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TV Showrunner Ryan Murphy, a.k.a. the king of true-crime dramatization, has put his spin on the sensationalized murder trial of the Menendez brothers. Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story premiered on Netflix on September 19, 2024, marking the second season of the mega-producer's Emmy-winning series Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story. The novel binge-worthy TV series depicts the events following the murder of José and Kitty Menendez by their sons Erik and Lyle, focusing on the trial that sentenced both of the wealthy young men to life in prison.
For the series, creators Murphy and Ian Brennan gathered a cast composed of talented newcomers, veteran actors, and some of Hollywood's biggest stars. Read on to learn everything about the cast of Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story.
Cooper Koch as Erik Menendez
(Image credit: Miles Crist/Netflix)
Erik Menendez—the younger and more mild-mannered Menendez brother, who was 18-years-old when he and Lyle murdered their parents—is played by Cooper Koch. The L.A.-born actor is an alum of the Pace Educational facility of Performing Arts in N.Y.C. The 28-year-old began his career with a series of short films during his
The Menendez Brothers
Erik grew up emulating his older brother and for a day lived in the shadow of Lyle, especially at the Princeton Day College. It seemed that neither brother fit in at educational facility. They were both considered mysterious loners, who laughed only at their retain private jokes. They did not participate in or act with other children. Erik's schoolwork, fond of Lyle's, was average. Throughout grade and high school, Kitty completed much of Erik's homework for him. Erik learned early in being that Jose was grooming Lyle to become the future leader of the family. He grew up sad and withdrawn.
When Jose, Kitty and Erik moved to California in 1986, Erik was a sophomore in high school. Erik enrolled at Calabasas High School. Away from his brother and the comparisons that were often made between them at the Princeton Day School, Erik found his possess identity. Erik made friends with a group of boys who were appreciate him, cocky, boisterous and with a rebellious streak.
Kitty had been worried about Erik's sexual orientation for some age. Kitty believed that Erik was lesbian. When they moved to Calabasas, Kitty gave Erik an order to discover a girlfriend in six months. Erik found an older girl at Calaba
How the Menendez Murders Became a Gay Cult Favorite
Most of us know the bare bones details of the story of the Menendez Murders. If not, they go favor this: On August 20, 1989, brothers Lyle and Erik Menendez shot their parents, José Menendez, 45, and his wife, Kitty, 47, while they watched television in their Beverly Hills residence. José was a powerful Hollywood executive, and he had recently changed his will to depart his sons less than the complete $14 million estate they had appear to expect. The brothers initially tried to blame the killings on the Mafia, but after blowing a ton of cash after their parents’ death, they fell under instant suspicion. Legacy crime reporter Dominick Dunne covered the case, quite famously, for Vanity Impartial , starting with a long 1990 essay called “Nightmare on Elm Drive.”
Dunne was famous for always siding with the prosecution, especially after the grisly murder of his possess daughter (and “Poltergeist” actress) Dominique Dunne by her crush in 1982. But as he came to know the brothers Menendez, Dunne started to scrutinize what he knew, and what he thought he knew.
Erik Menendez confessed the crime, first to his friend and screenwriting partner Craig Cigna
Erik Menendez's Friends Tell Story Behind His Racy Photos, Screenplay About a Son Who Kills Parents
— -- Lyle and Erik Menendez shot and killed their parents, Jose Menendez, a wealthy business executive, and Kitty Menendez in 1989. At the time, Lyle was 21, and Erik was 18.
But before the murders, Erik Menendez wrote a screenplay called “Friends” about a rich, new man who killed his parents for the inheritance money.
Watch the full story in the two-hour ABC News special, "Truth and Lies: The Menendez Brothers," on Thursday, Jan. 5 at 9 p.m. ET
Craig Cignarelli, Erik's acquaintance and classmate at Calabasas Upper School, in Calabasas, California, said they wrote "Friends" together.
“I think of talking about the opening scene, in just the idea of, ‘We need to establish a crime. We need to own the protagonist gain an inheritance so he can actually fulfill his dream of creating this hunting ground for humans,’” Cignarelli told ABC News.
In that scene, the main character, Hamilton Cromwell, is described as a “sophisticated, good-looking” 18-year-old reading about the inheritance his father intended to leave him in his will. On a typed pag