Netflix’s ‘Monsters’ Season 2 will cover the Menendez brothers. Here’s the true story

Lyle and Erik Menendez, the subjects of public fascination and multiple documentaries, are at the center of Netflix’s latest true-crime series, “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story.”

The Menendez brothers were convicted of murdering their parents, José and Kitty Menendez.

Since their trials — the first in 1993 and the second in 1995 — the public has been divided over the brothers’ motivation for the murders, which happened in 1989.

Here’s the true story of the Menendez brothers.

What is the story of the Menendez brothers?

Before their murders in 1989, José and Kitty Menendez, and the Menendez family as a whole, “seemed to be a perfect model of the American Dream,” according to Biography .

José, born in Cuba, worked as the head of RCA Records in the early 1980s and helped sign on bands like Duran Duran and The Eurythmics. Per Biography, Kitty was a housewife.

The Menendez family lived in Princeton, New Jersey, before moving to a mansion in Beverly Hills “just a few years before the murders,” according to Biography.

Erik and Lyle Menendez were driven by their father to be exceptional tennis players — Erik was even nationally ranked in his age bracket.

According to Biography, “In a sense, they had no choice but to be successful; José was known as a hard-driving father who would work his children to the bone in athletics and everything else.”

Erik described his relationship with his father in an interview with Barbara Walters in 1996, saying that his father was “brutal, painful, torturous, and yet I admired him, because he was so strong and he was everything that success was, that I was taught that success was,” per ABC News .

The murders of José and Kitty Menendez

On Aug. 20, 1989, “José and Kitty Menendez were shot multiple times at close range with a shotgun while in the family room of their Beverly Hills mansion,” per CBS News .

Lyle, 21 at the time, called 911 and said, “Someone killed my parents.” He and Erik, who was 18 at the time, told police that they found their parents “shot to death” when they arrived home.

Initially, investigators thought that the murders were related to José's work as an entertainment executive. But the Menendez brothers’ behavior after their parents’ murders created suspicion.

One issue was that Erik and Lyle quickly began to spend their parents’ money after the murders. According to CBS News , “They purchased Rolex watches and real estate, and invested in businesses.”

But the brothers’ reckless spending wasn’t enough to arrest them. It wasn’t until investigators received a tip from Judalon Smyth — the girlfriend of Lyle and Erik’s psychologist — that the two were arrested.

According to Smyth, “the brothers had confessed to the killings in therapy and there was an audiotaped recording of it,” per CBS News.

The brothers were officially charged with their parents’ murders in 1990. They went on trial in 1993 — both brothers were tried together, but had separate juries — and “both juries determined they were divided over whether the brothers should be convicted of murder or manslaughter,” according to CBS News. The judge declared a mistrial.

The second trial was held in 1995. Both Lyle and Erik were found guilty of first-degree murder.

How much time did the Menendez brothers serve?

According to CBS News , the Menendez brothers have been imprisoned for more than three decades.

They are both serving life sentences without the possibility of parole, per People .

Were the Menendez brothers abused?

CBS News reported that the Menendez brothers never denied that they murdered their parents during the trials. “Instead, the focus of the case has long been on why they did it.”

The brothers claimed they killed their parents “out of fear and in self-defense after a lifetime of physical, emotional and sexual abuse suffered at the hands of their parents,” CBS News reported.

According to Newsweek , Robert Rand, investigative journalist and author of “The Menendez Murders: The Shocking Untold Story of the Menendez Family and the Killings that Stunned the Nation,” uncovered a letter from Erik to Andy Cano, his late cousin, that touches on José Menendez’s alleged abuse.

Rand discovered the letter during an interview with Cano’s mother, Marta Cano, who said that her son “had a dresser full of papers if he wanted to review them.”

The letter reads, “I’ve been trying to avoid dad. It’s still happening Andy but its worse for me now. I can’t explain it. ... Every night I stay up thinking he might come in. I need to put it out of my mind. I know what you said before but I’m afraid. You just don’t know dad like I do. He’s crazy! He’s warned me a hundred times about telling anyone.”

Per Newsweek, “The letter never appeared at either trial or in any evidence hearing during the 1990s.”

Where are the Menendez brothers now?

According to People , the Menendez brothers were “imprisoned separately” for over 20 years. The two sent each other letters during that time.

In 2018, Lyle and Erik were transferred to the same housing unit at Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility. When the two were reunited, they burst into tears.

“It was just a remarkable moment,” Lyle told DailyMailTV at the time. “It was just something I wasn’t sure was ever going to happen.”

What is the Netflix series about the Menendez brothers?

In Season 2 of Netflix’s show “Monster” — the first season tackled the story of serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer — creators Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan fictionalize the Menendez brothers case.

According to Netflix , “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story” “tells the story of two brothers who killed their parents on Aug. 20, 1989, and the events surrounding the brutal slayings.”

‘Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story’ cast

“Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story” boasts a stacked cast. It includes, according to Netflix :

• Javier Bardem as José Menendez
• Chloë Sevigny as Kitty Menendez
• Nicholas Alexander Chavez as Lyle Menendez
• Cooper Koch as Erik Menendez
• Nathan Lane as Dominick Dunne, an investigative journalist who covered the case for Vanity Fair
• Ari Graynor as Leslie Abramson, a “prominent” Los Angeles defense attorney and Erik Menendez’s lead counsel
• Leslie Grossman as Judalon Smyth, “a former patient and mistress of Erik Menendez’s therapist, Dr. Jerome Oziel”
• Dallas Roberts as Dr. Jerome Oziel, Erik Menendez’s therapist
• Jason Butler Harner as Les Zoeller, the detective “in charge of the Menendez murders case”
• Enrique Murciano as Carlos Baralt, the Menendez brothers’ uncle

Watch the trailer for Netflix’s new show ‘Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story’

“Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story” premieres on Netflix Sept. 19. Watch the trailer below.