These facts about the shocking true crimes of 90s criminals Lyle and Erik Menendez will seriously creep you out. Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’re looking at disturbing facts about the Menéndez brothers.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00What's the problem?
00:02Someone killed my parents.
00:04Pardon me?
00:05Welcome to WatchMojo.
00:06And today we're looking at disturbing facts about the Menendez brothers.
00:10Every family has a secret.
00:12It just depends on how bad that secret really is.
00:15Murder and the movies.
00:17On August 20th, 1989, Lyle and Eric Menendez murdered their parents,
00:22Jose and Kitty, at their mansion in Beverly Hills.
00:25Although the brothers eventually confessed to this act of parasite,
00:28they initially tried to stage it as a mob hit.
00:31I think one of the Beverly Hills detectives
00:33described it as one of the most brutal crime scenes he had ever seen.
00:37After disposing of the shotguns,
00:39they purchased movie tickets, headed home, and called the police.
00:43Lyle and Eric claimed they were at the Taste of L.A. Film Festival,
00:47where they watched Batman since the line for license to kill was too long.
00:51Both parents were shot multiple times, with Kitty practically unrecognizable.
00:56The authorities had little trouble believing organized crime
00:59was responsible for this gruesome scene.
01:01At the time, the home video industry was known for having ties to the mob.
01:05But suspicions shifted to the sons
01:07as they spent roughly $700,000 on property,
01:10extravagant vacations, and other luxuries.
01:13They acted like they had won the lottery.
01:16O.J. Simpson connections.
01:18Four years prior to joining O.J. Simpson's dream team,
01:21Robert Shapiro played a small yet significant role in the Menendez case.
01:25On March 8, 1990, Lyle was arrested while Eric was at a tennis tournament in Israel.
01:31Eric Menendez, who was out of the country at the time, surrendered to police days later.
01:36Shapiro arranged Eric's surrender upon returning to California three days later.
01:40Shapiro represented Eric at the brothers' first arraignment
01:43before Leslie Abramson replaced him.
01:45The brothers previously met O.J. Simpson in the 70s,
01:48around the same time their father helped arrange
01:51the football star's Hertz car rental endorsement.
01:54Nobody does it better than Hertz.
01:56Nobody does it better.
01:59After his arrest in 1994, Simpson was placed in a cell next to Eric's.
02:04Believing he was guilty, Lyle suggested Simpson take the plea deal.
02:08Of course, Simpson was acquitted,
02:10which Eric felt hurt the brothers' subsequent retrial.
02:13Because his murder was so shocking,
02:15there was a sense of extreme injustice that happened.
02:20Mark Jackson's basketball card
02:25Simpson isn't the only former athlete with an unlikely link to the Menendez brothers.
02:30While NBA point guard Mark Jackson's connection is less direct,
02:33it's still eerie to think about.
02:35On Jackson's 1989-90 trading card,
02:38Lyle and Eric can be spotted watching the Knicks game from the front row.
02:42Check it out.
02:43This is a Mark Jackson card, right?
02:45And then you go for the Knicks.
02:47You push into the background.
02:48Those are the real Menendez brothers.
02:50Despite the press surrounding the Menendez's,
02:53this card didn't gain national attention until decades later
02:56when crime novelist Stephen Zurantz noticed
02:58that the brothers purchased courtside tickets during their spending spree.
03:01Zurantz struggled to find photographic evidence
03:04until he stumbled upon Jackson's card.
03:06He shared his discovery on social media,
03:09and it wasn't long until the image went viral.
03:11And here they are, front row seats,
03:14which were obviously very expensive at the time.
03:16And now it's just a little piece of history.
03:18Internet sleuths deduced that the photo must have been taken
03:21after the murders, but before the arrests.
03:24At first, I just thought, oh, well, you know,
03:26it's a little emotional.
03:27I know, well, one of the last times that Eric and I,
03:30you know, picture of us free together.
03:32The brothers committed burglary before the murders.
03:34While the Menendez brothers are notorious for a particular crime,
03:38this wasn't their first run-in with the law.
03:40They just got bored with life,
03:42and they wanted excitement.
03:44They wanted challenges.
03:45Lyle and Eric reportedly committed, quote,
03:47hot prowls, breaking into other people's homes.
03:50For Lyle, this was a gateway to burglary,
03:53with Eric following,
03:54taking money and jewelry from homes in Calabasas and Hidden Hills.
03:58The brothers bagged over $100,000 in stolen goods.
04:02Joe, when he found out that the children had been arrested,
04:06the main message was, how stupid of you to get caught.
04:10You're like sheep that follow.
04:12Among the property taken was a van,
04:14which they got pulled over in.
04:16Their father did damage control,
04:18apologizing to the households
04:20and writing checks for the stolen items.
04:22And Jose kind of said,
04:23let's distance ourselves from the Calabasas crowd.
04:25The brothers avoided any serious charges,
04:28but the Menendez family moved away from their ransacked neighbors
04:31to a new home in Beverly Hills.
04:33What seemed like a fresh start was the beginning of the end.
04:37Eric Menendez's screenplay.
04:39Before the murders occurred,
04:41Eric Menendez wrote a 66-page script entitled Friends.
04:45No, it wasn't about six 20-somethings living in New York.
04:48According to Craig Signorelli,
04:50a high school classmate who wrote the screenplay with Eric,
04:53the story centered on a quote,
04:55sophisticated, good-looking teenager named Hamilton Cromwell.
04:58In the opening scene,
04:59Cromwell murders his parents
05:01with the intent of inheriting their fortune.
05:03We needed the characters to get money somehow
05:06and thought, well, here's an interesting way to do it.
05:08And it showed the Darwinistic tendencies of the child toward the parents.
05:12Although it wasn't entered as evidence when the case went to trial,
05:16many recognized the parallels between the script and the murders.
05:19He's already got the idea
05:22and he's already beginning to execute in his mind
05:25the crime that he will eventually commit,
05:27murdering his parents for money, for the insurance money.
05:29What remains debatable
05:31is whether the Menendez brothers' motivation
05:33coincided with Hamilton Cromwell's.
05:35That's how the prosecution saw it.
05:37In any case, the script never got produced,
05:40but the Menendez case has inspired numerous Hollywood productions.
05:44I thought that it was probably pretty unreal,
05:47a bit of nonsense.
05:49I didn't contemplate that he was really planning to do such a thing.
05:52Confession to psychologist
05:54Growing increasingly suspicious of the brothers,
05:57the cops convinced Craig Signorelli to wear a wire,
05:59but he couldn't get a confession from Eric.
06:02Although Menendez didn't confide in his friend,
06:04he did open up to Jerome Oziel,
06:06his psychologist.
06:08Eric came in and he was extremely agitated
06:12and extremely depressed
06:14and he began talking with me
06:18about the fact that his parents had been murdered.
06:22Oziel didn't alert the authorities,
06:24but he shared this revelation with his mistress,
06:26Judilon Smith,
06:28believing anyone close to him might be in danger.
06:30After Smith told the police,
06:32Oziel broke up with her.
06:34Meanwhile, the brothers were taken into custody,
06:37a confession tape emerging as a smoking gun.
06:40Not many Hollywood murder mysteries
06:42ever took a more dramatic turn than police are describing
06:44in a couple of savage Beverly Hills killings.
06:47Oziel claimed he withheld this information
06:49out of fear for his life and his family's well-being.
06:52He was very fearful
06:57that I would tip the police or tip the newspapers.
07:03I didn't believe that there was any way for him to be safe
07:05now that I had this information.
07:07In 1997, Oziel lost his psychology license,
07:10accused of breaking doctor-patient confidentiality
07:13and having relations with female patients.
07:16Married behind bars
07:18On July 2, 1996,
07:20the same day the brothers were sentenced to life in prison,
07:23Lyle tied the knot with Anna Erickson,
07:25a salon receptionist and retired model
07:27who wrote to him during his incarceration.
07:29The marriage ended in 2001
07:32after Erickson learned that Lyle was having an affair with a pen pal.
07:35Two years later, Lyle married Rebecca Sneed,
07:38who he had known for nearly a decade.
07:40Erick got hitched as well,
07:42marrying Tammy Ruth Sackaman in 1999.
07:45He started a hospice program.
07:47He's well-liked by fellow prisoners.
07:50Sackaman discussed their relationship in her book
07:52They Said We'd Never Make It.
07:54Although conjugal visits aren't allowed,
07:56the brothers remain married to their respective spouses to this day.
08:00A kiss when you come in, a kiss when you leave,
08:02you can hold hands,
08:04and that part of it is very difficult
08:08and people don't understand.
08:09While some might call this romantic,
08:11others can't help but find it at least a little creepy.
08:15The alleged motivation
08:17The prosecution asserted that the brothers
08:19murdered their parents for the inheritance
08:21and life insurance money
08:22after their father threatened to cut them out of his will.
08:25They were buying Rolex watches.
08:27They were buying real estate.
08:29According to Lyle and Erick,
08:31the murders were not motivated by money,
08:33testifying that their father had been abusing them
08:35in more ways than one since their youth.
08:37Their mother also allegedly participated,
08:40fearing their lives were in danger.
08:42The brothers acted first.
08:44One of their lawyers, Cliff Gardner,
08:46says the new evidence corroborates those claims
08:49and lessens their culpability.
08:51Some family members believe there was a history of abuse.
08:54Others say otherwise.
08:56I never saw anything in the home
08:58Never.
08:59Either way, proving self-defense was easier said than done.
09:03After a mistrial, the brothers were tried again,
09:06resulting in a guilty verdict and life sentences.
09:09The outcome divided the public.
09:11Decades later, people still debate their motivations
09:14and whether abuse justifies murder.
09:16Our society has just become more knowledgeable about trauma.
09:21Another potential victim.
09:22New evidence has recently surfaced
09:24enforcing the allegation that the brothers
09:26suffered at the hands of their father.
09:28This includes a letter Eric wrote to his cousin Andy Cano
09:31in December 1988.
09:33The letter is significant. Why?
09:35Well, the state's position was that Andy was a liar.
09:38Andy was making it up.
09:40Supposedly.
09:41Eric and Lyle were not the only ones
09:43who Jose Enrique Menendez subjected to abuse.
09:46Roy Russello, a former member of the Puerto Rican boy band Menudo,
09:50claims that he crossed paths with Jose Menendez
09:52when he was working for RCA Records.
09:54After drinking a glass of wine at Jose Menendez's house,
09:57Russello says that he lost control of his body
10:00and was taken advantage of.
10:01I met Roy and he talked to me about it.
10:03It was a difficult conversation for him.
10:05It was difficult for me to hear.
10:07This allegedly happened in the 80s,
10:09although Russello wouldn't speak publicly about it until 2023.
10:13Russello's accusations have further fueled the campaign
10:16to reopen the Menendez case.
10:18It can take years for people to recognize what happened,
10:22to have the courage to come forward.
10:24Before we continue, be sure to subscribe to our channel
10:27and ring the bell to get notified about our latest videos.
10:30You have the option to be notified for occasional videos or all of them.
10:34If you're on your phone, make sure you go into your settings
10:37and switch on notifications.
10:4022 years apart.
10:42Although initially tried separately,
10:44Lyle and Eric Menendez were tried together for their second trial.
10:48After their sentencing in July 1996,
10:50the brothers could still see one another across the prison yard.
10:54September 1996 would mark their last face-to-face interaction
10:58for more than two decades.
11:00Is it important to you to stay together
11:02when you get moved to the state prison?
11:05Very important.
11:06That is what's gotten us through these six years
11:09and through our life.
11:11The two were sent to separate maximum security prisons
11:14500 miles away from each other.
11:16The brothers were allowed to communicate through letters and snail mail,
11:19but not over the phone.
11:21They wouldn't see each other again until 2018
11:24when Lyle was transferred to Eric's housing unit.
11:26On Wednesday, Eric Menendez was transferred
11:29to his brother's section in a California state prison.
11:33Sharing an emotional embrace,
11:35the brothers believed the impossible had finally happened.
11:41While Lyle called the moment, quote,
11:43remarkable,
11:44it also served as a chilling reminder of the time lost.
11:48Do you have any other interesting facts about the Menendez brothers?
11:51Share them in the comments.
11:53But some of the idea also came from two of the prison's most infamous inmates,
11:57the Menendez brothers.
11:58Do you agree with our picks?
12:00Check out this other recent clip from WatchMojo
12:02and be sure to subscribe and ring the bell
12:04to be notified about our latest videos.
12:18WatchMojo.com