By Jax West
So I read that Ken Kratz was on Dr. Drew’s Podcast talking about ‘Making a Murderer’ and since I am not able to review his wonderful speaking event he was scheduled to have next month in Rockford Illinois as it was cancelled because no one was buying any tickets, I figured I might as well see what he had to say to Dr. Drew. Let me also say I am so disgusted with Dr. Drew. I have had my own website since 2000 that is devoted to reality TV. So I have watched a lot of Dr. Drew. I always liked the man and thought he truly cared about people and was someone who would look at facts. I don’t believe that anymore and am so disappointed in him.
One of the things I cover on my website is ‘Big Brother’. I have been covering it since its first season. For those who don’t know what that is, they put people in a house for three months and there are cameras where us crazy stalkers can watch them 24/ 7. I have been watching and transcribing this show for years. So I am a pretty fast typist. I treated the podcast like that. I listened to it and typed what Ken Kratz said. I didn’t cover anything. I would nod off at times and other times I would be in the fetal position rocking as his voice just creeps me out. But I got the highlights. If you want to listen for yourself you can do so here: http://drdrew.com/2016/ddp222/
The first thing they talked about his Kratz’s drug addiction. Kratz blamed the high profile case for taking drugs. He struggled when things went back to normal, had anxiety issues, and used Xanax and Ambien. It got away from him. Then he started needing those things during his day. He could perform his job duties pretty well but some of the other behaviors that occurred were from lowered inhibitions and his other personality and his narcissism. It wasn’t until after treatment after this whole thing blew up when he became suicidal and actually put a gun in his mouth. He was in a dark place and is really fortunate to come out on the other side. He has 5.5 years sobriety of prescription drugs. He is in NA and SAA.
He is a defense attorney now. Says it’s not a whole lot different. When you’re a prosecutor you look for the weaknesses and holes in the case.
His Xanax use wasn’t really that much over the top. He wasn’t using more than 2 milligrams a day. Dr. Drew said that is a big dose to be on every day and you will have withdrawal after a week. Kratz said his prescription was for 1 but he was self-medicating. He said he is not one to blame others like the doctors for not seeing his abuse. But they do hand it out like candy.
He was having marital issues as well. The inhibitions seemed to melt away. It manifests itself in sexual marital affairs and hitting on women. Eventually, within his profession. Looking back he thinks it is absolutely deplorable. He was doing this to crime victims and he was the chairman of a victims rights board. Then he got involved in texting with a crime victim. It doesn’t get much worse than that. What the hell was he thinking? There’s no good decision making or upside to that. Your brain is really hijacked and can’t make any meaningful decisions with the front part of your brain but with the pleasure center in the middle.
It took him losing everything. He was able to keep the plates spinning in all his different lives pretty well. Attorneys are pretty good at multi-tasking. When you have a powerful job like District Attorney not many people will call you on it. They aren’t doing you any favors by doing that. His behavior became more and more erratic and risk taking and it wasn’t going to be a good ending. He is really fortunate it wasn’t worse. He lost his career and basically everything. Whatever happened to him was from him having crashed from the craziness that was his life.
There are 22 individuals in treatment at Hazelton and when you talk about hyper sexuality it is such a secretive shame filled thing that you engage yourself in but the people in treatment with him all had familiar stories. Doctors and CEOs. They all had very high profile jobs. He came out of his fog when his director said who are you? He was the least well known person in that group. Dr Drew said Tiger Woods was in that facility.
Kratz is really proud of this. After his stint there, there were 8-10 of them that went through all this drama together and they bonded. They did a support group every Saturday for an hour and a half and would check in with each other and continue their recovery program. You realize it’s not just you and you don’t have to suffer anymore in isolation.
Patrick R. Krill from Hazelton says it’s nice to make Krat’z acquaintance and congratulates him on 5.5 years of sobriety. He says this is consistent with a lot of attorneys and judges in the country. They self-medicate to deal with their anxiety and slowly it gets away from you. People around you turn a blind eye. Not only is it a boys will be boys atmosphere but they are in their own glass house.
Kratz said there is almost an institutional propping up of attorneys. What he has tried to do with his story in being very public is to reduce the shame and say if he can make it through the media storm that he did and that there are others like him that are willing to help these professionals without judgment and they don’t have to lose everything.
Since MaM came out, his Kratz’s Twitter, Facebook and website, were really attacked mercilessly and his life was threatened. It was Cyber bullying. So he doesn’t have the access he would like to have with other citizens who have questions. He always prided himself of making himself available. There were some troubling threats not just to him but his family and associates. He says to be targeted in such a direct and hate filled way for being part of that trial is a shame.
The one book they have signed to do with a publisher is the Avery book. His goal is to eventually write three different books. The Dassey case is every bit as interesting as the Avery case for different reasons. With the false confession and manipulation that is perceived as his own family sacrificed and the plea offer he accepted that was thrwarted because it would make Steven’s case more difficult. Brendan was given the opportunity to testify against his uncle but because of his much less involvement in the series of crimes he was offered to serve 15 years in prison and he accepted that plea bargain but it wasn’t his attorneys who nixed the deal but his Mother and Grandfather urging him in calls not to accept it and to go to trial and this was real disturbing calls that it would hurt Steven’s case. This family lived an almost like cult like existence on the salvage yard with Steven being the center of everything that went on. Brendan was much less involved and as a prosecutor he said unfortunately Brendan was made to choose a path that only led to life in prison. It’s sad. It’s not something you want to believe a Mother or Grandfather would engage in but it happened and it will be part of his book and part of the story as he will finally get to tell the other side and hopefully be able to show the general public the kind of evidence that was presented at the 7-week trial. The jury didn’t have any trouble dispelling those and found them guilty.
Dr. Drew said they were watching a television show and being a judge and jury based on that. Kratz said it was what was spoon-fed to you in the docu-drama. They picked and chose the facts you got to see and that’s not all what the jury got to see. When you realize the editing and omission of evidence it’s really troubling and irresponsible on how that was shown. That they would call it a documentary when it is an advocacy piece. This may not be all of the evidence but a relative sample of what the jury was shown and a good faith conclusion to what had happened. But when your design is not to tell the real story but advocacy and to lead the audience to a specific conclusion that Avery was convicted of a wrongful conviction or there was police corruption. They weren’t shy of talking about well thought of police officers without any proof behind it. Just casting them as the villains and didn’t make it at all subtle that Kratz was the ringleader in all this. It’s amazing to him that the prosecutor and the cops who work to convict were really, in Kratz’s opinion, a really dangerous psychopath here because the evidence pointed to that and they, in a very sly way, turned the tables and made Avery into a victim and the prosecution into the villain.
Dr. Drew thinks Avery raped her and threw her in the car and hit her in the head and shot her in the car. Kratz said MaM said we presented two theories but he claims that’s not true. We said it happened in the garage. Avery shot Teresa Halbach on the garage floor. Kratz’s theory was, and he never gets to give his theory, he can only talk about the evidence but his theory was there was a tarp where this was happening on and that would explain so much about where it happened and there wouldn’t be blood on the garage floor. Brendan said they threw her in her own SUV to decide what to do with her body. That was real consistent. We didn’t know that until his statement why her blood was in her car. Not just where there’s blood but where there’s not blood. It’s on the side but not on the carpet so that suggests she was wrapped in a tarp and her bleeding head was against the side and no blood on the carpet itself.
Sometimes you’re not going to be able to answer all the questions or put all the pieces together. It’s unfortunate. You don’t know at the beginning. They didn’t find her bones for the first 4 days. The arson investigator walked past the burn pit and saw it was charred bone. Cops had been walking past for days. They didn’t see it but the arson investigator did. He knew what it looked like. It was happenstance an arson investigator was there. It was fortuitous. It was a 38-acre crime scene.
He said Avery didn’t have the opportunity to smash up the car. It was by the car crusher but it was a working business and there were people who work there and people there all day, every day. The Monday afternoon it happened, and Saturday Avery went to the cottage with the family and had planned to come back that afternoon and Kratz’s theory was that would be the first time Avery would be on the property with the opportunity to crush the car. Avery hadn’t been alone on the property to do it.
The defense allowed MaM to describe Avery’s prior history. Burning the cat he described as hanging out with the wrong crowd. Avery soaked the cat in oil and gas and threw him on the fire. Some of the troubling facts they never tell you is the cat jumped out of the fire and Avery threw it back in the fire to watch it burn. That’s a precursor to many individuals, mass murderers and serial killers, what kind of process they have. Their sadistic nature. It starts on animals. There were many crimes of violence. Pointing firearms at people. Running people off the road. And a couple rapes he was alleged to have done that the jury never heard about. When someone ends up in a rape lineup it’s not an accident they’re in there. Avery had behaved up to that point, it’s a real tragedy he was wrongfully convicted and had a legitimate claim of being wronged and then got out of prison and have that lawsuit pending and have a real chance to turn his life around but had such an impact on so many people but Kratz doesn’t want us to forget about Teresa Halbach and her family. It shouldn’t be relegated to a footnote. Every opportunity he gets to mention that he takes it.
Dr. Drew said he heard Avery was masturbating on people’s cars. Kratz said he was convicted of it. That’s when he drove that woman off the road. They weren’t just allegations. Dr. Drew said their IQ made it difficult. Kratz said Avery was very savvy. He was able to really avoid lots of apprehension and hiding of evidence and things like that. He couldn’t hide everything. DNA eventually caught up with him. He suspects the 18 years Avery spent in prison that he learned very well. They had a cult like existence. This family made up for each other’s deficits. They would turn to this family system to survive and Avery had his strengths and that he’s quite charming. Dr. Drew said he thinks of fetal alcohol syndrome and wonders if that’s what it is.
So that was the end of that crap fest. Now it’s time for my personal opinion. So does Kratz think we are really supposed to feel sorry for him that he jumped at the opportunity to prosecute this big case where he soaked up every ounce of the limelight he could find, won not one both two cases, and that caused him so much trauma that he had to resort to drugs? Say what?!? That county was overwhelmingly anti-Avery/ Dassey. There was no Netflix Documentary. No one knew this story. The only people spoon-fed were the people of Manitowoc County by Kratz’s sweaty press conference and then the local press not attempting to investigate the true facts of the case and parroting what the prosecution told them. Are you fucking kidding me right now? Sorry for the language but Kratz warrants that and so much more.
So we are supposed to feel so bad for sweaty Kratz that after winning two high profile cases and getting awards for it that he had to turn to a life of pills that got him to prey on assault victims to victimize them a second time. Sorry but the only people I feel bad in that situation is the poor women who were forced to have sex with “The Prize”.
Why does this guy continue to utter such complete BS and anyone believes it? Wrong again, sweaty Kratz. He convicted Steven and Brendan using different circumstances. Yes, he is saying in both cases she was ultimately killed in the garage. But the story he tells leading up to the alleged murder is not the same. Steven was not convicted of rape. The story Kratz tries to sell is that Bobby Dassey saw Teresa go in Steven’s trailer and the ONLY proof he has that she was in there is there is an Auto Trader magazine on the desk. Funny, as both of the other customers also had the magazine in their homes. So was she killed there too? There is absolutely NO evidence Teresa was in that trailer. None. No evidence Brendan was ever in that trailer. No evidence a rape ever occurred. What is the key phrase here? NO EVIDENCE!!!
Where I am really going to lose it, is when he talks about the Avery family. I respect that the family doesn’t want their loved ones to admit guilt when they’re innocent. Steven always owns up to what he has done wrong. But he won’t say he did something he didn’t do. Brendan was just a scared boy who was manipulated by some bully cops since he was Steven’s alibi and would say anything they wanted him to say and more. Brendan thought he was going back to class. He had no idea what was happening to him. If you ask Brendan his story it was always consistent. He got home from school, played video games, watched TV, etc. It’s only when he is questioned multiple times for hours and told what to think and say does his story change. Even after O’Kelly told him what pictures to draw when he was told to write up his story he still told the same one. When is his story not consistent? When he was forced by law enforcement to LIE! It’s easy to remember to tell the truth. It’s hard to remember a lie.
This is all the thinking about Kratz I can do for the day. Please add your comments to this article. What do you have to say about Kratz’s theory?
Please browse this website to learn more about the case. And be sure to visit our Free Brendan Facebook page to keep up to date with current events. We have some special things in the works too. Always remember that a threat to justice anywhere is a threat to justice AVERYwhere. (I know Bruce hates when I use that phrase. LoL)