Like most true crimes that command the newspaper headlines of the day, the trial of brothers Lyle and Erik Menendez for the murder of their parents Jose and Kitty was a subject of much dinner table conversation around the world, as people debated their innocence or guilt.
Aside from the atypical context for the crime - the Menendez family were wealthy and lived in LA's Beverly Hills - there were contradictory claims the boys had acted out of greed to secure their inheritances, and that they had been the subject of sexual and psychological abuse from one or both parents.
The story has been dramatised for television as Law & Order True Crime: The Menendez Murders, from the creative hand of the legendary Dick Wolf, the producer who has overseen the Law & Order franchise for almost three decades.
Wolf says what the deep dive into the Menendez story turns up is compelling, regardless of whatever preconceived notions you enter the story with.
"The research revealed things that none of us knew and that's one of the things that I think is most impactful about the eight hours," he says. "I don't care what attitude you [have] going in. Your mind is going to receive information that I think will change a lot of people's attitudes."
Though Wolf's most famous franchise, the original Law & Order, was marketed as "ripped from the headlines", he says The Menendez Murders takes that notion to a hitherto untapped level.
"We've made some great shows from the headlines [but] this is on a different level," Wolf says. "It's also the only time that we've had sort of a collective agenda, which is this is one of the crimes of the century, it's absolutely horrible.
"But when you see the information, I think people are going to realise, well, yeah, they did it, but they probably should have been convicted of first degree manslaughter, which is a different punishment than first degree murder. So, this is a show that has an agenda to it."
The Menendez Murders is the first Law & Order iteration that properly turns a true crime story plucked from the headlines into scripted drama.
Wolf says he had no qualms, or concerns for the Law & Order brand.
"In this universe that has come to be the new normal with 450 scripted projects on television last year, if I thought it would help, you know, I'd run naked through the streets, which nobody would want to see," Wolf says, laughing.
"I would use anything I can to get an audience that does not lower the level of the brand."
Another influential factor, at least in assuaging any concerns from either the studio or network, was the success - commercially and critically - of America Crime Story: The People vs O.J. Simpson.
"I don't think it's going to affect whether people watch or not," Wolf says.
"They're going to watch it if they like it. It's still the same thing: how do you get people into the tent?
"The main consumers of crime, both fictional and non-fictional, are women.
"And that is an audience. And this certainly I would think [appeal to that demographic] because it's got love, lust, lying, cheating. All seven deadly sins in one place."
The Menendez Murders also explores two of the most controversial aspects of the case that received some but broadly speaking not a lot of oxygen in the mainstream media at the time: the claims that the Menendez boys had been sexually abused and claims of political collusion between the judge and the District Attorney's office.
"We are going there," says executive producer Rene Balcer. "Both boys were molested by their father [and] both boys were molested by their mother, according to their testimony, which is corroborated by testimony from relatives, [and] some photographs that were found."
It was, Balcer adds, a "very dysfunctional family. According to the testimony, the younger brother, who was 18 at the time of the murder, the last time his father molested him was two weeks before the murders.
"The other part of the story that is probably not well known is the degree of implicit political collusion between the judge and the District Attorney's office in the second trial to assure a conviction, and so that's one new facet to the case that the series sort of highlights."
The sexual abuse evidence was crucial to the case, Wolf says, but was critically excluded from the final trial.
"There were mitigating circumstances, major mitigating circumstances," Wolf says, pointing out that the molestation evidence was allowed in the first trial but later excluded.
"If it had been admitted, there's no way they would have been convicted of first degree murder," Wolf says. "It's mitigation. It's not justified, but it's a mitigating factor."
Balcer concurs, adding that our understanding of victim psychology is significantly more complex today than it was the more than two decades ago when the Menendez brothers were on trial.
"At the time of the trial [there was a] lack of understanding of the psychology of abuse victims and issues such as hypervigilance and how they perceive their parents to be a threat to their lives," Balcer says.
"This was 25 years ago; what we understood about molestation, especially of boys, was primitive compared to what we understand now."
WHAT Law & Order True Crime: The Menendez Murders
WHEN Nine, Monday, 8.50pm
