‘Monsters’: How were the Menendez brothers caught?

The Menendez brothers are both currently serving life sentences for the murder of their parents, but how were the subjects of the second season of Netflix’s Monster caught? I’ll explain.

Who are the Menendez brothers?

Lyle and Erik Menendez, now in their 50’s, were both young adults when they killed their parents in 1989. They were born in California and grew up affluent in Beverly Hills. On an August evening, they went into their parents’ home and murdered their mother and father with shotguns, shooting them a combined 14 times. The crime scene was grisly, police were baffled. Their best guess? A mob hit. Nothing else could explain the sheer brutality of the killing.

Meanwhile, the newly self-orphaned Menendez brothers were living the high life. They spent over $700,000 of their parents’ substantial fortune on exactly what you’d expect two single men in their twenties to buy: cars and jewelry. They even bought multiple restaurants. They spent the next six months of their post-murder lives free, clear, and rich—until one piece of evidence thing changed everything …

How were the brothers caught?

Police received a tip from a source straight out of a soap opera: the mistress of Erik Menendez’s psychologist. Judalon Smyth told authorities that Erik had confessed to the murder in a therapy session, which was recorded on tape. The brothers were arrested in 1990 for the killing.

Wait a minute. What about therapist/client privilege?

That was the rub, as Hamlet would say. While the police had a recording of Erik recounting exactly when, where, and how the murders were conducted, the Menendez brothers’ lawyers argued that the audiotape was not admissible in court. In 1992, after a years-long legal battle, the Supreme Court of California finally ruled that while most of the recordings could be used to prove the brothers’ guilt, the tape where Erik described the murder in detail was the exception. Now all the prosecutors needed for a conviction was a motive.

The Menendez brothers’ lavish spending habits proved to be enough.

Deputy District Attorneys Pamela Bozanich and Lester Kuriyama successfully argued that the motive for the murders could be explained by greed. The brothers had plotted to take over their parents’ $14.5 million estate, and the killing was premeditated. The defense, however, argued that the brothers’ actions had been in self-defense of their parents’ abuse (particularly their father’s molestation of the boys), but even after multiple trials, it was not enough to save the pair from a first-degree murder conviction.

Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story is currently streaming on Netflix.