Who killed Krystal in Raising Kanan? The reveal comes in the very first minute of one episode
Power Book III: Raising Kanan doesn't usually make you wait for a body. Season 4 still managed to surprise people by opening an episode with one — no cold open build-up, no misdirection, just a killing before most viewers had settled in.
Krystal is shot by Pop Henry, played by Erika Woods, at the top of season 4, episode 9, "It 's About That Time," which aired May 9, 2025 on Starz. Pop is the wife of Snaps (Wendell Pierce), and the pair had already been revealed the week before as the people behind Famous's murder.
How Krystal ended up there
Krystal, played by Aliyah Turner, was Jukebox's former Butta bandmate turned Kanan's girlfriend. The sequence runs like this:
- End of episode 8 — Kanan warns her to leave town before a war starts. She takes a bus.
- Off the bus — NYPD officers pull her aside, saying detectives have questions about Famous's death. The officers are on Snaps and Pop's payroll.
- Top of episode 9 — she's drugged and chained in an unknown room. A figure approaches.
- The kitchen — Pop arrives playing the rescuer, makes her a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and asks who Kanan thinks killed Famous.
- The answer — Krystal says Kanan blames his mother, Raq. Pop shoots her in the back of the head while her back is turned.
Why Pop did it
Snaps and Pop ordered Famous's killing through the same dirty cops, and their entire concern was whether Kanan had figured it out. Once Krystal confirmed his suspicion was pointed at Raq, she stopped being a source and started being a witness. The couple then went ahead and fed Kanan the Raq story directly.
Woods rated the moment more shocking than the Famous reveal that preceded it.
"really going to throw the fans into a frenzy" — Erika Woods on the scene, PEOPLE, 2025
What it sets off
The season 4 finale, "Gimme The Weight," opens with Jukebox telling Kanan that Krystal's body has been found. He trashes his apartment. Detective Garcia then tells him a Black woman was seen leaving the site — which Kanan reads as confirmation that Raq did it. Jukebox warns him that Snaps and Pop have every reason to lie; he pulls a gun on her for saying so.
By the closing minutes he has a gun on Raq herself, accusing her of killing everyone he cares about so he'll have nobody but her. She denies both Krystal and Famous. He doesn't lower it.
Could she come back?
The Power universe has a documented habit of resurrecting people, but this one is about as unambiguous as the franchise gets: a point-blank shot, a recovered body, and a funeral-adjacent finale built around it.
Bonus detail: before she died, Krystal made peace with Jukebox — the bandmate she'd spent the earlier seasons feuding with. The show gave her that scene, then took the payoff away five episodes later.