Dominick Dunne, the crime journalist central to Netflix's drama "Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story," had a life worthy of a biopic. Here's what to know.
Courtesy Of Netflix / Vinnie Zuffante / Archive Photos / Getty Images
- Former Vanity Fair reporter Dominick Dunne is central to "Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story."
- Dunne's theories about the Menendez brothers' motives are featured in the series.
- Dunne, who was originally a Hollywood producer, reported on other major trials before he died in 2009.
Dominick Dunne, one of the prominent reporters covering Lyle and Erik Menendez's trials, is an important figure onscreen and behind the scenes on Netflix's latest hit show, "Monsters."
Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan's new series is a fictionalized retelling of one of the most famous murder trials of the 1990s: the case of Lyle and Erik Menendez.
The brothers who killed their parents, José and Kitty Menendez, testified that they did it out of self-defense after being abused for several years.
In the show and in real life, Dunne (Nathan Lane) is a crime reporter who helped make the brothers' story a national sensation by covering their trials in Vanity Fair. Both real and fictional Dunne sided with the prosecution and questioned the brothers' claim that they were victims of abuse.
Episode seven of "Monsters" shows the backstory of why the Vanity Fair reporter was so invested in the Menendez case: Dunne's daughter was strangled by an ex-boyfriend. In the show and real life, Dunne felt his daughter's murderer wasn't appropriately punished.
In episode nine and real life, the boys are found guilty in their second trial and sentenced to life in prison.
The series also visualizes several of Dunne's theories of why and how the crime occurs, including the reporter's theory that the Menendez brothers were secret lovers.
These theories, posed in Dunne's original reporting for Vanity Fair, came from his alleged interviews with prosecutors and other individuals involved in the case.
The series does not explicitly say which of these theories were true or false. But, Lyle and Erik Menendez's extended family members have already slammed the show's co-creator, Ryan Murphy, for including these perspectives in the series.
The statement, shared on X by Erik Menendez's wife, Tammi Menendez, did not specify which scenes the family took offense to.
The family said: "Murphy claims he spent years researching the case but in the end relied on debunked Dominick Dunne, the pro-prosecution hack, to justify his slander against us and never spoke to us."
Murphy hit back in an interview with Variety on Thursday, saying: "I find it interesting because I would like specifics about what they think is shocking or not shocking. It's not like we're making any of this stuff up. It's all been presented before."
A representative for Murphy did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
Here's what to know about Dunne and his life after the trial.
Dominique Dunne was Dunne's youngest child, and her death turned him into a crime reporter
Lee Green / American Broadcasting Companies via Getty Images
Before Dunne's crime-writing job, he was a famous Hollywood producer on films like 1970 "The Boys in the Band." In 1954, he married Ellen Griffin, and they had five children together before their divorce in 1965.
Dunne's youngest daughter Dominique was one of the two children to follow their father's profession and become actors.
But in 1982, Dominique Dunne was strangled by her ex-boyfriend John Thomas Sweeney. Sweeney was charged with murder, but his defense lawyers were able to persuade the jury he did not mean to kill Dominique Dunne.
He was convicted of voluntary manslaughter and assault and sentenced to six and a half years of jail, though he only served two and a half.
As shown in episode seven of "Monsters," Dunne was devastated by the conviction. His account of the trial, "JUSTICE: A Father's Account of the Trial of His Daughter's Killer," was published in Vanity Fair in 1984 and launched Dunne's career as a crime reporter.
Slate reported in 2007 that Dunne also once hired private investigator Anthony Pellicano to track down and kill Sweeney after he was released from prison. Pellicano talked Dunne out of it.
Dominick hosted a talk show and wrote multiple crime books until he died in 2009
Jimi Celeste / Patrick McMullan via Getty Images
From the 1980s onwards, Dunne published multiple fictional and nonfiction crime books, some of which became bestsellers.
During the 1990s and 2000s, Dunne worked as a crime reporter. He covered several more high-profile cases on top of the Mendedez brothers' trial in 1993. Dunne was one of two reporters granted full access to O.J. Simpson's 1995 murder trial and covered Phil Spector's murder trial in 2007.
However, born out of his personal experiences at the father of a murder victim, Dunne's son told People in June, "He was a journalist, but not a terribly unbiased one. He always looked at it from the rights of the victim."
In 2002, Dunne began hosting his own talk show for CourtTV called "Dominick Dunne's Power, Privilege, and Justice." This show lasted until 2009. The show was a true-crime series that explored real-life cases – with a focus on celebrity or wealthy criminals.
In 2008, Dunne publicly revealed he had been diagnosed with bladder cancer. The reporter eventually died on August 26, 2009, due to the illness.
But before his death, Dunne came out as bisexual, telling the Times in February 2009 that he called himself a "closeted bisexual celibate."
"Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story" is available to stream on Netflix.
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