Statement From PETA re Steven Avery’s Admitted Cruelty to Animals

Statement from PETA Senior Director Colleen O’Brien in response to Making a Murderer‘s incomplete treatment of Steven Avery’s prior abuse of animals:

Too often, cruelty to animals is swept under the rug, as seems to have happened in Making a Murderer when filmmakers omitted specific details about how Avery, at age 20, doused the family cat with lighter fluid before throwing him onto a fire. Avery was convicted of misdemeanor cruelty to animals for killing the cat and served only nine months. Fortunately, today, the FBI recognizes cruelty to animals as a precursor to further violence and tracks animal abuse like it does homicides, and cruelty to animals is also a felony in most states. The filmmakers were wrong to gloss over this important information, and viewers are rightly upset.

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 Ingrid E. Newkirk

“Almost all of us grew up eating meat, wearing leather, and going to circuses and zoos. We never considered the impact of these actions on the animals involved. For whatever reason, you are now asking the question: Why should animals have rights?” READ MORE

— Ingrid E. Newkirk, PETA President and co-author of Animalkind