The 1989 murders of Jose and Kitty Menendez at the hands of their 18- and 21-year-old sons are back in the spotlight due to the premiere of Netflix’s “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story.”
The series, directed by Ryan Murphy, stars Javier Bardem as Jose Menendez, Chloë Sevigny as Kitty Menendez, and Nicholas Chavez and Cooper Koch as Lyle and Erik Menendez, as it recounts the moments leading up to the grisly double murder in Beverly Hills — and what happened after.
Jose and Kitty Menendez were shot and killed in their Los Angeles home on Aug. 20, 1989, leaving a scene so gruesome it was initially investigated as a mob hit, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Their two sons, Joseph “Lyle” Menendez, now 56, and Erik Galen Menendez, now 53, were convicted in 1996 of killing their parents with shotguns after two trials, the first of which ended in hung juries.
In the brothers’ second trial, which was before a single jury and free of TV cameras, the judge ruled allegations of Jose Menendez abusing his children as inadmissible, though that was the defense’s argument in the first trial.
Erik and Lyle Menendez have been imprisoned for more than half of their lives since their arrest in 1990. Allegations of sexual abuse from a member of Puerto Rican boy band Menudo against their father, included in the 2023 Peacock series “Menendez + Menudo: Boys Betrayed,” but not included in their trials in the 1990s, could corroborate their claims — and potentially reopen their case.
Here’s what to know about the Menendez brothers, the Menendez family’s connections to Menudo and where the brothers are now.
What happened on Aug. 20, 1989?
Jose Menendez spent most of the early 1980s as chief operating officer at RCA Records, where he helped sign bands like Duran Duran, The Eurythmics and Menudo, according to the Los Angeles Times.
He moved his family to California after leaving RCA Records in 1986 to work for Carolco Pictures, according to the Times, and he purchased a 9,000-square-foot home in Beverly Hills in October 1988.
The Beverly Hills home would become the infamous crime scene where Jose Menendez and his wife Mary “Kitty” Menendez were shot several times in their living room on Aug. 20, 1989 with two 12-gauge shotguns.
“It was just absolutely savage,” Russ Olson, a former Beverly Hills police captain and murder investigator said of the crime scene on an episode of “Snapped,“ an Oxygen true crime documentary series. “You’re looking at two human beings who had been ripped apart.”
Jose Menendez, 45, was shot at point-blank range in the back of the head, and was struck three more times in the arms and legs. Kitty Menendez, 47, was shot four times in the head and five other times across her body.
“The bodies were distorted,” Olson said. “They had no resemblance of what you would expect a human being to look like.”
Then 21-year-old Lyle Menendez called 911 saying he and his then 18-year-old brother Erik Menendez had just returned home to find their parents slain.
“Somebody killed my parents,” Lyle Menendez told the dispatcher, according to a transcript of the call. “Erik, get away from them,” he could be heard shouting at his brother on the call.
When police arrived, neighbors could hear screams and officers found Erik Menendez curled in a ball, sobbing on the lawn, the Times reported.
Investigators described the murders as a “gangland-style killing,” the Times reported citing police reports, and detectives suspected the slayings were perpetrated by mobsters or Jose Menendez’s business rivals who may have had a grudge.
However, the Menendez brothers’ financial behavior following the slayings began to attract the attention of investigators: Lyle Menendez bought a Porsche, a Rolex and thousands of dollars worth of clothing, while Erik Menendez purchased a custom Jeep Wrangler.
Shortly after police confiscated recordings of the brothers’ therapy sessions which contained incriminating information, and about seven months after the murders, the couple’s oldest son, Lyle Menendez, was arrested on March 8, 1990.
Erik Menendez surrendered to authorities three days later, and both brothers made their first appearance in court on March 12.
Why were there multiple trials?
The Menendez brothers were first tried jointly with separate juries in 1993. The case became a national sensation due to television coverage of the courtroom proceedings on Court TV.
In the first trial, the brothers argued they killed their parents because they feared for their safety after a lifetime of sexual abuse perpetrated by their father, and condoned by their mother. A family member testified about hearing of knowing the abuse as a child, ABC News reported.
Prosecutors argued the brothers had killed their parents for financial gain, and the trial ended with two deadlocked juries in January 1994, according to the New York Times.
Then Los Angeles County District Attorney Gil Garcetti said he would retry the case and that he would not accept a plea bargain, according to the Times.
The brothers’ were tried before a single jury for their second trial, which began in August 1995. Judge Stanley Weisberg, the judge in the second trial, ruled evidence and testimony about the brothers’ allegations of sexual abuse would be inadmissible in the new trial, citing irrelevance, the Los Angeles Times reported
Erik and Lyle Menendez were convicted of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder in March 1996.
Both brothers were sentenced to two consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole, according to the Associated Press.
What is Menudo and what are its ties to the Menendez family?
Menudo was a Puerto Rican boy band formed in 1977 by music producer Edgardo Diaz. The original lineup featured five boys in their early teens, and became an international sensation by the early 1980s — Ricky Martin even debuted in the group in 1984.
Once boys reached age 15 or 16, they would be replaced by younger members, former members recalled in “Menendez + Menudo: Boys Betrayed.” (Peacock is of TODAY’s parent company, NBCUniversal.)
Roy Roselló joined Menudo at age 13 in August 1983, and alleged in the documentary he was sexually abused by Diaz, the group’s founder, for the three years he was in the band.
Diaz did not respond to a request for comment for the Peacock documentary or from NBC News, but he has repeatedly denied the allegations of sexual abuse against him from former members of the band.
Roselló also alleged in the series he was molested by Jose Menendez when Menendez was the head of RCA Records. Roselló said Diaz took him to Menendez’s home, where Menendez drugged him and raped him.
“That’s the man here,” Roselló said in the series, pointing to a photo of Jose Menendez posing with Menudo after they signed to RCA in 1983. “This guy — that’s the pedophile.”
Erik Menendez said in “Menendez + Menudo: Boys Betrayed” he remembered seeing Roselló with his father in their home as a child.
“My dad was one of the guys that was choosing and selecting the new members of the group,” he said. “I remember specifically taking one of the kids and going off and saying he wanted to talk to him alone and they went off into the house upstairs.”
Robert Rand, a journalist and executive producer on “Menendez + Menudo: Boys Betrayed” who has been covering the brothers’ case for decades, told Erik Hernandez the news of Roselló’s allegations against his father over the phone in the docuseries.
“Frankly, to be honest, I feel horrible. It’s sad to know there was another victim of my father,” Erik Menendez said. “I always hoped and believed that one day the truth about my dad would come out, but I never wished for it to come out like this — the result of trauma another child has suffered. It makes me very sad.”
Lyle Hernandez said in the series the allegations were “overwhelming” to hear.
“We’ve heard rumors that something might have happened with Menudo through the years,” he said. “It’s a remarkable thing to happen so many decades later.”
“Of course you would know that would have made a difference at trial,” he told Rand. “Certainly that would have made an enormous difference because the entire trial centered on the belief about these events.”
The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office did not respond to questions from TODAY.com in 2023 seeking the status of the investigation into Roselló’s police report, which he filed in November 2022.
Will the Menendez brothers ever be released?
Erik and Lyle Menendez are currently incarcerated at the RJ Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego, California, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, where they are not eligible for parole.
Attorneys for the Menendez brothers filed a habeas petition on May 4, 2023, according to court documents obtained by NBC News, based on new evidence uncovered in the “Menendez + Menudo: Boys Betrayed” documentary that was not included in their trials in the 1990s. The petition also included a 1988 letter Erik Menendez wrote to his cousin complaining of ongoing abuse from his father.
The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office said in a statement to TODAY.com on Sept. 18, 2024 it was investigating the claims made in the petition, and that “the matter is pending the filing of informal response” by Sept. 26.
A previous statement from the district attorney’s office to TODAY.com in May 2023 confirmed the office had received the petition and that it was under review.
Alan Jackson, a criminal defense attorney, outlined on TODAY in May 2023 what what would need to happen for the Menendez brothers to “breathe free air one of these days.”
“First, they have to file the petition. The petition has to be reviewed by a superior court judge. The judge has to grant a new trial, and the defense has to win at trial,” Jackson said. “So those procedural and factual hurdles — that’s a big mountain to climb.”
“Is this a glimmer of hope? It’s a glimmer,” Jackson continued.
Where are the Menendez brothers now?
Erik and Lyle Menendez began serving life sentences without the possibility of parole after they were convicted of murdering their parents in 1996.
Lyle Menendez is now 56 and his younger brother Erik Menendez is now 53, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
The brothers were held at separate prisons until 2018, when they were both moved to the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility, where they are currently serving their sentence.
Rand told ABC News in 2018 that before their reunion, the brothers hadn’t seen each other since Sept. 10, 1996.
Lyle Menendez was led down a hallway to meet his brother in a room in the prison, and once the guard opened the door, both brothers “burst into tears immediately,” Rand said.
“They just hugged each other for a few minutes without saying any words to each other,” Rand said. “Then the prison officials let them spend an hour together in a room.”
Rand wrote in his book, “The Menendez Murders,” that he also spent time with both brothers in 2024, when he was invited to see a large mural unveiled at the correctional facility, part of a beautification effort led in part by Lyle and Erik Menendez.
“Both brothers had big smiles on their faces,” Rand wrote, adding they were all emotional during the 20-minute visit.
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