I feel sorry for single people this week. The People Magazine report that Steven Avery is getting married really has to have them questioning their desirability–and if they will ever find love. Consider that a man found guilty by a jury of his peers beyond a reasonable doubt of kidnapping, raping, torturing, killing, dismembering and burning up a woman convinced another woman to marry him–despite the fact that he will likely spend the rest of his life behind bars AND the bride-to-be has actually met him in person just once.
Really, the unattached shouldn’t feel that bad. Do you really want to be with someone that insane? There is a subculture of people who are obsessed with high profile convicts. The Menendez Brothers had all kinds of suitors during their trial for brutally murdering their parents–and both got married while behind bars. Ted Bundy certainly had his share of female followers while on death row for killing dozens of other women for decades. Even Charles Manson had fiancés and girlfriends during his life sentence. Those guys take “killing it with the ladies” to a whole new level.
As in the Avery case, the “murderer’s girlfriends” are all positive that “their man” was wrongfully convicted. Their delusional belief makes them feel a bond with the killer before even trying to make contact. And when the jailhouse letters talk about how much their “belief in him” means to them, the manipulative murderers draw in their unwitting “victim”.
And all of that stays fairly non-threatening. The Menendezes, Manson and Bundy are/were never going to get out of prison to be with their “wives”. But Avery’s case may be different. More and more, justice is becoming about “feelings” and “social justice”–and if enough people watch the one-sided documentary “Making a Murderer”, they might convince a judge someday that Steven Avery is a “victim of an unjust society” that saw multiple law enforcement agencies, the State Crime Lab, a special prosecutor, a judge and 12-people picked off the street all take part in a giant conspiracy to frame an innocent man and set him free.
Then what does the new “Mrs Avery” do? Does she move from Nevada to live in the “family compound” in Mishicot? Does she live in that same trailer? Does she put the garbage in the same burn barrel? What crosses her mind the first time there is a heated argument? Or she notices a look in her “innocent husband’s” eyes that you don’t ever see in prison letters or short conversations in a visiting area? Or he let’s slip–maybe after a night of too many cheap beers–details of the killing that only someone there would know? I bet at that moment, being single would be a lot more attractive.
