Crime Con Kicks Off With An Attack On Netflix's 'Making a Murderer'

The first-ever Crime Con kicked off today with an auditorium-sized two-hour and forty-five minute presentation by lawyer and former district attorney Ken Kratz and investigator Tom Fassbender, who both worked the Steven Avery case. As true crime fans know, Avery and his nephew Brendan Dassey were convicted of the 2005 murder of 25-year-old Teresa Halbach. The case became a national topic of conversation after Netflix released its docu-series Making a Murderer, and Kratz subsequently became a much-maligned figure.

In fact, Kratz published a book earlier this year to refute the docu-series’ suggestion that there was wrongdoing in the case’s investigation and prosecution and to open up about the sexting of a domestic abuse victim, which also came to light in the docu-series. In the book, he writes that he received thousands of death threats after the Netlix series was released. “I lost everything: my wife, my career, my house, my life savings, and my reputation," he writes. "After inpatient rehab for sex addiction, I've been 'clean' for more than six years. Yet even today, I'm defined by my regrettable past."

The presentation, which felt like a self-exoneration roadshow, did make an effective case for how Making a Murderer may have been biased by detailing what evidence the docu-series excluded. Kratz opened the talk by saying “one of the reasons we’re doing this is to show how Making a Murderer distorted the facts.

The presentation comes at an interesting time, considering that Steven Avery's attorney filed a new motion to get him a new trail on Wednesday, claiming that there's new evidence that Avery's DNA was planted. We will update this article shortly with the facts that Kratz and Fassbender feel were distorted or excluded by Making a Murderer and Avery's defense. 

[Photo: Getty Images]