Should We Be Turning Killers into Entertainment?

Trigger Warning: This article contains discussions of sexual assault. If you or someone you know needs help with this, visit the RAINN website or contact their hotline at 800-656-HOPE (4673).

A year ago I read a book called Escaping From Houdini by Kerri Maniscalco. It wasn’t anything too exciting; I’ve read many books like it before. But the part of it that intrigued me was the author’s note at the end, which detailed that the villain of Maniscalco’s book was based on real-life murderer Andreas Bichel, aka The Bavarian Ripper. I already knew that the books in the series were based on real-life killers (as the first book in the series is called Stalking Jack the Ripper), but something about the author coming out and saying so made it feel worse. I began to question: Should we be writing books where the villain is a real one? Should we be taking someone who has caused suffering in real life and putting them in stories to live on while their victims had their lives cut short? It has been some time since I read Escaping From Houdini, so I haven’t thought of these questions for a while. But when the show Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story released in September, I began to think about them again.

The Netflix show follows real-life brothers Lyle and Erik Menendez during the summer of 1989 and what happened afterwards. In that summer, the brothers killed their parents in their Beverly Hills home. After facing two trials for their crimes, they were arrested. The first trial was a media circus, with one reporter from ABC News saying, “Reporters and crews from around the world came to the courthouse in Van Nuys, CA, to bring this family’s disaster to all the folks back home.” The reporter also mentioned a Saturday Night Live skit airing at that time, which mocked the brothers crying on the stand. All of this added to the intensity of an already heavy trial, where the brothers revealed that they had been sexually assaulted by their father and felt killing him was their only way to be free from him. The first trial ended in a mistrial and the second trial concluded with both men being found guilty of first-degree murder and being sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. However, some felt that the second trial was unfair for the men since sexual assault allegations against their father were not allowed. I, as well as others I have seen online, believe the Los Angeles County Superior Court ruled this way because the men would have a weaker defense argument without the allegations — meaning that it was unlikely they would win. The court wanted to win against the brothers because they thought that outcome would get them on the good side of the public again, which they desired after the outcome of the O.J. Simpson trial. (Simpson’s trial ended eight days before the Menendez brothers’ second trial began.)

During the pandemic, Court TV began playing the Menendez brothers’ trial again. This introduced, or reintroduced, the case to many. A social media movement, specifically on TikTok, began calling for the brothers’ release. In June 2023, Deadline revealed that Cooper Koch and Nicholas Alexander Chavez would portray the brothers on season two of Ryan Murphy’s television series, Monsters. By the fall of 2024, Netflix released both a documentary and the Monsters season on the Menendez brothers.

On October 24th, only a few weeks after Monsters season two and the documentary were released, the Los Angeles County District Attorney recommended Lyle and Erik be resentenced for the murder of their parents. NBC News reported that some legal experts believed that the “Hollywood projects” about the brothers “helped bring renewed attention to [them], paving the way for their potential release from prison.”

However, these “Hollywood projects” don’t always do well for the cases they’re portraying. In Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story, the brothers are shown to have an incestuous relationship. While the brothers and their family have denied this happening in real-life, Today detailed that Ryan Murphy claimed, “There are people who say that never happened. There were people who said it did happen.” This angered knowledgeable true crime viewers because the claimed reason the brothers committed the crime was because of their father’s constant abuse. So, for Murphy, who doesn’t know the family nor the brothers (aside from the research he’s done) to depict this is very disrespectful. Murphy putting this into the story can also have an impact on the viewers who watched the show to learn about the case. They could become confused to what the brothers’ motives were, which actually twists the whole story.

To create Monsters, actors had to be cast to play the roles of the brothers. But since Cooper Koch (They/Them) and Nicholas Alexander Chavez (Grotesquerie) were cast, who are attractive, young actors, some viewers have forgotten that they’re portraying murderers. Thinking of this, I question again: Should we be telling true crime stories like this, with actors and dramatization?

Lastly, many online have wondered if Murphy created a show like this since he knew that true crime is popular and profitable, not because he wanted to share the story with a wider audience. While Today reported that Murphy said that he thought his series was “the best thing that has happened to the Menendez brothers in 30 years” due to it bringing “the Menendez brothers’ case back into the spotlight,” I agree with the people online. Murphy including something like a not proven incestuous relationship between the brothers is so wrong that I can only assume he did it in hopes of getting press about it. Something else that has come out about Murphy’s creation of Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story as well as DAHMER – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story is that he did not reach out to Erik and Lyle Menendez nor Dahmer’s victims’ families for comment or permission to do his series. To me, this demonstrates that the real story is not what is important to him when creating his shows. If it was, they would be the first people he would go to in order to hear their side of the story.

When I think about Escaping From Houdini today, I still question its ethics. I have not grown to believe that using a real-life murderer in a mystery book is okay to do. If anything, I feel worse. With the recent popularity of the Menendez brothers’ case, I learned more about how harmful fictionalized true crime is. Everyone in these books and TV shows represent real people with lives and families. The creators of them can tweak the story however they want and consumers will believe them. Creators will then go on to make shows and seasons that alter more real-life events as victims, their loved ones, and their advocates are left unheard. All of this happens while the monsters who took them from the world get to be remembered for generations because a famous actor once played them.

So, what I would recommend to any authors, television, or film creators who want to make a story inspired by a true crime case is to make it non-fiction. Make it a documentary. But, if you can’t do that, make your book or TV show, but approach it with the victims in mind. Reach out to their families to make sure it is alright, hear their stories, and research every side. That is how you make a true crime story.