Talking Dateline: The Menendez Brothers: Chance at Freedom
23:00 Share

Discovered hydro, the best kept secret in fitness hydro is the state of the art at home role that engage eighty six percent of your muscles, delivering the ultimate full body workout in just twenty minutes. From advance to beginner, hydro has over five thousand classes shot worldwide and top by olympians and world class athletes for a thirty day risk free trial. Go a hydroid dot com and use code fit to save four hundred and seventy five dollars on a hydro pro r that's H Y D R O W dot com code fit.

Why get all your holiday decorations delivered the instant card? Because maybe you only bought two reels but have twelve windows? Or maybe your taller got very eager with the event calendar? Or maybe the inflated able snowman didn't make IT through the snowstorm. Or maybe the twinkle lights aren't twinkling, whatever the reason this season, instincts here for hosts in their whole holiday hall get decorations from the home depot, cbs and more through instincts and enjoy free delivery on your first three orders, service fees in terms apply.

Hi everyone, this is Andrea canning, and i'm here with Keith Morrison and we are talking dateline.

Hello, Andrea.

Good to see you and hear your voice. This episode is called the melendez z brothers chance at freedom. This story is one that has captured headlines.

It's about the thousand nine hundred and eighty nine murder of Kitty and hosea menendez by their sons lial and eric q. The couple was found shot to death in their beverly hills home. And what followed were multiple trials, a media frenzy and now a possible chance at redemption.

If you haven't listened to the show yet, it's the episode right below this one on the list of podcast you just chose from. So go there, listen to IT. Or if you, anna, watch IT, you can stream IT on peacock and then come back here.

When you come back, he has an extra clip. He's going to play for us. It's lial milena's confessing to his therapist.

Later, we are going to answer some of your questions about the show from social media. So stay tuned for that. Okay, let's do IT. Let's talk date line, right? First of all, I want you to listen to the sound.

Do you hear that?

I hear IT. Yeah, a lot. It's a lot of pages.

You know why? Because i've never taken so many notes while watching a date line. Really.

my life, your notes.

those are in all my notes that I these are all questions .

I have for you now this is a long running story, is full of very strange thing so it's .

understand IT really is and i'm embarrass to say this as a mother. Um I found out after the fact that my fifteen year old and my fourteen year old had watched the ryan morphy monsters, I not sure I wouldn't let them watch IT didn't realize that they founded on netflix. They form on t ah it's amazing all these teams are talking about IT.

And they absolutely think that the brothers need to get out based watching this drama. It's certainly got me interested in IT knowing um that my kids had watched IT and then I watched your episode and I I see why everyone is talking about IT. It's incredible all these years later all the interest in the case yeah yeah i've .

never seen anything like IT um and never could have imagined that this would develop beginning way back in one thousand nine hundred ninety nine. I mean, I first covered the story for nightly ly news when the murders happened and then later on when the trials happened, and they became a media circus at the time, too, in a different way, because that in that social media those days, he was always a big story.

And he was always based on a very good series of belief that people would have observing these guys about the kinds of things that cannot be proved one way of the other. And you, sexual abuses at the heart of IT did IT occur, I suspected, probably did. There are people who are convinced they did. I didn't care, and certainly that the brothers did a lot of lying about the two, which which didn't help .

their cause like the prosecutor SHE was .

very adamant unt about.

you know, they were not SHE does not believe that they were situated abused.

Pam, the prosecutor SHE is angry because he believes that they made up these allegations of abuse that they have died out on them for many years. Therefore, in a billion real abuse, which occurs far too often, remain job before getting a homicide prosecutions was sexual abuse. And so he knows what sexual abuse is all about.

SHE encountered many cases of IT and believes in the whole heartedly, but he believes these two guys were not secure, link abuse. And IT was an extremely brutal crime. There were some elements of IT, which I think made IT very difficult for the people to see that there should be some kind of redemption, as you say, at the end of the IT.

was really awful. The fact that they reloaded, you know, the fact that .

they should just tell this way. First of all, they discussed whether not to kill their parents for up to a, about a week before they committed the crime and decided they would do that. They would certainly kill their father.

But then for a couple of days before the murder, they discuss whether to kill their mother too. They decided to make that choice and killed both parents. And while their mother was still alive, he was crawling across the floor crying and begging for help.

And he had run out of ammunition. So he left the house. He walked out to their rental car.

He opened the trunk. He got out the emulation. He loaded his mother's shotgun. He walked back into the house. He walked right up to his mother. You put the gun to the side of her face and blue face off.

So much anger there to be able to do that.

The nature of the crime suggested there were certainly something going on. You know, the tendency is to want to believe people when .

they save things like that, of course. Do you think they're some version key of that? Yes, they were not know, of course, but maybe they were abused, but then also theyd like the finer things in life. So maybe there was like a combination, the spending the money, you know, a by product of getting ready rid of the abuse of father IT. Seems like they really like to expensive things for.

did you.

even before the murder.

But they went out quite a wild, spending free afterwards. The thing that interested me about that was not so much spending. Three, they were Young, they were mature, know, the night of before the funeral, they stayed at the belter hotel, one of the most extensive no, and took a limo.

So their father had threatened to remove them from the White, or so their story went. And the day after the murder, they tried to give the safety deposit box where the will was to see whether or not he Carried out death threat. And that explains some of the timing of the murder that suppose they were going to be removed like he was going to take that action was in the next few days. But he didn't do IT, but he didn't do IT.

My god, I know it's it's one of those stories where you know one minute you're thinking you feel bad for them and then the next minute you're like way to second IT really takes you on a kind of a roller coaster of trying to get to the bottom of what really was going through their minds and it's tough to figure that out.

This reminded .

me so much of a case that you and I talked about on deadline, true crime weekly, about the olympia's wife yeah in california, who said that he was being abused by her husband but he was, you know, olympia and everyone loved him. And you said on the podcast that you felt like if that case was tried today that I would probably have a different outcome. You know that we knew we didn't know as much about abuse back then.

People didn't talk about IT, but that was her defense, was that he was being abused, so he killed her husband. I wonder from you, where do you think this would go if IT was? If this all .

happened right now, this crime for several reasons. One is that it's people are finding IT easier now to say publicly that they have been abused and to kind of reveal all the details of that, and then they work in those days. So those are really hard questions, and the law hasn't kind of figured out exactly how of navigate them effectively twice.

Yes, when we come back, we have an extra clip from the confession of vial manders to his therapist, doctor Jerry ocean. This thanksgiving target makes hosting easy with our lowest Prices of the season like couldn't gather premium turkey for seventy nine since pound and quality Green beans for only fifty five since save more on hosting happier holidays from target restrictions .

apply discover hydro.

the best cab secret and fitness hydro is the state of the art at home role that engage eighty six percent of your muscles, delivering the ultimate full body workout in just twenty minutes. From advance to beginner, hydro has over five thousand classes, shot worldwide and top by olympic and world class athletes for a thirty day risk ray trial. Got a hydroid dot com and use code fit to save four hundred and seventy five dollars on a hydro pro r that's H Y D R O W dot com code fit.

The holidays are all about sharing with family meals, captures stories, grama secret pecan recipe, and now you can also share a card with instar d's family cards. Everyone can add what they want to one group card from wherever they are, so you don't have to go from room to room to find out who wants cranberry is sad, or whether you should get many marshmallows for the arms or collecting votes first, a girl versus or bread. Just share a car and then share the meals in the moments down on the card up and get delivery in his fastest thirty minutes, plus free delivery on your first three order service fees in terms apply.

I file in the live interview that you really press him. You know, this was a hard hitting interview in my opinion. You were really trying to like, droll down there. There no free passes in an interview. No.

did well.

didn't you think? I do. I do. I think he's been in there for thirty five years. As you said, he has a lot to say um and I was glad to see that he did the interview with you when I .

talked to while we went on for quite a long time as we do to take line out of use but I found out to be a very engaging, very interesting, effective, intelligent person to interview um he presented a lot of the fact of the case, the way of politician would you know just kind of presenting his side of things which made sense but um I came away from that thinking, you know I kind of respect that guys pretty you pretty what .

have they ever apologized for what they did since we've admitted obviously what they did? Have they ever .

said maybe if they could go back in time and and not do that, they would of course do that but apologize to whom you know yeah or just .

to show some remorse that we shows the wrong option.

I think that they've both said they understand they made a very bad decision. They did a terrible thing um but remorse I don't know it's hard think hard thing to figure out how much remorse people I feel feel keep you have an extra clip .

you wanted tell us about these recessions with .

dark or jerious zo that the brothers were assigned to see this particular doctor the background of the story in the reason that we're able to hear this is because although you know any conversation with a syc atr is completely off limits to everybody else. They're not going to tell a single soul in the world about IT except doctor or zeal was hearing these confessions from the boys.

And he knew that what what they were accused of, and hear what these kids revealing in graphic detail, what they done to their parents. So he invited his girlfriend to go sit in the waiting room and listen at the door. But when the tapes were played, IT offered a whole new window into what really happened in that case. And this is a portion that of the interview of lie talking will start to jerious zeal.

And that's all my mother say I thought was we had to come like our same. We had to make a the decision they want, the harder ones. And IT was a separate tion. This we build, no question. What is going to with myself and myself, my mother.

yeah, solution is to kill .

your mother doesn't make a .

whole lot nothing in this. Nothing much make sense. The reason they had jerious zo, the psychiatrist, was because they had burgard zed homes in neighborhood that they lived before.

Their punishment was to see this therapy for period of time. Afterwards, from months after the murders, they had session with them. They never ever said anything about abuse. Yeah, but they confessed to what they had done and they were pretty open and direct about that's where I got the business about going back .

out to the car. But if they're not talking about the abuse in these sessions before you know the trial, why did they give a reason for why they killed the parents since they weren't festing up about the abuse yet?

Well, they were angry. Their father was a they felt a brutal man that he was not nice to them. They didn't like them and they made he made huge demands of them um and that's about this first I went, were they just not talking about IT because they were ashamed at that point with their own sychar st.

That's possibly the case. I don't I honestly don't know. I don't know what to think.

What struck me in the episode two were just the details, the level of the fine details that you and your producer, who was your producer.

have, have been several over the years. The current one is suzie l.

IT. Susan, I love Susan. yeah. I mean, you just the details that you packed in that for someone like me who doesn't know the story that well, just hearing things like they traded their suits for their .

sweaters for court. Oh, that was a there was a very big deal at the time, and everybody kind of knew what they were doing. But IT nevertheless did present a much different image on a data day basis for the jury.

Yeah and we talked a little bit about the limo showing up in the lime, staying the hotel Bella and details of the house itself. Famous people had lived in that house and .

was at prince .

another little detail that was in there that turned into a bigger detail. I am thinking, as I started watching IT, I was thinking very early on. And like, I wonder the timing of this with oj and you when when the second trial would take place, IT was on the heels of oj. And so IT mattered because the prosecutors needed this win with the men as brothers, right?

Because they lost that. I covered the O. G. very. So both of these things going on.

At same time, you cannot overstate the amount of upset there was in the whole legal system in the lake. When O. J.

Was acquitted, they felt we'd lost such an obvious slam dunk sort of case. IT was an earthquake in the D. S. Office, and they had to do something about IT from every level from the governor on downward, demanding that they get little sharper about what they did.

And the other case that was sitting right there waiting to be retried was another famous case that everybody was talking about, the man in this case. So that's why things changed a bit. I think that the the biggest change was the california, an supreme court matter ruling about what the important issue was, and that was the boys had claimed imperfect self defense, which was that thought that they would be, they were an imminent danger.

and they couldn't .

use that anymore, right? The second court, the evidence, the danger. So they couldn't use that as a defense. IT was just a point of laws of the prosecutor. P making.

One of the things that shocked me was when the prosecutor said that SHE had armed herself because he was fearing for her safety from all of this, and SHE armed herself with the same type of gun the brothers used in the murder. What's going on with that?

Well, he has an in your face mentality, right? I'm going to get a musburger shot gun just be like they did. And she's still angry about this case. You know because it's easy to use because if they could figure out out I can figure out out you know these stupid boys um but also I mean the serious side of IT is that SHE because SHE prosecute the fiction continues to insist that no abuse occurred in her opinion SHE has received a tremendous amount of hate mail threats. The same is true of alan Abrahamson, the reporter we talked to. Tremendous amount of abuse has been formed on that guy just for restating the fact of the case and offering the opinion that he thought the jury made the right decision.

This, this is our world. Now, this is social media. This is how people know, people hiding behind their phones and their computers. They just, they say ugly things. And it's a little scary sometimes.

And that doesn't do any good at all. You know, people all around the world are talking about doing how they should be released. I mean, this is a perfectly legitimate debate.

Now, whether or not they should be released from prison. George guest, cn, believed sincerely that the time I come, when they should be, they have been, by all accounts, remarkably examples, prisoners. And they have helped their fellow prisoners that have taught them.

They have not just beautified the prisoner ard, but they have been, they've been extremely good people well in prison. They've got married, so they've lived as well as you can live in a prison soul. And a lot of people think this should be living on the outside.

Now was sort of what I was thinking was whichever side you're on of this, you think they should be let out. You don't think they should be let out. They have served thirty five years.

So if they are let out, it's not like they got some easy gig right where they barely got any time, where they got some treat hard deal. That's not the case here, and i'm not trying to take away from the crime here at all, obviously. But are they a danger to society? You know, the answer, my god would tell me, is no, right? So I mean, you kind of have to look at at that way.

they've served a longer sentence in prison than people in most other industrialized countries like ours would would serve and be allowed of a chance at freedom. Canada, for example. As you know, a life sentence is twenty five years, and then you have a chance of parole.

They've been in prison thirty five years. And there's a third element, two, which was and this was the probably one of the important deciding elements for the D A. George guest come to make decision he did, was that they were Young men who do not have fully formed intellectual capacities, I agree with.

They grow up a lot in their twenties. And so that's one of the considerations for thinking. Okay, they should. They probably deserve a chance of life now. But at the same time, you have to say that there are a lots of people in prison for life without the possibility parole, who committed crimes which were far less severe than that and who would behaved themselves in an example, your way in prison. They don't have armies of people trying to get .

them released. Just incredible the timing with George guest stone. And you know that the selections happening and he gives them this hail mary right right before in our viewers or listeners will know that George guest stone was voted out in the latest election, but he slipped in right before the election.

No, is a charming fellow. I'd interviewed him to a great length. He certainly believes whole heartedly. And what he's doing, and that kind of philosophy actually reduces crime. But he could have made a decision about the man and his brothers much sooner than he did. So the new district atterley hasn't said too much beyond the fact that he will have to reexamine all the evidence he wants to talk to everybody before .

he makes a recommendation. Yes, yeah. After the break will be back to answer some of your questions from social media.

Discover hydro, the best cap secret in fitness hydro is the state of the art at home role that engage eighty six percent of your muscles, delivering the ultimate full body workout in just twenty minutes. From advance to beginner, hydro has over five thousand classes, shot worldwide and top by olympic and world class athletes for a thirty day risk ray trial, got a hydroid dot com and use code fit to save four hundred and seventy five dollars on a hydro pro rower. That's H Y D R O W dot com code fit.

Why get all your holiday decorations delivered the instant car? Because maybe you only bought two raths but have twelve windows? Or maybe your top ler got very eager with the event calendar? Or maybe the inflated able snowmen didn't make IT through the snowstorm? Or maybe the twinkle lights aren't twinkling, whatever the reason this season in starts here for hosts in their whole holiday hall, get decorations from the home depot, C, V, S, and more through installed, and enjoy free delivery on your first three orders. Service feeds. In terms apply.

nobody does selling Better than sharp fy, home of the number one checkout on the planet. The shopping feature even boost conversions up to fifty percent. So if you're into growing your business, your commerce platform Better be ready to sell wherever your customers are scrolling or strolling, update your business and get the same check out. Top brands like all birds sign up for your one dollar per month trial period and shop fied that comes slash podcast free. All lower case go to shop fy that comes like podcast free to upgrade selling today.

Now for one of the best parts of talking date line, when we get to hear from our listeners and our viewers, and I have to say just swimming through some of the comments, they've had a lot of the same observations that we did in our conversation.

Opinion is all over the map on this one, but there's a lot of opinion.

Yes, absolutely. This one is from hale Diana, one seventy three. The episode is everything manual.

O. J. Simpson, she's kick factory beauty pages, cord, asians and so much more. And you know, we can add in their millions anela. We can add in that man movie, we can add in prince even got to mention.

and IT really described the light that was amErica and that very the time, at least, IT was well healed america. And that killed the time.

Yeah, absolutely okay. So this one is from jan gbs. And SHE is comparing this to gypsey lancha, who made quite the splash with her release on social media.

SHE writes gypsy b. Blanchard was an abuse victim who killed her mother. He went to prison, serve ten years and is now free. That's the difference in being an abuse victim then. And now y've served their time.

They've suffer enough well. Agree with where people have done lot less time. The one that always comes to my mind, because I did the story and I was so moved by IT was mary winkler who husband was a terrible abuse er who shot him in the back three times with the shot gunner and took off with the kids for the beach and they charge you with first degree murder but her defense was so revealing that he wound up serving very little time at all. He was convicted of manslaughter but I think he did maybe and lesson a year. So these things do happen.

And real ter came fifteen IT seems to me he thinks they should stay in prison. He said stay in prison, SHE says, not saying they were not abused, but they were not in danger at that moment. They were eighteen and twenty one, right? Why didn't they move on?

This case is one that really is kind of hard to define because there are cases where people have been abused, and I firmly believe they probably were abused and they probably could have had, if the circumstances of the actual killing were a little different, um more of a motive of diminished response ability because of that, more of a defensive that rather. But the details are just complicated with the planning eeta.

I'm very curious about a lot of things still in the story. And are there really side issues? The central legal one will be addressed by the D A. The question of whether they should be allowed out of prison. Yeah, but but some things like this, this letter, which has been put forward as evidence, some other things which have been put forward as evidence, and they you look at them very carefully.

And is this really evidence or not? And is the letter real or is IT, you know, as a been manufactured? So both the prosecution side and the people who prosecute to the case all of years ago are now looking at that letter, looking at other events to see where there's actual eleven or just something thrown at the fan to see little stick.

Well, this is a tough one, and it's gonna tough for the next prosecutor who's coming in since gas gone is on his way out that definitely throw a big curve ball in the story that already has so many twist in turn. So it's it's a wait and see and i'm sure you'll update your story when whenever we we find out what .

the decision is, you can be sure that debate in the district news office is intense. Yeah going.

So k, thank you for for answering all these questions. So much appreciated. A really good episode.

You take care. That is our talking date line for this week. Thanks so much, Keith, and thanks, everyone for listening to us.

Remember, if you have any questions about our stories or any cases you think we should cover, reach out to us on social at date line. N, B, C, C, A, friday is on date line on N, B, C. Also remember to listen to kids all new podcast, the man and the black mass. All episodes are available to listen to now wherever you get your podcast.

Where you get those shoes easy there from D, S W, because D, S, W has the exact right shoes for whatever you're right now. You know, like the sneakers that make office hours feel like happy hour, the boots, the turn grocery isles into runways, and all the styles that show up the many sides of you from day dreamer to multi task and everything in between, because you do IT all in really great shoes. Find a shoot for every year at your D S W store or D S W dot com.