Lyle and Erik Menendez, the brothers who are responsible for the 1989 murder of their parents, Kitty and José Menendez, told their story together for the first time in nearly 30 years in a new Netflix documentary released Monday.
The brutal murder took place in the family’s Beverly Hills home. The boys stormed into their house with shotguns firing several shots at both of their parents. While an elaborate shopping spree that followed the murders led the public to believe they did it for their inheritence, the boys claimed that the violence came from a darker place.
Both Erik and Lyle testified that their father emotionally and sexually abused them for years, which they say led them to kill them both for their own safety.
After a hung jury that resulted in a mistrial, the brothers were convicted of murder in the first degree and were sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole in their second trial.
However, now after over 30 years behind bars, fans of Ryan Murphy’s “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story” — and TikTok — have resurfaced the conversation around the infamous brothers. A new generation is calling for a resentencing.
Murphy shined a new light on the case with his Netflix hit series, which topped the streamer’s top 10 list in its first weekend and scored 19.5 million views in its second.
Following renewed interest in their case from Murphy’s limited series, the Los Angeles district attorney’s office has received “a lot of calls” demanding their release. A resentencing hearing for the brothers has been scheduled for late next month.
Now, Netflix is doubling down on telling the brothers’ story with “The Menendez Brothers” from director Alejandro Hartmann. The documentary features several major players in the 1990s Court TV trial, including prosecutor Pamela Bozanich, the Menendez brothers’ cousin, Kitty’s sister, several key defense counsels and the brothers themselves. Over 30 years since their initial arrest, they have had time to heal from their trauma but still grapple daily with the decision that put them away for life.
Here are the biggest takeaways from Netflix’s “The Menendez Brothers”:
Lyle’s testimony was the first time he ever apologized to Erik for molesting him
In the first trial, the brothers revealed the abuse they suffered at the hands of their father, José Menendez. Lyle admitted that, in order to make his father proud and be a man, he molested his brother when he was 8 years old. Erik was 6.
“I remember when he apologized to me on the stand for molesting me. That was a devastating moment for me,” Erik recalls in the documentary. “He had never said he was sorry to me before.”
Lyle only testified in the first trial. His emotional time on the stand and the lack of support they received caused him to sit back in the second trial.
Prosecutor Pamela Bozanich said she threw up before her opening statement
Pamela Bozanich was working as a deputy district attorney in the early 1990s when she was assigned as prosecutor on the Menendez brothers’ trial.
“Having the media there was a nightmare,” she said in the Netflix documentary. “It was the only time I’ve ever thrown up during a trial or before a trial or anything.”
Bozanich did not believe the brothers’ testimony and still to this day believes they fabricated the defense. In the documentary, she added that she had “no reaction” when she first saw the brothers, calling them “poisonous potted plants.”
“They were just dumb jock killers,” she said.
Lyle dreaded watching his brother take the stand to testify
The older Menendez brother said he did not know the full extent of the abuse his little brother faced until he took the stand in the televised first trial, and he was not looking forward to what he had to say.
“I was dreading my little brother taking the stand because I knew I was going to hear things I had not heard,” Lyle said, “I still felt, despite people telling me I wasn’t responsible of course, I did feel very responsible for his enduring years of horror.”
“I don’t understand how she didn’t protect them,” Kitty’s sister revealed
Kitty’s sister and the Menendez boys’ aunt Joan Vander Molen said that to this day she can not wrap her head around the fact that Kitty did not protect her own sons.
“The fact that they didn’t just have a dad that was doing this but a mother that knew about it and didn’t help them,” she said. “I don’t understand how she didn’t protect them. I can’t even explain it.”
Molen was protective of the brothers during their first trial, saying she even called “The Tonight Show With Jay Leno” to ask that they stop making fun of them. “I was told we were public property now and they could do what they wanted,” she added.
“Every aspect of this tragedy is my fault,” Erik said
Erik still believes that he is the reason that the brothers are in jail. The youngest brother was feeling suicidal after they killed their parents. He went to go see a therapist he had previously, Dr. Oziel, and confessed that he and Lyle committed murder. Ultimately, Dr. Oziel and his mistress were the reason the police arrested the Menendez brothers.
“Every aspect of this tragedy is my fault,” Erik said. “I did not protect Lyle.”
Norma Novelli tapes were irrelevant because he claimed Judge Weisberg was making “very biased decisions,” Lyle said
Norma Novelli recorded hours of her phone conversations with Lyle from prison. He thought she was writing a book about his life, but she sold the tapes away and his story without his consent. Over the course of the phone calls, Lyle revealed incriminating information that ultimately prohibited him from testifying in the second trial.
Lyle admitted in the Netflix documentary that he had to lie to be convincing to Norma on the phone in prison.
“Hopefully there’s an awareness that Norma Novelli in the end was no real situation. There’s a misconception that her tape recording me had some factor in the trial, which is just completely untrue,” Lyle said. “The Norma Novelli tapes were kept out because on those tapes I’m making comments about my feelings about Judge Weisberg, who I felt was making very biased decisions.”
The tapes were made public in May 15, 1995, but none of the tapes were ever admitted in the trial.
The brothers agreed to interview with Barbara Walters in 1996 to plead that they would not be sent to separate prisons
“At the time that we did the very unusual Barbara Walters interview together, we were still in county jail and the decision had not been made at all. So, the only reason we did the interview was to try to plead that they not separate us and show how much we did not want that to happen,” Lyle said.
However, when the brothers were cuffed and escorted out of the interview, they were shoved into different cars and did not see each other again for several decades.
“We thought we were going to the same prison,” Erik said. “It was the last time I saw him.”
Erik healed through art while incarcerated
Each of the brothers found different niches to keep them busy in prison. Erik found a love for art.
“Art was an important outlet for me,” Erik said. “I saw it as this sort of spiritual healing to express myself.”
The younger brother said he would paint morning into night sometimes for 12 hours a day. He even sent an oil painting to one of the female jurors he kept up with through letter correspondence.
Lyle became a sex abuse survivor advocate in prison
It even surprised Lyle that he dedicated his prison sentence to supporting and uplifting sex abuse survivors. He said that he found himself being a sounding board for others’ pain.
“It’s kind of ironic that I would be the one who ended up devoting my life in prison to sex abuse survivor issues. I would never have predicted any of that,” he said.
Lyle said that he received many letters from other victims of abuse and felt empowered by their stories. He added that friends of his behind bars also leaned on him for support.
“The prisoners were coming to me with their own stories because they saw me as a safe place to sort of vomit up all that pain. I was sort of father confessor in that way,” he said.
Prosecutor warned TikTok movement “I’m armed … Don’t mess with me”
Bozanich, the L.A. deputy district attorney, warned newfound Menendez supporters that she’s armed, so “don’t mess with me.”
After a new generation has found the Menendez brothers’ case from both TikTok and now the “Monsters” limited series, fans online are calling for a resentencing. Bozanich is unmoved.
“The only reason we’re having this special is because of the TikTok movement to free the Menendi,” she said of the Netflix documentary. “If that’s how we’re going to try cases now, why don’t we just have a poll? You present the facts and everyone gets to vote on TikTok and then we decide who gets to go home.”
“And by the way, all you TikTok people, I’m armed. We got guns all over the house, so don’t mess with me,” she added.
Erik’s lead defense counsel was Leslie Abramson. She was instrumental in drawing out Erik’s testimony and detailing his 12 years of abuse. Abramson did not sit for this documentary, but she sent over a statement saying that the court has decided the fate of her clients, adding that she wants to leave the case in the past.
“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,” her full email statement read.
Jill Lansing and Dr. Jerome Oziel were contacted but did not agree to participate in the documentary.
“The Menendez Brothers” documentary is available to stream now on Netflix.
The post ‘The Menendez Brothers’: 11 Shocking Revelations From the Netflix Documentary appeared first on TheWrap .
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