I Am A Killer

As a psychologist, especially one who has spent a large portion of my career in forensics, it’s not a huge surprise to me that I enjoy memoirs, documentaries and docuseries. Real life stories give us access to the incredible diversity of the human experience, and I find the human mind–and all of the ways it manifests into behaviors–endlessly fascinating.

So when Netflix and Crime+Investigation UK released the docuseries I Am A Killer, I was intrigued, but the premise of I Am A Killer is (deceptively) simple and I admit I was initially a bit skeptical. The summary on Netflix states “Death row inmates convicted of capital murder give firsthand accounts of their crimes in this documentary series.” Because American culture, and TV/media in general, tends to sensationalize stories and depict them in largely binary terms–good versus evil–I wondered if this might be just another dehumanizing depiction of a bad guy. Or equally as bad, an overly sentimental, no-accountability view of people who commit crimes. As someone who spent much of my career evaluating and working with people who have committed crimes, I can attest to the fact that life is complex and people are as well. Unfortunately, this nuanced, complex picture of things is rarely depicted.

I decided to give it a go anyway, and I’m not at all sorry I did. The convicted murderers, most of them on death row in states with the death penalty…