- Netflix has released a true crime drama and a documentary about the Menendez brothers’ high-profile ’90s trial.
- But both projects leave out two new pieces of evidence that were made public in 2023.
- The brothers hope to use the evidence to appeal their murder convictions.
Netflix has released both a true crime drama and a documentary about brothers Erik Menendez and Lyle Menendez, who killed their parents in 1989. But neither mentions new evidence that the pair are using to appeal their life sentences.
The brothers were sentenced in 1996 for murdering José Menendez and Kitty Menendez, but decades later audiences are still obsessed with their story, motivating Hollywood and streamers to find new ways to tell it.
The drama “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story” was an instant hit when Netflix released it in September, and has stayed at the top of its most-watched chart since.
This was followed by the release of “The Menendez Brothers” on Monday, a new documentary about the trial, which features new interviews with the pair. A title card at the end of the documentary briefly mentions that the brothers filed a habeas corpus petition in May 2023 to vacate their murder convictions.
Here’s what to know about the petition.
Lyle Menendez and Erik Menendez’s attorneys believe new evidence could prove their father abused them
48 Hours/YouTube/Netflix
The brothers admitted to killing their parents before their first trial, so the jury was tasked with understanding why.
While the prosecution argued the pair wanted their parents’ money, the brothers claimed that they acted in self-defense because their father physically and sexually abused them, enabled by their mother. They said they feared their father would eventually kill them.
The brothers’ first trial ended in 1994 with a hung jury. In the second trial, Judge Stanley M. Weisberg made several changes, including limiting testimonies related to the brothers’ abuse claims, and removing the jury’s option of voting on a manslaughter charge. The jury’s had to decide whether the brothers were guilty or not guilty of murder, and chose the former.
The brothers’ appeal petition filed last year, which journalist Robert Rand, who has reported on their case since the ’90s, shared on X, includes a letter Erik Menendez sent to his cousin Andy Cano a year before the murders. In the letter, he writes that he is avoiding his father and alludes to being afraid of him.
The petition also includes a declaration from Roy Roselló, a former member of the boyband Menudo, who was signed to the record label where José Menendez was an executive. He claimed José Menendez drugged and raped him when he was a teenager, and made him perform sexual acts on two other occasions.
The brothers’ attorney hopes this will prove they were defending themselves against abuse to get the lesser charge of manslaughter.
The creators of “Monsters” and “The Menendez Brothers” didn’t want to get involved in the case
Roy Rochlin/Getty Images
This new evidence was released partway through the production of “Monsters” and “The Menendez Brothers,” which may explain why it wasn’t included.
“The Menendez Brothers” producers Ross Dinerstein and Rebecca Evans told The Hollywood Reporter last week that they’ve been working on the documentary for four years and wrapped shooting in 2023.
Evans said: “The habeas was filed in 2023, and so for us, when we were making the documentary, we felt like, we’re not here to litigate a case. We’re not here to present evidence, or new evidence in that way, alongside the attorneys. Our feeling was that this was a story that took place then, and this was all of our research on it.”
“Monsters” was also likely written before May 2023, even though the production was delayed due to the writers and actors strike in 2023.
“Monsters” co-creator Ryan Murphy told Variety last month: “I believe in justice, but I don’t believe in being a part of that machine. That’s not my job. My job as an artist was to tell a perspective in a particular story.”
He added that the series was “the best thing that has happened to the Menendez brothers in 30 years” because it rekindled public interest in their case.
George Gascón, Los Angeles County District Attorney, told a press conference on Thursday that his office was reviewing the case to resentece the brothers. Gascón said his department had received “a lot of calls” from people asking about the appeal after “Monsters” premiered.
But Laurie L. Levenson, a professor of law at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, previously told Business Insider that a true crime series must present solid evidence to make a difference in a courtroom.
“In terms of it being the best thing that ever happened, only if it leads to evidence to actually overturn the case, which I still think is a real upward battle,” she said.
