Could Monsters impact Lyle and Erik Menendez's real case?

Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story examines the murders of José and Mary Louise “Kitty” Menendez committed by their sons in August 1989.

The Netflix series stars Javier Bardem, Chlo? Sevigny, Nicholas Alexander Chavez and Cooper Koch as José, Kitty, Lyle and Erik Menendez, respectively. It dramatises the events that led up to the killings, as well as the investigation and trial of the Menendez brothers, with one caveat — it includes recreations of the extensive sexual, physical and emotional abuse they claimed to have suffered at their father's hands.

Read more: What happened to Lyle and Erik Menendez?

The siblings did not deny killing their parents after their arrest but have long claimed they murdered them out of fear their father would kill them for exposing the truth about his abuse, and have pushed back publicly against their life imprisonment sentence because of it.

Erik told People in 2005 that he felt they didn't deserve the sentence they got, saying: "I’m not saying what I did was right or justifiable. I needed to go to prison. But place another child in my life and see what happens. I felt it was either my life or my parents’ life.

"It’s as if there was kerosene all over the floor that a match could light at any time. And my soul was burnt to death. The way I reacted was so destructive to all. It was the most awful devastation."

He added: "People say that I had everything, that I was rich and lived in Beverly Hills. But if you had photos of the events of my childhood, they would be crime photos. I was dying long before the night I killed my parents."

The new season of Ryan Murphy's anthology series examines the brothers' accounts of abuse in detail, something that may make viewers question the sentence they were given. The question is can the TV show have any meaningful impact on the siblings' sentence?

Lyle and Erik Menendez were first tried with separate juries in 1993, at the time the case was brought to wider public attention because it was televised. The case saw the brothers' defence team argue they acted in self-defence and that the killings happened in response to the abuse they suffered, while the prosecution argued they had done it to access their sizeable inheritance.

In the end, the case resulted in two hung juries and the Menendez brothers had to be retried in 1996. At the second trial the judge presiding over the case dismissed the argument they had been abused because of a lack of evidence, and the trial ended with the brothers being sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

Since their sentencing, the Menendez brothers have appealed the case on multiple occasions. They appealed in 1998 but their sentences were upheld, and they went on to file habeas corpus petitions to the Supreme Court of California, the United States District Court and the United States Court of Appeals — all of which were denied.

In 2023, the brothers filed documents seeking a new hearing, per CNN, the petition says that a letter sent from Erik to his cousin eight months prior to their parents deaths explains the extent of their father's abuse — it was evidence not presented at their two trials. The petition also includes mention of boy band member Roy Rossello, who has said he was raped by their father in the 1980s when he was an executive at RCA Records.

So, would the Menendez brothers' depiction in Monsters have a direct impact on this petition? Not likely. The series is a dramatisation, and doesn't present any new evidence that might overturn the Menendez brothers case in real life, but what it could well do is change public opinion of them.

With its focus on depicting the abuse the brothers say they suffered over the years, viewers might come to sympathise with them to a degree. Though it doesn't excuse the murders they committed by any means it might raise questions for viewers over the severity of their sentencing, an argument the brothers have been making ever since they were found guilty.

The Menendez's petition for a retrial is currently under review by the Los Angeles County District Attorney's office, and the brothers hope that if a judge finds the new evidence credible it could be sufficient enough to give them a new trial, per CBS.

If this does come to pass, and a new trial happens, the public will likely be just as fascinated as they were back in the 1990s now Monsters has brought the case back into the spotlight.

Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story is out now on Netflix.