How much does doctor-patient confidentiality matter in a murder trial? The answer can be complicated. Ryan Murphy’s Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story, streaming Sept. 19 on Netflix, tackles this question in a dramatization of the real-life saga of brothers Lyle and Erik Menendez, who were convicted in 1996 for the Aug. 20, 1989, murders of their parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez, in their Beverly Hills mansion. The question at the center of the murders was not whether the Menendez brothers had shot their parents, but why they shot their parents. Prosecutors argued that the men wanted to get their inheritance, pointing to their lavish spending in the months after their arrest. The defense argued that the men had an abusive father and acted in self-defense. Americans followed along via Court TV, which was just two years old but helped popularize true crime as a genre by broadcasting the trial. The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story begins with the funeral service for Jose and…
Date:
