It seems we just cannot get enough of Making A Murderer, and the Netflix documentary series continues to dominate news feeds everywhere. Comedian Jena Friedman scored an interview with reviled prosecutor (and dirty text message enthusiast) Ken Kratz. In the video, after reading some of the hate mail he’s received from fans of the show, Kratz admitted, “I was a dick.” He elaborated, “Some of that was bravado that was necessary for the presentation of the case, but some of that was me and I think it’s important that people understand that I’m not that person anymore.” Kratz said the best thing that came out of the doc was that he’s now hanging out his shingle and working as a defense attorney. Other revelations from the interview include the fact that he gained no admirers from the series, claiming that even Ted Bundy was more charming than he is. He also claimed that he no longer indulges in sexting (although I have a sneaking suspicion that Ms. Friedman may have received an unsolicited text or 2 after this interview).
On a more serious note, Kratz spoke with the ABC News show Nightline about the case, calling the series a “defense advocacy piece.” He went on to say, “[The filmmakers’] bias, their outcome, where they want the viewers to go with this, what they spoon feed the viewers, what they pick and choose by way of facts, what they leave out, importantly, causes only one reaction and only one conclusion: that Mr. Avery was innocent, and that he was the subject of planted evidence.” Kratz also discussed the evidence against Steven Avery that the doc left out, including the discovery of Avery’s DNA under the hood of victim Teresa Halbach’s vehicle and the nightstand in his bedroom where Teresa’s car key was found.
Filmmakers Moira Demos and Laura Ricciardi took to Twitter to answer questions from the show’s fans on Wednesday afternoon, using the hashtag #AskMAM. Among the questions the pair answered were why they chose to leave out the information about the discovery of Avery’s DNA on Teresa’s car (they questioned how it got there) and the recent comments alleging Avery’s violent and abusive past by Avery’s ex-fiancée Jodi Stachowski, to which they said, “We have no idea what’s behind Jodi’s recent statements.” They also addressed the Halbach family’s criticism that the doc was “one-sided”.
Question from Facebook and reply: pic.twitter.com/BXrBleGapZ
— Making A Murderer (@MakingAMurderer) January 20, 2016
I don’t think people have gotten this wrapped up in a murder mystery since Dallas and the “Who shot J.R.?” storyline. This whole case continues to captivate and the truth may never be revealed, but maybe the constant exposure could get Avery the retrial he is asking for and the matter of his guilt or innocence can be settled once and for all. Until then, there’s lots of great reading to be had.
Photo credit: YouTube, Netflix
That was a stupid interview.
She was funny as hell…when he played along, which mostly he did not because-let’s face it- he’s still a d1ck.
I know first hand that there is massive abuse within the legal system. Still, I’m not at all convinced he is innocent.
Me neither, but i don’t believe the state’s case. I think he likely could have done it, but not the way it was presented at trial.
Yes, I think the truth involves both accusations- he is guilty, and the state (Manitowoc county) conspired to plant two pieces of evidence key to his conviction. And Brendan Dassey’s “confession” should not have been allowed because they coerced if out of an intellectually impaired kid without consent of parent or benefit of councel.
He tainted the jury pool with the pre-trial press conferences. I don’t know how that is allowed without any disciplinary measures by the state bar association.
Woe upon the client who ends up with this guy as his defense lawyer. Not good news for anyone facing so much as a traffic ticket.
I thought the most troubling info that was left out of the docu was Brendon/Brandon ? while being interrogated drew a picture of handcuffs and chains he said Avery used to restrain Teresa and it was discovered that Avery purchased those two items from a hardware store 3 weeks prior to the crime.
I have a gut feeling that Avery’s guilty of the crime while also being a victim of planted and tainted evidence.
Do more research. He was told by cops about those things then told to draw them. Keep on reading. Nothing about his case in particular doesn’t stink to high heaven.
Also, there was none of her DNA on that. NONE! Yet his girlfriend’s was on there–the one locked up in jail. And his was on there. So how can their DNA be on there but not Teresa’s, when she supposedly was the last one chained up? Does not compute.
@pinky I agree that the during the interrogation should never have happened and that they led Brendon to make declarations to reinforce their case. No question all the info collected from him is suspect. But! that doesn’t address the fact that those items were purchased by Steven. That’s what I found troubling is that chains and handcuffs were purchased 3 weeks prior and even though they weren’t found they were in his possession.
@anniefannie – They were in his possession, and some type of restraint was also in Brendan’s house as well.
The thing is, for the ones that Steven purchased, only his and his girlfriend’s DNA were found.
None of the DNA was Teresa’s, so even though Steven had them in his possession, he did not use them on Teresa.
I used to have handcuffs and currently own silk rope. Does that make me a killer? Nope!
False. Jodi’s DNA was not on the restraints. It could not have been. She was in jail when he bought them. Which he did, coincidentally, around the fifth time Teresa was at Avery Salvage to photograph a vehicle on October 10, 2005.
Prosecution and law enforcement must be beyond reproach. They were not. Both defendants must be granted new trials. That’s the issue at hand, not guilt or innocence. The. End.
I swear every time I come on this site, I have to run to Google. Princess Diana yesterday, Dallas murder mystery, today.
Hopefully, the constant exposure of this case gets Steven a new and fair trial because the first one was a joke.
He is SO CREEPY. There is something about his demeanor and his mannerisms that make me think he is about to lay on top of this comedian. It is so bizarre… and his VOICE… I am more disturbed by him in this interview than I was watching MAM..
Everything you said. And calling Theresa a “little girl”?? CREEP-O!
I think that was a tactic to convey or portray Theresa as young girl verse’s an adult. Making the crime even more horrendous.
I also think that was an “on purpose accident.” Teresa was a young woman, but not a little girl. That being said, little girl or 25 year old woman, its the same amount of awful terrible tragedy in my mind.
yeah, I couldn’t get through the interview. Couldn’t make myself watch it all the way through. He gives me the creeps.
The impression I get is that he is working very hard to keep himself/his responses controlled/in check, and as a result his demeanor is strained and bizarre. Do not like. I think most women pick up on that, and it says volumes about his personality +/- character.
Let me simplify- his great efforts to appear normal make him appear to be somewhat abnormal and that is very off-putting.
On the doc he sounded very much like Jeffrey Weinerslave (I have no idea if that is printable on here – sorry) on 30Rock. Softspoken, vaguely creepy.
Agree with this times 1000 ~ this interview gave me the willies.
What gets me is the overwhelming lack of blood and DNA evidence in the bedroom and trailer were this all supposedly took place. If there was a brutal rape and murder in his home; where is all the DNA, and how could that amount of blood/bodily fluid be cleaned without a trace? Plus his house was a total mess with stuffed piled everywhere. There is no way he was capable of cleaning it all so no trace of blood/DNA was evident.
Ask yourself this: why was a person so willing to live in filth scrubbing his garage floor with bleach on the same Halloween night that a woman disappeared, a woman who he specifically requested, who he was the last person to see alive, and who turned up burned in his burn put a few days later?
They found a lot of his DNA in the garage. If he’d cleaned up hers, wouldn’t his have been cleaned up as well?
@Size Your logic fails here. There was no clean up. And there was no evidence of one.
Luminol testing reacted in the garage. It either detected bleach or a cleaned up pool of blood. An empty bottle of bleach was seized from Avery’s home. Brendan told his mother he helped Steve clean the floor with bleach that night. Brendan’s jeans from that night had bleach marks, as he told his mother. Brendan also told investigators that they cleaned the garage floor with bleach.
My source is the Dassey trial transcript, available on Reddit.
I’m a pretty clean person, but I have never cleaned my garage floor with bleach or soap or anything other than with a broom.
Aren’t they hunters? Just saying, my parents’ garage floor had quite a bit of deer blood on it on at least one occasion. Unless luminol only detects human blood.
Nothing in the Dassey confession is reliable, nor was it admissible in the Avery trial. Nothing in the Dassey trial would have been heard by the Avery jury.
The standard of proof in criminal cases is guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. The evidence in both trials did not reasonably support a verdict of guilt. Both Avery and Dassey deserve a new trial… and in Dassey’s case, his “confession” needs to be tossed and outside of that there is no evidence to support a finding of guilt.
@Betsy – Luminol reacts to the iron in blood. I assume it would react to deer blood. There is a picture of the inside of the garage available on ABC.com that shows plenty of other stains on the floor. Why was that one cleaned?
@NIC919 – Have you read the Avery trial transcript? If not, then you don’t have all of the evidence. I have not found it online. The Dassey transcript is available. I suggest you read it if you have not.
Brendan’s trial transcript actually has the information as to why Brendan and Avery were cleaning the garage floor. Brendan testified that they cleaned up a car fluid spill with gas, paint thinner and bleach. He said he frequently helped his uncle out with tasks like that and it wasn’t anything unusual. He also says Avery always kept a bottle of bleach in his bathroom. Brendan does admit that he told the officers during his interrogation ( this is the controversial one where no guardian or lawyer was present) that the stain could have been blood, but he testified in a different portion of the trial that what he told the officers during that interrogation was false.
Brendan testified that it was normal for him to help his uncle, not that it was normal for him to help his uncle clean the garage floor with bleach, gas, and paint thinner. I try to avoid relying on those portions of Brendan’s statements that can’t be otherwise corroborated, and indicated above the evidence I have seen for the fact that a portion of the garage floor was cleaned with bleach. My point was, it was out of character for the garage floor to have been cleaned by someone so un-fastidious, let alone in that manner, at that time. Guess that one was a really bad stain, as opposed to the numerous other stains visible in photos of the garage.
That’s why I think even if he did kill her, it wasn’t the way the prosecution presented it. It seemed they kept with the story Brendan told them even though it didn’t make sense.
I completely agree. If he killed her, it wasn’t done the way they presented it. In fact, whoever killed her did it in a way the prosecution and law enforcement have yet to uncover.
I don’t disagree that’s definitely possible, but why did the prosecution go with such an obviously flawed story?
I can’t imagine.
Why bleach the garage floor…that the cops. Used up with a jack hammer by the way, and still found none of teresa’s dna but burn her body 20 ft behind his house. The man had an smelter and a car crusher and knew how to work them. If he killed her he would have used them. However, if he is innocent and another man or men who were also on the property that day. Men with a history of being violent against women. Men who were arguing with Steven over who would Inherit the family business and arguing over Stevens 30 million dollar lawsuit framed him…We’ll then it’d make more sense that her bones were behind his house and her car in the junkyard and not a single spec of teresa’s dna anywhere near Steven.
This is very specific lol
Who argued with him? One of his brothers? Or his brother in law?
I’m not convinced Avery didn’t kill her, but if he did, I don’t think it happened the way the prosecution said. What happened to Brendan was awful. He would have said anything they wanted him to say with no regard to whether or not it was true. For that same reason, it’s also possible he could have been involved, because he could be so easily led.
But Kratz, ugh, I tried to finish watching the interview above and couldn’t get through it.
I think it was one of his family members (uncle or brother or brother-in-law). In one of his appeals, Steven Avery called attention to their criminal past. There is a lot of domestic violence, stalking and sexual assault in that family. Also, they lost 1/3 of their business to Stephen the moment he was released from jail. I have no idea why the documentarians didn’t point this out, since their violent behaviour toward women is all on-the-record fact.
It’s disturbing how people these days believe that a lack of forensic evidence (especially fingerprints and DNA) is more meaningful than strong circumstantial evidence. Most convictions are based on circumstantial, not forensic evidence.
I think the police absolutely tampered in this case and it’s a very dodgy case, but a lack of forensic evidence is not a meaningful reason to believe in someone’s innocence. I’ve certainly learned that from being in forensic science.