How the Menendez brothers case blazed a trail for the true crime genre
Stephen Battaglio March 25, 2024
If there were a Mount Rushmore of true crime,
the faces of
Erik and Lyle Menendez
brothers
would certainly be on it.
The 1989 murder case of the two brothers who gunned down their parents Jose and Kitty Menendez in their Beverly Hills mansion predates the era of podcasting and YouTube sleuths that saturate the internet today. But their sensational trials were inescapable in the 1990s and now resonate
s
with a new generation of
true crime
obsessives.
The public’s enduring fascination with the case and the changing perceptions of the brothers’ defense that they were sexually abused by their father is the focus of “Menendez Brothers: Victims or Villains,” a new documentary series that premieres Monday on Fox News Media’s streaming service Fox Nation.
“It’s the first such case in American media history that was something more than a legal story,” Jonathan Towers, vice president of development for Fox Nation, said in an interview. “It was a form of entertainment.”
The case’s powerful mixture of family dysfunction, money and violence has made it the subject of two made-for-TV movies, an upcoming Netflix series from
Hollywood
producer Ryan Murphy and a steady stream of documentaries over the years.
It’s easy to understand audiences’ insatiable appetite for stories about the brothers.
They entered Entering the living room of the family’s Elm Drive home on Aug. 20, 1989, . Using 12-gauge shot guns, the brothers fired 12-gauge shot guns
multiple times at their parents, creating a crime scene so blood-soaked even Sam Peckinpah would have looked away.
After
tellingclaimingto
police that their parents were murdered, the brothers went on a conspicuous spending spree before they were arrested for the crime. At their trials,
their defense defense
teams said they were driven to kill
in self-defense
after years of being physically and sexually abused by their father.
Their first trial
in 1993
ended in
hung juriesa hung jury
. They were re-tried and convicted in 1996 and are serving prison sentences of life without parole at the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego.
The first Menendez trial
in 1993
took place when cameras in the courtroom were still novel and cable TV was growing. Courtroom video became programming for Court TV, one of the early signature networks of the then expanding multi-channel universe.
Instead of sketches or print and TV journalism accounts, viewers watched the
criminal justicelegal
system play out in real time. The shared experience of observing the proceedings made the Menendez
b
rothers ubiquitous. Every facial expression was scrutinized, as “Victims or Villains,” produced by the Los Angeles-based Pilgrim Media Group, depicts with dozens of vintage video clips.
Los Angeles commuters heard KFI radio hosts John
Kobylt
Chiampou
riff daily on the topic. Network news and tabloid shows such as “A Current Affair” featured the story every night. Loftier venues such as Charlie Rose’s PBS talk show and ABC’s “Nightline” with Ted Koppel weighed in as well.
The Menendez brothers paved the way for the live-from-L.A. legal saga of O.J. Simpson that began in 1994. The televised trial of the actor and former football star for the killing of his wife Nicole
Brown Smith
and her friend Ron Goldman was such a ratings draw
,
it dealt a
major
blow to network daytime soap operas from which they would never recover.
True crime sagas and court cases went on to become the main source material for network newsmagazines such as “Dateline” and “48 Hours.” They have proliferated on dedicated cable networks such as Investigation Discover
y
, supplied streaming platforms, and serve as a massive driver for podcasts such as Ashley Flowers’ “Crime Junkie.”
( Murdoch family-controlled Fox News Media has turned to true crime to build its Fox Nation streaming business. The platform, which has 2 million paid subscribers, is stocking up on investigative documentaries that can attract a younger audience than that of doesnt typically watch the companys conservative-leaning cable news channel. )
But what may be
the
most jarring aspect of “Victims or Villains” is how the Menendez brothers were a source of laughs. They were depicted in sketches on “Saturday Night Live” and spoofed by Jay Leno on “The Tonight Show.” (Both shows lampooned the Simpson trial as well
as
Leno featured a dancing troupe of Judge Lance Ito lookalikes).
“It is fascinating to see how it was a matter of comedy back then,” Towers said. “It would not be today.”
“Victims or Villains” examines how the media frenzy around the Menendez brothers permeated through the public perception of the case. Their defense was called “the abuse excuse” by some legal pundits and critics.
“Are we on the verge of substituting a talk show empathy for our criminal code? Koppel asked his “Nightline” viewers.
The documentary also explores how the ridicule
of
the juries and prosecutors were subjected to after the mistrial
affectedhad an impact on
the second trial that ended with a conviction. Those
latter
proceedings were not televised.
But the public understanding of the trauma sexual abuse can have on children,
includingespecially
among men, has evolved over the years. Various cases involving the molestation of children by members of the Catholic
C
hurch, the trial of Penn State coach Jerry Sandusky and actors speaking out about abuse
they experienced
have altered the once-taboo
conservation conversation
.
screenshot-2024-03-21-at-10-45-19-am1.png
Comedian and
actoractress
Rosie O’Donnell, a victim of sexual abuse, appears in “Victims or Villains” as an advocate for the brothers and the validity of their claims. She has been joined by the droves of young social media users who have discovered the case.
During the COVID-19
lockdowns shutdownsin 2020
, the current iteration of Court TV a digital over-the-air network owned by Scripps aired the
first
Menendez trial
s
in
itstheir
entirety;
it is also available via streaming.
Captive viewers tuned in and many took to TikTok to express support for the
siblingsbrothers
and their contention that
the
abuse
they were subjected to
drove them to kill.
Th
e changing
public sentiment comes as the current legal team for the Menendez brothers
seeksis seeking
a new hearing based on recently discovered evidence purporting to show their father had also molested Roy Rossell, when the singer was a 14-year-old member of the boy band Menudo.
The Menendez lawyers contend the new evidence corroborates the brothers’ claims and supports
the argumentassertion
that they should have been convicted of manslaughter instead of first-degree murder.
The doubters remain. Pam Bozanich, a member of the Los Angeles
County
District Attorney’s prosecution team for the first Mendendez trial, has sat for 14 documentary interviews over the years. In “Victims or Villains,” she still maintains the brothers fabricated the story of their father’s abuse.
“The facts in this case are irrefutable,” Bozanich said. “Except for the ones about Jose being a child molester.”
