“Monster: The Story of Lyle and Erik Menendez,” explains

IIn the wake of the enormous popularity of DahmerRyan Murphy and Ian Brennan are back with a new season of their Monster Anthology series exploring the lives and crimes of the infamous Menendez brothers.

Monster: The Story of Lyle and Erik Menendezstreaming on Netflix from September 19, starring Nicholas Chavez and Cooper Koch as Lyle and Erik, the real-life brothers convicted in 1996 of the brutal 1989 murder of their parents, entertainment executive Jose Menendez (played by Javier Bardem) and his wife Mary Louise “Kitty” Menendez (Chloë Sevigny). The true-crime drama arrives two years after its polarizing predecessor became only the third series to garner over a billion hours of viewing in its first 60 days on Netflix, while also dividing critics and audiences over its portrayal of notorious serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer (Evan Peters).

“I was never interested in Jeffrey Dahmer, the monster. I was interested in what made him tick,” said Murphy diversity in 2022 about the controversy surrounding the show. “I think the fact that all the characters in it are seen as real people makes some people uncomfortable. I understand that and I try not to have an opinion on it.”

Now, The story of Lyle and Erik Menendez is billed as an investigation into who the “real monsters” were in the Menendez case. The 10-episode season will examine whether the titular brothers were cold-blooded killers looking to inherit their family's fortune, as the prosecution argued, or victims of a lifetime of physical, emotional and sexual abuse at the hands of their parents, as the defense claimed and the brothers continue to claim to this day.

Here is the true story behind it The story of Lyle and Erik Menendez.

The murders

On the evening of August 20, 1989, Lyle and Erik, then 21 and 18 years old, entered the study of the family's Beverly Hills mansion armed with 12-gauge shotguns and shot their parents a total of 14 times. The murders were so brutal that police initially suspected mob involvement.

About six months after the crime, however, the authorities received a tip from an unexpected source: Judalon Smyth (played by Leslie Grossman), the lover of Erik's psychologist Jerome Oziel (Dallas Roberts). Smyth told the police that Erik had confessed to the murders in therapy and that there were tape recordings of it. The brothers were subsequently arrested in March 1990 and a legal battle over the admissibility of Oziel's recordings ensued, lasting several years.

In August 1992, the California Supreme Court finally ruled that most of Oziel's tapes were admissible, except for the tape in which Erik described the murders.

The processes

When their high-profile trial began on July 20, 1993, there was no longer any doubt that Lyle and Erik had killed their mother and father. The only question was why.

The prosecution, led by Assistant District Attorneys Pamela Bozanich and Lester Kuriyama, argued the murders were premeditated and motivated by greed. Prosecutors claimed the brothers planned and carried out the grisly shootings to gain control of their parents' $14.5 million fortune. Their argument was bolstered by the fact that in the months between the murders and their arrests, Lyle and Erik reportedly spent as much as $700,000 of their inheritance on luxury goods, business ventures and travel.

The defense, led by attorney Leslie Abramson (played by Ari Gaynor), countered that the brothers acted in self-defense after years of abuse at the hands of their parents, particularly emphasizing Jose's alleged abuse of his two sons. These allegations were supported by testimony from two of the brothers' cousins, Andy Cano and Diane Vander Molen, who said Lyle and Erik told them about the sexual abuse when they were children.

A number of salacious details played a role in the trial, including allegations that Jose had cheated on Kitty and insinuations about Erik's sexuality. Kuriyama told the jury in his closing argument that Erik was gay and “if the defendant had had consensual sex with other men, that would explain his ability to describe what he described… his sexual encounters with his father.”

The six-month trial became a national sensation when it was broadcast on Court TV (now TruTV), a cable channel that had launched two years earlier and offered viewers live trial coverage and expert commentary. “The first trial of Erik and Lyle Menendez was a soap opera wrapped in a psychodrama,” wrote the Los Angeles Times. Just“Ann O'Neill on the media hype surrounding the case.

The brothers were tried at the same time, but by separate juries—neither of whom could ultimately reach a unanimous decision on whether Lyle and Erik were guilty of manslaughter or murder. This resulted in a mistrial, and it was quickly announced that the brothers would be retried. During the second trial, which began on October 11, 1995, Judge Stanley Weisberg allowed only one jury to decide the brothers' fate. He also did not allow the proceedings to be televised, limited testimony on the sexual abuse allegations, and prohibited the jury from voting on manslaughter instead of murder.

On March 20, 1996, Lyle and Erik were both convicted of two counts of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder. In July of that year, they were sentenced to multiple life sentences without the possibility of parole.

Read more: Anatomy of a Ryan Murphy Queer Murderer Show

The consequences

After more than a decade of appeals being rejected by California courts, Lyle and Erik resigned themselves to spending their entire adult lives in prison. In January 2017, Lyle ABC News that he has come to terms with his actions.

“I'm the boy who killed his parents, and no amount of tears has changed that, and no amount of regret has changed that,” he said. “I accept that. You're often defined by a few moments in your life, but that's not who you are in your life, you know. Your life is your totality of it… You can't change it. You're just stuck in the choices you've made.”

However, some recent revelations prompted the brothers' attorney, Cliff Gardner, to file a petition demanding a new hearing that could lead to a new trial. The first development in the case came in early 2023, when Roy Rosselló, a former member of the Puerto Rican boy band Menudo, alleged that he was sexually abused as a teenager by Jose after the latter signed Menudo to a recording contract while he was an executive at RCA Records in the mid-1980s.

A second breakthrough came in the form of an unearthed letter that Gardner says Erik wrote in December 1988 to his cousin Andy Cano, who died in 2003. The letter allegedly detailed Jose's sexual abuse and read, in part: “I tried to avoid Dad. It still happens, Andy, but for me it's worse now… Every night I stay awake thinking he might come in… I'm scared… He's crazy. He warned me a hundred times not to tell anyone, especially Lyle.”

Gardner has cited Rosselló's affidavit and Erik's alleged letter as new evidence that the Menendez's convictions should be overturned. A decision on how to proceed in the case is pending.