Retired Manitowoc County Sheriff: Avery Is 'Exactly Where He Belongs'
You can now include Dr. Phil among the shows devoting time to the popular Netflix docu-series Making a Murderer. In part one of a two-part special, Dr. Phil spoke with retired Manitowoc County Sheriff Kenneth Petersen about Steven Avery.
Avery, of course, is currently in a Wisconsin jail after being convicted for the 2005 murder of Teresa Halbach. He became a local celebrity, however, in 2003, when he was released from prison after DNA evidence determined he had been wrongfully convicted of sexual assault.
Petersen, the man who arrested Avery for that sexual assault in 1985, talked to Dr. Phil about the aftermath of the wrongful conviction.
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“When he was released after 18 years, did you have any guilt for arresting an innocent man?” Dr. Phil asked. “No, none whatsoever. I was just doing my job,” Petersen replied. As to whether he felt he owed Avery an apology, Petersen said, “I didn’t do the investigation in that case. I was, for all practical purposes, just the hired muscle. And the sheriff told me to go arrest him, and that’s what I did.”
Petersen, as you may recall from your Making a Murderer binge, was the sheriff who told a local news station investigating the claims of a frame job, “If we wanted to eliminate Steve, it would’ve been a whole lot easier to eliminate Steve than to frame Steve… Or if we wanted him killed, it would be much easier just to kill him.”
Regardless of the wrongful conviction, Petersen definitely thinks Avery is a guilty man. “If you were face to face with Avery right now today, would you have anything to say to him?” Dr. Phil pressed. “I’d tell him he’s exactly where he belongs and should be there for as long as he lives,” Petersen answered.
Friday’s episode of Dr. Phil ended in the middle of Petersen’s interview, with Petersen defending the honor of James Lenk and Andrew Colborn, two officers of the Manitowoc County Sheriff’s Department who have been accused of planting evidence to frame Avery for murder. “I have no reason to doubt the integrity of Detective Lenk or Colborn,” Petersen said. “I found them over the years to be very capable and forthright detectives. I wouldn’t question their honesty at any time.”
Part 2 of the interview airs Monday.
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