Kim Kardashian has paid a visit to Lyle and Erik Menendez, the brothers convicted of killing their parents in 1989.
On August 20, 1989, Lyle, then 22, and Erik, then 19, killed their father José, 45, and mother Mary Louise, 47, at their home in Beverly Hills.
The brothers confessed to the crime during a recorded therapy session with Dr. Jerome Oziel on December 11, 1989, telling him they murdered their mother to put her "out of her misery" while their father deserved to die because "his infidelity had led to that misery," as cited by LA Times.
Both men were arrested and taken to court, where they testified that they suffered years of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse at the hands of their late parents. They were soon found guilty on two counts of first-degree murder and conspiracy to murder in March 1996.
According to TMZ, the 43-year-old reality TV star met the brothers during a visit to Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility near San Diego last weekend.
Kim was joined by her sister Khloe Kardashian, her mother Kris Jenner, and film producer Scott Budnick along with Cooper Koch, who plays Erik in the new Netflix biopic series: Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story.
It's been reported that the SKIMS founder, who is also a longtime advocate for criminal justice reform, spoke to 40 inmates, including Erik and Lyle, about prison reform. She also discussed the Greenspace project, which encourages rehabilitation by beautifying prison yards. It has been led by both Lyle and Erik.
Kardashian's visit comes a few days after the brothers' high-profile case was spotlighted in the second installment of Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan's popular Monster series on Netflix.
The show stars Chloë Sevigny, Javier Bardem, Nicholas Alexander Chavez, and Cooper Koch as Kitty, José, Lyle, and Erik respectively.
While many have praised the "perfect" casting of the series, others have slammed the show's creators for its portrayal of the brothers, and implying that they had an incestuous relationship in one particular scene.
Even Erik denounced the series in a lengthy statement shared by his wife Tammi, which read: “I believed we had moved beyond the lies and ruinous character portrayals of Lyle, creating a caricature of Lyle rooted in horrible and blatant likes rampant in the show.
"I can only believe they were done so on purpose. It is with a heavy heart that I say, I believe Ryan Murphy cannot be this naive and inaccurate about the facts of our lives so as to do this without bad intent," he said.
“It is sad for me to know that Netflix’s dishonest portrayal of the tragedies surrounding our crime have taken the painful truths several steps backward - back through time to an era when the prosecution built a narrative on a belief system that males were not sexually abused, and that males experienced rape trauma differently than women," he added.
The statement continued: "Those awful lies have been disrupted and exposed by countless brave victims over the last two decades who have broken through their personal shame and bravely spoken out. So now Murphy shapes his horrible narrative through vile and appalling character portrayals of Lyle and of me and disheartening slander.”
In concluding his remarks, Erik said, “Is the truth not enough? Let the truth stand as the truth. How demoralizing to know that one man with power can undermine decades of progress in shedding light on childhood trauma.
“As such, I hope it is never forgotten that violence against a child creates a hundred horrendous and silent crime scenes darkly shadowed behind glitter and glamor and rarely exposed until tragedy penetrates everyone involved. To all those who have reached out and supported me, thank you from the bottom of my heart," he added.
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During court proceedings, the prosecution argued that the Menendez brothers had killed their parents to inherit their wealth, as the pair brought expensive cars and watches after the murder.
Neither Erik, now 53, nor Lyle, now 56, are eligible for parole and will spend the rest of their lives in prison.
