Where are Lyle and Erik Menendez now? All about Netflix's Monsters subject 

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Eric and Lyle Menendez are in prison (Image by Hasan Almasi/Unsplash)
Erik and Lyle Menendez are in prison (Representative image by Hasan Almasi/Unsplash)

Lyle and Erik Menendez were sentenced to life without the possibility of parole on July 2, 1996, after they were found guilty of the murder of their parents. As per prison records, Lyle and Erik Menendez are serving their life sentences at San Diego’s Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility.

The new true-crime fictional series on Netflix titled Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story focuses on this case. Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story has a total of nine episodes. The official synopsis for the series reads:

"This riveting true-crime drama probes the lives of the Menendez brothers, convicted of the brutal 1989 murders of their parents in Beverly Hills."

Lyle and Erik Menendez shot their parents multiple times.

Reportedly, the Menendez brothers shot both their parents, Jose Menendez and Mary Louise Andersen (Kitty), on August 20, 1989, at their Beverly Hills home. The couple was shot several times. Reportedly, Jose was shot six times and Kitty was shot ten times. When the crime officers arrived, Erik and Lyle told them that they weren’t present at the crime scene when their parents were brutally slain. According to the brothers, they had gone for a movie.

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A few months after the murders, Lyle and Erik Menendez began to spend their inheritance wildly and engaged in all kinds of luxuries. When the investigations began and there was no lead found about the killers, the police eventually began to suspect the two brothers.

Erik’s psychologist Jerome Oziel’s wife later revealed to the authorities that Erik had confessed to her husband about killing his parents after conspiring with his brother. Shortly after this revelation, Lyle was arrested on March 8, 1990. On March 11, 1990, Erik was also jailed after he turned himself in.

Read more: Are the Menendez brothers still in prison?


Lyle and Erik Menendez confessed to the crimes

Reportedly, both the brothers confessed to killing their parents. However, they also revealed that their father was a molester and a se*ual abuser, and although they told their mother about the same, she never tried to stop it. Allegedly, their mother was an alcoholic and a drug addict.

Therefore, the brothers took matters into their own hands and killed their parents as an act of self-defense. Reportedly, the brothers also claimed that their father threatened to slay them if they revealed to the public that they were abused. Several cousins of the Menendez brothers testified in court during the 1993 trial and also revealed that even they were aware of the heinousness that Erik and Lyle went through as kids and confirmed that they were se*ually abused by their father.


What did the prosecution say?

As per the prosecutors, the brothers killed their parents so that they could get the money and property, as a few weeks after the murder they were seen spending money lavishly. After the first trial ended with two deadlocked juries, in a second trial, the brothers were found guilty and sentenced to life without parole for two counts of first-degree murder, along with conspiracy to murder. They were sent to separate prisons on July 2, 1996.

For years, the two stayed separated in different prisons; however, on April 4, 2018, the brothers were again reunited at the Richard J. Donovan inmate housing facility.

Read more: Who did the Menendez brothers marry?


Update on the case

In March 2023, a petition was filed for a retrial after new evidence surfaced, which showed Erik writing to his cousin a year before stating that they were abused by their father. There are no updates on this appeal yet, and we will wait for future updates to know if Lyle and Erik Menendez will get a retrial to prove their innocence and that they killed their parents in an act of self-defense.


To learn more about this case, watch Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story, now streaming on Netflix.

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Edited by Meghna
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