Law & Order True Crime: The Menendez Murders Cast – Who Plays Who?
Binge all eight episodes starring Edie Falco as Leslie Abramson, the defense attorney for Lyle and Erik Menendez in a case that captured a nation.
The gripping events surrounding the 1989 murders of José and Kitty Menendez took America by storm, resulting in the controversial guilty verdicts of the affluent couple’s two sons.
Law & Order True Crime: The Menendez Murders details the dramatic trials in which sons Lyle and Erik Menendez, then 21 and 18, were accused of brutally gunning down their parents inside their Beverly Hills mansion in 1989. Although the Menendez brothers were sentenced to life in prison for the murders in 1996, a recent wave of support for the men’s release keeps the captivating story front-page news nearly 30 years later.
The Emmy Award-nominated 2017 Dick Wolf series, now available to watch on Peacock, comprises eight jam-packed episodes detailing how the case became a national obsession and the people who had a part.
Law & Order True Crime: The Menendez Murders boasts a stunning lineup of actors, delivering worthy performances that only elevate a story that continues to weigh on America’s conscience.
Learn more by reading below.
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Edie Falco as Leslie Abramson
Emmy Award and Golden Globe winner Edie Falco (The Sopranos, Nurse Jackie) snagged an Emmy nomination for starring as Erik Menendez’s no-nonsense attorney, Leslie Abramson. Abramson’s aggressive tactics inside the courtroom helped catapult her into the national spotlight, fighting tooth and nail to prove that the Menendez brothers killed their parents in self-defense.
In 2017, Falco discussed playing Abramson, who took “the unpopular position” of humanizing the defendants, according to People.
“One of the main things I like about her is how seriously she takes her job. How good she is at it. How devoted she is to her clients to give the best defense possible,” said the actress. “I naively was surprised to learn that she doesn’t always believe that they are innocent, but it is her job to represent them and — not this case in particular — but it’s her job to represent these people fairly regardless of her feelings about it.”
Miles Gaston Villanueva as Lyle Menendez
Soap opera actor Miles Gaston Villanueva (The Young and the Restless, The Boys) played older brother, Lyle Menendez, one of the two accused of using a pair of shotguns to shoot José and Kitty Menendez in the TV room of their home. The brothers’ lavish shopping spree — $700,000, according to People — following the double murder prompted investigators to look at the young men as suspects.
The brothers claimed they’d suffered a lifetime of physical and sexual abuse, a talking point that continues in public forums today.
“We are all really grateful to be able to give a voice to not only the Menendez brothers, but other people who have suffered abuse whether it be sexual, emotional, or psychological,” Villanueva said in a 2017 red-carpet interview with On-Air On-Soaps.
Gus Halper as Erik Menendez
New York actor Gus Halper (Law & Order: Organized Crime, Rustin) portrayed younger brother Erik Menendez, whose confession to Lyle Menendez about the alleged sexual abuse prompted the young men to take action, according to the defense. In a September 26, 2017 interview with Yahoo Entertainment, Halper discussed how “extremely difficult” it was to play the younger brother.
“As far as I’m concerned, they endured some of the greatest trauma that a human being can,” Halper said. “It’s a really tragic, high-stakes, highly emotional story, so it was really hard. It still is really hard. It hasn’t gotten any easier.”
Videos of Halper and Villanueva’s performances as the Menendez brothers continue to reach millions on TikTok and elsewhere on social media.
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Josh Charles as Dr. Jerome Oziel
Emmy-nominated actor Josh Charles (The Good Wife, Dead Poets Society) is Dr. Jerome Oziel, the therapist to whom Lyle and Erik Menendez confessed and a major player in the court proceedings. The taped confessions were a pivotal part of the case, as the defense argued such statements by the accused killers were protected under physician-client privilege. According to a March 21, 1991 article by the Los Angeles Times, Oziel detailed the siblings’ “planning and execution” of the murders and “fabricated alibi defense.”
Oziel’s extramarital affair with his patient Judalon Smyth (played in the Law & Order spinoff by Heather Graham) added a level of scandal to the case, and he was later stripped of his license for having sex with his clients, per the Los Angeles Times.
Carlos Gómez as José Menendez
It wasn’t easy for New York City-born Carlos Gómez (The Glades, Madam Secretary) to muster up the emotional investment to play the part of alleged child abuser José Menendez, he once told NBC West Palm Beach affiliate WPTV-TV. Part of why many believe the Cuban émigré’s purported abuse went without notice was due to his multi-million-dollar success as a prominent music executive.
"The more I researched José Menendez, the harder it was for me to believe this guy could do such a thing,” said the actor. “By all appearances, he was an incredibly successful man. But as we would learn, there were terrible allegations of sexual and verbal abuse. I couldn't help but think that this was the last image this man had of his children."
Lolita Davidovich as Kitty Menendez
Canadian actress Lolita Davidovich (Law & Order: Organized Crime, True Detective) plays the Menendez brothers’ mother, murder victim Kitty Menendez. Mrs. Menendez has been widely painted as a resentful and uncaring woman who would have rather lived the life of a Hollywood starlet over being a mother.
Kitty Menendez would sustain 10 of the 16 gunshots used when the brothers emptied their shotguns, went to the car to reload, and returned to make sure the parents were dead. Lyle Menendez told the court that after she’d been shot, the mother was “sort of sneaking around the side of the coffee table” before suffering a fatal, point-blank shot to the cheek, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Additional Cast in Law & Order True Crime: The Menendez Murders
Law & Order True Crime: The Menendez Murders features a dynamite supporting cast as well. A few familiar faces include Anthony Edwards (ER, Zodiac) as Judge Stanley Weisberg, Harry Hamlin (Clash of the Titans, Mad Men) as attorney Barry Levin, Juliane Nicholson (Mare of Easttown, I, Tonya) as attorney Jill Lansing, and Heather Graham (Boogie Nights, The Hangover) as Judalon Smyth.
Don’t miss Law & Order True Crime: The Menendez Murders, available to watch now on Peacock.
