The Trial of the Menendez Brothers

 Did Erik and Lyle Menendez kill their parents by justifiable means?

The Murder of José and Mary Menendez

"Anytime your kids kill you, you are at least partly to blame." On August 28, 1989, Erik and Lyle Menendez left their Beverly Hills home after telling their parents (José and Mary "Kitty" Menendez) that they were gonna watch "Batman" at the movie theater, followed by attending the annual "Taste of L.A." festival in Santa Monica. After they left, José and Kitty fell asleep on a couch in the den. Suddenly, two men entered the den with a Mossberg 12-gauge shotgun, and they immediately killed José with a shot to the back of the head. As her husband was shot, Kitty arose from her slumber and was instantly met with a gunshot to the leg, followed by another deadly shot to the arm, chest, and face. A few hours later, Erik and Lyle returned home to find that their mother and father had been brutally murdered. Lyle dialed 9-1-1 and shouted to the operator, "Someone killed my parents!" Officers arrived on the scene and took statements from both brothers. At the time, the officers reported that the brothers didn't seem suspicious and were not considered suspects due to the lack of evidence to suggest that they were involved. 

The Investigation

In the early stages of the investigation, the police investigated anyone with a potential motive to kill the Menendez family; they even looked into a possible connection to the mob. Soon, the police started investigating the Menendez brothers because of their unusual behavior after their parent's death. Lyle bought a Rolex watch, Porsche, and a buffalo wing restaurant in New Jersey. Erik hired an expensive tennis coach and traveled overseas to participate in tennis tournaments (He was ranked 44th in the U.S. under 18 list). Additionally, both brothers went on vacations to the Caribbean and London, where they dined expensively. In total, in the few months following the death of their parents, the Menendez brothers spent an estimated $700,000 of their inheritance money. In an attempt to get a confession from Erik, the police convinced Craig Cignarelli, a high school friend of Erik, to wear a wire while having lunch with him. When Craig asked Erik if he killed his parents, Erik said "no." But this clashed with Erik's confession to his psychologist Jerome Oziel. While there was a psychologist-client privilege, Oziel told his mistress, Judalon Smyth, about the private confession shortly after his session with Erik. After Smith broke up with Oziel, she told the police about the brothers' involvement. This prompted the police to arrest Lyle on March 8, 1990. Three days later, Erik turned himself after returning to Los Angeles from Israel. Both were held without bail and separated from each other.

The Trial

Erik and Lyle Menendez were charged with two counts of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder. They hired a defense attorney, Leslie Abramson, who focused the defense on how the brothers acted in self-defense because they had reason to believe that their father would kill them. She used evidence to show the parents' previous sexual and physical abuse to show that Lyle and Erik had used justifiable means to defend themselves. Erik and Lyle stated that their father was a cruel perfectionist and a pedophile. They also testified that their mother was a selfish, mentally unstable alcoholic and drug addict who encouraged her husband's abuses. The defense showed evidence of José's pedophilia by showing nude and sexual photographs showing Lyle and Erik's genitalia taken by their father when they were children. They also called witnesses who testified that Erik and Lyle had mentioned their father's abuse when they were children. The prosecution focused their case on Lyle and Erik's financial motivation to kill their parents. They used evidence that showed the lavish spending of Erik and Lyle after amassing their parent's wealth and used it to show motive. The prosecution also used the tapes of Erik's therapy sessions with Jerome Oziel as evidence in the trial. This evidence was very controversial, and it caused a two-year delay in the prosecution because Oziel sued the police department for breaking the psychologist-client privilege. Eventually, the Supreme Court ruled that the tapes were admissible evidence in the court of law, which allowed the prosecution to revolve their case around the confession made by Erik on tape. Eventually, both brothers were found guilty of two counts of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder. They were sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. The jury claimed that the abuse defense brought up by Leslie Abramson did not play a factor in its deliberations. Additionally, the jury decided not to impose the death penalty because both brothers had no criminal record or history of violence before the murders of their parents.