Who are Lyle and Erik Menendez and when did the ‘Monster’ brothers kill their parents?

NETFLIX is back with its latest installment of its Monster series, this time looking at The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story.

With a star-studded cast, the film portrays the horrors inflicted by two brothers on their parents.

Who are the Menendez brothers?

Joseph Lyle Menéndez and Erik Galen Menéndez are brothers who were convicted of the murders of their parents, José and Mary Louise "Kitty" Menéndez.

Their father, José, had moved to the US at the age of 16 during the Cuban Revolution in 1960.

He attended Southern Illinois University where he met Mary Louise "Kitty" Andersen.

The couple married in 1963 and had their first child, Joseph Lyle, on January 10, 1968.

The family moved to New Jersey from New York, and then Erik Galen was born on November 27, 1970.

In 1976, Lyle confessed to his cousin, Diane Vander Molen, that he was being sexually abused by his father.

Kitty sided with her husband and said Lyle was lying.

In 1986, José's career as a corporate executive at the then-known International Video Entertainment company, took the family to Beverly Hills, California.

Only two weeks before the murders, Erik had reached the second round of qualifying in the Boys' 18 singles, being a gifted tennis player.

Lyle enrolled at Princeton University, but his poor grades led to academic probation and he was eventually suspended for plagiarism.

When did the Menendez brothers kill their parents?

On the evening of August 20, 1989, a grim scene unfolded in the den of a Beverly Hills mansion belonging to José and Kitty Menéndez. 

Their sons, Lyle and Erik Menéndez, entered the room armed with shotguns. 

José was the first to be hit, suffering six shots, including a fatal one to the back of his head from a Mossberg 12-gauge shotgun. 

Kitty was shot ten times.

Critically wounded and slowly crawling on the ground, she was crying out when Lyle reloaded his gun and returned to deliver the fatal shot to her face.

After the killings, the brothers remained at the scene, anticipating a quick police response triggered by the loud gunshots. 

However, when the authorities arrived, Lyle and Erik fabricated an alibi.

They claimed they were at a local movie theater watching Batman and later attended the Taste of L.A. festival at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium. 

The police initially failed to conduct gunshot residue tests on the brothers, which would have revealed recent use of firearms.

In the subsequent months, the Menéndez brothers went on a lavish spending spree. 

Lyle purchased a restaurant in Princeton, New Jersey, along with luxury items like a Rolex watch and a Porsche Carrera. 

Meanwhile, Erik hired a full-time tennis coach and participated in tournaments abroad, including in Israel. 

Opting for a change of scenery, they left their Beverly Hills mansion and moved into adjoining condos in Marina del Rey.

They frequently dined at expensive restaurants and took luxury trips to the Caribbean and London, spending around $700,000 in total.

Despite the extravagant expenditure, family members contended there was no change in the brothers' spending patterns post-murders. 

Their high-profile lifestyle included attending a New York Knicks game, where they were unwittingly captured in the background of a sports trading card.

As the police investigation advanced, the focus first included various suspects with potential motives, including mob connections.

However, gradually the probe zeroed in on Lyle and Erik due to their sudden financial windfall and reckless spending. 

The police even orchestrated a sting operation involving his friend Craig Cignarelli.

Wearing a wire, he still failed to elicit a confession from Erik during a casual conversation at a beachfront eatery.

The breakthrough in the case came when Erik confessed to the crimes to his psychologist, Jerome Oziel. 

Oziel's mistress, Judalon Smyth, aware of the confession, later revealed it to the police amid personal conflicts with Oziel. 

This information led to Lyle's arrest on March 8, 1990, and Erik's subsequent surrender three days later upon his return from Israel.

The legal proceedings reached a critical point when the Supreme Court of California ruled in 1992 that the majority of the confession tapes were admissible in court.

This led to formal indictments by December of that year. 

The trial was nationally televised in 1993 by Court TV, riveting the public and marking the case as a sensational chapter in American legal history.

Why did the Menendez brothers kill their parents?

The siblings had a turbulent upbringing, with reports of sexual abuse.

Represented by their defense attorney Leslie Abramson, the Menéndez brothers claimed they killed their parents in self-defense.

They said they feared for their own lives after a lifetime of sexual abuse at the hands of their father, who they described as a perfectionist and a pedophile.

The attorneys portrayed their mother as an enabler of their father’s behavior, calling her selfish, mentally unstable, and abusive.

They also claimed she had tendencies toward alcoholism and drug addiction. 

Supporting their claims, the brothers' cousin, Andy Cano, testified that Erik had confided in him about the sexual abuse during their childhood.

Their cousin, Diane, stated that she once told Kitty about José's molestation of Lyle, although Kitty told her that it was false.

However, alleged photographs of the brothers' genitalia, taken by their father when they were children, were presented in court

On the other side, the prosecution argued that the killings were done for financial gain.

A couple of weeks before the killings, the brothers testified that their father threatened to kill them if they did not keep the abuse secret after they attempted to confront him.

The trial concluded with two juries unable to reach a verdict, leading Los Angeles County District Attorney Gil Garcetti to announce that the brothers would face a retrial.

Both brothers were eventually convicted on two counts of first-degree murder and conspiracy to murder.

They were then sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. 

As the brothers did not have any prior convictions or history of violence, the jury decided not to impose the death penalty.

That said, the jury believed that they committed the killings in order to inherit their father's wealth and not in self-defense.

The brothers were then sent to separate prisons and were segregated from other prisoners. 

Then in February 2018, Lyle was moved to Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility joining Erik.

They remained in different units. 

Erik had also been at Pleasant Valley State Prison, California.

How to watch Monsters

After creating Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story in 2022, showrunners Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan take on this high-profile case that captivated the nation in the ’90s. 

Javier Bardem, Chloë Sevigny, Nicholas Alexander Chavez, Cooper Koch, and Nathan Lane will be joining the cast.

Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story will be out on Netflix on September 19.