The twin bond does exist.
Identical twins start out as a whole.
And then they split.
And become two people.
When this happened to her,
it's like I'd lost my other half.
My other half's gone.
It's a terrible experience to feel like
you don't have nobody there for you.
Nobody wants to take you in.
For me, the perfect home environment would have been
someone to be there to love me, take care for me, and, uh…
just having a sense of family.
-It's all good? Okay. -Mm-hmm.
My name is Anthony Standifer.
I've been incarcerated since 2010
for second-degree murder and first-degree robbery.
My childhood was…
I wouldn't say the typical childhood.
My mother was addicted to drugs
for as long as I can remember.
My father, even though I knew who he was,
he never chose to claim me as his son.
So I would see him from time to time,
but, you know, he would just treat me like…
a nobody.
Even though my mother was on drugs,
she was very loving.
Some of the best experiences I've had was with her.
You know, she took me to different states, traveling with her,
being out on the lake, fishing.
So, I would say I've had good memories with her, you know?
But… she was in and out.
I would see her, you know, for a day or two,
then I wouldn't see her for a couple of weeks.
You know, I ended up going into foster care
because I was living with my auntie
and she felt like she couldn't deal with me.
So, she just threw all my stuff in a trash bag
and took me down to Division of Family Services,
and gave me over to the State.
For a kid to be, you know, just…
thrown away like that
from his family…
and…
it felt like no one loves him.
Yeah, that was definitely one of the worst times of my life.
At the time, she had sobered up and got off drugs.
She'd remarried, and I thought
that it would be a good opportunity for us to be together.
For us to finally have a chance to be a family.
But, once I moved back to Kansas City,
uh, that is definitely when all the trouble started.
Her husband at the time had a son.
He was 16,
and he had been involved with gangs.
Also, I had a brother,
my half-brother, with… through my mother.
He'd been involved in gangs.
They were definitely role models to me.
I didn't really have any role models at that time.
And…
I definitely looked up to a lot of the things they did.
If they were selling drugs, I wanted to sell drugs.
Um, if they was robbing,
then… then that's what I wanted to do.
I was at a place called McEwan School for Boys.
Something like a juvenile penitentiary.
And, um…
I got called in to the office
and so, she hands the phone over to me,
and it was my mother.
And she tells me that, uh…
that my brother had been murdered… that night.
Yeah.
When I left juvenile,
you know, um…
now with my brother gone, you know,
I wasn't the same person.
Um, I adopted an attitude…
that I didn't care about anything or anybody.
And…
once I adopted that attitude, and that mindset,
it allowed me to do
whatever I want without having no regard to the consequences.
I just didn't care anymore.
I wasn't working.
She wasn't working, so we was in desperate need of money.
I was out one night,
and I got a call from a guy
that I'd previously been involved in robberies together.
His name was Jay Nicks.
And he calls me and says,
"Hey, do you wanna rob this drug dealer?"
I said, "Well, how much is involved?"
He says, "About 80 grand."
"And the guys have, like, 50 or so pounds of marijuana."
I say, "Yeah."
So I get off the phone with him,
make another call to a guy that I know, DJ.
Me and DJ,
we get in the car, we head over to… to meet Jay Nicks.
Jay Nicks hands me a piece of paper. He says, "There's three addresses on it."
He says, "The house should look like this,
and the guy's driving an orange Dodge Magnum
on some 24-inch rims."
He says, "You can't miss it."
I said, "All right." He gives me the gun.
So, we're driving around the neighborhood.
We can't find the addresses.
We can't find this orange Dodge Magnum.
So, I get out
and I start scouring the neighborhood on foot.
I end up finding the house.
I call Jay Nicks.
I say, "Hey, I found the house,
but there's no Dodge Magnum out front."
I said, "What other kind of car do they have?"
And he names the car
that's identical to the one that's in the driveway.
So, me and DJ, we go to the front of the house,
and we kick the door in.
Once we kicked the door in,
the front room was pitch black.
But I could see somebody.
DJ grabs the person and slams them down to the ground.
Once I reach for the lamp and turn it on,
I see a woman.
Once I seen that it was an older woman,
I immediately knew that this was the wrong house.
I take the gun, and while she's on the ground I stand over her.
I tell DJ, "Well, finish searching the house,
maybe we're mistaken."
He comes back, he says, "There's nothing back there."
So…
I'm thinking, now, that…
I just got off parole.
I don't want to go back to prison.
She's seen my face.
So, I thought…
"Okay… well, Imma kill her."
I stand over her,
and pull the trigger.
One time.
And, um…
I ask myself,
"Why did I do that?"
And…
every day, there is no answer that makes sense.
-Hi. -Hi.
-How are you? -Good. How are you?
No, we can use this for the chicken fried steaks.
-Here you go. -Okay.
Are they still hot, Sharon?
You brought the food. You sit down and relax.
-That looks good. -Absolutely.
We were a very tight-knit family.
We did… everything together.
They're trying to make me fat at work.
We didn't necessarily have everything,
but we had everything we needed.
And I couldn't ask for better.
-Do you want some salad? -Hmm?
Do you want some?
My name's Dana Crowl.
Beverly's my mom.
Growing up, my family was mainly me,
my brothers, and my sister, with my mom.
Our parents were divorced, so we didn't see him as often…
as we probably would have liked to.
But, Mom was our support. She did everything for us.
My mom was very nurturing. She…
was probably the huggiest person I've ever met.
-Always touching you. -Holding your hand.
If you're sitting there, she's just like this…
"Sweetie."
You do the same thing though.
-You do. Yeah, you do the same thing. -Yeah.
She never made us feel like we were bothersome to her.
I think it's important to let your kids know you want them
and you want them around you.
She joined the police in 1976,
and she worked at the Independence Police Department.
She was a records clerk.
She helped officers write their reports, so she heard everything bad that happened.
And we didn't get to do anything
because she wasn't gonna have her kids out there causing trouble.
The day I found out about Mom was March 19th, it was a Friday.
I was getting ready for work. It was about twenty after 7:00.
And my phone rang, and it was my brother-in-law Steve,
and he said, "I just talked to Aunt Barbara."
"She asked me if I could stop by your mom's house."
"Something doesn't look right over there."
And I turned onto her street,
and I could see that the screen door was standing open.
And I stuck my head in.
I didn't even walk into the living room,
and I could see her laying there.
And I just leaned back out and closed the door.
And I had my phone in my hand and I called 911.
And it wasn't two minutes later
that officers were there.
The impact of losing our mom on my family has been immeasurable.
I-- It's so big, I can't even really explain it.
She's like a guiding soul in my life.
Every day I drive by the cemetery, I say hi to her.
Every morning I tell her good morning.
I don't like to use the word "monster," but there it is.
In my heart, he's a monster.
In an ideal world, he will die behind bars and never see the light of day again.
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 will never understand.
That's not the world I grew up in.
I think he was raised in a world where that was just the way things are.
And part of me feels bad for him living in a world like that, but
you don't have to be a product of what brought you up.
You can make a different choice,
and I don't think he made a different choice.
And he had the option…
to not live the life he lived.
Let's go.
Say hi to the guys.
I'm Susan Thompson, I'm Anthony Standifer's auntie.
Come here, Diamond. Come here, girl.
Say hi.
Anthony grew up midtown,
in the middle of the hood.
It was a rough area.
Anthony's dad was very controlling.
He was just very abusive,
very, um… Putting his mom down, putting him down.
"You're nothing, your mom's nothing."
He just went through a lot of verbal abuse.
And I think it affected Anthony in a big way, you know.
He had experienced the violence in the home, you know.
He had experienced the drugs.
Anthony's dad left the house
when little Anthony was about three or four.
And, from that, everything just kind of went downhill.
Anthony's mom would allow the drug-pushers to take over her house, you know?
Her house would become the spot.
She was in the streets, she was doing drugs,
she was here, she was there.
She was everywhere, you know? You couldn't put your hand on her.
It just wasn't a healthy situation.
My mom took little Anthony on.
It lasted maybe a month or two,
and my mom was
moving out of town and I was left with little Anthony.
I also had six children of my own.
One of my sons had cerebral palsy. He didn't walk or talk.
So I wasn't in a position to devote my attention
towards little Anthony, as far as what he needed.
'Cause he definitely needed one-on-one.
This kid's been exposed to a lot, you know what I'm saying?
And I didn't want that shit to rub off on my kids at the house.
This particular day I was like, "Hell, no. I ain't gonna be able to handle him."
"So I'll go down here to the State building,
Juvenile Justice Center."
And I tell 'em, "Hey, yo, I got this kid."
"My sister's on drugs, you know? You guys need to get her a court order."
This is what I'm thinking. They're gonna get a court order,
drag her in here, make her get herself cleaned up
and I'm gonna have her and her son and I'm gonna reunite them back together.
And that wasn't the case. She never responded to the courts.
Little Anthony then went into foster care.
And, uh…
he was molested in foster care.
It breaks my heart to know that, uh…
that I even had anything to do with what he was subjected to.
Had I never put him in the State's custody,
you know, we'd probably have a whole different young man today,
because all that did was made him even more messed up in his head.
He started hanging out with street guys, older guys than him, doing things.
It just was like an adrenaline rush for him.
He was easily influenced. He was… uh, gullible.
He wanted to belong.
They made him feel loved in a way that we have never have.
So I could easily see how he went along with the plan.
We've never made him feel that.
From the time the kid hit the pavement,
he was labeled "bad."
From the time they knew who his daddy was, he was labeled "bad."
From the time they knew his mom had an addiction,
he was labeled "fucked up."
You know? And so on and so forth.
And then we wonder why.
"How do people grow up and act like this and do things like this?"
Well, hell…
take a look at the whole picture.
And then ask yourself, "What did you do to help him?"
"What did you do?"
Nothin'.
I did not want anything to do with him because I was mad at him
'cause I didn't understand.
But now I sit here before y'all,
and it's like, "Yeah,
all of us," you know?
We failed him.
We failed him,
as a whole. It's not this person, that person, or that person.
His dad, his mom, this--
We, as a whole, as a family, failed him,
you know what I'm saying?
Gangs provide comfort.
It provides a family that you don't have.
People become your brother.
Some people become your father figure.
They try to teach you how to do things right.
But, you know, we're knuckleheads. That's why we joined the gang.
My name is Valentino Barraza.
I've known Anthony Standifer
since we was 14 or 15 years old.
You know, and now to this day,
we're still friends.
And we'll probably be still friends to the end.
Anthony, as a gang member,
his character was more of, like…
like, super crazy.
You know, it's like,
he was always ready,
whether it was to rob somebody, or steal some cars.
I ain't never seen him scared of nothin'.
I don't care what it was.
If we was gonna go in a house full of people with guns,
he'd be the first one going through that house.
You know, he was a crazy individual.
Very crazy.
Like, unstable.
Yeah, I feel bad for what happened and everything, you know?
My condolence to their family and everything.
But, whenever you're… committing a crime where there's home invasion or anything,
you know, sometimes… people don't want to leave…
no type of evidence and…
and witnesses, I mean…
When you go to war,
there's casualties no matter what.
Whether it's… whether you find the enemy,
or… just bystanders.
This crime ranked high on the list as being a very heinous crime.
This lady was basically executed in her house.
My name's Michael Johann.
I'm a retired detective of the Independence, Missouri Police Department,
and I was the lead detective on the Beverly Crowl homicide.
Coming back here after 11 years triggers some emotions.
There was no reason to kill her.
I just felt like we had to get these people,
'cause if you can kick a door open in the middle of the night
and kill a little defenseless lady,
who's next?
Okay.
Anthony, I think you'll remember myself and Detective Ken Forrester?
My name's Mike. Uh, just to reiterate…
-I gave you your rights earlier today. -Mm-hmm.
You signed 'em. You still remember those rights?
You still have a right-- All those rights are still in effect.
Listen, the bottom line is this--
The bottom line: your ass is in deep doo-doo.
I don't know how. These people are implicating me in something--
You know what? You--
Anthony obviously came in lying and denying everything.
-Where is this evidence? -Some of it's in your house.
We're not gonna go over all this evidence.
Of a-- of a murder?
Of a murder? No. I don't think so.
Ain't no murder 'cause I ain't did no murder.
Yeah, you did.
-You did. -I'm already guilty--
He was a very difficult person to interrogate.
First of all, why'd I kill this lady?
Tell me you weren't there that night.
There, where?
-Where the lady got killed. -Listen--
-Tell me you weren't there. -I was not there.
That's bullshit--
He's been in and out of prison. He knows the ropes.
You're not gonna be able to use emotional tactics with him,
and get him to feel sorry for the victim or anything like that.
So we presented him with facts that kept showing him that…
we could prove he was the perpetrator of this homicide of Beverly Crowl.
We don't deal with--
-Okay, okay, okay… -We don't deal…
What can I do to prove to you that I'm giving you my word as a man?
What do I have to do? I'm telling you, I'm not owning…
Anthony, you're asking questions.
Later on during the interrogation he asked to see his girlfriend.
And we told him that that could be arranged.
She had given a complete confession and had implicated Anthony in the murder.
Then it became a bargaining tool that we used.
We told him, "You're not seeing her till you give us something."
"You're gonna have to tell us something about the murder of Beverly Crowl
before we even allow you to see her."
That's when he seemed to let his guard down some
and he started giving us details about the murder that he had committed.
Who searched the house?
I did. I did.
Okay. Then what?
And I knew it was the wrong house. I knew it.
Without a doubt.
And you shot her?
Yes or no?
-Yes or no? -Yeah.
My thoughts about Anthony Standifer as a person
is that he's a cold-blooded psychopathic killer.
He executed Beverly.
After he executed her,
he got back in the car with his accomplices and said that…
chalk another one up on his belt.
So there's a strong possibility that he's killed before.
Once we become older,
you know what gives us joy?
Seeing our nieces, and our grandchildren, and our children
laugh with their children,
and their children's children.
That is the greatest joy in the world.
And when my nephew Anthony murdered that lady,
he stole that from her.
Anthony wanted to try to live
that particular lifestyle.
If you live that particular lifestyle,
that's what that particular lifestyle brings.
Violence brings violence. It's just that simple.
It's not complicated.
Several years after his brother's murdered
by one of his friends, high,
Anthony walks into a house, doesn't find a dope dealer,
finds some old lady and murders her.
Murders beget murders.
That lifestyle begets that lifestyle.
Hopelessness, despair…
not having…
a group or organization that says to you,
"We have a place for you amongst our ranks."
"And you can move up through the ranks."
The… the more violent you are,
the faster you will move up in the ranks.
Well, there's nothing cool about shooting people and murdering people,
and scaring children.
Being a gang member is not like…
…being a bus driver.
It's not a safe occupation.
I keep seeing these videos where they glamorize.
"I got a car, and I'm gonna be a dope dealer,
and I got hookers, and I got hoes."
"I got parties and I'm gonna--"
Okay.
Right.
You're gonna do all of that.
Right.
Okay. Good luck with that.
I love my nephew.
I love him today.
Nothing will ever stop me from loving him.
I don't care about his crazy father.
I don't care about his crazy mother,
or any other of the crazies in his life.
I love him.
I will always love him.
But what he did was heinous and unforgivable.
Period.
When he made that choice, he not only affected Beverly,
it affected her family,
it affected him,
it affected his family,
friends.
A ripple effect that just goes on and on and on.
My name is Barbara Lou Draper.
Beverly Sue Crowl was my twin sister.
I was the oldest by ten minutes.
When we was growing up,
we were basically together all the time.
When you saw one, you saw the other one.
It confused people, and they didn't know which was which.
There was a few times when we were older and dating,
we switched on 'em.
Guys.
That was fun.
Just typical kids, you know.
We were close.
We've always lived in this town.
I've lived here several years,
then the house across the street came up for sale and…
and she bought it.
And moved in.
I would look out the window
and she'd be out there in the yard, putzing around doing something.
I talked to her every day.
She would call over here, invite me over for supper.
"Be quick," she'd say.
And that's what happened that night.
I'd been over there. She called me over for supper, and I went over.
We sat there and had supper, and we watched television.
She told me she had two bananas laying on the kitchen counter,
I'll never forget 'em, they were dark.
Said she was gonna make banana bread in the morning.
And, anyway she watched me home.
We waved at each other at the front door.
That's the last time I saw her.
My thoughts on the person that did this…
not very high.
I don't think much of him.
But I realize that, you know, he's a human being like the rest of us,
but that doesn't excuse what he did.
'Cause he had a choice, and he didn't have to make that choice.
The values and morals that we were raised with,
I think that teaching goes generation to generation.
Or it should.
'Cause, you know,
Mom and Dad's older,
wiser,
lived through more stuff.
And kids need… younger people need to listen to 'em.
'Cause the kids, I think, are better off for it.
It's all in the raising.
Drugs have taken a toll on my life.
It's just another escape.
That's all it is.
Escaping the reality of some chaos or pressure on your life.
It's nobody's responsibility but your own.
My name's Cassandra Jenny Reed, and I am Anthony's mother.
Me and Anthony, our relationship was wonderful.
Always making each other laugh.
When I couldn't get out of bed, Anthony, at five years old,
Anthony would bring me breakfast in bed.
He got up… got up on a chair, pulled a chair up to the stove,
and scrambled me some eggs.
And went outside and got some of those little yellow daisies,
and put them on a tray,
and bought it with--
He was just that thoughtful of me.
"Mama, you gonna be okay," he said.
"Here, you need to eat."
I'm telling you,
he's always been amazing to me.
I've missed a lot of time with Anthony.
'Cause I…
I had to get away from here.
So, and, uh…
I couldn't take him with me.
I can truly, honestly say
if I hadn't abandoned him when I did,
when I left him with my family…
'Cause they always called him bad.
And he knows I've not ever called him bad…
you know.
I think that has… That has a lot to do with it deep down.
Okay, I'm through. I can't do this no more.
I don't have any hard feelings towards my family
on the mistakes that they made in raising me.
You know, I…
I guess they just didn't, you know, know any better.
I don't want to solely put it on upbringing.
That's definitely a strong contributing factor,
but I have to take accountability, you know,
because at that time when I committed this crime,
I was 25 years old.
So, I knew right from wrong and I knew what I was doing was wrong,
so I had a choice, and I chose not to do the right thing.
How can I take another person's life unjustifiably for…
senselessly and no reason,
and not regret that?
To think that I could kill a person,
you know, just because they saw my face, is ludicrous.
And I…
can't wrap my head around, like, what,
excuse my language, what the hell was wrong with me?
And to make those kind of decisions, you know, um…
It's… it's just disgusting.
I sincerely apologize, you know, and…
I wish… I wish…
Every day I wish I could go back and do something different.
My thoughts about Anthony Standifer as a person
is that he's a cold-blooded psychopathic killer.
He executed Beverly.
After he executed her,
he got back in the car with his accomplices and said that…
chalk another one up on his belt.
So there's a strong possibility that he's killed before.
I have not killed anyone before.
I think if that was true then I would be convicted of another murder.
You know, I think that's just a way to paint a picture
and try to put me in a box.
Everybody that was involved at that police department with the case,
they all knew her because they worked with her.
They said that she was like a mother to them.
So, you know, that's why I believe the detective has such strong feelings.
I can't change opinions.
What I can change is my behaviors,
by being, you know, uh…
a good person, so to speak.
But, being in here, how do you know…
how do you know that I've become a good person?
How do you know that I've changed?
You know, I can sit here and tell you that. But…
you will never know until I am released, right?
And then I'm a productive member of society.
I have to do, you know,
the right thing every day and just, you know, and…
and know that's good enough.
This is where I live, this is where I exist.
I swung right up over his shoulder, into the side of his neck with that blade.
I was terrified. I just took somebody's life.
The scariest thing in the world is to know that somebody else
is holding your life in their hands.
All that's holding my face together is metal plates.
I'm a very, very dangerous man.
I didn't say that I killed those people, I said that they were dead because of me.
I am who I am…
Just a killer.