IT was the crime that gripped the world – the spoilt Beverley Hills rich boys who gunned down their wealthy parents in cold blood to get their hands on their millions.
Or were they the true victims? Terrified boys emotionally and sexually abused by their controlling father and driven to kill out of fear for their own lives?
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The story of the Menendez Brothers is now intriguing a whole new generation thanks to the hit Netflix drama Monsters which came out this week, 35 years after the deaths.
Erik and Lyle Menendez are set to die in prison after being jailed for life without parole for the brutal murders of their parents, movie executive Jose and former beauty queen Kitty Menendez in 1989.
But one man who has been investigating the case from the very beginning now believes that brothers Erik and Lyle Menendez could be the victims of one of the world’s biggest miscarriages of justice and says he has uncovered new evidence in a bid to get their case reopened.
Author and journalist Robert Rand has followed the story since it broke, interviewing both brothers over the decades.
And he has now become one of their biggest advocates and has called for them to receive a new trial.
Not a murder?
Rand believes that, while there is no doubt the brothers killed their parents, they should never have been jailed for murder.
“The correct sentence for the Menendez case should have been manslaughter and not murder,” Rand tells The Sun.
“You can’t get around the elephant in the room which is that Erik and Lyle killed their parents.
“The defence put on 50 witnesses – teachers, coaches, family and friends that told a very detailed story about a family that was dysfunctional and spinning out of control.
“If the brothers had been convicted of manslaughter, they were served 11 years on each count in California, so they would have been in jail for 22 years and now they have been in jail for 34 years and six months.
“In other words, they would have gotten out 12 years ago.”
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.
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The killings were so barbaric that police initially thought it was a mob hit.
On arrival, cops found Erik sobbing on the lawn and the brothers told police they had gone out to watch a movie but had to come home to pick up an ID, finding the bodies on arrival
But in the months after the murders, the boys went on a spending spree with 21-year-old Lyle snapping up a Porsche, a Rolex watch and a restaurant, while 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.
Erik and Lyle Menendez were in fear for their lives on the night they killed their parents
Robert Rand
But younger sibling Erik cracked while talking to his former therapist Dr Jerome Oziel and eventually confessed to killing his parents.
Oziel confided in his mistress Judalon Smyth and when the couple split, she went to the police with tapes of the brothers the therapist had recorded
Lyle was arrested and Erik flew back from a tennis tournament in Israel to hand himself in.
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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.
From the outside, the Menendez family looked the epitome of the American dream with Jose, the successful entertainment executive making $2 million a year and his wife a former beauty queen.
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
Lyle studied at Princeton where he was a star on the tennis team and Erik had just graduated from Beverly Hills High and was about to start college at UCLA.
After the killings, the public were convinced that Lyle and Erik were a pair of greedy spoilt brats who had killed their parents for money.
But the boys’ truth was much, much darker.
‘Abusive father’
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 the alleged abuse.
Lyle said he confronted his father and threatened to tell the police and the family that he had abused them both. And they believed that their mother had known all along, but turned a blind eye.
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Lyle claimed Jose’s reaction made them believe he was going to kill them – so they had to get in there first.
Robert Rand’s now believes the boys killed their parents because they really felt they were in danger.
“I personally feel, based on the evidence that I saw in court, which is very extensive and detailed evidence, that Erik and Lyle Menendez were in fear for their lives on the night they killed their parents,” he explains.
“The number one question that people ask me is they were 18 and 21 years old. They were nationally recognised tennis players. Why didn’t they just walk out the front door? Why would they stay in that house?
“The answer to that question is that Erik and Lyle were living in something like a tunnel, and they couldn’t imagine walking out and carrying on with their lives because their father had threatened them so many times that they believed that was true.”
He adds that people often ask why they killed their mother – even if Jose was a ‘monster’.
“He was an abusive father, and there were eyewitnesses to physical, verbal and emotional abuse,’ he says.
Nine months before the killings, Erik wrote Andy a letter, and in this letter, he was complaining that he was still being sexually molested by his father
Robert Rand
“But paedophiles typically don’t invite people in to watch when they are sexually molesting a kid.
“There were a series of confrontations in the days before the killings, and Kitty told the brothers that she had known all along that they were being molested.
“I believe that Erik and Lyle Menendez were shocked when their mother told them that she had known for years that Jose Menendez was molesting his sons and that she had done nothing about it.”
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The brothers were tried separately in their first trials with the prosecution claiming greed was the motive while the defence insisted years of abuse and fear of their father drove them to kill, but the juries could not agree on a verdict.
And Rand believes the fact that the case was so high-profile, coupled with the fact that the District Attorney was running for re-election and wanted to be seen as tough on crime, led to a quick decision to go for a retrial.
He explains: “If the case was not such a publicity case, there would have been a plea bargain at the end of a six month trial that ended in mistrial and there would have never been a second trial.
“Instead, Gil Garcetti, who was the DA in Los Angeles during Menendez and OJ, decided that he would go in front of the cameras within 15/20 minutes of the mistrials being declared.
“They said ‘this case was first degree murder. We’re going to retry the Menendez brothers,’ and it absolutely made no sense.”
Another victim?
The brothers were eventually convicted of murder and jailed for life with no chance of parole.
They have exhausted all their appeals, but Robert Rand believes several pieces of new evidence could lead to the siblings’ case being reopened and a a new trial.
They have filed a habeas corpus petition citing this new evidence in the hope it could lead to their freedom.
The Menendez brothers case has been fascinating to people, not only in the States, but people all around the world since 1989
Robert Rand
Firstly, Robert tracked down evidence that Erik and Lyle weren’t the only victims of Jose Menendez’ sexual abuse.
“I was the co-executive producer of a documentary that came out in May 2023 and that established a very odd connection between Jose Menendez, who had been head of RCA Records and the 1980s Latin boy band Menudo.
“One band member, Roy Rossello, went on camera and talked about the fact Jose Menendez raped him when he was 14 years old.
“And that was important because it was the first time ever that another victim of Jose Menendez had come forward.”
Another key piece of evidence Robert uncovered was a letter from Erik to his cousin Andy Cano claiming that his father Jose was still sexually abusing him.
Robert says: “In November 1988, about nine months before the killings, Erik wrote Andy a letter, and was complaining that he was still being sexually molested by his father, and he didn’t know what to do about it.
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“I was visiting with Mrs Cano at her house in West Palm Beach, Florida, and she let me go into Andy’s room, and it hadn’t been touched since he had died in 2003.
“There was a dresser full of papers and she said, ‘you’re welcome to look through the papers and see if there’s anything that might be helpful for you or for the case.’
“And within 15 minutes, I found this letter.
“I knew it’s extremely important, because it was a piece of physical evidence where Erik was writing to the cousin he was very close to, and complaining about the ongoing sexual abuse by his father.
“ So the Menudo/Menendez connection, and the letter that Erik wrote are the two key pieces of new evidence in their habeas petition to reopen their case.
“And normally, in California, 99 per cent of habeas petitions are turned down within a week.
So what the brothers are hoping for is that they will ask to be resentenced to time served if their habeas petition is approved, and they will be let out of prison
Robert Rand
“So it’s very unusual that this petition is still active 16 months after it was filed and there’s a superior court judge who is involved. He has asked the LA County DEA office to answer a series of questions that he sent over them.
“This judge could also hold hearings with the live witnesses to examine the evidence.
“I think it looks hopeful and the lawyers have told me that they feel that everything is encouraging that the habeas could be approved.
“The purpose of a habeas petition is to ask for a new trial. Because of this new evidence, there will never be a new trial.
“It is 30 years later, and half of the witnesses that testified in 1993 are either dead or they have dementia. And the cost to Los Angeles County would probably be $20 to $25 million to reconstruct a 30 year old trial, and what would be the point?
“So what the brothers are hoping for is that they will ask to be resentenced to time served if their habeas petition is approved, and they will be let out of prison.”
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Netflix ‘fictions’
In the meantime, the Netflix drama has reignited interest in their case, and social media is awash with TikTok sleuths who all have their own theories on the brothers’ guilt or innocence.
Rand says: “The Menendez brothers case has been fascinating to people, not only in the States, but people all around the world since 1989.
“It’s Beverly Hills. It’s kids killing their parents. Jose Menendez was a movie executive making a couple million dollars a year. Brothers were nationally ranked test players. The mother was former beauty queen who was involved in charities.
“So for all those reasons, people initially became interested in the case and then a cable TV network that was only about two years old, Court TV carried the first trial gavel to gavel live.
“And so people were watching that trial coverage like a soap opera, like a novella, every day they were hooked in on the case, watching it live.”
The problem with Monsters is viewers know nothing about the real facts of the case – and it’s really a serious problem because Netflix has almost 300 million subscribers around the world
Robert Rand
“The recent social media movement of supporters began in 2020 and only about half are in the States, the other half in England.
“My son, who was 14 at the time, came to me one Saturday afternoon, and he said, ‘Dad, you’ve got to take a look at Tiktok. It’s full of Menendez brothers videos.’
“I went down a rabbit hole for the next four hours and I was amazed.
“And finally I realised that it was a huge movement, and that it was going on all over the world, not just in the States.”
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But despite the renewed interest in their case, the brothers are apparently not happy about their portrayal in the latest Netflix drama.
“The people in Monsters have no relation to Erik and Lyle Menendez in real life,” says Rand. “One example is they portrayed Lyle doing lines of coke three or four times in the series.
“Lyle was conservative, straight arrow. And he was known by his friends that he liked to drink Tequila Sunrises when he went out with his friends to a bar.
“They would laugh that it’s a girly drink.
“They were quiet, reserved, well-spoken, and they told very loving stories about their family.
“And one of their therapy experts said to me that, even though they were 18 and 21, their emotional maturity was somewhere around eight to 10 years old because their parents had made them so dependent.
“The problem with Monsters is viewers know nothing about the real facts of the case – and it’s really a serious problem because Netflix has almost 300 million subscribers around the world. For most people watching, this will be the first time they’re introduced to the Menendez brothers’ case.”
Robert Rand’s book The Menendez Murders: The Shocking Untold Story Of The Menendez Family And The Killings That Stunned The Nation is available to buy now.