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The series starts with a shock. The people in the church are embarrassed and can’t believe their ears. Lyle Menendez has just finished giving his parents’ eulogy when Milli Vanillis’ “Girl I’m Gonna Miss You” comes over the speakers. A love song about a “magical smile”, about “wrapping around your finger”. “It’s a tragedy for me to see the dream is over / And I’ll never forget the day I met you,” the chorus goes, “Girl, I miss you.”

The Milli Vanilli song was actually played at the memorial service

Hardly ever has one heard a song that is more inappropriate to the event than the one in memory of the murdered couple José and Mary Louise “Kitty” Menendez. An exaggeration in order to steer the audience towards “guilty” with regard to the brothers in the Netflix series “Monster: The Story of Lyle and Erik Menendez” who were later convicted of the bloody deeds “out of greed”? That’s what really happened, posted Robert Rand, author of the book “The Menendez Murders: The Shocking Untold Story of the Menendez Family and the Killings that Stunned the Nation” in August on the microblogging service X, who once covered the Menendez case as a reporter . And series creator Ryan Murphy said: “You can’t make something like this up.”

The brothers Joseph Lyle Menendez (56) and Erik Galen Menendez (53) shot their parents in their Beverly Hills villa on August 20, 1989, while they were watching television in the living room. Father José was hit with six shots from the brothers’ shotguns, mother Kitty with ten shots, only the last shot in her face was fatal. Because of the extreme brutality of the crimes and the blood-and-bone chaos at the crime scene, mafia killers were initially suspected as the perpetrators. Then the lavish lifestyle drew the attention of prosecutors to the brothers.

The brothers talk about the fear that their parents would want to kill them

Erik Menendez confessed to his psychotherapist’s actions, whose ex then informed the police. The brothers were arrested on March 8 and 11, 1990, and in December 1992 charges of two counts of premeditated murder were filed. The first trial, which ended as a mistrial in 1994 (each brother had a separate jury who disagreed), was broadcast live on Court TV. Sensational television.

The brothers spoke of their fear that their parents wanted to kill them to cover up endless sexual abuse against them. The prosecution spoke of greed and fear of being left out of the parents’ will.

At the end of the second trial in 1996, the two were sentenced to life imprisonment – with no chance of pardon: for two counts of premeditated murder and conspiracy to commit the murders. The jury (there was only one this time) decided not to award the death penalty. Not because of the defense’s reports of years of sexual abuse by the father with the mother’s tolerance. But because the brothers have never been guilty of anything before.

Petitions for the brothers have gained momentum

Autumn is currently being hotly debated. Since the Netflix series went online in September and immediately became a streaming hit thanks to the continued success of true crime material, two petitions have gained new momentum. Also through the documentary “The Menendez Brothers,” which also launched on Netflix on October 7th, and contains excerpts from 20 hours of new telephone interviews with the brothers in prison.

The “Appeal for Menendez Brothers” petition published at the beginning of March 2019, which aims to reopen the process, currently has 410,334 signatures (1,836 new signatories were announced on August 14th). Another petition, which has been called for by “Free the Menendez Brothers” since March 9, 2020, only has 79,197 signatures, with a good 2,000 increases per day, but is even more dynamic. The main allegation made in the petitions is that the alleged years of sexual abuse by the father were not taken into account in the verdict at the time.

A lot of support comes from Generation Z

And there is even more support that goes in the same direction: a Tiktok movement “menendezsupporterrr,” for example, which calls for “justice for the Menendez brothers,” has 273,500 followers and 15.1 million likes. At the end of 2020, author and journalist Grant had already noticed a surge in interest in his website MenendezMurdeers.com. Instead of 500 visitors per day, there were once 50,000 on a weekend.

Much of the current support comes from young people from Generation Z, most of whom were not even born at the time of the trials. Sharon Ross, a professor of media studies at Columbia College in Chicago, was quoted in the New York Times in 2021 as saying that the true crime boom and short “high impact” posts on services like Tiktok are increasing online debate among young people about ” “fueled major issues such as the definition of truth, justice and equality.”

“No Monsters” – Celebrity Support from Kim Kardashian

Menendez’s lawyers argue that if the current understanding of the impact of sexual abuse on victims had been used, a conviction for premeditated murder would never have occurred. There is also celebrity support. Kim Kardashian, reality star, law student, justice reform advocate, championed “kind, intelligent and honorable men” in a personal essay for NBC News. They are “not a monster”.

The brothers’ actions were “inexcusable,” but the lack of a chance for parole was questionable, Kardashian said. The perpetrators are now in their fifties. Time changed everyone, “and I doubt anyone would say they were the same person they were when they were 18. I know I’m not,” she said.

A new hearing is scheduled for the end of November

The focus of a new evidence review that the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office is now conducting is a letter written by Erik Menendez that supports allegations that he was abused by his father. George Gascón, the county’s district attorney, confirmed two weeks after the “Monster” series began that Menendez’s lawyers had asked the court to overturn the convictions.

Before the evidence was evaluated, nothing could be said about the need for a new verdict, it was said at a press conference at the beginning of October. A hearing is scheduled for November 29th, which the brothers had already requested in May 2023 – after Roy Rosselló, a former member of the boy band Manudo, testified on the “Today” show that he had been raped by José Menendez as a 14-year-old .

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Old narrative – disappointment with Erik Menendez’s Netflix series

Erik Menendez is particularly disappointed with Murphy’s series, seeing it as “a dishonorable depiction of the tragedies that surround our crimes.” It goes, Erik Menendez’s wife Tammi posted a statement from her husband on September 20th, “back through time to an era in which the prosecution created a narrative based on the belief that men are not sexually abused and that . “Men would experience rape trauma differently than women.”

This narrative has been refuted by “countless brave victims over two decades,” people who “overcame their personal shame and courageously spoke (the truth).” It is “demoralizing to know that a single man with power can undo decades of progress in solving childhood trauma,” says Menendez in the direction of producer, director and screenwriter Murphy, whose name except for the two “Monster” seasons (the (the first was about the serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer in 2022) also stands for the spectacular anthology series “American Horror Story” (since 2010).

Alejandro Hartmann’s documentary also has an element of surprise – a few minutes before the credits. Pamela Bozanich, prosecutor in the first Menendez trial, explains that the entire documentary owes its existence solely to the movement “to free the ‘Menendi’”. In the future, processes could also be held as Tiktok votes, Bozanich then says sarcastically, pointing out their fallibility to the Menendez supporters: “Your beliefs are not facts.” They are just beliefs.”

And then seamlessly become very dramatic: “By the way, Tiktok people – I’m armed.” We have guns all over the house. So you better not mess with me.” Is Bozanich expecting a house storm? Paranoia that has a macabre aftertaste when you consider the underlying case. And which promptly caused outrage on social media.

There have already been three dramatizations about the parricides, including “Menendez: Blood Brothers” (2017), in which Kurt Cobain’s widow Courtney Love was seen in the role of Menendez’s mother. And before “The Menendez Brothers” there were twelve other documentaries, eleven of them since 2015. The story of the murderers and their murders haunts America permanently in the media.

Murphy wants people to finally talk about the sexual abuse of men

His series is “the best thing that has happened to the Menendez brothers in 30 years,” Ryan Murphy told the trade publication “Variety” on September 26th and rejected the criticism – Menendez did not talk about specific mistakes, the series had his own Didn’t see knowledge at all. Murphy wanted to encourage two things, he said on “Deadline”: that everyone form their own opinion. And that sexual abuse of men is finally being talked about.

Was the Milli Vanilli song deliberately written?

Was it really just bad taste to play the Milli Vanilli song at the memorial service, or was it perhaps deliberately used by the murderers as a warning of abuse? Because it also says: “Like a honey bee, you have robbed me of the best.” And: “I cannot erase these memories.” And: “You have left a scar that is so difficult to heal.” And every “you” can also mean “you”. May be. Or not.

“He might consider doing another episode or two to incorporate current and upcoming events,” Murphy told Variety in early October. “We gave them their moment in the court of public opinion (…),” said the series creator.

“I think they can be out of prison by Christmas. I really believe that.”