- Today's video is kindly
sponsored by Hello Fresh. Use the code kendallrae10
to get 10 free meals across your first four Hello Fresh boxes. (upbeat music) - Hey, guys. Welcome back to my channel. So for this week's video, we
are gonna be looking at a case that is very famous, also very, very highly
requested from you guys. I get messages about this all the time, tweets, comments on Instagram, and of course, many of
you have submitted it to my actual case suggestion form, which I so appreciate when you do that, it helps me keep it all
a little more organized. Today we're gonna be talking about the Menendez Brothers,
and this case is really wild. It honestly plays out like a movie. It's a little bit of an older case. It took place in the 80s, but it has gotten a resurgence
in publicity lately, mainly on TikTok, which has
been really interesting. I feel like many people who may have experienced
watching this all play out back when it was taking place might feel different about the case now looking at it with fresh eyes. It's a very controversial case. I'm sure you guys will
have plenty of opinions, of course, leave them below. I love hearing what you guys
have to say about these cases, but this isn't one that
I think many people are on the fence about. They are either on one
side or the other side. There is a lot to go over here today. So let's go ahead and dive
right in to the Menendez family. So their story really
begins with the patriarch of their family, their
father, Jose Enrique Menendez who was born on May six,
1944 in Havana Cuba. His father was a former soccer star and his mother was a
former champion swimmer. And Jose really took after his parents. He was very competitive. He was athletic and he
normally got first place. He was very successful in
all the sports that he did, basketball, soccer, swimming. When Jose was about 15 years old in 1960, things got really crazy in Cuba, Fidel Castro had taken complete
control of the military and political power and was
now Cuba's Prime Minister. Jose's parents felt like it
wasn't safe for him there. So they ended up sending
him to the United States when he was just 15. So he came here alone
and his parents decided to stay in Cuba to try to
protect what they had left. They had a lot of their
properties seized by the regime, but they were hoping that
they could protect a few. So they had to stay there,
but they sent him alone to the US, and at first he
lived in his cousin's attic. It was definitely a
hard adjustment for him, but luckily for him, he had sports still. So that was kind of a sense of normalcy. And eventually, he got a
scholarship for swimming. So he ended up going to
Southern Illinois University. And in 1962, he met Mary Louise Anderson who went by the nickname, Kitty. Kitty was just a few
years ahead of him at SIU. And she was born in 1941. She grew up in Chicago and she was a former beauty pageant queen. So he was very attracted to her. They hit it off right
away and started dating. By 1963, Kitty ended
up graduating from SIU and Jose decided that he
was just done with school and he decided to leave
when she graduated. He was just 19 years old at the time. And they actually decided to go and elope. After this, they moved to New York where Kitty was a teacher
for a little while. And Jose ended up enrolling
in Queens College in Flushing. He decided he was pretty
good with numbers, so he was gonna go his
degree in accounting. And during that, he worked
as a dishwasher part-time. Eventually, Jose and Kitty got pregnant with their first child and it was a boy. His name was Joseph Lyle Menendez. He was born in New York
on July 10th, 1968, and they ended up calling
him Lyle for short. At this point, Kitty decided to quit her full-time teaching job 'cause she wanted to be
a full-time mom instead. And she was very excited to be a mom. Eventually, the city became
a little too much for them, so Jose decided to move
the family to New Jersey. Specifically, they moved
to Blackwell New Jersey, which is a small unincorporated community. And then on November 27th of 1917, they had their second son, Erik. And around this time he had a
big shift in his career path. He ended up going into the music industry, so very different from accounting, but he really liked
music and he liked money, so he decided to make the
switch to the music industry. And this was a good move for
him because by the 1980s, he was a top executive with RCA Records. And he signed several
really popular groups, the most popular being Duran Duran. The family moved to a
million dollar estate in Princeton, New Jersey and both boys attended
Princeton Day School which is a very prestigious
and top rated private school. And as soon as the boys were old enough to walk and talk, the
expectations were set for them that they need to be successful. They need to excel in
academics and athletics. And they weren't the kind
of parents that were okay with trying out a sport and
just having fun with it, and getting the constellation trophy, no, they wanted their kids
to be best of the best. So one sport that they got really into and they were very good at was tennis. Both of them were exceptional
tennis players actually, they spent a lot of money
in training and classes and all of that and their mom, Kitty, was just like their cheerleader, she was always at every
practice, every game cheering them on. And at this time from the outside, it looked like they were
living a very comfortable and happy life. In 1986, Jose decided that he wanted to leave the music industry and get into the movie industry instead. So of course, where do you got to go if you're gonna be in the movie industry? Hollywood, so he packs up the whole family and they all head to California. In 1987, Jose started a new job working for Live Entertainment, which was a newly formed company that was already in trouble. Just to give you an idea, the company had lost over $20
million the previous year. So they were really not doing great. So Kitty was a little nervous
making this cross-country move to this failing company,
but Jose was competent that he could swoop in
and save the business. And it worked because his first year, he increased the profits by $8 million, and the second year, he increased them by double
that, 16 million dollars. And he was known for
doing whatever it takes using some pretty
ruthless business tactics, but it definitely paid off for him because eventually, he was named the CEO. And when he started that
position, his salary was $500,000 per year with an additional
up to 860 million in bonuses. So the company took
out insurance policies, life insurance policies on
all of the top executives at the company, Live Entertainment took
one out on Jose, obviously. And they actually made
themselves the beneficiary which I guess is pretty common practice for large corporations. But they also had a second
policy for employees that was worth $5 million. And for this one, they could
have anyone as the beneficiary. At work, Jose was really
applauded and praised by the people at the top. But everyone that worked under Jose really fucking hated him. In fact, it's safe to say he was despised by people he worked with. He had a horrible reputation
with women as well. He could be aggressive. He was very intimidating,
cutthroat, ruthless. He didn't hesitate to reprimand
or straight up fire anyone in the company that made
even a slight mistake. And he was also known for some pretty shady business practice to kind of inflate the
worth of the company. And not only was he an asshole at work, he was also having several affairs with people that he worked with. And a lot of them weren't
just little hookups, they were full blown affairs,
long-term relationships that were going on behind Kitty's back. However, it is assumed
that Kitty probably knew that this was going on,
and just turned a blind eye 'cause he was making a lot the money and she wanted to keep
the family together. So it's possible she knew,
but we'll never know for sure, but even though she
probably had a gut feeling that all of this was going on or might have straight up known about it, she still made an effort to be as involved in his
life as she could be. She insisted that she went
on business trips with him because she didn't trust him. And Jose worked a ton. He went on business trips all the time. So that was kind of their way
of spending time together. He was go, go, go, work
as hard as you can, be as successful as you can. Now here's one very
strange detail about Jose. He was ashamed of his Cuban heritage. At one point, he was offered
a letter of congratulations on his success as a Hispanic businessman. And he was offended by it. He didn't want any of his
colleagues to know about his past, where he came from or even
where he went to school because he was ashamed that he didn't go to an
Ivy League University. And he was determined
to have all of his kids go to an Ivy League school. So clearly the boys were
dealing with a lot of pressure just being Jose's sons. He decided when his boys were pretty young that they were gonna go to Princeton. So at this time, their family
was living in Calabasas. This is where I believe some
of the Kardashians live. I'm not completely sure,
it's a very fancy area, I've driven through it once. And they were really
living the American dream. They rented a house while they were building their dream home which was actually on
the top of the mountain. And it was on 13 acres of land. And on the outside looking in, they seemed like they
had the perfect life, the American dream. They seemed like a picture,
perfect, close, happy family. And the parents were super
involved in the kids' lives. They were always at their sporting events, very involved in who they were dating and their academics, especially Kitty. They had hoped that the
boys would excel in school as much as they did in tennis,
but that wasn't the case. They did more average in school, they weren't bad students by any means, but they weren't top of
the class or anything but they were really excelling
at tennis, especially Eric. He ended up breaking 44th in the nation for 18 and under players. And as they were growing up, they were very, very, very close. Lyle was very protective of
his younger brother, Eric. And they did a lot of things together. They spend a ton of time together. They had a couple of
friends here and there, but they really stayed
closest with each other. And several people who
were friends with them said that they got interesting
vibes from the boys at times. Some of their past friends
felt like betrayed by them or double-crossed by them. They grew up having to
learn to be very sneaky and aggressive and get what you want, this is what they learned from their dad. Now, Lyle definitely had a harder time in the family than Erik did. There was a lot more expectation on him, just a lot more pressure
in general to succeed and to set a good example. And I'm sure some of you
who are the first born in your family can relate to
this, I know I definitely can. I think the first born
definitely has more expectations than the younger siblings. His father was pretty brutal on him, and we'll talk a lot
more about this actually. But one of the things that he would do to Lyle a lot was shame him
about his physical appearance. And one thing that he was very
insecure about was the fact that he was going bald at age 14 and his father forced
him to wear a toupee. That's how concerned he
was with their image. He didn't want to have any
imperfections in his children. And the boys definitely grew up learning that money is everything in life. It's all about getting as far as you can, being first place, being
the most successful, and making the most money. You could definitely
consider these two brats, it was their environment, but
they had no concept of money. When Lyle started driving, he
wanted a Porsche right away. And his dad actually decided
to have a little restrain and said no to the Porsche. But the boys both definitely struggled with competence issues
at the end of the day. Even though they were nationally
ranked tennis players, they never felt good
enough for their father. Erik really started to struggle
with it more as he got older and eventually, he started
to rebel a little bit and started hanging out with
the wrong crowd you could say. Erik eventually started
bringing Lyle around with them and they all started
hanging out a big group. And one particular time, they were all hanging out and they decided that they wanted to do
something rebellious. So they decided to break
into a friend's home and steal what was in their safe. And one of Erik's friends
actually had the combination. And so Erik, Lyle, this
friend, whoever else went over to another friend's house and stole their jewelry, money, whatever else was in the safe. And obviously, these guys are rich, like why do you need to do this? For them, it was really
about the rush of it all, it was the excitement. After that, they decided
to plan another break in into a different house with their friend. And after they did this,
Erik and Lyle decided they really liked the thrill of it all. And they decided they wanted
to do their own break in without the friend at a different house. And this wasn't just breaking
in as a little prank, maybe stealing something
small, they ended up stealing over $100,000 from this person. And they actually almost got away with it which was very exciting for
them, but then their friend, the one they cut out of the deal and hooked him up with the
code for the first robbery, decided to rat them out because they did not include
him in the second robbery. And what's really interesting
about all this is, of course, their parents found
out that they had done this because they were turned into the police. But Jose was not angry that
they committed this crime, he wasn't angry that they stole, he was angry that they got caught. He thought his son should
be smarter than that, tougher than that. And so he was disappointed in them and it turns out he actually knew that the boys had been
doing things like this. There were a couple other
houses that they broke into and did some minor things at, and he would go and try to pay them off, get them not to reported to the police, but he wasn't able to in this situation. And that's what he was upset about, that they all got caught. The boys ended up claiming
that it was just a joke. They ended up paying back the $100,000 and they also paid an
additional $11,000 in damages. Then Jose came up with a plan
to keep the boys out of jail. Lyle was an adult and he was
about to start Princeton. So Jose decided that
since Erik was under age, he would plead guilty to the entire thing, all of the burglaries that
they had been involved in and take the fall. So Lyle was just given a
slap on the wrist basically. And Erik had to take the
punishment, but it wasn't that bad. And he had to do some community service and get some therapy,
which was good for him. This is when he was sent
to Dr. L. Jerome Oziel. And he started seeing Erik regularly. Around the same time, the family decided that they were going to
move to Beverly Hills into a famous mansion. And this place is very fancy. It's a $4 million, six bedroom Mediterranean
style mansion on Elm drive. It has a courtyard, a tennis
court, a pool, a guest house. And a lot of famous people have
actually lived in this house including Michael Jackson,
Elton John, and a Saudi Prince. So when they moved in, of course, they were feeling
really good about themselves. They felt like they really made it. They had the perfect life or so it seemed, and to make it even more perfect, Lyle their first son ended
up getting into Princeton like they had hoped. He ended up deciding to study business because his dad encouraged him to do that, follow his footsteps. But once he got to school,
it really was not his jam. During his freshman year, he was put on academic
probation for his poor grades. He was pretty much not
even going to class. He got really into the parties and the social life of college. And then it all really
came crashing down for him when he got caught plagiarizing
in his psychology class. And normally, when the
boys got in trouble, Jose would come in and try to see if he
could work the system, maybe write a check to
get them out of trouble. So he tried to do this, but the Dean of the
school was not having it. So Lyle ended up being
suspended for a whole year. And this really pissed off
Jose, but he wasn't mad at Lyle. No, of course, not. He was mad at the university
for expelling him. So as you can see, Lyle and Erik were never held
responsible for anything. Everything was everyone
else's fault at all times. And it was all about how
can you cheat the system? So Jose ended up hooking his son up with a job at Live Entertainment. He was hoping that his
son could just slide in and maybe he would work
his way up the ladder the way that he did, but
this was not reality. Lyle hated this job and
he was a terrible worker. Most days, he came in late and acted like he didn't
really give a shit, would walk around the
office talking to people barely doing any work. And he would normally clock out
early to go and play tennis. Coworkers said that working
with him was a nightmare. It was clear that he
was only working there because his father got him the job and not because he actually
cared about the business in any way, but eventually,
this all caught up with him and even having his dad
as the CEO was not enough to save his job, and he was
fired from Live Entertainment. Meanwhile, Erik was still in high school, he was playing tennis, he was also acting, and he actually won a
prize for best actor. So he was really thriving. He was also really into writing
and he and his friend, Craig spent a lot of time writing together. And the two of them actually
co-wrote a screenplay together, and it was called "Friends." No, not that friends. ♪ No one told you life
was gonna be this way ♪ It was actually a story about a young man who murdered his parents to
inherit all of their money. Now, Kitty was really into her son's work. She was very proud of his writing and everything that he was doing. However, Jose didn't
show much interest in it. So that was really hard for Erik. He never felt like he was
good enough for his dad and it wasn't just like Jose would ignore his son's achievements and wasn't that excited for him, he was straight up disappointed
in how the boys turned out. He didn't think they
were good enough at all. He was super disappointed in Lyle because he dropped out of school, because he failed at the
job that he had given him. And he was disappointed in Erik too. And it seemed like he was even
considering taking them out of his will. We're not sure if maybe he was planning on taking them out altogether or maybe altering it a little bit so they would get their money
when they were a little older and more responsible. So there was a lot of
tension between them all, a lot more than anyone even
could have possibly known at the time. And that brings us to August 19th, 1989. On that day, Jose and
Kitty had charted a yacht called the Motion Picture Marine. And they took Lyle and Erik shark fishing in the Marina del Rey. At this time, Lyle was 21 and Erik was 18. They all set sail that
morning on the yacht, the entire Menendez family,
their crew, their captain, and the captain's girlfriend. And the crew specifically noticed that that day the family seemed off. There seemed to be a
disconnect between them. They didn't spend much
time together on the yacht, they didn't seem to talk much at all. The two boys ended up
distancing themselves from Kitty and Jose. They went and sat on a different
side of the boat than them and didn't seem to wanna be
around their parents at all. The next day was August
20th and their maid was off. They had a maid and she
did not work on Sundays. The boys ended up deciding to go see a movie together that night and Jose and Kitty decided
to watch their own movie at home in their den. The den is the back of the house. It's very dark, cozy and they were eating some vanilla
ice cream and strawberries and just lounging around. Kitty was in her sweats and they're just watching
their movie in the den having their ice cream, when
all of a sudden at 10:00 p.m, Erik and Lyle burst through
the doors with guns. And the two of them were
obviously completely shocked to see their kids standing there with shotguns in front of them. And they started shooting right away. They both walked in and
Lyle didn't hesitate at all. He shot his dad in the back of the head. He used a Mossberg 12 gauge shotgun, so it did a lot of damage. And the plan was for
Erik to shoot his mother, but he was panicking and Lyle ended up having to do it for him because she almost escaped the room. She ran out trying to get help. She ran over the sofa, out of the door, and down the hallway. And that's where Lyle
ended up shooting her. At first, he shot her in
the leg at close range and it was so powerful. It shattered her leg bone. They continued to shoot at them until they were out of
ammunition completely, but Kitty was still alive. She was just laying on the floor. So the two of them went
outside to reload their guns. And while they were outside, Kitty tried to get up and
she slipped in her own blood and fell to the ground. When they got back,
they continued shooting and they shot her in the
face, which killed her. Erik actually shot her twice to make sure she was really dead. She was shot a total
of 10 times in her leg, in her arm, in her chest,
and of course, her face and she was completely unrecognizable. It was brutal. Jose's death was brutal too. He was shot six times and he had a hole in the back of his head,
the size of a fist. That's how big, because
it was so close range. They had unloaded a total of 15 rounds and they decided to make
it look like a mob hit. So they ended up shooting
both of their parents one more time in their knees,
also known as a knee capping. Jose was 45 years old when
he died and Kitty was 47. And then at 11:47, a call
came into dispatch from Lyle. - [Female Officer] What's the problem? - [Lyle] Somebody killed my parents. - [Female Officer] Pardon me? - [Lyle] Somebody killed my parents. - [Female Officer] What, who? - [Male Officer] Who was the
person that had been shot? - [Lyle] My mon and my dad. - [Male Officer] Your mom and dad? - [Lyle] My mom and my dad. - [Male Officer] Okay, hold on a second. - So it actually took officers
a while to get to the scene. It's weird, the boys expected police
to be there extremely quick as soon as the gunshots
went off, practically. They lived closed to neighbors and they figured someone
had to call the police, plus there were officers patrolling in their fancy rich neighborhood. This kind of stuff doesn't happen there. They thought that the gunshots would attract a bunch of police, but they were shocked when
they went out of the house and were just waiting
there and no one showed up and the cops, of course, they did show up, but it just wasn't as
quick as you would expect. Officers who were there
said the two of them came out of the house,
hysterically screaming. They seemed really traumatized. Erik collapsed onto the lawn
and curled up in a ball. He was shaking, hyperventilating, and just screaming uncontrollably. According to officers, Lyle was trying to comfort
him, but was also hysterical. The officers who were there
said their grief seemed genuine. They seemed heartbroken, petrified, like someone had really come
in and murdered their parents even though it was them. So then they go inside and it is horsing. The den is covered in blood, the ice cream bowls are spilled, and then their two bodies
are they're disfigured because they had been shot so many times. They were unrecognizable. - When I walked into the room
and the television was on and there was blood and body
parts all over the place. - So of course, they
started their investigation with the boys talking to them,
where were you guys tonight? And they had been at the movie theaters. They said they originally had tried to see "License to Kill,"
but that was sold out. So they ended up going
to "Batman" instead. And then after this, they said, they went to the taste of LA festival and came home to the scene and police found them to be very credible. They believed their
whole story so much so, that they decided to not
even test their hands for gunshot residue, which is very weird because that's normally
just standard procedure for anyone who is in a crime
scene or near a crime scene where there's guns involved. But they were so moved by the emotions that the boys were having, that they just figured there was no way they had any involvement in this. This was some random hit and it was probably mob related
because of their knee caps. And the boys really pushed this story. They thought it made a lot of sense too. They said that their father
had some connections possibly to organized crimes. There's people out there that
would want to see him dead. But as detectives started to look into the mob theory a little more and analyze the crime scene,
they felt like the mob theory just didn't actually check out. The main reason being
that this crime was messy and it looked personal. Normally with a mob hit, they come in, they shoot
the person in the head. They do it as quick as possible and leave behind as
little blood as possible. But this was a blood bath. Plus they figured that Kitty probably would have been kept alive because she wouldn't have been the target. Plus they figured that there
were plenty of other people that could have done this that hated Jose. In his career, he had
belittled, humiliated, and fired tons of people. There are plenty of people who would be seeking revenge on him. They interviewed several
coworkers and ex-employees, but nothing panned out. No one seemed like they
were that angry at Jose. Don't get me wrong, plenty
of people hated his guts, but not enough to kill him. And when people found out in the community that Jose and Kitty had been killed, they were pretty shocked especially about Kitty's
murder, because she was known as a really friendly well-liked person. To everyone, she seemed
like a loving mother, a devoted wife. Why would anyone want to kill
her in such a brutal way? But no one thought that it could have been
Erik and Lyle that did this. And they were sticking to their story. They acted incredibly devastated by the loss of their parents
and also very scared. They started living out
of hotels right away claiming that they were afraid that whoever did this to
their parents would come back and kill them. They ended up getting bodyguards and started wearing bulletproof vests, but they also started taking advantage of the money right away. They started spending their
parents' wealth immediately. August 24th, literally the day before their parent's funeral, Lyle ended up buying three Rolex watches. They showed up to the funeral all decked out brand new shoes as well. And they showed up late and
the boys were acting very odd. Few people noted this, especially Lyle. He started making casual
jokes about his father about filling his shoes
'cause he had new shoes. He was casually talking to another friend about how they could get
tickets to the US Open. And people thought that was strange. And it was a big funeral. There were like 200 people there, but very few of these people
were actually their friends. Jose and Kitty didn't really
have that many friends. They didn't attend a lot of
social events or parties. So a lot of these people were just people that worked with Jose, probably people that didn't even like him. Then they also had a
second funeral service a few days later, and this time, Lyle gave one of the eulogies and he talked about how
much he loved his father and how he was so proud of him
and would miss him so much. But they didn't seem that
sad after the funeral, like the spending spree
just continued right away. Lyle ended up buying a Chuck's
Spring Street Cafe restaurant in Princeton for $550,000. He also bought himself that
Porsche he always wanted, which was $60,000. He ended up renaming his
restaurant, Mr. Buffaloes, and he was all about
the new business life. He even decided to start
a new company called Menendez Investment Enterprises. He hired some friends from
Princeton that he knew and he also planned to
franchise the restaurant. So he was making a lot of
moves in the business world. Erik was also spending a lot of money, not quite as much as
Lyle, but still a lot. He bought himself a
brand new Jeep Wrangler and he also started paying
for a private tennis coaching and his tennis coach
charged like $50,000 a year, so it was a pretty big deal. And they decided to keep
living in the house. They just rented some new furniture to replace the blood soaked
furniture in the living room. At one point they thought
they might move out. They were going to put down a deposit on a $900,000 penthouse,
but they decided against it. Instead, they leased two
adjoining condos in Marina del Ray and they threw a bunch of parties there. And during all of this, the mansion was just sitting there empty. It was a reminder for them. They didn't really wanna go there anymore. It was scary, it reminded
them of what they did. And at this point, the only two that knew who really killed Jose and
Kitty are Lyle and Erik. They continued to spend money. I think it was also a way
of distracting themselves from the stress they were
feeling from committing a murder. They bought themselves
really expensive wardrobes. Erik eventually bought himself a Rolex. Those three Rolexes that Lyle
bought were just for himself. So Erik had to buy his own. Erik also got really into gambling and he ended up losing
a lot of money that way. And he ended up changing
his original plan, which was to go to UCLA for tennis and he decided to go do these competitions in the Middle East, and he
did that for a little while. Erik was actually hoping
to go pro in tennis, that's how much he loved it. - We hired an Olympic weight
training coach for them. We had a complete nutritional
profile done on them. They had their volume of
oxygen uptake measured, their flexibility, obviously strength, all of these things were measured. - They acted like everything was normal, like they didn't just murder
their parents recently. They were driving around
in Kitty's Mercedes-Benz as if all was good. And as time went on, they just continue to spend
more and more and more. And six months after their
parents were murdered, they had spent over $700,000, which is equal to about $1.5
million in today's money. - But they just started spending money. And that just didn't seem like the way to grieve over
the loss of your parents is to start spinning their money. - And they were gonna be
inheriting a lot of money. Jose was worth about $14 million, plus they also were
gonna get the $5 million from that second life insurance policy. And Erik and Lyle were
gonna inherit all of this and they probably would have spent more than they did in that first six months, but they didn't have
access to all of it yet, it had to be settled
through Jose's estate. And you're probably wondering why no one was suspecting them. It looks a little weird with
how much they are spending and thriving after their
parents were just murdered. And you would be right. Detectives were starting to catch on. They started realizing
that the two of them had a huge financial motive
for committing this crime, plus the longer time went on, the boys seemed less and less interested in the investigation. They would never call and check in to see if they were any closer to figuring out who killed their parents. They didn't seem
concerned about it at all. They certainly weren't acting
the way you typically would if your parents had just been killed. So they looked a little closer at the boys and that's when they realized that they had purchased
guns on August 18th, so two days before their
parents were killed. They used a stolen ID to purchase the guns and then they brought them home. Then they found out that the boys had also
hired a computer expert to completely erase their
family's hard drive. This was important too,
because they believe that Jose had the most updated versions of his will on the computer. So police ended up talking
with Erik's friend, Craig who was the one that he played tennis with and they were working on writing that script together as well. And so they asked him to go
to lunch with Erik and he did, it was November 17th. He asked him to go to lunch
and they did like normal, but Erik seemed very
nervous, very anxious, but Craig kept kind of poking
at him, what's going on? Why are you acting funny? And eventually, Erik just
confessed everything to Craig. He really trusted Craig. And he told him how the plan
was for Lyle to shoot his dad and how he was tasked
with shooting his mom. He explained though that he couldn't do it and he could not bring himself
to actually shoot his mom. So Lyle shot his mom as well, but they did not have a
recording device for this lunch. So they asked Craig to go with Erik again and get the confession out of him. Again, this time wearing
the recording device. He wore a wire and then
he also had a calculator with a recording device inside of it that he was holding underneath the table. And Craig asked him again about
how he killed his parents. But this time he denied it, he
said that they didn't do it. He explained that he should
have never told Craig that and that it was made up and he and Lyle never killed anybody. So then they started talking
to the family's therapist. Kitty was in therapy as well. And it turns out that Kitty
actually told her therapist that she was afraid of her sons, that she thought they were sociopath's. It turns out she was so afraid of them that she was locking herself
in her bedroom at night. And after the murder first happened, Erik continued to see
his therapist, Dr. Oziel, and according to Dr.
Oziel around this time, the stress and anxiety was
really taking a toll on Erik. In fact, he was getting
ulcers from all of the stress, I can't imagine. And they have these really
casual therapy sessions. Dr. Oziel thought he could
really break through to him. I think he was kind of sensing that they may have been involved. During one of their sessions, they ended up just walking in a park. They had a very casual chat, and then they went back
to Dr. Oziel's office. And when they got there, Erik just kind of leans
up against a parking meter and casually says, we did it. Dr. Oziel was shocked and he
brought him into his office and had him explain the whole story. This is where Erik explained that after they murdered their parents, they changed into clean clothes. They dumped their shotguns up the road. They went to the movie
theater to get a ticket as their alibi for the night. Dr. Oziel told him to call Lyle and have him meet him at the
office, which Lyle had no idea that Erik had just confessed everything. So he came and met him there and he was just going to
talk to them, coach them, be there for them. But he was secretly going
to be recording the session. And he decided that he was
going to have his mistress at the time actually
stand outside of the door and listen in just in
case anything went crazy while they were talking. And she was ready to call
the police at any time. And when Lyle found out that Erik had spilled the beans
to Dr. Oziel, he was pissed. This was not part of the plan, they were supposed to get away with this. And he actually ended up
threatening to kill Dr. Oziel if he told anyone, and instead of going to
the police right away, he continued to see the brothers. He continued to have
several sessions with them and he recorded all of it. And they began talking about
the murders in more detail. Dr. Oziel was just keeping
all of this information until the day that his mistress, her name is Judalone
actually went to the police and gave them the information. And she said that she did this because Dr. Oziel was abusive to her and she wanted to get revenge on him. So the police found out
that he had confession tapes from the boys and that they were the ones who murdered their parents. So they got a subpoena for the tapes, went and seized them from a
safety deposit box that he had in a bank on Ventura Boulevard. And right away, they got word that Lyle might flee the state over this, that he was terrified of getting caught. So they decided that
they could waste no time. Lyle clearly knew that the jig was up. So on March 8th, 1990, over
a dozen police officers actually stopped him as he was
pulling out of his driveway. They had him get out of the vehicle, laid out on the ground, face down. They handcuffed him and took
him into the police station. It was over, and Erik at the time was
actually at a tennis tournament in his Israel. - We got a call at six in the morning from Lyle's attorney saying, you have to get on an LL flight
immediately and get home. - And according to people
who were around him when he got the call, he
was crying hysterically. He ended up flying to Miami where several of his relatives lived. And then his aunt convinced
him to fly back to LA and just turn himself in. He surrendered at LAX on March 11th, 1990. And they wasted no time. The charges were filed
against the boys the next day. But it was weird, during the arraignment, the boys didn't look that worried. They came into the Beverly
Hills Courtroom in fancy outfits and were smiling. They seemed confident. - [Judge] To Eric Galen Menendez, do you understand the charges against you? - I understand both of them, your honor. - [Judge] Thank you. Mr. Joseph Lyle Menéndez, do you understand the charges against you? - Yes. - And when people found out that the Menendez
brothers had been charged with killing their parents, friends and family couldn't believe it. Some of their family members
supported them still though. They sat in the front row at trial, their tennis coach sat in the front row and Erik's girlfriend, even their grandma sat in
the front row, Jose's mother. And she always believed
that the boys were innocent. At their arraignment, the
judge explained to them that they were both being charged with killing their
parents for financial gain and that they could be
facing the death penalty and ask them how they plead. And both of them said not guilty. So the defense and prosecution
spent a lot of time arguing over whether or not
the tapes that Dr. Oziel had recorded could be admissible in court. Is it fair game because they're murderers or does it fall under
doctor-patient confidentiality? The Supreme Court of California
actually made the decision that two out of the three tapes were able to be used in court. And one of these tapes had
Lyle's confession on it. They determined that because Lyle had threatened Dr. Oziel's life, it forfeits his right to the
doctor-patient confidentiality. And going into the trial, they knew that now that those tapes were
going to be fair game, they could not pretend that the boys didn't commit this crime. They were going to have to
have a different strategy. So in July of 93, it was
announced for the first time ever that Erik and Lyle had
actually killed their parents in self-defense after a lifetime
of psychological, physical, and sexual abuse at the
hands of their father and that they killed their mother as well because she allowed it to happen. - We have evidence that will prove that they were experiencing fear that they were in imminent danger of death or great bodily injury at
the hands of their parents. - And when this came
out, the media went wild. There were so many opinions. Many people felt bad for
the boys and believed them. Many people thought it was
purely a defense strategy. So the trial began 10 days
later, July 20th, 1993. And they tried them both separately. So they had two different defense teams, two different juries. And normally, they do
these at different times, but they decided to do their
trials at the same time. And this was being covered extensively. People could not get enough of this trial. It truly became a drama, a sensation. And there were definitely people that believed they were innocent and people who believe they were guilty. Erik's friend Craig ended up
talking to the media a bunch. He did any interview he could. And he had co-written that
"Friends" screenplay with Erik where the main character
kills their parents for money. So it seems like they planned the murder and the media kind of
portrayed Lyle as the older, more dominant brother that convinced Erik to go along with his plan. And they actually made the decision to broadcast the whole trial
live on TV for people to watch. So it became a reality TV show almost. - Opening day attracted a
dizzying assortment of spectators who descended on the Van Nuy's Courthouse. Girls were lining up at
four o'clock in the morning and behaving like Lyle
and Erik were rockstars. It was the hottest ticket in town. There were only 10 seats for the press. Inside, it was tense and electric as we waited for the brothers to appear. - And their grandmother,
Maria Menendez continued to support the boys
throughout the entire trial. And she didn't even think the boys actually killed their parents. She still believed that theory that someone from the mob did it. So when Erik and Lyle
walked in to the courtroom for their first day of trial,
they did not look how they did at the arraignment hearing. Their smiles were gone
and they seemed worn down, tired, exhausted, and they lost weight. They were very pale. They looked very depressed
during the proceedings. They just sat there, staring blankly ahead according to people who were there. And they had a really hard time in jail. Other prisoners apparently hated them and they had to pay
for protection in jail. So they were clearly really hoping that they would be found not guilty. So the prosecution
argued that Erik and Lyle killed their parents in
order to get financial gain and that they should
get the death penalty. - [Prosecutor] And they were sitting there watching television? - I don't know. - [Prosecutor] You don't
know what they were doing? - I didn't go into the den. - [Prosecutor] Your
brother went into the den? - Yes. - [Prosecutor] And the television was on? - I guess I heard the
television on, I don't remember. - [Prosecutor] And they
were watching television? - I don't know. - [Prosecutor] You mean to tell
me after all of these years, sir, that your brother never told you what your parents were doing when he went in from the
kitchen to the family room? - Are you asking me what I
know now or what I knew then? - And the defense sought to
prove that they were abused, that they were in danger, and
they had to kill their parents or their parents could have killed them. Erik's defense attorney
was Leslie Abramson who is a well-known advocate
against the death penalty and took on high profile criminal cases. She was like the best money could buy. She was known for being very tough and kind of a force to be
reckoned with in the courtroom. She would break down people until they cried on the witness stand. Now, a lot of people think
that Leslie purposely dressed the boys a specific
way to make them seem younger. Instead of suits, they wore
sweaters, colorful sweaters. She argued that even
though the boys seemed like they had a perfect life on the outside, that truly their lives at
home were absolute hell. She argued that they were
traumatized by all of the abuse, including sexual abuse
that they had gotten from their father and the sexual abuse that they claimed to have
gone through is horrific. They described it all in court. It was very graphic, very shocking. And she explained that
Jose would abuse the boys and Kitty would just watch
and allow it to happen and never stood up for them. She said Jose was a cruel perfectionist whose image was everything to him. And that he didn't really
care much about his kids. She argued that he would be the type that would rather kill his kids than have the truth about
their family come out. And she explained that Kitty
was living in hell as well. Apparently, she was an
alcoholic, she was a drug addict, and she was pretty
depressed over her husband having all these affairs
that she knew about. They said she was so upset, so distressed that she
was a hazard to herself. She was a dangerous driver. She was a terrible housekeeper, pretty much a bad mom and a suicidal mess all behind closed doors. She explained that their life
was totally out of control. It was nothing like it seemed. According to her, it was
even messy in the house when they were growing up. There was often feces around the house from their pet ferret. They also had a dog and apparently the dog would go to the bathroom on the carpet. So it was just messy all over the place. And they also brought up
that Lyle had this pet rabbit when he was growing up. And one morning he woke up
and the head was bashed in and she said that Jose and
Kitty did this together. And Lyle was so traumatized by all this, that he wet the bed until he was 14. And this is very
disturbing, but they claimed that they would take the
sheets off the bed after this and put them on the breakfast
table in the morning and make him sit and look
at them to shame him. Also, they claimed that
Kitty had blamed the boys for her not being able to have a successful
career in broadcasting. They even said that she had
threatened to poison them at one point. So they were afraid of her. And then they made a really shocking claim and said that Kitty had been
giving Erik genital exams every year until he was 15. And remember how I explained
that Lyle was balding and used to wear a toupee, the
week before she was murdered, she apparently ripped
off his toupee at fight, and that's how Erik found out
that his brother was bald. He didn't even know and their family was
just so full of secrets. And this was kind of a
breaking point for them. The two of them started discussing how their family was toxic. And Erik started telling Lyle everything that his father had been
doing to him for years. And it's very horrific. And when Lyle found out what had been happening to his brother, he apparently threatened his dad to stop. And he said, if he didn't,
they would go public. But Jose allegedly responded and said, he's my son, I'll do
whatever I want with him. And that's when they
said that the boys knew that they had to do something because they were afraid of their dad. They were afraid maybe he would kill them to prevent this secret from getting out. And they decided to have both
of the brothers give testimony at their trials. And I think that was absolutely crucial because when you hear it from them, it's just so upsetting whether
you believe them or not, just the details that they talked about were so shocking and
disturbing on so many levels. They gave a very graphic descriptions of all of the sexual abuse
that both of them had endured and how their father had raped them and used inanimate objects on them. And they recounted all
of this on the stand in front of everybody in court. And oftentimes, they
were hysterically crying through their interviews - [Defense] Did your father
have sexual contact with you? - Yes. - [Defense] And how did it start? - Just started with,
after sports practices, he would massage me. I just told him that I
didn't wanna do this, and that it hurt me. And he said he didn't mean
to hurt me, and he left me. - [Defense] Did you tell your mom? - Yes, she told me to stop it. And that I was exaggerating and that my dad has to punish
me when I do things wrong. - [Defense] What did he tell
you about telling people? - He just said that was our secret, that bad things would happen
to me if I told anybody. - One of your relatives testified that he witnessed an incident in which your father removed
you from a family gathering, took you in your bedroom
and sock you in the stomach, and you didn't cry. Do you remember that? - [Erik] Right. - Okay, and so during the
course of your upbringing, learning how to control your emotions was very important, correct? - [Erik] Right. - Okay, now, in addition
to lying to the officers who came to the scene, you then went to the Police
Department for an interview with Sergeant Edmonds,
do you remember that? - [Erik] Yes. - [Prosecutor] And when
you saw Sergeant Edmonds, you lied to him too, correct? - [Erik] Yes. - [Prosecutor] Now at the
time that the police arrived at your parents' home, shortly thereafter, a family friend or a friend of yours and your brothers arrived, and that was Mark Heffernan, correct? - [Erik] Shortly after, at the house, yes. - [Prosecutor] Okay,
and he accompanied you to the Police Department, is that correct? Or he went into a separate car? - [Erik] Right. - [Prosecutor] Okay, and
did you lie to him too? - [Erik] In the sense that we didn't tell
him what happened, yes. - [Prosecutor] Okay, so you, again, to him portrayed yourself as having been a witness and not a suspect in this crime, correct? - Right. - [Judge] Did you ever
tried to end the sex through confrontation or
violence against your father? - Yes. - [Judge] Yes, you were
violent towards your father? - No, not violence, no,
but I said no to him once. - [Judge] You said no once? - Yes. - [Judge] On that particular
occasion after you said no, did you father become upset? - Yes. - [Judge] And did he do anything violent? - Yes. - [Prosecutor] He had been well
taken care of all your life. And so when your father
through your mother said that he was gonna disown you, you were worried about that, weren't you? - I was not well taken
care of my entire life. I had every dime I ever wanted
though, that's for sure. - But the public had very
little sympathy for the boys. They were widely not believed. In fact, they were even
mocked on Saturday night live and the clip of it is pretty cringe. I don't understand how
this was at all funny at any point in time. (upbeat music) - [Prosecutor] Let me ask you
once again, (crowd laughing) is it your testimony that
you and your brother, Erik in fact had nothing to do with
the murder of your parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez? - That's correct. - [Prosecutor] Then can you tell the court who did murder your parents? - Our other two brothers, Danny Menendez and Jose Menendez Jr. (crowd laughing) - [Prosecutor] Would you state your names for the court record? - Danny Menendez. - Jose Menendez, Jr. - [Prosecutor] And you
are both sons of Jose and kitty Menendez? - Yes.
- Yes. - [Prosecutor] And you are
not Lyle and Erik Menendez pretending to be two
different Menendez brothers? - No, we are not.
- No, we're not. - [Prosecutor] And it is your testimony that it was you who killed your parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez
and not your brothers, Lyle and Erik Menendez, to whom you bear a striking resemblance? - Yes.
- Yes. - [Prosecutor] And that you forced your two innocent brothers,
Lyle and Erik Menendez to confess to the murder? - Yes.
- Yeah. (crowd laughing) - At one point during the trial, they had their female cousin come up and testify that Lyle had
actually confided in her as a kid when they were like eight,
that he was being molested. And one thing that she said
in court that was pretty odd, it really stuck out to me is she said that the boys like
to sleep with their mother whenever their father was out of town, they would argue over who
got to sleep in her bed, which a lot of people do
that, it's not that weird, but they did this until they were 15. When she noted, seemed
a little odd to her. Their friend, Craig, who had
been talking to the media a lot had been told to stop
talking to the media, or been banned from talking to media and now he was gonna
be testifying in court. And he testified about how Erik
had confessed to the murders 12 days after they happened. And he also talked about the screenplay that they had written, which kind of was almost
premeditating the murder, which they actually did
not have the screenplay as evidence in court. They just discussed it, but the jury wasn't able to read into it. - He said that he went back outside and his brother's standing there with two shotguns and said, let's do it. And they walked inside and Erik went up to the door on the left, which was slightly open. And the door on the right, Lyle went up and put his shoulder against
the door on the right. Erik said, he looked in and saw his parents sitting on the couch and Lyle swung the door open and shot his father and looked at Erik and said, "Shoot mom." And Erik said he shot his mom as she was standing up and yelling. - They also had the computer expert that wiped the computers
come in and testify. And he talked about how
Erik was being in the house. The coroner showed really graphic pictures of the crime scene to the jury which definitely made them very emotional. And the defense had tried really hard to get them to not show
these photos in court. They thought that they were too graphic, but they went ahead anyway
and they made a big impact. And one thing that kept
being brought up in trial was this movie called
"Billionaire Boys Club." This came out just three weeks before the murders took place. And Dr. Oziel claimed in
court that Erik had mentioned in one of the tapes that
was not used in court, that this movie inspired the
crime 'cause it was so similar to the way that their parents were killed. It was the story about
a group of rich boys in Beverly Hills who killed
their father for money. And not only that, the
characters wore Rolaxes and drew a Jeep Wrangler. This movie was actually
released by Live Entertainment, Jose's company. Now they weren't able to
play the movie in court, but they were able to bring it up and argue that they could
have been inspired by it. So the whole trial was very long. If we went over every
detail, we'd be here all day. It lasted four and a half months, but it finally came to a
close in January of 94. And the jury actually
deliberated for about a month. And this is really interesting, but they were actually split by gender. All of the females on
the jury wanted to quit and all of the men on the
jury wanted to convict. They could not come to a conclusion, so they decided to go with a mistrial. - Do you do those as at
least a partial victory despite not knowing
everything about the deadlock? - I have very high
standards of what's victory. So I don't view a hung
jury as a victory, no. It's not a loss, but it's not a win. You're still in square one
running around in circles. - So the LA County District
Attorney immediately announced that there would be a
retrial for both of the boys. The second trial began in October of 1995. And this time, it was just one jury. And this time was different because they decided
not to allow the media and it had become too much
of a public circus last time so they wanted to keep it under wraps. And this time, the judge
decided to not allow them to talk so much about the sexual abuse that the boys had endured. Other than that, the arguments that they made
were pretty much the same. It was pretty much the
same trial repeated. This time though, the defense
really went after Dr. Oziel and tried to discredit
him as much as possible. They said he was a liar and a cheat and just an overall bad guy. And they claimed that he was planning to use these recordings as blackmail, that he was never gonna go to the police, he was going to keep the
secret and blackmail the boys, maybe get some money
out of them, who knows? So when he testified this
time, it lasted for six days. And this led to two of his mistress filing complaints against him. And the state also recommended
that he lose his license. And the defense was hoping that
this would distract the jury from Erik and Lyle. And when Eric testified, it
actually lasted several weeks. Apparently, he called his father a killer, said he was very afraid of him and thought that he would have killed someone if he didn't kill him first. During the cross-examination, Erik actually was caught in a lie. He said that they had bought
pistols for protection three years before the murder, but it turned out the story he
claimed to bought them from, it wasn't even open at the time. And so the prosecution
was able to ask the jury, if he could lie about that, what else is he capable of lying about? Is it all made up? The main thing that was
different with this trial though was Lyle did not testify,
which was an interesting move. So this time, the jury
deliberated for nearly three weeks and they ended up finding
Erik and Lyle guilty of two counts of first degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder. And before they were sentenced, they decided they wanted
to have their word out to the public and did an
interview with Barbara Walters. And this is a really famous interview. It's very interesting, a
lot of it's on YouTube, I recommend watching it. - Do you think the media
has portrayed you fairly? Can you tell? - I don't know if anyone can
be portrayed fairly in media who they are. - Well, let me say it. There are people, a great number of people who think that you two are spoiled brats, that you are evil, that you are monsters. What do you say to them? - That's not who I am,
but I can't defend that. - I wouldn't be surprised if anybody that was present at the
trial and saw the whole thing rather than snippets on
the news would feel that. - So the jury ended up deciding that they were not gonna move forward with the death penalty
because Erik and Lyle had no history of violence, but they completely rejected the idea that this was done in
self-defense in any way, or that the boys were abused. The Menendez brothers were
sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of
parole on July 2nd, 1996. And this is one of the
most controversial verdicts of all time. This is a highly debated to this day. And I would say the majority of people are on the side of the Menendez brothers. Now, maybe not at the time,
this was all happening, but like I said earlier in the video, I think people looking back at this are seeing it with new eyes
and are thinking twice. And when they were heading
into the sentencing period, the brothers ended up putting in a request for them to at least be
put in the same prison so they could be together. But that was denied,
which was pretty shocking. Lyle and Erik were separated
and sent to separate prisons. September 10th, 1996, they waved at each other from
across the prison courtyard and that was the last they would
see each other for decades, which was very, very hard on them. They are extremely close and they were also considered
maximum security prisoners, so they were separated
from all the other inmates and spent a lot of time alone. They tried to appeal the
outcome, but on February 27th, the California Court of Appeal
upheld their convictions. In may of 1998, they tried
to get the Supreme Court to review the case and
they declined to do so. They've tried several times to
file habeas Corpus petitions with the Supreme Court of California, but they've been denied multiple times. 2005 was the last time
that they were denied and they've been kind of stuck ever since. So since then, Erik and Lyle
both got married in prison. In 1996, Lyle married Anna Erickson. But then in 2001, Anna
ended up finding out that he had been cheating on her in jail. He was writing to other
women, so she divorced him. Then he got married again in
2003 to a woman named Rebecca. Eric married a woman named Tammi in 1999. And he had been writing to her pen pals for like six before they got married. In 2005, she was interviewed by ABC News. And she said that their relationship was something that she's
dreamed about for a long time. In 2005, she even published a book called, "They said we'd never make it, My life with Erik Menendez." In 2017, they did an
interview with People Magazine and explained that even though they were in separate prisons,
they remained really close. Even though they couldn't
see or talk to each other, they even were communicating
through their wives. They were sending letters back and forth. They would even play
chess through their wives, through the letters, but they finally got
to see each other again in February of 2018, when
Lyle was actually transferred to the same prison that
his brother was in. And when they finally got
to see each other in person, it had been 22 years and
people who were there said that they just hugged each other in silence for minutes. And they were both just
crying hysterically and after that, they actually allowed them to have a few hours alone together. At first, they were housed in
separate areas in the jail, but eventually, they moved
them into the same unit. So now they get to spend
time together every day, they get to have meals
together and walk around, get exercise together outside. And a lot of their family members still stand by them to this day. And they're very happy that
they're at least now together. Some family members have even spoken out that they are absolutely sure that Erik and Lyle really
did go through years of horrific abuse at
the hand of their father and that their mother let it happen. And that's what makes this
case so controversial. Some people think that this
is 100% a fabricated defense by two rich kids who got
greedy and killed their parents and many others see it
the complete opposite way, that these were two very
abused boys who were terrified and felt like they had no other choice, but to kill their parents in self-defense. So, that leads me to
the question of the day. What do you guys think happened? Do you think the Menendez
Brothers are guilty or not guilty? And why? Let me know on the comments below. I love to hear your
feedback on these cases. That was definitely a long one. So I'm going to wrap it up here, but I hope you guys enjoyed this video. Be sure to let me know of any other cases that you wanna see by checking
out my case submission form in the description box. Also, if you guys wanna see more of me, you can check out both of my podcasts. They're both available
on YouTube to watch. I will link both of those below. Also, if you could please
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