On December 18, Netflix released a 10-episode documentary that became America's next true-crime obsession. Making a Murderer, a series that took 10 years to film, followed the imprisonment, exoneration, then second arrest, trial, and murder conviction of Steven Avery. Through interviews with defense attorneys, the series painted Avery as a victim—a man targeted by the Manitowoc County investigators, who could have allegedly planted evidence to secure his imprisonment. Of course, today nearly five months after the series's release, Avery remains in jail despite the petitions, essays, articles, and worldwide attention to the case.

If anything, Making a Murderer has so far done very little other than draw public scrutiny to people and their actions nearly a decade ago. While the victims and Avery have been subject to widespread sympathy, the Manitowoc County officials handling the case have become the villains—specifically prosecutor Ken Kratz. Appearing smug and immoral in Making a Murderer, Kratz resigned from his position in 2010 after a scandal broke that he had been sexting a 26-year-old victim of domestic violence whose ex-boyfriend he was prosecuting.

Kratz told Dr. Drew in an interview that this public outrage directed his way put him in a dark place. Kratz said that (Correction: After the Avery trial and texting scandal) he became suicidal. "I actually put a gun in my mouth and was really, really having a hard time with having kind of gone from very well-respected and obviously very into my job to really vilified within maybe a 48- or 72-hour period," Kratz said. And the case itself, Kratz said, brought on a number of other hardships, including anxiety, insomnia, and a dependency on prescription drugs.

"With the pressures I was under after the Avery case, this all began, I would suspect, as a result of the Avery case. It was a case that I was very much in the public eye, very much in the limelight for 18 straight months. We were on the front page and really in a very, very high-profile case," Kratz said. Though Making a Murderer is presented to us as entertainment, it's important to remember that the subjects of this documentary are actual people.

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[h/t: Fusion

Matt Miller Culture Editor Matt is the Culture Editor at Esquire where he covers music, movies, books, and TV—with an emphasis on all things Star Wars, Marvel, and Game of Thrones.

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