‘Making a Murderer’ prosecutor blames series for threats
The Wisconsin special prosecutor in the trials of Steven Avery and Brendan Dassey, Ken Kratz, told Yahoo Finance Anchor Alexis Christoforous on “Yahoo News Live” that he does not think the White House went far enough in its response to the online petition asking for the pardons of Avery and Dassey, who were convicted for the murder of 25-year-old Teresa Halbach. It is the case at the center of the Netflix documentary series “Making a Murderer,” which Kratz also blamed for death threats he and his family have received since its release.
On the White House response, Kratz told Christoforous, “I was a little disappointed that the decision seemed to be based on ‘we don’t have the ability to do it.’ I would have rather had the president support not only law enforcement and the victim’s family in this case.”
Kratz said his law office has received over 3,000 emails since the airing of the Netflix series. “Most of [the threats] are insulting, which certainly doesn’t bother me,” he said. “But what does is when a percentage of these individuals want to either interfere with my business, want to interfere with my safety, those of my staff, those of my family. When I get emails that suggest, ‘I hope your daughter gets raped and murdered.’ That’s the kind of response from the general public … I would suspect or at least the conclusion that came directly from this particular Netflix documentary.”
On concerns raised by a former Avery juror earlier this week on “Yahoo News Live” that the jury knew about news surrounding Avery and Dassey before the trials, including Dassey’s taped confession that was excluded from the Avery trial, Kratz said, “We want our jurors to be regular citizens. We want them to watch the news.”
He also pointed to the defense team wanting the jury to know about Avery’s lawsuit against Manitowoc County.
Kratz said he did not participate in the series because it “was originally a defense advocacy piece.” He said he asked the filmmakers to see the film they had presented to the Columbia University Film Festival before he participated in the series, but they would not let him do so.
