The brothers get the opportunity to tell their story in their own words The Menendez brothersa new documentary that will be released on Netflix on October 7.

Below we explain the true story behind the crimes of the Menendez brothers.

Who was the Menendez family?

Patriarch José Menendez was a Cuban immigrant who moved to the United States shortly after the Cuban Revolution of the 1950s. He met and married Mary Louise Andersen, who went by the nickname Kitty. After earning an accounting degree from Queens College, José worked his way up the corporate ladder, working as an executive at Hertz and later at RCA Records, according to Biography.com. In 1968, the couple had Lyle, and Erik arrived in 1970. The family moved from New York City to New Jersey before eventually settling in Los Angeles, where they bought a lavish home in Beverly Hills.

Lyle and Erik claim that their father began sexually abusing Lyle when the older boy was between six and eight years old; they claim he began sexually abusing Erik when the younger brother turned six.

Lyle and Erik’s older cousin Diane Vander Molen testified in support of the brothers’ claims of abuse. Vander Molen regularly spent summers with the Menendezes, and she recalled Lyle telling her about the alleged incidents in 1976, when she was 17 and he was 8. “One night I was in my room changing the sheets in my bed, and Lyle came in,” she told ABC in 2017. “He got very serious when he asked me if he could sleep in the other bed next to mine , and said that he was afraid to sleep in his own bed because he and his father had touched each other down there, which indicated that it was his private part.

Vander Molen told Kitty what Lyle had said, but the older woman refused to believe her son’s claims. “I could tell from her behavior that she didn’t believe any of this,” Vander Molen said. “And (she) went downstairs, and Lyle had already crawled into the bed next to mine, and she went ahead and yanked him by the arm and took him upstairs, and I never heard anything about that again.”

Vander Molen added, “I know they would never have done what they did unless they felt like they had no choice – that it was them or their parents. I believe in that very strongly.”

How did the murders happen?

On August 20, 1989, 21-year-old Lyle and 18-year-old Erik shot their parents more than ten times with a 12-gauge shotgun in the den of the family’s Beverly Hills home, where José and Kitty were reportedly watching a television were watching. . José was shot at close range, while Kitty was shot during her attempt to escape.

Both brothers have since said that an argument with their parents preceded the fatal shooting.

“I was sitting in the foyer,” Erik said in the 2017 docuseries The Menendez Murders: Erik Tells Allaccording to People. “Lyle came out of the den and my mother followed him and said, ‘You’re not going out,’ and Lyle said, ‘Why?’ And my mother said, ‘Because I said so,’ and then my father came out and told my mother to shut up. He looked at Lyle and said, “You’re not dating.” He told me to go to my room and he said he would be there shortly.’

Lyle shared similar testimony in court, recalling saying, “You’re not going to touch my brother.”

“We had a big argument,” he continued People. “I said he wouldn’t touch Erik.”

“Dad, he attacked Lyle and screamed, ‘I do what I want in my family. He’s not your little brother, he’s my son,” Erik explained.

After the outburst, Lyle claimed that Kitty “said I had ruined the family, then my father came out and grabbed her arm and they walked into the study and then my father closed the doors.” I was sure that was it. … I realized that they had been waiting for Erik to come home, just like me. And I just panicked. I thought they were going through with their plan to kill us.”

Lyle then ran upstairs to his brother and told him, “It’s happening now.”

“I felt like my heart was going to explode, it was just pounding,” he continued. “Then I felt like my life was over.”

How were Lyle and Erik caught?

After the murder of their parents, Lyle and Erik put on clean clothes and bought movie tickets Batmanper City & Country. When they got home, Lyle called 911 and pretended to have discovered his parents’ dead bodies through hysterical sobs. (“I think I was just completely devastated with stress,” he later recalled in one Dateline interview.)

Over the next six months, the brothers spent their late parents’ money lavishly, with Lyle buying multiple Rolexes, Erik hiring a tennis coach with a price tag of $60,000 a year, and both renting waterfront apartments in Marina del Rey, according to General terms and conditions. Together they spent $1 million in six months.

Still, the murders haunted the brothers. Erik eventually confessed to the crimes during a session with his psychologist, Jerome Oziel, who then told his mistress, Judalon Smyth. Smyth eventually went to the police with this information, leading to the brothers’ arrest.

Their cases became a cultural sensation, with many following the trials on Court TV. In 1993, they both took the stand in separate trials with attorney Leslie Abramson, who alleged that the brothers killed their parents in the belief that their own lives were in danger, and that they endured traumatic physical and sexual abuse from their father. Family members testified in support of these claims, including Vander Molen, Kitty’s sister Joan Vander Molen and the brothers’ cousin, Andy Cano. Both of their trials ended in a hung jury.

Lyle and Erik were tried together again in 1996. In this retrial, the judge limited the evidence that would support the brothers’ claims of abuse. They were ultimately convicted of two counts of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder, and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Pam Bozanich, a plaintiff in the first trial, has expressed her disbelief over Erik and Lyle’s abuse allegations. “The only way they could go to trial and have any hope of not getting the death penalty was to make up an excuse for abuse,” she said. People in 2017. “This was all about money. And by the end of the trial I was very convinced that the whole thing was fabricated, based on evidence I gathered from various sources.”

Lyle told the outlet, “There will always be skepticism. People think I just jumped on the witness stand and told a story that some dirty lawyer made up. But many people knew that there was sexual abuse in this family.”

Where are Lyle and Erik now?

After their conviction, Lyle and Erik were sent to separate facilities. After repeatedly requesting a transfer to a prison closer to his brother for years, Lyle was finally transferred in 2018 to the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego, where he and Erik are both serving their life sentences to this day.

When they finally reunited in person after more than two decades apart, Erik and Lyle reportedly “immediately burst into tears,” journalist Robert Rand told ABC. “They hugged for a few minutes without saying anything to each other. Then the prison officials let them spend an hour together in a room.”

What do the brothers think of Ryan Murphy’s? Monsters?

Nicholas Chavez as Lyle Menendez, Chloë Sevigny as Kitty Menendez, Javier Bardem as José Menendez and Cooper Koch as Erik Menendez in Monsters: The Story of Lyle and Erik Menendez

Erik spoke out against Murphy’s portrayal of the murders in a statement released by his wife Tammi. “I believed we had moved beyond the lies and ruinous character portrayals of Lyle and created a caricature of Lyle rooted in horrible and blatant lies that were rampant on the show,” he said. “I can only believe they did this on purpose.”

He added: “How demoralizing to know that one man in power can undermine decades of progress in shedding light on childhood trauma. Violence is never an answer, never a solution, and is always tragic. That is why I hope it is never forgotten that violence against a child creates a hundred gruesome and silent crime scenes, darkly hidden behind glitz and glamor and rarely brought to light, until the tragedy dawns on all involved.”