The boys who killed their parents: Why two rich brothers committed an unspeakable crime.

Entertainment executive Jose Menendez and his former beauty queen wife Kitty lived with their two sons, Lyle and Erik, in a Beverly Hills mansion that had previously been home to Prince and, before that, Elton John.

That mansion became the scene of Jose and Kitty’s brutal murders on August 20, 1989. 

Lyle, 21, and Erik, 18, shot their father point-blank in the back of the head with a shotgun as he and their mother watched a movie, eating ice cream.

As Kitty tried to get away, they shot her in the leg and then followed that up with more shots in her arms, chest and face, until she was unrecognisable. She died in the hallway, in a pool of her blood. Both parents were also shot in the kneecaps, to make it look like a mob hit.

Lyle and Erik drove off, dumping the shotguns off Mulholland Drive, and throwing their blood-spattered clothes in a dumpster. They bought movie tickets. Then they went back home, and Lyle called police, sobbing, "They shot and killed my parents!"

Erik curled up in a foetal position on the front lawn, wailing loud enough for all the neighbours to hear. The brothers' grief was so convincing that the police didn’t even test their hands for gunshot residue.

Lyle gave a heart-rending 30-minute eulogy at his parents' funeral.

Over the next six months, the brothers splurged around $1 million of their parents' money. Lyle bought a Rolex, a Porsche, and a restaurant in New Jersey that specialised in buffalo wings. Erik hired a private tennis coach and began travelling the world, playing in tournaments.

Lyle later tried to explain away the spending spree to interviewer Barbara Walters.

“People react to it, to a traumatic event like that, in different ways,” he said.

Just a few months after the deaths, a guilt-ridden Erik admitted to his psychologist, L. Jerome Oziel, that he and his brother had killed their parents. 

Lyle found out and threatened to kill Oziel if he told anyone. Oziel’s mistress, Judalon Smyth, heard the confession, which the psychologist had taped. Several months later, after a nasty break-up with Oziel, she told the police about it.

Lyle was arrested on March 8, 1990. His brother Erik was playing a tennis tournament in Israel at the time, but gave himself up to police when he returned to LA.

The first murder trial, in 1993, had Americans transfixed. People would line up from 4am to get a seat in the courtroom, and it was watched by millions more on TV.

The prosecution claimed the brothers had killed their parents to get their hands on their $14 million fortune. But the defence claimed that the brothers had feared for their lives after years of psychological, physical and sexual abuse from their parents. If it could be proven that the brothers felt their lives were in imminent danger, they could be acquitted or found guilty of a lesser charge, manslaughter.

There is no question that Jose was a hard man. The Cuban immigrant had gone from being a dish-washer to an executive who helped sign the Eurythmics and Duran Duran. According to an article in Vanity Fair, Jose was despised by many of his employees. He had a reputation for humiliating people in front of their co-workers and taking pleasure in firing people. 

As a husband, he was allegedly unfaithful, with a mistress and a string of girlfriends. As a father, he was determined for his sons to be tennis pros, making them get up early in the mornings to train, and pushing them ruthlessly on the court.

But could he really have been guilty of committing the most violent and horrific acts of sexual abuse against his young sons? Could Kitty have known about it and let it happen? Could the parents have been guilty of everything else the defence lawyers accused them of – bashing Lyle’s pet rabbit to death, or putting his urine-soaked sheets on the breakfast table after he wet the bed at 14?

The defence claimed Jose molested Lyle from the ages of six to eight, and Erik from the ages of six to 18. They alleged that Lyle had discovered Erik was still being molested, and confronted Jose, telling him to leave Erik alone or he’d expose him.

Lyle said after the confrontation, he felt that he and Erik were in danger.

"He would kill us. He’d get rid of us in some way. Because I was going to ruin him."

Two cousins, Andres Cano and Diane Vander Molen, who had separately spent time staying with the Menendez family, testified that the boys had told them about the sexual abuse when they were young.

The first trial ended with hung juries. But eventually, in 1996, the brothers were found guilty and sentenced to life in jail without parole.

Lyle and Erik have been held in separate prisons and haven’t seen each other since the sentencing. They have both married, although conjugal visits aren’t allowed in Californian prisons.

Listen to this episode of True Crime Conversations. Post continues after podcast.

Over the past few years, there's been a new flurry of interest in the case. 

There’s been a Law & Order True Crime miniseries, and a series called The Menendez Murders: Erik Tells All. 

Most recently, Netflix confirmed Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story will be the follow-up to Ryan Murphy's Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story.

The announcement of the new series comes just after the brothers' case recently returned to the headlines. 

The recent US docuseries Menendez + Menudo: Boys Betrayed focused on an allegation by a former member of the Puerto Rican boy band Menudo, who says that he was sexually assaulted as a teenager by the brothers' father, Jose Menendez.

In 2017, Erik and Lyle’s two cousins and an aunt spoke to NBC4, saying they had no doubt that the brothers feared for their lives.

"My sister could have protected her kids," said Joan Vandermolen. "That was her job."

She says Kitty married a monster. "I want the world to know what this man was like, what he did to his family."

Meanwhile, Lyle has also been giving interviews recently. He told Today that he still cries over his mother, but he doesn’t forgive her.

"Her life ended and our lives essentially ended all because of this fateful decision,” he said. “There had to be a series of decisions she made of not to tell what was happening. What kind of mother lets it happen?"

He also opened up to Dateline about the abuse.

“I would trade my entire defence for a 30-second video of my father raping me,” Lyle said. "I would trade my whole case for it because I think it's so sanitised and so easy to use the word 'abuse’ [and say] ‘Oh, the abuse wasn’t so bad.'"

Lyle thinks he and Erik should have received a plea deal, as happens in other cases where abused children kill parents.

"This case, they picked out as different," Lyle said. 

"I think that it was very easy, because it was Beverly Hills, and my father had a lot of money, to sort of sell this headline that these brothers killed for money."

Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story is set to premiere on Netflix in 2024.

If this post brings up any issues for you, or if you just feel like you need to speak to someone, please call 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732) – the national sexual assault, domestic and family violence counselling service. It doesn’t matter where you live, they will take your call and, if need be, refer you to a service closer to home.

You can also call safe steps 24/7 Family Violence Response Line on 1800 015 188 or visit www.safesteps.org.au for further information.

If you think you may be experiencing depression or another mental health problem, please contact your general practitioner. If you're based in Australia, 24-hour support is available through Lifeline on 13 11 14 or beyondblue on 1300 22 4636.

Image: Barbara Walters.

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