IT was the case that gripped America – wealthy well-connected parents gunned down in cold blood by their handsome sons.
Greed had driven spoiled brothers Lyle and Erik Menendez to slaughter their parents in a bid to get their hands on their $14million (£10million) inheritance, said the prosecution.
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But the boys claimed they killed in self-defence after years of sexual and emotional abuse by their controlling father Jose.
After seven years and three trials, televised to millions, the brothers were convicted and sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole.
Now 35 years on a new Netflix drama revisits the case, as some supporters believe the brothers should never have been convicted of murder at all.
It was 20 August 1989 when Jose and Kitty Menendez sat down to watch a movie in their lavish Beverly Hills mansion that had once been home to Sir Elton John and Michael Jackson.
Just hours later they were dead – brutally murdered by 15 rounds from two 12-gauge shotguns.
The killings were so barbaric that police initially thought it was a mob hit.
On arrival, cops found a seemingly distraught Erik sobbing on the lawn and the brothers told police they had gone out to watch a movie but had to detour home to pick up his ID.
That, they claimed, was when they uncovered the shocking murder scene of their parents’ decimated bodies and called 911.
But in the months after the murders, neither of the brothers acted like grieving boys who had found their parents brutally slain in pools of their own blood.
Splashed $700k in a month
Instead they went on a spending spree with 21-year-old Lyle snapping up a Porsche, a Rolex watch and a restaurant and 18-year-old Erik treating himself to a Jeep Wrangler and a private tennis coach.
It was estimated they spent £530,000 ($700,000) in a matter of months.
But money cannot buy you peace or happiness and it was the younger sibling Erik who was first to crack.
In a state of distress he contacted his former therapist Dr Jerome Oziel and eventually confessed to killing his parents.
Oziel confided in his mistress Judalon Smyth what Erik had told him.
And eventually the therapist got both Erik and Lyle on tape confessing to the murders, with Erik saying they had done it to put their mother “out of her misery”.
But when Smyth and Oziel fell out, with Smyth claiming he had attacked her, she contacted Beverly Hills police to reveal the Menendez brothers’ confession.
Lyle was arrested and Erik flew back from a tennis tournament in Israel to hand himself in.
It took two years of legal wrangling to decide whether the confession tapes fell under patient-doctor privilege, but the Supreme Court of California later ruled that two of the tapes were admissible in court.
Father’s $14m fortune
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The trials began in 1993 and were broadcast on a relatively new cable channel Court TV.
With the heady mixture of a rich family torn apart by scandal, a gruesome murder, celebrity connections, Beverly Hills glitz and two handsome young men on trial it became a real-life soap opera that gripped America.
“[The Menendez trials] probably had the effect, maybe good, maybe bad, of demonstrating that, even if you didn’t have a celebrity, if the circumstances were dramatic enough, people will be captivated,” Steve Brill, the founder of Court Tv, told Rolling Stone in 2017. “We’ve had lots of trials like that since, but that was really the one that proved that people would be interested in watching big trials.”
From the outside, the Menendez family looked the epitome of the American dream.
Jose came to the States from Cuba after the revolution, living in his cousin’s attic until he won a swimming scholarship to Southern Illinois University.
There he met Kitty, a pageant beauty queen, and they married, moving to New York after graduation where Jose rose to head of RCA records, helping to sign bands such as Duran Duran and the Eurythmics.
The couple, along with their young sons, then moved to LA where Jose had secured a job in the movie business.
By the time of his death he was worth £10.5million ($14m).
And it seemed that their good-looking sons also had bright futures ahead.
Both were talented tennis players with Erik being nationally ranked in his age group.
Sexual assault claims
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But behind the scenes ambitious and controlling dad Jose was taking pushy parenting to the next level, driving his kids to succeed in every area of their lives.
His competitiveness had the opposite effect. Soon Erik rebelled, taking part in a string of burglaries.
He managed to stay out of jail but was ordered to take part in therapy sessions with Dr Jerome Oziel.
Then Lyle was suspended from Princeton university for plagiarism.
Timeline of the Menendez Brothers murder case
20th August 1989 – Erik and Lyle Menendez claim they returned home from the movies to find their parents Jose and Kitty Menendez shot to death in their Beverly Hills mansion.
8th March 1990 – Lyle is arrested on suspicion of killing his parents, having confessed to his therapist; authorities wait for Erik to return from a tennis tournament in Israel.
11th March 1990 – Erik returns from Israel and surrenders at Los Angeles International Airport.
12th March 1990 – Murder charges are filed against Menendez brothers. District Attorney Ira Reiner says the two killed their parents in hopes of inheriting their multi-million pound fortune.
26th March 1990 – The brothers plead not guilty to murder.
8th December 1992 – The brothers are indicted for murder.
20th July 1993 – Opening statements begin in the trial. The brothers are accused of premeditated murder, while they argue it was self-defence, claiming they were sexually abused by their father.
10th August 1993 – Psychologist Dr. L. Jerome Oziel says the brothers confessed to killing their parents in therapy with him in 1989.
3rd December 1993 – Testimony in the brothers’ trial ends after 101 witnesses across five months.
28th January 1994 – After a record 25 days of deliberations, the jury remained deadlocked over whether it was murder or manslaughter, and Superior Court Judge Stanley declared a mistrial.
11th October 1995 – The brothers are tried in front of a new jury. Erik’s lawyer says the brothers killed in self-defence after years of horrific abuse from their father.
16th February 1996 – Judge Weisberg effectively bars the jury from returning manslaughter verdicts for the slaying of Kitty, but allows the jury to return a manslaughter verdict for Jose’s death. He also rules that jurors won’t be able to consider the brothers’ claim that they killed because they believed their parents were about to kill them.
20th March 1996 – The jury convicts both brothers of first degree murder with special circumstances.
17th April 1996 – Brothers sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole.
But were these two spoiled brats railing against an authoritarian father? Or was there something more sinister going on behind closed doors?
While the prosecution’s case was that the brothers bought guns and plotted to kill their parents for their fortunes after believing their dad was about to disinherit them, the boys had a much more harrowing version of events.
They claimed that Jose had sexually molested them both – Lyle from the age of six to eight, and Erik from the age of six to 18.
In the days before the murders the family’s secrets spilled out, with Erik telling Lyle about his ongoing abuse.
Lyle said he confronted his father and threatened to tell the police and the family that he had abused them both.
Lyle claimed Jose’s reaction made them believe he was going to kill them – so they had to get in first.
Multiple jail weddings
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The brothers were tried separately – and both juries could not agree whether they were guilty of murder or manslaughter.
A third joint trial began in 1995 and found the siblings guilty of murder. They were sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole.
Their wish to be jailed in the same prison was refused, and for twenty years they weren’t even allowed to speak on the phone.
All their appeals so far have failed, but in 2018 Lyle was allowed to join his brother at the Richard J Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego.
Both brothers managed to find love despite being behind bars for life, eventually marrying their prison pen pals.
Erik’s wife Tammi was already married when started writing to him in jail.
In a bizarre twist she then discovered her husband had been molesting her daughter. He later took his own life.
She was comforted by Erik and the pair eventually wed.
Lyle has been married behind bars twice – first in 1996 to Anna Erikkson who divorced him in 2001 claiming he had been ‘cheating’ on her with another woman.
He went on to marry Rebecca Sneed in 2003.
New ‘proof’ of manslaughter?
But despite their crimes taking place 35 years ago, in recent years the brothers have become infamous again – thanks to TikTok.
In 2020, Court TV posted the entire court footage online and clips ended up on the social media site loved by teens and 20-somethings.
Countless viral videos and podcasts talk about the brothers, bolstering a campaign for a retrial, based on the brothers’ claims that they had told other people about their father’s abuse years earlier.
The new evidence includes a letter written by Erik Menendez to his cousin, Andy Cano, in December 1988, about eight months before the crime.
The letter reads, in part, “I’ve been trying to avoid dad. It’s still happening, Andy, but it’s worse for me now. … Every night I stay up thinking he might come in. … I’m afraid. … He’s crazy. He’s warned me a hundred times about telling anyone, especially Lyle.”
The brothers’ supporters say the years of abuse they suffered means they should have been convicted of manslaughter rather than murder, received a much shorter sentence and should now be free men.
And the new Netflix drama is sure to further ignite interest in their case.
Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story is on Netflix now