The Menendez Murders / Part 2 // 445
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Thank you.

What is going on, true crime fans? I'm your host, Heath. And I'm your host, Daphne. And you're listening to Going West. Hello, everybody. We are back for part two of this case. Thank you so much for tuning in to part one. But this is when we really get into everything. And I got to say, we have just been so surrounded by this case this week. I feel like everybody is talking about it. I was at the dentist yesterday and they have like a TV show.

in front of it when I was getting my cleaning and they're like, oh, you can put something on. And I hear both people on other side of me in the other rooms are watching that new Netflix Menendez Brothers documentary. And so I put it on and we're all watching it at the same time. Yeah, I mean, it has exploded in the media. Everybody's talking about it. It's all over TikTok. And with everything that's going on right now,

They're talking about, you know, possibly a retrial with new evidence and new information, which we are going to get into later. So I don't want to talk about it too much right now. But yeah, I mean, it's really just exploded. Yeah, it is. It is a wild time for this story.

But yeah, excited to dive into the rest of this to give you guys a better perspective. For those who don't know all the details, I was seeing a lot of comments of people saying they knew bits and bobs, which is how it was for me before we dove into this. Oh, yeah. And I got to say, I had a completely different perspective on the story before, like a few weeks ago versus today. So I'm very interested to see what you guys think. And yeah, without further ado.

Alright guys, this is episode 445, and it's also the second installment of the Menendez murders. So let's get into it. 🎵

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Many Hollywood murder mysteries ever took a more dramatic turn than police are describing in a couple of savage Beverly Hills killings. The victims were a man and his wife. The alleged killers are... This is one of the most sensational crimes ever to explode in Hollywood.

Also in Los Angeles, the prosecution is wrapping up its case in the Menendez brothers' murder trial. Yesterday, Eric, the younger of the two brothers who admit to killing their parents, was on the witness stand where he was grilled about his claim that the murders followed years of sexual abuse.

I always believed that they were sexually molested. My sister Diane lived with them and she has evidence that was not allowed. We have always supported the boys once we knew and understood the facts.

Family members of Eric and Lyle Menendez speaking out three decades after the brothers murdered their parents. They said it was self-defense and detailed a dark family secret of alleged sexual abuse at the hands of their father. Now to the Menendez brothers' case. We're hearing new audio of them speaking from behind bars as the Los Angeles District Attorney says he'll review new evidence while considering resentencing the brothers. ♪

so

In part one of the Menendez murders, we discussed the backgrounds of both Kitty and Jose. We discussed Kitty's mental health struggles, Jose's rise to success, the family's move from New Jersey to California, from Calabasas to Beverly Hills, and the murders of Kitty and Jose. We explained what Lyle and Eric told the police that night, that they went to see Batman at the Century City Mall and then returned to find their parents shot to death. We explained what Lyle and Eric told the police that night,

believing that it was a mafia hit thanks to their father's business connections and these seedy partners that he had. Now, because police could not find any suspects in this case, you know, the gunshot shells had been picked up, there was no sign of forced entry, investigators had the idea that Kitty and Jose knew their attackers.

So eventually, the boys secured legal counsel. I say boys, I mean Lyle and Eric. And attorney Gerald Chalef contacted the Beverly Hills Police Department and said that any further interview needed to be arranged through him for both Lyle and Eric.

Though there may have been a fair amount of emotional turmoil happening internally, at least for Eric, the brothers seemed to enjoy their newfound freedom and disposable income, or so it seemed that way on the outside. Because in the first three months after the murders...

The brother spent over a million dollars on shopping sprees, airline tickets, cars, and stays at expensive hotels. Lyle even purchased a $64,000 Porsche 911. And in just an afternoon, he racked up a $24,000 bill at an electronics store. Meanwhile, Eric's taste was a little bit more modest. He also purchased a car, but he purchased a $17,000 Jeep Wrangler.

But their facades were beginning to crack because on September 1st, 1989, just 12 days after the murders, Eric broke down and told his best friend Craig that he and his brother were responsible for the murders.

By Craig's recollection, 21-year-old Lyle planned to shoot Jose and 18-year-old Eric was going to shoot Kitty. But when they stormed into the room and Eric couldn't bring himself to do it, Lyle shot Kitty as well. And she was clinging to life when Lyle pressed his gun to her cheek and shot her again. Once Eric was fairly certain that she was already dead, he shot Kitty two more times.

On November 17th, 1989, Craig went to the police with this information and detectives convinced him to wear a wire the next time that he saw his friend Eric.

So two days later, November 19th, Eric and Craig met for dinner at Gladstones, which is a high-end seafood restaurant in the Pacific Palisades that is between Malibu and Santa Monica. And Craig attempted to goad him into a confession while he was wearing this recording device. But during their two-hour dinner, Eric recanted and downplayed his confession, changing his recollection of the night that his parents died.

But Craig would not be the only person that Eric would confess to. Because a few weeks before that, on Halloween, Eric scheduled an emergency session with his therapist, Jerry O'Zeal, whom he had been seeing since those burglaries. Eric's cousin Henry encouraged Eric to call his therapist, saying that he would benefit from speaking to a professional.

So on October 30th, 1989, Eric phoned Jerry and insisted that they meet as soon as possible, and also requested to be Jerry's last appointment of the day, on the following day, which was, again, Halloween. Now, Eric told Jerry that he was having nightmares, that he had been feeling intermittently suicidal, and that he was considering medication. After talking for about an hour, Eric insisted that they go for a walk.

As Eric talked, they strolled to a park on Santa Monica Boulevard, and according to Jerry, Eric spoke for a while about what a great man his father was. But when they were nearing the office again, Jerry remembers Eric letting out a sigh, leaning against a parking meter, and blurting out matter-of-factly, quote, "...we did it."

As Eric recalled later, quote:

So, after this shocking confession, they returned to Jerry's office and discussed the murders at length. Eric claimed that he had been watching a TV program about a man who killed his parents, and that he brought it up to Lyle, and then the two of them actually began to consider it. But it's worth noting that if Billionaire Boys Club was in fact his source material, as he said, there was no Parasite actually featured in that film.

The brothers came to the conclusion that they could never be free while their father was still around, and that their mother, a quote, "pathetic shell" of her former self, was collateral damage because she would never let them get away with killing their father. Now, the catalyst to the murders was much more complicated than Eric initially let on, and spanned the brothers' entire lives, even perhaps extending back to the early lives of their parents, if you consider how Kitty and Jose came to be the people that they were.

The biggest bombshell of this case is that according to Lyle and Eric, Jose, their father, had been sexually abusing them since they were children. Now, we originally wanted to include this when most people found out about it, which is in our section on the trial of this case. But we want to get into it now because it does lead up to the murder. And I just want to say, most people found out about it.

much of this episode is going to discuss the abuse. We're going to go into some of the details, so I just wanted to put a little bit of a trigger warning here because this is a huge part of this story. So Lyle remembered the abuse starting at six years old and that it stopped about two years after this. But Eric's continued until shortly before Jose's death.

As a result of the confusing trauma, Lyle later admitted to touching his brother once as well as a trauma response. And this was when they were still young.

Regarding their own abuse, Lyle and Eric didn't actually share this with each other until the night that Kitty pulled Lyle's hairpiece from his head. Remember, we talked about that in part one. So that was a big night of confiding between the two of them. Yeah, absolutely. They're just kind of finally starting to talk about what they had gone through, especially because...

you know, that was such an embarrassing time for Lyle. And, you know, I'm sure that Eric just really wanted to be there for his brother. So them being able to talk through some of this stuff, I guess in some way kind of helped, but also kind of put that plot into motion that this is what they were going to do. Yeah. I think it really brought out that hatred of the abuse of what that caused in both of them to be able to finally explain it to somebody in full detail and

somebody to say, wow, I had the same experience, that really started something. Yeah, and I just want to mention real quick before we move on that, remember, Eric was 18 when the murders took place. And so if we're talking about the abuse starting, you know, when he was a kid up until right before the murders happened, you know, this was going on for a very long time and he was nearing adulthood, right?

the abuse stopped. Yes, and we are going to go, by the way, guys, into more of the timeline of that and also more evidence of that. I know that this is such a it's such a controversial part of this story. A lot of people have predisposed feelings about the brothers and the case itself based on this fact alone. But

But that's why I said in the beginning of this episode, there are so many things that I learned and we're going to discuss all that evidence. So just hang tight because we're going to get into all of it. And also, you know, this is it's a very disturbing piece of this, but we do want to include both Lyle and Eric's testimonies regarding this abuse because we think it's best to hear them.

you know, coming from them. So I do want to give another trigger warning, but I think it's a very important piece to this story. We know we aren't even at the arrest or the trial yet. So apologies for jumping ahead for a second, but here is Lyle's testimony regarding the abuse that he suffered. It just started with after sports practices, he would massage me and we would have these talks and he would show me and he would,

fondle me and he would ask me to do the same with him and I would touch him and we would undress. Where would this take place? In my bedroom. And how often would this happen? Like two or three times a week. And for how long did this happen? Not too long. It began to change. I'm not sure exactly at what time but almost close to when I was seven. And how did it change? I became more involved.

What do you mean more involved? We would be in the bathroom and he would put me on my knees and he would guide me, all my movements, and I would have oral sex with him. At some point, did he do some other things to you? Yes. What else did he do to you? He used objects. What kind of objects? A toothbrush and...

some sort of shaving utensil brush. And what would he do with the toothbrush? Well, in the bedroom, we'd have what we called object sessions and just slide my pants down or take my pants off, lay me on the bed, and he'd have a tube of Vaseline and he just played with me. And was there some point in time when he

Decided to use something besides the toothbrush. And did he try to anally penetrate you with something else? He did. And what was it? He raped me. Did you cry? Yes. Did you bleed? Yes. Were you scared? Very. Did you ask him not to? Yes. How did you ask him not to? I just told him that I didn't want to do this.

And that it hurt me. And he said that he didn't mean to hurt me. He loved me. Was that important to you? That he loved you? Yes, very. But I still didn't want to do it. What did he tell you about telling people? He just said that it was our secret. That bad things would happen to me if I told anybody. Now here is Eric's testimony regarding his abuse. He was trying to do...

It to me, but it wasn't working. When you say it wasn't working, was it hurting? Yes. All right, the objection is overruled as to that question, but counsel, please refrain from escalating questions. Okay. How did your father react at that stage to things hurting you?

He was nice about it. He didn't want to hurt me. So what would he do if something was hurting you? Would he continue to do it? No, he'd stop. And did you ever use that wooden thing on yourself when he wasn't around? No.

Did you know why he wanted you, did he say why he wanted you to use that thing? Yes. What did he tell you? I don't remember exactly what he told me, but I knew why. It was so that I could practice on myself so that it wouldn't hurt anymore when he did. Approximately how old were you? I was 11 years old. It was just after I finished swimming. What do you mean by finished swimming? Swimming had ended. I ended swimming and it was started after that point.

I don't understand what you mean by you ended swimming. Does that mean you... Swimming had stopped. He had told me that I had to take a certain course in sports. I was either tennis, soccer or swimming. I just didn't know. It was real confusing. He sat down with me and he came over to me and he said, "What sport do you want to play? You have to choose a sport." Because I was 11 years old and he said I was becoming a man.

And it was time to choose a sport. And so I said tennis. Later, I found out that he didn't want me to choose tennis, that he wanted me. I blame myself. I thought maybe he wanted me to do swimming. But at the time, I thought he wanted me to choose tennis because Lyle had gone into it. Now, what was it, Mr. Menendez, that happened that made you think that your father was upset with you for having given up swimming?

He wasn't nice anymore during the sex. You have to put the mic... He wasn't nice anymore during the sex. Now, do you recall the first time that he wasn't nice during the sex? Yes. Yes. Mr. Menendez, this particular incident when you were 11, do you remember it? Yes, very well. How do you think about this incident in relation to things that happened both before and after?

I, uh, it's one that just really stands out in my mind. Is it one of the worst things that happened to you? Yes. And thinking about it, do you remember what was happening in the house? Anything you heard or saw before this incident actually began?

Yes. What was it that was happening? I heard some fighting with my parents downstairs. Who was fighting with your parents? My mom and my dad were fighting. Between themselves? Yes. Was this a physical altercation or a verbal fight? I didn't know if it was physical. I just heard the verbal. I just heard them yelling at each other. And what happened after you heard them yelling at each other?

I heard my father coming up the stairs. And what house are you in? Eddington. Okay. And what happened when your father got up the stairs? He came toward my room. All I could think about was him coming toward my room and how I was hoping he wasn't going to do that. Do what? Come toward my room. Why? Because I didn't want him to come into my room when he was angry. Even if he was angry at someone else? Yes. Did you think that it was going to be something sexual?

No, I didn't think it was going to be something sexual if he was angry at that time. Okay, what did you think was going to happen if he was angry at that time? I thought he was just going to take out the belt or hit me or throw me someplace. I didn't know what was going to happen. Did you know what the topic of the argument was between your mother and father? No. Did you have any concerns about what it might have been? Yeah, I was concerned that it might have been over me.

Had there been arguments in the past over you? Yes. And had any of those arguments in the past over you resulted in your father physically hurting you? Yes, he would get angry with mom and they would yell back and forth and then he'd come to my room and just hit me or whatever. So did you think it was possibly one of those episodes about to occur? Yes, that's what I thought was about to occur.

So if you could tell us what happened in fact when he came into your room on this occasion? He came into the room and he told me to kneel down on my bed and I did and he came over to my bed and threw me off the bed and told me to kneel on the floor. You made a sweeping motion with your right hand when you said he... Yeah, he just threw me off.

with his hand on my arm here. He took you by on the arm and threw you off the bed? Yes. And said? And said for me to get on my knees on the floor. And I was real confused because he had just said to get on my knees on the bed. And so I didn't know what to do. What did you think was going to happen when he told you to get on your knees on the bed? I thought it might have been some sort of sex. Why did you think that? Because when he told me to get on my knees in the bed,

Usually what would happen would be for me to have some sort of sex with him, but it was strange because he didn't tell me to take off my clothes. He didn't help me take off my clothes like he used to do. He just told me to kneel on the bed and I didn't understand why. I didn't know what was going on. So did you then kneel on the floor as he ordered you to do? Yes. And was he dressed? Yes. Okay, what happened? First of all, did it hurt when he threw you off the bed?

I hit my head against the wall, but I wasn't thinking about that. Okay, what happened next? He was unbuckling his pants, and he pulled out his penis. And in some way, either by his hand on my head or by telling me, he told me he wanted me to massage his penis with my mouth. And did you do that? Yes. And you had done that before, hadn't you?

Yes. Had you ever done it being on the floor on your knees? No. Mr. Menendez, is this the beginning of what you came to call knees? Yes. And did you call it that because of the position you had to take? Yes. And what happened ultimately in this episode? I had to give him a massage on my knees until he started to...

I have an orgasm. And had he ever done that before while you were giving him a mouth massage? No. He had done it, not just not in my mouth. I was ready to pull away like I'd always done. And then he just came on a towel or a sheet, whatever he had with him. So I was about to pull away because I didn't know what was going to happen because we weren't on a bed and I was just kneeling down. And he said, no, swallow. And he held my head to him.

And therefore, did he ejaculate in your mouth? Yes. And did you swallow? Partly. Partly. And did this upset you? Yes. And how did you demonstrate being upset? I was crying. And how did he react to your crying? He pushed me away afterwards. And was there, did he say or do anything to you afterwards? Yes. What did he say or do? He said, why can't you just be like your brother?

What did that mean? I thought it just meant, why do I have to cry all the time? And was he, what was his tone of voice when he said this? He was rough and he was angry. Did he at any time at this point use the word embarrassment? Uh...

I don't remember him using the word embarrassment. He just started talking about how I wasn't a Menendez and how I was never going to be good enough to be a Menendez and how he was ashamed to have me as his son. And then he said I'd get used to it and left. And what were you doing while he was saying these things to you? I was just sitting on the floor crying. And after he left, what happened? I went to the door to see if he was still around the corner and I just went to the bathroom and threw up.

Where was the bathroom in relation to your bedroom? It was in the middle of the hall. In the middle between what and what? Between my bedroom and my parents' bedroom. Back up from the mic a little bit. And you threw up in the bathroom on that occasion? Yes. Now, were there other incidents like this one?

after this incident? Yes, this is what started to happen all the time. He no longer had me on the bed. He no longer had me sit on the bed between his legs. He no longer had me lie down on the bed. It was just on my knees. And in addition to your just being on your knees, was his attitude after this different than it had been?

Yes, it changed dramatically. And how was he from then on? He was no longer nice. He now yelled at me all the time. He forced me to do things. I had to do whatever he said, and it didn't matter if I complained or if I said no or if I said, please stop. He didn't stop. He just completely changed. And when other episodes like this would occur, did you ever throw up after those? Yes, I threw up almost every time when he...

when he would come in my mouth. Now, how far away from your parents' bedroom was this bathroom where you were throwing up? Eight feet, ten feet. And your mother, Mr. Menendez, when you were in the bathroom throwing up because of what your father had done, did your mother ever come to you? No. Were there times up until this point in your life, 11 years old,

when you had been ill and thrown up? Yes. And had you thrown up in that very same bathroom? Yes. And when you were ill and threw up, did your mother come in the bathroom? Yes. Did she make inquiry? Yes, she asked me what was wrong. At any time, Mr. Menendez, from this point on, when you were in that bathroom, throwing up because of sex with your father, did your mother ever come in? No.

Now, I personally, this is my opinion. I feel that the criticism surrounding this is why a lot of people and why a lot of men don't come forward about the sexual abuse that they suffer. And I think that the automatic perspective of, wow, these guys are really good actors because that is something that people have been saying for years since they

They said this in court is not something that I personally can feel in my heart. Like I am sickened and saddened by these testimonies. And I think for any of us who are lucky enough not to have suffered abuse or sexual abuse in our life, particularly as a young child,

It's hard to imagine the trauma, confusion and shame and terror that accompanies it, especially when it's done onto you by someone in your home like this and consistently over time. So in my personal mindset, I have a very hard time defaulting to believing that this is a lie.

Because there is nothing showing us that it is. There's not holes in the stories. It lines up with what family members heard when the boys were young. It connects with the sick family secrets that Kitty hinted at to her therapist that we discussed in part one. And it all just deeply saddens me. And there is a lot more evidence that we're about to get into.

And, you know, I just want to say as a person who has gone through this type of abuse from, you know, a distant family member, I really do understand you here. I get it. There's a lot of fear and there's a lot of guilt about telling somebody, especially when you're a child, which I was when my abuse happened. It's a very tough thing to go through. And I just kind of feel like you're nervous, you're scared.

You feel like you're supposed to be able to rely on adults to take care of you and that you should be able to tell them things. You should be able to tell other adults, but there is a lot of guilt there. There's a lot of fear. So obviously, again, that does not constitute murder, but I really do feel for them in this situation. Thank you for sharing that, honey. That was really tough for me to say, honestly. Thank you, honey. I know that. I know that that was hard and...

That's why I wanted to bring this up is because from somebody's perspective who has not gone through that, I think you and other people and like Lyle and Eric, even though you didn't kill your parents, you're not in this

exact position. Well, I just want to clarify for the record, the parent, my parents had nothing to do with that. It was, it was a distant relative, but yes, but you, you didn't, what I mean is you didn't do what they did. So you're not in their exact shoes, but you're in their shoes in this way. And I think that it's important for somebody like you to,

where other people, so many people can say, you know, we cover other cases where women are abused by their husbands and then they're murdered, right? Yeah, absolutely. And so many people say, oh, well, they should have just left or they should have just gotten help. And the reason I wanted to bring this up, and I'm proud of you for saying that, is because...

so many people say, oh, well, I would have done this. You have no idea what you would do if you were in that position, unless you're in that position. And I think that people in this position deserve our grace and our respect. Absolutely. I mean, it's a really confusing time for a lot of people. They don't know what to do. So, and especially when you're an impressionable child, like you really don't know what to do. And as far as, you know, walking away from the situation, I'm

We know just how demanding and strict and overbearing Jose was. I mean, we talked about the fact that... Did we already talk about...

how Eric wanted to go to UCLA. He wanted to stay at the dorms. We're actually about to go into that. Oh, sorry. Sorry. I don't want to give that away yet. But you know so much more of this perspective after diving into this story. Right. And that's, again, why I want everybody to just like hold your horses because we do have, there is a lot more and I don't think that it's fair to listen to these testimonies and say, oh, they're just trying to get off. They're trying to make people feel sorry for them.

because I think that's fucked up. Yeah, I absolutely agree. But like Heath said as well, you know, of this not constituting murder, abuse or anything not constituting murder, you know, a lot of people will point out, well, Lyle and Eric were adults. They weren't being held hostage or hostage, sorry. They could leave. They could start new lives if they knew how. But I also know that I'm not them. None of us are them. We didn't endure what they endured.

For those reasons, it's not possible for me to put myself behind their eyes to understand the decisions that they made. Actually, Heath, I don't even think you've heard this whole thing, but I do want to play an interview of them on Barbara Walters from 1996, where Eric explains why he didn't just leave, because I think that's also an important angle here. To simplify it to its simplest degree, if a person is raped, man or woman,

and she kills the man who raped her, is it an excuse that the reason she killed him is because she was raped? Of course not. I certainly never felt that what I did was justified or right. It was just a question of how wrong was it. That was a big misperception about this case, that it was about justification or excuse. And my brother and I essentially pled guilty. That was very hard for me to hear the ridicule about that because I really felt that Eric and I

We could have gone to trial like most people and just sort of, we weren't there, it wasn't us, and had that trial. What do you mean, we could have gone to trial, we weren't there? Well, you could go to trial and just say that I was, you know, chipping golf balls at the time and I wasn't there. And Eric and I went to trial and said, we did this. Ah, there were tapes, there were tapes. Tapes became admissible because we said we did it. Lyle and I fought because...

He wanted, he felt that telling the world that dad was a sexual torturer was killing dad twice and he did not want to kill dad twice. And he thought, he said, I don't want to go up there. I'm not going to take the stand. I'm not going to do it. And then when he did, there was a great outpouring, but there was also people laughing at him and it was strange. Unless you've been molested before,

You can't realize how hard it is to tell. Because of shame? Because of shame. You know, there are some questions that everybody asks, like, why didn't you run away? I wish that I could have

I tried to run away when I was 12 and my father found me, he caught me and said, "If you ever run away, I will kill you. I will find you and I will kill you." Suppose you left and you, I don't know what, became a waiter and moved away. You still thought he'd find you? He would find me and probably kill me. I thought for certain he would kill me. - You still think that? - Oh, absolutely. Did you love your mother or like your mother? I loved my mother and I tried to help her. My mother was...

a person in a lot of pain. And she was alcoholic and she was suicidal. Did she know about the abuse, the sexual abuse? She knew. And didn't do anything? She knew and it doesn't seem that she did anything. Do you still think about the night of the murder? Every day. You both do? Tell me as clearly as you can why you murdered your parents that night. First thing that comes to mind is terror. I was so afraid.

A few days before, I had said to myself, "I'm never gonna let my father touch me again." After I told Lyle that it had been continuing on, I said to myself, "I'm never gonna let him touch me again." And just before the shootings, my dad told me to get to my room and that he would be there in a minute.

He was going to come up and there was going to be sex. And it was like an explosion in my mind. So I know you guys just heard that clip. And I just wanted to, again, say that Jose was a very intense and domineering person. And there were even people who testified saying that

They were intimidated by him and Kitty, even neighbors, teachers of Lyle and Eric's. Yes, exactly. Really good point. And I do want to go a little bit more into the abuse. These aren't super detailed. It's just more on the family and when Lyle and Eric did confide this information earlier on.

I just want to tell you guys who at least we are all aware of who knew about this abuse because it did not just come up at trial. So their cousin Diane, who is the daughter of Kitty's sister Joan, remembers Lyle telling her when he was just nine years old that he was afraid of his father coming into his room and that his father had been touching him, quote, down there.

Diane apparently told her aunt Kitty, but Kitty accused her son of devising the entire scenario. Their cousin on the other side of the family, Andy, who is Marta's son, remember Marta is the sibling of Jose, the sister of Jose. Andy remembered Eric telling him at 10 years old that his dad was massaging his genitals and wondered if that was something other dads did with their sons.

Much later, Marta recovered a letter sent to cousin Andy from Eric when he was 17, just a few months before he murdered his parents.

The letter read, quote, Mom isn't doing good. It's like she's here physically, but mentally, she's just gone. If you know what I mean. She freaks out over nothing. I feel bad for her. I don't know why she puts up with dad's shit. At times, I wish I could talk to her about things, you know? Someday. Especially dad and I. But the way she worships him and tells him everything, I'm so afraid she'll tell him whatever I say. I just can't risk it.

So now I'm stuck here alone. I've been trying to avoid dad. It's still happening, Andy, but it's worse for me now. I can't explain it. He's so overweight that I just can't stand to see him. I never know when it's going to happen and it's driving me crazy. Every night I stay up thinking he might come in. I need to put it out of my mind. I know what you said before, but I'm afraid. You just don't know dad like I do. He's crazy.

He's warned me a hundred times about telling anyone, especially Lyle. Am I a serious wimpus? I don't know I'll make it through this. I can handle it, Andy. I need to stop thinking about it. And we are going to discuss a little bit later more about this letter because this was only found recently.

way after the trial occurred, way after the arrests occurred, which we're gonna get into, but just wanted to put it here so that you guys could have some perspective that this was written before the murders. - Right, and this is kind of part of that new evidence that they're talking about if a retrial does happen. So here's a little bit more on that abuse. So a picture of the brothers' naked bodies at only six and eight years old was later removed from their house.

And disturbingly, the heads of the boys had been cut off. And the picture was stuffed into an envelope labeled, quote, Eric's sixth birthday. It's disgusting. Okay, first, why are you tearing the heads off the picture, first of all? And why is there a picture of your two children? I mean, it's not one of those cute things where it's like, oh, it's my newborn baby and they're in the bath and it's their first bath. It's like...

It's a six-year-old and an eight-year-old naked, heads of the picture cut off. What the hell? I think the heads being off the photos and this being in an envelope like this tells us a lot. I think all of us have photos of us as naked little babies, you know. Of course. In different situations, even up until this age, a lot of us, but not in this way. Yeah, absolutely. Well...

It gets even worse, because in 1977, six-year-old Eric, six years old, was admitted to the emergency room at Princeton Medical Center with an injury to the back of his throat, consistent with oral rape. And I also just want to say that a doctor did testify at the trial, saying...

that what he saw on that medical chart was consistent with oral rape. So it's not just an opinion. A doctor confirmed that this is likely what happened. And he was six years old, like you said, Heath, and we know that they say the abuse started around this time. Yes. But the brothers weren't the only ones accusing Jose of sexual misconduct.

Roy Rossello was a member of Minuto from 1983 to 1986 while Jose was managing the band.

Last year in a documentary produced on the subject entitled Menendez and Menudo, Roy corroborated the claims that Eric made and he added his own, alleging that Jose drugged and raped him while he was a part of the band. Yeah, and this came out, like you're saying, last year in 2023. So this was not a part of the trial. There were no other accounts that this happened, which is why so many people were like, oh, they're lying. They're just trying to get off. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

While Lyle himself claims that he remembered Roy and many other members coming to their house to have private meetings with Jose, who was tasked with signing new members when other members had basically aged out of the band. Other members of Menudo have also come forward to allege sexual abuse against the adult men who were supposed to be caring for them as teens during their time with the group. Menudo was basically a revolving door for over 30 young male performers over all the years.

All who began under the age of 16, and some of whom were as young as 9 years old. Lyle claims that he tried to tell Kitty about the abuse, but that she grew angry and that she just didn't believe him. Much like she didn't believe or want to admit that she believed when Diane told her the same thing.

Donovan Goudreau, who is Lyle's friend and former roommate from his Princeton days, claimed that Lyle confided in him as well about the sexual abuse years prior to the murder. Though Donovan did not reveal this detail in the subsequent trial, he did say in interviews that he had knowledge prior to the murders that his friend was being abused.

In addition to the accounts of the brothers and Roy Rossello, Jose was well known for having an unhealthy and perverse sexual appetite. Sherry Woods, who ran an escort service called Sherry's Angels in Los Angeles in the 1980s, told the New York Post in 1993 that she was hired by Jose Menendez on multiple occasions. According to Sherry, Jose specifically requested women who looked, quote, "...underage."

Even Kitty herself admitted that Jose had forced himself on her, though she chose not to report this occurrence. This is a lot. It's just, it's a ton. And we're not even done here. We are not. Because according to Lyle, three days before the murders took place, he decided to confront his father about the continued abuse that Eric was suffering under their roof, you know, in hopes of stopping it.

Eric had recently enrolled in UCLA and wanted to live on campus in their dorms, but Jose forbade him from doing so. But Eric knew what this really meant, that the rape would continue.

He dreamed of attending Brown University on the East Coast, but when he completed his application to be mailed off, Jose took it and hid it in his desk in his office, never having any intention of letting him leave because the UCLA campus is...

close to where they lived. So he knew if Eric was going to UCLA, he could go to his classes and come back home. Yeah. And here's the thing. If UCLA is so close to Beverly Hills where they lived, why not let Eric stay in the dorm like a normal 18 year old? This is something that he wants to do. Well, it's because we all believe, or at least you and I believe that there was motive behind that. Yeah. Well, on top of that,

Like, it's not even like, oh, well, why pay for the dorms if you're not going to live or if you live close enough? We don't need you to stay in a dorm. I would understand it from that perspective if you want to maybe save money or if Eric isn't interested and he's like, I don't want to live in a dorm. I just want to live at home with my family. Like, I'm sure that's happened many times to other people. But Jose paid for the dorm that he would not allow his son to live in.

Yeah, he did. He actually paid for that dorm, that stay that Eric was supposed to be staying there, paid for that, but Eric never stayed there. And that was a stipulation of his admission. So if Eric wanted to go to UCLA, he was not allowed to live in the dorm. And also Jose made a large cash donation to UCLA to get him admitted, by the way, because Eric had average grades due to untreated dyslexia. So kind of like with Lyle and Princeton,

Jose is pushing them to go to particular colleges and getting involved to make sure that they can attend these schools despite the fact that

they're not really, I hate to say this, they're not really, they don't really meet the requirements intellectually to go. Right. Yeah. And again, this goes back to appearance. Yeah. And at this point, you know, Eric doesn't have money of his own. He's being pushed so hard to focus on tennis instead of, you know, going and getting a job. So he really is stuck. Anybody who's thinking that, well, he's a legal adult, so he can just go live somewhere else.

But, you know, he has to do what they say. They're only letting him go to UCLA under certain stipulations. If he wants to get out of the house and go to school at all, he has to listen to them. And like many victims of abuse, he doesn't have the means to leave right away. And really think about this. How would he even get a job or get money now?

to get the means to leave. His parents know his every move. They wouldn't allow him to go out and get a regular job at a restaurant while he's going to school and playing tennis. They're not going to let that happen. So what's he supposed to do? Well, you think about this, you know, I'm sure that his parents gave him a car and, you know, gave him money to do things. So it's like...

Any normal parent would say, yeah, like I'm going to buy my kid a car so that they can eventually get a job so that they can work and make their own money. But in this case, it's like, hey, we gave you a car. But if you go try to work or do a job like we're not going to allow that. So we're just going to take away the car. Yeah. And then and then how the hell are you going to get to a job? I guess like I guess there's other ways. But I'm just thinking about this from the perspective of an 18 year old. Right. And that's.

That's not easy to figure out on your own. Yeah, I mean, I got a job when I was 16 and I went to community college and I was going to school full time and I was working full time and I still couldn't afford at 18 to move out of my mom's house. I was... I lived with her until I was 21 because that's when I could afford to move out even though I was working full time. It took me three years past Eric's age here. So...

You know, it's just not that easy, and I want to keep kind of proving that sometimes it's just not that easy. Well, when Eric graduated from Beverly Hills High School in June of 1989, Marta visited the family and claimed that the whole family seemed depressed, but that neither Kitty nor Jose would tell her why or what was going on. When she asked why Eric was not living on campus the next year, Jose snapped that he needed his son at home.

But Marta remembers Eric breaking down in tears and telling her how badly he wanted to move away from home. Later, she said that her son Andy supported his cousin's desire to leave the family's home and that he would tell her that Eric needed to leave.

But back to Lyle, because in that effort to get Eric out, on August 17th, 1989, three days before he and Eric murdered their parents, Lyle confronted Jose, demanding that he stop assaulting Eric. Jose allegedly shot back, quote, "We all make our choices in our life. Eric made his, you made yours." Which, apparently, the brothers took as a threat of impending danger.

The night before the murder, after the boys locked themselves out of the house by accident, Lyle and Eric headed to their rooms, and shortly after, Eric heard Jose storm down the hallway and try to get into his room.

When Eric refused to let Jose get in, Jose retreated, but told him that he knew Eric would have to leave the room at some point, and that Jose would be there waiting. And at this very moment, the boys recalled feeling like only two of them were going to survive that weekend, either their parents or them.

Lyle and Eric avoided their parents as much as they could that fateful day, which again, was Sunday, August 20th, 1989. And when they attempted to head out that night, they saw Kitty tried to stop them by the front door, telling them that they couldn't leave. That's when Jose stepped in and agreed with Kitty, adding that Eric needed to go upstairs to his bedroom and wait for him there. So then, Lyle stepped in, telling Jose that he would not be able to touch Eric anymore.

Entering through the family room doors, Eric came in first and began shooting indiscriminately, Lyle entering behind him.

Jose apparently shouted, no, no, no, and stood up, but was knocked down by the blast of the shotgun. Kitty, still alive, crawled past the coffee table in an attempt to escape, but they reloaded their guns and Lyle pointed his gun at his mother's face and shot. The brothers collected themselves and picked up the shotgun shells so that the casings could not be traced back to them or their guns. And to establish their alibis, they headed to the movie theater.

As we said, they attempted to get tickets to License to Kill, but it was sold out. They wanted to secure tickets to a movie they'd already seen so that if they were asked about it, they would be able to speak knowledgeably about the plot. But the only other movie that they had seen already was Batman, so they purchased two tickets. But...

The showing they should have gone to, you know, in order to secure their alibi was already too far into the movie and they wouldn't let them buy tickets for it. So they bought tickets for the next showing and just hope that there was not a time listed on the ticket stub. Obviously, that's not how ticketing works. There was a time listed on it. So they threw the ticket stubs away.

They then drove up Coldwater Canyon and onto Mulholland Drive to dump the guns and watched as they skidded down the side of the mountain into the brush.

They changed clothes behind a dumpster at a gas station in Santa Monica, threw the shells and their bloody clothes in the trash, and went to meet their friend and tennis coach Perry at the Taste of LA Food Festival nearby. But by the time they got there, Perry had already left, as we discussed in part one, so they told him they had gotten lost, thinking that the festival was downtown, when really, they were hiding evidence.

They called him and tried to persuade him to meet them at their house, thinking that it would be more convincing if someone else came upon their parents' bodies. But when Perry refused, wanting to meet them at the Cheesecake Factory in Beverly Hills, they returned to the house to discover the bodies themselves.

Now, returning back to when Eric told his therapist, Jerry, that they were behind the murders, Eric did also break down and tell Lyle that he had admitted all of this to Dr. Ozeal, and Lyle was furious. Jerry alternately claims that he was terrified and that he felt that his life was in danger because he was now harboring a grave secret. But Jerry had a few secrets of his own that he should have been, you know, a little bit more concerned about.

Despite a wife and two kids at home, Jerry had been seeing a woman named Judelon Smith on the side. Now, Judelon was a divorcee who was initially interested in having him record a series of self-help tapes. But their connection wound up developing into a social, then romantic, and then sexual relationship. And she also even became a patient of his.

But Jerry later claimed that she forced herself on him, relentlessly pursuing him, and that she even began camping out in his waiting room. Well, she disputes this, however, and maintains that he pursued her. But regardless of how it happened, Judilon was privy to Jerry's front-row seat to the confession, and Lyle's subsequent outburst when he discovered what his brother had done.

According to Judilon Smith, she heard Lyle yell at Eric, quote: But Judilon later denied hearing this.

Jerry convinced Lyle to join Eric for a few sessions to talk about what had happened, sessions that he actually recorded. Both Judilon and Jerry were disturbed by these threats, though they turned out to be without merit. It was just Lyle saying this out of fear, not out of actual interest to kill Jerry.

But still, Jerry took his wife and kids to a hotel in Sherman Oaks, which is a Los Angeles neighborhood in the Valley, to hide out for a few days and to avoid Lyle and Eric. He even acquired guns for both himself and Judilon.

Then, in December of 1989, blaming the impending threat of the brothers, Judilon moved in with Jerry and his family. But after all this, by March, the affair relationship had soured, and Jerry kicked Judilon out of his house, which changed the course of this case. Because after they ended things, Judilon accused Jerry of siphoning off prescription-only pills for her and raping her.

Two nannies who had worked for the family even came forward and alleged sexual misconduct at Jerry's hands, and claimed that they were also being enticed to take prescription-only medication which they had not been prescribed.

All three women claimed that he had asked them to call him "Dr. Daddy." What the fuck? I can see it. Yeah, absolutely. And you know, to drive the knife even further, even though what she was doing was affecting the Menendez family far more than it affected Jerry,

On Tuesday, March 6th, 1990, Judilon met with an LA County Assistant District Attorney and detectives from the Beverly Hills Police Department to bring forward her allegations against Jerry, as well as Eric's confession, which Jerry had actually shared with her.

Based mostly on the confession to Jerry O'Zeal, which had been shared with law enforcement again by Judilon Smith, 22-year-old Lyle Menendez was arrested on March 8, 1990 for the murders of his parents. Eric was actually in Israel for a tennis competition, and so he had to head home early in fear that Interpol would get involved if he did not return to Los Angeles to be arrested as well.

Police officers were waiting for him when he arrived in LA and he was arrested three days later on March 11th. And by the way, by this time, Eric is 19 years old. Relatives of Kitty's and Jose's came from far and wide and stayed in the house in which they were murdered in order to await news about Lyle and Eric and to show their support.

Many people still claimed that they believed the boys had not done it, but some members of their extended family were beginning to believe that they had and just didn't know why. Meanwhile, others had seen enough of the boys' childhood and believed that they knew exactly why it happened.

Lyle and Eric initially decided not to disclose anything about the horrific abuse that they had suffered, and in their initial line of questioning, maintained that they loved and respected their parents. Which, in my opinion, seems like it was done out of confusion of which route they should go down, like if they thought they were going to get away with it completely, or if they should just tell the full truth. Right.

The family selected renowned criminal defense attorney Leslie Abramson to represent Eric Menendez and Jill Lansing to represent Lyle. And the men also had separate teams of jurors.

Leslie later said that she knew early on that the brothers had committed the murders, but that she couldn't figure out the motive until repeated interviews finally led them to open up about the abuse they had suffered at the hands of their parents, and in particular, the sexual abuse inflicted upon them by Jose. Though the brothers had wanted to keep their family's dark secrets buried with their parents, the defense team saw a sympathetic angle.

So while preparing for the trial, Leslie Abramson revealed to the public what she believed was the motive behind the murders. She admitted herself that the deaths were overkill, but said that it had been prompted by sheer terror on behalf of the boys.

As you can imagine, speculation ran rampant that the brothers had killed for money, but Leslie maintained that they had access to plenty of money and that this was much deeper than that.

Six months after their arrests, the brothers admitted to their families from jail that they had committed the murders and also revealed the abuse that they had suffered at the hands of their father. For those who didn't already know about it. ♪♪

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So this trial was delayed significantly and it was delayed basically due to the proceedings on the admissibility of the recorded tapes of Jerry O'Zill's sessions with Eric due to client patient confidentiality and the fact that the police were tipped off by Judilon Smith with whom Jerry never should have shared any of these session recordings with.

In August of 1992, the Supreme Court of California ruled that two of the four recorded sessions were admissible in court. So on July 20th, 1993, the first Menendez Brothers trial began.

Jill Lansing opened with a bombshell statement saying, quote, On August 20th, 1989, Lyle and Eric Menendez killed their parents. We're not disputing where it happened, how it happened, or who did it. The only thing that we're going to have to focus on in this trial is why it happened. What we will have to prove to you is that it was done out of fear. The Menendez family lived by sex and violence, Jill proclaimed.

In a bombshell revelation to the courtroom, she explained, quote,

Lyle felt confusion and fear, but liked the attention until objects were used, which hurt.

Lyle pleaded to his mother for sympathy, and she told him, quote: "Your dad loves you. You just have to be punished sometimes." After his mother discovered his eight-year affair, a crazy woman got even crazier, end quote. She went on to explain that Jose was able to gaslight the family into thinking that, you know, these were normal occurrences between parents and children, and that it was good for bonding, and also for their athletic ability.

Jill also alleged that, at the bitter end, things were so fraught between the four of them and the situation so dire that any one of them was bound to snap and kill the others. She described Kitty as, quote, "...willing to die and willing to kill."

The graphic retellings of sexual abuse that we played earlier were hard for the court to hear, and I'm sure hard for you guys to hear, hard for us to hear. And jurors and reporters alike were brought to tears on multiple occasions by the brothers' testimony. Initially, Eric claimed that Jose convinced him, you know, his young son, that their relationship was a normal one for a father and son to have. But by the time Jose was murdered, Eric, of course, knew better.

However, that didn't stop it from happening. Eric recalls feeling like he was different from other kids because of the abuse, and even at one point, wondered if he was gay because of what his father was putting him through. His sexuality actually became a huge talking point in the trial as if it's relevant at all, but obviously it had no bearing on whether or not he was guilty.

The prosecution revealed that at one point during Eric's teens, Kitty had given him a six-month deadline to find a girlfriend. And Jose had openly teased him about this and even accused him of being gay. But of course, Jose used a derogatory slur that we will not say. Strangely, it was Jose who was found to be in possession of gay pornography after his death, according to the housekeeper and evidence of magazines found in the house.

Eric's sexual abuse also became a punishment when he didn't deliver in his academic or athletic career.

During the trial, the defense brought forward many witnesses to testify with the prosecution unable to find anyone to be a character witness for Kitty nor Jose. Like there were some family and friends who testified who were able to say some positive things about them, about them being caring and hardworking parents, but they weren't even the central focus of the prosecution's case because the prosecution knew that it wasn't strong enough.

Jose's sister, Marta, testified that Kitty had virtually no maternal instincts and that she never took to her children. They seemed more like annoyances. She recalled Lyle being left to fend for himself as young as two years old and that Kitty was never warm with her sons, never comforting or coddling them. According to Marta, she treated them as if they were a necessity or an inevitability instead of something she wanted.

Marta was also upfront about her brother's brusque nature and the abuse that he inflicted upon his own children. She admitted to falsely telling detectives that the family was happy and close, a statement which she now was going back on. She claims that it would have shattered their carefully curated outward image, an image which even after the murders, they were trying desperately to protect.

The boy's tennis career came up often in the courtroom, with Jose being painted as a cruel and unrelenting teacher, apparently once even holding Lyle's head underwater to increase his stamina.

The family remained divided on whether or not the brothers were justified in their actions, but most of their extended family actually sided with the brothers and had seen, to some extent, evidence of abusive behavior at the hands of either Kitty, Jose, or both. Meanwhile, Kitty's family was divided. Her sister Joan believed the boys' abuse claims, but some of Kitty's brothers did not.

Two of them even testified against them in their trial. And one of Kitty's brothers, Brian Anderson, described the boys as, quote, and said that Kitty and Jose were loving parents and providers. Judilon's testimony and the confession to Jerry O'Zeal were key figures in this courtroom.

Judilon also claimed that once he secured the recordings of the confessions during a joint session with the brothers on December 11th, Jerry was going to attempt to extort Lyle and Eric. I mean, let's make it known. Jerry O'Zeal seems like a total piece of shit. Yeah, I was going to say that. Like, you know, it's like he knows he's got something unnoticed.

Well, basically, I'm about to get into this. But, you know, he told Judilon that he was close to being able to, quote, control the men after Eric made his initial confession. He was able to, you know, finagle them returning to the office so that he could actually record these sessions and also the confessions. In a secret recording Judilon made of Jerry, he told her, quote, there's $14 million involved. Speaking of the boy's inheritance.

When Judilon asked what he meant, he told her, quote, "Figure it out." During the trial, many teachers testified as well, one of them being Alicia Hertz, who had known the family for a long time, even being a neighbor of theirs in the past. And she did not have positive things to say about either Joe or Kitty, which is basically--she called Jose "Joe." And, uh, their obsession with Eric being a pro tennis star.

But she later told a horrific story. Here's a quote from her in a documentary titled Inside the Menendez Movement. And here's a clip of what she said regarding Jose's killing of their family dog. When we went to their house, there was a ferret, always. And the ferret died one day. And Katie and Joe assumed that one of their dogs had killed it.

And one of their dogs was a black, very aggressive dog. They had aggressive dogs. The children opened the refrigerator one day and found the dog's head inside.

So pretty fucking horrific if this is actually true. Yeah. I mean, she did say this as far as we knew Heath and I watched so much of the trials. Um, and this trial in particular, we watched a lot of the clips and the testimonies, but in her testimony, she did not talk about this, but it seems like maybe it wasn't relevant. They didn't ask her about anything about this, that their questions to her were very specific about her role as a teacher and

But I don't know why she would make that up. I mean, it's disgusting. Yeah, absolutely. But she did mention during her testimony that Jose and Kitty were very, very domineering people, that they were intimidating. And she also explained that one time she believed that... I believe it was Lyle that she was talking about how one time she felt like Lyle was plagiarizing his schoolwork and that somebody at home might have been doing it and that she thought that it might have been Jose plagiarizing

But then when she questioned Jose and Kitty about this, they basically just told her to fuck off. Yeah, it seemed like they really wanted him to focus on tennis. He ended up missing a lot of school because...

you know, they would call the teachers and say, oh, he's going to miss class or can he miss today's session so that he can, uh, be in a tennis competition or a tennis practice. And, um, and yeah, so it seems like Jose was doing his Spanish homework because, um, Lyle did not speak Spanish before taking this class. Right. Yeah. And she also, she also mentioned that, um,

that even when the brothers like had injuries from tennis and stuff like that, that Jose would still demand that they practice. And even sometimes in the rain. Well, there is another animal abuse situation here. There's, I'm not going to play the clip. This is actually from Lyle's testimony during the trial, but there's a lot of back and forth questioning. So I'm just going to,

relay it for time's sake. Basically, Lyle told the story about how his dad, Jose, killed his pet rabbit that he had gotten from school when he was a kid. Jose was angry at Lyle for not getting rid of the rabbit like he had asked. So when Lyle's looking for his rabbit, he's asking his mom and his dad, where is the rabbit? And basically, they told him to check the trash. And Lyle then found his pet rabbit

beaten to death in the trash can, which absolutely devastated him. Yeah, not even just humanely done. Like, beaten to death. Like, he beat a rabbit to death. I mean, again, it's disgusting and...

Yeah, it's really sad when Lyle explains how he had this little funeral in a shoebox with Eric.

And he had all of his stuffed animals like sitting around this this box with his dead rabbit inside of it. It's just it's devastating to know that, you know, this little kid had to go through something like that. Yeah, it is horrible. So now we want to go into the closing statements. Leslie Abramson basically pleaded with the courtroom to imagine what the brothers would have to go through to bring them to such a conclusion.

Prosecuting attorney Pamela Bozanich had fewer kind words to say, describing the boys as, quote, spoiled, vicious brats, and that regardless of what Kitty and Jose had done to their kids during their lives, nothing could have justified their gruesome end.

Pamela later said in an interview, quote, I am 100% sure that they fabricated their defense. I'm not 90% sure. I'm 100% sure. And to the frustration of the defense, many of the jurors didn't believe that the sexual abuse had taken place either. Meanwhile, other jurors did. So...

The jury finally admitted to the judge that they were, quote, hopelessly deadlocked. And on January 29th, 1994, a mistrial was declared. Basically, the jurors could not come to a conclusion for either of the brothers. They were debating between first-degree murder, second-degree murder, and voluntary manslaughter. And it did appear that for both brothers, most people were leaning towards voluntary manslaughter.

So, the brothers were forced to wait while a second trial could be arranged. The family money had run out, and they could no longer pay for their high-powered attorneys. Leslie Abramson agreed to sign on to represent Lyle again, this time pro bono. But Eric was assigned a public defender named Charles Gessler. Though she couldn't take on the case a second time, Jill Lansing attended the trial to show her support for Eric.

On July 23, 1995, a second trial began. And this time, prosecutor David Kahn would push for the death penalty.

I mean, that's a horrific thing to say. I saw a ton of news clips about this, like newspaper clippings, where all the headlines were about the abuse excuse, which I just thought was really disappointing. Yeah, yeah. I mean, of course they're going to say something like that because, you know, it's a catchy headline, but...

During the court's hiatus, Lyle, with the help of three other writers, had penned a book about his story, so he was barred from testifying this time. So Eric alone would have to take the stand to share their point of view. When their aunt, Terry Baralt, was again brought in as a witness, David Kahn complained that she refused to meet with Les Zuller, who was the Beverly Hills detective in charge of investigating the Menendez murders.

Terry said matter-of-factly, quote, "Mr. Khan, you want to kill my nephews. The family members do not want any more blood. This is my family, not yours." And Marta maintained that both Kitty and Jose were cruel and unfit parents, and that they were devastated at the convictions, remarking sadly that she wished she had done something about the abuse earlier.

And as Daphne said, this time the judge remitted what came to be known as the abuse excuse, which was a major setback for the defense. The jury was now faced with the decision to either let them off entirely or send them to prison for murder. This time, the jury wasn't quite as forgiving, nor were they as indecisive.

because on March 21st, 1996, Lyle and Eric were convicted of two counts of first-degree murder. The judge kind of seemed to lean into the prosecution's suggestion that the murder was committed with financial motives, though the brothers maintained that they had nothing to gain financially from the deaths of their parents, because they basically believed that they had been cut out of the will entirely.

On July 2nd, 1996, 28-year-old Lyle and 26-year-old Eric were sentenced to life in prison. They've appealed their cases multiple times, but lost every time.

In 1997, Jerry O'Ziel was stripped of his license to practice psychology, though he claims that it was for personal, not legal reasons. And then he eventually relocated to New Mexico and began working at a meditation center that specializes in improving marriages. He would. I would not trust this guy with my marriage, sorry. But the lives of the brothers have had some positive developments since their sentencing.

Lyle has been married twice since his incarceration, the first time to Anna Erickson, whom he married in 1996, just one day before he was convicted.

So she was present in court the next day when her new husband was sentenced. They divorced in 2001 after she claims she caught him exchanging letters with other women. Which is kind of funny because, like, it's not like he can actually cheat. I mean, maybe emotionally cheat. Yeah, it is. It is kind of funny. I mean, not funny for her, but yeah. And then two years later, he married attorney Rebecca Sneed, to whom he is still married.

And according to one source, he actually knew her prior to his incarceration. So maybe they have a bit of a history there. Rebecca resided near the Mule Creek State Prison, which is southeast of Sacramento in Ione, California, where Lyle was being held at that time.

Rebecca said, quote, our interaction tends to be very free of distractions and we probably have more intimate conversations than most married spouses do who are distracted by life's events. Lyle says that he is eternally thankful for her patience and devotion, saying, quote, she has the courage to deal with the obstacles. It would be easier to leave, but I'm profoundly grateful that she doesn't.

Eric has been married to Tammy Ruth Sackaman, now known as Tammy Menendez since 1999. Tammy actually explained in an interview that she started by writing him a letter and was surprised to see a response.

Their relationship blossomed from there, and she eventually visited him in prison where they developed feelings for each other. And Tammy actually initially reached out because she really empathized with what he was going through. She has a lot of personal experience with abuse in her family, and she just felt so terrible that he received this sentencing that he did. So they developed this relationship. They got married in 1999.

when Eric was housed at Folsom State Prison in Folsom, California, which is northeast of Sacramento. But California actually prohibits conjugal visits for inmates serving life sentences, which means that they can't be in the same room and hug and touch and anything like that. But Tammy says that they speak nearly every day and see each other as much as they can.

He now has two stepdaughters, and as the only father she's ever known, his stepdaughter Talia refers to Eric as her dad. Talia and her mother Tammy have been very active in the efforts to seek parole for the brothers, and Talia claims that, aside from having to travel to a designated place to see her dad, he was as present and loving a father as he possibly could have been.

In one post on social media, she wrote, quote,

The brothers have been separated since shortly after they were sentenced, but in April of 2018, Lyle was moved to join his brother in Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in Southeast San Diego, and they were finally reunited after 20 years. I can't imagine how happy they were at that, to have to go through this alone after having gone through the initial act together, and then to be

be put in the same place again. Yeah, absolutely. And I did read that both of them cried and just gave each other a massive hug. Oh, yeah.

In May of last year, 2023, another appeal was filed, the first in 10 years, based on admittance of new evidence. The letter that Eric wrote to his cousin Andy Cano, revealing that the abuse was still happening when that letter was written. Which, remember, was a few months before the murders. Yes. Yes.

And because of this new first hand evidence, there has been a resurgence in the efforts to free the men. With many believing that, you know, although they shouldn't have murdered their parents,

They have served enough time for their actions based on the abuse that they sustained for many years. Yeah, and just going back to the letter because it is in the news a lot today. Obviously, this letter was written back in the day. It was written in December of 1988. The murders happened in August of 1989.

So Andy did have this letter in his possession and he kept it in his possession. But he died back in 2003, sadly, from an accidental drug overdose on sleeping pills. But when his mother Marta was looking through his stuff after he passed, she found this letter and she turned it in. And this was in an effort to show that this abuse was happening. Here is a time-stamped letter from...

from Eric discussing the abuse, discussing his fears surrounding his father. And this was happening. They didn't make this up. They're not just actors on the stand trying to get away with murder. This really did happen to them. And it's really crazy the fact that she found that letter after all those years. I mean, decades of this letter just being in a box. And then also kind of like

Makes you wonder why Andy kept it. Is it because he knew that one day, you know, maybe he would bring it forth? Maybe he knew that it was just an important piece that he needed to keep? I don't know, but it is so important now because I think just...

people's mindsets are so different than they were back in the 80s and the 90s. And I'm going to get into that in a second. But yeah, I think that now people are looking at this and they have been for years really in a different light and a more sensitive light. And I think that it is amazing that she found this letter and she turned it in. This made headlines a few years ago, but it could make a huge difference.

And as you guys know, since this story has been in the media so much in general and now with new shows like the Netflix show Monsters, the Lyle and Eric Menendez story as well, which, you know, is a dramatized version. Actually, there's a lot of outrage. People saying that the way that Lyle in particular is portrayed in that show is bad.

very dramatized in that. Oh yeah. They, they made him seem like he's this ego maniacal asshole, but he wasn't actually like that. Yeah. And even Eric came out and said that, you know, I don't know why Ryan Murphy is spreading all these lies and, and not trying to get like the real picture of the story. Yeah. So a lot of people from the show have kind of come out, um, with showing their support for the Menendez brothers, um,

But and Ryan has also Ryan Murphy, the creator of the show, has also come out and said that, you know, he has no interest in meeting the brothers and that he is saying this is a dramatized version. Some of the things in here are wrong. A lot of them are just kind of fanciful. It's kind of like what we based on the information we have, what we think happened here. Obviously, there weren't cameras around when all of it happened. And just every aspect of this, this is just a dramatized version of

Sure. But yeah, a lot of people are definitely really upset about it. But then as we discussed as well, the new Netflix documentary titled The Menendez Brothers also just released on Netflix. So since all of this is happening right now in particular, a lot of people have spoken out against their continued imprisonment, including many celebrities.

the actor who portrayed Eric in Monsters, Cooper. He even visited the brothers in prison with Kim Kardashian recently, explaining in an interview how kind the brothers were, how gentle they were. And Kim herself believes that they have served more than enough time, saying, quote, it's time for the Menendez brothers to be released.

And many, many people have echoed these statements with the brothers having now spent 34 years in prison. Even one of the jurors who was on the first trial and wanted them to be sentenced for voluntary manslaughter believes that the jury was hung due to homophobia and sexism by many of the male jurors. And I'm going to play that clip. It is a TMZ interview, but it's still an interview with one of the original jurors. And

And here is that interview. So you voted for voluntary manslaughter and there was a big split. And it seemed like the split was between men and women, men wanting to find them guilty of murder,

Some of the women, voluntary manslaughter. I'm really interested in something that you wrote about, which is that there was a lot of sexism and homophobia in the jury deliberation room. Can you describe that? I think the men were actually, in addition to not buying the...

brother's story that they had been molested by their father. Um, well, first I'd like to point out that even if you took sex out of the equation, there were plenty of other forms of abuse. There was neglect. There was physical abuse. Um, in addition to sexual, there was emotional abuse and there was mental abuse and there were more than 50, um, witnesses testifying to that on their behalf in the trial. In addition to expert witnesses, um,

But the men didn't buy it. And I also think that they were feeling the pressure, public pressure of not being wimps. They were being macho about it and not wanting to be seen as taken in and gullible. And that's what the press painted the women as. Is it that they didn't?

believe them or that they discounted it? Because I'm just really curious about the homophobia that you talk about. Well, that ended up being the number one issue that we discussed in the trial. In closing arguments, Lester Kuriyama, the prosecutor, threw out a theory that the whole problem in the family was that Eric was gay and that that was how he knew how to describe homosexual acts. And

And that a prosecutor's closing arguments is not considered evidence. There was no evidence of that. But the men grabbed a hold of that and would not let go. And we did everything we could to get that done.

They agreed that, you know, if a boy was abused, that didn't necessarily make him gay. And even if he was gay, that he could be abused. But they didn't believe their story. And they didn't vote in their favor. When this news came out about their father allegedly molesting a member of Minuto, what was your reaction to that news and how it could impact...

their future in prison. I think that it was too bad if there were other victims of Jose Menendez, but I also think that the second trial

which did not let that sort of evidence in, was a travesty of justice. And that even if there was no new evidence whatsoever, I think that the second trial verdict should be overturned and that they should be let out with time served, which is nearly 35 years.

With Lyle now age 56 and Eric 53, we will see what this newer evidence can do for the case and if it can affect their previous sentencing of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

Thank you so much, everybody, for listening to the second part of this two-parter of Going West. Yes, thank you guys so much for listening to this episode and our previous episode. We'll see you next time.

I really want to know what you guys think. Obviously, we've put out a lot of information. Hopefully, you guys have a lot more details that you can, I don't know, decide what you think should happen here. There's going to be some updates. There's definitely going to be some updates because we keep seeing it in the news. And obviously, with this new evidence and Roy Rossello coming out and saying that he was abused as well, like...

We're going to see where this goes. It's a lot. Yeah. I mean, I'm just going to state my personal opinion, even though it doesn't matter to anything. They've served 34 plus years in prison. I don't think they should have killed their parents. But I also, again, know that I wasn't in their position. And I think that what they did endure throughout their abuse is unthinkable. And I think that they have been there long enough. And I do believe that they should be paroled.

I share your same sentiment there. I think a lot of people believe that as well. I mean, they went through some horrible abuse and again, you know, as you mentioned too, it would have been great if they would have been able to get help in another way instead of having to kill their parents. But yeah, I mean, 34 years served for killing some abusive people.

I don't know. I don't think this is the whole point, but they're, in my opinion, not going to be released and hurt anybody else. I don't think they're a danger to society, and I could go on and on and on. But yeah, we'd love to hear what you guys think, and we'll definitely...

We'll definitely keep following this and see what happens. So thank you guys so much for tuning in. If you want to see photos associated with this case, head on over to our socials, Instagram at Going West Podcast. And we're also on Facebook. We have two groups there. So check it out. All right, guys. So for everybody out there in the world, don't be a stranger.

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