His lighting a cat afire after and dousing it with gasoline is passed off as an accident while horsing around with juvenile friends. Nor, we’re told, did he intend to harm his neighbor when he rammed into her vehicle, approached her after she lost control, and while pointing a rifle at her head ordered her to get into his car. As “Making a Murderer” would have it, he was merely upset because she was spreading rumors.

Never mind that he only let her go after she pointed out that her daughter would freeze if she was left out in the cold. Or that he had stalked her for months with a pair of binoculars, sexually gratifying himself as she drove by. On one occasion, he even ran into the road in front of her, nude.

Nor are viewers informed that Avery set up the murder, concealing his identity when he called for Halbach, asking her employer to send “that same girl they sent out last time” for a photo shoot of his sister’s car. During an appointment three weeks earlier he had frightened Halbach when he approached her wearing only a towel.