Why Did You Kill Me? | 2021 | TV-MA | – 3.5.5

Why is “Why Did You Kill Me?” rated TV-MA? The TV Parental Guidelines Monitoring Board rating indicates that “this program is specifically designed to be viewed by adults and therefore may be unsuitable for children under 17.” The Kids-In-Mind.com evaluation includes online flirting and references to sex, several references to the murder of a young woman by a gang member and the attempts to solve the crime by infiltrating the gang, a house fire (there are no injuries), threats of violence, and about 4 F-words and other strong language. Read our parents’ guide below for details on sexual content, violence & strong language.

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Documentary about the Riverside, California murder of Chrystal Theobald and the efforts by her mother (Belinda Lane) and her family to solve the crime by using a fake MySpace profile developed by a 14-year-old niece (Jaimie McIntyre), and created to lure suspects from a large violent gang. Features Rick Wheeler, William “Jokes” Sotelo, Manuel and William-David Lemus and Julio Hereda. Directed by Fredrick Munk. Several lines of dialogue are spoken in Spanish with English subtitles. [Running Time: 1:23]

Why Did You Kill Me? SEX/NUDITY 3

 – A 14-year-old girl represents herself online as her adult cousin, whose fake profile as a 17-year-old states, “I will be your biggest mistake. I will be your deepest darkest secret”; she posts on the website every day and says that her dead cousin told her, “Make the boys come to you,” and she befriends dozens of young men in their teens and early 20s, some of whom want to meet in person and one who says, “I love you.” A teen girl refers to her false identity as a “booty call” and says that she was afraid to meet any of the men she encountered online. A young man states on his MySpace profile that he watches pornography, enjoys marijuana, and is in the gang “5150” and is down to kill.
► A man says his girlfriend is four months pregnant.
► A photo of a woman wearing a wedding dress shows cleavage and her bare shoulders in a strapless gown. A photo of a man shows him shirtless, with tattoo designs across his chest and arms.

Why Did You Kill Me? VIOLENCE/GORE 5

 – We see a few blurry flashbacks of two young men in a fistfight, and of half a dozen nighttime shootings where we can hear gunshots and see flashes of light from the guns (no victims are shown). A few flashbacks show two police cruisers parked in a street at night with lights flashing and we hear sirens; in one of these flashbacks, a man says a woman in a house at the scene was hysterical.
► A woman and a man in several scenes discuss a 2006 murder of a twenty-four-year-old woman and that she was shot in the head; we hear that the victim was riding in a car with her brother at night and their car was chased by three other cars until they stopped at an intersection and a man exited one of the cars pointing his handgun at the victim’s car and shooting six times, blowing out the windows on the passenger side and killing the woman (in several flashbacks, we see flashes of light and hear the pops of each shot and later see the broken out windows of the empty car); the brother sobs and says that he drove to a grocery store and carried his sister from the car to the entrance to get help and we see footage of him crying over her body lying at the entrance and a crying young woman says of the victim, “She never woke up.”
► The film focuses on a woman in interviews where she states that her twenty-four-year-old daughter was murdered, she does not like the police, and the police are incapable of solving the crime; her comments include: “I’m gonna get him. They’re gonna pay. It’s gonna be the end of their world. I made a plan to murder people (said twice). I was suicidal and homicidal.” A woman says that she planned to kill a man, but her sons talked her out of it. A police computer screen lists many major crimes committed by a woman and her three sons; the woman served time in prison for drug use and trafficking and was high on meth the day and night her daughter was killed; her sons committed numerous assaults with AK-47 as well as stabbings and fights. A man says that gang members shot at him in front of his young daughter.
► Footage of a police interview room includes a twenty-something man speaking with a detective, saying he was not at a murder scene, then saying he was there with several others, one of whom, a gang member, exited his car and shot at a stopped sedan; the interviewee says he and two other cars chased the sedan because it nearly hit his car. A few police interviews show three men in separate scenes sobbing while telling police they had alibis for a murder; all of these men are released.
► We hear that a young man’s parents’ house was burned down (he was able to warn his mother to leave the house) and we see flames in a background scene and photos of a totally burned house, each room falling apart with ashes covering contents and floors; the young man tells the police that he is afraid the gangs will kill him for providing information about them, but he agrees to testify.
► A detective states that he is haunted by past gang related crimes and that the gang called 5150 is described by a member as a group of family and friends who are under 18 years old and take care of each other. A former gang member states that new members feel safe within the gangs, because gangs are the people who do things to other people, and are not the ones who have things done to them.
► A woman takes over a fake MySpace profile of a 17-year-old girl, and gathers information about dozens of gang members, their cars, and their addresses; she says that she drives by their homes and takes photos of their cars and license plates, then turns in the information to the FBI and immigration authorities and that she tried to get all the gang members deported. Believing that gang members are largely Santeria believers, she puts voodoo dolls, bleeding chickens, and other paraphernalia in their front yards at night and we see an image of Day-of-the-Dead masks. A woman announces a party to take place on 666 (June 6, 2006) with marijuana, beer, and strippers, and gives a rural address for it, playing two gangs against each other, stating to each that the other gang was starting rumors and issuing threats about them; specific makes of cars in the community are vandalized and burned, and we see one of them on fire. A woman says that she planned to kill a gang member.
► We hear that a gang member fled to Mexico and woke up one morning surrounded by police; he was extradited to California and sentenced to life without parole in prison for murder and we hear that the victim’s mother had asked that the death penalty not be considered and we see the woman looking at a stone memorial wall engraved with names of hundreds of murder victims.
► A man says that society is looking to put gang members to death. A suspect argues with a detective and shouts, “I want a freaking lawyer. Read me my rights.” The brother of a murder victim says he was handcuffed and put into the back of a police car when he had no connection to the murder. Three former gang members say that they have flashbacks and nightmares about murders and other gang activities. A woman says that her daughter was married to a man that fell back to old behaviors of gang violence and drug use and that she left him.
► We see a woman play with a deck of Tarot cards, predicting that a gang member is doing well in life, but will have justice done to him; she also pulls out the “queen” card and says this is herself. A caption states that the gang member was extradited from Mexico to serve a 22-year sentence for voluntary manslaughter.

Why Did You Kill Me? LANGUAGE 5

 – About 4 F-words and its derivatives, 11 scatological terms, 3 anatomical terms, 6 mild obscenities, name-calling (crazy, insane, psycho, murderers, killers, a tease), 7 religious exclamations (e.g. Oh My God, Where Is The Loving God?, Thank You Jesus, Thank You God, there but for the grace of God go I, God’s thoughts are not man’s thoughts). | profanity glossary |

Why Did You Kill Me? SUBSTANCE USE

 – We hear that a woman served prison time for methamphetamine use and trafficking and that street gangs sold illegal drugs and lured 13- and-14-year-old boys into the gangs with beer and marijuana, a woman calls meth “mother’s little helper” that aided her in working two jobs and raising four kids and “devil dope” (we do not see any drug or alcohol use). Two photos show a woman smoking a cigarette and one photo shows a woman holding an unlit cigarette.

Why Did You Kill Me? DISCUSSION TOPICS

 – Murder, mayhem, obsession, addiction, revenge killings, violent gangs, drug trafficking, substance abuse, drug psychosis, magical thinking, crime solving, sting operations, interfering with police investigations, revenge, vigilantism, justice, Internet safety, online dating, parenting, endangering youth, catfishing (fake online profiles used for manipulation).

Why Did You Kill Me? MESSAGE

 – Riverside, California is a hotbed of violent gangs, substance abuse and trafficking, and murders. Vigilantism can go awry.