Most upstanding folk of bucolic Manitowoc County, Wisconsin, didn't want much to do with the Avery clan. A dirt-poor bunch who ran a junkyard on the outskirts of small-town Chilton, they scratched a living from car wrecks. Local police loathed them, and rumours of incest and family violence abounded. Steven Avery was particularly bad news, a man with a history of petty robbery and, more worrying, who had once set fire to a pet cat in an unbelievable act of cruelty.Simply put, these are not the type of people whose lives would normally be detailed on television, except perhaps on The Jerry Springer Show. But you get to know and empathise with many of the family fairly well in Moira Demos and Laura Ricciardi's compelling 10-part series, Making A Murderer (Netflix). A decade in the making, it is one of the most controversial and talked-about true-crime shows in recent years.Initially, the story appears rather basic. In 1985, a young woman was brutally assaulted while jogging along the shores of Lake Michigan. Her initial description of her attacker prompted one cop to remark, "That sounds like Steven Avery."That was all the proof they needed. Despite the fact that Avery had multiple alibi witnesses for the time of the attack, he was convicted and jailed for 32 years - the clear victim of a railroading by a bungling, inept and perhaps corrupt system that cared little for the man they jailed because he was poor, uneducated and a convenient fall guy.It took 18 years before his innocence was finally proved and he was released. Two years later, he brought a $36-million lawsuit against Manitowoc County and those responsible for his wrongful incarceration. And that's when matters took a turn for the worse - as his lawsuit proceeded, Avery became the prime suspect in the brutal murder of a 25-year-old photographer, Teresa Halbach.It's at this point, shortly after the first episode, that Making A Murderer sinks its hooks into the viewer, and what emerges from the skilfully assembled surveillance footage, courtroom testimonies, interviews, press conferences, police interrogations, news bulletins and more is the story, not so much of a murder trial, but of a justice system that is failing the most vulnerable of Americans.Unlike some recent high-profile US murder cases, this one had nothing to do with race, but class.Evidence appears to surface suddenly only days after meticulous crime-scene searches, and - horrifyingly - Avery's 16-year-old nephew, a mentally impaired boy with an IQ of 70, is prompted by investigators into concocting a bizarre account of abduction, gang rape and murder that is not supported by a shred of evidence and was later withdrawn. More surreal is a prosecutor informing jurors, "Reasonable doubt is for innocent people".It's brilliant viewing. Avoid the temptation to Google the Avery case until you've done with Making A Murderer, but do set aside a weekend for binge viewing. You won't be sorry...