Erik and Lyle Menendez
Erik and Lyle Menendez, two brothers who grew up in Beverly Hills, California, were convicted of murdering their parents Jose and Mary Louise “Kitty” Menendez on the night of August 20, 1989.
The boys’ father, Jose Menendez immigrated from Cuba when he was 16, and worked his way up in corporate America to become an extremely wealthy business man, and eventually the CEO of LIVE Entertainment.
At ages 21 and 18, Lyle and Erik developed a plan to murder their parents with shotguns they purchased days before the murder. The prosecution claimed that the privileged brothers murdered their mother and father out of greed, hoping to inherit the family fortune early.
On the night of August 20, 1989, Erik and Lyle Menendez opened fire on Jose and Kitty inside their Beverly Hills Mansion. Lyle shot his father several times in the arms and once in the head with a Mossberg 12-gauge shotgun. Kitty was shot in her torso and face leaving her unrecognizable. They shot both victims in the kneecaps to make the incident seem like a mob hit.
Lyle and Erik picked up all shell casings to ensure no fingerprints were left behind, drove up Mulholland Drive, and tossed their shotguns into a canyon. They then returned to the house and called the police. When authorities arrived, Erik and Lyle claimed they returned from the movies to find their parents murdered.
Les Zoeller was assigned to the case and from examination of the crime scene determined there was no forced entry and no evidence of a robbery. Zoeller, however, did not consider the brothers to be suspects, and he did not administer gunshot-residue tests. Erik was emotionally unstable during questioning, while Lyle was calm and collected. When asked if anyone would want to kill his parents, Lyle answered, “maybe the mob.” The coroner determined that the shot to Kitty’s left knee came from a different angle than the other shots, so the killers may have been staging the murder to look like a mob hit.
Erik, younger and more frail, was much more psychologically distressed by the crime than Lyle. He confessed his involvement in the murders to his psychiatrist, Dr. Jerome Oziel and told Lyle of his confession almost immediately. Lyle confronted Oziel, threatening his life should he share what Erik told him. Instead of calling the police, Oziel had the brothers come back several times and recorded the sessions on tape, but continued to keep the confessions a secret.
Meanwhile, the brothers spent lavishly following their parents’ death. Detectives searched for physical evidence, eventually linking the brothers to the murder. Detective Zoeller traced the sale of two Mossberg shotguns on August 18, 1990, two days before the murders occurred. The man listed as the buyer had a concrete alibi proving he had been at work in New York at the time of the murders and pointed out that the signature was not even close to his. Zoeller saw an opportunity and requested that Erik and Lyle take a handwriting test, but Erik refused.
In March of 1990, Dr. Oziel’s mistress – enraged she had just been broken up with – went to the police and told them that the Menendez brothers had been seeing Oziel for psychiatry and had confessed to killing their parents. On March 8, 1990, Lyle Menendez was arrested on his way to lunch with friends. Erik Menendez, who had traveled to Israel for a tennis tournament, learned of his arrest and turned himself in shortly after.
Controversy arose over whether patient-therapist confidentiality laws applied to the tapes Oziel made of the brothers’ confessions. It was eventually ruled that patient-doctor confidentiality had been broken when Lyle threatened Oziel’s life, and some of the tapes would be considered admissible evidence.
During the first trial, the Menendez attorneys stated in their defense that Erik and Lyle were abused by their father from a very young age. Over the course of the trial, the defense viciously attacked the character of both Jose and Kitty in an attempt to show that the brothers felt that they were in “imminent danger.” Neither of the brothers had ever stated anything of that sort to psychiatrists, friends, or family members, making it easy for the prosecution to shoot down the claims. Both of the juries announced that they were deadlocked and could not reach a decision, and both cases were declared mistrials.
The second trial, beginning in 1995, was deliberately less publicized as the Judge felt the juries in the first trial were influenced by media coverage of the case. Both Lyle and Erik were convicted of first-degree murder and on April 17, 1996, jurors decided that life in prison was the best punishment for the brothers.
The Menendez brothers are currently incarcerated at Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego, California. Lyle was originally sent to Mule Creek State Prison, but was reunited with his brother in 2018 when he was transferred to the same facility as Erik. They are both married with no children, serving life sentences without the possibility of parole.
In May 2023, attorneys representing the Menendez brothers filed a petition in light of new evidence proving that Erik and Lyle were telling the truth about the abuse they suffered. The petition asks for their case to be reopened, as this new evidence would have led to a much shorter sentence than the ones they are currently serving.
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