The line between justice and revenge blurs when a devastated family uses social media to track down the people who killed 24-year-old Crystal Theobald.
Been a while since I’ve watched Unusual Suspects or Lieutenant Joe Kenda on Investigation Discovery but I know from heart that I am somewhat of a true crime connoisseur, thanks to my mom and grandma SPAMMING the hell out of Law And Order back in the day. So I found it hard to keep that side of me locked away when I took a look at “why did you kill me?”, the documentary looking into the investigation of Crystal Theobald’s murder in 2006. Right off the bat, I’ll say that I know the difference between somebody obviously trying to spell out the details of a horrific event while giving insight into the elements of the how, what and why and a hack who’s no further from paying respects to those who lost their lives than Fox was from ever making a good Fant4stic movie.
Bad analogy aside, the point is I’m aware of when somebody is doing these kinds of things right or not. And I must say this is one of the weakest documentaries I have ever seen.
From a technical standpoint, it was standing out from the cinematography alone and even then, it wasn’t all that special to begin with. There’s well-placed archive footage regarding whichever character or situation, everything is framed rather nicely, nothing stuck out out of the ordinary and it’s unfortunate direct to video quality is a tad bit bitter than what I saw in Cabin 28. Alas though, that’s all I got for the positives.
There were definitely moments where director Fredrick Munk doesn’t exactly clarify the narratives at stake here, especially when the details get convoluted and confusing down the road, which is an utter death sentence when you’re going over murder cases that are designed to do that. It definitely doesn’t help that I didn’t really sympathize with anybody in this documentary outside of Crystals cousin Jaimie and a few select former 5150 gang members. Again, I’m supposed to feel bad for the mother of the victim who was high at the time she died and was playing with fire which led to her daughter dying in the first place? Hell, nearly EVERYONE here in this documentary was playing with fire which sadly led to Crystal’s death. Not only that but it also helped sink in that not only was the full story never being told but the self-victimization that came with it was both rather tasteless and clearly unreliable. And if the pacing wasn’t a big turnaway, perhaps the dry, cold and bland concept wearing itself thin will suffice.
What else am I even supposed to say about this? Nothing new or even interesting was showcased here and even when it did regarding the MySpace interactions, the constant catfishing during that era and seeing some of the gangsters behind closed doors, it was still way too simple and too stupid of a crime story to be made into a documentary. I’m not even gonna give it credit of doing the bare minimum of keeping my eyes open until the ending because the journey of getting from point A to point B was absolutely insipid.
