Yahoo Lifestyle 'Optimistic' Menendez Brothers Speak Out in Netflix Documentary: 'Everyone Asks Why We Killed Our Parents'
Erik and Lyle Menendez were convicted of the first-degree murders of their parents and sentenced to life in prison without parole
Lyle and Eric Menendez are speaking out in a new Netflix documentary.
The brothers, who are both incarcerated at Donovan Correctional Facility in California, were interviewed in 15-minute increments from prison phones about the infamous trial that sent them to prison for life for killing their parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez.
“Everyone asks why we killed our parents,” says Lyle, in an audio interview from prison for the documentary The Menendez Brothers, which begins streaming Oct. 7. “Maybe now people can understand the truth.”
“What happened that night is very well known but so much hasn’t been told,” says Eric, in an exclusive clip to PEOPLE.
The Menendez brothers became household names in 1989 when Lyle, then 21, and Erik, 18, armed with 12-gauge shotguns, burst into the den of their family home in Beverly Hills, Calif., and fatally shot their parents while the couple watched TV.
The Aug. 20, 1989, murders, which is now the subject of season 2 of Ryan Murphy’s Netflix show Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story, starring Javier Bardem and Chloë Sevigny, made national headlines and has spawned several documentaries.
The killings, according to the brothers, came after years of allege sexual abuse by their Hollywood executive father — abuse they claim was ignored by their mother.
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However, authorities said the two brothers’ motive was greed, citing the lavish spending spree — which involved expensive watches, cars, and tennis lessons — the brothers went on after the slayings.
“There was a media spectacle from the beginning,” says Lyle in the documentary.
“So, we were not the ones who told the story about our lives,” says Eric. "Two kids don’t commit this crime for money.”
In 1996, three years after their first trial ended in a deadlock, the siblings were convicted of the first-degree murders of their parents and sentenced to life in prison without parole.
AP
Jose MenendezSince then, there have been efforts to overturn their convictions. Most recently, in May 2023, attorneys for the brothers filed a petition with Los Angeles County Superior Court, citing new evidence in the case.
In the Habeas Corpus petition, attorneys pointed to sexual abuse allegations by Roy Rosselló, a former member of the Puerto Rican boy band Menudo against Jose, who he claimed raped him in the 1980s.
The attorneys also cite a newly discovered letter Erik wrote to his cousin Andy Cano describing his father’s alleged sexual abuse months before the murders.
“We're saying the second trial did not comport with constitutional protections for a variety of reasons,” Mark Geragos previously told PEOPLE. “And a Habeas [Corpus petition] has new evidence. It requires new evidence because this case had basically been moribund for close to 17 years. And the new evidence was the Menudo accuser and the letter that Andy Cano wrote or received from Erik eight months before the killing.”
“The judge can do basically three things,” adds Geragos. “The judge can deny it, the judge can order the DA to respond, or the judge can do what he did, which was issue an order for the DA to informally respond, which they have taken very seriously over the last 15 months because we've presented evidence to them."
Geragos says Lyle and Erik remain “cautiously optimistic.”
Directed by Alejandro Hartmann, the documentary also includes interviews with juror Betty Oldfield, Kitty’s sister Joan Vander Molen and prosecutor Pamela Bozanich.
The Menendez Brothers airs on Netflix on Oct. 7.
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