True
crime meets 'Law & Order' to revisit U.S. Menendez
murders
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[September 26, 2017]
By Jill Serjeant
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - For
more than two decades, "Law & Order" has served up
"ripped from the headlines" neatly packaged weekly crime
dramas.
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Now the television police and legal franchise
is making its first foray into the burgeoning true crime genre
with an eight-part series on the 1989 murders by California's
Menendez brothers of their wealthy parents.
"Law & Order True Crime: The Menendez Murders," starting on NBCO>
on Tuesday, marks the marriage of two of television's most
popular genres.
"This is unique for me, after 27 years of 'Law & Order'," said
Dick Wolf, creator of the franchise. "This is on a different
level. This is one of the crimes of the century."
Lyle and Erik Menendez were sentenced to life imprisonment
without parole for the 1989 shotgun murders of their parents in
the den of their Beverly Hills mansion. Jose Menendez, a
Hollywood executive, was shot in the back of the head and Kitty
Menendez was shot 15 times. At the time of the murder Lyle was
21 and Erik was 18.
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At a televised trial, the brothers claimed they had been
molested by both parents for years.
True crime stories are booming on television with slow-burn
documentaries about little known tales like "Making a Murderer,"
"The Jinx" and "The Keepers" that tap into frustration over the
perceived shortcomings of the U.S. justice system
David Schmid, editor of 2015 book "Violence in American Popular
Culture," says few crimes rise to the iconic status that makes
them a long term feature of popular culture.
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Like the Charles Manson cult killings of 1969 and the O.J Simpson
double murder trial of 1995 - dramatized in an Emmy- winning series
on FX in 2016 - the Menendez case seems to tap into the zeitgeist of
a period in U.S. culture.
"It's a case that many people have identified as exemplifying the
'me' decade of the 1980s and it is distinguished by a complete lack
or remorse on the part of the perpetrators, "said Schmid, a
professor of English at the University at Buffalo.
The Menendez crime also exposes a family whose lifestyle was
"apparently the epitome of the American dream but in reality was
something very different," Schmid said.
Wolf says that unlike his fictional "Law & Order" shows, "The
Menendez Murders" has an agenda and will explore the molestation
allegations that he believes should have been considered mitigating
circumstances at trial.
"They probably should have been out in 8-10 years because they
should have been convicted of first degree manslaughter," Wolf said.
(Reporting by Jill Serjeant; editing by Diane Craft)
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