Speaker 1: You're listening to Amma Mia podcast. Mamma Mia acknowledges the
Speaker 1: traditional owners of land and waterers. This podcast was recorded
Speaker 1: on it's August nineteen eighty nine, and a nine to
Speaker 1: one to one call comes through from a Beverly Hills
Speaker 1: mansion on ELM Drive just before midnight. The caller is
Speaker 1: twenty one year old Lyle Menendez and he's hysterical. You
Speaker 1: can hear his eighteen year old brother Eric in the
Speaker 1: background also crying.
Speaker 2: When he shot right start he shot.
Speaker 1: What happened? The brother's parents, Jose and Kitty, are dead,
Speaker 1: shot a combined sixteen times at close range while in
Speaker 1: their TV room. The crime scene is horrific. The bodies
Speaker 1: are severely maimed and there's blood everywhere. Detectives quickly notice
Speaker 1: there's no shells. Whoever shot them has picked them all
Speaker 1: up before fleeing. At first, they suspect a mafia or
Speaker 1: mob hit, but seven months later it's the brothers who
Speaker 1: are arrested for murder in a case that catapults them
Speaker 1: into worldwide infamy. Even thirty five years later, we're still
Speaker 1: talking about the Menendez brothers, their two high profile trials,
Speaker 1: and why they killed their parents. I'm Jemma Bass and
Speaker 1: this is True Crime Conversations, a Mum of Meer podcast
Speaker 1: exploring the world's most notorious crimes by speaking to the
Speaker 1: people who know the most about them. It took years
Speaker 1: for the brothers to start telling their side of the story,
Speaker 1: the true reason that led them to murder, the depraved family,
Speaker 1: sea secrets that haunted them their entire lives. This is
Speaker 1: a case that has divided public opinion since the moment
Speaker 1: they were arrested, and has regained fresh notoriety in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty four as a new wave of supporters demand their
Speaker 1: release from prison, and Netflix release is not one but
Speaker 1: two new deep dives into their story, a drama called
Speaker 1: Monsters and a documentary called The Menendez Brothers. Eric now
Speaker 1: fifty three and Lyle now fifty six, have been in
Speaker 1: prison for almost thirty five years. Robert Rand is an
Speaker 1: Emmy Award winning journalist who began covering the Menendez brothers
Speaker 1: case for the Miami Herald the day after the murders
Speaker 1: on August twenty one, nineteen eighty nine. He's been covering
Speaker 1: the case ever since and has a personal relationship with
Speaker 1: the brothers, speaking to them regularly. Days after our interview,
Speaker 1: an announcement Robert had been expecting was confirmed. The La
Speaker 1: County District Attorney has wrecked amended the brothers for re sentencing,
Speaker 1: and as he explains in our chat, that's just the
Speaker 1: first of a number of hurdles they face if they'd
Speaker 1: ever walk free from prison. Robert joins us. Now, Robert
Speaker 1: from the outside. Who were the Menendez family living on
Speaker 1: Elm Drive in Beverly Hills in the eighties.
Speaker 3: Well, the family of Jose and kideven Ands and their
Speaker 3: two sons, Eric Lyle were the American dream. JOSEM. Nunders
Speaker 3: was a entertainment exective making two million dollars a year
Speaker 3: Erica lyman Ands were nationally recked Tess players. Kitty was
Speaker 3: very involved in charity work on the outside looking in,
Speaker 3: This was who people dreamed of becoming in America. Behind
Speaker 3: the walls of that mansion, this was a highly dysfunctional
Speaker 3: family that were speating widely out of control.
Speaker 1: Let's hear a little bit more about Jose and Kitty
Speaker 1: and that kind of origin story. Obviously that were very rich.
Speaker 1: Where did all that wealth come film? How did their
Speaker 1: story stop?
Speaker 3: Actually, Jose and Kidding Menanda's were dirt poor when they met.
Speaker 3: Before Jose immigrated to the States, he was a country
Speaker 3: culbal lifestyle in Nevana, and overnight he was living in
Speaker 3: the attic of the home of distant relatives in northeastern Pennsylvania,
Speaker 3: and suddenly he had no money. So it was a
Speaker 3: very radical change for him to come in the States.
Speaker 3: His sister, march Cano told me when I met her
Speaker 3: ten days after the killings, and Jose wanted to run
Speaker 3: for the US Senate from Florida. He wanted to aus
Speaker 3: Castro from Cuba, the man who had taken away his
Speaker 3: country club lifestyle. The first day I met Jose's sister
Speaker 3: of marce Keno, we didn't talk at all about the
Speaker 3: American investigation. There were some months between the crime and
Speaker 3: the rest of Eric and Lyle Menendez, and so she
Speaker 3: spent four hours telling me the family history, which was
Speaker 3: extremely interesting, of how they started in Spain. They were
Speaker 3: dirt bored, they became very wealthy, and then they lost
Speaker 3: everything when Franco came into power. They immigrated to Cuba.
Speaker 3: In a period of years, they became very wealthy, and
Speaker 3: then they lost everything once again when Castro came into power.
Speaker 3: And then the family came to the States and they started,
Speaker 3: like many Kiven immigrants, with nothing, and they were tired.
Speaker 3: They became wealthy all over again. So the family story
Speaker 3: is really kind of interesting.
Speaker 1: How about Lyle and Eric, the obviously come from these
Speaker 1: two at the time very wealthy parents or wealthy family,
Speaker 1: the very attractive young men. What was their reputation before
Speaker 1: all of this happened.
Speaker 3: Well, I spent three days interviewing Eric and Lymnandez two
Speaker 3: months after the killing of their parents, five months before.
Speaker 3: They were a rustled and they weren't suspects publicly, and
Speaker 3: I had no reason to be suspicions of them, And
Speaker 3: they told me for several days, very loving, caring, emotional
Speaker 3: stories about how much they missed their parents. I had
Speaker 3: met them because of Jose's sister, march Cano, who lived
Speaker 3: in westbamb Beach, Florida, And I was writing for the
Speaker 3: Sunday magazine of the Miami Hera, and my assignment in
Speaker 3: the fall of eighty nine was not to write about
Speaker 3: the murder investigation, but to do a biography aboutse Menendez.
Speaker 3: Rag Serusia's story ends in a terrible.
Speaker 1: Tragedy In nineteen eighty eight. So about a year before
Speaker 1: the killings, the brothers were caught up in a series
Speaker 1: of burglaries. Can you talk us through that? What were
Speaker 1: they doing? Why were they stealing? They obviously came from
Speaker 1: a rich family.
Speaker 3: The birtlaries in Calabasas, which is also known as the
Speaker 3: home of the Kardashian family. Were Eric and Lyle doing
Speaker 3: burtlaries with close friends of theirs from Calabasas hide the
Speaker 3: victims were actually the parents some of the kids doing
Speaker 3: the burglaries, so that is how they just happened to
Speaker 3: know the combinations to safes. The fact that Eric de
Speaker 3: Lyle were involved in this group of wealthy kids who
Speaker 3: were known to be spoiled is part of who they were.
Speaker 3: They got involved in these burglaries and everything was settled.
Speaker 3: Jose Menendez hired one of the best criminal defense attourneys
Speaker 3: in La Basically, Eric Menandez took the fall for both
Speaker 3: brothers and was cut up as a juvenile in the
Speaker 3: juvenile court system, and so he was basically released with
Speaker 3: a slap on the risk and Jose promised that both
Speaker 3: brothers would seek counseling with doctor Jerome Mosil, who was
Speaker 3: a therapist that kiddyman and just knew about and that
Speaker 3: therapy initially included all four of them and his family members.
Speaker 3: And then Jose wan to make sure that they didn't
Speaker 3: reveal anything negative about the family, and so Jose had
Speaker 3: the therapists actually write a letter giving permission for the
Speaker 3: therapists to tell him everything that went on from therapy sessions.
Speaker 3: So Eric and Lyle were both asked to sign these waivers,
Speaker 3: and so there was no way that they were going
Speaker 3: to tell any of the secrets of the family.
Speaker 1: That is such a violation, isn't it doesn't that go
Speaker 1: against the whole idea of therapy.
Speaker 3: Of course, it's a horrible violation of therapy. The therapist,
Speaker 3: doctor Jeromo o'zel, was a star of prosecution witness in
Speaker 3: the first trial. The brothers were not going to say
Speaker 3: anything to him beyond the superficial account of the family
Speaker 3: and the burglaries, because they knew everything they said would
Speaker 3: be repeated to their father. And normally you have a
Speaker 3: privilege with a therapist thought point of therapy and see
Speaker 3: you are in a safe place and can go to
Speaker 3: a therapist and tell him your deepest seekers. But they
Speaker 3: knew they could.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the crime itself. So it was August twenty,
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty nine. The brothers were eighteen and twenty one,
Speaker 1: and Lyle called nine one one really upset and reported
Speaker 1: his parents had been shot. What did police make of
Speaker 1: the crime scene, Because one of the parts that is
Speaker 1: dissected a lot is how gruesome the injuries were and
Speaker 1: how attacking the parents' faces they were.
Speaker 3: Well, shotguns are a terrible weapon to kill people with.
Speaker 3: I mean they do tremendous damage to a human body.
Speaker 3: So the crime scene was gruesome. I've seen all the
Speaker 3: auto se phoos. They're gruesome. There's a Beverly Hills police
Speaker 3: videotape of the crime scene that's horrible to watch. And
Speaker 3: it was just a terrible crime scene. But all the
Speaker 3: social media speculation was that this was some kind of
Speaker 3: mafia hit. I just spent two months working on Sorry
Speaker 3: for the Miami Hero about the home video business. So
Speaker 3: I was extremely well connected and called many of my
Speaker 3: sources and they all said to me, people do a
Speaker 3: lot of things in Hollywood to get even they usually
Speaker 3: don't kill each other. And so my sources immediately said,
Speaker 3: this has absolutely nothing to do with the home video business.
Speaker 3: But the LA Times, the Wall Street Journal were all
Speaker 3: running fun Paige stories saying this was a mafia hit
Speaker 3: connected to the home video business. The La Times even
Speaker 3: had a mafia expert law enforcement officer do a couple
Speaker 3: of quotes and say, these murders think of organized crime.
Speaker 3: So that was what the public was sold. And really,
Speaker 3: after about a week the story disappeared from the national media.
Speaker 1: We told us earlier that you did speak to the
Speaker 1: brothers before their arrest, before they were suspects, and you
Speaker 1: didn't have any suspicions. But looking back and reading your
Speaker 1: recollections of that time in your book, they were quite
Speaker 1: cagy with you. They kept canceling interviews and they didn't
Speaker 1: really want to talk about the details. Do you pick
Speaker 1: up on that stuff now when you think back.
Speaker 3: Well, I certainly was well aware that they were canceling
Speaker 3: interviews on me. Canceled three times, and I had been
Speaker 3: on LA for two weeks, and my editor probably you
Speaker 3: need to come back on Monday, regardless of whether you
Speaker 3: speak to their brothers. And so I called their aunt
Speaker 3: Marx Canado and Flora and said, I really would like
Speaker 3: to interview the brothers, but they've canceled on me. Three times,
Speaker 3: can you please call them and tell them it's important
Speaker 3: that we talk. And so she called them and told them,
Speaker 3: you have to talk to Robert brand.
Speaker 1: One thing that did make media coverage at the time
Speaker 1: was how the brothers were behaving after the murder. Can
Speaker 1: you talk us through that? They kind of went on
Speaker 1: a shopping spree. They did a few other things that
Speaker 1: kind of raised eyebrows.
Speaker 3: A couple of things I'd like to say that are
Speaker 3: very important. The first is that the Menends brothers grew
Speaker 3: up in a very wealthy, upper class family, so their
Speaker 3: entire lives they had been used to spending a lot
Speaker 3: of money. And so five weeks after the killings, Marxkiano
Speaker 3: went to Beverly Hills, met the brothers and handed them
Speaker 3: each check for a quarter million dollars and they were
Speaker 3: the beneficiaries of an insurance fallacy. They never got one
Speaker 3: penny of the statement. Lyle did receive a three hundred
Speaker 3: thousand dollars loan from the estate to buy a chickening
Speaker 3: restaurant in Princeton, which he hoped to franchise, But the
Speaker 3: only money they had to spend was this life insurance
Speaker 3: fallacy that they didn't even know that Jose had bought
Speaker 3: from his sister, who was a financial planner. And so
Speaker 3: my theory is, if you had any kid who's eighteen
Speaker 3: or twenty one a quarter million dollars in cash, to me,
Speaker 3: this surprise would be if they didn't go out and
Speaker 3: buy a new car, or buy nice clothes, or by
Speaker 3: a stereo system. Things were very different in the media
Speaker 3: in the early nineties. There was no social media, there
Speaker 3: was no internet. So once the mainstream media had set
Speaker 3: an agenda in a high profile case, that was it.
Speaker 3: It was very difficult for a defendant to fight back.
Speaker 3: And so the defense made what I believe was a
Speaker 3: tactical here, and they chose not to reveal anything about
Speaker 3: their case until two weeks before the first trial in
Speaker 3: July of ninety three. And so the reaction of the
Speaker 3: general public was, well, gee, we've only been hearing this
Speaker 3: one story for three years. Really, rich kids kill a
Speaker 3: lovely couple their parents, and why are we sharing this
Speaker 3: defense theory for the first time? And as I said,
Speaker 3: that was a deliberate decision by the defense. Hindsight, I
Speaker 3: believe was an error, but it really shocked the public.
Speaker 3: And when the defense attorneys LESSI Emes and Joe Lanson
Speaker 3: gave their opening statements. They told the detailed story of
Speaker 3: how the brothers had grown up in a highly destructional family,
Speaker 3: and that they'd been both sexually molested starting when they
Speaker 3: were six years old.
Speaker 1: Up next, I asked Robert about who the Menendez brothers
Speaker 1: confided in about their parents' murder, including a therapist who
Speaker 1: got their confessions on tape. How did the brother's guilt
Speaker 1: start to kind of become evident? Was it was mainly Eric,
Speaker 1: the younger brother, that started to crack a bit, Wasn't that?
Speaker 3: What happened actually was that the Beverly Hills Police received
Speaker 3: a phone call from lawyer representing the mother of one
Speaker 3: of their friends, and that lawyer told the police you
Speaker 3: really should focus on Eric and Lyle. They may have
Speaker 3: been responsible for the killing of their parents. And that
Speaker 3: was the first major clue to the Beverly Hills police
Speaker 3: that was obviously never made public for a long time
Speaker 3: until after that they were arrested. It's never been that
Speaker 3: well known, but somebody tipped off the Beverly Hill police
Speaker 3: and advised them to look very closely at the brothers.
Speaker 1: Did Eric tell anyone about what happened.
Speaker 3: Yes, according to the testimony of his best friend Prexy
Speaker 3: and MORRELLI actually confessed him or basically said, do you
Speaker 3: want to know what happened? About a week after the killings,
Speaker 3: and Eric kind of walked Craig through generally what happened
Speaker 3: that night. And in November and the Beverly Hos police
Speaker 3: had Craig agreed to wear a wire and they had
Speaker 3: dinner with Eric, and obviously they were hoping that on
Speaker 3: this wire they would get a confession from Dusty, but
Speaker 3: he never confessed during that dinner, and that tape was
Speaker 3: basically worthless.
Speaker 4: I went to doctor Roziald because I really wanted to
Speaker 4: kill myself. I told him I was responsible. His response
Speaker 4: was to.
Speaker 2: Have a loud He wanted one tape in which, at
Speaker 2: some point on tape and he told us, do you
Speaker 2: guys say you killed your parents? It wasn't like he
Speaker 2: was like, oh, this is terrible, let me help you guys.
Speaker 2: And then we worked through this in a confidential way.
Speaker 2: That's what a normal therapist would do. Doctor ziel is
Speaker 2: right into blackmail.
Speaker 1: How does the therapist come into this? Did Eric stop
Speaker 1: telling him as well?
Speaker 3: Yes, So, contrary to the bus series. The Menentos brothers
Speaker 3: were not party animals when I met them in late
Speaker 3: October of nineteen eighty nine. They were conservad somewhat shy
Speaker 3: self spoken. Both brothers were known to be very conservative
Speaker 3: athletic jocks who were nationally ranked tennis players. And what
Speaker 3: happened with Eric was that in September eighty nine, following
Speaker 3: four or five weeks after the killings, he moved in
Speaker 3: and stayed with a cousin in the San Ferdeto Valley
Speaker 3: suburb of la Basically, Eric was falling apart. He was
Speaker 3: not partying like they showed in the Monsters series on Netflix.
Speaker 3: Eric was suicidal. He was crying all day every day,
Speaker 3: and finally, after about five weeks, his cousin recommended that
Speaker 3: he go see doctor jo Oziel, who he knew from
Speaker 3: the calvastis Burglaris therapy and so Eric called doctor Orzel
Speaker 3: and made an appointment for Halloween on nineteen eighty nine,
Speaker 3: and Eric told the doctor that he wanted to be
Speaker 3: the lost appointment of the day. He didn't want to
Speaker 3: see anybody else in the office, and so he went
Speaker 3: to doctor Roziel as Lyle was passing out Halloween candy
Speaker 3: at the menendous mansion in Beverly Hills with his girlfriend,
Speaker 3: and so Eric and doctor Zil went out for a walk.
Speaker 3: At the end of that walk, Eric lean back or
Speaker 3: get some parking meter and said, we did it. And
Speaker 3: doctor Ziel said, you mean you killed your parents and
Speaker 3: Eric said yes. So doctor Rozil immediately wanted to call
Speaker 3: Lyle and to have him come over to the office,
Speaker 3: which he did, and Lyle obviously was very angry at
Speaker 3: Eric or confessing, and Le really was terribly upset, you know.
Speaker 3: He said to Eric, why didn't you just talk to me?
Speaker 3: Why did you come to the therapist? Now he knows
Speaker 3: and that could be a problem. And so both brothers
Speaker 3: left doctor Ziel's office after about an hour. But in
Speaker 3: a series of subsequent therapy sessions, doctor Roziel assured the
Speaker 3: brothers that everything they said to him was privilege and
Speaker 3: that he would not ever say anything to the police
Speaker 3: because of that privilege. But there's a side story that
Speaker 3: went on at this time, which was in doctor Roziel's
Speaker 3: parsonal life. Jerry O'sdiel was married to another therapist, but
Speaker 3: he had a girlfriend on the side named Judelon Smith.
Speaker 3: Judelan Smith initially claimed she was in doctor Raziel's waiting
Speaker 3: room and actually overheard the brothers confessed. I believe that
Speaker 3: story is totally a true and that doctor Sells simply
Speaker 3: guss with his girlfriend and total information that he never
Speaker 3: should revealed as a therapist with any integrity?
Speaker 1: Is that true in a therapy sense? If someone admits
Speaker 1: to a crime, especially murder, in your presence, are you
Speaker 1: still not allowed to go to police? Is that all
Speaker 1: supposed to be confidential?
Speaker 3: No, So, even if you confess to a murder, that
Speaker 3: is self privileged. However, California has a law called the
Speaker 3: Tarsoft Law which spells up the exceptions to the privilege.
Speaker 3: And for example, if I go to a therapist tomorrow
Speaker 3: and say I'm going to kill my girlfriend tomorrow, the
Speaker 3: therapist is obligated to contact law enforcement.
Speaker 1: A therapist would have to disclose the police if the
Speaker 1: killing was about to happen, But if the killing has
Speaker 1: already happened, then that's a different story. You're right, right,
Speaker 1: So he doesn't have to tell anyone. He's actually under
Speaker 1: oath not to tell anyone.
Speaker 3: That is the privilege law in California. But there's another exception.
Speaker 3: Under the tearsoft rule, and that is, if you threaten
Speaker 3: your therapist, if you say I'm going to kill you,
Speaker 3: I'm going to hurgh you, I'm going after your family,
Speaker 3: the therapist is obligated to go to the police. And
Speaker 3: so when Eric Menandez for leaving is off after one hour,
Speaker 3: well Menandas shook Doc Rozel's hand and he said good
Speaker 3: luck to Roziel. And according to Ozield, that was the threat.
Speaker 3: You perceived that as a threat. That's how that information
Speaker 3: was allowed in the trial. But there's one other thing
Speaker 3: you should know about doctor Roziel. The defense claimed in
Speaker 3: the first trial that o'zeal was blackmailing brothers because he
Speaker 3: told them both, you both need therapy days a week,
Speaker 3: and I'm going to be billing your family back East
Speaker 3: for two therapy sessions a day, one for each of you.
Speaker 3: And so the bills kept getting larger and larger, and
Speaker 3: finally March Cando, Jose's sister in westwan Beach called the
Speaker 3: brothers and said, do you really need ten thousand dollars
Speaker 3: worth of therapy every week? And they told her they
Speaker 3: insisted that the bills we paid and therapy was helping
Speaker 3: them so much and in reality, Eric and Lyle Menendez
Speaker 3: never showed up for a single appointment on the books.
Speaker 1: Was it all of this stuff with Ozial that eventually
Speaker 1: led to their arrest?
Speaker 3: Yes. The way that Lyle and Eric Menande's were arrested
Speaker 3: was that Judelan Smith was finally kicked out of the
Speaker 3: house by doctor Ziel and his wife and the next
Speaker 3: day she went to the Beverly Hill police and said,
Speaker 3: Eric lyleman Ands killed their parents and doctor Dreaz has
Speaker 3: some tapes in his safebox, including one tape with Erica
Speaker 3: Lyles's confession that was recorded in December eighty nine, a
Speaker 3: couple months after Eric Hurst contested Doctor Razel. So the
Speaker 3: morning after Judelan Smith went to the Beverly Hills place,
Speaker 3: the investigators conducted a search hoarm on doctor Rozel's house.
Speaker 3: The entire team of police went to the Ouzel's house
Speaker 3: and also there was what's called a special Master and
Speaker 3: his job in a situation that involves possibly privileged material
Speaker 3: is to hold onto the tapes and don't let anybody
Speaker 3: hear the tapes because they would become a source of litigation.
Speaker 3: In the days after the brothers were rushing doctor Rozil.
Speaker 3: After they got the tapes from his safe found box,
Speaker 3: he insisted that the police listened to the tapes immediately.
Speaker 3: And doctor Zil is very upset and he said, there
Speaker 3: are more people that are going to die tonight and
Speaker 3: in the next few days if you don't hear these
Speaker 3: tapes right now. And so the police were more than
Speaker 3: happy to listen to the tapes in spite of what
Speaker 3: the law said was this Special Master was a lawyer,
Speaker 3: was supposed to seize the tapes keep them in his possession,
Speaker 3: and so there would likely be litigation later. They listened
Speaker 3: to the tapes in doctor Ziel's living room than the
Speaker 3: afternoon on the search and a few hours later MENANDUS arrested.
Speaker 3: Eric was in Israel in a test tournament and he
Speaker 3: actually made it out of Israel to London before Interpol
Speaker 3: came knocking on his door in Israel. So Eric was
Speaker 3: actually in London known to interpoal for several days with
Speaker 3: his test coach, Mark Vernan. The family hired Robert Spiro,
Speaker 3: a lawyer that from the O. J. Simpson case, and
Speaker 3: Robert Spiro made a horrible mistake. He had Eric come
Speaker 3: back and surrender in Los Angeles. Eric flew from London
Speaker 3: to Miami. He met his aunt Markcano and her son
Speaker 3: Andy Cano, who became well known for his testimony in
Speaker 3: the first trial and also because of some of the
Speaker 3: new evidence. Is a letter Eric Menendez wrote to Andy
Speaker 3: Cano in late nineteen eighty eight complaining about the ongoing
Speaker 3: sexual abuse by his father. If Eric Menandez had simply
Speaker 3: walked into a police station, any police station in London
Speaker 3: and surrendered, it would have been a condition of his
Speaker 3: extradition that he not be eligible for the death family
Speaker 3: because the UK does not have the deathly and so
Speaker 3: by having Eric returned to Los Angeles and director, he
Speaker 3: made him eligible for the death Oh my gosh, and
Speaker 3: so that's insane. When the family found out about all this,
Speaker 3: they fired Robert Shapiro two or three weeks after he
Speaker 3: was hired, and they hired Leslie Eberson, which was a
Speaker 3: great move by them because watching her in court was
Speaker 3: like watching great theater. She is such an effective advocate.
Speaker 3: She represented Rickman and the younger brother, and attorney named
Speaker 3: Jill Lansing represented Lyeleman and Hiss, and both of the
Speaker 3: defense attorneys were equally effective and very powerful in court,
Speaker 3: but Leslie Eberson got the majority of Polissy simply because
Speaker 3: she was so colorful, and there would be a news
Speaker 3: conference daily during the trial in which the prosecution would
Speaker 3: talk for fifteen minutes and then the deftt Jurneys would
Speaker 3: talk for fifteen minutes. But Joe Lansing was equal to
Speaker 3: Lessie Aberson in the power she had and how effective
Speaker 3: she was.
Speaker 1: Leslie was just more charismatic.
Speaker 3: I guess me and love Leslie, and Leslie was very
Speaker 3: powerful in her TV appearances.
Speaker 1: Robert, what was the reaction like from the public when
Speaker 1: the brothers were arrested and how did you feel about
Speaker 1: it you interviewed them, How did you feel when they
Speaker 1: were arrested and charged with murder.
Speaker 3: By the time they were arrested, I knew that they
Speaker 3: were the soul and the only suspects. I kept in
Speaker 3: close such with their aunt march Caano. She knew they
Speaker 3: were the primary suspects, but she told me that there's
Speaker 3: no way Erica Lyle had any do with killing of
Speaker 3: the parents. I had continued speaking to my sources in
Speaker 3: the home video business and they maintained the same thing
Speaker 3: they told me. In August nineteen eighty nine, the killings
Speaker 3: that they thought had no connection to hel media business.
Speaker 3: And so I really was certain about two or three
Speaker 3: weeks before the arrest that their brothers were about to
Speaker 3: be arrested. And on the day that while I was rust,
Speaker 3: I was actually in westbom Beach having lunch with their aunt,
Speaker 3: Marx Canada, and we talked almost the entire lunch about
Speaker 3: how the brothers were the primary and only suspects, but
Speaker 3: missus Canner told me there was no possible way they
Speaker 3: were involved in this crime. And so I left her
Speaker 3: office at the Smith party, and I stopped by my
Speaker 3: mother's house in Palm Beach to nineteen nineties technology pick
Speaker 3: up my phone messages, and there was a frantic message
Speaker 3: from the Miami Herald that said Lamanas had just been
Speaker 3: arrested in Beverly Hills, Rickman and were somewhere in Europe
Speaker 3: and Interpowal with search for him. And so I was
Speaker 3: only three blocks away from March Canter office, and so
Speaker 3: I went back there and she saw me come off
Speaker 3: the elevator and her face dropped and she was very,
Speaker 3: very emotional, and before I said a word, she knew
Speaker 3: what had happened.
Speaker 1: How did the brothers end up disclosing about their family
Speaker 1: secrets to their lawyers because it was quite a fair
Speaker 1: way into their prisons day after their arrest, wasn't it.
Speaker 3: It was about six or eight months after the rest,
Speaker 3: and the brother's attitude was they never wanted to reveal
Speaker 3: any of the family students. Once the lead defense therapy,
Speaker 3: a sarchitecture of Bill Vickery, had interviewed them and gotten
Speaker 3: information out of them, they confessed to their family members,
Speaker 3: which had always supported them, and the defense journeys told
Speaker 3: the brothers, I'm sorry, but you are facing the death
Speaker 3: only and if you don't tell the whole story to
Speaker 3: the juries. There were two jerrys in the first trial,
Speaker 3: one for each brother because some evidence only applied to
Speaker 3: one or the other. But the defense atturneys told the brothers,
Speaker 3: you are facing the deathitely. You may end up getting
Speaker 3: the death only unless you are willing to testify about
Speaker 3: what really happened in your family. And so that was
Speaker 3: a pretty strong set up for the brothers and they
Speaker 3: were unwilling, but they did testify in detail. It was excruciating.
Speaker 3: I was in the court roomind one of the twelve
Speaker 3: reserve of seats. There were two hundred other recorders that
Speaker 3: watched a video feed at the trial, and it is
Speaker 3: a totally different experience to actually be in the courtroom
Speaker 3: twenty feet away from the witness and as opposed to
Speaker 3: watching a video feed. That's the experience I had.
Speaker 1: Robert. Can you tell us about what happened to the
Speaker 1: brothers and how early this started, because this is something
Speaker 1: that had underpinned well Eric's entire life.
Speaker 3: Really, Lyele Menandus was six year old when his father
Speaker 3: started telling them stories. They would sit around and go
Speaker 3: in a bedroom with the doory life and Jose Menendez
Speaker 3: told Lyle that Greek and Roman soldiers used to have
Speaker 3: sex with each other before battles to make them strong.
Speaker 3: And so Jose began to initially give Lyle massages, and
Speaker 3: then the massages turned sexual, and as you can imagine,
Speaker 3: it was very confusing her six year old, who has
Speaker 3: no point of reference for what was going on. Lyle
Speaker 3: loved his father, He looked up to him. He thought
Speaker 3: so much of him, you know, he went along with it.
Speaker 3: So Lyle was molested by Jose for about two and
Speaker 3: a half years, between six and eight and a half
Speaker 3: years old.
Speaker 1: Why do you want to make him happy, so he
Speaker 1: would love me.
Speaker 3: And between the ages of six and eight, did your
Speaker 3: father have sexual contact with you?
Speaker 5: Yes?
Speaker 2: And how did it start.
Speaker 6: We would have these talks and he would show me
Speaker 6: and he would fondle me, and he would ask me
Speaker 6: to do the same with him, and I would touch
Speaker 6: him and we would undress hey bright me.
Speaker 3: And then the abusive Lyle stopped and the abuse of
Speaker 3: Eric began. And what's unusual about Eric story is that
Speaker 3: the abuse is still going on in August nineteen eighty nine,
Speaker 3: two weeks before the killings. That's just horrible. There was
Speaker 3: a serious confrontations in the days leading up to the
Speaker 3: killing of Jose and Kiddy Menendez, and for the first
Speaker 3: time since the brothers had been thirteen, they once had
Speaker 3: a brief discussion about the molization when Eric was thirteen
Speaker 3: and Viio was sixteen. Lyle thought that all the abuse
Speaker 3: had stopped because that's what Jose told him, and the
Speaker 3: same thing happened to Eric. Eric loved the attention by
Speaker 3: his father because he loved his father, and Jose started
Speaker 3: with the stories of freaking Roman soldiers bonding before battle,
Speaker 3: and he initially started getting Eric presages, and then the
Speaker 3: massages turned sexual and once again, Eric was very confused
Speaker 3: because he was six seven years old, but he knew
Speaker 3: he did like all the attention from his father. But
Speaker 3: there are hundreds of eyewitnesses to fiscal, rugal and emotional
Speaker 3: abuse that went on in the mine his family by
Speaker 3: Jose to his sons and so, as I said, it
Speaker 3: was very confusing for the brothers what was having. On
Speaker 3: the second hand, when the sexual abuse became more serious
Speaker 3: and Jose began raping the brothers, they asked him to
Speaker 3: police stop, you know, referring them. They didn't want to
Speaker 3: do this. And Jose actually had a very active sech
Speaker 3: like he had a buffet of sexuality going on. And
Speaker 3: one of the therapists told me that it's quite common
Speaker 3: for child abusers to have an entire buffet of sexuality.
Speaker 3: Jose had a mistress in New York, he had a
Speaker 3: mistress in la He was using three different matters in
Speaker 3: Hollywood to supply him with prostitutes, and so in addition
Speaker 3: to the brothers, he had a lot of other things
Speaker 3: going on. Secially, one third of kids who were abused
Speaker 3: go on to become abusers themselves, which is.
Speaker 1: A detail that comes to light in the trial that
Speaker 1: Lyle actually abused Eric in one instance.
Speaker 3: Yes, but they were six and eight years old. So,
Speaker 3: in spite of Ryan Murphy or anybody connects it to
Speaker 3: a Netflix series speaks about it was certainly not adults
Speaker 3: having a sexual relationship. I know the story told the
Speaker 3: Monsters of Eric and Lyle having an ancessureus relationship is
Speaker 3: totally false and I can't understand where that came from.
Speaker 1: How does Kitty come into all of this? Jose was
Speaker 1: the one that was abusing the boys.
Speaker 3: Correct, did she know? Yes? In the series of confrontations
Speaker 3: in the days leading up to the killings of the parents,
Speaker 3: some of the confrontations were between Lyle and Kitty Menendez,
Speaker 3: and at one point Katy became so angry with him
Speaker 3: that she literally ripped off his two pay in front
Speaker 3: of Eric, and Eric didn't even know that war to pay,
Speaker 3: and Jose insisted that his seventeen year old son get
Speaker 3: a two pay because his hair was starting to thin,
Speaker 3: and Jose told him, you're going to prison, you will
Speaker 3: meet important people that you will know for your entire life,
Speaker 3: so therefore you have to have a head of good hair.
Speaker 3: And as we think about it now, to force a
Speaker 3: seventeen year old to get it to pay is really horrible.
Speaker 3: I have an eighteen year old son. I can't imagine
Speaker 3: having that kind of relationship with him. Rootaino. One day,
Speaker 3: you know, you really need better hair, so let's go
Speaker 3: get you some.
Speaker 1: That's a way to make you feel self conscious.
Speaker 3: Right, And what Jose wanted was he wanted Lyle to
Speaker 3: be the new and improved version of Jose. Jose dreamed
Speaker 3: of going to an Ivy League college, but he went
Speaker 3: school at Queen's College, you know, smaller local community college
Speaker 3: in Queens. I mean it's still a very good school,
Speaker 3: but it's not the Ivy League. And so Lyle, who
Speaker 3: was a national reg test player, applied to person and
Speaker 3: he got in because of his tennis skills. So by
Speaker 3: having Lyle go to an IVY League school, Jose was
Speaker 3: realizing his own dreams through Lyle.
Speaker 1: Once the boys go to trial, what is the defense
Speaker 1: trying to prove? Because Lyle and Eric admit to killing
Speaker 1: their parents, but then they told his story about what
Speaker 1: they went through. Is that why they say they killed
Speaker 1: their parents.
Speaker 3: Eric and Lyle Menendez had a series of conversations in
Speaker 3: the days leading up to the killing of their parents,
Speaker 3: and in these conversations, which became more heated each day,
Speaker 3: Lyle threatened to go to the relatives, go to the police,
Speaker 3: and reveal the molisation of Eric that was still ongoing
Speaker 3: in August nineteen eighty nine. And in the final confrontation
Speaker 3: between the brothers and their parents Sunday evening August twentieth
Speaker 3: eighty nine, they said they wanted to go to the
Speaker 3: movies and leave the house, and the parents said they
Speaker 3: couldn't go out. And then Jose said a phrase to
Speaker 3: Eric which was a code word, and the phrase was
Speaker 3: go upstairs to your room and wait for me. And
Speaker 3: what that meant was that I'm going to come upstairs
Speaker 3: and molest you in a few minutes, So go upstairs
Speaker 3: and wait for me. And so that was what freaked
Speaker 3: out the brothers, and they had purchased two shotguns on
Speaker 3: Friday afternoon. The defense theory of the case was called
Speaker 3: an imperfect self defense. The legal theory was not we
Speaker 3: were abused, so we killed our parents to pay them back.
Speaker 3: The actual legal theory was Eric, Letomanandez were in fear
Speaker 3: for their lives at the moment they shot their parents.
Speaker 3: And as I say that that is called an imperfect
Speaker 3: self defense, and Judge Samley Weisberg with the crowd. Judge
Speaker 3: let the defense put on fifty three witnesses, teachers, coaches,
Speaker 3: family friends, relatives who all had bits and pieces of
Speaker 3: a puzzle. In the first trial, half the members of
Speaker 3: each jury, all the women, voted for manslaughter and wooden budget,
Speaker 3: and half the jurors, all the men, voted for murder.
Speaker 3: And I interviewed off twenty four jurors at the first trial,
Speaker 3: and all the men told me some version of well,
Speaker 3: a father would never do that to his sons because it.
Speaker 1: Was a different time, wasn't it.
Speaker 3: It's not like today, and that's the way, sadly was
Speaker 3: thirty years ago. Today we have social media, we have
Speaker 3: the Internet. Dependents can fight back and try to get
Speaker 3: out their case much easier than you could back then.
Speaker 1: Well, the boys' defense, you know what they'd been through,
Speaker 1: this horrible abuse, was kind of turned into a bit
Speaker 1: of a joke by the media of the time, not you,
Speaker 1: of course, but there was a sitcom kind of version
Speaker 1: of it, and they kind of called it the Sweater defense.
Speaker 5: Like it.
Speaker 1: It's quite hard to watch back.
Speaker 3: It's so wild for me to watch those videos from
Speaker 3: the Saturday at Live, the comedy show It's very popular,
Speaker 3: did a couple of sketches in which they just mocked
Speaker 3: the brothers.
Speaker 5: My father said Danny and Jose Junior didn't deserve to
Speaker 5: have any official records of their existence because they were
Speaker 5: weak and not good tennis players.
Speaker 3: Jay Leno on the Tonight Show NBC in the States
Speaker 3: did a number of skits including you mentioned the Menendez sitcom.
Speaker 3: Jay Leno came on one night and say, we have
Speaker 3: an exclusive video of the new opening of the new
Speaker 3: Menanda sitcom which is going to appear on NBC. And
Speaker 3: it's horrible for me to look back now and see
Speaker 3: those videos that we were so insensitive as a society back then.
Speaker 1: Because regardless of whether you know, and there are plenty
Speaker 1: of people out there that think the boys were lying
Speaker 1: about their story. And even if you did sit on
Speaker 1: that can to make fun of allegations like this in
Speaker 1: a public sphere in front of you know, hundreds of
Speaker 1: other potential victims that are watching, there was just so
Speaker 1: much wrong with that, right.
Speaker 3: And one interesting factory is that every day in Laveman
Speaker 3: is the older brother test ride on the witness and
Speaker 3: he carried a letter in his pocket from a different
Speaker 3: abuse survivor that they had written him. And in fact,
Speaker 3: at the height of their popularity in the nineteen ninety
Speaker 3: three trial, the brothers were receiving a thousand letters a
Speaker 3: week wow, and half of them were from abuse serrivors
Speaker 3: and the other half were from groupies that thought, Wow,
Speaker 3: they could be acquitted and they'll be rich. So I
Speaker 3: want to meet them. And so when I would go
Speaker 3: to the Ellen County jail to visit them on weekends,
Speaker 3: I would see strangers, you know, women lined up hoping,
Speaker 3: hoping to get in and miss them. They never did
Speaker 3: because they were on the visitor list that the brothers
Speaker 3: had drawn up. But I was aware of all the
Speaker 3: groupies that were following the case. The courtroom where the
Speaker 3: trial was held was very small, and so at three
Speaker 3: point thirty in the morning, the groupies would form a line,
Speaker 3: and maybe ten of them a day would actually get
Speaker 3: in the.
Speaker 1: Courtroom, gosh, like celebrities.
Speaker 3: And there's one scene in Monsters that is actually true,
Speaker 3: and that is you see Lomanns walk out of a
Speaker 3: van from the trial back to the jail, and there's
Speaker 3: a woman holding a sign and John sigin saying, marry me, Lyle,
Speaker 3: and I really saw that it really happened.
Speaker 1: Tell me about the trial that actually led to the
Speaker 1: boy's conviction, because it was very, very different to that
Speaker 1: original one that we're talking about that had all of
Speaker 1: the witnesses that allowed the boys to tell their story.
Speaker 1: How different was it?
Speaker 3: The second trial was very different. And I don't blame
Speaker 3: the jury for reaching the verdict they did because they
Speaker 3: heard a completely different set of evidence than the jurors
Speaker 3: in the first trial. And the first thing the judge
Speaker 3: did was he kicked the tea camera out of the courtroom.
Speaker 3: The first show was broadcast Gable of Gabble, even the
Speaker 3: Evidence series on cor TV. The judge kicked the camera
Speaker 3: out of the court room because he knew that there
Speaker 3: was no video, that the media coverage would go way down.
Speaker 3: And after he did that, he basically rehearsed almost all
Speaker 3: of his evidence rolling in the first trial. So Judge
Speaker 3: Weishborg would not allow all the family friends' coaches who
Speaker 3: knew the brothers well satisfied in the second trial. And
Speaker 3: Weisberg ruled that way because he said, you know, any
Speaker 3: evidence of their abuse is not rellant to this trial,
Speaker 3: which is totally the opposite instruction he gave at the
Speaker 3: end of his trial. One other important thing, Lyelman Anders
Speaker 3: did not testify in the second trial for a variety
Speaker 3: of reasons, but the main one was that his journey
Speaker 3: Jill Lansing had resigned from the case and Lyle had
Speaker 3: developed such a close bottom with her that he really said,
Speaker 3: I can't go on or I can't test for dancing.
Speaker 3: Is my attorney?
Speaker 1: Well, you'd have to build that whole relationship again with
Speaker 1: a new lawyer and tell them everything. And you can
Speaker 1: understand that is.
Speaker 3: A very traumatic experience for any of youse survivor who
Speaker 3: actually come forward and tell their life experience.
Speaker 1: After that second trial, the brothers were given life without parole.
Speaker 1: And obviously we've spoken about there was an option in
Speaker 1: that first trial for them to get to manslaughter to
Speaker 1: only be in prison for a few years, but they've
Speaker 1: been in prison for over three decades.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 1: Do you believe that that was a fair sentence.
Speaker 3: No, the correct verdict in this trial should have been manslaughter,
Speaker 3: not murder. If the brothers had been conducted at manslaughter,
Speaker 3: as half the jurors voted for in the first trial,
Speaker 3: they would have been sentenced to twenty two years in prison.
Speaker 3: They've now been incarcerated for almost thirty five years, so
Speaker 3: in other words, they would have been out of prison
Speaker 3: after twenty two years. And the fact that they are
Speaker 3: still locked up, as I often say when people interview me,
Speaker 3: the streets of California are not safer tonight because Eric
Speaker 3: and Lyle and Unders are locked up. I believe if
Speaker 3: the brothers get out, they will never commit any new crimes.
Speaker 3: And they've dedicated their lives to be in service in
Speaker 3: their inmate community, and so it's remarkable what they're doing.
Speaker 3: They're both teaching classes and they're cunseling in other inmates
Speaker 3: who are sexual abuse survivors, and as you can guess,
Speaker 3: there are many people inside the prison that were abused.
Speaker 1: You're listening to true crime Conversations with me Jemma Bass.
Speaker 1: I'm speaking with journalists and author of the Menendez Murders
Speaker 1: book Robert rand after the break. Where are the Menendez
Speaker 1: brothers now and how do they feel about the Monster's
Speaker 1: Netflix series and all the new attention on the case.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of buzz going on right now. There's
Speaker 1: a Netflix documentary, another series on Netflix called Monsters that's
Speaker 1: a fictionalized scripted show based on the real events. How
Speaker 1: are the brothers feeling about it all, particularly Monsters, which
Speaker 1: paints them in a really unfavorable light.
Speaker 3: They do not have access to the internet in prison,
Speaker 3: so neither of them has actually seen this series. However,
Speaker 3: they speaks to their wives daily and their wives told
Speaker 3: them everything about the series, and of course you can
Speaker 3: send them articles, and there's been quite a bit of press,
Speaker 3: you know, since Monsters came out last September nineteen. But
Speaker 3: Ryelman is extremely upset with the way he is portrayed
Speaker 3: in Monsters, And as I told you a few months ago,
Speaker 3: I don't believe the portrayal is accurate at all, because
Speaker 3: I think the Monsters has an incredible cast. The problem
Speaker 3: I have with the series is the script. They have
Speaker 3: written a script that is just so bizarre to me.
Speaker 3: And Ryan Murphey actually had the nerve to say that
Speaker 3: he had based Monsters on the reporting of Downtown, the
Speaker 3: writer from Manny Fair, who was famous in the age
Speaker 3: and nineties. I actually became good friends with Nicktoon during
Speaker 3: the first row, even though we completely discreed about the case.
Speaker 3: We sat next to each other every day we had
Speaker 3: lunch in the cafeteria three or four days a week,
Speaker 3: and we did a weekly debate on cor TV and
Speaker 3: cor TV. Besides the trial live all day at night,
Speaker 3: they had a three hour highlight show about the trial
Speaker 3: called Primetime Justice, and Nick Dunn and I were regular
Speaker 3: guests every Friday on that show and we would debate
Speaker 3: the case and he would be the pro prostitution cheerleader
Speaker 3: that he always was, and trial covered.
Speaker 1: But I guess by only covering his kind of angle monsters,
Speaker 1: is only covering half the story, or like the kind
Speaker 1: of more negative side of the story.
Speaker 3: I was involved in the development and production of an
Speaker 3: NBC series in the fall of twenty seventeen starting e Falco,
Speaker 3: made by Dick Wolf, and the series is called Long
Speaker 3: Order Crime The Murders, and ninety five percent of the
Speaker 3: information in that series was actually fascial. It was actually
Speaker 3: the closest thing I've ever seen to the entire truth
Speaker 3: being told in the scripted series.
Speaker 1: Robert, Where do we sit today as we talk in
Speaker 1: terms of the brothers court proceedings they put through a
Speaker 1: petition in twenty twenty three, Can you take us through
Speaker 1: where we are? Are they hoping to get out? Is
Speaker 1: that looking like it could be a possibility.
Speaker 3: In May of twenty twenty three, our documentary plus Maneu
Speaker 3: Moost release in twenty four hours after our documentary Career
Speaker 3: Hell of attorneys for lylent their fins while the Heavieast
Speaker 3: petition asking the courts to vacate their nineteen ninety six
Speaker 3: conviction based on new evidence that we revealed in the documentary,
Speaker 3: and the attorneys are trying for what may be their
Speaker 3: last hope to get them out from their life without
Speaker 3: parole Census and the very latest thing to happen this
Speaker 3: month was that Los Angeles County DA George Gascone said,
Speaker 3: you know, I just want to let everybody know that
Speaker 3: I'm receiving a lot of inquiries from media and just
Speaker 3: from people in general, and I want everybody you know
Speaker 3: that we are carefully reviewing the new evidence. In fact,
Speaker 3: Da Gascone could have had that exact same news conference
Speaker 3: six months ago or a year ago, because he didn't
Speaker 3: really say anything new. The brothers still have another hump
Speaker 3: they have to get over after Gascone makes his recommendation,
Speaker 3: and that is that they will then go in front
Speaker 3: of a Superior Court ooge whose last name is Ryan,
Speaker 3: and I am und sure that there will never be for.
Speaker 1: Robert. Do you speak to the brothers and how are
Speaker 1: they feeling about the fact that all of this hype
Speaker 1: could end up with them being in the same position
Speaker 1: like that is one of the possibilities that they could
Speaker 1: remain in prison.
Speaker 3: Right and I think people are overlooking that right now.
Speaker 3: The brothers have been in prison, as I said, almost
Speaker 3: thirty five years, so they don't want to get their
Speaker 3: hopes up too high. But they've told me they're cautiously optimistic.
Speaker 3: They're hopeful. Really, for the first time in their prison incarceration,
Speaker 3: they actually have hope. That's something that is about to happen.
Speaker 3: And many sources are telling me that d A. George
Speaker 3: Gascon is going to agree to resent the brothers. But
Speaker 3: as I told you, there's still another hump that will
Speaker 3: come late in November when they screw court. Judge is
Speaker 3: going to either agree with Gascone's recommendation or he will disagree.
Speaker 3: There are a number of different things that could happen.
Speaker 3: One is that they may be required to go before
Speaker 3: the California par Ward and talk about how they become
Speaker 3: rehabilitated in prison. A second possibility is that spirit court
Speaker 3: Judge Ryan will decide that he wants to hold live
Speaker 3: hearings with the witnesses, and so that could happen, and
Speaker 3: who knows how long that will take to set up
Speaker 3: and execute. And if live hearings are held, Roy Russello,
Speaker 3: the former member of MNUTO, would be a key defense
Speaker 3: witness and so it would be like a mini trial
Speaker 3: where various people are witnesses and take a stand and
Speaker 3: they'll give direct testimony and they'll losso be cross examined
Speaker 3: and DA George Gascone, his office is kind of divided
Speaker 3: between people that were involved in the work on the
Speaker 3: original trial basically feel the defense is fabricated and the
Speaker 3: brothers were never Gascone said that there's another large faction
Speaker 3: in his office of people that believe the brothers were
Speaker 3: lested and they think they should be resentenced. So there
Speaker 3: is fighting going on in the D's office right now.
Speaker 3: And George Gascone is up for reelection in the general
Speaker 3: election November fifth. And so if you had asked me
Speaker 3: a month ago would I think that George Gascone would
Speaker 3: do anything before the election, I would have told you
Speaker 3: that Gascone would not have touched the brother's case with
Speaker 3: a ten foot poll because he's running for reelection and
Speaker 3: he does not want to be known as the guy
Speaker 3: who let the Imminense brothers out of jail. So it's
Speaker 3: all very interesting now, the different things that are swirling
Speaker 3: around each other. And you know, even though we were
Speaker 3: the original documentary in Me twenty three that exposed the
Speaker 3: Minanda's menu connection, I'm grateful that Marketers came out, even
Speaker 3: though it's full of false scenes. And I'm grateful that
Speaker 3: Netflix released the documentary October seven, because that is full
Speaker 3: of fact.
Speaker 1: Thanks to Robert for helping us to tell this story.
Speaker 1: You can read his detailed account of this case, including
Speaker 1: his interviews with the brothers, in his book The Menendez Murders,
Speaker 1: The shocking, untold story of the Menendez family and the
Speaker 1: killings that stunned the nation. True Crime Conversations is a
Speaker 1: Mum of Meer podcast hosted and produced by me Jemma
Speaker 1: Bath and Tarlie Blackman, with audio design by Tom Lyon.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for listening. I'll be back next week
Speaker 1: with another True Crime Conversation.