CA - Court upholds Menendez brothers' convictions

[animlzrule]

"Given all the people who are wrongly accused and wrongly convicted, it is a shame to squander so much money, airtime and talent on such lies." - Shelley Ross is a veteran television producer best known for her 17 years at ABC News, where she won three Emmys, a Peabody, and other honors.

The 7 Biggest Mistakes in ‘Law & Order True Crime: The Menendez Murders’

http://variety.com/2017/tv/news/law-order-true-crime-menendez-murders-biggest-lies-1202615500/

"No one in the miniseries mentions that Dr. Vicary doesn’t date or number his notes. So we don’t get to see that Erik only begins to reveal his father’s sexual abuse after the California Supreme Court rules their confessions will be evidence in the trial. And that’s about the time Abramson tells the family members footing the legal bills that Lyle and Erik are the killers."

:applause:

 

[Noirdame79]

This is a response to a recent VARIETY article which criticized the recent Law & Order series on this case for using false information. This rebuttal sums up the misconceptions that the mainstream media continues to present, even though shows like this dare to try to show both sides:

Steven says:
NOVEMBER 18, 2017 AT 4:39 PM

Shelley Ross’s article contains many inaccuracies and needs rebuttal. None of Ms. Ross’s assertions are supported by the factual record. This rebuttal draws on Beverly Hills Police field reports and interviews, trial transcripts, forensic reports, examination of trial exhibits and crime scene photos, sourced and vetted interviews. Any one of you can do the same research of the factual record. So, using Ms. Ross’ numbering:

1. Jose Menendez had two head wounds, one at the right front of the head, one at the back of the head. No prosecution expert in either trial was able to determine definitively the sequence of the shots fired nor if Jose and Kitty were sitting or standing when they were shot, nor if Jose Menendez was already dead when he was shot at the back of the head. Some wounds (i.e. to Jose’s left thigh) suggest he was standing he was first shot.

Contrary to what Ms. Ross states (and Dominic Dunne wrote in his VF article), there was not two bowls of berries and ice cream on the coffee table. As stated in court testimony and evidenced by crime scene photos, there was one empty dish on the coffee table.

The other empty dish was found in the kitchen.

2. There is no evidence to support Ms. Ross’ contention that Dr. Oziel had Judalon Smith “listen in on” the confessions. Sworn testimony and the actual lay-out and sound-proofing of Dr.Oziel’s office suggest otherwise.

As for the head-in-the-oven incident, Judalon Smith admitted she had done so but only as a joke.
The California State Board did not revoke Oziel’s license in mid-trial. Oziel voluntarily surrendered his California license when he moved out of state in the late 90s.

3. Contrary to what Ms. Ross says, Dr. Vicary’s hand-written notes were numbered and dated.

Despite what Ms. Ross states, Erik revealed to Vicary his abuse by his father in the late summer of 1990, coinciding with Leslie Abramson’s return from a vacation in Ireland. The California Supreme Court ruled on the taped “confessions” in late 1992, roughly two years after Erik spoke to Vicary about his abuse.

Lyle’s psychologist referred to in the miniseries is Jon Conte – Dr. Conte is not, as Ms. Ross states, a “jailhouse counselor”, nor a composite character nor a stand-in for Paul Mones.

4. Despite what Pam Bozanovich might have wished or suggested, there is no evidence that any of the brothers’ testimony was “poached” from Paul Mones’ book.

Again, Ms. Ross is in error when she speculates that the Jon Conte character was a stand-in for Paul Mones.

5. Norma Novelli tape-recorded her conversations with Lyle Menendez without his knowledge. One can speculate as to the reason she betrayed his confidence.

As to the contents of the tapes, an abridged version is available in the book Ms. Novelli published – and anyone can judge for themselves that there is no direct evidence contradicting what Lyle and Erik said on the stand.

6. There were not 24 “sections” deleted from Dr. Vicary’s notes. As Dr. Vicary testified, he made 24 changes to his own notes in preparing his testimony in the second trial, changes that included a word change or substitution and deletion of material that had been ruled inadmissible by the court. As stated in the series, the prosecution did have Dr. Vicary’s original notes in hand – no evidence was withheld.

Dr. Vicary did not “lie under oath” and he was never accused of such.

Again, contrary to what Ms. Ross asserts, Leslie Abramson was not “barred” from delivering closing arguments to the jury in the penalty phase of the second trial – it was a decision reached by her defense team in light of Abramson being tainted by Judge Weisberg’s actions in court.

7. Despite what Ms. Ross asserts, photos were discovered that supported the brothers’ claims of abuse, naked photos taken when Erik was six and Lyle was eight in the basement of their home in New Jersey, photos that prominently displayed their genitals and buttocks. One such photo was featured in Leslie Abramson’s closing argument in the first trial (you can google footage her closing arguments on line and in a BBC documentary – the photo is right there in front of you).

As for Marta Cano’s statement about Jose Menendez being abused by his mother, Judge Weisberg had ruled that no testimony about Jose and Kitty’s childhood would be admitted in either trial. That would explain why Ms. Cano did not testify to that abuse at trial, notwithstanding her reluctance to shame her mother in public.

Lyle did not “steal” his former room-mate’s drivers license. Donovan Goudreau himself recalled that he had accidentally left it behind.

There was no evidence that the brothers “pre-set” an alibi, nor did they “kneecap” their parents – even a cursory examination of the crime scene photos (available on line) shows no gunshot wounds to Jose Menendez’s knees.

I lost count of how many “mistakes” Ms. Ross committed in her column but it’s surely more than seven.

 

[Noirdame79]

As posted before, there was no recording that could have been used against Lyle Menendez in the second trial. Yet it is continually repeated as if it was fact. When the late David Conn talked about the recording as evidence in Dominick Dunne's program, Power, Privilge, And Justice, he was lying and was likely paid to do so, as it was Dunne who orchestrated that lie in the first place. He paid Martha Shelton, who had struck up a friendship with Lyle in prison, to state that Lyle had damaged his credibility. Shelton claimed to have a recording of Lyle stating, "We snowed the jury" and "We fooled half of the country, now we just have to fool the other half". Shelton did appear in some of Dunne's articles on the case for Vanity Fair but never produced the recording. The police searched Shelton's house and came back empty. In an article in The New York Post in 2004 she admitted that it was all a lie, and that Dunne put her up to it.

https://nypost.com/2004/05/14/she-says-he-dunne-her-wrong/

Another misconception: a will is not valid unless it is signed. Such a big deal is made about the draft of a will on the computer, but even it if had been retrieved, it would not have been legally binding.

The grand jury refused to hand down an indictment stating that the killings were for financial gain because there was no evidence to warrant it.

The Menendez brothers could not have gotten the idea of sexual abuse from the book, When A Child Kills by Paul Mones because they told their aunt and uncle, Terry and Carlos Baralt, about the sexual abuse in September 1990 when they were incarcerated in the LA County Jail. When A Child Kills was not published until 1991.

 

[JerseyGirl]

Erik Menendez Explains Why He Smirked During His Murder Trial: 'It Was a Defense Mechanism'

http://people.com/crime/erik-menendez-explains-smile-during-murder-trial/

 

[Cheekymonkey1275]

There was no evidence that the brothers “pre-set” an alibi, nor did they “kneecap” their parents – even a cursory examination of the crime scene photos (available on line) shows no gunshot wounds to Jose Menendez’s knees.

There was some good information there. But there are several photos and a least one crime scene video clearly showing a gunshot wound to Jose's knee.

 

[Cheekymonkey1275]

I wasn't sure about the sexual abuse but now I believe it did happen. I've never doubted the physical and mental abuse at the hands of Jose plus the lack of support and love from their alcholic Mother. But there is no excuse to premeditatedly gun down your parents! That came from a place of revenge and fear of being financially cut off in the present and future.

 

[Noirdame79]

The gunshot was not to Jose's knee, it was above the knee. He was sitting down, so his legs were bent. If the wound had been to his knee, it would be where his leg was bent. It was not.

 

[Noirdame79]

Oops, double post.

 

[Noirdame79]

I wasn't sure about the sexual abuse but now I believe it did happen. I've never doubted the physical and mental abuse at the hands of Jose plus the lack of support and love from their alcholic Mother. But there is no excuse to premeditatedly gun down your parents! That came from a place of revenge and fear of being financially cut off in the present and future.

Their parents owned guns. They knew that their father would not let them reveal the abuse secret. It's not hard to believe that they feared their parents would kill them. That is why they bought the shot guns, for protection. They stated that they believed they had already been cut out of the will. Learn about how PTSD affects the brain, especially when abuse happens before the age of 18. The victim tends to become hyper-aware and watchful like something bad will happen, and may even over-react to something that seems small or insignificant, because it is significant to them.

Anyone, of any age or gender, can be abused and fear for their lives. At age 18, you don't magically have all the answers nor is the brain even fully developed at that age. Some studies suggest that the brain is not fully developed until the age of 25. Abuse victims are asked why they didn't leave but it just isn't simple. And if you leave, that doesn't mean that it necessarily stops or that you will be safe.

 

[Noirdame79]

Erik Menendez Explains Why He Smirked During His Murder Trial: 'It Was a Defense Mechanism'

http://people.com/crime/erik-menendez-explains-smile-during-murder-trial/

Also, if you watch videos of the arraignment, you'll notice that as the charges are being read and his mother's name is mentioned, Erik looks down at the floor with a saddened expression before looking up again. Again, it's important to remember that these were young men who were raised to win at any cost, not to show weakness or emotion, and that facade was the most important word.

The Law & Order series revealed that both Jose and Kitty were abused as children; Jose's mother, Maria, sexually abused him (something I have long suspected, given how she dominated his life, wouldn't let his father play much of a part in raising him), which explains a lot. However, the judge refused to allow family members to testify about this during the first trial, claiming that it "wasn't relevant". Uh, in what universe? Also, you can't tell me that David Conn and his prosecution team in the second trial really believed that the abuse was all a lie and that no one would believe it. If that were true, why did he go to such lengths to block witnesses who could corroborate the abuse?

As for Pamela Bozanich, she admitted she has a crime scene photo of Kitty as a keepsake. WTF? Something's wrong with her.

 

[Noirdame79]

Just to give everyone a heads up, a new book on the case will be published next year - The Menendez Murders: The Shocking Inside Story of the Menendez Family and the Killings that Stunned the Nation by Robert Rand. It's available for pre-order at Amazon.com in both paperback and Kindle.

Robert Rand has been investigating the case since 1989 and covered both trials. Most documentaries about the Menendez brothers have featured him. His book will explore the case, how the media has often distorted it and investigates allegations not only of abuse within the family, but also the allegations that Jose Menendez victimized others.

https://www.amazon.com/Menendez-Mur...F8&qid=1513121861&sr=1-1&keywords=robert+rand

 

[Swirlz]

Is Killing an Abuser Ever Justifiable? What Happens When Parents are the Abusers?

Both Gypsy Blanchard’s and the Menendez brothers’ cases were recently televised. Both involve young adults killing a parent or parents after years of alleged abuse – both physical and emotional – committed by a loved parent or parents. According to Barbara Walters’ report, Could the menendez Brothers get a Retrial?, in the second trial:

“ . . . the brothers were not allowed to use a “battered women’s syndrome” defense in their second trial because they’re men.”

 

[Noirdame79]

When Parents Still Abuse Their Adult Children

By Lynn Beisner
August 19, 2015

Many adult children of abusers continue to deal with ongoing abuse long after we have reached the age of maturity.


The first time I became aware of adult children being abused by their parents was when I went on my fifth date with Ken, a guy I met when I was in Bible college. I was meeting his family for the first time at a bountiful and delicious Sunday dinner his mother prepared.

I was concentrating on getting a forkful of creamed peas into my mouth without disgracing myself when Ken’s head snapped back, and I heard the distinct and grotesque sound of bones and flesh colliding. For one second, he just let his head rest where his father’s punch had landed it, back and slightly to his left side. And then slowly, Ken steadied himself, wiped at the blood streaming down his face, and let his face fall into a stony mile-long stare.

Ken never looked me in the eye again, not that night, not the next day, not ever. And I understood why. I was now privy to his darkest secret, that as a man pushing 30 he was still a victim of child abuse.

After that family dinner with Ken, I fell into one of the darkest depressions of my life. I was a young adult, still living in my parents’ home and still trying to find my feet while I was constantly being pushed under by abuse. What kept me going was my belief that at some point the abuse would end.

Watching Ken’s family, it dawned on me that the abuse I was still enduring at 19 would probably go on for the rest of my life. It was as if I saw the entire course of my life flash in front of me. My mother would never let me go. She would keep abusing me, never allowing me enough autonomy to leave her, until the day that she finally pushed my soul so far under water, it drowned.

As it turns out, some of my dark thoughts that followed my date with Ken were wrong. Within two years, I slipped my leash by getting married to my first husband. And while I continued to be abused by my parents until well after I was 40, I still managed to have a lot of good moments.

Ken and I are not alone. Many adult children of abusers continue to deal with ongoing abuse long after we have reached the age of maturity.

We have a serious problem with how we think and talk about child abuse. Many people seem to think that child abuse ends when the abused child becomes an adult. But if we talked to adult survivors of child abuse, the abuse they survived in childhood was their parents’ way of laying the groundwork so that they could continue tormenting and manipulating their children for the rest of their lives.

I have searched in vain for a single book or support group that acknowledges that child abuse often continues or even gets worse after a child reaches adulthood. Child abuse is always spoken about as a thing of the past. We either deride adults for being unable to “overcome” it or we encourage them to deal with their “wounded inner child.”

Do we think that a timer goes off and somehow disengages the abusive nature of the abuser? Do we believe that once their victims have the theoretical right to leave, abusers will actually let them go? Or do we imagine that, at 18, a fairy visits abused children and bestows on them the ability to stand up to their abusers?

Imagine applying that same logic to survivors of spousal abuse or rape.

I am sure that some abusers change, and become less abusive or even nurturing to their adult children. But in my experience, that is the exception, not the rule. What happens more often is that the abuser adjusts the type of abuse to suit the new circumstances.

In writing this article, I asked people on social media to send me their stories of ongoing parental abuse. I could not believe how many people I heard from, and each story was more horrifying or sad than the next.

I was surprised by how many people wrote to tell me about ways in which their parents financially abused them. Without any hesitation or feelings of regret, these parents took from their children as if it was their right. And when they couldn’t guilt their children into handing over money, many parents have stolen from their children’s bank accounts, have taken out second mortgages on their children’s home, and run up credit cards they took out in their children’s names. Every time that these children crawl out from under the oppressive debt their parents place them in, the parent starts burying their child all over again.

If the stories of financial abuse shocked me, the stories of new or continued sexual abuse left me bereft. Now I know that Mackenzie Phillips is just one of many adult children who has had a parent initiate or continue sexual abuse well into their adult years.

People sent me stories about parents who have beaten their adult children so badly they had to be hospitalized. Others kept their abuse more strategic, mostly to keep them from feeling strong and independent.

And then there are abusive parents who force their children to care for them. They call their children at all hours of the day and night threatening suicide. One man told me that his father repeatedly put himself into financial jeopardy so that his son would have to let him move in with them. Once ensconced in his son’s home he would claim the role of patriarch and begin verbally and physically abusing everyone right down to the family dog.

The fall-out from continued abuse in the lives of adult survivors is colossal. And the shame of being abused by a parent when you are an adult is overwhelming.

I am grateful to all of the people who are still enduring abuse who have written to me. I wish I could tell you all of their stories.

What I can tell you is that there are many, many child abuse survivors who are still dealing with daily ongoing abuse. Their suffering is very real, and begs to be acknowledged.

Above all, adults who are still being subjected to child abuse need to be able to tell their own stories. And they can only do that when we acknowledge that it is not only possible for parents to continue abusing their adult children, it is a likely outcome. Our default assumption should be that abusive parents never stop abusing. They just change their tactics.



http://rolereboot.org/family/details/2015-08-when-parents-still-abuse-their-adult-children/


So yes, abuse doesn't always end when a person leaves home or leaves a relationship, especially when it's family-related. Age, gender, etc, makes no difference.

 

[Noirdame79]

Erik Menendez Details Alleged Family Fight and Molestation in First Interview in Over 10 Years (Exclusive)

Erik Menendez describes the events leading up to the brutal murders of his parents, Kitty and Jose Menendez, in his first interview since 2005, revealing what was going through his and his brother Lyle's heads before the killings.

While Lyle has been on a mini-media frenzy all year, Erik has remained silent for over 10 years. He'll share his side of the story in A&E's new documentary series "The Menendez Murders: Erik Tells All," premiering Thursday night. In an exclusive preview at the first two hours, Erik details an alleged fight he witnessed between his mother and Lyle, as well as a conversation the two brothers had about the alleged molestation Erik says he suffered at the hands of their father.

"I remember it was Tuesday and I was coming in the front door of the house and mom and Lyle were coming out of the study and mom was screaming," Erik explains, speaking from a phone inside the walls of Donovan Correctional Facility. "They were in an argument and Lyle was saying that he needed it and it was important and mom in a rage said, 'You don't need your effing hair piece!' and she reached up and she ripped his hair off his head. I remember just being stunned by what happened."

In old court testimony, Lyle explained that the alleged incident left him "completely embarrassed." "[Erik] didn't know I had a hair piece," he said. "My brother and I, there are things we don't talk about and that was one of them."

"I told him not to worry about it, that he was my brother, that I loved him, basically saying I don't judge you," Erik continues, before detailing how the conversation then changed to another, darker topic.

"I asked him, 'Do you remember when I was a kid, you asked me if anything was happening between me and dad?' I said, 'Lyle, it's still happening,'" says Erik. "He was like, 'What do you mean?' 'Still happening, just sexual things.' He got suddenly really upset. Saying how could I let that happen, did I enjoy it, why didn't I tell anyone, why didn't I stop it. I was crying and I started having a small panic attack."

Erik says his brother then asked if their mother knew about the abuse. "I said 'no,' [but] he said, 'No, I think she does. I think mom knows."

The Menendez Brothers brutally murdered their parents in 1989 with two 12-gauge shotguns and later testified that their father sexually abused them. Both are currently serving life sentences, but reportedly play chess through the mail and have "almost never talked" to each other about the murders in the years since.


"My only hope in speaking out is that people may have a more complete understanding. A more complete understanding of the events that led up to my actions on the night of August 20th, and really a fuller picture of what really happened in my life," Erik added in the A&E press release. "All I can hope for is that people will come to realize that the truth is not a simple, one-line explanation that many people have tried to make it out to be. That really, that my life was this unfolding of a complicated life that I lived had all of these things that came into being and that led up to my involvement and responsibility for what is an ongoing and enduring family tragedy."


http://toofab.com/2017/11/30/erik-m...k-tells-all-ae-lyle-molestation-sexual-abuse/

 

[Noirdame79]

Erik Menendez Speaks Out: 'I'm Telling My Story to You Now for the First Time'

By now, everyone knows the real story of Erik Menendez — or, he says, they think they do.

He and brother Lyle became household names nearly 30 years ago, after they shot and killed their parents, José and Kitty, on Aug. 20, 1989. The brothers fired on José at point-blank range and kept shooting at Kitty as she attempted to flee.

Prosecutors said the brutal slayings were part of a larger scheme to get the Menendez parents’ $14 million estate. But the brothers claimed, in detail, that they acted in self-defense after years of abuse. A jury disagreed and convicted them both of first-degree murder, sending them to prison for life.

But Erik, now 46, says that no one knows what really happened — and, he says, he’s revealing it for the first time on the A&E’s new docuseries The Menendez Murders: Erik Tells All, premiering later this month.

"You may think you know my story — but you couldn’t possibly, because I’m telling my story to you now for the first time,” he says in an exclusive clip above.

While Erik has spoken out before, including to PEOPLE in 2005, he says that this interview is the most comprehensive one he has ever given. (Lyle, too, has become more outspoken in recent months.)

Erik, the younger of the Menendez brothers, talked to Menendez Murders executive producer Nancy Saslow in a series of 12-minute interviews over several months. (Prison phone calls in California have a time limit.)

“What was so extraordinary was the level of authenticity, the level of emotion — that he was willing not only to talk, but to relive everything,” Saslow tells PEOPLE. “There were times where what he was sharing was so rough, I would lose him for a few days. He wouldn’t be able to come to the table for a little bit.”

This has never been a whodunnit,” Saslow says. “This wasn’t about who did these killings. We knew the answer to that.” Instead, she says, the series’ goal was “to try to get an understanding about what happened.”

In his A&E interview, Erik describes the abuse he still alleges he suffered at the hands of his father (a claim one prosecutor has said she believes was “100 percent” made-up).

“The most overwhelming memory of my dad was him pounding on my door, telling me to open the door of the bedroom,” Erik recalls. “He would have me massage him, and he would have me perform oral sex on him. He would graphically describe to me how he would kill me if I ran away.”

Since the gruesome double-murder, Erik says in the show, he has faced many regrets:

“I wanted to go back in time. I wanted to take everything back that Lyle and I did.”


http://people.com/crime/erik-menendez-speaks-out-new-ae-documentary/

 

[Noirdame79]

Lyle Menendez Has Not Spoken To His Brother Erik In 17 Years

I miss him every day': Lyle Menendez reveals he has not spoken to brother Erik in 17 years and gets his greatest source of joy from his sexless 'contact visits' with wife he married in prison.

Megyn Kelly interviewed Lyle Menendez, 49, for a segment on her morning show Wednesday
She spoke with Lyle, who killed his parents back in 1989, via phone as he is serving a life sentence at the Mule State Creek Prison in California

He revealed that he has not spoken to his brother Erik in 17 years, and said he gets his greatest joy from wife Rebecca while in prison

The two married in 2003 and cannot have sex as Lyle is serving life behind bars, limiting their interaction to 'contact visits'

Lyle also revealed that he never once made eye contact with his parents as he shot them dead inside their home back 1989

The brothers argued that they were driven to murder their father and mother after a lifetime of physical, emotional and sexual abuse.

Lyle, 49, is currently serving a life sentence at Mule Creek State Prison in California, where he spoke to Megyn on the phone about why he and his brother Erik killed their parents almost 30 years ago, and the fact that the siblings have been unable to speak to one another for 17 years.

'We cannot talk on the phone. We communicate just through having the same family members and by writing letters,' revealed Lyle.

'Is there any joy in your life?' asked Megyn at one point.

'I get a lot of joy from my marriage. I married a girl from my hometown in New Jersey. Been married over ten years. So, I get a lot of joy from that. I get to talk to her a great deal, visit with her. For me, it's in here, trying to find more meaning in life than mere survival, more than joy.


Lyle and his wife Rebecca Sneed met after corresponding through the mail and were married in 2003. he has been married twice since his conviction, wedding model and at the time longtime pen-pal Anna Eriksson in 1996 but divorcing her five years later.

Megyn asked Lyle why he thought Rebecca would want to marry a man in prison.

'I think in my case, every marriage is unique, you know? But in my case, it was such -- she identified with some of what was coming through the TV screen, the subjects in this case. Revolving around child abuse and being raised in New Jersey,' explained Lyle.

The conversation then shifted to the physical relationship between the two, with Lyle saying: 'You can maintain intimacy through the phone and we have contact visits. And you know, it's difficult. It's a challenge. You have to be creative.'

California law prohibits conjugal visits for inmates serving out life without parole sentences so neither of the two brothers has children.

Then, Megyn delved into the night that the brothers murdered their father, and what drove them to commit such an unthinkable crime.

'Once I found out what was happening with my brother, I confronted my father. And it was in the midst of that, that my mother got involved and we found out the extent that she knew about it,' said Lyle.

'And she made a bunch of arguments about it. Overwhelming emotional situation. And for me, it's hard -- it's hard to almost go back and put myself in that situation. But just the pain, the outrage, the fear and just -- I mean, in all reality, just, you know, just anger and just, you know, hopelessness.'

He went on to reveal that he never once made eye contact with his parents as he shot them dead.

'It was a dark room. I think you're just blinded by emotion. And just, you know, probably fearful adrenaline, ' said Lyle.

And in that moment, it was just a 'flood of emotions' he explained to Megyn.

'You know, I'm feeling everything. You know, I mean, I had kept -- I never had any therapy, for what happened to me as a child,' explained Lyle.

'I mean, I just buried it inside. You live with this fire inside you. Unresolved.'


He went on to say: 'My brother and I had some fortune, I guess, because of all of the emotion that went into what happened and proceeded it, that emotion doesn't disappear. My parents are there. We're in the middle of that crime scene.

'So, it's very emotional. It was not difficult to -- for that emotion to be there. Of course, I'm not telling the officer the truth or the person on the phone the truth.'

Megyn than closed out the interview by asking Lyle if he had an religious beliefs.

'I probably believe in heaven and god,' said Lyle.

'I hope it's a very forgiving god.'

The interview comes one day after the premiere of the new NBC drama 'Law & Order True Crime: The Menendez Brothers.'

It has now been nearly 30 years since Lyle and Erik shot dead their wealthy parents in Beverly Hills.

On August 20, 1989, Lyle and Erik walked into the den of their $5million Beverly Hills mansion and shot their father Jose point blank in the back of the head, then shot their mother Kitty in the leg as she tried to run out of the room.

In the end they shot their father five times and their mother nine, with the final bullet for each going into their kneecaps in an attempt to make the murders look like a mob hit.

It was not until March of the following year however that police had enough evidence to arrest them, and the two were not convicted for the murders until 1994, with both given life sentences.

The brothers argued that they were driven to murder their father and mother after a lifetime of physical, emotional and sexual abuse.

Jose was a Cuban immigrant who fled the country at the age of 16 after Fidel Castro took power and worked his way up from nothing to become CEO of RCA Records, where he was responsible for the signing of groups including the Eurythmics and Jefferson Starship, and later the film studio now known as Artisan Entertainment.

After killing their father and mother, who was a former school teacher, the two boys got in their car and dumped the murder weapons before going to see the James Bond Film Licence to Kill and then meeting some friends for drinks before returning home just before midnight, at which point Lyle called authorities.

'Somebody killed my parents,' said the older of the two brothers.


Police spoke with the brothers after arriving at the home but did not check them for gunshot residue to see if they had recently fired a gun, this despite the fact that they considered them both persons of interest at the time.

Neighbors meanwhile had not thought to call police after hearing gunshots coming from the house assuming that it was just noise from children playing in the neighborhood.

With not enough evidence to implicate the brothers police began looking elsewhere for possible suspects while Lyle and Erik began to spend their father's fortune.

It was later estimated that in the six months after killing their parents the two brothers spent $1million on everything from a full time tennis coach and Porsche to a restaurant in Princeton, New Jersey.

Their crime caught up with them however when Erik confessed to the crime during a session with his psychologist. Erik then called his brother Lyle to come join his session and after he too detailed what the two brothers had done, the older brother threatened the life of the doctor saying that is he ever told anyone they would kill him as well.

The psychologist, L. Jerome Oziel, was having an affair at the time with a woman in his office who overheard what was said in the session after listening through the door while the brothers were meeting with the doctor.

Oziel also later told his girlfriend in detail what had happened, and after the two broke up she went to police and revealed that the brothers had killed their parents and threatened Oziel's life.

She also informed police that the sessions had been taped.

The two were arrested soon after, and in a massive blow to their defense the state ruled that when Lyle threatened the life of their psychologist he voided the doctor-patient relationship that would normally have prohibited Oziel from testifying in court.

Some of the tapes were also allowed into evidence.

The two brothers were tried separately starting in 1993, and the first trial for both Lyle and Erik ended with deadlocked juries.

That was due almost entirely to the fact that it was at that first trial when the brothers claimed under oath that they had both been abused for years while being represented by two of the best defense lawyers in the country, who they paid for using the money they had inherited from their parents' $14million estate.

It all came to head they claimed a week before the killings when Lyle, who was 21 at the time of the murder, claimed that his mother ripped off his toupee in front of Erik, who did not know he was bald.

The brothers claim that after seeing Lyle in that state, Erik was able to admit to him that Jose had been sexually molesting him for years, and that when they confronted him to stop he told the two: 'He is my son, and I will do what I want with him.'

Erik said that he was sodomized by his father for the first time when he was six-years-old, and Lyle testified that Jose also made him molest his own brother when they were children.

The younger brother also testified that Jose forced him to perform four different kinds of sexual acts: oral sex, anal sex, hand massage, or having pins stuck into his buttocks or thighs.

Lyle said that in addition to his father, his mother also sexually molested him. He also testified that his father forced him to perform oral sex on his mother multiple times and sodomized him when he was just a child.

Jose's sister testified that this was not true, and while the juries were deadlocked the first time the brothers were tried, they did not get the desired result in their second trial.

On March 20, 1996, the brothers were found guilty of first-degree murder, receiving life sentences and being spared the death penalty.

They appealed their case all the way up to the US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals but were denied every time.

Erik married Tammi Menendez in 1999, as their relationship started from her sending him letters for years.


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4926736/Lyle-Menendez-not-spoken-brother-Erik-17-years.html


Let me just point out that Jose's sister NEVER stated that the molestation was not true. Only Kitty's brothers, Milton and Brian (the latter is now deceased) didn't believe the abuse. Family members wanted to testify about Jose and Kitty's background (both of them were victims of abuse themselves) but the judge did not allow it, ruling that it was "too remote" to have any bearing on the case. I beg to differ. Abuse can be a cycle. It also doesn't mention how Oziel's girlfriend (technically, she was his mistress, as he was married at the time) testified for the defense as a rebuttal witness in the first trial, and she recanted her statement to police, testifying that Lyle never threatened Oziel and that the psychologist kept the tapes for extortion purposes.

 

[Noirdame79]

A recent article about the late Dominick Dunne's "obsession" with this case, his obvious bias against the defendants and his conflicted sexual identity, which he projected onto Erik Menendez. Using a person's sexual history against them is wrong regarding sexual assault, because it was an assault, not a "relationship" and not "consensual" and to say that victim must be lying because they've allegedly or not had other sexual experiences is wrong on so many levels; it's likely that neither Dunne nor the prosecution in both trials would get away with this today - re-victimizing and sexually harassing a person, defendant or not, in open court and in the media. No matter if Dunne was "fascinated" by Erik, or believed the brothers, even for second, it doesn't change how he judged them for not leaving an abusive situation and called them liars; it doesn't change that he paid at least one person to lie in his articles to damage the credibility of Lyle Menendez; it doesn't change the truth of the matter that there was zero evidence to corroborate that the killings took place for financial gain; it doesn't change the fact that Dunne was a gossip monger rather than a reporter. Yes, he went through terrible times himself and having to be in the closet for all those years must have been difficult, to say the least. But he didn't care about the truth, only getting the story and perpetuating what the prosecution wanted him to.

Inside Dominick Dunne’s Ties to Menendez Brothers: Shared Parental Abuse, Gay Identity (Exclusive Book Excerpt)

In an excerpt from his biography “Money, Murder, and Dominick Dunne,” Robert Hofler reveals how Vanity Fair’s star reporter became obsessed with one of the young killers

In 1993 Dominick Dunne was already famous for saying “he did it” whenever it came to a high-profile murder case he reported on for Vanity Fair. He almost always sided with the prosecution against the defendant, and he did so with the same unbridled partiality he honed a decade earlier when, making his debut in Vanity Fair, he covered the trial of John Sweeney, the Ma Maison chef who strangled to death Dunne’s 22-year-old actress-daughter, Dominique.

Erik and Lyle Menendez were on trial for double murder in 1993. The two young men and their two middle-aged victims were not celebrities, but they were wealthy, lived in Beverly Hills, and had ties to the movie business. Even more newsworthy: The victims were Erik and Lyle’s parents, Kitty and Jose Menendez, a top executive at Live Entertainment. The brothers loaded and reloaded their 12-gauge Mossberg shotguns 14 times in the TV room of the family mansion at 722 North Elm Drive.

There was no doubt that Erik and Lyle had murdered their parents on August 20, 1989, as the couple sat watching “The Spy Who Loved Me” on the VCR. The big question of the sensational Menendez trial was whether the father had sexually abused his sons. Dunne said he believed without a doubt that Jose never molested them. He said it before the trial began, and he said it 12 years later when interviewed for a documentary based on his life. “I never ever believed for a second that he sexually abused them,” he told the camera.

Actually, Dunne did believe the two son’s accusations against Jose Menendez, and he believed it for more than a second. He believed it for the better part of a day. September 11, 1993, was Lyle Menendez’s first day on the stand in his own defense. Defense attorney Jill Lansing questioned him on the stand, “Why did you kill your parents?”

“Because we were afraid,” Lyle whispered, the tears already beginning to form. “He raped me.”


“Did you cry?” asked his lawyer.

“Yes.”

“Did you bleed?”

“Yes.”

“Were you scared?”

“Very.”

“Did you ask him not to?”

“Yes.”

“How did you ask him not to?”

“I just told him, I don’t…I don’t…”

According to Lyle, Jose Menendez thought of their sex together as a male bonding ritual. Lyle was only six years old when first raped, and said being anally penetrated made him feel he was “the most important thing” in his father’s life.

The most heartbreaking moment in his testimony, however, came later when Lyle talked about his younger brother. He revealed his father also raped Erik, and that he, in turn, replicated that sexual abuse by taking his kid brother into the woods to molest him there in a similar matter. In the courtroom, Lyle looked away from his lawyer, and leaning forward on the stand, he faced Erik to apologize, “I don’t understand why, and I’m sorry!”

Erik and Lyle were not the only ones crying. Several jurors and reporters also wept. Ashen, Dominick Dunne shook his head. “I wonder if I’m wrong. Could I be wrong?” he asked Shoreen Maghame, a young reporter from the City News Service.

Out in the courthouse hallway, Dunne repeated his “I wonder if I’m wrong” statement to another reporter, and added, “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I think I believe this. I think he’s telling the truth.”

Unlike Shoreen Maghame, Playboy reporter Robert Rand agreed with the man from Vanity Fair about almost nothing that happened during the Menendez trial. In fact, Court TV had hired Dunne and Rand to disagree, and late every Friday afternoon throughout the trial the two journalists gave opposing weekly rebuttals on camera. Crime watchers had never seen anything like it. The Menendez trial was only the second one for which the cable network presented gavel-to-gavel coverage, the first being the ten-day Williams Kennedy Smith rape trial in 1991. On Court TV during the months-long Menendez trial, it was Robert Rand for the defense and Dominick Dunne for the prosecution.

In the hallway, Dunne repeated himself a third time, “I may be wrong.”

The Menendez trial represented everything Dunne loathed about the criminal justice system. It was all about a couple of wealthy brats using their money to buy themselves justice and, in the process, ruin the good reputations of their victims. Dominick saw the same thing happen to his own daughter, Dominique. The defense raised unsubstantiated charges of abortion and drug use against her, and then, in Dunne’s opinion, the killer got his rich boss to pay for his defense.

The Menendez trial also proved personally complicated for Dunne. Like Jose Menendez, he, too, had raised two sons in the rarefied hot-house environment of money, privilege, and celebrity that is Beverly Hills. Even more disturbing, Dunne found he strongly identified with one of the young killers and confessed, years later, of being “fascinated” by Erik Menendez.

Erik was the handsome son, the likable one. He overcame a severe childhood stammer, as did Dunne; and much more significant, Dunne believed Erik to be “homosexual.” In the private journals he kept as an adult, Dunne wrote of not understanding the “equation between” the young heiresses he dated in his hometown of West Hartford, Connecticut, and the adult men he met in the town’s public restrooms, but that he pursued them with “the same fervor.” He claimed to have been only “nine or ten” when he first began performing acts of oral sex on men in the local park.

Then there were the beatings he received from his father, Dr. Richard Dunne.

The Menendez trial compelled Dunne, for the first time in his life, to write and publicly talk about the physical abuse he experienced as a child at the hands of his own father. He linked that abuse to what happened to the younger Menendez son. Dunne never publicly revealed the other thing that drew him to Erik: their sexual orientation. While he believed that Jose Menendez called Erik a “******,” Dunne would only say that his own father had called him a “sissy.”

The word “sissy” in the guarded 1930s of Dunne’s boyhood had been replaced by “******” in the less circumspect times of Erik’s youth. “He mimicked me,” Dominick said of his own father. “He called me a sissy. ‘Sissy’ is a tough word. It may not sound tough, but it’s words that hurt. It lingers.”

The word “sissy” fastened itself to Dunne’s consciousness because it labeled his greatest fear about himself. He was not a real boy. He was a girl trapped in a boy’s body.


Dr. Dunne was not the only one who said it. An uncle told Richard that the 6-year-old Nicky Dunne “ought to have been a girl.” A friendly Italian barber told his mother, Dorothy Dunne, the same thing: “He ought to have been a girl.” What remained burned in Dominick Dunne’s memory is that neither parent disagreed with that opinion; no one came to his “rescue” to claim the real little boy within. “I never felt I belonged anywhere, even in my own family. I was the outsider of the six kids,” he said.

Dunne’s deeply instilled homophobia regarding his own sexual orientation influenced and played into his coverage of the Menendez trial.

“There was a strain of homosexuality running through the trial,” said the prosecutor, Pamela Bozanich, whom Dunne quickly befriended. “We knew Erik was gay and having oral sex with the inmates.” They also knew of homoerotic photographs taken of Erik. In addition, Dunne liked to gossip about Erik’s possible physical attraction to his high school friend Craig Cignarelli, a witness for the prosecution. Dunne and Bozanich even speculated on why Judge Weisberg often disallowed the word “homosexual” in the courtroom.

According to Bozanich, defense attorney Leslie Abramson was “panicked that people would find out or think Erik was homosexual. We had this strain all through the trail and Dominick would whisper things people told him.”

And it didn’t stop there. Early one morning, Bozanich awoke to a frantic phone call. It was Dominick Dunne. He heard he was going to be outed if he did not stop writing about the Menendez trial. Bozanich had to wonder, “Why is he telling me this at six o’clock in the morning?”

ABC News’s Dan Abrams recalled the hubbub. “It was really a very, very gossipy case,” said the legal analyst. “There’s no question when it came to the trial gossip Dominick was the leader among the reporters there. He was hearing everything. Some of it wasn’t true.”

One tidbit that turned out to be true, and which Dunne uncovered through his reporting, was a homoerotic photograph taken of Erik Menendez. A detective gave him the tip to contact the photographer Philip Kearney.

“Dominick was very apologetic when he first phoned me,” Kearney recalled. “He was very respectful.” Which did not stop Dunne from asking if the photographer had an intimate relationship with Erik. In Vanity Fair, Dominick recorded Kearney’s response as being “Spiritually, yes. Physically, almost.”

Nearly a decade and a half after that interview, Kearney said the relationship was actually “more physical than it was spiritual. I’d give Erik a massage and it would lead to other things.”

Erik always claimed not to be homosexual but told the photographer, “If I was gay, Craig [Cignarelli] would be my boyfriend.”

“The statement is nonsensical, but I didn’t challenge it,” said Kearney.

One day, Erik gave Kearney a screenplay he had written, about a teenager who kills his parents to collect the insurance money. Kearney did not read it but knew the general outline from what Erik told him. “It’s horrible enough reading your own stuff,” Kearney surmised. “And I shelved it.”

In Dunne’s conversations with Kearney, he focused not on the script that presaged the double murders but rather the photographs. In his testimony Erik claimed that his father forced him to pose naked over an oval mirror to obtain a more dramatic view of his naked torso. Dunne rejected that story. He believed Erik got the idea of the mirror from one of Kearney’s photo sessions, and it was this photo that Dominick insisted illustrate his Vanity Fair article.

Dunne and Kearney also discussed at length the fateful day that Erik showed up not in the usual sports car but an old clunker. Kearney never knew for sure if Jose Menendez had molested his sons. “What I do know is the father cut them off. He cut them off where it hurt the most in Beverly Hills,” Kearney said of money, cars, and clothes. “And that’s where it was all trailing from. The car wasn’t in a shop. The father had taken it away from him.”

According to Kearney, Dominick always believed that Lyle masterminded the murders, and “Erik wasn’t strong enough to defy that hook Lyle had in him.”

The first Menendez trial ended in two hung juries. Dominick Dunne, however, did not cover the second trial, which resulted in two murder convictions. By then, the Vanity Fair writer was engulfed in the O. J. Simpson murder trial. Not that he ever forgot Erik Menendez.

In 2001, Dunne wrote a letter to Erik to request a face-to-face interview in prison. He had read Erik’s many unproduced screenplays, written before the two sons committed murder, and in the letter he went on to lavish praise on the young man’s talent as a writer. “How often you come to my mind,” Dunne wrote.

His fascination didn’t stop there. He also made copies of Kearney’s shirtless photograph of Erik, and on special occasions, Dunne would show the photo to guests at his country house in Hadlyme, Connecticut.

“He could be a Calvin Klein model,” said the man from Vanity Fair.


https://www.thewrap.com/dominick-dunne-erik-lyle-menendez-brothers-gay/

 

[Noirdame79]

Menendez Left Impression as Businessman and Family Man of Secrets

It has been more than two decades since the mysterious murder of big time entertainment executive, Jose Menendez, was solved. Despite his death by his two sons, Erik and Lyle, Menendez left a lasting impression as a businessman of power and family man of secrets.

"Jose was quite the corporate bureaucrat and you know no friendship stood in the way of that," Jose's former business partner Peter Hoffman said.

Menendez started his corporate climb in New York City. As an exec for RCA, it was Menendez who brought the boy band "Menudo" to English audiences – a group that would later launch the career of singer Ricky Martin. By the time Menendez was killed, he was a successful CEO of a video distribution company.

Jose Menendez was a Cuban immigrant who had plans to ultimately run for US Senate and "liberate Cuba and oust Fidel Castro," according to journalist Rand.

Rand is the author of the upcoming book, "The Menendez Murders," and served as a consultant for "Law & Order True Crime: The Menendez Murders."

"There are a lot of people that work with him and then there's those that were afraid of him," Rand said.

The murder mystery became an argument of greed versus accusations of physical, mental and sexual abuse.

Hoffman believes the Menendez brothers were only about the money while the forensic psychiatrist, Dr. William Vicary, believes both of the sons were sexually molested.

"Both of the brothers had been threatened numerous times by their father that they crossed certain lines that he would beat them so badly that they would never forget it or even kill them," Vicary said.

Hoffman strongly defends that accusation declaring it as "complete nonsense" and that however difficult he may have been, abuse was not possible.

While Beverly Hills police never found evidence of abuse, Dr. Vicary says he has no doubt.


Les Zoeller always claims that he never found any evidence of abuse, but has never shared details of his so-called "investigation".

 

[Noirdame79]

Jurors Say Menendez Brothers Served Long Enough

The Menendez brothers were sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole on July 2, 1996. Over 20 years after the trial, the ninth juror, Hazel Thornton, believes the brothers have served long enough.

"My blood went cold because I had never seen a killer before," said Thornton after seeing the brothers for the first time in court. "That was my first jury experience."

The cold that she felt 21 years ago has warmed up in present day, along with alternate juror Betty Burke Oldfield. Oldfield originally believed the Menendez brothers were "rich spoiled kids that killed their parents."

"There is no way I would think that today," she admitted. In their first trial in 1993, Erik and Lyle Menendez were tried together, but each brother had his own separate jury. There was gavel-to-gavel TV coverage of the bloody crime scene and graphic accounts of alleged molestation. But after five months of testimony some jurors did not believe the allegations.

Oldfield said the most "compelling testimony" was Lyle himself.

He shared how he was afraid of his father Jose Menendez, who he alleges said to keep the molesting a secret.

"I think the men just have too hard a time considering the fact that grown teenage boys could be abused and not just leave," Thornton said.

In the end the verdict was split. The women voted for manslaughter and the men for murder. The men accused the women of being too soft on the brothers, which Thornton called it a major misconception during the trial.

"It was a strong group of women. We all made up our minds for different reasons and we all had very logical reasons behind it," Thornton said.

Oldfield believed the outcome would have been different if the brothers were sisters, saying, "girls would have been believed."

Oldfield and Thornton maintain - the brothers should have been held accountable for the murders of their parents, but not sentenced to life without a chance of parole.


https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/Menendez-Brothers-Served-Long-Enough-452616523.html

 

[Noirdame79]

NBC 4 in Los Angeles has confirmed that the California Department Of Corrections has approved a transfer of Lyle Menendez to the San Diego prison where his younger brother Erik is incarcerated. The Menendez brothers will be reunited after nearly 22 years. Whatever may or may not happen in the future regarding their case, at least they will no longer be separated.