Megyn Kelly had both former prosecutor Ken Kratz and defense lawyer Dean Strang on Fox News to talk about their role in Making a Murderer and the ongoing debate over Steven Avery’s guilt. The two did not face off against each other — though we would pay to see such a thing — but they did toss some barbs at each other during their time on the air. Both also took some time to talk about some of the aspects that the documentary left out of both sides of the trial, including Kratz’s evidence that has been mentioned before and information regarding the bones of Teresa Halbach.
Both hold steady to their positions regarding the status of Steven Avery, with Strang even bolstering claims that authorities planted evidence against Avery by denying claims related to DNA found under the hood of Halbach’s car made by Kratz moments earlier.
Kratz is certainly not holding back in the defense of his prosecution back in 2005. He emailed The Wrap with nine items that prove Steven Avery’s guilt, including the DNA mentioned above. He also gets a chance during the interview to defend the scandal that ended his career as a DA, blaming prescription abuse for the lewd text messages he sent. He also elaborated on this point with his email to The Wrap:
I engaged in deplorable behavior, sending suggestive text messages to a crime victim in Oct 2009. I reported myself to the OLR. My law license was thereafter suspended for 4 months. I have withstood a boat-load of other consequences as a result of that behavior, including loss of my prosecution career. However, I’ve enjoyed sobriety from prescription drug use for over 5 years now, and refuse to be defined by that dark time of my life. All of this occurred years after the Avery case was concluded…I’m unclear why the defense-created documentary chose to include this unpleasantness in this movie, especially if the filmmakers had no agenda to cast me as a villain. I am not a victim in that whole texting scandal—then again, it’s exceedingly unfair to use that to characterize me as morally unfit.
To identify Lt. Lenk, Sgt. Colburn and myself as being “responsible” for the framing and knowing false murder conviction of Steven Avery is irresponsible, and inconsistent with a consideration of all the evidence presented. Netflix should either provide an opportunity for rebuttal, or alert the viewers that this series was produced by and FOR the defense of Steven Avery, and contains only the opinion and theory of the defense team.
Apart from the lawyers, the Manitowoc County Sheriff’s Department has also faced some increased notoriety in the wake of the documentary. Sheriff Robert Hermann went on record as saying he couldn’t call the documentary a documentary, and told The Wrap that he had finally watched the documentary due to the increased notoriety:
“Because of all the media stuff we’ve been getting, I actually did watch with it my inspector and I still stand by that statement,” Hermann told TheWrap. “In several areas throughout the film, you can see where they cut the tape and manipulated things. One place real evident is one of the interviews with Steven Avery in episode 5 — if you watch one video, it jumps from 3:20 to 3:21, then to 3:17, then to 3:22 and then to 3:18.”
On Dec. 22, Hermann told HTR News that he can’t call “Making a Murderer” a documentary because “a documentary puts things in chronological order and tells the story as it is … I’ve heard things are skewed. They’ve taken things out of context and taken them out of the order in which they occurred, which can lead people to a different opinion or conclusion.”
Hermann also notes that the documentary seems to be “embedded” with the defense and Avery family, painting the police in a negative light from the very start. It’s hard to believe that a documentary about a ten-year-old murder trial would have blown up with this type of publicity, but it struck at the right time and on the right format. If people couldn’t binge Making a Murderer or weren’t on break for the holidays, would it be as popular? I’m sure many involved with the case wished it wasn’t.
(Via The Wrap / Fox News)
