After two trials and three decades in prison, freedom seems within reach for Erik and Lyle Menendez as the prosecutor considers sentencing.
Nearly two dozen of Menendez’s family members held a news conference Wednesday afternoon outside the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center in downtown Los Angeles. They will be joined by celebrity attorney Rosie O’Donnell, as well as Erik and Lyle’s attorney, Mark Geragos. It’s unclear whether LA County District Attorney George Gascón will attend, who announced on Oct. 3 that his office was reviewing the convictions amid “new evidence” prompting a review of the case. Geragos told NBC Los Angeles that they are “cautiously optimistic” about the outcome.
In 1996, Erik and Lyle were convicted of the brutal murder of their parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez. They insisted it was self-defense after years of sexual, physical and emotional abuse. The brothers did not deny killing their parents.
The Menendez case has long been a pop culture fixation, but in September it captivated a wider audience thanks to Ryan Murphy’s Netflix series. Monsters: The Story of Lyle and Erik Menendez. Kim Kardashian only stirred public interest by demanding the brothers’ release in an October 3 essay. Netflix’s true crime documentary The Menendez brothersfeaturing interviews with Erik and Lyle, was released on October 7. Both Netflix projects topped the charts.
“We are in a perfect storm to revisit the Menendez case,” says Scott Huver, author of Beverly Hills Noir: Crime, Sin and Scandal in 90210told Yahoo Entertainment.
Here’s why: The Menendez case hits a pop culture trifecta.
Huver, who started his career as a crime reporter in Beverly Hills and is now a veteran entertainment journalist, points to ’90s nostalgia, social media and the Murphy-Kardashian one-two punch for renewed interest in the case.
“The trials were a big part of the experience of people growing up in the 1990s,” he says, pointing to the launch of cable TV channels such as Court TV (1991) and syndicated tabloid shows (1989). Inside edition) for fueling the constant coverage of the business. ‘In the 1990s we were a gossip country. [The case] was everywhere – on Saturday evening live be forged, Show tonight monologues.”
Huver said the reporting “set the tone for this true crime culture we live in today.”
“It was such a juicy case where these two seemingly spoiled and privileged brothers committed the most horrible crime anyone could imagine – murdering your parents – and in Beverly Hills, it added rocket fuel to the story. That was in the heyday of the Beverly Hills rise. as a glamor capital,” he explained.
The first trial of Erik and Lyle in 1994 resulted in two deadlocked juries, one for each brother, as the jurors could not agree on manslaughter or murder charges. Female jurors believed the self-defense argument and wanted the lesser charge of manslaughter, while male jurors did not. A mistrial was declared. The brothers were retried, convicted on charges of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. Certain testimony about the alleged abuse was not allowed during the retrial.
“There is great interest in the case on social media and in TikTok culture,” said Huver, who covered the second trial. “The younger generation is much more socially conscious than previous generations and certainly more forgiving when they see mitigating factors, such as possible sexual abuse.”
A new generation was introduced to the Menendez case when Court TV rebroadcast episodes of the first trial during the pandemic. A movement was launched on TikTok and other social media platforms calling for Erik and Lyle’s release. Then Murphy came with an assist from Kardashian.
Murphy set “the gold standard” for scripted true crime shows after 2016 The People v. OJ Simpson: American Crime Story, so his projects will always attract an audience, Huver explains. Then you have Kardashian, superstar and daughter of famed Simpson lawyer Robert Kardashian, whose passion for prison reform led her to visit the Menendez brothers in prison in September. Kardashian starred in Murphy’s American horror story: delicate and they reunite for another legal drama.
“This is a sensation,” Huver said. ‘I was just at the [Menendez] two days ago and the whole time I was there it was a non-stop stream of people coming to film the house, all people probably under 30 doing their TikToks or just wanting to see it. I think that was stimulated by Kim Kardashian’s interest in the case.”
Huver is thinking about the release of Monsters came at the perfect time to “spark things that were brewing on social media [years].”
In September, Kardashian visited the penitentiary where Erik and Lyle are being held, where she spoke about prison reform. Almost two years later, she wrote an essay for NBC News declaring that “they are not monsters.”
“They are kind, intelligent and honest men. In prison, they both have exemplary disciplinary records. They have earned multiple college degrees, worked as caregivers for elderly hospice inmates, and been mentors in college programs – committed to giving back to others,” she wrote. “Twenty-four family members, including their parents’ siblings, have released statements fully supporting Lyle and Erik and have respectfully requested that the justice system release them.”
Kardashian asked for their life sentences to be “reconsidered.”
Murphy told the Hollywood Reporter that the Menendez brothers “should send me flowers” because of the “pouring of interest” in their lives. The Menendez family denounced some of the content of Murphy’s show, something the series creator mocked.
“They haven’t had this much attention in 30 years. And it has captured the attention not only of this country, but of the entire world,” Murphy said. “There’s been a kind of outpouring of interest in their lives and in the business. I’m sure a lot of people have offered to help them because of the interest in my show and what we’ve done.”
Of the series, Murphy added, “There is no world we live in where the Menendez brothers or their wives or lawyers would say, ‘You know what, that was a wonderful, accurate portrayal of our clients.’ That was never going to happen, and I wasn’t interested in that happening.”
