Ryan Murphy’s Emmy-winning Netflix series “Monster” is back, and this time it’s about the case of Lyle and Erik Menendez.
The first season of Murphy’s true crime anthology premiered in 2022, and the new Jeffrey Dahmer story was huge.
This time, Murphy and co-creator Ian Brennan tackle the story of the Menendez brothers, who were sentenced to life in prison in 1996 for killing their parents, José Menendez, who was RCA records executive, and Kitty Menendez.
On August 20, 1989, the brothers shot their parents more than 12 times with 12-gauge guns in their Beverly Hills home. They told authorities that they returned to the theater and found their parents dead.
The police initially investigated other suspects, such as gang members, before turning their attention to the brothers. The pair were arrested in 1990, and after two convictions in 1996, they were given two life sentences.
The brothers admitted to killing their parents during the trial but said they did so out of fear and self-defense after years of abuse. The brothers were supported by family members, some of whom testified in court that the couple told stories of abuse before committing the murders.
Prosecutors believed the brothers killed their parents to get their fortune, in part because they spent a lot of money in the months following the murder.
Lyle and Erik Menendez were sentenced to life in prison together
Lyle and Erik Menendez during their trial in 1994. Ted Soqui/Sygma via Getty Images
After the verdict, the brothers were sent to different prisons—Lyle Menendez to Mule Creek State Prison in Ione, California, and Erik to the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego.
Lyle and Erik Menendez appealed their sentence several times, but their appeals were denied.
The two did not see each other again until February 2018, when Lyle Menendez was moved to the same housing facility as his brother at the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility.
Lyle and Erik Menendez are both married
Erik Menendez’s wife, Tammi Menendez, in 1999. Chris Morton / Online USA, Inc.
The New York Times reported in 1997 that Lyle Menendez, now 56, married Anna Eriksson, a former model and pen pal, on the day he was sentenced. in 1996.
They divorced in 2001, and two years later, Lyle Menendez married Rebecca Sneed, another pen pal and magazine editor.
Erik Menendez, now 53, married Tammi Ruth Saccoman, another pen pal, in 1999. When they got married, Saccoman already had a daughter from a relationship. ago, Talia.
New evidence may allow the brothers to successfully appeal their sentence
Lyle and Eric Menendez in 1989, the year they killed their parents. Ronald L. Soble/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
In May 2023, the brothers’ attorneys filed a new motion for a new trial, presenting new evidence.
That included a letter Erik Menendez wrote to his cousin Andy Cano, who died in 2003.
The Los Angeles Times reported in 2023, citing the file, that lawyers say the letter was written a year before the murders, and in that letter, Erik Menendez writes that he was trying to avoid his father.
According to the LA Times, lawyers argued that this was evidence that the brothers were abused during the murders.
Journalist Robert Rand found the letter in Cano’s room while Rand was writing a book about the Menendez murder case called “The Menendez Murders: The Shocking Untold Story of the Menendez Family and the Killings that Stunned the Nation.”
In 2023, Roy Rosselló, a former member of the boy band Menudo who was signed to RCA Records, claimed in the documentary “Menendez + Menudo: Boys Betrayed” that José Menendez drugged him and raping her when she was 14 years old.
Rosselló said the attack happened when Menudo’s boss, Edgardo Díaz, took Rosselló to Menendez’s home in New Jersey.
The brothers are waiting for the judge to decide whether they will refile their case or not.
“Monsters: The Story of Lyle and Erik Menendez” is available to continue Netflix.