On the heels of Netflix’s successful Jeffrey Dahmer project, the streaming giant has announced the Menendez brothers will be the focus of next season.
‘Monsters: the Lyle and Erik Menendez Story’ will premiere in 2024, Netflix announced in May.
Actors Cooper Koch and Nicholas Alexander Chavez have been cast to play the Menendez brothers, reports Deadline.
Lyle Menendez, right, and brother Erik listen to a charge of murder conspiracy against them with Leslie Abramson, far left, attorney for Erik, Dec. 29, 1992 in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Chris Martinez)
The second installment of Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan’s ‘Monster’ anthology series will detail the true story of two brothers who brutally murdered their parents in their Beverly Hills mansion in Aug. 1989.
Court TV’s Trial Archives: The Menendez Brothers Trial
They spent the next six months funding a lavish lifestyle with their inheritance until March 1990, when they were arrested after Erik’s recorded confession during a therapy session with Dr. Jerome Oziel was brought to the police.
Prosecutors argued the Menendez brothers killed their parents to gain access to a $14 million inheritance. The defense argued it was self-defense after the boys suffered years of sexual abuse from their parents, and ultimately feared they would be killed.
READ MORE: Menendez brothers: What you want to know
Their first trial ended in a mistrial after both juries deadlocked. During their second untelevised trial, Judge Stanley M. Weisberg ruled no testimony of the sexual abuse allegations could be heard by the jury. The Menendez brothers were convicted of double murder in March 1996 and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Decades after their convictions, their case continues to transfix the true-crime world. And despite their life sentences, their attorneys believe new evidence that supports their claims of sexual abuse from their father could set them free.
In a press release, Netflix said ‘DAHMER – MONSTER: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story’ “reached 1 billion view hours in its first 60 days.” The pilot season “exposed Dahmer’s unconscionable crimes – many of them on young gay men of color – and centered around the underserved victims and their communities impacted by the systemic racism and institutional failures of the police that allowed one of America’s most notorious serial killers to continue his murderous spree in plain sight for over a decade.”
Watch the full 1992 trial of WI v. Jeffrey Dahmer in the Court TV Trial Archives.
