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    • The Menendez Brothers Case Shows True Crime Shows Can Affect Real Life
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    The Menendez Brothers Case Shows True Crime Shows Can Affect Real Life

    Umito Posted on

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    Thirty-five years after Erik and Lyle Menendez shot their parents to death in their Southern California home, the brothers could benefit from a new sentence in what advocates called a movement toward justice. This is largely due to growing media attention and the nation’s appetite for true crime content.

    The Menendezes were convicted of murdering their parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez, in 1989 in a retrial after their first murder trial ended with an undecided jury. To secure a conviction a second time, substantial evidence of the abuse the brothers said they suffered at the hands of their parents was excluded, their lawyers say.

    But an outpouring of support for the brothers, who are currently serving life sentences without the possibility of parole, followed the release of the Netflix documentary “The Menendez Brothers” about the case earlier this month. Another Netflix offering, a dramatized performance, was released in September.

    What you need to know: Will the Menendez brothers be released?

    Popular true crime content – ​​which often explores and re-examines elements of real-life murders and other criminal cases in documentaries, podcasts and books – often sparks a wave of public interest and increased scrutiny, and Many cases have seen major developments following this attention.

    Here are four times real crime affected real cases:

    The “Serial” podcast and the overturning of Adnan Syed’s conviction

    Adnan Syed had been serving his life sentence for the murder of his ex-girlfriend for more than a decade when the release of the podcast “Serial” in 2014 changed everything. Journalist Sarah Koenig looks back at the evidence used to convict him and follows some of the main threads of the case.

    One piece of evidence raised some of the biggest questions in the case: the existence of a potential alibi witness, who said she was with Syed when the prosecution claimed the murder was committed. Although the podcast did not conclude Syed’s innocence, it launched massive public campaigns for his freedom.

    The “serial” affair continues: Overturn turns into recast in Adnan Syed murder conviction

    In 2022, he was released from prison after having his conviction overturned. The judge who overturned the conviction said prosecutors at his murder trial two decades ago wrongly withheld exculpatory evidence. Prosecutors said they were dropping all charges against them after DNA evidence recently suggested Syed’s innocence.

    Syed’s case still pending a complex network of legal voids in 2024 though. Last year his conviction was reinstated after family members of victim Hae Min Lee said their rights were violated when they did not have time to appear in person at the hearing that led to her release.

    Although his conviction was reinstated, he remains out of prison pending a resumption of this hearing.

    “Adnan Syed would be nowhere if Sarah Koenig hadn’t stepped in and made him a national spectacle,” said Deirdre Enright, a law professor and founder of the Innocence Project at the University’s law school. from Virginia, who was featured on the podcast. told USA TODAY after the conviction was initially overturned. “Like most people, he would have been alone.”

    “I had bad luck” by a documentary: Robert Durst

    In another case, public attention attracted by a the documentary had the opposite effect. Robert Durst, who died in 2022, was featured in the 2015 documentary series “The Jinx,” in which prosecutors said he confessed to killing his best friend in 2000.

    Durst was 78 years old at the time he was convicted of the murder of Susan Berman. Prosecutors said he killed Berman because she knew he had also killed his wife Kathie in 1982, although he was never charged with his wife’s murder.

    In the six-part HBO documentary “The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst,” which aired in early 2015, Durst was heard on a hot mic saying he “killed them all,” among other damning statements and evidence presented . Prior to this documentary, Durst became a public figure with the 2010 film “All Good Things,” based on his life.

    Taking part in the 2015 documentary was a “very, very, very big mistake,” he later said in court, the Associated Press reported.

    Brandon Dassey and “Making a Murderer”

    The Netflix documentary series “Making a Murderer” almost helped free Brandon Dassey of his life sentence. Dassey was convicted of first-degree intentional homicide, mutilation of a corpse and second-degree sexual assault in 2007 and sentenced to life in prison for the murder of photographer Teresa Halbach. Prosecutors said he helped his uncle, Steven Avery, who also received a life sentence in a separate trial.

    The series, released in late 2015, raised concerns about the legitimacy of the confession made to police by Dassey, a teenager at the time of the murder. A groundswell of support for overturning Dassey’s conviction followed the release of the documentary, with attorneys and attorneys arguing that his confession was coerced by authorities and that no forensic evidence linked him to the crime .

    Subsequently, his conviction was overturned by a federal magistrate and he appeared on his way out of prison, until a divided appeals court reinstated it. In 2018, the Supreme Court refused to hear his case, upholding the conviction.

    The Menendezes

    The Menendezes’ initial trial featured testimony from the brothers accusing their father of horrific physical and sexual abuse. Their lawyers argued that the young men killed their parents in self-defense, because they believed, perhaps irrationally, that their parents were going to kill them.

    The jury in that trial was hung and a retrial included far less of that testimony, their lawyers and family members said.

    The saga was dramatized in the Netflix series “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story,” and the two-hour documentary followed. The result has been a renewed focus on a case that made headlines decades ago, this time driven by streaming services and social media.

    Kim Kardashian even wrote an opinion piece calling for their sentence to be reconsidered. She wrote that a lack of awareness and widespread stigma surrounding sexual abuse against boys jeopardized their chances of getting a fair trial.

    NEW EVIDENCE: Will the Menendez brothers be released? The family launches a fervent plea

    “I spent time with Lyle and Erik; they are not monsters. They are kind, intelligent and honest men,” she wrote for NBC News. “I don’t think spending their entire natural life in prison is the right punishment for this complex case.” »

    Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón said in announcing his decision to recommend a resentencing that he was reviewing new evidence of the alleged abuse. He said there was an influx of inquiries to his office after the documentary was released.

    Contribute : John Bacon, Christopher Cann, Minnah Arshad, Erin Jensen, Celina Tebor and Kelly Lawler, USA TODAY; Kelli Arseneau, the Appleton Post-Crescent

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