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Menendez Brothers React to Netflix Series Depicting Parents’ Murders
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Menendez Brothers React to Netflix Series Depicting Parents’ Murders

LOS ANGELES — Erik Menendez criticized the Netflix series “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story,” based on the 1989 murders of Jose and Kitty Menendez, in a statement shared by his wife.

Tammi Menendez, who married Erik in 1999, posted a statement about him on social media platform X on Sept. 19, calling “The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story” “horrible” and “inaccurate.” The show is the second season in Ryan Murphy’s “Monster” anthology, which began with a series about Jeffrey Dahmer.

Brothers Lyle and Erik Menendez were convicted of murdering their parents Joe and Kitty on August 20, 1989. They were sentenced to life in prison without parole and are both still serving time in California. The series follows the lead-up to their parents’ murder and the trial that followed.

“I believed we had moved beyond the lies and the ruinous characterizations of Lyle, and had created a caricature of Lyle that was rooted in the horrible and blatant lies that were rampant on the show,” Tammi Menendez said in a statement. “I can only believe they did this on purpose. It is with a heavy heart that I say I believe Ryan Murphy could not be so naive and inaccurate about the facts of our lives to do this without malicious intent.”

Prosecutors at the first trial argued that the brothers murdered their parents for their estate money. The brothers testified that their father began abusing them when they were both 6 years old. In a 1995 trial, the abuse charges were thrown out.

“It is sad to know that Netflix’s dishonest portrayal of the tragedies surrounding our crimes has set the painful truth back several steps — back in time to an era when prosecutors built a narrative on a belief system that men were not sexually assaulted and that men experienced rape trauma differently than women,” Tammi Menendez said in a statement.

“How demoralizing it is to know that one man with power can undermine decades of progress in shedding light on childhood trauma,” the statement continued. “Violence is never an answer, never a solution, and is always tragic. That is why I hope it will never be forgotten that violence against a child creates a hundred horrific and silent crime scenes, darkly shadowed by the glitz and glamour and rarely revealed until the tragedy has sunk in for everyone involved.”

Murphy has not issued a statement following criticism from the Menendez family.