Netflix's Monsters: Is the Lyle and Erik Menendez Story based on a true story?

Netflix's latest true crime series Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story has sent a chill down viewers' spines, leaving many to wonder if the horrific crimes committed in the series are based on a true story.

Netflix have released no end of enthralling true crime series so far this year, with drama series like The Perfect Couple enticing us with murder, family secrets and plot twists, and documentaries leaving us shocked, sad and asking questions like what happened to Aundria Bowman from Into the Fire: The Lost Daughter.

But the streamer's latest release, while binge-worthy, has left many viewers uncomfortable and unnerved.

We expected the second instalment of Netflix's Monsters series, The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story, to be an uncomfortable watch considering the often toe-curling scenes in the first season, The Jeffrey Dahmer Story. But, like many, we've been left with nightmares!

Across nine episodes, the series follows the story of two brothers, Lyle and Erik Menendez. They have murdered their parents, José and Kitty, and we watch as they first try to cover up their crime, then when they are arrested, we see their reasoning behind the murders come to light as they try to reduce their sentences. It makes for bone-chilling TV and if you were hoping to ease your mind by searching out the origins of the murderous story, you might be unnerved to find out that it's rooted in fact, not fiction.

Is Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story based on a true story?

Yes, Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story is based on the true story of Lyle and Erik Menendez who murdered their parents in 1989. The pair, as seen in the show, shot their parents in their family home in Beverly Hills, shooting their mum Kitty 10 times while their father José was shot six times.

After committing the crime, the brothers then established their alibis. They first went to the cinema to watch Batman before heading to the Taste of LA Festival where there would be lots of people present who could back up their alibis.

They then returned home later that evening, believing that the police would already be there, alerted by the sound of the guns they had fired. However, no one had called 911 and the brothers rang to say they had just returned home to find their parents murdered.

The police believed them and so did not carry out any gun residue tests on the brothers. Instead, they investigated other possibilities, namely that it could have been a mafia hit, and the brothers thought they had got away with the crime.

However, in the months after their parents' deaths, Lyle and Erik spent their parents' money at an alarming rate. In just a few months, they'd managed to spend $700,000 of their inherited fortune on purchases including a Porsche, a Rolex, a restaurant, and a $40,000 investment in a rock concert just to name a few.

The behaviour seemed suspicious and the police started to look into them, believing they had killed their parents so they could inherit their family fortune.

The pair were arrested for the killings six months after they happened and both admitted that they had committed the murders but, they said, not for money. Instead, the brothers claimed - and still do to this day - that they killed their parents after experiencing a lifetime of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse at their hands, making the murders a case of 'self-defence.'

Lyle was arrested on 8 March 1990, and Erik turned himself into the police three days later. Their case went to trial in 1993 and, while the origonal court hearing ended in a mistrial after the jury failed to reach a unanimous decision, the retrial in 1995 saw both brothers convicted for the murders of José and Mary Louise 'Kitty' Menendez.

They are both serving life sentences without the possibility of parole.