The case of the Menendez brothers shows how popular true crime content that reinvestigates elements of real criminal cases in documentaries, podcasts and books can lead to a wave of public interest and increased scrutiny. Many cases have seen major developments after such attention, reports USA Today. The newspaper explores four of them. Thirty-five years after Erik and Lyle Menendez shot their parents to death in their Southern California home, the brothers might be granted a resentencing. It’s thanks in large part to a surge in media attention and the nation’s appetite for true crime content. The Menendezes were convicted of the 1989 slaying of their parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez, in a retrial after their first trial ended with a hung jury. To secure a conviction the second time, substantial evidence of the abuse the brothers said they suffered at the hands of their parents was excluded, their attorneys contend. A groundswell of support for the brothers, who are serving life sentences without the possibility of parole, followed the release of the Netflix documentary “The Menendez Brothers” case this month.
Among other true crime cases, Adnan Syed was more than a decade into serving his life sentence for the murder of his ex-girlfriend when the release of the podcast “Serial” in 2014 changed everything. Journalist Sarah Koenig reexamined the evidence used to convict him and followed some loose threads. One bit of evidence raised some of the biggest questions about the case: the existence of a potential alibi witness. In 2022, he walked out of prison after having his conviction overturned. In another case, public attention brought by a documentary had the opposite effect Robert Durst, who died in 2022, was featured in the 2015 series “The Jinx,” in which prosecutors said he confessed to killing his best friend in 2000. Durst was 78 when he was convicted of the execution-style murder of Susan Berman. In the six-part HBO documentary “The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst,” which aired in 2015, Durst was heard on a hot mic saying that he "killed them all," among other damning statements. The Netflix series "Making a Murderer" nearly helped free Brandon Dassey from a life sentence. Dassey was convicted for the murder of photographer Teresa Halbach. The 2015 series raised concerns about the legitimacy of his confession. An outpouring of support to overturn the conviction followed the documentary's release as advocates and attorneys said his confession was coerced and no forensic evidence linked him to the crime. His conviction was overturned by a federal magistrate, and he seemed within reach of getting out of prison, until a divided appeals court reinstated it.