services several smaller nearby cities and towns or because it’s only a 45-minute drive from Green Bay, it feels like a similarly sized city to ours.
For example, although its technically smaller, its library and YMCA are much bigger than ours, it has a central courthouse which is about the same size as ours, and the downtown feels more vibrant; perhaps its just a bit more of a condensed city.
And, especially in the winter, it’s a lot like the Sault because it’s just so damned cold.
When I arrived in the county the first place I stopped at, even before going to the house I was staying at, was Avery’s Auto Salvage, several miles outside the city limits.
I wanted to make early contact with the Avery family because I knew they would be difficult to access and I wanted to give them a chance to warm up to me as I was only going to have a few days to establish a good rapport.
As I pulled onto the Avery property I could see the infamous reddish-brown trailer and the surrounding property where, in the 2005 trial, prosecutors argued Avery and Dassey raped and killed Halbach.
After watching the documentary series and seeing so much in the press, pulling up to the Avery property felt really surreal.
I parked, walked into the office, and standing talking on the phone was Chuck Avery, Steven Avery’s brother and a person featured quite heavily in the documentary.
Chuck Avery said he wasn’t talking to journalists but since I was respectful and not too forceful in our brief encounter, he actually was kind enough to give me a few comments a couple days later as well as confirming some crucial information for some of my stories.
But perhaps my biggest break while I was in Manitowoc County came my second day there when, after getting up bright and early (a bit easier with the time zone change), I went to the infamous Manitowoc County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO).
Since much of the negative reaction spurred by the documentary was directed at county police, I thought their experiences were important to my story.
It was around 8 a.m. when I went to the MCSO’s building and spoke with the secretary there, basically just to see if I might be able to set something up for another day.
I thought there was a good chance the department would just blow me off since my SooToday freelancer press credential might not hold much power in Wisconsin.
I was surprised when the secretary said “Just a minute”, went back into the office, and then Sheriff Robert Hermann, the head of the department and someone who was featured in the documentary and since interviewed on U.S. national television came out to greet me.
Hermann said he had “a few minutes” to talk and so we went right into his office and he proceeded to answer my questions for almost an hour in an impromptu interview in which he spoke very frankly and candidly on a number of subjects related to the Avery case.
Although some other places like the Calumet County Sheriff’s Office, the Mayor’s office, and the tourism office wouldn’t speak to me, I did receive similar openness from both the Manitowoc City Police and the very nearby Two Rivers City Police.
I think they were willing to cooperate with me because I told them I was not trying to solve the Theresa Halbach murder but that I wanted to look at the police as human beings caught in the middle of what seems almost to have become a murder-case meme, and I think they appreciated the opportunity to tell their side.
Although there are plenty of challenging claims made in the documentary I wanted to remain as unbiased as possible about the case.
About 20 kilometres outside of The City Manitowoc, in the area surrounding Avery’s Auto Salvage and the nearby town of Mishicot, people were in my experience a lot less open to an outsider poking around.
Several of the businesses didn’t want to speak on the subject of Steven Avery and I got the feeling that everyone was trying to follow an almost established local status quo, that made me wonder if it had been achieved through shared comments on Facebook and at the local bars and restaurants, that said “Don’t talk to journalists”.
People expressed that outsiders were just blindly accepting the facts presented in the Netflix documentary and the media were like uncaring monsters dredging up a painful event that was almost out of the town’s memory and being uncaring towards the family of Theresa Halbach and, of course, the media hype must be very painful for them.
But perhaps many of the locals are also blindly-accepting a certain truth since many of them expressed strong negative opinions about the documentary while at the same time telling me they refused to watch even one episode of it.
During my time in Manitowoc County, I was kicked out of businesses and had a door slammed in my face but most of the negativity just came in condescending tones and cold shoulders.
That said, some people did want to talk off-record and I conducted lots of anonymous interviews in local bars, diners, and other establishments around the area getting some good insight into local feelings and so there was some openness.
Being a county with a quiet farming background, I can only imagine that a murder in the area must have really shaken people up and any fear or anger surrounding the events is, at the very least, understandable.
In my time there I spoke with officials and business owners about the effects the documentary had on the area, met someone very close to Avery’s property who said they witnessed something important that was not in the documentary, and even managed to tail down a psychic after getting tipped off by a friendly old-school Manitowoc bartender.
The psychic said she knows who really killed Theresa, but that’s another story.
However, out of all the people I talked to one of the best encounters I had was at a small home next the salvage yard.
Just across the field from Steven Avery’s former trailer, near where perhaps Theresa Halbach was killed, I met a Mennonite family living their quiet life completely oblivious to the murder, the documentary, or any of the media hype.
The couple who lived there moved into the area a couple of years ago and since they don’t have a television and mostly just work and communicate with their Mennonite community had never heard of anything that was going on despite tourists stopping and taking pictures at the Avery Auto Salvage sign right beside their driveway, which they did say they were curious about.
After everything considered, and with all the negative encounters I had, their innocence was quite refreshing.
*************************
If you'd like to read more about Jeff Klassen's visit to Manitowoc, please see the links below:
More local news
Browse local flyers
Weather forecast
Find local deals
View local webcams
Verified Commenter, please