Making A Murderer Creators Dispute Jodi's Claims

The ongoing drama surrounding the Netflix documentary series Making a Murderer continues to unfold — this time, thanks to a new allegation from its creators. In a tweet from the series' official Twitter account Wednesday morning, which went out during a Q&A with Moira Demos and Laura Ricciardi, the Making a Murderer filmmakers disputed Jodi Stachowski's claim that she told them not to use their footage of her, and to leave her out of the show.

Stachowski said that she'd asked Demos and Ricciardi to exclude her from the series in her recent, dramatic interview with HLN's Natisha Lance. In 2005, she was the fiancee of Making a Murderer subject Steven Avery when he was charged with the murder of photographer Teresa Halbach's. Stachowski appeared to be a supportive and loving partner who ultimately split from Avery due to legal and law enforcement pressure to distance herself from him.

In her interview, however, she told an altogether different, far more harrowing story. She said that Avery was a "monster" who had beaten her, choked her, and threatened to kill her, and that she believes he's guilty of Halbach's murder. To be clear, Demos and Ricciardi didn't specifically deny or challenge any of Stachowski's claims of abuse, merely stating that the documentary "accurately captured her views and state of mind at the time." But they did respond to one very specific charge.

Stachowski claimed that she specifically asked both of the filmmakers (she calls them "Laurie and Moira") not to include her in the documentary, because her statements in support of Avery were "all lies" (this comment comes at about the 3:30 mark of the interview, which is embedded below). She also confirmed that she hasn't seen the documentary, and doesn't want to.

I asked Laurie and Moira not to even use anything with me in it ... Because I told her it was all lies. I told her, she called me, and asked me if I wanted to do another interview before the documentary came out, and I told her no. And that's when I asked her, I want nothing to do with it, and I don't want any part of it, and I don't want to be in it. I said "it's all lies," because Steven called me and told me ― it should be all on police phone records ― that if I didn't say anything good and nice about him, I'd pay.

Stachowski went on to say that by "pay," she thought that Avery meant he would beat her. Needless to say, these are very damning allegations. One of Avery's defense attorneys in his 2006 trial, Jerry Buting, told Rolling Stone last week that Stachowski "didn't have this opinion" at the time, and that he can't account for why her story has changed.

And now, Ricciardi and Demos have gone on the record as well, insisting that they had Stachowski's permission to feature her in the series. It'll be interesting to see where this story goes next, or whether either side of the argument can present any documentation to back up their cases.

Check out the 'Making a Murderer' stream in the Bustle app for more on Steven Avery & Brendan Dassey's cases. Download it here.

Image: HLN