Ryan Murphy's "Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menéndez Story" debuted on Netflix on September 19, 2024. The series recounts the details of the Menéndez brothers' murder of their parents, José and Kitty, in 1989. Those alive and watching the news at the time recall what a blazingly salacious affair their trial was. Beginning in 1993, CourtTV broadcasted extended portions of the time the brothers spent in court (they were tried separately), and the details began to sound like a daytime soap opera. The brothers said that José Menéndez was sexually abusing Erik, and that he threatened to kill them both if they told the cops. Kitty never stood up to him, so the brothers felt no other recourse but to kill them with a shotgun in preemptive self-defense. After the murders, but prior to the arrest, the brother had rather suspiciously begun living richly on their sizable inheritance.

Infamously, the juries were deadlocked in both trials, resulting in a mistrial. The brothers, however, were tried a second time, this time together, with details about their abuse legally omitted. They were eventually sentenced to life in prison in 1996. The second trial wasn't televised.

Even if one wasn't there in the 1990s, it's likely an average TV viewer knows about the Menéndez murders thanks to a slew of TV shows, documentaries, and other reports that have come out in their wake. America was obsessed with the Menéndez Brothers, and the then-new 24-hour news cycle offered by cable TV only fed the obsession. If you, dear reader, think America's obsession with true crime began in the podcast era, know that we were making a big deal about murderers for decades.

Indeed, the obsession with the Menéndez murders was satirized in the 1996 Ben Stiller film "The Cable Guy," a film about an obsessive cable TV technician (Jim Carrey) who psychopathically inserts himself into the life of a customer (Matthew Broderick). Stiller cameoed as a very Menéndez-like character whose trial could be seen on TV screens in the backgrounds of much of the film.