Ryan Murphy is giving renewed attention to the chilling story of the Menendez Brothers.
On Thursday, September 19, the Glee creator, also known for his crime biopics, premiered on Netflix Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story, about the two brothers who were convicted of murdering their parents in 1989.
It is a story and subsequent trial that gripped the nation, which though once largely united against the siblings — who have been serving a life sentence in prison since 1996 — has become increasingly divided over the case ever since.
The series, comprising nine episodes, stars Nicholas Alexander Chavez and Cooper Koch as Lyle and Erik Mendez, and Javier Bardem and Chloë Sevigny as their slain parents, José and Mary Louise "Kitty" Menendez.
Before you watch, take a look back at the hair-raising events of August 20, 1989, the two trials that followed, and everything that has changed since.
The Menendez Family
Family patriarch José Enrique Menéndez was born in Havana, Cuba in 1944, and moved to the United States when he was around 16 years old. He met his wife Kitty while attending Southern Illinois University, and they married in 1963, shortly after which they moved to New York City.
They welcomed their first son Lyle, in 1968, and Erik two years later. By 1986, the family, then relatively affluent, had moved to Beverly Hills, where the murders took place four years later.
A crucial part of the two trials, how they unfolded, and why people have grown divided over the conviction over time is the fact that during the summer of 1976, Lyle confessed to a cousin that his father had been sexually abusing him; the alleged abuses became part of their defense, and though their first trial ended in a mistrial because of a deadlocked jury, the evidence and their testimonies concerning the abuse was omitted from the second trial that ultimately found them guilty.
What happened?
That August 20, Jose and Kitty were watching television in their Beverly Hills home, when their sons shot them multiple times at close range with 12-gauge shotguns, including in the kneecaps.
That night, the brothers, who were 18 and 21 years old, had bought tickets for a movie and attended a food festival in Santa Monica, before calling the police from their home close to midnight, crying, to inform them of the murders.
It wouldn't be until March of 1990 that they became suspects. Though those around them had begun to notice suspicious behavior from them, particularly their errant spending, what, or who, ultimately tipped police off was the brother's psychologist L. Jerome Oziel's mistress, Judalon Smyth, who overheard their confession.
Two trials
In the first trial, which was televised, the brothers testified at length about the sexual abuse they suffered at the hands of their father for years, claiming their mom was a mentally unstable alcoholic who enabled her husband, and two family members attested to it.
While the prosecution argued that they committed the murders for financial gain, the brothers argued that they had begun to fear for their lives, as their father had allegedly threatened to kill them should they expose his years of molesting them. They said they had one final confrontation about it the night of the murders.
For the first trial, each brother was assigned a separate jury, both of which ended in a deadlock. A second, non-televised trial followed, with just one jury, and limited testimony about the sexual abuse claims.
They were ultimately convicted on two counts of first-degree murder and conspiracy to murder, and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
The aftermath
Lyle and Erik were incarcerated as maximum-security inmates in separate prisons, and it wasn't until 2018, almost 22 years later, that they saw each other again, when they were put in the same prison in California, in a unit where they participate in education and rehabilitation programs.
Both brothers have married. The day he was sentenced to prison, Lyle married Anna Eriksson, though they divorced in 2001. In 2003, he married Rebecca Sneed, who he had known for over ten years.
In 1999, Erik married Tammi Ruth Saccoman in a prison waiting room, who he had become pen pals with, and they are still together.