LOS ANGELES – In a statement shared by his wife, Erik Menendez criticizes the Netflix series “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story,” which is based on the 1989 murder of Jose and Kitty Menendez.

Tammi Menendez, who married Erik in 1999, posted a statement from him on the social media platform X on September 19, calling “The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story” “horrific” and “inaccurate.” The series is the second season of Ryan Murphy's “Monster” anthology, which began with a series about Jeffrey Dahmer.

Brothers Lyle and Erik Menendez were convicted of murdering their parents Joe and Kitty on August 20, 1989. They were sentenced to life in prison without parole and are both still incarcerated in California. The series follows the lead-up to their parents' murder and the trial that followed.

“I thought we had moved beyond the lies and devastating character portrayals of Lyle, creating a caricature of Lyle based on horrific and obvious lies that were rampant on the show,” Tammi Menendez's statement said. “I can only believe this was done on purpose. It is with a heavy heart that I must say that I believe Ryan Murphy cannot be so naive and inaccurate about the facts of our lives to do this without malicious intent.”

Prosecutors in the first trial argued that the brothers killed their parents for the wealth in their estate. The brothers testified that their father began abusing them when they were each six years old. In a 1995 trial, the abuse allegations were ruled inadmissible.

“It saddens me to know that Netflix's dishonest portrayal of the tragedies surrounding our crime has pushed painful truths back several steps – back to an era when prosecutors built their narrative on a belief system that men were not sexually assaulted and that men experienced rape trauma differently than women,” Tammi Menendez said in a statement.

“How demoralizing it is to know that one man with power can undo decades of progress in understanding childhood trauma,” the statement continued. “Violence is never an answer, never a solution, and always tragic. So I hope it will never be forgotten that violence against a child creates a hundred horrific and silent crime scenes, darkly hidden behind the glitz and glamour, rarely revealed until the tragedy penetrates all involved.”

Murphy has not commented on the Menendez family's criticism.