Steven Avery is escorted into a Manitowoc County Courtroom for his preliminary hearing Dec. 6, 2005, in Manitowoc. Credit: Associated Press

By of the

One of the Manitowoc County Sheriff's Office investigators who had a central role in the Steven Avery series "Making a Murderer" is firing back — at Wisconsin reporters.

"I would like to personally admonish you for continuing to publish inaccurate information and for fueling the threats we continue to receive," Lt. Andrew Colborn says in an email sent Tuesday to a USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin reporter and reprinted on Gannett's Wisconsin websites.

The email concludes with what Colborn calls "a word of caution":

"Be careful what you wish for. If Steven Avery is ever freed, he may just become your neighbor, and he may want to bring his nephew with him."

The email reportedly was sent from Colborn's official email account and specifically criticizes an article by reporter John Ferak that lists the main figures in the popular Netflix documentary series and seeks to answer the question "Where are they now?"

The documentary has fueled a staggering amount of reaction on all sides, from people who think Avery was framed for a murder he didn't commit to others who condemn the series for taking Avery's side. He was convicted in 2007 of killing 25-year-old photographer Teresa Halbach with help from his nephew, Brendan Dassey.

Colborn, a sergeant at the time of the killing, is one of two Manitowoc County investigators who receive the most scrutiny in the 10-part series, which documents the defense team's unsuccessful attempt to prove investigators planted evidence in Avery's home and at his family's salvage yard.

The other investigator who figures prominently in the series is Lt. James Lenk. The Gannett article, dated Saturday, notes that Lenk has since retired to Arizona.

Colborn's email rips Gannett for publishing "private information about Mr. Lenk's residence, as he is now a citizen in poor health trying to live a quiet life away from this media circus," — an argument rejected by Joel Christopher, vice president of news for USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin.

"We, in a very general sense, reported where Lenk is," Christopher said in a story about Colborn's email, adding that he was "surprised by (Colborn's) strong reaction."

"Lenk is a public figure in this case, like it or not," Christopher said. "We didn't print his address. ... We sent a reporter to speak with him, which is absolutely legitimate and there's no apology necessary for that."

"A word of caution, be careful what you wish for," writes Manitowoc County Sheriff's Office Lt. Andrew Colborn to USA... Posted by Joel Christopher on Tuesday, January 19, 2016

Gannett, which operates 10 daily newsrooms in Wisconsin, including in Manitowoc, is in the process of buying Journal Media Group, parent company of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

The Gannett sites in Wisconsin have been aggressive about pursuing stories and updates on Avery and "Making a Murderer" since the series was released online on Dec. 18. Their coverage now includes a daily newsletter devoted to the series and an upcoming live chat with reporters about the murder case.

Get the full story: Track the Steven Avery saga with ongoing updates and the details #MakingaMurderer left out — https://t.co/kTBSAnPE2f — Post-Crescent Media (@PostCrescent) January 19, 2016

News websites publishing volumes of stories on series Gannett is not alone in following the latest developments closely and bringing back old coverage. News websites around the country and around the world have published volumes of articles reacting to the series. The Journal Sentinel compiled its own coverage of the 2007 trial in an online archive, and reporter Tom Kertscher, who covered the trial, spent two days watching the Netflix series for an article that reassesses the evidence against Avery. ICYMI: My analysis of #MakingAMurderer and the Steven Avery trial. https://t.co/nd8F9BIoah pic.twitter.com/jJ5juKUjCe — Tom Kertscher (@KertscherNews) January 14, 2016 Others who covered the trial have given their own takes. Chris Duffy, a former WBAY-TV reporter, wrote in the Minneapolis StarTribune that "Making a Murderer" is a riveting documentary but shouldn't be confused with journalism. "It gets scary when nearly half a million people sign a petition requesting that the president exonerate a man — who was found guilty by a jury — based on what they learned from a one-sided piece of entertainment," Duffy writes. He now works for a public relations firm in St. Paul, Minn. And WISN-AM host Dan O'Donnell, who also covered the 2007 trial, has gone as far as to produce his own 10-part audio series poking holes in each episode of "Making a Murderer." His series is called "Rebutting a Murderer." There is a ready audience for such content, given the frenzy of debate over the series fueled in part by users of social networks like Twitter and Reddit, as well as people simply searching online for anything old or new about Avery. The website OnMilwaukee, for example, has received quite a bit of traffic with its reports by Jessica McBride analyzing the Netflix series. "In my 20 years of working online, I've never seen the kind of engagement effect that #makingamurder has produced," OnMilwaukee publisher Andy Tarnoff tweeted on Friday, with a graphic showing an exponential increase in the site's traffic since late December. Much of that increase, as seen in a Jan. 5 tweet by Tarnoff, appeared to come from two McBride stories — one with the headline "Who killed Teresa Halbach? The four alternative suspects" and the other with the headline "14 pieces of troubling evidence 'Making a Murderer' left out or glossed over." Just passed 3k concurrents on @onmilwaukee. More traffic in last week than in previous month. #MakingAMurderer pic.twitter.com/EYooTxaF3r — Andy Tarnoff (@AndyTarnoff) January 5, 2016 Avery's backstory is arguably one of the big reasons the documentary and recent news coverage are being gobbled up. He was exonerated in 2003 of a rape that was mistakenly pinned on him in 1985, a wrongful conviction for which he served 18 years in prison before being released. He was pursuing a lawsuit against Manitowoc County and top county officials when Halbach's charred remains were found on his property in November 2005. Because of Avery's lawsuit, the Calumet County district attorney and sheriff were called in to oversee the homicide investigation and the case against Avery. The documentary series focuses closely on ways that Manitowoc County officials were still involved at key moments of the investigation, and those arguments were made at length by Avery's defense attorneys at his trial. It wasn't enough to clear Avery in 2007. The jury found him guilty of first-degree intentional homicide and of being a felon in possession of a firearm, and he was sentenced to life in prison. Dassey, his nephew, also was convicted. Since the Netflix series came out, Avery has gotten a new legal team while Dassey has an appeal pending in federal court.