Who was Kitty Menendez, the mother of the Menendez brothers?

Kitty Menendez, the mother of Lyle and Erik Menendez, seemed to live a life of luxury in Beverly Hills.

But one summer night in 1989, her sons killed her and her husband, Jose Menendez, with shotguns, and the case became one of the most shocking and sensational murder cases in the United States.

The Netflix series “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story” describes the events before and after the gruesome murders, with Chloë Sevigny playing Kitty Menendez.

“I want to give her dignity despite her flaws and try to empathize with her feelings about the things she complains about throughout the show,” Sevigny told Harper’s Bazaar earlier this year.

Sevigny stars in the series created by Ryan Murphy alongside Javier Bardem, who plays Jose Menendez, and Nicholas Chavez and Cooper Koch as Lyle and Erik Menendez.

While her sons have made headlines for decades, Kitty Menendez has been out of the spotlight—until now, with the Netflix series premiering on September 19. Read on to learn more about her.

Jose and Kitty Menendez met in college

Kitty Menendez, née Mary Louise Andersen, was born on October 23, 1941, in Oak Lawn, Illinois, according to “The Menendez Murders” by Robert Rand, a journalist who has covered the case extensively since the day after the murders in 1989.

According to The Menendez Murders, she met sophomore Jose Menendez in a philosophy class during her final year of studying communications at Southern Illinois University.

According to a 1990 Vanity Fair article, Jose Menendez enrolled in the university after receiving a swimming scholarship. Although Kitty Menendez was two years older, she quickly fell in love with Jose Menendez, and starting in the spring of 1963, they spent all their time together, according to Rand’s book.

Jose Menendez, who was sent from his native Cuba to live with relatives in the United States as a teenager, told his family, who thought he was too young to marry, “If I’m old enough to live on my own at 16, then I’m old enough to get married at 19,” according to a 1990 article in the Los Angeles Times.

The couple married on July 8, 1963, and moved to New York at the end of the summer, where Jose Menendez transferred to Queens College, according to The Menendez Murders. He earned a degree in economics and accounting and quickly rose through the ranks at several companies after graduating, according to The Menendez Murders.

Their first son, Joseph “Lyle” Menendez, was born on January 10, 1968, and almost four years later, on November 27, 1970, Erik Menendez was born, according to “The Menendez Murders.”

In the 1980s, Jose Menendez was named chief operating officer of RCA-Ariola, the recording division of RCA Corp., where he ran worldwide operations and signed bands such as Duran Duran and the Eurythmics, earning a salary of $500,000 a year, according to the Times.

Jose Menendez worked long hours and traveled frequently, and Kitty Menendez raised her two sons on a million-dollar estate in Princeton, New Jersey, according to Vanity Fair.

Lyle and Erik Menendez attended Princeton Day School and, at their father’s urging, began playing tennis and soccer – and their mother attended every game and match, Vanity Fair reported.

Jose and Kitty Menendez moved to California in 1986

In 1986, General Electric bought RCA, and when Jose Menendez was passed over for a high-ranking position, he moved with his family from New Jersey to California, according to Vanity Fair.

The uprooting was a great grief for Kitty Menendez, as she loved her life and her home in Princeton, Vanity Fair reported.

According to the Times, Jose Menendez spent $950,000 on a five-bedroom home on nearly 14 acres in Calabasas, California.

Jose Menendez began working at Carolco Pictures, the production company behind Sylvester Stallone’s “Rambo” franchise, and quickly turned the business around, according to Vanity Fair.

However, his wife had a hard time adjusting to the West Coast, and her friends told the Times that if it had been up to her, her family would have stayed in New Jersey.

Life also changed for Lyle and Erik Menendez in Southern California when they joined a group of wealthy, privileged young men suspected of robbing homes in the area in the summer of 1988, the Times reported.

According to Vanity Fair, Erik Menendez was involved in the crimes, which involved the theft of over $100,000 worth of cash and jewels. He was sentenced to probation and compulsory therapy, according to Vanity Fair, and his mother asked her psychiatrist for a recommendation.

Kitty Menendez provided the information to Beverly Hills psychologist Jerome Oziel, who counseled the brothers and later became a key witness in their murder trials.

Jose Menendez was unfaithful in his marriage to Kitty Menendez

Vanity Fair reported that Jose Menendez was “blatantly unfaithful” to his wife and that she was “devastated.”

Karen Lam, a friend of Kitty Menendez, told Vanity Fair in 1990 that Kitty Menendez was deeply unhappy about her husband’s affair and had attempted suicide three times.

Kitty Menendez’s former therapist, Edwin S. Cox, also testified during the brothers’ first trial that she was suicidal because of her husband’s eight-year affair with a woman in New York, the Los Angeles Times reported in 1993.

Cox told jurors she saw suicide as a way to get revenge on her husband for the affair. She became depressed and addicted to drugs and alcohol, the Times reported.

Jose and Kitty Menendez were murdered in 1989

In October 1988, Jose Menendez bought an 8,600-square-foot home in Beverly Hills, complete with a pool and tennis court, according to the Times.

The six-bedroom house on Elm Drive became a crime scene on August 20, 1989, when Jose and Kitty Menendez were shot multiple times in their living room with two 12-gauge shotguns.

Jose Menendez, 45, was shot at point-blank range in the back of the head and several more times in the arms and legs. Kitty Menendez, 47, was shot four times in the head and five times across the body.

Lyle Menendez, then 21, called 911 and said he and his brother Erik Menendez, then 18, had just returned home from the movies and found their parents dead.

Although the murders were initially investigated as a Mafia killing, investigators eventually focused on the brothers as suspects, according to the Times.

About seven months after the murders, Lyle Menendez was arrested on March 8, 1990, and Erik Menendez turned himself in to authorities three days later.

Lyle Menendez, now 56, and Erik Menendez, now 53, were convicted of murdering their parents in 1996 after two trials in which the jury was unable to reach a consensus. Both were sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Jose and Kitty Menendez were buried at Princeton Cemetery in New Jersey on August 25, 1989, following their memorial service at the Directors Guild of America in Los Angeles.

Lyle Menendez testified that Kitty and Jose Menendez abused their children

During the first trial of Lyle and Erik Menendez, the brothers’ lawyers argued that they killed their parents out of fear after suffering years of abuse, mostly at the hands of their father but sometimes at the hands of their mother, the Los Angeles Times reported in 1993.

According to the Times, Lyle Menendez testified on September 13, 1993, that his mother “molested” him with her sexual behavior during his youth.

He testified that his mother washed his body “everywhere” until he was 13, that she invited him to bed and that he touched her “everywhere,” the Times reported.

When he was 11, his mother wore an open dressing gown and was topless or naked in his presence, he testified, according to the Times.

He also accused her of physical and emotional abuse, including hitting him, kicking him and dragging him into his room by his hair, the Times reported.

The first of the brothers’ two trials, in which they were tried jointly and before separate juries, ended in a stalemate in the two juries in January 1994.

In the subsequent trial, which took place before a single jury, the judge ruled that evidence and testimony related to allegations of sexual abuse by the brothers would not be admitted, the Times reported.

Lyle and Erik Menendez were charged with first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder in March 1996 and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.