by Rachel Pergament
Prelude
The tan, dark haired young man sat and watched the
made-for-TV miniseries. The miniseries, based on real life events,
told the story of a group of young men from Beverly Hills who planned
and carried out two murders, including the killing of the father of
one of the members of the group. As the young man watched the movie,
he called to his older brother who joined him and together they
watched the "Billionaire Boys Club." Later, they began to discuss
killing their father. Each brother complained to the other about how
domineering and controlling their father was, how impossible it was
for either brother to please him, how he planned to disinherit both
brothers from his will and how poorly he treated their mother. The
brothers rationalized that if they killed their father, they would
have to kill their mother because she could not survive emotionally
without their father. She could also be a living witness to the crime
they were about to commit. The older brother wanted to plan the
murders so that they would be as "perfect as could be," but the
younger brother could not wait and insisted that the murders take
place as soon as possible. The miniseries was shown over two nights,
July 30 and 31, 1989, and the murders occurred on the night of August
20, 1989.
The Murders
The evening of Sunday, August 20, 1989 was warm in
Beverly Hills. The maid had the night off and the white, $4 million,
23-room Mediterranean-style mansion at 722 Elm Drive was quiet. The
owners of the home, Jose and Kitty Menendez were in the family room
dozing while a James Bond thriller, The Spy Who Loved Me, played on
the VCR. The couple's sons, Lyle, 21, and Erik, 18, had gone out for
the evening.
Although she was 47 and a little overweight, Kitty
was still attractive. She had blond hair and green eyes. At 44, Jose
could pass for someone much younger. He still had a full head of thick
black hair and was in good physical shape from playing tennis.
Around 10:00 p.m., a teenage girl was outside her
home, located down the street from the Menendez mansion, waiting for
her boyfriend. The girl noticed a small car drive up and stop in front
of the Menendez home. There were two men inside the car. The men
exited from the car. One man went to the trunk and the other walked
toward the house. The girl lost interest and looked away.
The Menendez mansion was set back from the street,
shaded by dense foliage and protected by an elaborate security system.
The house had previously been rented to a succession of business and
entertainment people, including the artist formerly known as Prince
and Elton John. A high iron fence surrounded the mansion and there
were iron gates barring the entrance to the semicircular driveway in
front of the home. On this evening, the gates located in front of the
driveway were open and the security system was off.
The men entered the home through the french doors
in the study. They walked down the hallway toward the family room,
located in the back of the house. The men entered the family room,
which was illuminated only by the light coming from the television
screen. Jose was dozing on the tan leather couch, sitting at the end
nearest the door leading to the hallway. Jose's legs were stretched
out in front of him; his feet were on the coffee table along with two
dishes that contained the remains of a berry and ice cream snack.
Kitty was lying under a blanket, her body stretched out across the
couch, her head in Jose's lap.
One of the men pointed his twelve-gauge Mossberg
shotgun at the couple and squeezed the trigger. Two shots were fired
at Jose; one shattered the glass and splintered the wood of the french
doors behind the couch where Jose was sitting. One pellet struck Jose
in the left elbow; another struck him in the right arm, followed by
another. The shots immobilized Jose. One of the killers walked behind
Jose and placed the shotgun against the back of his head and fired.
The shot blew off the back of Jose's head. Jose's lifeless body came
to rest on the couch, slumped slightly to the right. His hands rested
on his stomach and his feet on the floor.
After the first shots were fired at Jose, Kitty
became alert. She woke up to find herself spattered by Jose's blood
and body tissue. Kitty stood and began to turn away from her
attackers, taking a step or two before being shot in the right leg
near her calf and in her right arm. Kitty fell between the couch and
the coffee table. She struggled to stand again and tried to regain her
balance, but she slipped as she stepped into her own blood. She stood
long enough for her blood to flow vertically down her leg. She tried
desperately to walk away, but another shot was fired, which brought
her down. Now that she was on the floor, her killers fired
indiscriminately, riddling her body with shotgun pellets. Kitty was
hit in the left thigh from a range that was so close that the paper
wadding that contained the pellets caused her leg to break. She was
shot in the right arm, then the left breast, which perforated her left
lung. A quart of her blood flowed into her chest cavity. Kitty was not
dead. She continued to breathe and tried to crawl away from where she
was felled, but could not.
The killers were out of ammunition. They paused,
unsure of what to do next. They probably wondered if Kitty would be
able to identify them and tell the police who they were and what had
happened. They decided they could not take a chance on this happening
and ran to the car to get more ammunition. They reloaded their
shotguns with birdshot, instead of the ball-bearing sized pellets that
they had used before.
One of the killers ran back inside the house and
into the family room where Kitty lay dying. The killer leaned over the
coffee table and placed the shotgun against Kitty's left cheek and
fired. Kitty's body was shot ten times. He head had been struck four
times. Her skull was shattered.
The killer was not finished. He shot both Jose and
Kitty near the left knee. The final act the killers performed was to
carefully gather the shell casings from the spreading pools of blood
that now covered the couch, floor and rug under the coffee table.
This was the scenario that the police and medical
examiner pieced together about the murders of Jose and Kitty Menendez.
Years later, the killers would provide an entirely different account
of the murders.
Jose
Jose was born in 1944 to an upper-middle class
family in Havana, Cuba. His father was a well-known soccer player who
owned his own accounting firm. His mother was a swimmer who was
elected to Cuba's sports hall of fame. Jose had two older sisters,
Teresita, known as "Terry" and Marta. Although the family was not
rich, Jose's parents' accomplishments in sports guaranteed them an
honored place in Cuban society. Jose was five years younger than Terry
and was spoiled and adored by his mother.
During 1959 and 1960 Cuba was undergoing a
revolution. Fulgencio Batista was overthrown and Fidel Castro came to
power and made radical changes to both the economy and the social
welfare system of the country. Castro's government seized the property
of the upper and middle classes, turned farms into collectives and
canceled all leases and mortgages. The upper and middle classes lost
property, the lower classes faced higher prices and the government
grew more repressive, imprisoning or executing opponents of Castro.
In 1960, Jose Menendez was 16 years old. After
Castro came to power, Jose's parents saw that their lives in Cuba were
forever changed. The first step they made in their decision to leave
Cuba was to send their son to the United States. Jose flew to the
United States with Terry's fiancé and settled in Hazleton,
Pennsylvania, located between Scranton and Allentown. Jose arrived
penniless and did not speak or understand English but was determined
to succeed in his adopted country. Jose studied diligently in high
school and worked part-time to earn spending money. Due to financial
hardship, Jose was not able to achieve one of his dreams, which was to
attend an Ivy League college. He promised himself that someday, when
he had children, they would achieve his dream and graduate from an Ivy
League college. Jose won an athletic scholarship in swimming to
Southern Illinois University. Jose did not like Southern Illinois
University and is remembered by classmates as withdrawn and sullen.
Jose supported himself financially with his athletic scholarship, but
eventually walked away from athletics to concentrate on his studies.
There was one person who made Jose feel good. Her name was Kitty
Andersen.
Kitty
Kitty was born in 1941, the youngest of four
children of Charles and Mae Andersen. Her family lived in Oak Lawn, a
suburb south of Chicago. During her early childhood, Kitty's family
was solidly middle class. Her father owned a heating and
air-conditioning business that did well and her mother stayed at home
to care for Kitty and her two older brothers, Milt and Brian, and
Kitty's older sister, Joan.
Although the Andersen family appeared to be loving
and close, Kitty's father beat her mother, sometimes in front of their
children. Charles Andersen also beat his children. Before Kitty
entered grammar school, her father left her mother for another woman.
In order to support her family, Kitty's mother worked for United
Airlines at Midway Airport outside of Chicago. Kitty's parents
eventually divorced and this was the cause of life long emotional
scars for her. Throughout her childhood, Kitty was withdrawn and
depressed. She had difficulty forming friendships and did not have
many friends in grade or high school. Kitty's father remarried and
continued to live in Oak Lawn. Her mother never remarried and became
bitter and depressed by the divorce. Kitty grew up convinced that
divorce was the worst thing that could happen in a woman's life. Kitty
hated her father and did not have any contact with him for many years
after her parents' divorce.
In her senior year of high school, Kitty applied to
and was accepted by Southern Illinois University. In 1958, her
freshman year of college, Kitty began to work in the university's
broadcasting department where she learned to produce dramas for radio
and television. Kitty gained a great deal of confidence through her
participation in these activities. During her senior year in 1962,
Kitty had enough confidence to compete in and win the Miss Oak Lawn
beauty pageant sponsored by the VFW.
Kitty dreamed that after she graduated from
college, she would pursue a career in producing and directing
commercial radio and television programs in New York City.
Kitty and Jose met during Kitty's senior year and
Jose's freshman year. After only a short time, Kitty and Jose became
inseparable. To Jose, Kitty was attractive not only physically, but in
what she represented. Kitty was the daughter of a shopkeeper, the
offspring of the American merchant class. By winning Kitty, Jose was
establishing his claim to his new country. Jose fulfilled something
for Kitty too. Kitty felt that there was a depth to Jose that few
people understood or appreciated. She saw someone who was willing to
work hard and overcome hardships, not someone who was willing to slide
by on family connections or money, like her privileged classmates.
Jose told Kitty of his plan to make it big in the business world.
When Jose and Kitty were seen together around the
Southern Illinois campus, people would stop and stare. After all it
was the early 1960s, they lived in a small, conservative southern
Illinois town and people from different ethnic backgrounds did not
mix. The civil rights movement in America was centered in the South
and had yet to reach Carbondale. Kitty was three years older than Jose
was. Their ages and background differences did not seem to matter to
Kitty and Jose; they were determined to spend their lives together.
Jose and Kitty's relationship caused problems for
both of their families. Kitty's family was surprised that she would
choose a Cuban teenager as her future husband. Jose's family thought
that Kitty was beneath their social standing because her parents were
divorced. Jose's parents also thought that at age 19, Jose was too
young to marry. Around the time that Kitty graduated with a Bachelor
of Science degree in communications, Jose and Kitty eloped and were
secretly married in 1963.
After their marriage, Jose and Kitty moved to New
York City. Jose's parents had fled Cuba, his mother in 1961 and his
father a short time later. They had settled in New York City. Jose
gave up his athletic scholarship at Southern Illinois and transferred
to Queen's College, City University of New York, while Kitty found a
job teaching grade school. During the early years of her marriage,
Kitty's dreams of working in broadcasting began to fade and she
discarded her plans to obtain a master's degree, in order to support
Jose and his career.
Married Life
In 1967, Jose graduated from Queen's College with a
CPA degree. He went to work for Coopers & Lybrand, an international
accounting firm. Kitty continued to teach grade school.
In 1969, Jose was sent to Chicago to audit Lyon
Container, a client of Coopers & Lybrand. Jose so impressed the
management of Lyon Container that they asked him to come to work for
them as the company's controller. Jose was 25 years old. Jose, Kitty
and their infant son, Joseph Lyle, born on January 10, 1968, moved to
Hinsdale, Illinois. Kitty became a full time mother, while Jose worked
hard and turned Lyon Container into a profitable company.
In 1970, Jose was named president of Lyon
Container. The position did not last long because Jose and the
chairman of the board became involved in a fight over the direction of
the company.
In 1971, Jose went to work at Hertz, as an
executive in the car leasing division and the Menendez family moved
from Illinois to the East Coast and settled in New Jersey. Jose's
second son, Erik, was born on November 27, 1971. In 1973, Jose became
Hertz's chief financial officer. Jose rose through Hertz's ranks and
in 1979, when he was 35, became Hertz's worldwide general manager. At
Hertz, Jose earned a reputation for abusing subordinates. This
reputation would follow him for the remainder of his life. In 1980,
Jose's career ended at Hertz. Another man was brought in and made
president and Jose was reassigned to the entertainment division of
RCA, the company that owned Hertz.
In 1981, Jose was assigned to RCA's record
division, which was saddled with overpaid, aging recording stars. Jose
tried to turn the division around by signing the Eurythmics and
Jefferson Starship. At RCA, Jose's ethics came under scrutiny. An
example of Jose's questionable ethics was his practice of shipping
large quantities of albums to record stores in order to make sales
appear larger than they were. In 1986 alone, RCA was forced to honor
$25 million in returned albums. By 1985, at the age of 41, Jose had
risen to become the executive vice president and chief operating
officer for RCA Records' worldwide operations. However, as hard as he
tried, Jose was unable to turn RCA Records around.
From the beginning of their marriage, Kitty had
always given Jose the freedom he desired. As much as he promised her
that their marriage would be a partnership, in reality Jose made
decisions for both of them, often without consulting Kitty. During his
life, Jose acquired a number of mistresses. Jose's longest lasting
affair began in 1978 with a woman named Louise, who was a dark-haired,
self-confident businesswoman. Louise and Jose traveled together and
entertained as a couple in Louise's townhouse in Manhattan. Jose cared
deeply about Louise yet never gave any thought to leaving Kitty. He
also never considered ending his affair with Louise. Jose felt good
with Louise. She buoyed his ego. For some time Kitty was not aware of
Jose's indiscretions. Jose was able to sooth Kitty with false, yet
convincing claims of his faithfulness, but Kitty became suspicious of
his behavior.
In 1981, Kitty uncovered one of Jose's
relationships and walked out of their home for several days. Jose
managed to convince her to come home, more so for the brothers than
because he loved her, according to Jose's brother-in-law.
In 1986, at about the same time that Jose's career
at RCA was coming to an end, Kitty found out about Louise. Jose told
Kitty about Louise and his other affairs. This sent Kitty into a
depressive spiral and she talked about committing suicide.
Through contacts that Jose had made while at RCA,
he was able to find a position as the President of LIVE Entertainment
in California. LIVE was a video-distribution and duplication company
and was partially owned by Carolco, a movie-production company, best
known for producing the Rambo pictures. Jose jumped at the chance to
become involved in the film business and had no problem uprooting his
family and moving them from the East Coast to the West Coast. At the
time that Jose was brought in to run LIVE, it had posted a loss of $20
million for 1985. Jose saw another opportunity to turn a struggling
company around. Kitty wasn't so positive about the move. She had spent
the past 16 years building a life outside of her marriage. Kitty had
an established a network of friends who she cared about and who in
turn cared about her. Jose and Kitty had recently purchased a home in
Princeton, New Jersey, that Kitty considered her dream house.
Nevertheless, Jose decided that it would be in Kitty and Erik's best
interests to move to California with him. They settled in Calabasas,
an upper-middle class suburb in the northwestern part of the San
Fernando Valley. Lyle remained beyond in Princeton to attend college.
The Brothers
Jose dedicated himself to raising great sons who
would carry out his plans for the future and continue his legacy.
Because Jose had fought his way up the corporate ladder, he understood
that there was an easier and more refined way to reach the top and he
set about training his sons to reach that peak. When the brothers were
young, Jose had rules for everything: what they could eat, who they
could spend time with, and what they read and thought about. Every
hour of every day was to be accounted for. Jose and Kitty did not take
in to account that they were dealing with young children, nor did they
consider that their children could be flawed or that they themselves
might be flawed. Jose's greatest flaw was his viciousness that
probably grew out of his insecurity about his ethnicity. Jose relished
humiliating Anglo colleagues who made mistakes, yet at the same time
he sought acceptance from them through his efforts to transform
himself into an American. He encouraged business colleagues to call
him "Joe," rather than Jose.
The pressures of meeting Jose's demands appeared
early on Lyle and Erik. Both brothers developed stutters, stomach
pains and had a habit of grinding their teeth. Both brothers also
developed nasty tempers.
As they grew older, the brothers were drawn to each
other for companionship and solidarity in order to face their father's
control. Erik grew up worshiping Lyle. Erik often told his friends how
much he admired his brother. Erik's friends couldn't understand why.
They thought Lyle was serious trouble. Erik's worship of Lyle probably
came from the fact that Jose was so remote that his younger son did
not feel he could approach him. Lyle was approachable, while Jose was
an overwhelming presence.
The brothers' friends would comment that Lyle and
Erik were extremely close, but that their personalities were very
different. Lyle was described as aloof and witty, while Erik was
described as sensitive and quiet. Lyle was also described as having
the stronger personality.
Beginning when the brothers were in grade school,
Jose posed questions about current events at the dinner table.
Occasionally Erik was allowed to answer but most of the questions fell
on Lyle to answer. As the brothers grew older, the questions became
more complex. Jose decided that each brother should select one sport
to excel in. Jose encouraged the brothers to pick a sport that did not
require them to be members of a team. He felt that teamwork challenged
his authority and called into question the way he was raising his
sons. By the time Lyle was twelve and Erik was nine, they had selected
tennis.
In 1979, the family was living in Pennington,
outside of Princeton, New Jersey. Lyle and Erik attended the Princeton
Day School, a private school. At the Princeton Day School both
brothers were considered average students. Lyle developed problems
academically when he was in the sixth grade. His teacher found that he
was not well prepared and did not have the ability to concentrate.
Teachers at the Princeton Day School felt that both Lyle and Erik had
learning problems, but Jose would not accept that his sons had flaws.
The teachers noticed that the homework the brothers turned in was far
better than the work completed in class. Teachers also noticed that
the brothers were immature compared to their classmates. At the age of
14, Lyle still wet his bed and played with stuffed animals.
There were other signs that Lyle and Erik were
headed for serious trouble. In 1982, when Erik and Lyle were about
twelve and fifteen, their cousin Diane Vander Molen stayed with the
Menendez family for the summer. One night, the three cousins began to
playfully wrestle. Suddenly and without warning, Lyle and Erik began
to undress Diane. Without saying a word, the brothers tied her up and
stripped off her shirt. Diane screamed and the brothers retreated from
their attack. The brothers had attacked her like a pack of dogs, with
no warning. As suddenly as the attack had begun, it ended. Around the
same time, Diane experienced another attack. This time, she and Lyle
were watching television. Without warning, Lyle struck. He climbed on
top of her and began to fondle her breasts. Like the attack that came
earlier, she had not enticed Lyle and the attack ceased as soon as she
was able free herself.
Lyle
Lyle's first romance came when he was fifteen. His
relationship with his girlfriend, Stacey Feldman, was as innocent and
chaste, as the previous attacks on his cousin Diane had been perverse
and sexual. Stacey managed the men's varsity tennis team at the
Princeton Day School and Lyle was the number one-ranked player on the
team. Their first date was to see Raiders of the Lost Ark. Lyle was a
huge movie fan and going to the movies was, perhaps, the only
experience that Lyle was able to enjoy for himself without having it
filtered through his parents. Lyle seemed to have grown up completely
believing to be true what he saw on the movie screen. He never seemed
to be able to distinguish between fact and fiction.
Stacey and Lyle fell in love. They walked around
Princeton Day hand in hand which was against the rules. Teachers and
administrators let this infraction pass because they felt that Stacey
and Lyle were awkward kids who needed each other. At the end of the
school year, Lyle and Stacey were voted "most married" by their
classmates.
Lyle and Stacey talked about getting married and
having children. Lyle lavished jewelry and other gifts on Stacey.
Stacey ended the relationship when she went off to college, realizing
that she wanted to experience more of life and that she was too young
to get married. Lyle was hurt by Stacey's rejection and tried to win
her back by promising to buy her a fur coat. Stacey was not interested
and Lyle moved on.
Jose dreamed that Lyle would attend an Ivy League
college. Lyle, who was not a good student, told his friends that he
wanted to skip college and open a restaurant with his father's
financial backing. Jose would not entertain thoughts of anything less
than an Ivy League education for Lyle.
When Lyle initially applied to Princeton in 1986,
he was rejected. He enrolled in a local community college and
submitted another application to Princeton for the 1987 school year.
While Lyle waited to hear from Princeton, he met and began to date
Jaime Pisarcik, a waitress at a local Princeton restaurant. Jaime was
also a tennis player and five years older than Lyle was. Kitty and
Jose did not like Jaime because they felt that Jaime was dating Lyle
because he was the son of wealthy parents.
Lyle was accepted to Princeton in 1987, more on the
strength of his ethnicity and ability to play tennis, than on his
standardized test scores and high school grades that were just
average.
During the summer of 1987, Lyle and Jaime announced
that they were engaged. This announcement angered Jose. At 19, Jose
felt that Lyle was too young to be married. Shortly before Lyle was to
begin at Princeton, Jaime moved to Alabama to teach tennis. Lyle
followed her. Jose was upset by this and secretly arranged to sponsor
Jaime on a European tennis tour. Jose thought that once Jaime was out
of the picture, Lyle could concentrate on Princeton without any
distractions. Jose was wrong. Lyle followed Jaime to Europe.
Final admission to Princeton is contingent on each
admitted freshman signing a letter promising to obey the honor code.
The honor code has been in place at Princeton since 1893. Lyle signed
it probably thinking that any trouble he got himself into could be
handled using the ways Jose had taught him: lie, cheat, steal, but
don't get caught.
During his first semester at Princeton, Lyle was
accused of plagiarism. Specifically, Lyle was required to complete a
laboratory assignment in his Psychology 101 class, a freshman level
course. Lyle was accused of copying a lab partner's homework
assignment and turning the assignment in as his own work. When Lyle
realized how much trouble he was in; he asked Brendan Scott, a priest
and doctoral student, to assist him with his defense. Lyle told
Brendan that he had missed a number of previous assignments in class
and, because of this, could not afford to miss another.
During this time, Lyle was traveling back and forth
on weekends to California to visit his family. During the weekend
before this psychology lab was due, Lyle had traveled to California
and lost his notebook with his notes in the airport. Lyle asked his
lab partner if he could look at his assignment. The assignment that
Lyle handed in resembled Lyle's lab partner's so closely that the
instructor singled it out and brought it to the attention of campus
authorities.
Jose found out about the plagiarism accusation from
his sister, Terry, in whom Lyle had confided. At first, Jose did not
think there would be any serious consequences for Lyle. Jose sent Lyle
a statement to read about ethics before the disciplinary committee.
Lyle, as usual, when he was in trouble, tried to cover himself in
Jose's protective cloak. Both Jose and Lyle underestimated the trouble
that Lyle was in. After a four-hour hearing, the disciplinary
committee deliberated for one hour and found Lyle guilty of plagiarism
and suspended him for one year.
After learning of the outcome, Jose flew
immediately to Princeton for a meeting with Princeton's president. At
the meeting, Jose argued that the punishment was unduly harsh and did
not fit the crime. Jose argued that this was just one homework
assignment and not a large part of Lyle's grade for the class. The
president was unmoved and informed Lyle that could return to Princeton
in 1988 in good standing.
Lyle had come face to face with the heart of
Princeton and failed Princeton's test. Lyle hated school and rarely
participated in campus activities. He was so devoted to winning and
being first that he had a difficult time just being one of many
struggling students competing at an Ivy League college. Although Lyle
was humiliated and wanted to transfer to UCLA, or the University of
Pennsylvania, Jose would not hear of it.
During the year that Lyle was out of school, Jose
made sure that he was kept busy. Jose was concerned that he was giving
his sons too many advantages and creating rich spoiled brats. Jose put
Lyle to work at LIVE. Lyle was responsible for reviewing expense
reports and looking for ways to improve efficiency and reduce costs.
Lyle was treated like any other employee and had to make an
appointment to see Jose.
Even though Lyle's employment at LIVE was brief, it
left a deep and lasting impression on him. Lyle saw how the atmosphere
in the office grew tense when Jose was around and how Jose berated
employees in front of other employees. Lyle told his friends that he
was resented at LIVE because he was the boss's son. The fact was that
Lyle was resented at LIVE, not because he was the boss's son, but
because of his lack of effort.
Lyle was remembered by those at LIVE as showing up
late and unapologetic for work, ignoring orders, not paying attention
and skipping work entirely on warm days to play tennis. "Nasty,
arrogant, and self-centered," was the way some co-workers described
Lyle. Finally one of Jose's associates went to him and complained
about Lyle. Jose asked the associate what he would do if Lyle was not
the boss's son and the associate said fire him, so Lyle was fired.
When Lyle returned to Princeton in the fall of
1988, he continued his relationship with Jaime Pisarcik. Lyle's return
to Princeton began badly when he discovered that he was assigned a
roommate. Lyle wanted a single. According to the hall's student
advisor, when Lyle saw the belongings of the other student in the
room, he threw them in the hall.
The student advisor said that Lyle had an "I'll do
what I want, when I want to" attitude. Jose came to Lyle's defense. He
wrote a letter to Princeton requesting a single for Lyle. Lyle was
given a single and like the previous year, did not participate in any
campus activities. The only outside activity that Lyle seemed to show
any interest in was cultivating friendships with a group of students
who were also jocks.
In February 1989, Jaime introduced Lyle to Donovan
Goodreau. Donovan came to Princeton after spending two years at a
junior college in Northern California. He had always wanted to travel
and made his way across the country, winding up in Princeton because
he was attracted to the school's reputation and the large number of
people his own age. Donovan was trying to sort out his future plans.
Lyle and Donovan found they had a lot in common and Donovan soon
became Lyle's best friend. Kitty and Jose were glad to have Donovan
around because now that were living in California, they could no
longer complete Lyle's homework for him. Donovan was willing to write
Lyle's papers for him, in an effort to keep Lyle from failing.
During the spring of 1989, Lyle began to date a
model named Christy. Christy was 30 years old, nine years older than
Lyle was. This relationship upset both Jose and Kitty. There was
another issue that upset Jose even more and that was Lyle's continued
desire to transfer to UCLA. Lyle was tired of Princeton, but Jose
would not entertain any thoughts of Lyle transferring to another
school.
After Lyle returned from spring break, Donovan was
accused of stealing from students in Lyle's dorm. Rather than defend
Donovan, who insisted he was innocent of the thefts, Lyle confronted
him with two of his friends. Donovan was forced to leave Princeton. In
his haste to leave Lyle's dorm room, Donovan forgot to pack his wallet
that contained his driver's license, Social Security card and other
identification.
Erik
Erik grew up emulating his older brother and for a
time lived in the shadow of Lyle, especially at the Princeton Day
School. It seemed that neither brother fit in at school. They were
both considered mysterious loners, who laughed only at their own
private jokes. They did not join in or play with other children.
Erik's schoolwork, like Lyle's, was average. Throughout grade and high
school, Kitty completed much of Erik's homework for him. Erik learned
early in life that Jose was grooming Lyle to become the future leader
of the family. He grew up sad and withdrawn.
When Jose, Kitty and Erik moved to California in
1986, Erik was a sophomore in high school. Erik enrolled at Calabasas
High School. Away from his brother and the comparisons that were often
made between them at the Princeton Day School, Erik found his own
identity. Erik made friends with a group of boys who were like him,
cocky, loud and with a rebellious streak.
Kitty had been worried about Erik's sexual
orientation for some time. Kitty believed that Erik was homosexual.
When they moved to Calabasas, Kitty gave Erik an order to find a
girlfriend in six months. Erik found an older girl at Calabasas High,
but their relationship was short lived. At a party, Erik and the girl
argued and Erik locked the girl in a room. He would not let her leave.
She screamed and yelled, but Erik would not let her out. Finally, Erik
let the girl go. The girl had enough of Erik. Later she recalled that
he was "one of the oddest guys I've ever met." "He's very arrogant,
very confident, but deep down he's got a lot of problems and
insecurities."
Erik later had another girlfriend, Janice, whom
Kitty and Jose both liked. Unlike Lyle's girlfriends whom Kitty found
cheap, Kitty thought highly of Janice. Perhaps Erik's most important
relationship at Calabasas High was with Craig Cignarelli. Craig was
the captain of the tennis team and Erik was the number one-ranked
player on the team.
Craig and Erik spent a great deal of time together
and wrote a third rate screenplay entitled Friends. The script was a
sixty-two-page thriller about a son from a wealthy family who reads
his parents' will and learns that upon their deaths, he will inherit
$157 million. The son murders everyone to get his hands on his
parents' money before being killed.
In July 1988, Erik and Lyle began breaking into
homes in Calabasas. The brothers burglarized the homes owned by
parents of their friends and were surprised by the large amounts of
cash and jewelry that they were able to steal. The brothers had found
an easy source of spending money, rather than having to ask Jose for a
hand out, or listen Jose lecture about hard work.
The amount of money and jewelry that Lyle and Erik
stole was estimated to be more than $100,000, large enough to be
classified as a felony offense called grand theft burglary. The Los
Angeles County sheriff's detective who investigated the burglaries
received a break in the case after Erik was stopped for a driving
violation in Calabasas and stolen property was found in his car trunk.
Later the detective discovered that a safe in one of the homes that
the brothers had burglarized was found in another home burglarized by
the brothers. It appeared that the thieves had developed a guilty
conscience and returned a safe they had stolen to the wrong home.
Jose was furious about the burglaries. Jose did not
want his sons to spend any time in jail and hired Gerald Chaleff, a
well-respected criminal defense attorney to represent them. Chaleff
was able to work out an agreement with the Los Angeles County district
attorney's office that would absolve Lyle of any participation in the
burglaries, if Erik took responsibility for all the crimes.
Erik was a juvenile and had no previous record.
Chaleff was able to convince a judge to sentence Erik to community
service with the homeless and for the brothers to undergo
psychological counseling. Jose wrote a check for $11,000 to the
victims to cover items that had been stolen by the brothers, but that
had disappeared and could not be returned.
The burglaries were the talk of Calabasas. It
seemed that neighbors of the Menendez family were uncomfortable
knowing that Lyle and Erik were free and not the least bit remorseful.
Jose blamed Erik's friends, instead of Erik for the burglaries, just
as he had blamed Princeton for Lyle's plagiarism rather than Lyle.
Jose probably had a difficult time understanding the brothers'
behavior and why Lyle and Erik had victimized friends, people they
supposedly valued.
Jose began to complain about living in Calabasas.
He told people at LIVE that the family was receiving harassing
telephone calls and that his tires had been slashed. It may have all
been talk and a way of Jose saving face. He told associates that he
felt that he and his family would be safer living in Beverly Hills.
These were not the only burglaries that the police
were able to pin on the Menendez brothers. In April 1988, two
burglaries took place at the New Jersey office of the Sierra Club and
the office of the Princeton Friends of Open Spaces. In these
burglaries, office equipment was stolen with a value of approximately
$1,100. The offices were housed in the same property that the Menendez
family owned just before they moved to California and the house in
which Lyle had lived in before entering Princeton. Jose and Kitty had
sold the house in November 1987. The police were left with few clues
as to who committed the burglaries. In both burglaries, the burglar
had entered the home through a second floor bathroom.
The police were finally able to connect Lyle to the
burglaries after a confidential police informant came forward. The
informant told the police that one day during the summer of 1988, he
had been riding to the beach with the Menendez brothers when Lyle
played a cassette tape. The tape was a recording of voices talking.
There was also background noise. Lyle bragged to the police informant
that they were listening to a tape recording of a burglary that Lyle
committed at his old house in Princeton. Lyle was never charged with
these burglaries. By the time the police were able to connect Lyle to
these crimes, he was already in jail on more serious charges.
The Summer of 1989
Jose was doing well at LIVE. His contract had
recently been renegotiated and extended until December 31, 1991. In
recognition of Jose's importance to LIVE, the company invested in a
"key man" life insurance policy that would guarantee that if Jose
died, the company could continue operating without worrying about
going under. The policy was valued at $15 million. LIVE also purchased
a "key man" personal policy for Jose's family that was valued at $5
million. Jose was to name a beneficiary as soon as he took a routine
physical examination. It was expected that Jose would name Kitty as
the beneficiary, which was customary under California community
property laws.
As spring turned into summer, Lyle was facing
several major problems. Lyle's girlfriend Christy told him that she
was pregnant. Jose found out and went to see her. According to Lyle,
Jose intimidated her into having an abortion. Kitty later told one of
her friends that Jose paid Christy $100,000. After paying Christy off,
Jose and Kitty demanded that Lyle give her up for good.
Lyle's spring semester report card from Princeton
was terrible. His grades were dismal and included one F. Lyle was on
academic probation despite Donovan's assistance with his papers and
assignments. According to Carlos Baralt, Jose's brother-in-law, Jose
tried to adjust his expectations to meet Lyle's academic performance
and tried not to put too much pressure on Lyle; all he wanted Lyle to
do was pass his classes.
Academic probation was not the only problem Lyle
was having at Princeton. Shortly after he came home, Jose and Kitty
were notified by mail that Princeton was placing Lyle on disciplinary
probation after some pool tables in his residence hall were damaged
during a party he had thrown. Lyle tried to place the blame for his
being placed on disciplinary probation on his friends. This wasn't the
end of Lyle's problems. His New Jersey driver's license was suspended.
Lyle had also caused the family's privileges at their country club in
Princeton to be suspended. He and Donovan took a nighttime golf cart
ride across the club's greens that caused a large amount of damage.
Jose made full restitution to the country club.
Jose and Kitty could not understand what was wrong
with their sons. There were so many problems with Lyle and Erik. Jose
was losing his patience and was less and less willing to be persuaded
by Lyle's rationalizations. Jose and Kitty were so desperate to drive
home to their sons how serious their circumstances were that they used
the only thing that they thought would get through to them, they
threatened to rewrite their wills and leave the brothers out
completely.
Jose's first will had been written in 1980 before
he had amassed his wealth. The will stated that if Jose and Kitty died
in a common disaster, Lyle and Erik would receive the entire estate.
After graduating from Beverly Hills High School,
Erik competed in a number of tennis tournaments during the summer. He
initially played well and he won his first round matches; however, he
lost in the second round each time.
In August, Erik returned to Beverly Hills and
waited to begin college at UCLA. Erik had also been accepted at UC
Berkeley but chose to attend UCLA because it had a better tennis team.
In order to encourage Lyle to exert more effort in
school, Jose purchased a condominium outside of Princeton for him. The
condo had two bedroom suites and would be perfect when Kitty and Jose
came to visit. They could stay in one of the bedrooms without
intruding on Lyle. Lyle asked Kitty to decorate the condo for him.
As the summer came to an end, tensions in the house
seemed to escalate. Kitty began to lock the door to her bedroom at
night and she kept two twenty-two rifles in her closet. She would not
allow Lyle and Erik to have keys to the house. When the brothers came
home at night, Kitty would let them into the house, even if she had to
be awakened from sleep. It was apparent that something was frightening
Kitty. Her fears were probably exacerbated by something the brothers'
psychotherapist, Jerome Oriel, told Kitty.
Kitty's psychiatrist had recommended Jerome Oziel
when Erik and Lyle were ordered to undergo psychological counseling
for the Calabasas burglaries. Shortly after Erik started treatment
with Oziel, he gave permission to Oziel to discuss the contents of his
sessions with Jose and Kitty. Kitty's fears may have been brought on
by something she learned from Oziel. On July 19, 1989, Kitty went to
her therapist and told him that she feared her sons were sociopaths, a
psychiatric term used to describe a person who lacks a conscience.
Kitty's therapist made notes of the session that indicated that Kitty
was concerned that her sons were "narcissistic, lacked consciences and
exhibited signs that they were sociopaths."
On August 19, 1989, the Menendez family chartered a
boat from Marina del Rey and went shark fishing. According to the crew
of the boat, they did not seem to be much of a family. Jose stayed in
the back of the boat and fished, while Kitty went below and stayed in
the boat's cabin because she was seasick. The brothers stayed to
themselves at the bow of the boat.
The Crime
At 11:47 p.m. on August 20, 1989 a 911 call was
received at the Beverly Hills Police Department. The department runs a
tape recorder continuously in order to record every call received by
the 911 emergency department.
Dispatcher: Beverly Hills emergency.
Lyle Menendez: Yes, police, uh...
Dispatcher: What's the problem?
Lyle: We're the sons (caller begins to sob)...
Dispatcher: What's the problem? What's the problem?
Lyle: (Still crying) They shot and killed my
parents!
Dispatcher: What? Who? Are they still there?
Lyle: Yes.
Dispatcher: The people who...
Lyle: No, no.
Dispatcher: They were shot?
Lyle: Erik, man, don't.
Dispatcher: (Talking over the background sounds of
screams and Lyle shouting, "Erik, shut up!") I have a hysterical
person on the phone. Is the person still there?
Second Dispatcher: What happened? Have you been
able to figure out what happened?
Lyle: I don't know.
Second Dispatcher: You came home and found who
shot?
Lyle: My mom and dad.
First Dispatcher: Are they still in the house, the
people who did the shooting?
Lyle: (Screaming) Erik! Get away from them!
Second Dispatcher: Who is the person who is shot?
Lyle: My mom and dad!
The call was only two and one-half minutes in
length. A minute or so later, Michael Butkus, a Beverly Hills police
officer, and his partner, John Czarnocki, arrived at 722 Elm Drive.
After walking around the outside of the mansion for several minutes
the police officers heard screaming and watched as two men ran out of
the front door, side by side, almost in step. The men ran past the
officers and through the gate in front of the driveway and fell to
their knees on the grass between the sidewalk and street. Over and
over again they shouted, "Oh my God, I can't believe it!" The two cops
tried to get information out of the men, but the younger one was
irrational, running around and trying to ram his head into a tree. The
older one was trying to restrain and calm the younger one.
Shortly after Butkus and Czarnocki discovered the
bodies of Jose and Kitty Menendez, Detective Les Zoeller received a
call at home from Marvin Iannone, the Chief of the Beverly Hills
Police Department, informing him that he was being appointed to head
the investigation of the Menendez murders. Zoeller was 38, but looked
younger and was considered to be the Beverly Hills Police Department's
top investigator.
Until the Menendez murders, Zoeller's most
challenging case had been the "Billionaire Boys Club" (BBC)
investigation. The BBC was an investment fraternity and social club
dreamed up by Joe Hunt. The BBC was set up to bring its members, young
men from affluent backgrounds, wealth through stock and commodity
market speculation. The BBC failed, but not before ringing up $900,000
in losses and spawning at least two murders. Zoeller made the case
against Joe Hunt, who was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in
prison without parole. A second BBC member, Reza Eslaminia, was
convicted of murdering his father and also sentenced to life in
prison.
When Zoeller arrived at the Elm Drive mansion, he
noticed that nothing had been stolen from the mansion. Although the
family room where the murders were committed was messy, it appeared
that the clutter was not the result of a room that had been turned
upside in a robbery. It appeared as thought the victims were
acquainted with their killers and Zoeller noticed that there was no
forced entry into the home.
Lyle and Erik were taken to the police department
for questioning. The police did not consider them suspects and wanted
to see if the brothers knew anything about the crime. Sergeant Thomas
Edmonds, the police detective supervisor, questioned the brothers.
During the questioning, Erik became distraught. He began to sob and
was unable to sit still. Lyle was under control and answered questions
methodically. After twenty minutes, the questioning ceased because
Erik broke down uncontrollably.
The brothers provided the police with a chronology
of how they spent August 20, 1989.
They described how they had played tennis in the
morning on the tennis court behind the house, watched part of a tennis
match on television and spent the afternoon shopping at the Beverly
Center, a local shopping mall. Around 5:00 p.m. they made plans to get
together with a friend at "Taste of LA," a local food festival in
Santa Monica. The brothers said they left home around 8:00 p.m., to go
to Westwood Village to see License to Kill, the new James Bond film,
but the lines were too long, so they went to the Century City mall to
see Batman. After Batman, the brothers drove to Santa Monica, but got
lost on the way and missed their friend. From a pay phone, the
brothers called their friend, Perry Berman. Berman and the brothers
made plans to meet at the Cheesecake Factory in Beverly Hills. After
they called Berman, the brothers drove home to get Erik's fake ID so
Erik could buy alcoholic drinks.
The brothers told the police that when they
returned home, they noticed smoke in the house, especially in the
family room. This seemed odd to Zoeller because Butkus and Czarnocki
had not seen anything like that. Lyle told Edmonds about his mother's
nervous mood and her locking doors. Lyle said that his mother was on
the verge of contemplating suicide and that she "was very edgy and
suicidal in the last few years." Lyle didn't explain that Kitty had
emotional problems for many years and that she had made a half-hearted
suicide attempt two years earlier using prescription drugs. Edmunds
asked Lyle who hated his parents enough to want to kill them. Edmunds
was surprised when Lyle answered "maybe the mob."
Because the brothers were not suspected of killing
their parents, the police did not administer gunshot-residue tests.
These tests can determine whether a person has recently fired a
weapon. In Beverly Hills, detectives are trained to perform these
tests by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's department. It is left up to
the discretion of the Beverly Hills detective assigned to a particular
case to determine whether to administer the test or not.
Three days after Jose and Kitty Menendez were
murdered, Dr. Irwin Golden of the Los Angeles County Coroner's office
conducted their autopsies. Jose's autopsy took place first. The first
wound that Dr. Golden examined was the shotgun wound to Jose's head.
Golden described the wound as a "gaping laceration," that was five
inches by four inches, large enough for an adult to thrust his fist
through the wound. The brain had been pulverized. There was also a
"deformity of the face" caused by multiple fractures of the facial and
jawbones. Soot was also found in the wound, indicating that when the
fatal shot was fired, the gun had literally been placed against the
back of Jose's head.
The remainder of Jose's wounds would not have been
immediately fatal, although all resulted in much loss of blood. There
were two shots to the right arm, one below the shoulder that fractured
the humerus and the other to the right forearm. There was a shot to
the left elbow. The trajectory of the shot was from back to front,
indicating that this shot could have been one of the first shots fired
at Jose as the killer walked around to the front of the couch to face
him. Jose was shot in the lower left knee, creating a three-inch wound
that fractured left femur. Golden discovered that there was bleeding
into Jose's body tissues along all of the wound paths. This meant that
Jose's heart had been pumping blood and that the wound at the back of
his head, which investigators initially thought was the first shot
fired at Jose, was not. Golden said he could not determine the order
of the shots fired at Jose.
Kitty's autopsy revealed that she had been shot in
the left cheek which caused a one-inch hole in her face that had
fractured her upper jaw and dislodged four of her upper teeth. There
were additional wounds to Kitty's skull, fractures to her lower jaw,
and pellet wounds to her tongue. A shot had also lacerated her brain.
Dr. Golden found birdshot in Kitty's wounds which
confirmed the investigator's suspicions that Kitty's killers had
reloaded their weapons. None of Jose's wounds contained birdshot.
Kitty had three wounds to her face. The most damaging was four inches
and extended from Kitty's right cheek across her nose to her left
cheek.
Golden also discovered that Kitty's right thumb was
almost severed. Investigators theorized that Kitty had extended her
hand to block the shotgun blast that caused the four-inch wound in her
face as a last effort at self-preservation.
The only problem with this theory was that the
wound to Kitty's hand was on the palm side, not the back of her hand.
Most people extend their hands palms out when attempting to defend
themselves. Kitty's wound indicated she extended either her blocking
hand in a strange position, or she did not want to see who was
shooting at her. Kitty also had shotgun wounds to her right forearm
and left breast and three wounds to her left leg.
The final wound was to her left knee. The shot was
from front to back and that was odd because it came from a different
angle than the other shots fired at her leg. Investigators theorized
that this might have been the last shot fired at Kitty and an attempt
to make the murder appear to be a mob hit.
Lives of Luxury
Lyle and Erik staged an elaborate memorial service
for Jose and Kitty on August 25, 1989 at the Directors Guild of
America in Los Angeles. Lyle and Erik arrived one hour late. Erik
looked uncomfortable, and his face was red and swollen. Lyle appeared
calm and cool. To Lyle, this event marked his arrival in the business
world. Up to this moment, the world had known Lyle through Jose's
bragging of his accomplishments on the tennis court and his admission
to Princeton. Lyle wanted to prove that he was ready to take his place
as the head of the Menendez family and he was determined to assert
himself as Jose's legitimate replacement.
On August 28, 1989, a traditional church service
was held at the university chapel in Princeton. Brendan Scott
conducted the service. Scott was the faculty fellow who two years
earlier had unsuccessfully assisted Lyle when he was charged with
plagiarism. At the service, Lyle spoke for thirty minutes and recalled
how much Jose and Kitty had meant to him. Erik was too upset to speak.
Their parents' murders affected Lyle and Erik
differently. Erik was unsure whether to begin attending UCLA or devote
himself to tennis. Lyle seemed more focused. He decided against
continuing with his college education and began to plan for a career
in business.
Four days after the murders, the brothers began a
spending spree. The brothers shopping sprees were funded by Jose's
personal life insurance policy of $650,000. The brothers spent money
on new cars, designer label clothes and jewelry. Three days after the
murders, the brothers spent $15,000 on Rolex watches and money clips.
The bulk of the estate's assets were a house on
fourteen acres in Calabasas that Jose and Kitty had purchased, but
never lived in, and the Beverly Hills mansion. When the loans on both
properties were deducted, the value of Jose's real estate was $5.7
million. At the time of his death, Jose owned 330,000 shares of LIVE
Entertainment that had been trading around at $20 per share. Added to
all of this were Jose and Kitty's personal property and automobiles.
The estate Jose and Kitty left was valued at $14 million, Lyle and
Erik would each inherit about $2 million after loans and taxes were
subtracted.
$2 million is not a small inheritance, but it fell
far short of Lyle and Erik's expectations. A friend of Erik's said
that the brothers had expected to inherit $90 million. The brothers
were convinced that Jose had hidden $75 million in a secret Swiss bank
account. Neither brother could explain how Jose could have amassed
that type of fortune. According to Erik's friend, it just seemed
reasonable to Lyle and Erik that Jose would have accumulated far more
than $14 million.
About a week after the murders, Lyle and Erik met
with executives at LIVE Entertainment to discuss any assets the
brothers might receive from the company. The brothers were surprised
to learn that the $5 million "key man" life insurance policy that LIVE
had purchased for Jose was not valid because Jose had failed to take
the physical examination required by the insurance company. The $15
million "key man" policy that LIVE held in the event of Jose's death
was in effect and would give the company its most profitable quarter
since the company's inception.
The brothers decided that they could not stay in
the Beverly Hills mansion. The brothers told their friends that they
moved from hotel to hotel because they feared that the same mobsters
who murdered their parents would come after them. Immediately after
the murders, LIVE paid an $8,800 bill at the Bel Air Hotel that the
brothers ran up. $2,000 of the bill was for room service for the
five-day stay. LIVE also paid for limousine rides and bodyguards for
the brothers.
After living at various luxury hotels in Beverly
Hills, the brothers rented adjoining apartments in the Marina City
Towers in Marina del Rey. Lyle's apartment rented for $2,150 per month
and Erik's apartment rented for $2,450 per month. The brothers saw a
penthouse in one of the towers that they liked for $990,000 and put a
down payment on it, but the financing fell through and they were
unable to purchase it.
Lyle hired bodyguards to travel with him for
several weeks after the murders. Lyle's bodyguards were alarmed when
Lyle would jump out of the limousine before it came to a complete stop
to shop and spend money. On one occasion, the bodyguards watched as he
purchased $24,000 in stereo equipment. On September 4, Lyle told the
bodyguards he no longer needed their services because his uncle had
contacted someone in the mob and arranged some type of deal. Lyle
didn't explain how his uncle, a middle-aged business man from a New
Jersey suburb, would go about contacting the mob, or how his uncle
managed to remove a sentence of death from his nephews' heads.
The brothers' shopping sprees continued. Lyle
decided that he had to have a new car. The red Alfa Romeo that his
parents had purchased for him as a high school graduation present and
that he never liked had to go. The Alfa was replaced by a much more
expensive gunmetal gray Porsche 911 Carrera that cost $64,000. Erik
traded in his Ford Escort for a Jeep Wrangler.
By October 1989, Lyle had charged more than $90,000
to Jose's American Express card. He would travel frequently between
New Jersey and California on the MGM Grand, an airline that catered to
business people with expense accounts, while he was busy trying to
establish Menendez Investment Enterprises.
Lyle gathered his friends from Princeton together
and made them officers of Menendez Investment Enterprises. He rented
an office for $3,000 a month in a Princeton shopping mall and
furnished it with expensive furniture. Menendez Investment Enterprises
never moved into the suite. The office sat unused and served as a
testament to Lyle's ability to create the proper setting.
The friends that Lyle asked to join him were
Princeton athletes, some of whom, like Lyle, had run into trouble with
campus authorities. It was not difficult to see why Menendez
Investment Enterprises never got off the ground; all the members were
young, inexperienced in business and strangely had only known Lyle for
several months. None of the members had any business skills. It seemed
as if Lyle played at running a business. He dressed and acted the
part, but there was little, if any substance, to anything Lyle did.
Lyle's long time dream was to own a restaurant. He
tried to buy Teresa's Pizza; a takeout pizzeria located across from
Princeton's front gate but Lyle offended the co-owner and he wouldn't
sell. Lyle decided to buy Chuck's Spring Street Café, a snack shop in
Princeton that specialized in spicy chicken wings. Lyle paid $550,000
for Chuck's which the co-owner of Teresa's Pizza thought was
"ridiculous" because it was only worth about "$200,000."
Many people thought Lyle was in over his head, but
his uncles authorized the sale and took out a loan against the estate
to finance the deal. Lyle's uncles hoped that the restaurant would
bring some focus to Lyle's chaotic life. Lyle immediately went to work
on Chuck's. He expanded the home delivery hours from 12:00 p.m. to
1:00 a.m. and changed the name of the restaurant to Mr. Buffalo's.
Merchants in Princeton thought this was crazy since Chuck's had name
recognition that was built up over many years.
After purchasing Chuck's, Lyle announced he wanted
to open a second location in a nearby Princeton mall. He was also
thinking of opening locations near UCLA and another in New Brunswick,
New Jersey, near Rutgers University. Eventually, he wanted to open a
new Mr. Buffalo's every two months. Lyle was way ahead of himself.
Chuck's/Mr. Buffalo's was losing money because Lyle allowed his
friends to freeload off of him.
Erik also was taken advantage of when he tried to
sponsor a rock concert at the Palladium in Los Angeles. Erik gave
$40,000 to a partner as his half of the payment needed for the
concert. The partner disappeared along with Erik's money. Erik decided
he wasn't cut out for the business world or for college and would try
the professional tennis tour. He hired a private tennis coach for
$60,000 a year. Erik and the coach began to travel extensively,
staying at expensive hotels and spending whatever Erik thought he
needed to sharpen his game.
The Investigation
Detective Les Zoeller and his partner, Detective
Tim Linehan, had the difficult job of trying to solve the Menendez
murders. They were confronted with many suspects and a number of
theories about who may have committed the murders. Jose had his share
of enemies and the detectives were hearing horror stories about Jose's
behavior from almost everyone that they interviewed.
Zoeller interviewed Jose and Kitty's friends from
Calabasas, Peter and Karen Wiere. Zoeller asked Peter Wiere what his
first impression of the case was and Wiere said, "I have no basis for
this, but I wonder if the boys did it." Zoeller was surprised at this.
He asked Wiere to elaborate and Wiere said that Lyle and Erik always
seemed to be too good to be true. The brothers seemed too polite, too
deferential to adults and to Wiere, something seemed to be off.
Zoeller and the rest of the Beverly Hills
investigators watched as the brothers threw money around. Kitty and
Jose were murdered on August 20, 1989 and by the end of the year, Lyle
and Erik had spent more than a million dollars. The police now
suspected that the brothers were behind the murders.
Besides the spending sprees, the police were
suspicious of the brothers because they had called a computer expert
on August 31, 1989 to erase the files in Kitty's computer. The police
learned about Kitty's computer from Glen Stevens, a friend of Lyle's.
Glen told the police that Lyle had told him that he erased the new
will and called a computer expert to ensure that no one would be able
to retrieve the computer file.
On October 24, Les Zoeller interviewed Erik
Menendez at the Beverly Hills mansion. He told Erik that he had heard
that the brothers were not getting along. Erik complained that Lyle
was spending too much money. Erik also complained that Lyle was "being
just like my father." Glen Stevens told Zoeller that Lyle was "trying
to manipulate his brother" and get Erik's half of the money.
Although Erik appeared cool and calm to Zoeller
during the interview, Erik was shaken to his core. As soon as the
interview was concluded, Erik called Lyle in Princeton. He couldn't
reach him. He needed someone to talk to and confide in, so he called
his psychotherapist, Jerome Oziel. Erik went to see Oziel on October
31. During the session, Oziel and Erik walked around Beverly Hills.
Oziel encouraged Erik to talk about his depression and suicidal
thoughts. A short time later, Oziel and Erik walked back to Oziel's
office. As they neared the office, Erik stopped walking and leaned
against a parking meter. Oziel stopped
walking as well and Erik said, "We did it. We killed out parents."
Erik told Oziel about the "Billionaire Boys Club"
miniseries and how he and Lyle had watched it together. After the
miniseries was shown, they talked about their shared belief that Jose
was planning to disinherit them from his will and how terrible their
lives were because Jose dominated them. Spurred on by the miniseries,
the brothers told each other that they should kill Jose. Kitty
presented a problem because the brothers did not want to kill her, but
could not think of a way to kill their father without murdering her.
At this point Oziel stopped Erik from saying anything more and had him
call Lyle. Lyle raced over to Oziel's office. Before Lyle arrived at
Oziel's office, Erik continued telling his story. He told Oziel about
a trip to San Diego to purchase shotguns and how the brothers thought
that they had committed the perfect crime. They had been careful and
cleaned up the shotgun casings. They did not have to worry about
fingerprints because the crime was committed in their own home so
naturally their fingerprints would be everywhere. Once they had
finished cleaning up, Lyle drove Erik's car to Mulholland Drive, a
winding road that runs from the Pacific Ocean to the San Fernando
Valley. Erik was too shaken to drive so he gave directions to Lyle as
he drove. They stopped on Mulholland Drive and Erik waited until the
area was cleared of cars and then threw the shotguns into a nearby
canyon. They headed for a gas station where they dumped their blood-spattered
clothing and shoes into a dumpster along with the shell casings. Then
they drove home. They had intended to drive to the Cheesecake Factory
to meet up with their friend Perry, but Erik was falling apart, so
they went home and called the police.
Lyle was furious when he arrived at Oziel's
office. He was angry that Erik had told Oziel everything. Lyle told
Oziel that he thought Jose would be proud of him for committing such
an effective murder. Oziel explained to the brothers the difference
between a crime that takes place in a moment of heated passion, such
as during an argument, and a crime committed to reach a specific goal.
Oziel explained that the behavior in the latter situation was
considered the behavior of a sociopath. Oziel would later testify in
court that the brothers "looked at each other and said, 'We're
sociopaths.'" Lyle then erupted in anger. He threatened Oziel and told
Oziel that if he told anyone he would kill him too.
On November 2, the brothers met with Oziel again.
Lyle threatened Oziel again, telling him that he and Erik had
considered killing him in order to keep their secret. Oziel could have
reported Lyle and Erik to the police because they had threatened him
and this threat erased the patient-therapist confidentiality barrier,
but he did not. Instead, he made notes and tape recordings of his
sessions with the brothers.
On November 17, Zoeller and Linehan interviewed
Erik's friend Craig Cignarelli. Cignarelli told the detectives that
shortly after the murders had occurred, he had visited Erik at the
Beverly Hills mansion. Erik had asked Craig if he wanted to know how
it happened. Craig knew immediately what "it" was. Erik told Craig
that on the night of the murders, he and Lyle had come home to get his
fake ID. As Erik was walking toward his car, after finding his ID,
Lyle met him with their shotguns. "Let's do it," Lyle said. According
to Craig, the plan was that Lyle was to shoot Jose and Erik was to
shoot Kitty. Craig told the detectives that Erik told him he and Lyle
went into the family room, Lyle pointed his gun at Jose and shot him.
Lyle then went behind Jose and shot him in the head. Erik told Craig
that he was unable to shoot his mother and that when she tried to get
away, Lyle shot her. Craig recalled that Erik said, "after it looked
like my mother was dead, I shot her twice with my gun." Craig told the
detectives that he didn't know whether to believe Erik or not. Zoeller
and Linehan were delighted by the details of Craig's story. The only
problem came when Craig told the detectives that, "it could have
happened." Apparently, Craig and Erik played mind games with one
another and Erik saying, "it could have happened," was Erik's way of
playing with Craig. After hearing this, the detectives were unsure
what to make of Craig's story. Zoeller met with Pam Ferrero; the Los
Angeles County deputy district attorney assigned to the case. She told
Zoeller that he didn't have enough to file criminal charges yet, but
the information he was assembling sounded promising. Another attorney
in the district attorney's office suggested that Craig wear a body
wire and meet with Erik to get the story on tape. Zoeller didn't think
that Craig would do it, but surprisingly Craig agreed to it.
Craig set up a dinner meeting with Erik for
November 29. The meeting took place at Gladstone's 4 Fish on Pacific
Coast Highway in Pacific Palisades. At the dinner, Erik told Craig
that he had been lying and the he and Lyle had nothing to do with
their parents' murders.
Although the detectives felt that the meeting
between Craig and Erik had been a failure, Pam Ferrero felt otherwise.
It convinced her that Craig was telling the truth when he had spoken
to the detectives on November 17.
As weeks turned into months, Zoeller, Linehan and
Ferrero began to worry. Soon Jose's estate would be probated and the
brothers would wind up with their parents' fortune. The detectives
began to search for the shotguns knowing that the shotguns would tie
the killers to the crime. Zoeller contacted the Department of Justice
for a list of shops selling shotguns in Los Angeles County. He
received a list that was 80 pages long. Zoeller did not believe he
would find the shop that sold the guns to the brothers. Zoeller
believed that Lyle and Erik were clever and probably purchased the
guns using one of their friend's names. Zoeller and Linehan searched
and searched, but came up with nothing.
On March 5, 1990, the detectives received a break
in the case from a woman named Judalon Smyth. Smyth was an attractive
37-year-old woman who owned an audiotape duplicating business. Smyth
was also Dr. Jerome Oziel's lover. She told the detectives that Oziel
had asked her to eavesdrop on a therapy session he had with the
Menendez brothers on October 31, 1989. Smith told the detectives she
overheard a shouting match between Lyle and Erik in which Lyle shouted,
"I can't believe you told him!" "We've got to kill him and anyone
associated with him." According to Smyth, Erik screamed back, "I can't
stop you from what you have to do, but I can't kill any more." The
session ended when Erik ran out of the office sobbing. Smyth saw Lyle
leave the office, followed by Dr. Oziel. Smyth told the detectives
that she witnessed Lyle threaten Oziel. Smyth said she heard Lyle say,
" I can kind of understand Erik, but he shouldn't have done this..."
Oziel asked Lyle if he were threatening him and Lyle shook his hand
and said, "Good luck, Dr. Oziel."
Smyth told the police that Oziel continued to
have the brothers come in for counseling, telling them that he might
be able to help them piece together events in their family's history
that had caused them to kill their parents. Smyth also told the
detectives that Oziel told her that he had everything on tape, the
confessions to the murders and explanations for why the brothers had
committed the crimes.
On March 8, 1990, Zoeller obtained a search
warrant for Oziel's tapes based on the information that Smyth told him.
Oziel handed over 17 audiotapes and seven pages of notes to Zoeller
and Linehan. Oziel played portions of the tapes for the detectives and
they finally heard the details of what happened on August 20, 1989
from the killers. Afterward the tapes and notes were sealed into a
police evidence bag and taken to the Los Angeles County courthouse in
Santa Monica. A judge would later rule whether the patient-therapist
confidentiality barrier applied to the Menendez brothers.
Arrests
On March 7, Lyle and two of his friends flew from
Newark, New Jersey to Los Angeles. Lyle was flying to Los Angeles to
try and find the $40,000 Erik had paid to the concert promoter. During
the flight, he called Mr. Buffalo's and was told that Detectives
Zoeller and Linehan had dropped in an hour after Lyle had left for the
Newark airport. According to Glen Stevens, who was sitting next to
Lyle on the flight, when Lyle heard about the detectives' visit, he
took a money clip out of his pocket and gave him $1,400 and a business
card with Gerald Chaleff's name and telephone number on it. Lyle told
Glen that if anything happened to him, he should use the money to bail
him out of jail. Lyle also said that Chaleff and his therapist, Jerry
Oziel, "knew everything."
On March 8, the board of directors of LIVE
Entertainment met in Los Angeles to hear an investigative report by
the law firm Kaye, Scholer, Fierman, Hays & Handler. The firm hired
investigators to examine LIVE's operations to uncover whether there
was any reason for stockholders to be concerned about whether the
killings could be tied to the company. Pierce O'Donnell, a partner of
the law firm, presented a summary of the investigation to the board of
directors. O'Donnell told the LIVE directors that he had learned from
the Beverly Hills Police Department that the Menendez brothers were
suspects in the killing of their parents. O'Donnell told the board
that he believed that the brothers would be arrested soon.
Around 1:00 p.m. on March 8, Lyle and his friends
decided to go out for lunch. Lyle's friends jumped into Erik's Jeep
while Lyle got behind the wheel. The destination was the Cheesecake
Factory, just as on the night of the murders.
Down the street from the Elm Drive mansion, the
Beverly Hills police were waiting. The police had decided against
surrounding the mansion or storming it by force because Maria Menendez,
Jose's mother, was living there. The police did not want anything to
harm her. The police were anxious to arrest Lyle because they had
information that he was planning to leave Beverly Hills again. The
police would have preferred to arrest Lyle and Erik together, but Erik
was in Israel playing in a tennis tournament.
Glen Stevens later recalled that he "thought
something was going on" as the Jeep pulled away from the mansion.
Stevens saw that a blue Ford with a flashing light had parked across
the south end of Elm Drive. Lyle stopped the Jeep just short of
running into the blue car. He threw the Jeep into reverse and crashed
into a van that had driven up behind the Jeep to block Lyle's retreat.
The police seemed to be everywhere. Someone
screamed, "Get out of the Jeep." Lyle and his two friends got out of
the Jeep and were handcuffed and taken to the West Hollywood Sheriff's
station. Lyle was booked at the station and then transported to the
Los Angeles County Men's Jail in downtown Los Angeles.
Later in the afternoon, the Los Angeles County
District Attorney, Ira Reiner, held a news conference. Reiner said
that the motive for the crime "was greed." Reiner added that, "I don't
know what your experience is, but it's been our experience in the
district attorney's office that $14 million provides ample motive for
someone to kill somebody." Reiner also said, "Special circumstances
had been attached to the charges which meant that if convicted, the
brothers could be put to death in San Quentin's gas chamber."
The Menendez family took the news of Lyle's
arrest hard. Carlos Baralt, Lyle's uncle, said that the "whole family
was behind the boys."
There was speculation in the media about whether
Erik would flee from Israel, but according to a Menendez family member,
Erik was very dependent upon Lyle. According to this relative, "Erik
would follow Lyle to hell, even if it meant leaving heaven to do so."
After hearing about Lyle's arrest, Erik called his Uncle Carlos from
Israel. Baralt told Erik that the best thing for him to do was to turn
himself in. Erik flew to Miami to meet his aunt, Marta Cano. Cano
notified Zoeller and Linehan that she was flying with Erik from Miami
to Los Angeles. On March 11, 1990, Detectives Zoeller and Linehan met
Erik and Marta at Los Angeles International Airport. Zoeller
immediately took Erik into custody. Erik was booked into the Los
Angeles County Men's jail.
Although the brothers had been arrested, Zoeller
and Linehan were still building the case against them. The detectives
did not have any physical evidence linking the brothers to the murders
and continued to search for the store that sold the guns to the
brothers. The detectives learned from Judalon Smyth that Erik had
thrown the guns into a canyon off Mulholland Drive. Smyth also told
Zoeller that the guns were purchased in San Diego, a place Lyle was
familiar with from having played in tennis tournaments held there.
Zoeller obtained a list of stores that sold guns in San Diego and
started searching. Zoeller believed that the brothers would have
selected a smaller store, close to the freeway that runs between Los
Angeles and San Diego because they did not know the area well and
would not have wanted to get lost. Zoeller checked all the smaller
stores and came up empty. In desperation, he began to check the big
discount chain stores. On March 14, Zoeller and Edmunds went to the
Big 5 store on Convoy Street. When they asked the clerk for the
store's firearm records, the detectives found the sale of two Mossberg
twelve-gauge shotguns for $199.95 each on August 18, 1989. The form
was signed by Donovan Jay Goodreau and listed a San Diego address.
Zoeller called Donovan and asked, "Where were you
on August 18, 1989?" Donovan had been at his job, managing a
restaurant in New York City. Donovan had punched a time clock and was
able to verify that he had in fact been in New York City on August 18,
1989. The address on the form was phony, but the driver's license
number on the form matched Donovan's. Donovan was shown a copy of the
form and told Zoeller that the signature was not even close to his.
Elliott Alhadeff, the assistant district attorney now assigned to the
case, asked the court for an order allowing him to collect handwriting
samples from Lyle and Erik to compare to the signature on the firearm
form. Erik refused. Zoeller had at last found a physical link between
Jose and Kitty's murders and the Menendez brothers.
Arraignment
The Andersen and Menendez families retained very
good and very expensive legal counsel for Lyle and Erik. Selected to
represent Erik was Leslie Abramson, a tiny woman with a Little Orphan
Annie hairdo, a vocabulary like a sailor and an unstoppable will.
Leslie is the granddaughter of an International
Ladies' Garment Workers Union organizer and is so imposing that she
intimates many judges with her fierce presence. She lets her emotions
show, if she does not like a judge's ruling, she wrinkles her face and
shakes her head, daring the judge to find her in contempt. Leslie is a
passionate opponent of the death penalty. She is also very successful
too, having only lost one client to a death sentence. The Menendez
case would be her fifteenth high profile murder case. She is devoted
to her clients, so much so that her devotion to Erik would raise
questions about her behavior and ethics during his trial. Abramson's
fee for defending Erik was $750,000.
The Menendez brothers were arraigned for the
murders of their parents on March 26, 1990 in Judge Judith Stein's
courtroom at the Beverly Hills Municipal Court. The brothers entered
the courtroom seeming not to care that their lives were on the line.
The brothers had been in the Los Angeles County
Men's Jail for two weeks, but neither acted as if they had been in
jail at all. Generally, a prisoner is contrite, worried and
overwhelmed by court proceedings. The brothers were not contrite. They
acted smug and arrogant. The courtroom was filled with reporters and
supporters of the brothers, including Jaime Pisarcik and Erik's tennis
coach, Mark Heffernan, who had been in Israel with him. Maria Menendez
was also in the audience, supported by a large number of Menendez
family members. The brothers waved and smiled at their friends and
relatives and acted as if their defense attorneys would quickly clear
things up so that the brothers could join their friends and family for
a late lunch.
Judge Stein did not seem to be impressed by the
two tan young men who sat casually slouched in their chairs before her.
She did not seem to appreciate the casual bantering that went on
between the men and their attorneys and she did not like the amount of
attention the men were paying to their girlfriends, family and friends
in the audience.
Stein was a small woman with a nasal voice. She
peered out at the brothers through a pair of glasses that sat low on
her nose. The brothers apparently found the scene hilarious. Judge
Stein ordered the brothers to stand up and face her. They did so and
seemed barely able to contain their giggles.
Judge Stein read the charges to the brothers, "you
have been charged with multiple murder for financial gain, while
laying in wait, with a loaded firearm, for which, if convicted, you
could receive the death penalty." "How do you plead?" Erik answered
first, almost with a smirk on his face, "Not guilty, your honor." "Not
guilty," echoed Lyle. The brothers were held without bail, pending
trial, on first-degree murder charges with special circumstances.
Eventually the families retained Jill Lansing to
represent Lyle. Lansing is a slender blond woman who had just left the
Los Angeles County Public Defender's office to open her own private
practice. Unlike Abramson, Lansing was not comfortable in high profile,
media-intensive cases. Both Abramson and Lansing hired attorneys to
assist them. Abramson hired Marcia Morrissey, forty-three, who had
also been a Los Angeles County Public Defender. Morrissey had just
finished defending Laney Greenberger in the Cotton Club case. Lansing
hired Michael Burt, who was the head trial attorney in the San
Francisco Public Defender's office and an expert in death penalty law.
Elliott Alhadeff was to prosecute the Menendez
brothers, but he and the District Attorney, Ira Reiner, were not
getting along and Reiner replaced Alhadeff and gave the case back to
Pam Ferrero. Soon after becoming involved in the case again, Ferrero
married another Assistant District Attorney, Peter Bozanich. Pam
Bozanich was thirty-nine and a graduate from Wellesley. Bozanich is a
petite woman with dark brown hair with an understated, yet
professional air, about her. She was in many ways the complete
opposite of Leslie Abramson, who was theatrical and flamboyant.
Bozanich had recently prosecuted the retrial of the McMartin Preschool
molestation case.
The Tapes
Santa Monica Superior Court Judge James Albrecht
ruled that the threats Lyle made to Dr. Oziel erased the patient-therapist
confidentiality barrier and ordered that the Oziel tapes be given to
the Los Angeles County district attorney's office. There were three
tapes at issue. Two of the tapes contained Oziel's dictated notes
following the October 31, November 2 and November 28 sessions. The
third tape was of the December 11 session, taped with the consent of
the brothers' attorney at the time, Gerald Chaleff.
In California, the law protecting the patient-therapist
privilege is well established and remains in effect even in situations
where a killer confesses to his therapist that he murdered someone.
Even in that situation, the privilege guarantees that the therapist
cannot go the police.
If the therapist goes to the police, he can be
sued for malpractice. The reason that the privilege is so strong is
because the legislature recognizes that in order for psychotherapy to
work, a patient must be free to reveal the most intimate details of
his life.
There were several hearings about the tapes and
after one of the hearings, the sheriff's department announced that
they had discovered that the links in Lyle's ankle chain had been cut.
To the sheriff's department, this indicated that Lyle was attempting
to escape. At another hearing on the tapes, Erik's nose appeared to be
swollen and bruised, the result of a jail beating that the sheriff's
department said they were investigating.
On August 6, 1990, Albrecht gave the prosecution
a major victory. He said that all of the tapes could be used as
evidence against the brothers. The judge said, "I have found by a
preponderance of the evidence that Dr. Oziel had reasonable cause to
believe that the brothers constituted a threat and it was necessary to
disclose those communications to prevent the threatened danger."
Leslie Abramson promptly appealed the decision to the California Court
of Appeals. On March 2, 1991, the California Court of Appeals
overturned Albrecht's decision. The prosecutors then filed an appeal
with the California Supreme Court.
Part of the Court of Appeals' decision said that
Oziel had not acted as a psychotherapist during the last two taped
sessions, but acted out of "self-preservation and that the purported
therapy was in fact, a charade." The decision quoted freely from the
tapes and was released to the public. For the first time, it was
revealed that the Menendez brothers had killed their parents. The
effect of this revelation on the Menendez and Andersen families ranged
from shock to disbelief. Some family members who had been very vocal
in their support of the brothers soon dropped out of sight.
On June 4, 1992, the California Supreme Court
heard arguments on the issue of the tapes. Leslie Abramson and Michael
Burt argued for the brothers saying that only the portions of the
tapes that dealt with threats to Oziel should be given to the
prosecution. The Court issued its ruling in August, deciding that the
prosecution was entitled to one tape, the tape that was dictated by
Oziel dealing with the October 31 and November 2 sessions. The Court
decided that the release of the tape was not barred by the patient-therapist
privilege because Oziel believed that the brothers had threatened him
during the sessions covered on the tape. The Court barred the release
of a tape that covered the November 28 session and the December 11
tape made with Chaleff's consent. In those sessions, the Court ruled
that there was "insufficient evidence of threats to warrant disclosure
of the tape." To the prosecution, the real loss was the December 11
tape of the brothers discussing the murder. The trial could now
proceed.
The First Trial
The Menendez brothers spent three years in the
Los Angeles County Men's Jail waiting for their trials to begin. The
brothers were segregated from other prisoners and housed in separate
cells in the jail's 7000 section. This section housed high-profile
inmates such as Richard Ramirez, known as the Nightstalker, and O.J.
Simpson. They ate their meals in their cells and had an exercise
period for one hour three times a week. During the first months of his
confinement, Erik was suicidal and received the tranquilizer, Xanax. A
priest visited Erik during this time and Erik began to reveal for the
first time some of the supposed traumas he suffered during his
childhood. It was from these conversations that the foundation was
laid for the brothers' controversial defense. In June 1990, Erik began
weekly therapy sessions with Dr. William Vicary; a Harvard-trained
psychiatrist.
Lyle, during the early part of his confinement,
spent a great deal of time on the telephone. He spoke to the manager
of Mr. Buffalo's often and this caused other prisoners to complain
about the number and length of his telephone calls. Shortly after the
sheriff's deputies found Lyle's ankle chains almost cut through, they
conducted an inspection of both Lyle and Erik's cells. They found a
seventeen-page letter from Lyle to Erik along with some notes in
Erik's cell. The notes described plans to travel to South America and
then to the Middle East. The deputies also found a drawing of a
building with stairwells and doors. Deputies tried to match it to the
courthouses that Lyle had been in, but could not find a building that
the drawing resembled.
In Lyle's letter he tells Erik that he would
never testify against him. Lyle also gives Erik advice that Lyle
believes Jose would have given him. Lyle wrote, "I am not an ordinary
person. I do not see things in terms of manslaughter and life terms. I
see only win, loss, honor and dishonor. Dad is watching and I will not
disappoint him a second time or Mom by giving up and having their
deaths be in vain."
According to Pam Bozanich, one day Erik was
caught in a sexual embrace with another prisoner. It happened when
Erik was being escorted to the shower room with another inmate. The
deputy sheriff guarding them propped the door to the shower room open
and then went into another room instead of watching Erik and the other
inmate. When the guard returned a few minutes later, the door was
almost closed and Erik was sitting in a chair with his back to the
door. The other inmate was on his knees in front of Erik. When the
guard asked what was going on both Erik and the inmate stood up and
looked embarrassed.
In the beginning of his confinement, Erik was
also visited by his former girlfriend, Janice. To Janice, Erik was
growing up fast and becoming a model prisoner. The first time that she
had visited Erik, he handed the telephone to Lyle because inmates and
visitors were separated by a glass barricade and had to talk to each
other using a telephone. Lyle did not talk to her; instead he stood
and stared at her breasts as if he had never seen a woman before.
Janice felt violated and told Erik never to do that again. According
to Janice, Lyle was considered a problem inmate. He monopolized the
telephone on his cellblock and on one occasion was accused of stealing
food from another inmate on a special diet.
On December 8, 1992, the Menendez brothers were
indicted by the Los Angeles County Grand Jury on charges that they
murdered their parents. There were two special circumstances that were
attached to the brothers' case which made them eligible for the death
penalty: a multiple murder had occurred as the brothers were "lying in
wait." A third special circumstance, that the brothers had committed
the murders for financial gain, had been thrown out by the grand jury.
The Menendez brothers' trial was held at the Los
Angeles County Superior Court located at the San Fernando Valley
Government Center in Van Nuys. Judge Stanley Weissberg presided over
the trial. Judge Weissberg was in his mid-fifties, wore glasses and
had a quiet, scholarly manner about him. In 1992, he had presided over
the first Rodney King trial in suburban Simi Valley. That trial had
resulted in the deadly Los Angeles riots after four Los Angeles Police
Department officers were acquitted.
On May 14, 1993, Judge Weissberg ruled that the
cases of Lyle and Erik Menendez would be tried together in the
interests of time, cost and convenience. Weissberg saw that there
would be an almost complete duplication of witnesses and arguments if
separate trials were held for each brother. Weissberg ruled that each
brother would have a separate jury. This meant that if evidence that
pertained only to Lyle was being heard, Erik's jury would be excluded
and vice versa.
The Court summoned 1,100 people for jury duty;
eventually two panels of twelve jurors and six alternative jurors were
empanelled. Potential jurors were required to complete a 122-item
questionnaire. There were 15 questions on the topic of child sexual
abuse and violence within families. Lyle's jury was selected first and
consisted of seven men and five women. The average age of the jurors
was forty-two. Erik's jury consisted of eight men and four women. The
average age of the jurors was forty-six.
From the time of the brothers' arrests until
shortly before the trial commenced, Leslie Abramson and Jill Lansing
had held their cards close to their chests and did not reveal what
their defense strategy would be. Bozanich wondered if Abramson and
Lansing would use a defense that gambled that the prosecution did not
have enough evidence to prove that Erik and Lyle had committed the
murders. During a pretrial hearing on June 9, 1993, Abramson said the
defense would admit that the brothers had murdered their parents.
The defense would try to prove to the jurors that
it was Jose and Kitty and not Lyle and Erik who should be held
accountable for why the murders were committed. Abramson and Lansing
would argue that the brothers had been instilled with feelings of fear
over a long period of time, going back many years. The athletic,
spoiled rich sons who had each at one time in their lives considered
becoming professional tennis players; were going to be portrayed as
victims of child abuse.
The brothers' defense presented one obstacle: the
brothers had never complained to their psychologist or anyone else
about abuse, there was no medical evidence of abuse, no photographs of
bruises, in other words, no history of abuse at all. If this defense
were to succeed, Abramson and Lansing would have to carefully
reconstruct specific incidents of abuse that involved Lyle and Erik.
In order for the prosecution to prevail, they would have to prove to
the jurors that the brothers were liars and that their tales of abuse
were not true.
On July 17, 1993, three days before the trial
started, Leslie Abramson gave an interview to the Los Angeles Times.
Abramson said that a series of increasingly intense confrontations
between the brothers and their parents had led to the murders. During
the interview, Abramson laid out her case which would primarily
consist of the defense destroying the image of the Menendez family.
Abramson and Lansing had consulted with Paul
Mones, a lawyer and children's rights advocate. Mones had written,
When A Child Kills: Abused Children Who Kill Their Parents, a book
that outlines how attorneys can successfully defend children accused
of killing their parents. Mones' book is based on his research, which
showed that kids who kill their parents are usually peaceful and have
parents that are very private and secretive. Mones found that these
children have a low self-opinion of themselves and react only after
suffering abuse silently, usually after years of trying unsuccessfully
to please their parents. According to Mones, when these children fight
back, they strike when their abuser is vulnerable. The crimes tend to
be characterized by overkill, instead of one bullet being fired at the
abuser, the child will shoot the abuser over and over again. Mones
believes that when a parent is murdered, it is their fault.
Abramson and Jill Lansing followed Mones' advice
and dressed their clients in boyish sweaters, sport shirts and khaki
pants all in an effort to show that Erik and Lyle were not men of 22
and 25, but boys of twelve and fifteen. Abramson wanted to show that
Erik was a boy and that she was his indulgent aunt. Throughout the
trial she picked lint off his sweater and she made sure to keep her
arm on his shoulder whenever she whispered into his ear. By behaving
in this way, Abramson implied that she was not defending a monster,
just a misunderstood boy who needed good parenting.
The defense also relied on a diagnostic tool
developed by therapist E. Sue Bloom for use with incest survivors. The
tool is a thirty-four-item checklist that deals with the after effects
of childhood sexual abuse. Bloom's checklist had many items that could
be applied to both brothers. The checklist contains items such as fear
of sleeping alone; blocking out a period of early life; carrying an
awful secret; and, stealing all of which Erik admitted to. Lyle's
comments fit checklist items, such as: a desire to dissociate from his
family; creating a fantasy world, which Lyle did with his stuffed
animals; rigid control of thought processes; and, a feeling that there
was a demand to achieve in order to be loved.
Both Erik and Lyle had changed dramatically since
their arraignment in 1989. At that hearing, they had appeared cocky
and arrogant. The brothers had aged and matured in jail. They appeared
to have lost weight and Erik, in particular, did not look healthy. His
skin was chalk white and he appeared gaunt. Throughout the trial Lyle
would wear his hairpiece, but that was about all that remained from
his 1989 arraignment.
During the trial, their grandmother, Maria
Menendez and their aunts, Marta Cano and Terry Baralt, supported the
brothers. Notably absent throughout the trial were members of the
Andersen family.
Bozanich came to the trial with some ambivalence,
especially concerning the death penalty. Although she believes in the
death penalty, Bozanich is aware that many jurors are reluctant to
impose it. Lester Kuriyama was not ambivalent about the death penalty
when it came to the Menendez brothers. He thought that the brothers
were cold, conscienceless killers. In the weeks leading up to the
trial, Bozanich had asked Leslie Abramson if she considered asking
about a plea bargain, but Abramson never did. The two sides were
always too far apart.
Aside from the attorneys and the judge, there was
one more entity in the trial: a television camera. Judge Weissberg
allowed a single television camera in the courtroom. Weissberg was
aware of the intense public interest in the case and the limited
number of seats available in his courtroom, so he allowed Court TV to
provide a television camera and broadcast the trial.
The trial began on July 20, 1993 with Bozanich's
opening statement laying out the case against Lyle. Bozanich described
the brutality of the murders: the six wounds to Jose and the ten
wounds to Kitty. She laid the foundation for her theory that the
brothers had killed their parents "while lying in wait" as the parents
dozed. She described how Lyle had hired bodyguards after the murders
because he feared for his own safety. Bozanich told the jury that, "From
what we now know, this hint that his own life might have been in
danger because of his parents' killings was a lie." Bozanich would
often remind the jurors throughout the trial that if Lyle and Erik
could lie so frequently and in such detail to avoid being caught, they
could also lie about child abuse to avoid death sentences. Bozanich
told the jury about the brothers' spending sprees. This was another
theme that she would repeat often throughout the trial. She discussed
the Rolex watch purchases and Lyle's Porsche, the Marina Towers
apartments, Lyle's restaurant and Erik's tennis coach.
Jill Lansing began her opening statement by
telling the jurors that Lyle and Erik Menendez killed their parents.
Lansing said, "We're not disputing when it happened. The only thing
that you are going to have to focus on in this trial is why it
happened." Lansing told the jury that, "What we will prove to you is
that the murders were committed out of fear." "Fear of two parents who
were so brutal, so manipulative, so sexually perverse that they drove
their own sons to the most desperate act of defilement." Lansing would
not reveal the details of the perversion or the brutality at this
point, and went on to describe the lifestyle the brothers enjoyed
growing up: Lyle's Afla Romeo, private tennis coaches, luxury
vacations and the use of their parents' credit cards. Lansing tried to
show that money was not the motive for the murders. Lansing was
building up to the heart of the brothers' defense: that the brothers
killed their parents because they feared for their lives after
confronting their father over a years-long ordeal of sexual, physical
and mental abuse. Lansing explained that the "catalyst" for why the
murders took place was the fear that the family's old secrets would be
revealed and that those secrets would destroy the reputation of "the
perfect family."
Lansing told the jury that the catalyst was "Erik's
revelation to his brother a few days before the killings that his
father had been molesting him for twelve years." This revelation
disturbed Lyle "so thoroughly because he, too, had been molested by
Jose from the ages of six to eight." Lansing described how Lyle had
confronted Jose and told him that, "the abuse was going to stop." Lyle
told his father that he was "going to let him take his little brother
and leave the house." According to Lansing, Jose told Lyle that "he
would do whatever he wanted with his son, and that no one would
threaten him." Lansing went on to say that Jose "made it very clear to
Lyle that this secret would never leave the family, and that the
people who held the secret and this power over him would not be
allowed to live." According to Lansing that is when the brothers drove
to San Diego and purchased shotguns using Donovan Goodreau's driver's
license. Lansing explained that the murders were a result of what "these
children" believed. Lansing's use of the word "children" began a
pattern that she and the other defense attorneys would use throughout
the trial to refer to the 22 and 25-year-old men.
Lansing told the jury that neither brother had
talked about the abuse until after they had been arrested and
incarcerated for many months because their shame was so great. The
brothers had told a family member about the abuse and that family
member had told the defense attorneys. The prosecution was always
suspicious of how the abuse was revealed. The prosecutors felt that
the timing was curious and that the brothers rehearsed their stories
with each other before telling members of their family. The
prosecutors believed that the brothers had been visited by a number of
psychologists immediately after they were arrested. The psychologists
who saw the brothers later, after the stories were revealed to the
family, would be the experts to testify at their trial. Lansing also
told the jurors that Lyle would testify and describe tales of abuse,
including the abuse he began to suffer at age six, when he claimed
Jose began to molest him.
Lester Kuriyama was thirty-nine and although he
may be mistaken for a contemporary of Lyle and Erik's, he was a
seasoned prosecutor who held the brothers in greater contempt than Pam
Bozanich. He had a deep and emotional hostility toward the brothers
and was convinced that they were liars and manipulators who deserved
the worst punishment the law provided. Kuriyama never seemed to miss
an opportunity to imply that the brothers were a pair of phonies out
to con the world.
In his opening statement to Erik's jury, Kuriyama
said that the brothers had wanted to "execute their parents and not
get caught." Kuriyama told the jurors that Dr. Oziel would describe
the confession that Erik had made and how Erik felt that "his father
was too controlling." Kuriyama added that "Jose criticized him and
made him feel inadequate and prevented him from doing what he wanted."
He told the jury that Oziel would testify that Erik thought that Jose
had disinherited him from his will and that Erik thought that "this
was another reason to get rid of Jose."
Kuriyama explained that Kitty was murdered "because
she would have been a witness and would have been miserable and
suicidal without Jose." Kuriyama finished his opening statement by
telling the jury that the brothers tried to create a web of deception
that included false alibis, lies to the police, a stolen driver's
license used to purchase the murder weapons and the employment of a
computer expert to delete a computer file.
In her opening statement, Leslie Abramson
expanded on many of the same themes that Jill Lansing had outlined
during her opening statement to Lyle's jury. Abramson told the jury
that "Lyle had acted the way he had to defend his brother." Erik
needed to be defended because he was the "real victim in the family."
She acknowledged that Erik's revelation of abuse might look suspicious,
especially after he had spent time in jail, but it didn't mean that he
made it up. Abramson said that the reason that Erik didn't tell the
truth earlier was because he did not trust Dr. Oziel or his best
friend, Craig Cignarelli. Abramson promised that Erik would tell them
"why he killed his parents." She did not say that Erik would tell the
truth.
Abramson went on to describe how Erik "was
groomed for his father's sexual gratification." She described various
acts that Erik alleged were inflicted upon him by Jose. The defense
had won the right to raise issues regarding Kitty's character to the
jury. Lansing told Lyle's jury that, "her children were afraid of her,
that's why she is dead." Abramson said that the brothers could not
turn to Kitty for "help and solace because all they found was a
disturbed woman who dished out more abuse, sexual, physical, and
psychological." Weissberg would not allow the attorneys to describe in
great deal Kitty's problems with alcohol and prescription drugs, but
they could show that Kitty was unstable and obsessive. What the
defense was allowed to do, with Weissberg's permission, was to destroy
Jose and Kitty's reputations.
Abramson echoed Lansing's opening statement when
she described the week leading up to the murders. Abramson described
how Kitty and Lyle had gotten into a screaming fight and how Kitty had
reached up and yanked Lyle's hairpiece off his head. Apparently, Lyle
had lost most of his hair when he was 14 and wore a toupee because
Jose had once told him that it was better for his image if it appeared
that he had a full head of hair. Erik claimed he did not know that
Lyle wore a toupee and the shock of this alleged discovery made Erik
take Lyle into his confidence.
Erik told Lyle that Jose had been molesting him
for years. This led the brothers to attempt to purchase two handguns,
however they told their attorneys they could not purchase the weapons
because there was a two-week waiting period. Because the brothers were
so fearful and felt they had no time to waste; they drove to San Diego
and purchased shotguns. Abramson told Erik's jury how much he looked
forward to attending UCLA and moving away from home.
One week before the murders, Jose told Erik that
he would have to sleep at home several days a week so that Jose and
Kitty could keep track of his schoolwork. Abramson said that Erik
thought that this meant that the sexual abuse would continue. The
defense tried to weave together a seamless story about how and why the
murders occurred, but there were some problems. If Kitty and Jose had
intended to kill Lyle and Erik on August 20, why had they invited
their friends from Calabasas, Peter and Karen Wiere over to play
bridge?
After Abramson had finished her opening statement,
Bozanich and Kuriyama reminded the jurors that Erik confessed to Dr.
Oziel. Erik had told Oziel about killing Jose because of Jose's harsh
treatment of him but had never mentioned sexual abuse. The same was
true of Erik's confession to Craig Cignarelli. The brothers had never
spoken about abuse until they needed a legal defense, almost seven
months after they murdered their parents.
During the first phase of the trial, the
prosecution called twenty-six witnesses, most were minor participants
in the drama of the case. The witnesses ranged from Lyle's bodyguards
to the Big 5 store clerk who sold Erik the shotguns and the two
computer experts who checked Kitty's computer for an updated will. The
prosecution used these witnesses to show that the brothers were
accomplished liars, who planned and carried out the murder of their
parents.
The prosecution began its case by playing Lyle's
911 call to the Beverly Hills Police Department for the jurors, who
now knew that the whole thing was staged. Bozanich wanted the jury to
hear for themselves what a good actor Lyle was. Officer Michael Butkus
testified that he witnessed the Lyle and Erik run around and yell
after the murders, but not cry over the deaths of their parents.
The next witness was the captain of the boat who
took the Menendez family shark fishing on August 19, 1989. He
described what an odd family they were and how the brothers had spent
almost the entire seven-hour trip huddled together at the front of the
boat. At the end of the day's testimony, Abramson told reporters that
the reason that the brothers had stayed to themselves on the boat was
because they feared that "the boat trip was a setup to kill them." To
a rational person this sounded rather farfetched considering that
there were witnesses on the boat, but Abramson said that Lyle and Erik
believed this. Abramson was trying to establish that the brothers had
a growing sense of doom leading up to the night of the murders and
that they saw the most ordinary actions as potentially life-threatening
events.
Les Zoeller described how the brothers returned
to the Menendez mansion and the crime scene at 5:30 a.m. on August 21,
1989 and asked for their tennis rackets. Bozanich wanted the juries to
see how brazen the brothers were to come back to the crime scene. The
brothers were not allowed inside the house because the coroner was
examining the bodies of Jose and Kitty. Leslie Abramson asked Zoeller
if he had if has seen any animal droppings in the house. Zoeller said
that he could not remember. Abramson was laying the groundwork for her
contention that Kitty was a poor mother and bad housekeeper. The
animal droppings would become a running theme during the trial, yet
witnesses who had been in the house frequently said that they had
never seen any animal droppings.
Sergeant Edmonds testified that he became
suspicious of the brothers after Erik told him that when he entered
the family room on the night of August 20, he saw and smelled smoke.
Edmonds testified that, "I felt that if he smelled smoke, it would
have to be pretty rapidly after the shots were fired." Edmonds
testified that several of the windows in the family room had been shot
out and this would cause the smoke to dissipate quickly.
The prosecution's next witness was a sheriff's
weapons expert who demonstrated the operation of a twelve-gauge
Mossberg shotgun. The prosecution wanted to show that the murders were
premeditated. To fire a Mossberg shotgun, an individual must pull the
trigger and go through a two step pumping process before re-firing the
weapon. Abramson objected to the demonstration, but was overruled.
Lyle and Erik's friends had turned on them. Perry
Berman, Craig Cignarelli, Donovan Goodreau and Glen Stevens testified
for the prosecution. The prosecution used Berman's testimony to show
that the brothers had tried to set up an alibi using a witness who
never saw anything pertinent to the events on the night of August 20,
1989.
On July 26 Craig Cignarelli testified about his
visit to the Menendez mansion twelve days after the murders where Erik
described to Craig how "it" happened. This was the first time that the
jurors heard Erik's version of the events that occurred in the family
room and how it differed from the tale of two terrified young men
killing for fear that they were about to be killed. Cignarelli also
told the jury that Erik had never told him about any physical,
psychological or sexual abuse. At the end of the day, Judge Weissberg
ruled that Erik and Craig's screenplay, Friends, could not be used as
evidence. Weissberg ruled that the screenplay had been written too
long before the murders to be relevant.
Donovan Goodreau testified that his wallet with
his ID was left behind in Lyle's dorm room at Princeton when he had
been forced to leave after being accused of stealing. Donovan also
testified that he had once confided to Lyle that he had been molested
when he was a little boy. Donovan recalled that Lyle did not respond
with any similar stories or remarks about himself and never mentioned
being sexually abused during the entire time they were roommates.
Donovan's credibility was challenged when the
defense brought up an interview that Donovan had given in March, 1992
to Robert Rand, a freelance writer from Miami, who said he was writing
a book about the Menendez case. In that interview, Donovan had
mentioned that he heard that Jose had abused Lyle. Rand gave a copy of
the taped interview to a Los Angeles TV reporter who played the tape
on the evening news. Bozanich was angry that Rand would inject himself
into the trial's proceedings and that Rand appeared on television and
accused Donovan of lying. Bozanich believed that Donovan had been "fed"
information about Jose and Lyle and he was repeating a story he had
heard.
Glen Stevens followed Donovan and testified that
he had heard stories of abuse from Robert Rand and then had repeated
those stories to Donovan Goodreau. Stevens's credibility was called
into question when Jill Lansing produced his resume and exposed a
number of "embellishments" on it: Stevens wrote on his resume that he
kept the accounting records for Mr. Buffalo's and claimed the snack
shop had sales of one million dollars a year. Stevens admitted that
Lyle gave him one of his Rolex watched which he later sold and
pocketed the money.
Later in the day, Bozanich questioned Rand.
Bozanich pointed out that on the taped interview Donovan never
mentioned anything about Lyle and sexual abuse. Bozanich made it
appeared that Rand was the source of Donovan's information.
Dr. Irwin Golden, the Los Angeles County
assistant coroner, testified about the ten wounds that were inflicted
on Kitty and the six inflicted on Jose. He said that all the wounds
occurred in "quick succession."
The prosecution's star witness was Dr. Oziel.
Before he took the witness stand, Leslie Abramson promised to "attack
his credibility in every way known to man and God." The defense
believed that Oziel created the tapes for his own purposes and that
Lyle and Erik told Oziel what he wanted to hear. Oziel's credibility
was attacked even before he faced Leslie Abramson. On July 23, the
California State Board of Psychology filed a complaint that sought to
revoke Oziel's license because he had allegedly engaged in "a sexual,
social or business relationship with two patients."
On August 4, Dr. Oziel began the first of six
days of testimony for the prosecution. Oziel testified before both
Lyle and Erik's juries that the brothers wanted to kill Jose because
he was dominating their lives and made them feel inferior. Kitty was
murdered because the brothers did not want to leave her behind as a
witness. The defense won one battle when Weissberg ruled that Oziel
could not use the word sociopath. Weissberg considered the word
sociopath to be a "buzz word" that would be prejudicial to the
brothers.
For Bozanich and Kuriyama, Oziel provided the
only detailed recreation of the murders, in the brothers' own words.
Oziel undermined the defense strategy, which sought to portray the
killings as an act of self-defense after years of physical, mental and
sexual abuse. Oziel testified that Erik told him that the plan to kill
Jose and Kitty was rooted "in a situation where Erik was watching a
BBC television show or movie." Oziel said that Erik told him that Jose
"had just been completely dominating and controlling and was
impossible to please." Oziel also testified that the brothers decided
to kill their mother because "the brothers did not believe Kitty could
have survived emotionally without Jose." Erik also told Oziel that "Jose's
near disinheritance of him was an example of why he and Lyle had to
kill their father." Oziel described the killings and said that Erik
told him that "Jose and Kitty were 'surprised' when the brothers burst
into the family room." Oziel described the threats he had received
from Lyle after the October 31 session in which Erik confessed to the
murders.
Leslie Abramson and Michael Burt cross-examined
Oziel. They brought up his affair with Judalon Smyth and the fact that
he had recently settled a lawsuit that she brought against him for
$400,000. They also brought up the State Board of Psychology complaint
that Oziel improperly prescribed drugs for Smyth and had an improper
dual relationship with another patient. In that relationship, Oziel
had exchanged therapy sessions for construction work completed around
his home.
Before the prosecution rested on August 13,
Lester Kuriyama tried to have the "Billionaire Boys Club" miniseries
placed into evidence and shown to the juries, but Weissberg ruled
against it. To Kuriyama, the miniseries provided the Menendez brothers
with a blueprint of how to commit the "perfect murder."
Jose's former mistress, Louise, followed the
trial on Court TV. Louise called Pam Bozanich to say that the man she
had known was nothing like the person being destroyed by the defense.
She also told Bozanich that Kitty had confronted her about the affair,
but rather than behaving like a raving lunatic, as the defense
portrayed her, Louise said that Kitty was as pleasant as she could be
under the circumstances and just wanted to make sure that the affair
was over. Bozanich and Kuriyama debated whether to call Louise to the
stand to rebut the portrait that the defense was painting of Jose, but
decided against it because they did not want to subject Louise to an
enormous amount of media scrutiny.
The defense intended to call ninety witnesses,
but Judge Weissberg ruled that many of the stories that the defense
wanted to present were too remote to have "relevance and probative
value" which forced the defense to trim its list to 50 witnesses. The
defense case lasted three months. The defense had the difficult task
of trying to prove to the juries that the brothers were in imminent
danger before they killed their parents. Under California law, the "imminent
danger" defense was the only way the brothers could be completely
acquitted of the murders or had a chance of being convicted of
manslaughter.
In order to obtain either of these verdicts, the
defense needed to prove two things: that Lyle and Erik had been in
fear of their lives and that the conduct of their parents would have
produced that same state of mind in a reasonable person. There were
two California cases that applied to the Menendez trial and dealt with
the battered-wife and the battered child syndromes. People v. Aris,
was a case where the defendant shot and killed her sleeping husband
after being beaten and told by her husband that he would not permit
her to live. Aris had been found guilty and the appellate court
affirmed the conviction in 1989. The impact of this case was that it
placed pressure on judges to permit a wider range of testimony in
battered-person cases. Weissberg allowed the defense to present
testimony from teachers, coaches, friends, family members and child-abuse
experts much to the annoyance of the prosecution, who believed that
Weissberg allowed too much of the suspect testimony into the trial.
The other case that was relevant to the brothers' defense was People
v. Flannel, a case where the defendant was convicted of second degree
murder in the shooting death of a man with whom the defendant had a
history of hostility. This case established the doctrine that an
accused person's honest but unreasonable belief, that it is necessary
to defend oneself from imminent danger, negates malice aforethought,
the mental element that is necessary to convict a person of murder.
Lyle testified over a nine-day period and his
testimony was filled with stories about the alleged molestation he
suffered from the ages of six to eight and the story that he sexually
molested his brother when Erik was five years old. Both Lyle and Erik
cried frequently during Lyle's testimony. Lyle testified that at 13,
he came to believe that his father was molesting his brother. Lyle
testified that his father was so controlling and his mother so
emotionally unstable that he sought comfort in his own family of
stuffed animals.
Lyle testified that Kitty sexually abused him
when he was 11 and 12. He claimed that he would touch Kitty "everywhere"
even when his father was sharing the same bed with them. Lyle's
testimony was powerful and rich in detail. Lyle's testimony built up
to his description of events leading up to the night of the murders
and he described shooting his father and then his mother for the jury.
Jill Lansing asked Lyle why the brothers did not
run away from home and Lyle replied that there was no use in doing so
because his father was powerful and would have found them. Lyle added
that he and Erik believed that the police would not have believed
their stories of abuse. Before the defense allowed Lyle to be cross-examined,
Lyle admitted offering his girlfriend, Jamie Pisarcik, money if she
testified that Jose had made unwanted sexual advances toward her.
Jaime refused and told the police about Lyle's offer of a bribe. In
another attempt to thwart questions that might damage Lyle's
credibility, Lansing brought up the fact that Lyle had never told
Oziel about the sexual abuse. Lyle denied that he had bragged to Oziel
about committing "a perfect murder."
Pam Bozanich cross-examined Lyle over a four-day
period. She belittled Lyle's account of the killings and challenged
him about the alleged abuse, but he did not break down. Bozanich was
more successful in identifying inconsistencies in Lyle's version of
events. Bozanich was able to have Lyle admit that his parents did not
have guns, had made no direct threats to either brother and that parts
of his story sounded "awful," and that "a lot of decisions don't make
sense."
On September 27, Erik began to testify. Erik's
demeanor was ragged and edgy throughout his days on the witness stand.
He would stare out from narrow eyes, appearing dangerous and deranged,
and a moment later, appear wide-eyed and innocent. Most of the time,
he looked more mentally disturbed than sad or remorseful.
Leslie Abramson did not help matters. She stood
next to a lectern behind the counsel table and led Erik through his
testimony like a drill sergeant. Whenever Erik veered off course or
tried to embellish an answer, Abramson interrupted and barked out
another question. At times she treated Erik like a hostile witness,
rather than her own client. Abramson's behavior may have been a
reaction to the warnings Judge Weissberg had given her during the
court session before Erik was to testify. At a sidebar conference,
Lester Kuriyama had complained that Abramson had been "caressing and
holding Erik in front of the jury." Kuriyama worried that this
behavior made Erik appear childlike and innocent. Weissberg warned
Abramson "the conduct of counsel in touching and physically reacting
to the defendants is an area of concern." He told Abramson, "counsel
are to be acting as professionals, not nursemaids or surrogate mothers."
Erik testified that he believed that his parents
would kill him. He also said that Kitty seemed to have magical powers,
she knew where he went, who his friends were, everything he did.
Erik's statements seemed difficult to believe, especially from a 22-year-old
man. This was part of the defense's attempt to show that Lyle and Erik
had been infantilized by their father's control and that neither
brother was the age they appeared to be. Erik testified about killing
his parents and the sexual abuse he allegedly suffered at Jose's hands.
At one point in his testimony, Erik volunteered that he began to put
cinnamon in his father's tea and coffee because he had heard from
classmates that it made semen taste better. It seems difficult to
believe that this actually occurred because cinnamon has a distinctive
taste that Jose would have noticed.
Lester Kuriyama repeatedly tried to bring up the
issue of Erik's sexuality, but Judge Weissberg refused to allow it.
Kuriyama felt that it was relevant because the defense was trying to
make it appear that Jose was a sexual predator. One witness had
testified to seeing gay porn magazines in the house, the implication
being that they belonged to Jose, which could substantiate the claim
that Jose had enjoyed sex with men. However, if the magazines belonged
to Erik, this would cast the issue in an entirely different light.
Under cross-examination, Erik seemed to have
difficulty remembering details. Lester Kuriyama asked Erik questions
about the killing of his parents and Erik answered many of Kuriyama's
questions with an "I don't remember." Kuriyama caught Erik in the
biggest lie of the trial when he had Erik describe in meticulous
detail the attempted purchase of two handguns on Friday, August 18,
1989. Erik testified that he and Lyle had driven to a Big 5 store in
Santa Monica and had looked at an assortment of handguns. Erik
described how the handguns were displayed in a glass case, how he
selected two handguns and how he could not complete the purchase
because California had a fifteen-day "cooling off" period. Because the
brothers believed that their lives were in imminent danger, they could
not wait and did not purchase the weapons.
Kuriyama asked Erik, "now, you're telling the
truth about everything in this case, aren't you?" Erik answered, "I'm
telling you the truth to the best that I can." Kuriyama asked Erik, "Did
you truly go to the Santa Monica Big 5 store on the morning of August
18 to buy these handguns?" Erik answered, "Definitely. Without a doubt
I did." Then Kuriyama dropped a bombshell. "Mr. Menendez, did you know
that Big 5 stopped carrying handguns in March of 1986?" This was a lie
of huge proportion. Erik fumbled for a response. "No, I don't know
that. Mr. Kuriyama, there were guns there and we did look at them, and
he did say we could not carry them anymore."
This was not the only inconsistency that Kuriyama
caught Erik in. When Kuriyama questioned Erik about the television
miniseries, the "Billionaire Boys Club," Erik denied that he had seen
it. Erik also admitted that he did not think his parents would have
disinherited him. Up to this point in the cross-examination, Erik had
testified that he thought his parents were. After Kuriyama finished
his cross-examination, Leslie Abramson tried to pick up the pieces.
Erik told the court that he couldn't remember which Big 5 store he and
Lyle had visited.
On October 14, the defense began a new phase of
its case by attempting to explain for jurors why Lyle and Erik
Menendez could have believed that their lives were in immediate danger,
even though their parents were not armed. Ann Tyler, a Salt Lake City
psychologist, was the first in a string of experts to testify. Tyler
testified that the Menendez brothers suffered from a condition called
"learned helplessness" that occurs as a result of intense, repeated
abuse. Tyler testified that she had no doubt that Jose and Kitty
Menendez had psychologically abused their young sons in virtually
every way possible. Bozanich cross examined Tyler and noted that many
of the worst anecdotes about the family were totally uncorroborated.
Tyler noted the naivete of the brothers, which came across frequently
when they testified and in completely accidental ways that, unlike
crying, they would have difficulty faking. There was a softness, a "hothouse
plant delicacy" to them, even when they were caught off guard by a
question and responded in a flash of anger that they quickly covered
up. There was also the bizarre respect and love for their father, even
though they had killed him, and that too, seemed genuine.
During this time, Kitty's family began to speak
to the news media about the defense and how she was being portrayed.
Kitty's brother, Milton Andersen, told his hometown paper, The Daily
Southtown, that the brothers' defense was "bull." He believed that
Lyle and Erik killed because of greed. He said that the defense
visited him and tried to convince him that his sister and brother-in-law
were bad people. Andersen told the paper: "my sister didn't abuse her
children." Andersen felt that Jose and Kitty had not disciplined their
sons enough.
Ann Burgess was the second defense expert to
testify. Burgess is a professor of psychiatric mental health nursing
at the University of Pennsylvania and an expert in crime scene
analysis. She examined the crime scene pictures of the Menendez family
room and testified that it was a "disorganized" crime scene and could
not have been the product of a premeditated murder. She also testified
that the random nature of the wounds led her to believe that there was
an overkill element of the crime and this showed a lack of planning.
On October 21, Jill Lansing's first expert
witness testified. Stuart Hart, an Indiana University professor,
testified about his belief that Lyle had been severely mistreated
psychologically.
Jon Conte was Lansing's next expert. He testified
that he interviewed Lyle in jail for 60 hours during 1993 and believed
he was telling the truth about the abuse because of the "affect" that
Lyle had. The "affect" was shame and a reluctance to talk about the
abuse because it was embarrassing.
Bozanich felt confident that the jurors did not
believe the defense's expert witnesses or the brothers' stories of
abuse. She was so confident that she decided not to call her
psychological expert, who had sat through much of the early portion of
the trial. This may have been her biggest mistake during the trial.
One of the last defense witnesses called was Dr.
Kerry English, the medical director of the child abuse team at Martin
Luther King Hospital in south central Los Angeles. He testified that
he found no evidence that Erik had been sodomized, although physical
evidence of molestation is rare. Dr. English had reviewed Erik's
medical records from the time he was a child and found a curious
reference to a 1977 injury. The notion in Erik's medical file read, "hurt
posterior pharynx, uvula and soft palate healing well." Dr. English
was asked if such an injury to the back of the throat could be caused
by child abuse and he answered, "Yes, oral copulation." There are also
other things that can cause such an injury, a Popsicle stick, for
instance, during a fall. This injury was suspicious and the first
physical evidence on the issue of abuse. All of the other abuse
testimony had come from the brothers or from friends or family members
who said they were given the information from the brothers. On cross-examination,
Bozanich was able to have Dr. English admit that there were other
things that could cause injuries to the back of the throat.
Ed Fenno had been a houseguest of the Menendez
family. He testified that Jose had been disappointed when Erik had
turned down the opportunity to attend UC Berkeley in favor of UCLA.
Jose thought that Berkeley was a better school academically than UCLA
and was disappointed by Erik's decision. Erik preferred UCLA because
it had a better tennis team. Fenno's testimony showed that Erik had
made the decision to attend UCLA on his own. Bozanich asked Fenno if
he ever saw Erik lie to his parents and Fenno answered that "it was
somewhat common for both brothers to lie."
The defense played the December 11 confession
tape for the jurors after Judge Weissberg ruled that the defense had
waived the patient-therapist privilege because they had made the
mental state of the brothers an issue during the trial when they
claimed that the brothers killed out of fear. On the tape, Lyle can be
heard discussing the reasons that his parents were killed. Lyle had
bragged on the tape that he and Erik had "shown great courage by
killing their mother." Lyle had also said, "he missed having these
people around. I miss not having my dog around. If I can make such a
gross analogy." There was a chilling, monotone quality to Lyle's voice;
it was empty and hollow. On the tape there was no reference to sexual
abuse. Jose had to be killed because he was controlling the brothers'
lives and was a bad husband. Erik does not say much on the tape, but
can be heard crying in the background.
Judalon Smyth was called by the defense to
discredit Oziel's testimony and testified for two days. Smyth's
testimony revolved around two themes: Oziel had manipulated and
bullied her into a relationship and many of her earlier statements
about what she knew about Lyle and Erik were mistaken. Smyth's own
credibility was questionable. She had given a long affidavit to the
police and had testified behind closed doors before Judge Albrecht on
the admissibility of the tapes. She had also appeared on television.
Bozanich was angry that Smyth was recanting her
earlier statements. Bozanich believed that Smyth was angry at the
district attorney's office for not filing rape charges against Oziel.
Bozanich had referred Smyth to the D.A.'s sex-crimes division, which
had rejected the case because of insufficient evidence.
Bozanich cross-examined Smyth about the different
versions of the story she had told and Smyth answered that she was not
responsible for her earlier answers because Oziel had brainwashed her.
By the time her testimony ended, it appeared that jurors had a
difficult time believing Smyth. Smyth was the last of fifty-six
witnesses called by the defense.
The aim of the prosecution's rebuttal witnesses
was to contradict the stories told by the brothers about the days
leading up to the murders and to rehabilitate the reputations of Jose
and Kitty. One rebuttal witness who testified was Grant Walker, a man
who cleaned pools for a living. He testified that he was at the
Menendez mansion, fixing the switch on the automatic spa control on
Saturday, August 19, the day before the murders. Walker said that he
saw Lyle playing tennis with another man, while Erik stood next to
Jose and Kitty who were seated at a patio table pulled up to the
tennis court. Walker testified that he witnessed Kitty speaking to
Lyle about his tennis game. Lyle responded "in anger," and used a
vulgarity. Walker said that Erik also seemed angry with his parents.
This exchange occurred around 2:00 p.m. in the afternoon. This was
powerful evidence. According to the stories that the Menendez brothers
had told, they had purposely stayed away from the house because they
feared their parents.
Flor Suria was the Menendez family housekeeper
and had slept in the mansion Monday through Friday during the time she
was employed by the family. She testified that she never saw Kitty or
Jose yelling at the brothers. Suria also testified that she did not
hear Lyle cry as his toupee was allegedly pulled off on Tuesday and
that she did not hear any other noise from the fight that Jose was
suppose to have had with Erik on Thursday before the murders occurred.
Jamie Pisarcik testified that she had been Lyle's
girlfriend off and on for about three years. The relationship
continued after Lyle was arrested until one day in December 1990 when
Jaime, having grown suspicious of Lyle, asked him to tell her the
truth. Jaime testified that Lyle told her that he had lied to her and
that the truth was that he had killed his parents. The reason for the
murders was that Jose had been molesting Erik and that Kitty had
molested Lyle. Jaime told Lyle that she did not believe him and
shortly after this exchange took place they had broken up. Jaime also
testified that in 1987 she had gone with Lyle to purchase a toupee in
Birmingham, Alabama and that she and Erik had a conversation about the
toupee in 1988. This was another hole in the defense case. Erik had
testified that seeing Lyle without his toupee shocked him into
confessing the molestation and this had led to the killings. Jill
Lansing attacked Pisarcik's credibility and portrayed her as a gold
digger that dreamed about marrying into a wealth family, only to have
those dreams destroyed when her fiancée admitted that he was a killer.
Kitty's brother, Brian Andersen, testified that
Erik was not timid and appeared to him to have "a puffed up ego." Both
brothers were not reluctant to use vulgar language when talking to
their parents or to spend their parents' money. Jose had told Andersen
that Lyle had to learn to support himself, that he and Kitty were not
going to pay his way forever. The defense countered Andersen's
testimony by showing that he had an interest in Kitty's estate and had
filed a document in probate court claiming his family would stand to
inherit if it were proven that Kitty died after Jose.
Marlene Eisenberg, Jose's secretary for fourteen
years, testified about Lyle and Erik's behavior after their parents'
memorial service. Eisenberg had ridden in the limousine with the
brothers after the memorial service. Lyle asked Eisenberg, "Who said I
couldn't fill my father's shoes?" Eisenberg told Lyle to "make your
own tracks in life and don't try to fill his shoes." Lyle then
extended a tasseled loafer and said, "You don't understand. These are
my father's shoes."
The defense called Dr. Vicary as a witness to
counter the rebuttal witnesses and support the validity of the alleged
abuse. Vicary testified that Erik was a "basket case, pathetic, wimpy,
a hopeless mess" when he first met him in jail. Erik had told Vicary
about the molestation in August 1990, after Erik had undergone months
of therapy and was taking antidepressant medication and tranquilizers.
Rather than question Vicary's opinion of Erik's mental state and the
issue of abuse, Bozanich asked Vicary how much he had earned from his
work on the case. Bozanich asked if the reason that Erik was so upset
in jail was because he was facing murder charges and Vicary said no
and that he was quite shocked to see that Erik "liked it in jail."
Vicary added that Erik, "found for the first time in his life there
was no pressure on him."
Mark Heffernan was the last witness who testified
at the trial. He was called by the defense to lessen the testimony of
the pool man, Grant Walker, who testified that he saw the Menendez
brothers on the afternoon of August 19 playing tennis at the mansion.
Heffernan testified that he was the brothers' tennis coach during the
summer of 1989 and denied being at the Menendez mansion that day.
Before closing arguments began, Judge Weissberg
gave the prosecution another victory when he declined to give the
juries an instruction that could have lead to an acquittal. Weissberg
said that there was "simply no evidence" that an average person would
have been in fear of his life, as the brothers said they were, given
the events that occurred on August 20, 1989. Weissberg would have
allowed the juries to consider a manslaughter verdict.
Michael Burt began his closing argument by
telling Lyle's jurors that they must consider that the murders were
carried out while the brothers were in a state of "fear and panic that
followed year after year of abuse by bullying parents." Burt said that
Lyle was operating like an "unthinking robot" on the night of August
20, 1989 and that he shot his parents on "instinct" and not as part of
a carefully thought out plan. Burt argued that the circumstances under
which the murders took place did not meet the legal standards for
first degree murder.
Bozanich responded by stating that "this is not a
complicated case. These two people were watching TV and they got
slaughtered by their sons." She challenged Burt's idea that the
brothers did not plan the murders, pointing out that they drove to San
Diego to purchase shotguns. Bozanich also quoted from the transcript
of the Oziel session where Lyle said that there would be "no way" he
would have carried out the shootings alone and had decided to let Erik
"sleep" on the plan.
Jill Lansing walked the jurors through the crime
and asked them to consider "the entire event, dating back to Lyle's
childhood sexual molestation."
Bozanich was sarcastic and biting in her closing
statement. She called Lyle and Erik "spoiled, vicious brats" who got
the "best defense Daddy's money could buy." At one point, Bozanich
said of the defense, "For all those children who were severely abused
and who became useful members of society, this defense is an offense."
During her three day closing argument, Abramson
explained away problems with the defense, accused prosecution
witnesses of being liars, publicity seekers and attacked Dr. Oziel.
Toward the end of her argument, Abramson finally did something that
the prosecution had hoped Erik would have done three years earlier;
she broke ranks with Lyle. She told the jurors that "I don't want Erik
to be taking the rap for Lyle" and added, "the evidence in this case
does not prove that Erik killed anybody."
Lester Kuriyama's final argument was completed in
three hours. He told the jury that he would not attempt to "dazzle"
them, but instead asked the jury to "base your decision in this case
on common sense." He told the jury that Erik was homosexual and the
reason he raised this issue was that "if the defendant were engaging
in consensual sex with other men that would account for him being able
to describe what he described for you, his sexual encounters with his
father." Kuriyama went on the tell the jury that Jose had not forced
Erik into homosexual acts, but was in fact furious that Erik was gay.
Judge Weissberg gave Lyle and Erik's juries four
choices in deciding the brothers' fate. The juries could find the
brothers guilty of first-degree murder with special circumstances;
they could find the brothers guilty of second-degree murder; they
could find the brothers guilty of voluntary manslaughter; or they
could find the brothers guilty of involuntary manslaughter. Lyle and
Erik each faced sentencing on three counts: the murder of Jose, the
murder of Kitty and the charge of conspiracy to commit murder.
On January 13, 1994, after 16 days of
deliberation, Erik's jury announced that it was deadlocked and unable
to reach agreement on any of the counts. On January 25, after
deliberating for 24 days, Lyle's jury announced that it was deadlocked.
The juries for both brothers were polarized over whether the brothers
were killers or long suffering victims of abuse. Judge Weissberg
declared mistrials in both cases.
The outcomes of the cases were a victory for the
defense. Only three of the jurors on Lyle's jury voted for the most
serious charge of first degree murder in the shooting of his father,
Jose, while five did so on Erik's jury.
Gil Garcetti, the District Attorney who replaced
Ira Reiner, said that the Menendez brothers would be retried and that
he "would rather have a hung jury than a manslaughter verdict because
this is a murder case."
The People vs. Lyle and Erik Menendez was never
about guilt or innocence, the defendants admitted that they killed
their parent in cold blood and showed neither mercy nor remorse. What
the trial was about was the sons' refusal to accept personal
responsibility for their own acts. Instead they blamed their parents
for an endless catalog of abuse that transformed the victims into the
killers. The state attempted to prove that the defendants killed out
of hatred and greed, and were lying sociopaths who invented the
sensational allegations of sexual, psychological and physical abuse
against their parents.
Although the case against the Menendez brothers
appeared to be a "slam dunk" murder prosecution, it was derailed by
carefully rehearsed testimony, great defense attorneys, prosecutors
that were caught by surprise, an indecisive judge and a group of
jurors manipulated to accept an outlandish defense. The result was a
mistrial that some thought was a miscarriage of justice.
The Second Trial
On February 28, 1995, Judge Weissberg set a trial
date of June 12, 1995 for the retrial of the Menendez brothers. The
retrial was postponed a number of times and began in August 1995. In
April 1995, Judge Weissberg ruled that the brothers would be retried
together, in front of a single jury. Weissberg ruled that the
advantages of a "single trial greatly outweigh the potential prejudice."
For the retrial, David Conn, a veteran Los
Angeles County assistant district attorney, and Assistant District
Attorney Carol Najera replaced Pam Bozanich and Lester Kuriyama. Conn
had 18 years of experience and was acting head deputy of the major
crimes unit of the Los Angeles County district attorney's office. Conn
dropped out of high school at the age of 17, joined the Marines, and
was sent to Vietnam. He eventually graduated from college and law
school. Conn is smooth, impeccably dressed and is often compared to
comic hero, Clark Kent, to whom he bears more than a passing
resemblance. Conn spent two and one half years mapping out the
strategy he would use to dismantle the Menendez defense.
Leslie Abramson continued to represent Erik,
although she was paid by the taxpayers of Los Angeles County because
the Menendez estate had run out of money. Abramson was assisted by
Barry Levin, a Los Angeles criminal defense attorney. The Los Angeles
County Superior Court declared both Lyle and Erik indigent. Lyle
qualified for representation by the public defender's office. Jill
Lansing no longer represented Lyle and was replaced by Charles Gessler,
a Los Angeles County Public Defender, who was considered the dean of
the death penalty bar. This would be Gessler last case before retiring.
Gessler was assisted by deputy public defender, Terri Towery.
On August 21, 1995, jury selection began in the
retrial of the Menendez brothers. On October 11, 1995, opening
statements began. Judge Weissberg ruled that the trial would not be
televised because it would "increase the risk that jurors would be
expose to information and commentary about the case outside of the
courtroom." Weissberg also limited the number of witnesses the defense
was able to call regarding the allegations of abuse. During the
retrial, 64 witnesses testified. This was in contrast to the first
trial where 101 witnesses testified. The retrial lasted 23 weeks and
more closely resembled a regular murder trial: somber, gruesome, and
occasionally dull rather than the media spectacle of the first trial.
During the two and one half years between trials,
Conn studied the mistakes made by Bozanich and Kuriyama to make sure
he did not repeat the biggest mistake of the first trial -- Bozanich's
decision not to address head-on the brothers' allegations of years of
physical, emotional and sexual abuse. Bozanich and Kuriyama had
ignored it all, guessing incorrectly that jurors would too. The
prosecution hired Dr. Park Elliott Dietz, a well-known forensic
psychiatrist, to assist them.
Conn presented a new theory about the way in
which the killings were carried out. Conn decided not to call Dr.
Oziel to testify and instead planned to play a tape of the brothers
confessing to the murders. Conn vigorously attacked the defense theory
that the brothers suffered from battered person's syndrome and was
successful in having Judge Weissberg rule that the defense could not
present this theory to the jury. At the first trial, Bozanich believed
that this defense applied to the brothers.
In his opening statement, Conn argued that the
Menendez brothers were motivated by greed when they ambushed their
parents. Conn illustrated his points by showing jurors autopsy and
crime scene photographs. Conn said that the brothers "were carrying
their dead parents' safe to the home of a probate attorney" 24 hours
after they murdered their parents. Conn argued that the brothers were
trying to get their hands on their parents' money as fast as they
could.
Leslie Abramson countered that the brothers
killed out of "mind-numbing, adrenaline-pumping fear" that their
parents would kill them for threatening to expose the family's secrets.
Abramson told the jury that "we will prove to you
that Erik was tortured, terrorized, exploited, molested and abused to
such a state he lived in a constant state of fear."
Charles Gessler told the jurors that the brothers
believed that their parents had supernatural powers and "knew
everything" about their sons' activities. Gessler argued that the
prosecution's theory that the brothers wanted their parents' money was
wrong because Lyle and Erik thought that their parents' had disowned
them.
Conn began the prosecution's case by playing
three tapes that incriminated the brothers. The first tape Conn played
was of the brothers being interviewed by members of the Beverly Hills
Police Department. The interview took place one month after the
murders and the brothers were heard saying that they had not had any
problems with their parents and discussing their activities on the day
of the murders. Conn next played the tape of the brothers admitting to
Oziel that they killed their parents. The last tape Conn played was of
Lyle's 911 call to the Beverly Hills Police Department on the night of
August 20, 1989. Conn told the jury that the brothers "had spun a web
of lies after the killings and turned to tears" so they would not be
suspected.
Perry Berman's testimony was similar to that of
his testimony during the first trial. He testified that Jose was
critical of Lyle's taste in women and was a strict parent. Judge
Weissberg limited the scope of Terri Towery's cross-examination,
throwing out as irrelevant some questions that probed recollections
that cast Jose in a negative light.
During the second week of trial, the prosecution
presented evidence to support its theory that greed motivated the
brothers to kill their parents. Klara Wright, the wife of a probate
attorney that the brothers retained, testified that the brothers
brought a safe to their home hoping to find a copy of their parent's
will inside. Wright had not testified at the brothers' first trial
because the prosecutors did not know about the safe until after the
first trial was over. The safe was opened two days after the murders
when Brian Andersen and Carlos Baralt, the brothers' uncles could be
present. The safe was empty.
Carlos Baralt testified that two months before
the murders, Jose told him that he wanted to disinherit his sons. Conn
asked Baralt if he knew of any evidence that Jose sexually abused his
sons and Baralt answered no. On cross examination, Baralt was asked by
Leslie Abramson why Jose had talked about disinheriting his sons and
Baralt answered that Jose was disappointed that Lyle was failing
academically at Princeton and that in Jose's opinion, Erik lacked
talent, toughness and forcefulness.
During the third week of the trial, Conn
announced that Dr. Irwin Golden, the coroner who performed the
autopsies on Jose and Kitty would not testify at the trial. Golden had
testified at the first trial that he could not say for certain how
many shots were fired or the sequence of shots that killed the couple.
In 1995, Golden was heavily criticized for the mistakes he made in the
autopsies on Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman and was not
called by the prosecution in the O.J. Simpson case because of those
mistakes. Conn had Dr. Roger McCarthy reconstruct the shootings. Using
his reconstruction, McCarthy was able to determine the sequence of
shots and showed that the murders were premeditated and deliberate.
The prosecution attacked the credibility of the
brothers by introducing portions of a letter that Lyle had written in
July 1991 to Amir (Brian) Eslaminia, a potential defense witness. The
letter asked Eslaminia to testify falsely that the brothers had asked
him to loan them a handgun. Eslaminia was a former classmate of Erik
Menendez at Beverly Hills High School. Neither the letter nor
Eslaminia played a role in the first trial because the police learned
about Eslaminia and the letter in 1995. In 1984, members of the "Billionaire
Boys Club" murdered Eslaminia's father as part of an extortion plot.
His brother Reza was imprisoned for his role in the crime. Gessler
told the jury that Lyle did not go through with the plot. Abramson
tried to show that Erik had nothing to do with Lyle's plan.
Conn called a private pathologist, Robert
Lawrence, to support the prosecution's new theory of the crime scene.
The prosecution believed the Lyle and Erik executed their parents and
then shot them in the leg in order to make the murders appear to be
organized crime hits. Lawrence illustrated his testimony with wooden
mannequins pierced with wooden rods to demonstrate his conclusions
regarding the angles of the shotgun blasts. Lawrence testified that
Jose was struck four times and Kitty was struck nine times with
shotgun blasts and that they were shot in the head and extremities,
but were not shot in their torsos. Lawrence also testified that Jose
was seated on the sofa when he was shot and that the wound to his
thigh was inflicted after he had died. The fatal shot was fired at
point blank range to the back of Jose's head. Most of the shots to
Kitty occurred when she was lying on the floor and that some of shots
to Kitty's arms, hand and shoulder indicated that she might have been
cowering. Abramson tried to show that the blood patterns on the shirt
Jose was wearing indicated that the shots might not have been fired in
the direction that Lawrence claimed they were.
Roger McCarthy of Failure Analysis Associates
reconstructed the August 20, 1989 murders, shot by shot, and showed
the jurors a computer-generated recreation of the murders. McCarthy
was the prosecution's star witness and testified that the brothers
surprised their parents as they sat in front of the television set in
the family room. McCarthy testified that Jose and Kitty were sitting
side by side on a sofa when they were attacked and that the brothers
aimed "kneecapping" shots at their parents to make the killings look
like a Mafia hit. The brothers maintained throughout their trial that
their parents were standing when the shooting began.
Gessler questioned McCarthy about his
qualifications to examine the Menendez murder scene. McCarthy
testified that he had never visited a crime scene or witnessed an
autopsy and that he had never seen the impact of a gunshot wound on a
human body. He also conceded that he did not consult with the coroner
or criminalist before reaching his conclusions about the Menendez
murders.
On November 20, Conn rested the state's case
against the Menendez brothers. He had called 30 witnesses. The
cornerstone of the state's case was McCarthy's computer generated
reconstruction of the August 20, 1989 murders of Jose and Kitty
Menendez. Conn used the reconstruction to demonstrate to the jurors
that the brothers had deliberately and methodically killed their
parents. The reconstruction was strongly disputed by the defense and
contradicted by the brothers' testimony in the first trial, where the
brothers testified that they fired their shotguns in a blind panic.
The defense began its case by calling Martin
Fackler, an expert on wound ballistics. Fackler testified that the
McCarthy reconstruction could not be considered scientific because it
contained too many errors. Fackler said that no one could design a
reconstruction of the Menendez crime scene because there were too many
variables. Under Conn's cross-examination, Fackler, demonstrated that
he did not know the facts of the Menendez case as well as McCarthy.
During Abramson's redirect examination of Fackler,
she told the jury about the defense's newest version of events that
occurred on August 20, 1989. Abramson said that the brothers had
entered the family room and that Jose and Kitty were standing in front
of the couch, facing them. Erik began to shoot randomly at his parents.
Lyle was to Erik's right and began to fire his shotgun as he walked
around the room. Lyle fired the contact wound to Jose's head. Abramson
did not describe the shooting of Kitty, but said that she was standing
as the shots were fired.
Abramson called Ron Linhart, the assistant
director of the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department crime lab, to rebut
the conclusions reached by Roger McCarthy. Linhart testified that his
blood spatter analysis contradicted much of McCarthy's reconstruction
and that his analysis showed that Jose and Kitty must have been
standing at some point during the shootings.
Dwight Van Horn testified as a defense witness.
At the first trial, he had testified as a prosecution witness about
the type of shotguns used in the killings. Van Horn testified that
McCarthy's reconstruction was "junk science" because it "ignored
evidence in some instances and lacked it in others." Conn attacked Van
Horn and suggested that he resented the prosecutors using McCarthy's
firm instead of the sheriff's department for the crime scene
reconstruction.
Dr. Cyril Wecht, a well-respected pathologist
from Pennsylvania, testified for the defense that any "reconstruction
of the shootings was doomed to failure," because the victims and the
defendants were all moving during the killings. Charles Morton
testified that the blood patterns and shotgun pellet holes in the
clothing of Jose and Kitty contradicted the prosecution's
reconstruction of the crime scene. Morton testified that the physical
evidence at the crime scene indicated that Kitty was standing when she
was shot. Morton further testified that the blood patterns on and
around the family room couch and on Jose's clothing indicated that he
had been shot while standing, except for the shot to the back of his
head.
On December 6, Erik began the first day of 15
days of testimony. Erik's testimony began much like it did in the
first trial where he described details of the alleged sexual abuse
Jose supposedly inflicted on him. Under Barry Levine's guidance, Erik
testified that his parents were violent: Kitty humiliated and degraded
him and Jose beat and molested him. Erik told the jury that he loved
his parents and that he did not kill them out of hatred or for money
or because of abuse. Erik testified that the brothers feared their
parents would kill because they threatened to reveal the alleged
sexual abuse.
During the third day of Erik's testimony, Judge
Weissberg limited his testimony about allegations of early childhood
abuse. The judge rejected as irrelevant some of the stories the
defense wanted to introduce. The judge also limited testimony that had
little to do with the brothers' state of mind at the time they killed
their parents. The defense argued that the brothers' early childhood
trauma was critical for the jury to hear so that they could understand
why the brothers thought their parents were planning to kill them.
Erik testified that Jose had told him that he had
been written out of his will because he was not living up to Jose's
expectations. Erik also testified about the circumstances leading up
to the taped confession at Oziel's office.
Conn set out to portray Erik as a liar. Conn
pointed out to the jury that Erik had lied for six months to the
police, his family and friends about the murders before he and Lyle
were arrested. Conn attacked Erik's claims that his father had forced
sex upon him at the age of 18 when Erik had a car and money to leave
his parents' home. Conn asked Erik why he did not join the Army and
Erik said that the Army would not have protected him from his father
because his father "was the most powerful man I've ever met." Erik
later conceded that there were no living witnesses to the sexual
abuse. Conn raised the issue of Erik's sexual orientation to show that
it was a source of tension in the Menendez family.
Because Erik had "tendered his mental state" as
part of his defense, Judge Weissberg ruled that Erik had to undergo a
psychological examination by Dr. Dietz. Prior to his involvement in
the Menendez case, Dietz had testified in numerous high-profile trials.
His critics say that he is biased in favor of the prosecution. Dietz
has assisted many prosecutors in winning convictions against
defendants such as Betty Broderick, who fatally shot her ex-husband
and his second wife, and serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer.
On January 9, 1996, Erik completed his testimony
by attempting to explain questions raised by the prosecution during
his eight days of cross-examination. Erik said that he and his brother
did not concoct stories of child abuse in order to avoid murder
convictions.
Dr. John Wilson, a psychology professor from
Cleveland State University, testified that Erik suffered from Post-Traumatic
Stress Disorder at the time he killed his parents. Wilson testified
that the cause of Erik's disorder was the repeated acts of sexual,
physical and psychological abuse that he experienced. Wilson said that
Erik suffered from the classic symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress
Disorder that included nightmares and amnesia. This was the first time
that jurors had heard a specific diagnosis applied to Erik Menendez.
Wilson did not testify at the first trial.
On January 12, Charles Gessler completely changed
the direction of Lyle's defense. Gessler told the court that he
planned to argue that Lyle killed his parents in the heat of passion,
that fear and anger overwhelmed him on August 20, 1989 when he and
Erik murdered their parents. During the first trial, Lyle had
testified that he killed his parents out of the honest and mistaken
belief that his parent were going to kill him and that he was afraid
for his life. Gessler now told the jury that Lyle was a reasonable man
who reacted out of fear, anger and passion. At the first trial, the
defense used the "imperfect self-defense theory" and argued that the
brothers could not be judged by the standard of what a reasonable
person would do because years of abuse caused the brothers to see
danger differently than a normal person.
The reason that Lyle's attorneys changed defense
strategies was that Lyle did not want to testify because of damaging
impeachment evidence the prosecution had gathered since the first
trial. Lyle was considered a sympathetic witness during the first
trial, however prosecutors had tape recorded conversations between
Lyle and Norma Novelli, Lyle's one-time confident, where Lyle
describes how he "snowed" the jury at his first trial with his
testimony about abuse. The prosecution also discovered a letter Lyle
had written to a former girlfriend instructing her on how to testify
at the first trial. Because Lyle did not testify, his attorneys were
not able to call child abuse experts to testify about his state of
mind. Without Lyle's testimony, he was not able to use the same
defense as he had in his first trial.
At the beginning of the trial, the brothers had
mounted a joint defense. However, as the trial wore on, Gessler relied
almost completely on Abramson's witnesses and called very few on
behalf of Lyle. As a result, Lyle remained somewhat of an enigma to
the jury.
Toward the end of the defense case, Judge
Weissberg ruled that six witnesses who had testified at the first
trial were irrelevant to the second trial and would not be allowed to
testify. Weissberg ruled that the parents' alleged psychological
mistreatment of the brothers was irrelevant.
On January 30, after presenting 25 witnesses, the
defense rested. Judge Weissberg limited the number of mental health
experts the defense was allowed to present. In the first trial, the
defense presented five experts. At the second trial, the defense was
allowed to present only one. In addition, the defense was not allowed
to present the testimony of Dr. William Vicary, the psychiatrist who
had treated Erik since 1990.
The prosecution began its rebuttal on February 5,
1996. Jaime Pisarcik testified that Erik knew that Lyle wore a toupee
as early as 1988. Pisarcik's testimony called into question a major
part of the defense's case -- that a number of confrontations between
Jose and Kitty and Lyle and Erik lead to the murders on August 20,
1989.
Dietz testified that Erik did not suffer from any
disorder that would impair his ability to make rational decisions on
the night that he murdered his parents. Dietz diagnosed Erik as
suffering from generalized anxiety disorder, the inability to control
his restlessness, worry and irritability. Dietz had interviewed Erik
for 16 hours at the Beverly Hills Police Department. The defense
contended that Erik suffered from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Dietz testified that it was impossible to diagnosis Erik with this
disorder because he had no way of knowing if the events that were
allegedly were true. Dietz also rejected other conclusions presented
by the defense's expert witnesses. Dietz testified that Erik did not
suffer from "learned helplessness," a symptom of Post-Traumatic Stress
Disorder. Dietz pointed out that Erik bought two shotguns, loaded his
weapon, and went to the shooting range to learn how to fire the weapon.
This behavior showed rebelliousness and assertiveness inconsistent
with the passiveness of learned helplessness.
Judge Weissberg did not allow Vicary to testify
as he had in the first trial when he testified that he believed Erik's
claims of molestation and that Erik killed his parents out of fear.
Vicary was allowed to testify as a rebuttal witness regarding Erik's
anxiety disorders. The result was that Vicary was a much less
effective witness during the second trial.
On February 16, Judge Weissberg ruled that there
was insufficient evidence that the brothers were in imminent danger
when they fatally shot their parents on August 20, 1989 and that the "imperfect
self-defense" jury instruction that the defense sought would not be
read to the jury after closing arguments. The "imperfect self-defense"
theory was at the center of the defense in the first trial and
convinced some of the jurors on each of the two panels to vote to
convict the brothers of manslaughter instead of murder.
Judge Weissberg ruled that the defense could
argue that the brothers shot Jose in the heat of passion, but not
Kitty. Weissberg ruled that there was sufficient evidence to show that
Jose might have provoked his sons into committing a homicide, but
there was insufficient evidence to show that Kitty provoked her sons.
On February 20, Conn began the first of four days
of closing arguments. He ridiculed the brothers' claims of abuse as "the
silliest, most ridiculous story ever told in a courtroom." Throughout
his closing argument, Conn's tone was belittling and sarcastic. Conn
urged the jurors to find the brothers guilty of first degree murder
and not manslaughter. He attacked the testimony of Erik and said that
it was self-serving and filled with lies and inconsistencies. Conn
told jurors that they should reject Erik's claims that his father
sexually abused him.
On February 26, Abramson began the first of three
days of closing arguments. She accused David Conn of presenting
fraudulent witnesses in an effort to win a case for "political reasons."
Abramson was trying to point out to the jury that the Los Angeles
County district attorney's office was under enormous pressure to win a
"big case" after losing the McMartin preschool molestation cases, the
first Menendez trial and the O.J. Simpson murder trial. She attacked
Conn for using the taped confession from the December 11, 1989.
Abramson attacked the prosecution theory that the brothers fired shots
at Jose and Kitty's knees in order to make the killings appear to be a
Mafia hit. She argued that the crime scene indicated that the killings
were "highly emotional overkill" and not a professional hit.
Abramson told the jury that Erik had a mental
disorder, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and was in a state of mind
at the time of the killings where he did not harbor malice. Abramson
attacked the prosecution's theory that the brothers killed for money.
"Parricide doesn't happen for money," she said. Abramson concluded her
closing arguments with an emotional plea. She told the jury how close
she had grown to Erik and that it would be "the ultimate tragedy" in
her life if he were convicted.
Gessler's closing argument was low-key. He
attacked the prosecution arguments that the brothers killed their
parents in order to get their hands on their money. He said that Lyle
believed he was disinherited and would lose his means of support if
his parents died. Gessler asked the jurors to find Lyle not guilty of
murdering Kitty and guilty only of manslaughter in the death of Jose.
Gessler compared the Menendez case to a Greek tragedy, suggesting that
Jose and Kitty had brought about their own demise because of fatal
mortal flaws. Gessler added that Jose caused his own death by
molesting his sons and making them believe that they could not escape
from him. The brothers felt that their only option was to arm
themselves. Gessler argued that Kitty brought about her own death by
not protecting her sons and by making them believe that she was an
enforcer of her husband's abuse.
On February 29, closing arguments ended with Conn
telling the jury that Lyle and Erik blamed their victims, put their
parents on trial, created a clever abuse excuse and told many lies in
order to justify shooting their parents.
On March 1, the jury began to deliberate. On
March 14, Judge Weissberg removed two female jurors, including the
foreperson for medical reasons. The foreperson had suffered a heart
attack and another female juror had gone into premature labor. One
male alternative juror and one female alternative juror replaced the
two female jurors. Jury deliberations would begin all over. This
second jury consisted of eight men and four women.
On March 20, after four days of deliberation, the
jury convicted the Menendez brothers each of two counts of first
degree murder, as well as conspiracy to commit murder. Jurors also
found that there were two special circumstances attached to the
murders: lying in wait and multiple murder. Because special
circumstances were found, there were only two sentencing options: life
in prison without the possibility of parole or death by execution. The
same jury that found the brothers guilty of first-degree murder would
deliberate after a second, smaller trial, called the penalty phase, to
determine the brothers' sentences.
Punishment
The penalty phase began on March 22, 1996 and was
completed in three weeks. The defense called 18 witnesses to testify
on behalf of the brothers. The rules of evidence were different in the
penalty phase than at the brothers' trial. Since the jurors are being
asked to make a life or death decision, the defense was permitted to
appeal to the jury's sympathy. The rules allowed the defense to offer
evidence of mitigating factors, such as the brothers' ages, whether
they were "under the influence of extreme mental or emotional distress,"
whether the victims "were participants in their own deaths" and any
other evidence that diminished the gravity of the crime.
On April 4, during the second week of the penalty
phase, an unexpected and stunning thing happened in court. Dr. Vicary,
the psychiatrist who had treated Erik since 1990, admitted that he
doctored his notes at the direction of Leslie Abramson. Under cross-examination,
Vicary admitted that he omitted from his notes entire sections
containing incriminating statements by Erik Menendez. This incident
had major ramifications for the defense.
On April 5, Abramson invoked her Fifth Amendment
privilege not to incriminate herself when she refused to answer two
questions about her possible misconduct regarding Vicary's notes.
After hearing arguments outside the presence of
the jury, Judge Weissberg rejected defense motions for mistrials for
both brothers. The defense had tried to argue that a mistrial should
be declared because of Abramson's ineffective assistance of counsel.
Weissberg ruled that Lyle could not make that argument because
Abramson was not his lawyer. Weissberg also ruled that Barry Levine
was perfectly capable of taking over Erik's case, if Abramson decided
not to continue to participate in the proceedings.
On April 6, Conn told the court how he learned
about the deleted notes. Conn said that in 1993 Abramson had turned
over to him the redacted version of Vicary's notes. At some point
during the trial, Conn needed to review the notes at the Van Nuys
courthouse, but had left his copy in his office in downtown Los
Angeles. Conn borrowed a copy of the notes from Dr. Dietz who had
received a copy from the defense. Somehow, Dietz had been given a copy
of the original notes. Conn said that Abramson turned over the
originals by accident and had if it not been for this mistake, no one
would have noticed the discrepancy. Vicary had deleted 24 pages of
statements Erik had made to him and rewrote 10 pages of notes.
The notes contained incriminating evidence
against Erik. One of the sections noted that Erik told Vicary that he
thought about what it would be like to live without his parents. In
another section, Erik told Vicary that he and Lyle discussed doing
something "drastic" but the notes do not specify exactly what is meant
by "drastic." In another section, Erik told Vicary that Jose's
homosexual lover visited the mansion two days before the murders
occurred and told the brothers that their parents were going to kill
them. Vicary later admitted that Erik told him that this story was a
lie.
On April 9, Judge Weissberg ruled that a conflict
did not exist between Leslie Abramson and Erik Menendez that would
necessitate her removal from the trial. The ruling followed two days
of closed-door hearings during which Gessler and Levine sought to have
Abramson removed. It was only after Erik Menendez spoke to Weissberg
behind closed doors that Abramson was allowed to stay. Weissberg said
that he would instruct the jury not to consider Abramson's alleged
actions of misconduct when deciding whether the brothers should be
sentenced to death or life in prison. Weissberg also ruled that the
prosecution could not ask Vicary about Abramson's order to delete his
notes, instead Weissberg directed the prosecutors to impeach Vicary's
testimony without making any references to Abramson. Leslie Abramson
remained silent throughout the remainder of the trial.
On April 10, Vicary concluded his testimony and
the prosecution presented three rebuttal witnesses: Les Zoeller and
Kitty's two brothers, Milton and Brian Andersen.
On April 11, David Conn gave his closing argument.
Conn argued that the Menendez brothers should be sentenced to death
because they chose to kill their parents in a "horrifying and brutal
way." Conn ridiculed the defense allegations of psychological abuse,
saying that the allegations were "desperate and trivial."
In his closing argument, Barry Levine accused the
Los Angeles County district attorney's office of arbitrarily deciding
who was eligible for the death penalty. He reminded the jury of the
O.J. Simpson case and said, "he's not even eligible for the death
penalty." Levine told the jury that the prosecution had not presented
evidence of aggravating circumstances other that the crime itself.
On April 12, the jury began to deliberate whether
the Menendez brothers should be sentenced to life in prison or death.
On April 17, 1996, after deliberating for three
days, the jury decided that life in prison was the appropriate
punishment for Lyle and Erik Menendez. The jury later said that the
abuse defense was never a factor in their deliberations and that the
jury decided to spare the brothers' lives because neither brother had
a felony record or a history of violence. Although some jurors said
they were sympathetic to the brothers' upbringing and that it may have
contributed to the murders being committed, in the end they could not
excuse it. Several of the jurors believed some of the evidence of
psychological abuse, but questioned whether the sexual abuse occurred.
Unlike the first trial where two separate juries
could not agree on whether the brothers committed murder or
manslaughter, jurors in the retrial said that there was never any
division or dissent and there were no holdouts. None of the jurors
believed the defense theory that the brothers killed because they were
afraid and the jurors did not believe that the brothers killed solely
to get their hands on their parents' money.
On June 1, defense attorneys for the Menendez
brothers filed a motion in Judge Weissberg's court seeking a new trial
for the brothers. The motion argued that Judge Weissberg erred when he
refused to allow the jury to consider manslaughter verdicts. The
motion also claimed that Judge Weissberg erred when he allowed jurors
to hear the December 11, 1989 tape of the brothers confessing to Dr.
Oziel. The motion also claimed that Weissberg erred when he limited
the number of defense witnesses who testified about the Menendezes'
family life.
Prior to being formally sentenced on July 2,
1996, Lyle and Erik gave an interview to Barbara Walters for the
television program 20/20. The purpose of the interview was to gain
public support for the brothers' bid to be imprisoned together. A
committee of California state correction officials ultimately made the
decision of whether to imprison the brothers together. David Conn said
that he had no position on whether the brothers were imprisoned
together or apart, as long as they did not receive any special
treatment.
On July 2, 1996, Judge Weissberg sentenced Lyle
and Erik Menendez to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Judge Weissberg sentenced the brothers to consecutive sentences for
the murders and the charge of conspiracy to commit murder.
A few weeks after the sentences were announced,
Lyle and Erik were taken to the North Kern State Prison at Delano, a
Department of Corrections reception center outside of Los Angeles for
diagnostic evaluation. A decision whether the brothers were to be
imprisoned together was made after the evaluation was completed.
Aftermath
On August 2, 1996, Dr. William Vicary was removed
from the panel of mental health professionals appointed by Los Angeles
Superior County judges to analyze and testify about defendants in
court cases. A ten-member committee made up of Superior Court judges
reviewed the transcripts of the Menendez brothers' retrial and decided
that Vicary's "continued participation on the panel was inappropriate."
Later, the California State Medical Board sued Vicary in an attempt to
revoke his license. Vicary was able to reach an agreement with the
Medical Board to retain his license after admitting that he acted
unethically during the Menendez case.
On September 10, 1996, the California Department
of Corrections separated the Menendez brothers. Lyle was bussed from
the North Kern State Prison to the California Correctional Institution
near Tehachapi and Erik was bussed to the California State Prison,
near Sacramento. Lyle and Erik were segregated from other prisoners
and classified as maximum-security inmates.
Leslie Abramson was critical of the Department of
Corrections decision to separate the brothers and said that the move
was "unduly cruel and punitive." On the other hand, Les Zoeller said
that he was "pleased the brothers finally are apart." Zoeller added,
"I think that by putting them together, everybody's at risk."
On January 26, 1997, David Conn was notified that
he would be transferred to the Norwalk office of the district
attorney's office. After the Menendez verdicts, Conn gave an interview
to the Los Angeles Times were he stated that he "wouldn't mind one day
being the Los Angeles district attorney." Conn was later passed over
for promotion and removed as acting head deputy of the major crimes
unit. Conn said he was humiliated that he was not promoted and backed
an opponent of Gil Garcetti's in the November 1996 Los Angeles
district attorney's race.
On October 13, 1997, after an 11-month
investigation, Leslie Abramson learned that she would not be
prosecuted by the Los Angeles district attorney's office for
requesting that Dr. Vicary delete sections of his notes during the
retrial of the brothers.
In 1997, Dr. Oziel surrendered his
psychotherapist's license and moved from California to another state.
On February 27, 1998, the California Court of
Appeals upheld the murder convictions of Lyle and Erik Menendez. The
court's opinion established no new precedents and found that Judge
Weissberg made no errors in a series of controversial rulings that
limited the defense testimony about the brothers' upbringing and
mental states during the retrial. The opinion was not published in
official law reports and indicated that the justices on the Court of
Appeals did not intend to create any legal precedents that could apply
to future cases.
On May 28, 1998, the California Supreme Court voted
to uphold the murder convictions and life-without-parole sentences of
Lyle and Erik Menendez. None of the Supreme Court justices voted to
review the case. Lyle's appellate lawyer, Cliff Gardner, said that he
planned to file an appeal in federal court.
In 1998, David Conn left the district attorney's
office for private practice.
On February 9, 1999, the State Bar of California
closed its three year investigation of Leslie Abramson after deciding
that there was insufficient evidence to conclude she violated ethical
rules in the Menendez brothers retrial.
Lyle is now 31 and works as a janitor at the
California Corrections Institution near Tehachapi. His 1996 marriage
to Anna Eriksson fell apart after less than a year. Erik is now 29 and
works as a groundskeeper at the California State Prison outside of
Sacramento. According to their aunt, Marta Menendez-Cano, "in prison
they're perceived as a couple of rich guys and people hate them."
Leslie Abramson continues to practice criminal law
in Los Angeles. She recently defended Jeremy Strohmeyer, the teenager
who killed a young girl in a Nevada casino. She also appears as a
court commentator on ABC's Nightline and on Court TV.
Bibliography
There are several books that deal with the first
trial in the Menendez case:
Davis, Don. Bad Blood: The Shocking True Story
behind the Menendez Killings.
Soble, Ronald L. and John Johnson. Blood Brothers:
The inside Story of the Menendez Murders
Menendez, Lyle, Novelli, Norma, and Mike Walter.
The Private Diary of Lyle Menendez: In His Own Words. Dove Books,
1995. This book is based on conversations between Lyle Menendez and
Norma Novelli, a woman who befriended Lyle when he was in the Los
Angeles County Men's Jail.
Thornton, Hazel Hung Jury: The Diary of a Menendez
Juror. Thornton was a juror on Erik Menendez's jury and her book
discusses the gender division that occurred on the jury and resulted
in a hung jury.
Mones, Paul. When A Child Kills: Abused Children
Who Kill Their Parents. Pocket Books, 1995. Mones was a consultant on
the first Menendez trial. This book provides information on the
defense strategy utilized in both trials.
Dershowitz, Alan. The Abuse Excuse and Other
Cop-Outs, Sob Stories and Evasions of Responsibility. Little, Brown &
Company, 1995. This book contains a chapter on the Menendez brothers'
use of the "abuse excuse". Dershowitz argues that failure to hold
people responsible for their criminal actions is against the
fundamental principle of personal responsibility.
Information about the crimes, trials and attorneys
of the Menendez brothers can be found in the Los Angeles Times and on
the Court TV Internet site.
From 1993-1996, Dominick Dunne wrote a series of
articles about the crimes and trials of the Menendez brothers that
appeared in Vanity Fair Magazine.
