welcome to the heavy spoilers show I'm your host Paul in this video we're breaking down [Music] Monsters the lyan Eric Mendez story has just dropped on Netflix and it Chronicles the crimes committed by the brothers but how did it go down in real life and does the title monsters refer to the brothers or the parents well that's something we aim to go into in this video and throughout it we'll be discussing all the facts this will also go over what happened at the end and some of the things Netflix changed for the show I've also
watched the Barbara Walters interview in fall and we will be talking about both sides of the case if you learned something then please hit the thumbs up and make sure you subscribe for videos like this every day without the way thank you for clicking this now let's get into monsters okay so the series centers around the murders of kitty and Jose Menendez carried out by their two sons ly and Eric the show gives us several points of the characters lives initially the brothers blamed it on the mafia but over time the story soon fell apart
the pair then said their parents abused them and this has made some sympathetic towards them now this is the first major point of contention in the show and Ryan Murphy's already received some criticism for it Monster the Jeffrey Dharma story had similar issues and Murphy was behind that show as well there he expressed that he wasn't so much interested in the Killer's eventual outcome he was more interested in the factors that made him that definitely feels like it's the case here as well I'm going through lot lots of potential factors with the killers viewers have
already made it known the abuse story was highly contested though it's also said that it felt like a last ditch atempt to defend themselves against two people whose lives they had already destroyed but what do we know well the brothers murder their parents Jose and Kate mandez on the 20th of August 1989 from what forensics could gather the pair shot Kitty 10 times in Jose 6 Kitty was still alive during the first round and then L returned at the car to reload after both the pair were slain we then and get a bit of discrepancy
as some Reports say the brothers remain in the house there they were waiting for the police to arrive with a plan being they'd say they were a Batman this is something we see in the show where them claiming to have also been at the taste of La now whether they went there or not again is something people go back and forth about but the show painted out that they did indeed travel out into the night it's believed that the PA thought people in the neighborhood would hear the shots and they then return home to the
scene of the crime to the police this is something they discuss in the episode however as we see things didn't go that way like we see though they ended up calling the police with a play on the call being in the series my parents me were they shot they were shot now initially the brothers blamed the mafia and police thought this was the case it seemed implausible that two well-off young men would kill their parents and thus initially the investigation looked elsewhere however about things seemed off about the crime scene and several details just didn't
seem to fit to add to this the the brothers acted very strangely and they went on a spending spree according to reports they spent over $700,000 in just a few months as we see they hire expensive tennis coaches with Eric competing in a series of tournaments in Israel they picked up bottles of champagne bought pores and L also invested in several businesses this included the Chuck Springs Street Cafe and a wing restaurant in New Jersey he also picked up a Rox watch and the pair attended several basketball games this included getting front seats at in
New York Nick's game with them appearing in the background of Mark Jackson's trading card you know cars watches invested in businesses the good life well it was it was the same life uh before or afterwards with more money with with more money but I didn't know what to do with the money I went to it got to a point where I have I have all this money and so much pain I don't know what to do with it and eventually I don't know you're losing me I would think that you would be in such grief
that you wouldn't be able to buy Rolexes and invest in businesses I to me let me understand I'm you know I'm the public I don't think that it's understandable I mean I people react to some traumatic event like that in different ways however it was the confession to a therapist that was the main thing that sealed their fate Eric confessed to his which is what we see happening in episode one his girlfriends who tipped off the police police and they were then charged with the murder of March the year after you went to your psychologist
Dr oil and told him that you had committed this crime I got to a point where I could no longer live I felt that I was the worst person on Earth and I I I it got to a point where I couldn't live with myself anymore and I needed help and so I went to him and that is what the Catalyst was for me getting arrested and Li things would then begin with that trial in 1993 this was a nationwide talking point with a trial being broadcast every single day however the brothers had separate juries
even though they were tried together due to them not being able to reach a unanimous decision it was classed as a mistrial and a second trial was held that takes us to 1995 and the trial that we see happening in episode 9 that defense was to put their parents on trial and neither denied killing them that was a big misperception about this case that it was about justification or excuse and my brother and I essentially pled guilty that was very hard for me to hear the ridicule about that because we I really felt that Eric
and I we could have gone to trial like most people and just sort of we weren't there it wasn't us and had that trial what do you mean we could have gone to trial we weren't there well you could go to trial and just say that I was uh you know chipping golf balls at the time and I wasn't there and Eric and I went to trial and said we did this you had there were tapes there were tapes tapes became admissible because we said we did it however several things weren't admissible in the second
trial which led to their conviction they go with a story we see in episode 9 in which Eric says he told ly about the abuse after confronting Jose they claimed he said he'd kill them if it ever got out publicly this then led into the murders which they classed as self-defense now the brothers apparently had the feeling they might be able to get off due to the OJ Simpson verdict this is what starts episode 9 and we hear OJ and Eric discussing their case in episode 8 this is something that happened in real life as
well with a pair having hundreds of conversations when incarcerated apparently Eric even told OJ to plead guilty at one point and go with the same strategy as him however as we see the book and recordings leads into them basically being a confession Lyall avoids taking the stand and this is because it would lead to a cross-examination in which the book could be used to question him ly and I fought uh because he wanted he felt that that telling the world that Dad it was a SE was killing dad twice and he did not want to
kill dad twice and he fought he said I don't want to go up there I'm not going to take the stand I'm not going to do it and then when he did there was a great outpouring but there was also people laughing at him and it was strange titled the private Diary of ly mandez in his own words it's something that could have completely sunk the case now here we also see people who testified to talk about their relation ship with their parents this includes a car salesman a pool repairman and the captain of the
boat for the shark fishing trip this basically played off the real life trial in which several witnesses came to their parents' defense on top of this Eric's friend Craig discussed how the pair wrote a play about a character that murdered his parents in Cold Blood this on top of being fans of the billionaires Boys Club painted out of fantasy of how Eric was fascinated with killing his parents on top of this we know Eric was also aware of the storyline before its release because it was based on elements of their friend's life that is Brian
whose parents were killed for money and he takes the stand to reveal the truth it turns out that Lyall wrote a letter to him asking him to testify in their favor this ended up backfiring and it painted out him as being even more guilty now another element we see is that the jury's given one of two options that is life without parole or the death penalty it said that after being found guilty the jury viewed them as spoiled brats and several of them where Adam and the PE should be killed as we see one gets
so worked up about this she has a heart attack and this ends up being replaced the replacement was then more sympathetic and felt like the pair went violent people ultimately this is what saved them as he thought if there was a chance they told the truth their debts weren't something he wanted on his shoulders now in the end the pair were devastated because they were sent to different prisons we actually have a moment from the interview in the leader to this in which they discussed the possibility of them being split up it's important to you
to stay together when you get moved to the state prison it's very important that is what's gotten us through these six years and through our life um I the family that Eric and I grew up in we had to be there for each other throughout and it really created a bond that that gets us through very rough periods some people might say why should we put them together I mean look what they did they should be punished as much as possible let's separate them what do you say to that you know people will say that
some there's there's nothing to say to that um what we did it was awful um and I wish I could go back we will spend the rest of our life in prison but if I'm not if I'm not if we're not put in the same prison uh there's good probability I will never see him again and and that that I some things that you cannot take and there's some things that you can endure uh with everything taken away would be the last you know it's the last thing you can take bro barara Walters was wild
like she did a job though I I can't even be mad just a normal I'm I'm just a normal kid oh Eric you're a normal kid who killed your parents yeah I know which reminded me a lot of we're just normal men what do you mean normal men we're just innocent man yeah check out the interview cuz it's crazy now later on in the episode they also mention the wedding bells that L could be hearing soon do either one of you have girlfriends do either one of you have someone who cares particularly about you now
at this point in your life I do I have someone who I love very much and um is uh a saint to put up with everything that comes with this can you tell us who she is uh yeah her name is Anna Ericson and um I hope that we can uh we can get married even though it's a very limited relationship because of where we are the exchange of love and sharing it keeps you in touch with yourself and and softer and you know otherwise you can become very uh hard and cold in here as
realization Dawns on them we hear Millie viles I'm going to miss you the group appeared throughout the series and I wondered if that was intentional in case you don't know both were exposed for lipsyncing and not singing their songs after winning several accolades this could be Ain of the fake facade the PE put into the world but yeah I might be looking too deeply into that it turns out the lyrics were the last thing Lyall said to his mother and it brings things full circle from the memorial in episode one huge shout outs to brain
pilot for pointing out that they also had ly wearing Jose's shoes there was a documentary that went over how Lyall said he'd finally filled his father's shoes which again was something that seemed like a red flag now the final scene of episode 9 repls things on the boat but this time we see things from Jose and Kitty's perspective this leaves things far more ambiguous and shows the parents in a really good light they're working on their marriage after the affair and Jose wants to run for Senate Kitty could go back to working as a journalist
and it seems more optimistic Kitty then calls over to the kids but Jose says to leave them when they don't respond as we see they're talking about the murder which is when we cut to Black now to complicate things further we know how real life events develop beyond the show their cousin Annie Cano stated that he received a letter which supported their side of the story before the murders ever happened saying things were happening and that it was worse now painted out a scared boy who worried every night his dad would come in the letter
said every night I stay up thinking you might come in I need to put it out my mind I know what you said before but I'm afraid you just don't know Dad like I do he's crazy he's warned me a hundred times about telling anyone though Andy testified the letter wasn't admitted but it still stands as one of the key things at sway's opinion there were also allegations from Roy Rell who claimed Jose sexually assaulted him he said he was drugged and assaulted when he was 14 and during a docky series pointed to a photo
of Jose and labeled him as a predator now after the events of the show we know the brothers were United in 2018 this marked a reunion after 22 years allowed to serve their sent sentences at the same prison they were then moved into the same housing unit since then they filed numerous appeals including one that has the testimony of Roy Rosell however the pair still remain in prison and it's unlikely they'll ever get out either way that wraps up the video and in the end I'd love to hear your thoughts on the show please drop
a like on the video and if you want to support the channel as a member of the spoiler Society then please click the join button you'll get early access to videos every week and it goes a massive way towards helping us out now if you want else to watch we've got a bit more lighthearted stuff on screen right now that's more in line with the usual content we do I had to talk about this show though because I was completely enthralled by it and hopefully you guys have enjoyed us going back through it if not
then hopefully I see you on the next one and with that out of the way huge thank you for clicking this I've been your host Paul you've been the best and I'll see you next time take care peace