Who is Belinda Lane? How helpless California mother catfished her daughter's killer on MySpace for revenge
In 2021, it’s hard to imagine anyone under the age of 20 to remember MySpace — yet, at its height in the mid-2000s, MySpace was the numero uno when it came to social networking websites. The website was as much a landmark in the technological-sociocultural intersection as Facebook and Twitter. Yet, over the years, it has more-or-less vanished from the public consciousness. In fact, a large amount of user data uploaded to the once-dominant social network before 2016 may be lost for good, the company said in 2019.
But this story takes place in the website’s heydays -- it’s a tale of murder, violent gangs, and a vengeful mother who may as well be the standard for any “Mama Bear” character in films and TV. And MySpace plays an important role in this whole story.
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Who is Belinda Lane?
Netflix has consistently delivered on great true-crime documentaries and ‘Why Did You Kill Me?’ is an excellent addition to their viewing list. The 83-minute-long film looks at many people but the one driving the story is Belinda Lane, a mother on a mission.
Lane, by any account, is a tough woman. But this documentary provides a glimpse into her life -- her past struggles with methamphetamine addiction, the family’s run-ins with the law, and poverty, which lay at the root of all their problems.
But things were still okay. Until they weren’t. Late at night on February 24, 2006, 24-year-old Crystal Theobald, Lane’s daughter, was sitting between her boyfriend and her brother in a car in Riverside, California.
At an intersection, members of the 5150 Gang were waiting in a white Ford Expedition. They had been looking for rival gang members to “mess with”. Authorities said that they may have mistaken Theobald’s car for one that belonged to their rivals. As the family’s two cars approached the Ford Expedition, a suspect climbed out of the vehicle and opened fire. Theobald’s boyfriend was shot in the stomach but survived. Theobald was struck in the head and died from her injuries.
Lane who had witnessed the crime felt certain she could recognize the shooter. But a wrong identification made the cops lose confidence in her a little bit. And that’s when she took matters into her own hands. Her niece Jamie McIntyre informed her that members of the gang were on MySpace. So, she tasked McIntyre with creating a fake profile to catfish them and get information.
“Rebecca” was somewhat successful in infiltrating the ranks but did not yield satisfactory results. They then created a second fake profile -- “Angel” -- with Theobald’s photo. With this profile, Lane had better luck and started making inroads into the lives of the gang members. "Angel" found success with one member in particular: William ‘Jokes’ Sotelo. And in time, they found out that Sotelo owned a white Ford Expedition.
As we see their chats in the documentary, we see Sotelo fall in love with Angel. But as the police investigation slowed down because of the lack of leads -- and Lane had already directed the cops towards Sotelo -- she decided to take drastic measures.
She started spreading rumors that could incite other gangs to attack the 5150 gang. She tried to use voodoo against the gang members. And ultimately, she organized a “party” where all the members would assemble and she would kill them all. But she did not go through with the plan.
Did Crystal get justice?
On January 13, 2020, Sotelo entered a guilty plea. He was charged with first-degree murder -- though he pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter. He was also charged for being a gang member and had firearms allegations against him. Sotelo was only 17 when the shooting took place. But when he realized he was being catfished by Lane, he went underground.
He was a fugitive for nearly ten years before being extradited from Mexico and arrested in May 2016. Another defendant, Julio Heredia, the gunman in the shooting, was sentenced in 2011 to life in prison without parole.
Ten other defendants in Theobald’s slaying pleaded guilty over the years to an array of counts, from witness intimidation to attempted murder to gun and gang charges. Sentences ranged from probation to 18 years in prison. “Sometimes it feels like it just happened yesterday,” Lane said in an interview. “It’s been a long haul.”
'Why Did You Kill Me?' is available on Netflix.
