The Menendez brothers were jailed for life. A Netflix hit may change their fate
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. LOS ANGELES : It was a case made for the Hollywood treatment: Two handsome brothers, Erik and Lyle Menendez, had loaded shotguns and shot their parents dead in their Beverly Hills mansion. They were sentenced to life without parole in 1996 and largely forgotten.
Then TV hitmaker Ryan Murphy stepped in. His show “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story," which premiered on Netflix in September and dramatized the slayings of Jose and Kitty Menendez, has opened a strange new chapter, prompting calls for a re-examination of the case that may lead to a surprising twist. Could a Ryan Murphy show on Netflix get them out of prison? An unexpected coalition of teenage TikTok users, Menendez family members and Los Angeles officials think so, urging a reconsideration of the murder trial that sent the brothers to prison for life.
They say Murphy’s “Monsters" shines a light on sexual-abuse allegations that should have been more fully addressed during the trial and taken into account during sentencing. The off-screen campaign highlights Murphy’s continued ability to generate buzz and attention even as the media landscape fragments, particularly when it comes to re-examining the rigid morality of the nation’s recent past. The show’s popularity echoes other hit true-crime stories—such as the podcast “Serial" or the HBO series “The Jinx"—that have challenged verdicts and led to releases or convictions.
Yet few megaphones have the reach of Netflix, which this week said it had 282.7 million subscribers globally as of this most-recent quarter. The platform’s ubiquity trounces the competition, and a hit on its home page can permeate the cultural conversation in a way few other distributors can. Another
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