For those who have been captivated with Netflix’s “Making a Murderer,” the name Ken Kratz will ring a bell.
Kratz was the special prosecutor tasked with obtaining a guilty verdict against Steven Avery in the murder of Teresa Halbach.
Kratz has been making the media rounds lately to defend his name and promote his upcoming book about the trial.
Kratz is looking to cash in on the back of Steven Avery.
For those who haven’t had the time to binge-watch on Netflix, “Making a Murderer” is the in-depth story of a Wisconsin man, Steven Avery.
In 1985, Avery was wrongly accused of the sexual assault of a women in his home town.
After a petty feud with the local police, he was quickly convicted and served 18 years in prison despite no evidence being found against him.
Avery’s conviction was overturned based upon DNA evidence.
Happy to be released, Avery attempted to regain his lost years and filed a $36 million civil suit against the Manitowoc sheriff and other county officials.
Avery’s case was making headway and the sheriff’s office was caught red-handed suppressing evidence that would have acquitted Avery.
Manitowoc’s insurance providers, that would have cushioned the government from a civil suit, also found reason to not cover the corrupt acts of the county.
But just days after depositions were held in the civil case that were damning to county officials, a local photographer, Teresa Halbach, who had been last seen by Avery, turned up missing.
Halbach’s vehicle was eventually found on Avery’s 40 acres of property along with bone fragments of Teresa’s body that had been cremated.
The story gets more bizarre from there and all signs point to a conspiracy by county officials and the Manitowoc’s sheriff’s office to murder Teresa Halbach and frame Steven Avery to avoid a massive judgment against the local government.
Despite a lack of physical evidence that had not been tampered with, Manitowoc County was successful in prosecuting Avery and his nephew, Brendan Dassey.
(Dassey, was a 16 year-old child with a learning disability and an IQ of 69. On multiple occasions investigators interrogated him without an attorney to obtain a false confession – Dassey had no clue what was going on and was upset that he would be missing Wrestlemania . . . sad.)
Back to Ken Kratz, the smug prosecutor who turned a blind eye to the evidence of corruption within Manitowoc’s case against Steven Avery, recently wrote to Avery demanding that he “finally tell all of the details.”
The full letter from Kratz to Avery read:
Dear Mr. Avery:
I got your letter dated August 28, 2015, wherein you tell me that your visitor list is full, and ask if I checked out other fingerprints on Teresa Halbach’s car, telling me that these people could have “set you up” for this.
I apologize for misunderstanding your letters from a couple years ago, as I thought you were interested in being honest about what happened and finally telling the whole story to someone. Since I’m the person who probably knows more about your case than anyone else, I hoped that you would choose me to tell your story to.
Unfortunately, you only want to continue your nonsense about being set up. That’s too bad, because you had ONE opportunity to finally tell all the details, but now that will never happen.
By the way, the difference between you and famous convicted murderers from the past is they told their whole truthful story to someone, who then wrote a book about what actually happened and people got to understand both sides. I was willing to do that for you . . . but if you are going to continue to lie about what happened between you and Ms. Halback, I am not interested.
If you change your mind, and want to tell your honest story someday, please contact me.
Sincerely yours,
Kenneth R. Kratz
The special prosecutor’s manipulating words to Avery are par for the course for the prosecution. Avery, who has an IQ of only 70 (borerline moron), was an easy target for prosecution.
Ken Kratz, however, didn’t realize that Avery was able to secure a new attorney, Kathleen Zellner, who obtained his letter.
Zellner who is by all accounts, an honest-to-goodness legal badass, posted Kratz’s letter on Twitter with the note, “My client will never admit guilt but so appreciate you sending your DNA on envelope.”
Oddly enough, Zellner’s Twitter account was then hacked and seven tweets about planted evidence were removed.
Steven Avery’s appeal of his murder conviction is now moving forward in the courts with Kathleen Zellner taking the lead.
Kratz, rather than focusing on his book, may want to dedicate his time to proving his innocence in the deliberate and wrongful prosecution of Avery.
