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Lyle Menendez called the police saying that someone murdered their parents, but then they started spending a lot of money, making it a motive for the police to investigate them further.
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Lyle Menendez was arrested for the murder of his parents. The arrest took place because of the gun that was bought under a friend's ID. Erik was later arrested after he came back from a trip.
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The brothers pleaded not guilty; their family insisted that they were innocent.
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Diane is a cousin of the Menendez brothers. She spoke about Lyle coming to her room and telling her about the molestation that he had been going through with his father when he was 8 years old. He talked about his fear of it happening again.
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Prosecution:
The money was the motive that drove the brothers to murder their parents, this was brought upon because there was insurance money that was supposed to go to Lyle a few days before the murder -
The reason that the murder happened was because of fear, the reason why they feared their parents. Jose Menendez was aggressive towards Lyle when he was younger. Kitty Menendez was crazy and had had crazy thoughts before.
Erik has been abused his whole life by both of his parents, and no one knew. He killed his parents because he could no longer live with the abuse that he faced. -
Dr. Burgess is a psychiatrist, and she interviewed Erik a lot. She wanted him to talk about everything that happened before and during the murder. She asked him to draw it out, and it was a different way for him to speak about everything that happened. She had a theory that the reason of why the murder happened was not becuase of the money they were going to get.
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Peter Cano was Jose's brother-in-law. He testified against Jose and spoke about the child abuse that the brothers faced when they were little. Peter mainly spoke about the abuse that Lyle endured as a child; he spoke about Lyle being hit when they were at a family event.
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Dr. Jerome Oziel was Erik's therapist, and he went to him years before when he committed burglary, and he went back to him when he committed the murder. He confessed to his therapist without meaning to, and he also said he was suicidal. Dr. Oziel wanted to get the confession on tape and wanted Lyle to be there as well.
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Marta is Jose's sister. She spoke about the abuse that Erik faced from his dad. Erik was 5 at the time. Jose enforced a competitive relationship between both siblings, which was something that Marta did not like at all.
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Lyle spoke about sports being an important thing to his father, and that was the thing that made him happy, and Lyle just wanted to make his father happy. Later on, he spoke about his father sexually abusing him from ages 6-8; he told his mother, but she was not a very good resource for him. He also proceeded to mention that he did the same thing to his brother Erik, and he did these things because of his father.
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Erik spoke about being molested by his father at age 6 until the summer of 1989. Erik thinks that the reason the shooting happened was that he told Lyle that he was being molested by their father. Erik spoke about the relationship he had with his father; he talked about his experiences with his father and mentioned being threatened by his father with a knife.
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The issue was that the men thought that men could not be sexually abused like the brothers were, and the women felt sympathy for the brothers, and there was an issue. The jury deliberated for a month just to get a decision
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Erik came to Lyle about the molestation he had been enduring with his father. He broke down in front of Erik because he was upset that he was not able to get away from his father by going to Stanford; he was forced to stay and go to UCLA.
A few days before the murder, Lyle confronted his parents about the molestation, and Kitty was aware of it, but she did not do anything to protect her son.
They were planning the murder, and figured out ways to plan the murder as a burglary. -
The argument that the prosecution had was that if they really wanted to leave, they could have just left, and they did not have to kill their parents. They are putting the case straightforward; they said the Menendez brothers murdered their parents because they wanted to.
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The argument that the defense had would be that to see the murder, you have to see it from their perspective. It could either be malice or manslaughter done from fear.
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The jury is in deadlock, and there is no verdict. There is a mistrial declared on the trial of Erik Menendez, this was because the jury was split in the middle on whether the case was murder or manslaughter.
Gil Garcetti, the LA district attorney, is calling for a second opportunity for the case. Since there were different opinions on both sides, the second opportunity for the trial was well needed. -
Norma Novelli was an author who wrote about Lyle Menendez, and it was a book written about his life. She recorded tapes that involved having all of the phone calls she had with Lyle, some of which included him talking about the judge in his case, and others about him lying to advance his case in a better way.
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The second trial was very different from the first one; there were no TVs or reporters to see it. None of the family relatives were in the second trial; it was just Erik on the stand. There was no other option; it was either murder or nothing. There was no evidence applied to the trial, and there was also no defense. It was either first-degree murder or no crime at all. They were given consecutive life sentences.
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The Menendez brothers were sentenced to life in prison, and they were separated for years. Recently, their life in prison was reduced to 50 years.