How can two rich kids from Beverly Hills bust into their family room in the middle of the night and shoot their parents repeatedly with shotguns, leaving them both unrecognizable? 

I always thought being rich and having a big house, living in prestigious neighborhoods, driving luxury cars, going to the best schools and mingling with the upper-echelon people would be a dream. I guess it does not matter how much money you are worth or where you come from in life. All families have problems.

Let me take you back to the night of Aug. 20, 1989 — the night Erik and Lyle Menendez gunned down their mother and their father, Jose and Kitty Menendez. What could have caused these two young adults to do something so unimaginable as ruthlessly killing their parents? Was it money? Was it greed? Was it hatred, or were they afraid that they would be killed? 

At 11:47 p.m. on Aug. 20, 1989, Lyle Menendez made a frantic call to the police stating someone killed his parents. Within five minutes police were at the Beverly Hills home of Erik and Lyle. Running out crying and screaming, the sons said they came home from an outing and found their parents deceased.    

The police entered the mansion and saw the gruesome scene where two lifeless bodies were found in the family TV room riddled with shotgun bullets. Beverly Hills was so safe people could leave their doors unlocked and the car keys in the ignition without worry.

Untangling a family history

Jose Menendez was born in Havana, Cuba. His mother and father both were very talented and successful in sports. At the age of 16, Jose immigrated to the United States to escape the Castro regime. He received an athletic scholarship to Southern Illinois University, where he met Mary Kitty Louis Anderson.  

Kitty was born in 1941 and grew up in a middle-class suburb of Chicago. Kitty had dreams to make it big as an actor so she enrolled in Southern Illinois to study communications. In 1962, Kitty won the Miss Lawn Beauty Pageant. 

Jose and Kitty eloped in 1963 and moved to New York City, where Jose earned a degree in accounting from Queens College. 

Kitty and Jose welcomed Lyle on Jan. 10, 1968, and two years later, on Nov. 27, 1970, Erik was born. Kitty gave up on her acting dreams when Jose gave her an ultimatum: Have my kids or have a dream. Kitty chose to be a family. 

Jose put his kids in sports at the early ages of 4 and 6. Excessive hours and practice were spent between swimming and tennis. Jose was very hard on the boys and made sure they excelled at everything they did.  

Jose worked at a film studio in New York City, running its home divisions. Hard work and dedication soon paid off when Jose landed an executive position at Hertz in 1978. While working for Hertz, Jose signed O.J. Simpson to an advertising position with Hertz Rental Cars.  At the time, O.J. Simpson was at the height of his NFL career, playing for the Buffalo Bills.

In 1980 Jose became an executive for RCA Records, where he signed a Puerto Rican band called Menudo. One well-known member is the “Livin La Vida Loca” singer Ricky Martin who was a part of the band before he went solo. In 1988 Jose became CEO of Live Entertainment and moved his family to Calabasas. Jose was known to be hard on his boys and rude and stern to his employees. Employees would have to meet deadlines or risk being fired. 

Lyle and Erik grew up trying to make their father proud and follow in his footsteps. Erik went to Calabasas High School and Beverly Hills High School, where he excelled in playing tennis. Lyle was accepted to Princeton University but got suspended for plagiarizing his classmate’s work. 

Erik and Lyle started getting in trouble in the Calabasas area and got caught for robbery at their friends’ houses. The police called Jose, and he came and talked the police out of charging Lyle, who was 21 at the time he was arrested, placing the blame solely on Erik because he was underage at the time. After this incident, the family moved from Calabasas to Beverly Hills.

Jose enrolled Erik and Lyle in therapy sessions in 1988 after committing the burglaries and made sure that everything they talked about would be reported back to him at all times. He hoped therapy could set the boys straight and get them in good standing with the courts. 

The family moved to a beautiful mansion: Jose had completed his American Dream. Sadly, this dream would soon turn into a nightmare. 

The fateful night

Hours after the murders, Erik and Lyle were questioned and released shortly after being cleared by the Beverly Hills Police Department. The brothers were so confident that they were clear and would not be looked at again that they returned to the house to get their tennis equipment out of the room where the murders took place. They also went to the bank to look for the safe deposit box the same day. 

Four days after the murders, the $650,000 life insurance policy was paid to both of the brothers. Spending excessive money in a short amount of time buying three Rolexes and money clips for $15,000, a $64,000 Porsche Carrera and a Jeep Wrangler. They also went on to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars, including on a tennis coach to help Erik go pro. Their actions seemed to show no remorse for the death of their parents. 

On Aug. 25, 1989, the funeral of Jose and Kitty was held at the Directors Guild in Los Angeles. The brothers arrived late to the funeral. Erik spoke a few words where he was seen as emotional from a breakdown. Lyle read a letter Jose once wrote to him. He even joked that my dad said, “I could never fill his shoes well. I’m wearing them today.” After reading the letter his father wrote to him, Lyle dedicated the song “Girl I’m Gonna Miss You” by Milli Vanilli to Kitty. 

The police had no leads about the murder but viewed the brothers’ spending as odd. Spending the family money that was left to them was not against the law. But many felt it was definitely eye-opening to spend so much money right after their parents’ untimely demise. 

On Oct. 31, 1989, Erik made a call to his therapist Dr. Jerome Oziel stating it was very important because he had been having a nightmare about his parents’ murder and could not sleep. Oziel had a strong feeling about what Erik wanted to talk about. So he called Judalon Smyth, a previous patient now mistress, to his office to be a witness.  

During the session, Erik admitted to killing his parents with his brother Lyle. Finally, talking to someone he felt like he could trust Erik felt relieved. After the confession, Oziel recommended Erik call Lyle and have him come to his office so they both could have a session. Once Lyle arrived and Erik told him what he had just done, Lyle went mad, even threatening that now they had to get rid of Oziel. Oziel talked the brothers into another session with him. They both agreed and came back to the office at a later date.

He also wanted to make sure his safety came first and convinced the brothers to allow him to record their session, and he would be keeping them in a safe.  If anything were to happen to him, that was the only way they would be released. He assured them about the doctor-patient privilege and that none of this information would be shared with the police.

Erik and Lyle came back and admitted to killing their parents due to their desire to be free of a controlling father. Lyle said his father had to die because he was committing infidelity, and his mother had to die because they wanted to put her out of her misery. They thought she was not going to be able to live without him. 

In March of 1990, Oziel and Symth broke up after a heated argument because he would not leave his wife for her. She decided to get back at him, and Smyth contacted the police and told them what she knew about the Menendez murders. Lyle was arrested on March 8, 1990, at the family mansion. Erik was out of the country in Israel at the time for a tennis tournament and agreed to surrender at the Los Angeles International Airport on March 10, 1989.

Days before the trial, the defense announced that the brothers killed their parents because they both were sexually abused and were in imminent danger. One month before the fourth anniversary of their parents’ death, Lyle and Erik went to trial for the murders.

The prosecution started with an open statement that the brothers killed their parents for their $14 million estate. The prosecution asserted that the murders were premeditated. 

In the defense’s opening statement, they would allege Jose was sexually, mentally and physically abusing the brothers for years. It first started with Lyle from the ages 6 to 8 but stopped when Lyle begged, “Please do not hurt me anymore.“ Once he stopped with Lyle, he started with Erik, and the sexual abuse did not stop until a week before the murder.

The defense called 56 witnesses in support of the brothers. Some reflected on how Jose treated the boys. It was a known rule that if Jose was in the shower with the boys or in the room with the door shut and locked, no one would go down the hall or interrupt, according to Alan Andersen, a cousin of Erik and Lyle. 

Another cousin Diane Vandemolen gave a similar testimony stating Lyle was 8 years old and asked her if he could sleep in the room with her. She asked him why, and he told her that he and his dad had been touching each other while pointing to his private area. Vandermolen testified that she told Kitty what Lyle had shared with her. Kitty did not believe her.

The prosecution argued that even if the brothers were abused, that does not grant them the right to murder their parents. The prosecution also pointed out that when the brothers confided in Oziel, they had numerous times to speak about the abuse but never did. The prosecution argued the evidence in the case proves the killing was indeed premeditated. 

On Aug. 18, 1989, they went to San Diego and purchased two shotguns using stolen I.D.s from Lyle’s friend. They drove two hours away from where they lived, so the chance of the police tracing their whereabouts would be slim. After killing their parents, they went and picked up all the extended shotgun casings. 

The prosecution stated Jose was shot five times, and his first gunshot wound was to the head, where it was immediately fatal. They proceeded to shoot him four more times. Kitty was shot nine times while still crawling, trying to get out of harm’s way. Erik and Lyle went back to the car and reloaded the shotguns. When they returned, Lyle walked up to his mother and put the shotgun barrel to her cheek, shooting her at close range, causing her eyeball to fall out her face. Lyle delivered the fatal gunshot wound to his father and mother. 

Erik claimed the night that he confided in Lyle that his father was still sexually abusing him, and his mother told him she knew all alone. Erik lost it and was filled with hate and emotion toward his mother. How could she know for all these years and do nothing to stop it? Erik alleged that as he was shooting his mother, he repeatedly screamed, “I hate you. I hate you. I hate you. You didn’t protect me. You just kept letting it happen.” 

After both sides rested their case in January 1994, the first trial was declared a mistrial. The jury was deadlocked and they could not come up with a conclusion. 

The Menendez second trial began on Oct. 11, 1995, and the brothers opted to be tried together again. In this case, the judge prohibited evidence of the sexual abuse to be heard by the jury.

In 1996, the brothers were found guilty of first degree murder and were sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Updates to the case

On Sept. 19, Netflix released “Monsters: the Lyle and Erik Menendez Story.” It caused an uproar in the community and on social media, especially on TikTok. The X generation was not letting up back in 1989. A lot of people were not ready to accept the fact that a father would molest their sons — although, in fact, it can and does happen. 

New evidence in their case also came up this year when Menudo band member Roy Rosselló who Jose signed back in 1988, alleged that Jose raped him at his New Jersey home.

In 2024 former District Attorney George Gascón recommended the brothers be resentenced due to the new and old evidence he studied carefully. Gascon says his office’s understanding of sexual violence has evolved since the original trial. Some of the prosecutors who wanted the Menendez brothers to be sentenced to death or life in prison back in 1989 no longer feel that way.

The Menendez family believes they would have been found guilty of manslaughter instead of first-degree murder if the evidence in the first trial was allowed in the second, which would have led to their release long ago. The Menendez family and Mark Geragos held press conferences after expressing their hopeful attitude towards the possibility of a resentencing. 

Another thing that helped to get the DA to recommend recent sentencing was their dedication to changing their lives and the lives of others. They have counseled other people, and Erik has provided hospice care for inmates. Erik also created a meditation program for inmates. Lyle founded a green space program in which the inmates beautify the prison. They kept themselves out of trouble and maintained hope. 

Local Sacramento rapper Anerae “X-Raided” Brown credits the brothers with leading him toward a better path while serving time together. The brothers changed his life for the better, and X-Raided believes the brothers will be a light to the community if released.

There are also people who do not want the brothers to be free, like their original prosecutor, who said that the sexual abuse claim was merely a façade to save their own lives. Kitty’s brother, Milton Andersen, does not want them to be free. He believes they should be given the death penalty for killing his sister.

We are not the judge. We are not the prosecutor. We only have the right to our opinion. For those of us with problems with our own parents, I’m sure this case has taken a toll on us.  This is a sad case, and I feel sorry for everybody that has been involved from day one.

Could this tragic murder could have been prevented?

Abuse is never OK. If you or anybody you know has been sexually abused, you can call the sexual abuse hotline at 1-800-656-4673. Just remember that you matter, that people care, and there is a way out of trauma. It does not have to result in violence or murder. Trauma can heal slowly. 

Sacramento City College offers free therapy for students. They can help out if something is going on at home and you know it is not right, and you feel like you are trapped in a bad environment. They have counselors that can get you in the right direction. Just know it does not matter how much money is in your bank account — everybody has problems, and all of us deserve help and support.