Warum hast du mich getötet?

Yes, it was pacey, but it is like the film adaptation of "This meeting could have been an email".

Why was this advertised like it was going to heavily revolve around catfishing during the MySpace era ? The preview you see on the main Netflix screen doesn't play that big of a role as you think it will. The documentary is really about gang violence in Riverside, California. Honest advertising would have left me less salty with this. However, it's not done well overall. The girl lost her life because everyone around her was playing with fire nearly all their lives, the family included. From the get-go I already knew the family wasn't exactly a reliable source, especially the mom. You get even more frustrated when you hear that she was high on the night that the girl was murdered. No wonder she nearly got a poor innocent kid thrown in jail early on in the case. I couldn't stand seeing the mom any longer, she almost blew the case because she can't let go of her old street thug habits. She's no better than the thugs who killed her kid - even her sons were more level headed than her and they're gangsters.

The way they reenact the crime scene is with toy trucks and with figurines that look like the old "homies" ones from the early 2000's. That could work but it seemed really low effort in this documentary. I guess a lot of the budget went towards the MySpace page scenes. I don't know how old the little girl was that started the catfishing MySpace account, she still looks really young even now. That was a smart idea until the victim's mom ruined it. Still it's a bit scary to think of this underage girl catfishing gangsters on social media, you can tell it messed her up a bit, plus she was posing as a dead woman ! The whole thing is messed up all around.

The documentary doesn't really leave you sympathizing with anyone, it gets you upset at everyone involved more than anything. However, I did feel sympathy for the girl who started the catfish MySpace profile and the parents of the gangster who got their house burned down. They're the only people that were dragged into the middle of all this without doing anything along with the victim. I stuck around to see who pulled the trigger and what ended up happening, but the journey to get there is infuriating. The documentary could've been a lot of shorter or honestly this could've been an episode in a gang violence docuseries or something - the case wasn't worth a whole documentary to itself.

All in all, the documentary doesn't teach you anything new. It sounds morbid to say this but this is too much of a simple crime to make a "true crime" documentary about. This girl was sadly surrounded by trouble and it was bound to happen at some point. It happens every day in gang riddled communities and it's always unfortunate. Her particular case, the only interesting thing was the MySpace catfishing to catch the culprit.

I'd skip this one. Just Google the case if you're curious. Don't give any of these people the attention - especially the mom.

...a former gang member who witnessed the crime is the only likable non-police character (with the possible exception of the victim's young cousin). I won't disclose his name here, as that would be a spoiler. But I found him to be the most articulate, intelligent, and sympathetic person in this horror story (not including the police). I would actually enjoy learning more about his story, as he seems to have come out the other side of a very rough start in life. Good for him.

In a "documentary" like this, you would expect that the family of the victim would have your full sympathy - surely there are "good guys" and "bad guys," right? Sadly, that's not the case here. The family of the victim (especially that mother!) is not a likable cast of characters. They initially refused to cooperate with the police! I literally had to rewind that part three times to ensure I was hearing it correctly. With a family like that, the poor victim never stood a chance. I am impressed with the restraint the detective demonstrated - if the mother of the victim wouldn't assist with the case, I would have been thinking, "ok, good luck, then!"

If there is anything to be learned here, it is that you reap what you sow. If you are unfortunate enough to be born into a family like that, do your best to get as far away as you can.

The poor girl's Mum is probably my least favourite person in this whole thing and the film doesn't go far enough to really show that. It feels like it frames too many of the things she does as these well-meaning acts that had unfortunate consequences and not how it really was with her just being a stupid, petulant woman with cognition reduced to ash from her meth abuse that has no ability to think about things in any sort of acceptable way.

A story that revolves around a terrible tragedy, and the uselessness of revenge mentality. I think the makers of this film were trying to point that out definitively, and they did so through flawless editing of what had to be mountains of interview footage.

The film never takes sides, and has no political agenda. The parties involved lay out the story, and it's left up to the viewer to draw conclusions. It's paced just about right, not too long, no repeating itself. Every interview came across as relevant. A good watch.