'Law & Order: True Crime' News: NBC's New Anthology Series to Focus on Menendez Brothers

By Jackie Villegas, Christian Post Contributor Friday, April 08, 2016

NBC will be expanding its "Law & Order" franchise with an anthology crime drama series to be called "Law & Order: True Crime."

The network is working with executive producer Dick Wolf to bring the scripted series, which will tell the stories of various real-life criminal cases, to life, Deadline has learned. The news of the upcoming "Law & Order" anthology series follows the recent season 1 finale of FX's "American Crime Story," which portrayed the infamous 1995 O.J. Simpson trial.

"Law & Order: True Crime" is reportedly currently in development and will tackle the case of convicted killers Lyle and Erik Menendez in its first eight-episode season.

The Menendez brothers were accused in the murders of their parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez, who were shot to death in their Beverly Hills mansion in 1989. Erik and Lyle, who were 18 and 21, respectively, at the time of the murders, were arrested six months after the crime and were tried separately. After the first two trials rendered no verdicts, the two were convicted, in 1996, of first-degree murder and sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

Throughout the trials, the brothers maintained that they had killed their parents as a result of the years of abuse they had suffered at the hands of their father. Their defense attorney, Leslie Abramson, claimed that the brothers were victims of sexual abuse by their father and that their mother was a drug and alcohol abuser and was mentally unstable.

"We've been talking with Dick about how to create an event series coming out of the Law & Order ripped-from-the-headlines brand," NBC Entertainment President Jennifer Salke told Deadline. "This case captured the public's attention like nothing before it as it examined taboo issues such as patricide and matricide in gruesome detail, all against a backdrop of privilege and wealth."

"We will re-create the cultural and societal surroundings of both the murders and trials when people were not only obsessed with the case but examining how and why these brothers committed these heinous crimes," she added.

NBC has not announced an official release date for "Law & Order: True Crime."