Note: This article contains spoilers for Making a Murderer Part 2
If you’ve been watching Making a Murderer Part 2, you may have some questions about who Lynn Hartman is and how she fits into the narrative.
The second chapter of the true crime hit follows Steven Avery and his nephew Brendan Dassey as they work towards overturning the convictions against them. The key players featured in the documentary, therefore, are mainly members of their legal teams – although we do also get the odd bit of insight into their personal lives.
Directors Laura Ricciardi and Moira Demos had an impressive level of access to their family and, despite reluctance, they have also done their best to incorporate Teresa Halbach’s narrative too.
We’re also confronted with Avery’s love life – something that he, perhaps surprisingly, manages to keep up with despite the fact he’s currently serving a life sentence in prison.
Lynn Hartman is introduced as his girlfriend in the new episodes, but you might remember a few other names from Part 1.
So, what actually happened? Let’s rewind.
In the first ten episodes of the Netflix docuseries we met his then- fiancée Jodi Stachowski. The footage showed her in the aftermath of Avery’s arrest for the murder of Halbach in 2005. She seemed very reluctant to talk to the press at the time, but was adamant of his innocence and stood by him.
However years later, in 2016, Jodi gave a pretty damning interview, which aired on HLN’s Nancy Grace, about her former partner. She described Avery as a “monster” and alleged that their two-year relationship had been an abusive one.
Following Steven’s murder conviction in 2007, Avery became engaged to a woman named Sandy Greenman. She had written to him not long after his sentencing, where she told him that she believed in his innocence. It all blossomed from there.
Sandy was also introduced in Part 1 of Making a Murderer, but the pair appeared to end their engagement not long after it started streaming on Netflix. They remain close friends – in fact, it was Greenman that got in touch with Kathleen Zellner to try and convince her to take on his post-conviction case. She also features heavily in Part 2.
In these new episodes, we are introduced to another love interest of Avery’s: Lynn Hartman.
During episode four, we see her visit him in prison for the first time.
Lynn told the camera that, after hearing Steven’s story, she felt “deeply compelled” to contact him. After receiving her first letter, he had asked if she’d be open to phone calls. She revealed that she’d been going through a divorce at the time, and so they had been able to offer support to each other.
Somewhat bizarrely, Lynn also told the documentary makers: “I knew, in my soul, it was going to be a part of my life. And I knew that if there was another season of the documentary that I was going to be in it as Steven’s girlfriend.”
Not long after her visit, she appeared on Dr Phil to discuss their relationship. In the documentary, Avery described this TV appearance as a “set up”, also claiming that she “wasn’t herself” after that.
The pair’s relationship came to an end in October 2016, amid a lot of tabloid speculation. Hartman later alleged to Inside Edition: “I had to end the relationship because I saw signs that concerned me.”
Sandy, still a close confident of Avery’s, has always believed that Lynn was after “fame”, but it’s something that she has always denied.
Making a Murderer Part 1 and Part 2 is now streaming on Netflix.
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