‘The Convictions Were Only the Beginning’: Netflix Announces Release Date For New 'Making A Murderer'

Get ready, true-crime junkies, because  "Making a Murderer" is coming back.

Netflix announced a release date for the show’s second season on Tuesday: Oct. 19. Netflix tweeted out a teaser of the new season with the tagline, "The convictions were only the beginning."

The teaser features an animation of a cement wall with an invisible person drawing line after line, which appears to represent years spent behind bars.

“Once a person is convicted, they have to move mountains to get out of prison,” a female narrator states.

More years add up on the cement wall as a male voice states, “When you’re fighting for your innocence, and you need the truth out, it takes time.”

The tease zooms back to reveal that all the years are lines in the face of an illustration of Steven Avery.

The first season was released in 2015 and it raised questions about the convictions of Avery and his nephew Brendan Dassey, who were both sentenced to life in prison in 2007 for the death of photographer Teresa Halbach in 2005. The documentary suggested that police might have planted evidence on Avery’s property and that investigators took advantage of Dassey’s limited intellect to coax him into confessing. Avery previously served 18 years in prison after being wrongfully convicted of the sexual assault and attempted murder of Penny Beerntsen before being fully exonerated in 2003 through DNA evidence. He filed a suit against the county two years before he was arrested as a suspect in the Halbach murder.

"In Part 2, we have chronicled the experience of the convicted and imprisoned, two men each serving life sentences for crimes they maintain they did not commit," the show’s executive producers, writers and directors Laura Ricciardi and Moira Demos said in a statement.

Since the success of the first season, attempts to get both men out of jail have been made. A federal magistrate judge overturned Dassey's conviction in 2016, citing the fact that the detectives on the case took advantage of his youth and cognitive disabilities in obtaining their confession. However, a federal appeals court ruled his confession should stand and, earlier this year, the nation's highest court announced it would not take up Dassey’s case. Avery’s lawyer also requested a new trial, although like his nephew, Avery is still behind bars. In a 2017 motion asking for a new trial for Avery, one of his lawyers wrote, “As of the filing of this petition, Mr. Avery has been locked up for 10,909 days for crimes he did not commit. Mr. Avery has been alive for 20,058 days, so over 54% of his life has been spent behind bars.”

[Photo: Calumet County Jail]