Stream It Or Skip It: ‘I Am A Killer’ Season 4 on Netflix, Featuring More First-Person Stories From Convicted Murders

I Am a Killer, Netflix’s first-person true crime hit, just debuted its third season in August, but it’s already back with season four. Presented over six episodes like its predecessor, down from previous seasons’ count of ten, I Am a Killer features six new profiles of individuals who are currently serving prison sentences for murder, plus interviews with their family members and friends, families of their victims, and the authorities who worked their cases. 2022 has also seen I Am a Killer executive producers Danny Tipping and Ned Parker compiling ten cases from the series into book form.  

I AM A KILLER — SEASON 4: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT? 

Opening Shot: “The twin bond does exist,” an elderly woman is saying in voiceover as groups of birds land on power lines at sunset. “Identical twins start out as whole. And then they split, and become two people.”

The Gist: “When this happened to her, it’s like I lost my other half.” Barbara Lou Draper is talking about her sister, Beverly Crowl, who was murdered in 2010. Anthony Standifer, then 25, killed Crowl, 69, when he broke into her Independence, Missouri home by mistake during the attempted robbery of a drug dealer. Standifer was arrested 12 days after the shooting, tried and convicted of second-degree murder and first-degree robbery, and is currently serving a 60-year sentence in state prison. And everyday, Standifer tells the producers, “I ask myself, why did I do that?’”

I Am a Killer season four retains the standard format of the series. First, the individual being profiled sits in prison garb and speaks to the camera in response to unheard questions. Next, the other side of the narrative is filled in, with interviews of their victims’ family members. Then law enforcement has its chance to deliver comment, and on screen graphics contribute backstory and other facts of the case. For Standifer, that means statistics. Of the 135,000 convicted murderers in US prisons, one in four were in foster care as children, a state system he fell into as the troubled son of a drug-addicted single mother. He was in and out of juvenile detention, was in a gang by 14, and was out of prison on parole when he shot and killed Crowl in 2010.

Crowl’s family says her murder hit their tight-knit circle hard, and caused immeasurable grief. Daughter Dana Crowl calls Standifer a monster, and says that an ideal world would see him die behind bars. Retired Independence police detective Michael Johann refers to Standifer as a cold-blooded killer. And Standifer’s family, including his mother, aunt, and uncle, all express sadness that they couldn’t give him the love and care he required before the state system harmed him further. “I think it’s important to let your kids know you want them, and you want them around you,” Dana Crowl says. And Standifer wonders what might have been, had his circumstances been different.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? I Am a Killer has become a fixture of Netflix’s true crime offerings, and season four is the second batch of episodes to appear in 2022. And crime in the first person is also a feature of the streamer’s docuseries Dope, which looks at the war on drugs from a dealer, user, and police officer perspective.

Our Take: “I don’t know what made him pull the trigger. I wish I did. Maybe I’d understand a little better and be able to forgive him if I knew why. It’s a mindset I’ll never understand.” Dana Crowl’s take on Anthony Standifer’s decision to shoot and kill her helpless 69-year-old aunt hews pretty closely to his own, and those similarities make for some of the most powerful stretches of I Am a Killer as he shares his memories in the shock of the moment. He knew that he and his accomplices had the wrong house, knew that Crowl had nothing to do with the drug dealer they were looking for, but he killed her anyway. And today, he spends most of his time rueing his “ludicrous” thought process.

It’s notable, too, that Standifer’s family bears their admission of guilt freely. (His mother, Cassandra Jenny Reed, has to stop her interview after the emotions become too much to bear.) And I Am a Killer does its part to connect the mismanagement and neglect of a broken state foster system to Standifer’s ultimate decision to kill. But it saves its most sobering take for last. When series producers visit him in prison again, three months after he was first interview, Standifer is ready to stand for his decisions personally. “I don’t want to solely put it on upbringing,” he says. “That’s definitely a strong contributing factor, but I have to take accountability. I had a choice.” And again, his words are mirrored by those of the victim’s family. In the view of Barbara Lou Draper, Beverly Crowl’s twin sister, “You don’t have to be a product of what brought you up.”

Sex and Skin: None.

Parting Shot: Anthony Standifer, who will be eligible for parole in 2055, doesn’t blink when the producers play him a recording of Detective Johann calling him a psychopath. He says there’s no way for anyone on the outside to know that incarceration has made him a changed man. “I have to do the right thing every day, and just…know that’s good enough.”

Sleeper Star: Anthony Standifer’s auntie Susan Thompson makes an impression as she continues to process her role in her nephew’s upbringing. “I did not want anything to do with him because I was mad at him. Because I didn’t understand. But now I sit here before y’all, and it’s like ‘Yeah, all of us. We failed him.”

Most Pilot-y Line: “I take the gun, and while she’s on the ground I stand over her. I’m thinking that, I just got off parole, I don’t wanna go back to prison. She’s seen my face. So, I thought, ‘OK…well, Imma kill her.’ I stand over her, and I pull the trigger.”

Our Call: STREAM IT. As true crime entries go, I Am a Killer is notable for usually getting its chilling money’s worth out of its first person conceit. But it carries that clarity into its accompanying interviews, too – from family to police, everybody is given the space to be heard in their own words.

Johnny Loftus is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift. Follow him on Twitter: @glennganges