The district attorney who prosecuted Steven Avery in 2005 for the murder of 25-year-old Teresa Halbach has been bombarded with death threats following the December premiere of the Netflix series Making a Murderer.
Ken Kratz, the former Calumet County district attorney, told Nancy Grace on Wednesday that he has received thousands of threats on his life and on the life of his family from those who believe he was involved in the framing of Avery.
“I have no problem with people talking about me personally, but when I read up to 3,000 emails … about they want to rape my daughter and they want me to watch, those kind of things happening. They not only want to kill me, but they want to harm my family. Those kind of things are way beyond what’s reasonable,” Kratz told Grace.
Avery served 18 years in prison for a sexual assault conviction out of Manitowoc County, Wis., for which he was exonerated by DNA evidence in 2003. Then in 2005, Avery and and his nephew Brendan Dassey were convicted of Halbach’s murder.
Kratz was brought in as a special prosecutor for the case.
Avery’s lawyers argued their client was framed by county law enforcement for the Halbach murder. His lawyers did not accuse law enforcement of killing Halbach, but argued that officers believed so strongly that he carried out the slaying, they planted evidence in order to ensure a conviction. Dassey’s lawyers argued that the 16-year-old’s confession to law enforcement that he was involved in the murder was coerced.
Kratz said some of the threats of violence toward him and his family have been very specific, but he did not elaborate.
Kratz also received a “glitter bomb” that exploded in his workplace and “caused significant damage to our office equipment and things like that,” he said.
“What is really disturbing … is that opportunity that some individuals are taking not just to complain about a verdict or a decision in a case a long time ago, but feeling to take the opportunity to attack me personally, my business or those other persons that were involved in this case,” Kratz told Grace.
Law enforcement is “collecting evidence” concerning the threats, Kratz said.
The documentary about Halbach’s murder has skyrocketed in popularity since premiering. Even celebrities have weighed in on the case.
On Wednesday, a petition to the White House to free the two men met the required 100,000 signatures to elicited an official response, which is pending.
Manitowoc County Sheriff Robert Hermann previously told The Hollywood Reporter that the information Netflix viewers got is skewed and important pieces of the picture were omitted from the documentary.
