“Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story” is now on Netflix, bringing renewed interest to the case of the two brothers who murdered their parents. But as with any true crime series, there’s interest in knowing what the real people involved are up to now.
Erik and Lyle Menendez have been in prison since their 1996 conviction in the murder of their parents. As a note at the end of a series tells us, “Lyle and Erik Menendez maintain the allegation of sexual abuse at the hands of their mother and father. They continue to serve life sentences without the possibility of parole.”
Here’s where everyone stands.
Erik Menendez
Erik, the younger brother, is now 53. He has been incarcerated at a San Diego prison since his conviction and was only reunited with his brother Lyle in 2018 after he was transferred to the same prison facility.
In 1999, he married Tammi Ruth Saccoman at Folsom State Prison. Neither brother is eligible for conjugal visits, according to The Today Show.
In 2023, the brothers filed documents for a new hearing after former Menudo member Roy Rosselló said he had been drugged and raped by José Menendez when he was 14 years old.
Lyle Menendez
Older brother Lyle is now 56. In 2018, his request to be transferred to the same facility as his younger brother, San Diego’s Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility, was granted.
Like Erik, he met his first wife by exchanging letters, their wedding ceremony was conducted over the phone. Two years later, they parted ways after the Department of Corrections failed to recognize it as a legal marriage.
Erik married second wife Rebecca Sneed in November 2003.
Leslie Abramson
The defense lawyer, who chain-smoked through both trials, became something of a “surrogate mother” to younger brother Erik, as TheWrap’s own Sharon Waxman wrote in The Washington Post in 1996. She had previously secured a lesser sentence of voluntary manslaughter for Arnel Salvatierra, a 17-year-old who also killed his father over alleged abuse.
Abramson was an ABC legal commentator on the O.J. Simpson case, the other “trial of the century,” and also wrote the 1997 memoir, “The Defense Is Ready: Life in the Trenches of Criminal Law.”
In 2004, she replaced Simpson “Dream Team” lawyer Robert Shapiro to defend music producer Phil Spector, who was accused of fatally shooting actress Lana Clarkson at his home. She later resigned and, with new counsel, he was ultimately convicted of Clarkson’s murder.
At the time of the Menendez trial, she was married to Los Angeles Times reporter Tim Rutten. She told TheWrap in 2017 that she would not be watching Edie Falco play her in “Law & Order True Crime: The Menendez Murders.” “Oh boy. I have nothing to say. Absolutely nothing. Goodbye,” she said at the time.
Dominick Dunne
The acclaimed journalist, who is played in “Monsters” by Nathan Lane, began writing about crime for Vanity Fair when he covered the trial of the man who murdered his daughter “Poltergeist” actress Dominique Dunne. His article, “Justice: A Father’s Account of the Trial of his Daughter’s Killer” ran in the March 1984 issue of Vanity Fair. He went on to cover the trials of O. J. Simpson, Claus von Bülow (whose story was portrayed in the 1990 film “Reversal of Fortune”) and that of the Menendez brothers. His article about the brothers, “Nightmare on Elm Drive,” ran in the October 1990 issue.
Dunne died of bladder cancer at age 83 in 2009. He is also the father of actor, write and director Griffin Dunne, whose films include “After Hours” and “An American Werewolf in London.”
Les Zoeller
The Beverly Hills policeman was the prime detective in the Menendez case, as well as that of the “Billionaire Boys Club,” and the robbery-murders at Beverly Hills jewelry store Van Cleef & Arpels. In 1996, he told the Los Angeles Times that he immediately suspected that the brothers had killed their parents, but wasn’t able to prove it for seven years.
Zoeller, who is played by “Sugar” actor Jason Butler Harner, retired in 2002 and died in October 2021.
Tim Rutten
Rutten, who is played in “Monsters” by “Mad Men” alum Michael Gladis, was part of the Pulitzer-Prize winning team of Los Angeles Times writers who covered the 1994 Northridge earthquake. After being laid off from the Times in 2011 due to cutbacks, he became a columnist for the Los Angeles Daily News.
At the time of the Menendez trials, he was married to defense attorney Leslie Abramson. He was previously portrayed by Chris Bauer of “True Blood” and “Fellow Travelers” in NBC’s 2017 take on the case, which starred Edie Falco as Abramson.
Rutten died in November 2022 after a fall in his home.
Dr. Jerome Oziel
The brothers’ therapist, to whom they first confessed their guilt, then broke client confidentiality to tell his mistress, who then informed the police. Oziel claimed that the usual confidentiality agreement did not apply because Erik and Lyle had threatened his life.
The confidentiality breach — and being accused of having sex with female patients — led to Oziel having his California psychology license taken away in 1997, as the LA Times reported.
In 2017, when he was portrayed by Josh Charles in the “Law & Order: True Crime” version of the case, he told Bustle that the claims of his professional impropriety were “flatly and completely false” and that the TV drama was “a junk soap opera” that was “entirely fiction.”
Oziel is played in the Netflix series by “The Good Wife” actor Dallas Roberts.
All episodes of “Monster” are now streaming on Netflix.
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