Did a Netflix series just influence a murder case, asks streaming columnist NICK OVERALL.

The Netflix true crime hit Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story has taken the world by storm, opening up new debate on a notorious double killing in 1989 that saw two brothers sentenced to life behind bars for murdering their parents.

The show offers a dramatised retelling of the shocking crime and the trial that followed.

As expected, in our true crime-obsessed age, it’s become a phenomenon.

What’s less expected though is that the popularity of the series might have just changed the real-life story of the Menendez brothers forever.

After more than 30 years in prison, there’s now a possibility that Lyle and Erik could finally walk free.

The brothers have spent the majority of their life behind bars after they were convicted of murdering Jose and Kitty Menendez with shotguns in their Beverly Hills mansion in 1989.

The infamous case made the two brothers famous when their trial was broadcast on television screens around the world.

Lyle and Erik, just 21 and 18 at the time of their parents’ death, said the killing came after years of horrific abuse they had suffered at the hands of their father and mother, while others claimed the murders were a sinister plan to cash in on their multi-million dollar inheritance.

As those who watched the Netflix series will know, the brothers lost the case.

However, more than three decades since the crime that captured world’s attention first unfolded, a new motion filed by Los Angeles County’s District Attorney George Gascón may now see them up for resentencing.

“We are going to recommend to the court that the life without the possibility of parole be removed and they would be sentenced for murder,” Gascón said. “I believe that they have paid their debt to society. The final decision will be made by the judge.”

It comes only weeks after the Netflix show reignited global interest in the case.

For weeks now the series has held firm in Netflix’s top 10, and has racked up more than half a billion viewing hours around the world in just one month alone.

A documentary film about the case was also released at the same time on the platform to capitalise on the internet interest generated by the drama series.

Since both dropped, The LA County District Attorney says they’ve received a whole new wave of inquiries about the case.

It also follows two petitions calling for the case to be revisited. 

“I think people have a more nuanced take now on what it means to be a victim of that kind of abuse,” one Oakland-based attorney told Bloomberg.

“People are more willing to speak out on it, and the courts are trying to do something more about it.”

Netflix was not the first to dramatise the Menendez brothers’ case. Law and Order has also had a crack at the story as did another documentary series in 2017, but it is fascinating that the recent popularity of the streaming juggernaut is what has triggered a major legal rethink.

It has whole new implications about the power of the true crime genre and of streaming shows generally.

“This is unique in the annals of legal history,” a legal analyst told US publication “NewsNation”.

“I think Netflix added so much pressure and tension on the entire system, that everyone began to take not just another look, but serious, additional looks.”

It’s intriguing that the Menendez brothers themselves have heavily criticised the show.

Posting a statement through his wife’s Twitter account, Erik said the series included “vile and appalling character portrayals of Lyle and of me”.

“It is sad for me to know that Netflix’s dishonest portrayal of the tragedies surrounding our crime have taken the painful truths several steps backward – back through time to an era when the prosecution built a narrative on a belief system that males were not sexually abused, and that males experienced rape trauma differently than women.”

Ryan Murphy, the show’s creator, has vehemently defended his show though, calling it “the best thing that has happened to the Menendez brothers in 30 years in prison”.

If this latest development is anything to go by he might be right.