Posted on 09/24/2024 3:50:56 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Erik Menendez spoke out against the new Netflix series, Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story, which revisits the trials that convicted him and his brother, Lyle, of murdering their parents.
In a statement shared by his wife, Tammi Menendez, on X, Erik criticized the show, saying it misleadingly portrayed him and his brother and there are "blatant lies rampant in the show." He accused co-creator Ryan Murphy of intentionally distorting the facts surrounding their crime.
"Murphy shapes his horrible narrative through vile and appalling character portrayals of Lyle and of me and disheartening slander," he said in the post shared on Thursday.
Erik added, "It is sad for me to know that Netflix's dishonest portrayal of the tragedies surrounding our crime have taken the painful truths several steps backward — back through time to an era when the prosecution built a narrative on a belief system that males were not sexually abused, and that males experienced rape trauma differently than women."
Ryan Murphy Productions and Netflix did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
In 1989, José and Kitty Menendez were shot and killed in their Beverly Hills mansion. At the time, Lyle and Erik were 21 and 18. Police initially believed that members of a mafia went after their parents. But the brothers later said that they killed their parents as a result of years of physical, emotional and sexual abuse.
In 1993, their trial was aired on national television, becoming a media sensation that sharply divided public opinion on the brothers' motives — whether they acted in response to abuse or for greed for the parents' fortune.
A cousin backed the defense's claims of molestation, saying Erik had previously talked about it. But prosecutors argued that the abuse claims were fabricated and the brothers were instead motivated by greed, specifically to inherit millions of dollars.
Their first trial led to deadlocked juries. But after a retrial, where the judge did not allow the defense to fully present the brothers’ sexual abuse claims, Erik and Lyle were found guilty of murder and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole in 1996. Both are serving time in Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in Southern California.
Nearly 30 years since their convictions, Netflix is revisiting the brothers' crime and court proceedings in a 9-episode drama starring Nicholas Alexander Chavez as Lyle and Cooper Koch as Erik. In a press release, Netflix described the series as exploring the question "Who are the real monsters?"
It is the second season of Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan’s true-crime anthology series. The first season looked at the serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer.
The parents were unavailable for comment.
“Character assassination” of two brothers who murdered their father and mother? I don’t care a fig for Netflix but they hardly stepped over the line in painting these horrible creatures for what they are.
Now now have some sympathy, they’re orphans, don’cha know.
I watched it last night. At a minimum, even with exaggeration, the boys were incredibly stupid. Reminds me of Goodfellas. Immediately after the heist, crew members went on a spending spree. So did the Menendez boys. It was a badly planned murder.
Who cares?
I didn’t know they had Netflix in prisons.
So is NPR on the same side of the brothers? I can believe it.
They massacred their mother and father. Merciless, blew them away and made sure they were dead. The hell with them.
They have no ‘reputation’ to save.
Oh goody, another instruction video showing us how to murder.
But not how to get away with it.
They were convicted of murdering their parents. I don’t see how anything in this Netflix series could possibly make them seem even more evil.
But they were adults.
Someone wants to let these murderers out. What they did to their parents who gave them everything. Nothing will save them from God’s judgement.
From Wikipedia:
On June 12, 1999, Erik married Tammi Ruth Saccoman at Folsom State Prison in a prison waiting room. Tammi later stated: "Our wedding cake was a Twinkie. We improvised. It was a wonderful ceremony until I had to leave. That was a very lonely night." In an October 2005 interview with ABC News, she described her relationship with Erik as "something that I've dreamed about for a long time. And it's just something very special that I never thought that I would ever have." In 2005, Saccoman self-published a book, They Said We'd Never Make It – My Life with Erik Menéndez, but she said on CNN's Larry King Live that Erik also "did a lot of editing on the book". In an interview with People magazine, she stated: Not having sex in my life is difficult, but it's not a problem for me. I have to be emotionally attached, and I'm emotionally attached to Erik ... My family does not understand. When it started to get serious, some of them just threw up their hands. Saccoman also stated that she and her daughter drove 150 mi every weekend to visit Erik, and that her daughter refers to him as her "Earth Dad". Discussing his life sentence, Erik stated: "Tammi is what gets me through. I can't think about the sentence. When I do, I do it with a great sadness and a primal fear. I break into a cold sweat. It's so frightening I just haven't come to terms with it."
Pathological!
Regards,
“They massacred their mother and father. Merciless, blew them away and made sure they were dead”
I saw the first episode, needlessly graphic during the murder scene. Upset the wife for sure.
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