Real-life escape plan letter Lyle Menendez wrote his brother Erik after being arrested and placed in prison
The release of Netflix's Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez story has viewers wondering what was fact vs fiction
The crimes of Lyle and Erik Menendez are in the spotlight again 30 years on thanks to Netflix's new series, with viewers left wondering about the apparent prison escape plan featured on the show.
Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story dropped on Netflix last week, the second season of the true-crime TV series that brought us Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story two years ago.
Ever since, viewers have questions over the real-life story of the brothers' crimes.
Lyle and Erik were convicted of murdering their mom and dad while at their family home in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, back in 1989.
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45-year-old José, and his 47-year-old wife Kitty Menendez were sat watching TV when their sons brutally murdered them with shotguns.
The new Netflix series focuses on the shocking story, though as is the case with a lot of TV series that tell real-life events, events are dramatised for entertainment purposes.
Episode three sees Lyle and Erik arrested and put into prison for their crimes, with viewers seeing Lyle write a letter to his brother detailing a potential prison escape plan.
Indeed, in real life, during the second trial into the murder, prosecutors presented notes allegedly found in the brothers' cells.
Law enforcement apparently found multiple pages of notes, which saw discussion around moving continent taking place - although at the time, the prosecution wasn't allowed to outright label them as 'escape plans' in front of jurors.
The notes also included diagrams of an unidentified building
It was revealed in court that notes passed between the brothers in prison detailed ideas like: "Change name. Change appearance. Plastic surgeon. Need silencer. Need finances."
Despite these notes being shown in court, the judge could not determine whether they had anything to do with an actual escape plan.
While Netflix fans are for the most part enjoying the new series, Erik has released a statement via his wife Tammi Saccoman slamming the show.
It read in part: "I believed we had moved beyond the lies and ruinous character portrayals of Lyle, creating a caricature of Lyle rooted in horrible and blatant lies rampant in the show.
"I can only believe they were done so on purpose. It is with a heavy heart that I say, I believe Ryan Murphy [director' cannot be this naive and inaccurate about the facts of our lives so as to do this without bad intent.
"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."
LADbible Group reached out to Netflix for comment.
Topics: Film and TV, Netflix, True crime, Menendez Brothers
Callum Jones