The Menendez Brothers documentary on Netflix is the second Netflix project in less than a month to detail the story of Lyle and Erik Menendez, aka the two brothers who killed their wealthy parents in their Beverly Hills home, back in 1989. Netflix audiences just can’t get enough of these brothers.
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Not to be confused with Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story —the Netflix limited series from Ryan Murphy that dramatizes this murder case— The Menendez Brothers is a new true-crime documentary, directed by Alejandro Hartmann, and produced by Ross M. Dinerstein and Rebecca Evans. It’s pretty much the same story that true-crime fans have already heard in the dozens of books, podcasts, dramatizations, and documentaries about the case over the last three decades. The hook? This documentary features new phone interviews with Lyle Menendez, who is now 55, and Erik Menendez, who is now 51, telling their story “in their own words.”
“I’m getting older. I’m not going to live that much longer,” Erik Menendez can be heard saying over the phone at the beginning of the film. “So much hasn’t been told. I think that not speaking out doesn’t help anyone.”
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But if you already know the ins and outs of this trial, you won’t get any new information from The Menendez Brother s documentary, other than the fact that there’s been a recent movement on TikTok in the brothers’ defense. If you want to skip to the end and find out where Erik and Lyle Menendez are now, here’s what you need to know.
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Where are the Menendez brothers now?
The Menendez brothers are serving a life sentence in prison at the Donovan Correctional Facility , in San Diego California. Though they were serving time in separate prisons for the first 22 years of their sentences, in 2018 they were finally reunited when Lyle was moved from Mule Creek State Prison into the same housing unit as his brother at the Donovan Correctional Facility.
In recent years, there has been a renewed interest in the Menendez brothers case on TikTok, which has culminated in a social media campaign to free the brothers. Defenders of Erik and Lyle Menendez argue that they killed their parents in self-defense, after years of sexual abuse from their father, and apathy from their mother. During their trial in the ’90s, both brothers said their father had molested them for over a decade, and threatened to kill them if they ever told anyone. That argument, presented by defense lawyer Leslie Abramson and supported by over 50 witnesses, was enough to convince some of the jury that the brothers deserved to be sentenced for manslaughter, not murder. But when the jury could not reach a consensus, a mistrial was declared. The second trial came with many new restrictions, and ultimately convicted both brothers of murder. They were sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole.
However, TikTokers who sympathize with the brothers still have hope that the brothers can walk free. As Lyle Menendez explains in the documentary, “The followers who are younger, of that TikTok generation, they really have tremendous hope. Young people have taken the time to figure out what happened. They understand it in ways that older people don’t. I feel more hope when society seems to be understanding of sex abuse even better.”
Their former lawyer, Leslie Abramson, is less hopeful. She declined to be interviewed for the new Netflix documentary, but said in a statement, “Thirty years is a long time. I’d like to leave the past in the past. No amount of media, nor teenage petitions, will alter the fate of these clients. Only the courts can do that, and they have ruled.”
In May 2023, perhaps bolstered by the social media support, the brothers filed a “habeas petition,” aka a legal document that challenged the lawfulness of their 1996 conviction, claiming they had new evidence—including an accusation from boy-band member Roy Rosselló, who alleges that their father, José Menendez, molested him. A recent Los Angeles Times article reported that a hearing for this filing is expected to happen on November 26.
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