The Menendez brothers’ brutal 1989 murder of their parents continues to grip America, but a similarly disturbing case unfolded across the Canadian border. In Ontario, two teenage sisters drugged and drowned their alcoholic mother in the bathtub of the family home—and, years later, both women are living free.
Known only by the pseudonyms Sandra and Beth, the sisters became known as the Bathtub Girls. They killed their mother, Linda, an alias, 16 years after Erik and Lyle Menendez murdered their parents.
Linda, 44, died in January 2003 after the girls gave her vodka and codeine-containing Tylenol 3 tablets, helped her into the bath and held her head beneath the water for four minutes. The staged scene appeared so credible that her death was initially classified as an accidental drowning, and the sisters collected $133,000 from her life insurance policy.
Sandra and Beth, who were 16 and 15 at the time, concealed the crime for roughly a year. Their secret began to unravel when online chat records exposed discussions about killing Linda. Both were ultimately convicted and received the maximum youth sentence of 10 years.
Erik and Lyle Menendez were 18 and 21 when they shot their parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez, 14 times with 12-gauge shotguns inside their Beverly Hills home in 1989. Following an initial mistrial, the brothers were convicted of murder and sentenced to life without parole.
Prosecutors portrayed the Menendez killings as a calculated attempt to seize control of the family’s $14 million fortune. Their defense, however, maintained that the brothers had acted in self-defense after years of emotional and sexual abuse by their father.
The Bathtub Girls faced a similar prosecution theory: that they were ruthless, financially motivated killers. The sisters’ lawyers countered that their childhood had been marked by physical and sexual abuse, as well as the instability caused by their mother’s alcoholism.
Interest in the Menendez case has surged again as Erik and Lyle pursue renewed bids for freedom. Sandra and Beth, meanwhile, have been able to build lives outside prison, with their identities protected under Canada‘s Youth Criminal Justice Act.
The sisters were released after serving only six years. Sandra went on to become a scientist and a single mother, though she says she continues to live with “constant regret.” Beth trained as a lawyer and is now involved in a dispute with the Law Society of Ontario, which attempted to rely on her sealed youth record to prevent her from practicing.
As with the Menendez case, which inspired a Netflix series, the Bathtub Girls’ story was adapted for the screen. Abigail Breslin and Georgie Henley played the sisters in the 2014 film Perfect Sisters, which drew on the Ontario murder.
Known as the Bathtub Girls, Sandra and Beth drugged and drowned their alcoholic mother, Linda, in the bathtub of their Ontario home in January 2003. The sisters allegedly killed her after years of abuse. Abigail Breslin (right) and Georgie Henley (left) portrayed the pair in Perfect Sisters, the 2014 film inspired by the case
The Bathtub Girls case, like the Menendez murders, was adapted into a movie. Abigail Breslin and Georgie Henley starred in the 2014 film Perfect Sisters
The sisters’ case bears striking similarities to that of Erik and Lyle Menendez, who killed Jose and Kitty Menendez with 12-gauge shotguns in their Beverly Hills home in 1989. The brothers, pictured in 1990, claimed they acted in self-defense after years of emotional and sexual abuse by their father
On January 18, 2003, Sandra and Beth made their mother extremely intoxicated by giving her vodka and painkillers. Linda was reportedly close to unconsciousness.
At about 6pm, the sisters helped her into the bathtub. Linda was lying in the water with her head positioned against the taps.
“Turn over, Mom,” Sandra, then 16, reportedly told her. She did not want to look into her mother’s eyes as she drowned her.
Beth, 15, watched from the doorway as Sandra wore gloves and pressed Linda’s head underwater. She held it there for four minutes, until the older woman stopped moving.
The sisters then went to a popular Canadian restaurant with two friends as part of a pre-arranged alibi. Four hours later, they returned home and called 911, according to The Toronto Star.
The pair had reportedly rehearsed crying before making the call. They told the emergency dispatcher that they had discovered Linda in the bathtub, “not moving,” and acted hysterical when officers arrived.
The coroner determined that Linda had accidentally drowned after consuming too much alcohol. With the case apparently closed, the sisters received a substantial payment from their mother’s life insurance.
For more than a year, they appeared to have escaped justice—and even boasted to friends that they had killed Linda.
The investigation was reopened after a family friend gave police a crucial tip, alleging that Linda’s death had been deliberately planned by the sisters and several high school acquaintances.
Police then arranged a video sting operation. During the operation, one of the sisters admitted to a friend that she had killed her mother and described Linda’s final moments, saying she had “kept convulsing” and “kept twitching” beneath the water.
That recording ultimately led to the sisters’ arrests.
Sandra and Beth denied the murder throughout their eight-week trial in 2005. The jury reached a guilty verdict just one day after closing arguments, CBC News reported.
Justice Bruce Duncan, who presided over the trial, described the evidence as “overwhelming” and “probably the strongest case I have ever seen in over 30 years.”
Sandra and Beth searched online for ways to kill their mother and spent weeks preparing the plan. They consulted at least three close friends, both online and in person, before carrying it out. Perfect Sisters depicts Linda’s funeral
The court heard that the sisters had searched the internet for possible methods and spent weeks organizing the killing.
MSN chat records shown to the jury indicated that the teenagers had told several friends they intended to drown their mother, according to The Mississauga News.
At least three friends were consulted before the crime, through a combination of online conversations and in-person meetings.
One friend advised them to “wear gloves,” while another told them to plan an alibi. A young man dating one of the sisters went further, providing specific suggestions about how the murder could be carried out.
“Your mom gets Tylenol 3s, right?” the boyfriend, whose identity is protected, wrote in one exchange presented at trial, according to City News Everywhere.
“Probably,” his girlfriend responded.
“Seriously, you should include them in the game plan,” he replied. “I’m not talking 20 here. I mean like five.”
He also recommended creating misleading evidence for investigators, including buying movie tickets with timestamps shortly before the killing to establish a “paper trail.”
“I’m involved this much, I’m willing to help you out with any of it,” he wrote.
The sisters continued messaging friends during the attack, reporting that Linda was “passing out” and “barely moving” as they gave her alcohol and medication.
Each sister separately admitted to the killing, though their attorneys argued that the confessions were untrue. The defense said Sandra and Beth, portrayed here in the film, were so “desperate for attention” that they created a “class project of how to kill mom” with friends
Jurors also saw video footage of the sisters separately confessing to the killing. Their lawyers insisted, however, that those statements were false.
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Defense attorney Jack McCuligh argued that Sandra and Beth were so “desperate for attention” that they and their friends had invented a “class project of how to kill mom.”
“We have an accidental death and a school class project—how to kill mother—which became a fable when their mother accidentally died,” he told the court. “The fact that my client is an accomplished liar doesn’t make her a murderer.”
He argued that the girls felt guilty because Linda, whom he described as a “drunk who finally pushed her luck too far,” died after they left her alone while she was intoxicated.
Another defense lawyer, Eugene Bhattacharya, called Linda’s death an “unfortunate coincidence,” saying the sisters had discussed killing her but had not actually carried out a murder.
The jury convicted the sisters, who were then 19 and 18, of murder. They received the maximum youth sentence of 10 years.
“The defendants set out to commit the perfect crime, but instead they created the perfect prosecution,” Judge Duncan said while delivering the verdict.
Neither sister showed emotion as the guilty verdict was read.
Their sentence called for six years in secure custody followed by four years under community supervision. Sandra was granted parole after three years, while Beth was released after four.
The boyfriend was convicted of conspiracy to commit murder and initially sentenced to 18 months. An appeals court later reduced that punishment to eight months in custody and four months under supervision.
In a 2020 interview, Sandra said she continues to struggle with guilt over Linda’s death and discussed the circumstances that led to the murder. She said the sisters grew up with “physical abuse and drugs and alcohol in the home,” adding that drunk driving and screaming were regular parts of their lives. She also alleged that she was sexually abused as a child
In interviews with journalist Bob Mitchell, who extensively covered the trial and wrote a book about the case, Sandra described the killing as “easy.” She was quoted as saying: “All I had to do was hold her head under water. She was in a bathtub filled with water. It’s not hard. It’s a lot easier to kill a person than you think. I don’t know how easy it is to get away with it”
Sandra later discussed the case in a series of interviews with journalist Bob Mitchell, who covered the trial and wrote a book about it. She reportedly described the act of killing as “easy.”
“All I had to do was hold her head under water,” Sandra said, according to Mitchell’s 2008 book The Class Project: How to Kill a Mother.
“She was in a bathtub filled with water. It’s not hard. It’s a lot easier to kill a person than you think. I don’t know how easy it is to get away with it.”
Sandra said she had planned the killing “pretty well,” but added that anyone attempting to deceive investigators would need to keep their story consistent.
“There’s all this stuff you have to remember,” she explained. “Like when you’re giving your statement to the cops or whatever. You have to remember things that people do when they’re lying. Like, start off with something big, and then get more and more into details. That’s obviously a major sign that you’re lying.”
According to the book, Beth attempted to rationalize the killing by saying it was meant to end the suffering caused by Linda’s addiction.
The sisters said their mother’s drinking left her “incapacitated” and “out of control,” and believed her alcoholism would eventually kill her.
Beth said they had tried to “speed up the process” and give Linda what she considered a “merciful” death that would be “quick and painless.” She added that “drastic actions are called for in drastic situations.”
Beth, played by Georgie Henley in the film, trained as a lawyer and applied for admission to the Law Society of Ontario in 2016. She is now at the center of a dispute with the organization, which sought to use her sealed youth record to challenge her ability to practice
Several years ago, Sandra spoke publicly about the case again, saying she remains burdened by guilt and explaining what she believed had driven the sisters to kill.
She told Global News that she and Beth grew up amid “physical abuse and drugs and alcohol in the home.” Drunk driving and constant screaming, she alleged, were also “a regular part of our life.”
Sandra further claimed that she had been sexually abused as a child. “I don’t even remember the abuse starting,” she told the outlet. “I remember the molestation, the touching, always being a part of my life.”
She said she decided to kill Linda after becoming convinced that nothing else would change her mother’s behavior.
“When I realized, ‘Oh my God, she’s never going to stop drinking, nobody cares’—right after that I was like, ‘I should just kill her. Nobody cares. Nobody sees what’s going on. What difference does it make?’” she recalled.
“There’s this story: ‘It’s like, oh, there’s this teenage girl who woke up and murdered her mother.’ I was so traumatized when I came to that conclusion.”
Sandra said she held the “tragic mistaken belief” that Linda would die from alcoholism and that she “just couldn’t bury it anymore.”
She remembers the killing and says the memory continues to haunt her.
“I don’t want to have that memory and I never wanted to live that and I never wanted to do that,” she added.
Unlike Erik and Lyle Menendez, pictured left and right, whose murder trial became a national obsession in the 1990s, Sandra and Beth’s identities remain protected under Canada’s Youth Criminal Justice Act. The sisters were also released early and have rebuilt their lives, while the Menendez brothers are pursuing another bid for release
Sandra, now a single mother, spent years in therapy and has been diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder. She graduated from university and works as a scientist.
Beth studied law and applied for admission to the Law Society of Ontario in 2016, according to the Toronto Sun.
Although her murder conviction had been sealed under Canada’s Youth Criminal Justice Act, Beth disclosed it on her admission form, triggering a referral to a “good character” hearing.
She authorized the organization to obtain her youth criminal record but later alleged that the Law Society attempted to disqualify her from practicing because of the conviction.
Beth appeared before Justice Duncan—the same judge who had convicted her—and asked for the record to be rescinded.
He agreed and said the Law Society should not use her past in its decision because, after she completed her sentence, the conviction had been “erased.”
“She is conclusively deemed never to have committed the offence,” he wrote.
The Law Society of Ontario is reportedly reviewing its decision in Beth’s case.
