The abuse defense is a criminal law defense in which the defendant argues that a prior history of abuse justifies violent retaliation. While the term most often refers to instances of child abuse or sexual assault, it also refers more generally to any attempt by the defense to use a syndrome or societal condition to deflect responsibility away from the defendant. Sometimes the concept is referred to as the abuse excuse, in particular by the critics of the idea that guilty people may use past victimization to diminish the responsibility for their crimes.
Parricide is the deliberate killing of one's own father and mother, spouse, children, and/or close relatives. However, the term is sometimes used more generally to refer to the intentional killing of a near relative. It is an umbrella term that can be used to refer to acts of matricide, the deliberate killing of one's own mother and patricide, the deliberate killing of one's own father.
Joseph Lyle Menendez and Erik Galen Menendez, commonly referred to as the Menendez brothers, are American brothers convicted of killing their parents, José and Mary Louise "Kitty" Menendez, at their Beverly Hills home in 1989.
Leslie Hope Abramson is an American criminal defense attorney best known for her role in the legal defense of Lyle and Erik Menendez. She is also a published author.
Robert Leslie Shapiro is an American attorney and entrepreneur. He is best known for being the short-term defense lawyer of Erik Menendez in 1990, and a member of the "Dream Team" of O. J. Simpson's attorneys that successfully defended him from the charges that he murdered his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and Ron Goldman, in 1994. He later turned to civil work and co-founded ShoeDazzle, LegalZoom, and RightCounsel.com, appearing in their television commercials.
Michael T. Joyce is an American coach and former tennis player. The right-hander reached his highest ATP singles ranking of World No. 64 in April 1996.
Ariel Geltman Graynor is an American actress. She is best known for her roles in the television series The Sopranos (2001), Fringe (2009-2010), Bad Teacher (2014), I'm Dying Up Here (2017), and Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story (2024). In film, she has starred in Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist (2008), The Sitter (2011), For a Good Time, Call... (2012), and The Disaster Artist (2017).
Justine Chelsea "J. C." Brandy is a British-born American actress.
Tom Dugan is an American theater, film and television actor who appeared in nearly 50 films and television series since 1986.
Nicholas Alexander Chavez is an American actor. He played Spencer Cassadine on the ABC soap opera General Hospital from 2021 to 2024, for which he won the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Younger Performer in a Drama Series. He portrayed Lyle Menendez in the crime drama series Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story and priest Charlie Mayhew in the horror series Grotesquerie, both co-created by Ryan Murphy in 2024.
The Broken Arrow murders, otherwise known as the Bever family massacre, were a familicide and mass stabbing that occurred on July 22, 2015, in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. The perpetrators, Robert and Michael Bever, murdered their parents and 3 siblings. It was the deadliest crime and mass murder in the city of Broken Arrow, until a murder-suicide in October 2022 which killed 8 people.
B. Karen Lamm was an American character actress known for her roles in Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974), The Unseen (1980) and Trackdown (1976).
Menendez: Blood Brothers is a 2017 television film directed by Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato, written by Abdi Nazemian, and starring Courtney Love, Nico Tortorella, Benito Martinez, and Myko Olivier. The film is based on the lives of Lyle and Erik Menendez, two brothers who were convicted of murdering their parents in Beverly Hills, California in 1989.
Law & Order True Crime is an American true crime anthology series that premiered on September 26, 2017 on NBC. The series was ordered by NBC on July 15, 2016, and is part of the Law & Order franchise. Created by René Balcer, the eight-episode first season, titled Law & Order True Crime: The Menendez Murders, is a dramatization of the trial of Lyle and Erik Menendez, who were convicted in 1996 for the murder of their parents, José and Kitty Menendez. As of 2024, the series is on hiatus.
Charles Addison Gessler was an American criminal defense attorney who specialized in death penalty litigation. Gessler worked as a deputy public defender for the Los Angeles County Public Defender's office for thirty-two years. Gessler handled several high-profile cases, including representing Lyle Menendez, G. Gordon Liddy and Vaughn Greenwood.
Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story is the first season of the American biographical crime drama anthology television series Monster, created by Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan for Netflix, which was released on September 21, 2022. Murphy and Brennan both serve as showrunners. Dahmer is about the life of serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer. Other main characters include Dahmer's father, Lionel, his stepmother Shari, suspicious neighbor Glenda, and grandmother Catherine.
Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story is the second season of the American biographical crime drama anthology television series Monster, created by Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan for Netflix. The season centers on the 1989 murders of José and Kitty Menendez, who were killed by their sons, Lyle and Erik. It incorporates the Rashomon effect by presenting the story from multiple perspectives, with the brothers' viewpoint serving as the central narrative.
Monster is an American biographical crime drama anthology television series created by Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan for Netflix. Murphy and Brennan both serve as showrunners. The series follows the lives of "monstrous figures", with each season following a different killer or killers.
Honor Thy Father and Mother: The True Story of the Menendez Murders is a 1994 American biographical true crime drama film based on the infamous Menendez brothers case. The film was directed by Paul Schneider and written by Michael J. Murray, based on the novel Blood Brothers by Ron Soble and John Johnson. The film chronicles the murders of José and Mary "Kitty" Menendez by their sons, Lyle and Erik Menendez, which took place in Beverly Hills, California, in 1989, and the following highly publicized trials.
The Menendez Brothers is a 2024 American true crime documentary film directed by Alejandro Hartmann for the streaming company Netflix, in which brothers Lyle and Erik Menendez, who were convicted of the 1989 murders of their parents, are interviewed about the case.
