EGN NEWS DESK
Ryan Murphy’s Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story has turn into one of the crucial fashionable exhibits on Netflix since premiering final week. The collection is predicated on the story of Lyle and Erik Menendez, who had been convicted in 1996 for murdering their dad and mom, Jose and Kitty Menendez, on Aug. 20, 1989, of their Beverly Hills mansion.
The males, who’re serving life sentences in jail, are having a cultural second that goes past Murphy’s dramatization. Over the final 5 years, TikTok customers have been revisiting the case, bringing new consideration to Lyle and Erik’s revelations that their father had sexually abused them whereas their mom ignored it, and elevating questions on how their narrative was offered within the courtroom. Prosecutors argued that the brothers murdered their dad and mom to achieve entry to their multi-million greenback property. The protection mentioned they had been performing in self-defense.
On Oct. 7, the documentary The Menendez Brothers, debuts on Netflix, that includes interviews with the brothers themselves, legal professionals concerned within the trial, the journalists who coated it, and jurors. For those that have watched Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story—or who simply wish to be ready for the documentary—here’s a information on what to observe, learn, and take heed to in regards to the case.
What to learn
“Nightmare on Elm Drive” by Dominick Dunne for Vanity Fair
Named for the tackle of the Menendez household mansion in Beverly Hills, the characteristic within the Oct. 1990 subject of Vanity Fair particulars the brothers’ extravagant spending spree after their dad and mom’ demise and Erik’s confession of the crime to his therapist. Dunne continued to cowl the case all through the Nineties and is portrayed by Nathan Lane in Murphy’s present.
Read the story right here.
They Said We’d Never Make It: My Life With Erik Menendez by Tammi Menendez
Tammi Menendez first wrote to Erik whereas watching 1993 trial protection and feeling sympathy for him. They turned pen buddies, and after Tammi’s husband died, she visited Erik at Folsom State Prison, the place they bought married in 1999. The function of the self-published e book is to emphasise the Menendez brothers’ perspective relating to what occurred of their home rising up. The e book is at the moment out of print however will be discovered on resale websites.
The Menendez Murders: The Shocking Untold Story of the Menendez Family and the Killings That Stunned the Nation by Robert Rand
The 2018 e book is a end result of reporting by Robert Rand, who had been protecting the case because the starting, initially for the Miami Herald and Playboy. It particulars the sexual abuse that the Menendez brothers’ endured and talked about throughout the trial. The e book additionally impressed the dramatic scene Netflix’s Monsters wherein Kitty Menendez (Chloë Sevigny) rips off Lyle Menendez’s (Nicholas Chavez) toupee on the eating room desk.
Buy The Menendez Murders right here.
What to observe
Law and Order True Crime: The Menendez Murders
The 2017 NBC mini collection is a dramatization of the Menendez case that focuses on the brothers’ protection lawyer Leslie Abramson, performed by Edie Falco. Falco by no means mentioned whether or not she thought the decision was truthful or not, arguing that’s a call left for legal professionals. She credit Abramson for humanizing the lads, arguing that there’s a tendency to separate folks into “good folks folks and unhealthy folks, and I believe she was attempting to let folks think about that possibly you don’t all the time know which is which on a regular basis.”
Buy episodes right here.
Menendez + Menudo: Boys Betrayed
The Peacock docu-series options Roy Rosselló, star of Puerto Rican boy band Menudo, who claims that Jose Menendez sexually abused him when the file label RCA was representing him, and Menendez was an RCA government. The filmmakers use Rosselló’s testimony to provide credence to the Menendez brothers’ longtime declare that they murdered their father as a result of he had been sexually abusing them.
Watch the collection on Peacock.
The Menendez Murders: Erik Tells All
The 2017 A&E docu-series payments itself as essentially the most intensive interview with Erik Menendez till that time. In addition to interviewing Erik by cellphone, the filmmakers additionally interviewed prosecutors, household buddies, regulation enforcement and legendary journalists like CNN’s Larry King and Associated Press trial reporter Linda Deutsch. As Erik mentioned in an announcement timed to the collection, “The tragedy didn’t finish on that evening, as devastating as that evening was. It didn’t finish there for my household, and it continues on to at the present time…It won’t ever finish.”
Watch the collection on Amazon Prime Video.
What to take heed to
Murder & The Menendez Brothers: A Court TV Mystery
Nearly three a long time after Court TV’s protection of the Menendez case helped popularize true crime as a style, it expanded on its protection of the case in a 2020 podcast. The episodes discover how the brothers averted arrest for seven months and focuses on the Beverly Hills police division’s investigation, that includes interviews with detectives and a 9-1-1 dispatcher who answered that fateful name from Lyle Menendez.
Listen right here.
The Menendez Brothers’ Fight for Freedom
This 2024 CBS ’48 Hours’ particular program options an interview with Lyle Menendez from jail and appears into doable new proof that the brothers hope might result in their freedom. Cliff Gardner, one in all their legal professionals, refers to a letter that Erik wrote his cousin Andy Cano eight months earlier than the homicide about his father’s erratic conduct and the way he feared for his life. Cano did testify within the brothers’ protection, however handed away in 2003. The letter was by no means offered in a trial as a result of Cano’s mom discovered the letter in storage after his demise.
Listen right here.
