Quiet Time
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I'll be watching...
For what it's worth, I always believed Erik and Lyle regarding sexual abuse endured. KM knew and she overlooked it when she, as their mother, should have protected her sons from their father's vulgar years of abuse.
I do not condone how the brothers solved their painful past by shooting their parents in their own home but both parents let them down hard. I believe the abuse became worse and more intense with Jose knowing Erik wanted to go away to college in order to get away from the incest.
A new Porsche or a gold Rolex would never erase their damaged youths or mend their broken hearts but they didn't kill their parents so they could have things. They killed their parents because they were horribly and continuously sexually abused, psychologically and verbally abused, for most all of their lives. JMHO
Very well put. Jose Menendez was a sadistic monster; according to Brian Alan Andersen, a cousin who lived with the family in the 1970s, Jose not only hit his sons with a belt until they were bruised (and took showers with them) but he also physically mistreated Kitty. Andersen stated that he would hear them arguing at night and the next morning Kitty would have bruises on her. She was impaired also by her emotional and mental state but she could have at the very least, told someone what was going on. She chose to stay with Jose and that ultimately sealed her fate. Her husband always came first. As a parent, your children should be your top priority. She also hurt her sons by telling them - in front of others - that she wished they had never been born. That is the most cruel thing that a mother can say to her children. She failed them in so many ways.
In the book, "Blood Brothers" by Ron Soble and John Johnson, it is mentioned that Jose did hear about the sexual abuse allegations regarding the boy band, Menudo (to whom he had signed to a record deal) and according to his West Coast Consultant, Steve Wax, would "joke about it". What kind of sicko jokes about kids being molested and raped?
The people who worked under Jose at LIVE Entertainment had their alibis ready when the police questioned them following the murders. They despised him and were not sorry to see him go.
Lyle and Erik had their spirits broken on a daily basis by the people who were supposed to love them unconditionally and protect them.
Jose Menendez was a sadistic monster
After reading this thread, I'm not so sure I don't agree with what the boys did. I'm about to throw up.
he hated tennis "with a dark and secret passion," thanks to the trauma he suffered under the regimen of his brutal father.
Mike Agassi (who published his own autobiography) was just one among many notorious parents I knew while growing up in the Southern California junior tennis circuit. Another was Jose Menendez, the father of Lyle and Erik Menendez, who moved the family from Princeton, New Jersey, to the greater Los Angeles area when Erik, the younger sibling, was a teenager.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blo...assi-and-the-menendez-brothers-have-in-common
When the brothers were young, Jose demanded that they pick one sport in which to excel, and he recommended that it be an individual pursuit. By the time Lyle was twelve and Erik nine, they had selected tennis. Their parents devoted their time and money toward their sons' games. While Jose oversaw their progress, Kitty managed their daily schedules.
It looked almost like Andre Agassi in the photo with Erik. Andre and Erik did some hitting together. When Andre was 14yo he moved to FL to play tennis away from his oppressive "tennis" father.
In Andre's autobiographical book Open, he exposed:
I lived a life similar to these other tennis families when my DD played years of competitive tennis. It was high stress that she managed to handle with a cool head. She was going to play at Wimbledon or die trying was my X's attitude. He micromanaged her free time, her practice time, her hitting, her running, her diet, her life ... until she went to college in another state!
She has a fantastic life. I'm the one with PTSD :thinking:
Wow! Sorry you have to deal with that. Until I started reading up on this case, I had no idea how competitive tennis is as a sport, and how many parents (fathers especially it seems) not only pressure them to win, but who obsessively monitor their every move! Jose, being the narcissist that he was, probably would have dominated his sons' lives no matter what, but no doubt their involvement in tennis only increased that controlling and competitive edge.
Speaking for myself, I was not athletic, nor was I competitive (but then again, my mother and stepfather didn't do much for me anyway, they just made me into something of a slave), but my brother played hockey and I hated how hard they pushed him to win all the time. I think it killed his enthusiasm for the sport. They always seemed to know what I was doing all the time, so even at school or with friends or relatives I was too afraid to say that they were physically and emotionally abusing me. Now they act like nothing happened at all, which is really annoying. Isn't it interesting how abusive parents justify their behavior at the time and then later conveniently "forget" that they hurt their kids!
Coach Recounts Demands Made on Brothers : Trial: Tennis instructor testifies that Jose Menendez was the worst parent he had ever encountered.
August 21, 1993|ALAN ABRAHAMSON | TIMES STAFF WRITER
Lyle and Erik Menendez's first tennis coach testified Friday that he never saw love in the Menendez family.
Charles P. Wadlington testified at their murder trial that their mother, Kitty Menendez, was always angry and sarcastic. Their father, Jose Menendez, was unrelentingly demanding and "the harshest person I'd ever met," Wadlington said.
Jose Menendez ran the family "sort of like his business," said Wadlington, who was the brothers' tennis coach for five years and fought back tears as he testified. "He would give the orders and they would follow him."
He added about his pupils: "I thought I was about all they had."
Listening to Wadlington, a juror wiped tears from her eyes. Lyle Menendez, 25, slumped in his chair, and Erik Menendez, 22, took his glasses off and buried his face in his hands.
http://articles.latimes.com/1993-08-21/local/me-25964_1_jose-menendez
Does anyone know the name of the Tennis Pro that Erik hired after his parent's death?
Mark Heffernan
Kitty and Jose Menendez murders happened in 1989. The brothers' first trial was in 1993.