Washington Post Style

The Post’s TV critic Lili Loofbourow writes: Thirty-five years after they killed their parents in their Beverly Hills home, Lyle and Erik Menendez are once again objects of enormous public interest.

The brothers, who are serving consecutive life sentences after they were convicted in 1996 for the first-degree murders of Jose and Kitty Menendez, might go free. Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón announced his office was reviewing two new pieces of evidence that could provide sufficient basis for a resentencing, or even a new trial.

A true crime show explores the perpetrator’s experience, digs into the larger social context, and records the way the justice system responded to extralegal pressures. These repackagings usually retain most of the scandalous detail available in the original tabloid takes. But the tone, despite these indulgences, is corrective; rather than celebrate the murderer’s conviction, the viewer tends to emerge swathed in reasonable doubt.

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