Lyle and Eric Menéndez are breaking their silence in an upcoming Netflix documentary.
Netflix announced on Monday, September 23, that Lyle and Erik were interviewed for The Menéndez Brothers. The documentary, which is set to be released on October 7, also includes footage from conversations with juror Betty Oldfield, Kitty’s sister Joan Vander Molen and prosecutor Pamela Bozanich.
“Everyone asks why we killed our parents,” Lyle, 56, said in the trailer using an audio interview from prison. “Maybe now people can understand the truth.”
Erik, 53, added: “What happened that night is very well known but so much hasn’t been told. … So, we were not the ones who told the story about our lives. Two kids don’t commit this crime for money.”
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Lyle and Eric are both currently serving out their sentences of life without parole in Donovan Correctional Facility after being arrested in 1990 on two counts of first-degree murder. The brothers admitted to killing their parents, José and Kitty Menéndez following years of alleged physical, emotional and sexual abuse.
The first trial began in 1993 where the brothers were tried separately. The case ultimately ended in a mistrial after the jury was unable to reach a unanimous decision. A retrial began in 1995 but the prosecution successfully objected to most of the evidence surrounding the abuse. Erik and Lyle — who were being tried together this time — were ultimately found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to life without parole in 1996. They continue to appeal the decision but have been denied.
The high-profile case was the subject of Ryan Murphy’s Netflix show Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menéndez Story, which started streaming on Thursday, September 19. The series received backlash from viewers about several inaccuracies including insinuations that Lyle and Erik had a romantic relationship.
Erik slammed the scripted series for how it portrayed him and Lyle.
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“I believed we had moved beyond the lies and ruinous character portrayals of Lyle, creating a caricature of Lyle rooted in horrible and blatant likes rampant in the show,” read a statement from Erik on Friday, September 20, that was shared on Lyle’s Facebook page. “I can only believe they were done so on purpose. It is with a heavy heart that I say, I believe Ryan Murphy cannot be this naive and inaccurate about the facts of our lives so as to do this without bad intent.”
He continued: “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. Those awful lies have been disrupted and exposed by countless brave victims over the last two decades who have broken through their personal shame and bravely spoken out.”
The Menéndez Brothers airs on Netflix October 7.
