- "Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story" dramatizes a major murder case.
- In 1996, the Menendez brothers were convicted of murdering their parents in 1989.
"Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story," the latest buzzy true crime drama series from Netflix, tells the story of two brothers who killed their parents in 1989.
When put on trial, the brothers claimed that their father, José Menendez, had abused them both since childhood and that their mother, Mary Louise "Kitty" Menendez, enabled his behavior.
The series is the latest offering from producer Ryan Murphy, who is best known for helming the "American Horror Story" anthology series, as well as true-crime shows including "Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story" and "The People v. O. J. Simpson."
"The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story" takes some dramatic license with the brothers' personal lives and streamlines some of the legal proceedings to fit the limited series.
Here's what the show gets wrong about the case.
José Menendez likely didn't see who killed him
The series depicts José and Kitty Menendez seeing their sons, Erik (Cooper Koch) and Lyle (Nicholas Chavez), walk into their room holding shotguns before fatally shooting them. In the show, José even asks, "What are you doing? What is that?" when he sees them enter.
However, as reported by The Los Angeles Times in 1990, José was shot in the back of the head "at point blank range" while watching TV at home.
This likely means that he didn't see that his sons were his attackers. Kitty attempted to flee, but they shot her four times in the head, and six times across her body.
The brothers didn't go to a movie theater as an alibi for the murders
In the second episode of "Monsters," the brothers are seen heading to a Los Angeles movie theater and then getting food at a busy restaurant to create an alibi for the murders.
In reality, the Menendez brothers told the authorities they were at a Los Angeles theater watching a movie at the time of the killings but they didn't actually leave their parents' home to fabricate the lie.
Erik Menendez told ABC News in 1996: "Twelve shots in the middle of Beverly Hills on a Sunday night, and no one calls the police. We're waiting at the house, and no one shows up. I still can't believe it."
He added: "We didn't have an alibi, all we did was say we were at the movies."
There's no evidence the brothers had an incestuous relationship
"Monsters" suggests on a few occasions that the brothers had an incestuous relationship, including a brief scene after the murders where Lyle kisses Erik.
In episode seven, Vanity Fair journalist Dominick Dunne (Nathan Lane) discusses his theory that the brothers killed their parents because they had discovered a secret about their children.
The scene then shows Kitty Menendez walking in on Erik and Lyle Menendez kissing in the shower. There's no evidence that this happened.
If Dunne suspected in real life that the brothers had an incestuous relationship, he did not include it in his 1990 feature about the case, "Nightmare on Elm Drive," which also alleged that José Menendez sexually abused the sons.
A Facebook page that appeared to be run by a member of the Menendez family slammed the series in a post shared on Friday: "They had a plethora of material to draw from, and this is what they chose to do????? It's laughable. It's pathetic. And it is re-victimizing. It is imaginary. It is fiction. And to put out into the world the absurd notion that the brothers were lovers is the height of pure evil."
Erik Menendez has said he isn't gay
The show suggests that Erik is gay, and in one episode, he details a secret relationship as a teen with another teenage boy after being sexually abused by his father.
During the ABC interview, Erik said that he wasn't gay, despite what was said about him during the trial.
He said: "No. The prosecutor brought that up because I was sexually molested and he felt in his own thinking that if I was sodomized by my father that I must have enjoyed it and therefore I must be gay.
"And people that are gay out there must be sexually molested or they wouldn't be. It was upsetting to hear, but I am not gay. But a lot of gay people write and feel connected to me," he added.
Erik married Tammi Menendez in 1999, and they are still together.