A Mother’s Revenge: Why Did You Kill Me?
How far would you go for revenge? ‘Why Did You Kill Me?’. Netflix (2023).
By R.J.F.
Usually, when someone gets catfished, it’s not by the person they murdered.
Revenge and retribution: we’ve all either taken part in these or have wished that we did. Every one of us has been wronged at some point in our lives. Every one of us has made a decision to either right those wrongs in some capacity or to let it go and hope that karma would work its magic. The Netflix true crime documentary Why Did You Kill Me? deals with the idea of revenge and the lengths at which one will go to seek it, lawfully or unlawfully.
In this documentary, a young woman, Crystal, is killed by a gang member, and her family finds a way to bring the people responsible for her killing to justice. Part of their scheme is to entrap these gang members by using social media in order to give the police information and seek some revenge of their own.
Crystal’s mom, Belinda, would not rest until her daughter’s death was avenged, and Why Did You Kill Me? tells that tale.
It’s an easy, yet intriguing watch that runs for less than an hour and a half. I sometimes don’t like to watch documentaries like this because they bring me down. I find that my mind drifts when I’m watching, and I start to think about all parties involved, not just the person who was murdered. I think about the victim’s family and how they are negatively changed forever; and I also think about the killer’s family, too. Because of the killer’s stupid actions, their family also loses a family member when that person pays for their crimes. There are never any winners in situations like this.
The documentary briefly explores the background of some of the gang members and how they were drawn into the gang. Some of their family members were interviewed in order to paint a clearer picture of the young men involved in the killing. We like to think of people that kill others as these heartless monsters that deserve to suffer for their crimes. Sometimes, they are heartless monsters, but sometimes they are just people who lost their way and went down the wrong path. It creates a more complex picture to the entire story of Crystal’s murder.
What I liked about Why Did You Kill Me? was the intrigue of catfishing these gang members. Crystal’s family created a MySpace account with her pictures and a fake name in order to lure these guys into giving out information and to play with their emotions. At one point, Belinda was going to set up as many gang members as she could to ambush them in the desert! Her rightful anger, obsession, and desire to make them suffer the way she was suffering is relatable. I can understand, as anyone can, her overwhelming desire to kill the people involved in killing her daughter.
From ‘Why Did You Kill Me?’. Netflix (2023).
The only part of this documentary that I thought was dumb was the reenactment of the shooting as shown through toy cars, miniature models of the people involved, and a large scale model of the street the shooting occurred on; it seemed a little cheesy to have Belinda pushing these toy cars around as she rehashes the events of the crime. I guess the purpose was to give the viewer an understanding of what that night looked like, but it was strange and probably would’ve been more dramatic if there was a live-action reenactment.
I don’t want to give away too much more of the ins and outs of how they brought different gang members to justice, but it isn’t as straightforward as Crystal’s family giving intel to the cops; there’s more nuance to it, and there are more parties involved. As with any true crime documentary, there are twists that may or may not be obvious.
Why Did You Kill Me? will make you think about what you’d be willing to do in order to seek justice for loved ones, and how the age of social media has made solving crimes possible for everyone.
