Heinous Acts: The Menendez Brothers

0:06 Welcome to Unspeakable, a true crime podcast. Or I tell stories of real crimes with real victims whose cases are so shocking that many are left wondering how is this even real? I use my experiences in law enforcement corrections, and combined with my years as a criminal justice educator, dig deep into complex cases of evil acts, some so evil many feel they are unspeakable. Warning. Unspeakable as intended for mature audiences. If you are easily offended, then I'm not your girl. Listening discretion is advised. Hey y'all, kJ you're back for another episode of Unspeakable. How's it going?

1:02 It better be going good. I know it's going good for a couple of people because I'm about to give him a shout out. I know. I'm gonna start in Reno, Nevada with Miss Nicole Dean. Hi, Nicole, thank you so much. I'm so thankful to have you part of my team, as well as Deborah Dunne. And then right here in Port Vincent, Mandy templay, how are you doing, Mandy, Glad to have you. I've got miss Senda Snyder. I hope I said that right, Miss Senda Senda Snyder. And then in Summitville, Indiana. Jessica Markham, Hey, Jessica, how are you? I've got now this name. I hope I don't mispronounce it, and I'm based in the way I pronounced it off of a student that I teach. But I'm gonna say Andy Bull or is it Bule? I think it's Bull?

1:44 How are you doing? Andy? I'm so thankful to have you join. Either way, I hope I didn't slaughter your name, but I'm thankful to have you. And then last, but not least, all the way from Massachusetts is miss Renee Hibbard. Hey, Renee, thank you so much for joining. And as always, I appreciate everyone who's supporting my podcast. It's making my dreams come true and I'm getting to make big changes here real soon and we'll be getting more content out to you. So thanks a bunch. Now, today's episode is because again, we got a lot of people on TikTok that are following this trend of the Menendez brothers, and so I thought I would just jump on the bandwagon because I have something to say and if Kim Kardashian can give her dumbass opinion, then I can give mine. So that's what today is going to be all about So we're going to take it back to nineteen eighty nine for this one. And like I said, it's it's just so popular right now. It's kind of crazy that's come back up.

2:36 But TikTok is making moves for people, and they're no different. Now. I don't really plan to go over every single solitary detail of the Menindez case because I think most people at this point have the gist of the story, but I will jump into the case a good bit in case you don't. But before everything that's been claimed and said in this case, I think that there's been some major concepts that have been brushed, you know, under the rug or overlooked, especially on this TikTok bandwagon, and so I intend to kind of go over a few things I think that have been missed. And as we know, when TikTok users get involved, they can cause mass social quote unquote awareness on situations, but that awareness isn't always well rounded, and I think that's pretty much the case here as well. Now, like I said, it's gonna be about the Menindez brothers, and we know that Lyle was the older of the two brothers at twenty one years old, and Eric the younger at age eighteen, and both of them were the products of a marriage that resulted in great wealth. Now, they weren't born straight into a wealthy family.

3:46 Their parents grew this wealth and they became wealthy throughout their childhood, or they didn't their parents did, but you know, throughout their childhood and then to their early adult life. Their parents' names were Jose and Kitty Menendez. And the reality was that Jose came to the United States as an immigrant. He was originally from Cuba, and he moved to the US and moved in with some relatives in Pennsylvania to try to start his life here. As a young man, he attended college at Southern Illinois University, where he was a popular swimmer, and he was actually so good that he was there on scholarship. And he was a successful and driven young man, to say the least.

4:26 He was special. He wanted to be successful in the land of opportunity, and from all outward appearances, he was doing just that. His wife to be Her name was Kitty, or she was called Kitty as her nickname. She came from a divorced family which that divorce happened whenever she was very young, and it really did affect her substantially in her lifetime. She was the youngest of four kids and they came up in this middle class home and from all accounts that I read, her father was abusive to her and her mom and to her siblings. Although he was abusive, he was still her dad, and when he left, she didn't do too well with that. She wanted to have her father in her life and as a result of that, it left her feeling really withdrawn and just really sad that the family unit had broken up.

5:23 This would result in it being difficult for her to make, you know, friends, She just kind of struggled, and she would hold resentment towards her dad and just really wasn't in a good way. But with time and space and maturity, Kitty grew into her own with dreams of one day busting out and becoming an actress. She too, would eventually enroll in college at Southern Illinois University with a focus in communications. Makes sense, right, you want to be able to have all the specialty of communicating with others, especially if you want to build this huge action career. It was on that campus where Jose first laid eyes on Mary Louise Kitty Anderson in a philosophy class that they took together. And Kitty at that time was thought of as a stunningly beautiful woman both inside and out, which made her an absolute ten. She was a catch all.

6:21 Accounts say that she really was someone that you know for Jose to get her attention, he was winning by having her so pretty. In fact, she won Miss Oaklawn beauty pageant in nineteen sixty two. Now, Miss Kitty also had a rebellious side, which I personally love. I think she had a little spice to her. She loved the arts and performing and she really grew to put herself out there, which was huge considering where she had started from. Jose won her over rather quickly and the two became absolutely inseparable. Kitty seemed, y'all to really have it going on. She was a pretty woman, and then she meets Jose and she is happy to be by her man's side and to be hooked on his arm. They would go on shortly thereafter to get married. They got married on July eighth of nineteen sixty three, and then they would eventually move to New York City. Jose then started to attend another college, Queen's College, and would earn degrees in economics and accounting. So Kitty, meanwhile, she was a vivacious and energetic woman, but five years would pass in this marriage and then she would start having babies. They were building their family, and so she kind of went from this vivacious, young, you know, vibrant woman with dreams of being an actress, to really shifting herself into that mother role and it was no longer about her. It was about her children. Her children being Joseph Lyle who was

7:54 born in January of nineteen sixty eight, and then soon followed Eric, who was born in November of no nineteen seventy. So when all of the boys were born, Kitty was working as a school teacher at the time. But once those kids were born, jose really started impressing upon her that he wanted her to stay home and raise the children. He thought that her role was in the house and mothering the kids, and don't worry about it. I've got us financially. You come home and you be the mother to our children. Something that was a recurrent theme even according to her sons, by the way, was that men ran the house in their world, and the men were everything in their family culture. Kitty loved Jose and she was willing to do what her husband wanted of her.

8:46 And I would bet she also wanted to be home with her baby boys too. But there's sacrifice that comes with being a mother, unless you're Casey Anthony, of course, but there's sacrifice. And I think she looked at motherhood and said, this is what I've got to do. They are now my primary role. So the family really planted their roots near Princeton, New Jersey, and she just doated on Lyle and Eric while they were there. They even attended private school. Specifically, the name of the school was Princeton Day School, and so I was kind of curious about the school, so I looked it up and to that point, the tuition of this school ranges from thirty eight thousand to forty eight thousand dollars per child. Can you freaking imagine. So my point was that both Jose and Kitty were invested in their children and they wanted them to experience the best, no matter the cost. Even Kitty's own brother, his name was Brian. Even Kitty's own brother, said that she spoiled her boys while Jose worked and traveled.

9:53 She was their rock. She raised them and she loved them. As the kids grew, so did Jose's income, and he rose ranks quickly in the business world, and this would result in job changes and the family would have to relocate, and eventually that would find them in Calabasas, California. This was around nineteen eighty six. Because Jose was proving himself a very successful Los Angeles businessman, eventually so successful that they would become amongst high society. They moved to Beverly Hills and started living in the most exclusive places to live where people just ooze money. You know, you can look at them and tell they have money. But the reality was that Kitty did love New Jersey, where they moved from, and she wanted to stay there, but her husband, Jose was the head of the household and he was obviously the breadwinner, so her wants were really kind of moot.

10:53 She had to do what her husband wanted to do, and I do like, based on the everything that I read that she kind of resented him for making her move away from what she loved so dearly. But rather than be a brat about it. She kept her chin held high and she remained his doting and supportive wife. At one point, Jose was even the head of Hurts, you know, the rental car company, and was famously known for hiring oj Simpson as the face of Hurts advertising. And you know, he'd be running and jumping into rental cars with that thousand watt smile. Although we all now know that, you know he was a low key beating the shit out of his wife behind the scenes, but that's another podcast. But he was the man back then, and he was going to be the face of Hurts.

11:46 Jose then also at one point served as the head of RCA Records, and he oversaw the success of many recording artists, including the huge boy band of the time, Menudo, as well as the likes of Duran Duran. So the guy is in a position that is powerful and he's making a crapload of money. So at the time this case really took place, Jose was forty five and Kitty was a little bit older. She was forty seven, And while Jose was working, Kitty was a mom and a homemaker living at their estate. And like I said, super exclusive people had money and by all accounts, Jose wanted excellence not only for himself but as well as his boys, and so when they moved to that home in Calabasas, California, which by the way, was eight thousand square feet on fourteen acres, the kids were starting to be old enough to experience more and more. So this included sports. Lyle liked playing tennis, Eric liked soccer, and I get the feeling that Jose wanted them involved in some sort of structured sport to teach them what we all want our kids to learn in sports, responsibility as well as the ability to grow through practice and through loss and through hardship so that you can be a stronger person and you can learn that adversity is a good thing. It

13:17 teaches us to grow. I know he wanted more for his boys than he had when he was a kid, and that's likely why he had high expectations of them, because, after all, I mean, he was giving them more than he ever had, which meant that they should be able to achieve more than he had, even though he was extremely successful, literally the American dream from rags to riches. So while he may have wanted excellence and success from his kids, he also had a wondering eye, and according to Kitty's psychologist that she was seeing he would testify to this too. In ninety three, Kitty was starting to have a really, really hard time once Jose hit this peak performance in the job, and that's because he was cheating on her. She had discovered his infidelity and she started coping the best way she could at the time, I guess, but she started drinking and she started taking pills to try to, I guess, cope with what was happening.

14:27 How could Jose do this to her? After all she had sacrificed for their family. And I'm here to say this, money isn't everything. And I feel like Kitty gave up her dreams and she gave up her body to build a family with the man that she doted on. And the way that he decided to thank her was with betrayal by messing around with another woman. And by the way, this wasn't just a little like Oopsie, Daisy, I messed up. This was an eight year adulterous affair. And to boot it was one of her own friends named Karen Lamb. I can't tell you how much I feel for Kitty.

15:09 When you really look down at what this woman dealt with. Money is not everything. Look at all the rich people that lose their friggin minds. You know, she wanted a loving family, and look what she got in return. Karen her friend quote unquote front of me more like it. She was from New York and she was a model. And the feeling of despair that poor Kitty was going through as her husband was off gallivanting around town and traveling just had my heart hurting for this woman. The more that I read. She became so distraught that she would allegedly attempt suicide more than one time, just to stop the pain that she was feeling. But she was ultimately unsuccessful. And you need to really sit in that for a second. This woman was in so much pain that she tried to end her life. Like my beloved has betrayed me and I don't want to live without him, and she's lost her sense of self because she poured it all into him. Kitty seemed stuck basically loving the man that she devoted her life to and knowing that she was in a position where she basically had to take his cheating on the chin. You know, that's just where she was and On top of this major disappointment was the fact that her sons were now starting to get in trouble too. Both Eric and Lyle would get

16:41 into trouble when they decided to join up with a group of other wealthy teenagers and go around the area and start burglarizing homes. So I want to start with that and say, when you're watching TikTok and these perfect teenagers just slashed out, I'm gonna go ahead and call bullshit because the police record stands for itself. They were going around town burglarizing homes, and they weren't just taking bicycles or just breaking down doors or doing graffiti or something like that. They stole over one hundred thousand dollars worth of items from their neighbors and other people around them, including jewelry, as well as a whole ass van. Like they took the whole car, which they would eventually get pulled over in when Jose found out. To say he was not impressed is an understatement, and he loaded that van up, filled it up with a bunch of stolen stuff, basically all the stolen items that he could find that the boys had taken, and he drove it himself up to the sheriff's office to turn it in. He then asked, what else is missing? Because I will cut a check right now to reimburse those people. And he did. He wrote an eleven thousand dollars check right then for the items that he could not find that his sons stole.

18:08 So I guess you could look at this two ways. You could say, oh, well, he bailed his sons out of trouble, no wonder they turned out the way they did. Or what you could look at this as to me was Jose wasn't willing to just overlook this because they were wealthy. He wanted to do what made it right for the other people, not necessarily saving his sons, which he did, but the other people being made whole again. If this was you or me, and I have to tell you this, if this was you or me, the ones listening to me talk right now, we would have been thrown underneath the jail. Are you kidding me? One hundred thousand dollars worth of stuff me and you bye bye me and you would be gone. Eric only got a sentence of probation, along with community service and counseling. Lyle, I don't think I don't member exactly. I don't think y'all got charged. It was a whole fiasco. But what ended up happening as a result of this was that that counseling aspect of what they were sentenced to is why their mother Kitty originally went and found a psychologist for him to go to. It wasn't because he was having depression. It wasn't because his grades were failing. It wasn't because he wasn't sleeping well, aka all of the things that tend to be seen in abuse of children cases like sex abuse. It wasn't because any of that.

19:31 It was because he got caught in a criminal act and he was forced to by sentence. The common behavioral issues of sexually abused teens, by the way, the most common ones are self harm. Self harm and the concept here and by the way, you know, it's not all inclusive. This isn't always the fact, but it is a majority of the time, and you can look up the stats on this. And the reasoning behind it in terms of psychology is because when kids or teens feel out of control by circumstances affecting them, self harm gives them a sense of control because they control hurting themselves. I never saw anything documented about this with the Menindez brothers. Not to say it has to happen. I'm just saying the way that the Menindez brothers behaved was the antithesis of everything I would have expected, just based on experience, reading and data. Fast forward a few years later and Lyle would be at Princeton University. He would find himself in trouble again while there because he's accused of plagiarizing a paper in psychology class. It was serious enough that he was called in to the admin office and he was given two options by the university. You can either leave on your own or will expel you. That's how egregious this plagiarism was. So again, guess who showed up to defend law Jose, And it was of course no use.

21:04 I mean, the university wasn't gonna budge on it. So Lyle would quote unquote choose to leave the university. But was it really a choice because he had to because of his own actions? Unethical to say the least. Another paper that was written is also pretty eye opening to me, But this one was written by Eric and this paper was a sixty six page manuscript to be exact, and it's one that he wrote kind of like a screenplay, and it's about a sophisticated and good looking teenager named Hamilton Cromwell, and Hamilton Cromwell murders his parents with the full intent of inheriting their fortune. Sixty six pages about this good looking guy. So by nineteen eighty nine, the brothers were nineteen and twenty two years years old, and they wanted for nothing thanks to their father and their mother.

22:06 According to Eric, he was told around August thirteenth or August fourteenth that he was going to have to come home several nights a week while he was attending college at UCLA. And that's where this whole thing kind of seems to unravel. The reason that Eric found this very upsetting was one he didn't want to come home, but two is because he now claims that it's because his father had been sexually abusing him, which he told Lyle only five days before the parents are murdered. Five days before the murder, Lyle had been off at college and had come home for the summer when all of this was supposedly told to him for the very first time.

22:56 So this is why on August fifteenth, Lyle claims that he confronted his father Jose, about the sex abuse when Eric wasn't home. Lyle then supposedly told Eric that their father told him to go back to Princeton and basically forget the conversations had ever happened about the abuse, and that's when Lyle says He claims he pushed back and was like, no, this has got to stop. And that's when Lyle says. Jose then left for a business trip, and when Jose came back from the business trip days later, Jose busted up in Eric's room, yelling at him and going crazy, supposedly because Eric had told Lyle about the sex abuse. Eric said basically that in that yelling fit, Jose was worried that Lyle was going to go quote tell everybody about the sex abuse. And I'm just curious, if this is supposedly the truth, why wouldn't Jose be worried that Eric would go tell everybody on his own, Because understand, Eric's not five years old when this is happening.

24:16 He's nineteen years old. It's not like Eric can't speak for himself. He's nineteen years old and just simmerre on that for a minute. And I know a lot of people are on different sides of the fence of whether the abuse happened or not, but I would think that a grown man would be worried another grown man or old teen would go tell, not just whenever the brother found out. So they were so, you know, moved by this conversation. And it was directly because of this conversation that Eric says that he started to fear for his life.

24:57 When I fear for my life, I would assume my blood pressure would go up, my heart would be racing, I would be just so afraid. I would be trying to get away from whatever was scaring me and making me feel threatened. The brothers were so scared that three days later, not minutes later, not hours later, three whole days later, after also living in the home with the parents and choosing not to leave the home where they supposedly feared so greatly for their lives, but three days later, the brothers then set out to arm themselves. So it was August eighteenth, two days before they would ultimately murder their parents, that they first tried to go buy guns in Los Angeles, and they found out pretty quickly though that they couldn't buy handguns. It wouldn't happen quickly, meaning they'd have to wait some time, and so they decided to switch to a different plan. So they went even further, driving from Los Angeles to San Diego to buy guns.

26:06 But when they got there, they were asked for their identification. The two of them then stepped aside and they quickly kind of started talking back and forth about what to do. Obviously, this was a little strange looking, especially to the guy who just said, can I have your idea? And it caused this whole side conversation. So when they realized this might look kind of weird, they decided they didn't want to look any more suspicious to that clerk, and so they decided to just leave. When they finally went to a third store, it was there that they presented fake IDs. They had stolen them, by the way, They stole them from a roommate that they, you know, that while had in college, and then they gave fake addresses where they were finally able to buy two shotguns. So they're lying from the get go about these weapons, which I just if this was a spontaneous type of issue based on fear for your life. I'm not so convinced about having time to go steal IDs and then lie about who you're buying it under, and then give fake addresses. So when they were confronted about the address issue, by the way not matching up on the ID, they lied again to the clerk and said, oh, it's because we just moved.

27:26 It's a new address. And this is also when they left and they decided that they were going to go do some practice firing at a range. Let's practice, I guess, shooting people. Let's practice it. Even though this is supposed to be fear for your life. Let's go practice. But they found out when they got to the range that they couldn't because you can't practice with shotguns at the range. While they were there, they also had a conversation where they found out that bird shot, which was the type of EMMO that had bird shot, wasn't very effective to knock something large down. And that's when they decided to switch to buckshot to make sure they could quote unquote stop a person. So now the boys were so afraid of their father that they had to go arm themselves days after having a conversation that supposedly scared them beyond their wildish dreams, but they were willing to go unarmed on a fishing trip that their father was paying for, as well as with their father and their mother days later, even though they did have the weapons that they had already bought to supposedly defend themselves. But the fishing trip, no problem. We'll go fishing with y'all, even though we fear for our lives. Let's go on a boat and go out into water, deep water. Then, on August twentieth, Lyle spoke to a friend of his named Perry Berman,

28:59 and they plans to get together that night and they were going to go to eat at this Taste of La Food festival. He told his buddy, look, me and Eric are going to go see a Batman movie at the movie theater, and that movie is going to end sometime around nine o'clock. Now, something I would like to point out to you is that Eric and Lyle did not have their tickets for the movie purchased until after they killed their parents. Yet they told Perry earlier that evening that they would be going to a movie and then would meet up with him afterwards for the festival. Eric also claimed that Lyle got into an argument with Jose and Kitty about them wanting to go out for the evening, to which Jose told Eric to go to his room. Just go to your room. That's when Eric claimed that he was afraid that Jose was going to come up there and want to have sex with him, arguing about going to a festival and now he's fearing his father coming to have sex with him. He did begin walking up to his room, according to him, but he eavesdropped. He didn't quite go up, and he says he heard Lal say you're not gonna touch my brother again.

30:19 So so I wonder what the jump was from the festival to don't have sex with my brother. I do genuinely wonder about that. How did that come up in that conversation? And then, according to the brothers, after he says you're not gonna touch my brother again, that's when Jose and Kitty then promptly turned around and went to the den to watch TV and eat ice cream. I'm just not maybe my household's different, but we get into an argument about something that serious. Uh, I don't think it's just gonna end by me turning around and going to eat ice cream and watch TV. I feel like that's going to be a pretty big moment, you know, in the house, and this one, you know, just so strange to me that supposedly Lyle then ran upstairs. Mind you remember he's twenty two, his brother's nineteen. Supposedly Lyle then ran upstairs, and Eric was crying and violently shaking, saying, I can't have him come in my room and do this to me. But again, guys, Jose and Kitty were downstairs watching TV eating ice cream. I the evidence proves that their bowls were down there was ice cream with blueberries in it. So I don't see how you can be going from like, how did you deathly fear someone's

31:53 gonna come rape you when they're sitting on a couch eating ice cream? Like how long did could this conversation have lasted that it could go up and down like that to where they're both in there eating ice cream, Yet you're upstairs violently shaking, and he never even went up there. The boy's own account that he never went up there. That's when Eric went and got his shotgun from the closet, and then he went downstairs to his car where he took the bird shot out that he had, and he put the buck shot in and then Lyle at some point got his gun, and then he also went to the car and he loaded the gun alongside Eric. So you feared for your life so much as you didn't even have your weapon prepared, even though you had already discussed it days prior. You're so afraid of your life.

32:40 Your weapon wasn't even prepared. Like I just, I don't know, man, it doesn't sit right with me. So, while Kitty and Jose were eating in the living room, Lyle and Eric came through the doors and started blowing them away with these shotguns. Y'all, there were upwards of sixteen shotgun rounds, whatever you want to call it, shot sixteen. I need you to think about that, Like, don't gloss over that sixteen rounds were shot at their parents. It's absolute overkill. I mean it is. It is so violent, so violent, And both of the brothers claimed that they walked in the living room and just started shooting. They also walked out after blowing around, blowing rounds at their parents. They then walked out, went back to the car, reloaded the weapons, and then walked back inside. And that's when Lyle his own words. That's when Lyle realized his mother was still making noises, and so he walked up to the woman that gave birth to both of them, placed the muzzle of the shotgun to her cheek, and blew her head off.

33:58 Jose also had a contact wound to his head as well as other parts of his body. But this is where I want to also look at some evidence here. Jose was shot at point blank range in the back of the head. You can see it in the photos. He's just sitting there with his legs crossed watching TV when the gun is set to the back of his head and blows his brains out. I don't see how that is a self defensive move when you blitz attack somebody and shoot them in the back of the head. If this was any other situation, hands down, everyone would go, hm, nope, that's a murder like everyone would just go that ain't right.

34:46 I'm telling you, really think about that. Blew the man's brains out. Even the cops on scene said that when they got there, they were like, holy shit, there was blood and brains on the ceiling. They said it was dripping. When they went to go move Jose's body, his brain fell out on the ground like on the ground. Sorry for the sound effects. And I just have to tell you the autopsy report. It was conducted by a doctor Golden, and he said that Jose suffered explosive decapitation with evisceration of the brain. I mean it was turned to jelly and the hole was so big you could put your fist through it. Jose's face was horrifically deformed and interesting enough, like I told you, there was soot on the back of his head, which proves that it was a point blank shot to the back of his head. It certainly appears that Jose was seated watching TV and was attacked from behind, where he was then shot again twice in the right arm, once in the left elbow, and one more time in his left knee. It really implies to me that this was a surprise attack and not a retaliatory like, oh he was coming to rate me type of situation. Kitty's death, on the other hand, was far more brutal, far more brutal than Jose's. She was shot y'all in the left cheek. It blew her face, It fractured into her upper jaw, It blew her teeth out,

36:18 and there were a total of three shots in their mother's face. In her face, and when I first saw the post mortem photo of her, I was a little confused as to the shot to her left cheek because it didn't look like a wound I would have expected from a buck shot round going into the face. But this was soon answered because when the coroner continued on in the report, he says there was multiple ammo used when she was shot. Dull right. They shot her with the buck shot, then they went outside. She wasn't dead, she was moaning on the ground. They reloaded with the bird shot, and then they came back inside where Lyle said, in his own words, my mom was crawling underneath the table.

37:03 And that's whenever he put the gun to his mom's cheek and blew her in the face with the bird shot. To just think about their mother crawling on the ground, probably already mortally wounded, and to walk in with such confidence to have reloaded the weapon. Remember, you fear for your life so much so that you went back to the car, reloaded the weapon and came back. And then your poor mama is trying to crawl underneath a table to get away from you. Her children and then you put a gun to her face and pull the trigger.

37:49 I just can't get past that. Her right thumb was nearly severed, which police even thought was indicative of her attempt at shielding herself from the blast. Put her hand up and it just blew her thumb off. And she was also shot in her breasts, her legs, and arms. And so when asked, you know what was going on when you were shooting them, Lyle said, oh, it was just a rush and me firing. And to use the words a rush, I don't know that a rush is what word I would use if I feared for my life, you know I. And I'm just using their words. I'm not.

38:33 I'm not making more of it than it is. I'm listening to what they've told me. So it makes me wonder why was Kitty hit so many times? If they feared for their life because their dad was the rapist, then why was Mom shot so much? They later would claim it's because she was complicit in Jose sexually abusing them. But I'm gonna tell you, y'all, there's not one ounce of proof of this other than what the brothers have said and in nuendo, I guess there's nothing in writing.

39:15 There's nothing other than their claims that their mother did this. And that's why I feel like Kitty was in the way. Kitty was in the way of them getting what they wanted without consequences or pushback. And what they wanted was their parents dead and their money. If Kitty was alive, she would get the money. Kitty had to die or they wouldn't get everything they wanted, and that's why the cover up began in that moment. So they collected all the shotgun shells in case fingerprints might be on them. Remember, they fear for their lives, so they collected so their fingerprints wouldn't be found. They then drove to the movie theater after killing their parents, supposedly in fear for their life, to the point that they could not even function, and Eric was shaking and crying in his bedroom. They then get in the car together and they drive to a theater to buy Batman tickets as part of their cover up, but they ended up not being able to use them because the tickets are time stamped, so they were useless.

40:18 So they then went and dumped the shotgun shells, their bloody shoes, and their clothes. They dumped that at a gas station in a trash can. And then it was around eleven pm that night before Lyle called his friend back. Remember they were making plans. He called him back, claiming, oh, Eric got lost on the way to the festival and the damn thing was over before we could get to it. That's weird in and of itself. And then Lyle says, okay, well, let's make plans. I'll meet you Perry at a restaurant in Beverly Hills. But then he calls him right back and says, hey, just come to our house instead. But Perry ultimately he's like, nah, I'll just wait for y'all to run home because Eric said he needed to get his fake ID. But you know, good and well, Lyle was trying to set that boy up to go find his murdered parents, you know, good and well. That's what that was about. And that's when they ended up back at the house. Right. The boys go back to get Eric's quote unquote fake ID and supposedly discovered their parents' dead bodies, and all hell broke loose. Lyle then called nine to one one, claiming, somebody killed my parents. While Eric is screaming and crying in the background, and when the police got there, Lyle and Eric both ran from the house to the officers screaming, which I also think is weird because I guarantee you if I run up in a house with my people's brains and bodies blown up with guns, I'm not going chill in that house.

41:42 I'm leaving it. I mean, like, with a quickness, I'm leaving that house. And even stranger was that after the police started processing the scene, Eric and Lyle both wanted to go back in the house, and they when asked what do you need, they said they wanted their tennis rackets. Why do you care about your damn tennis racket? Your parents are dead. So Lyle and Eric both then lied, claiming that they weren't home whenever the murders took place, and then they alluded to the fact that, you know, this probably is mafia related, and this would make sense to an extent in the police eyes, because the brutality, just the sheer brutality and the overkill of the scene definitely had mafia esque look to it. But you know, this is something I think that the brothers did on purpose, because that lends itself to the story where the police would go on that hunch. And that's also when Lyle hired bodyguards to protect him twenty four hours a day, claiming it must have been the Colombian cartel or the mafia after them, yet they remained in the house with their dead parents. Think that through. You supposedly don't know who killed your parents, yet you stayed in the house until police got there. You would be I would y'ah, they'd be fire behind my ass, and there would also be little brown little piles behind me because I'd be

43:12 shitting my pants. I wouldn't be sitting in the house waiting for the police. And then you're gonna come out with this bullshit that you think the mafia or the cartel is after you. You don't even know where the killers are, right sure, But the bodyguard stick it only lasted for like a week before Lyle just like nah, never mind, cuts that detail off. I guess the danger of the mafia didn't matter anymore. And then he got him another bodyguard though, when he went back to Princeton during the fall semester. So I don't understand the break in the bodyguard. Either either you're in danger or you're not. Eric then followed suit, and he was claiming to people, but he was naming names. He claimed that a man named Noel Bloom or Noel Bloom was in the murders, or he could have been, and that it was probably involving a deal gone bad with his dad and Jose and Kitty's assets. Y'all were considerable. Jose's income was well over a million a year and his stockholdings combined with his property values told about seven million dollars. All of this would have to be enforced, though, and then hopefully, the brothers said it would be left to both of them.

44:28 But one big issue for the brothers was that, according to Eric himself, that his dad Jose had removed him from the will, and they believed that another one had been drafted, so literally literally, the day after their parents are slaughtered, the Menindez brothers met with a family friend his name was Randolph Wright, about ensuring before the court that their will that their dad wrote in nineteen eighty one was the final and legitimate one, leaving everything to them. I don't think I would be able to function the next day, but they're worried about the money. Lyle felt like the will was probably in his dad's safe, which he then took and he gave it to Randolph Wright to hold in his spare bedroom because not only was he a family friend, but he was also an attorney.

45:20 And when it was opened, only Lyle and Eric were in the room. They would not allow anyone else in the room, and then when other people came in, they claimed, oh, the safe was empty. It may also be of interest to you to know that a computer expert, Howard Witkin, he was called by Lyle himself and he said, I have an emergency dealing with a computer and I need you to come look. So he shows up and he was looking for three files in that computer. The ones the words were sorry, will Eric and Lyle. But the files were unable to be opened, which was strange there but he couldn't open them. And when he was told this, Lyle said, well, look, I just want you to completely erase the computer because I want to sell it. He says, for safety reasons, I don't. I want to make sure there's no financial information probably you know, or possibly left on it. And that makes me go, what these soon to be multi multi millionaires are going to sell a computer? Like, really, you need to go sell a used computer. That's what you're telling me. Shortly thereafter, this was just a little while later. Magically, the original nineteen eighty one will was found and it left everything to the Menendez brothers. The devastated brothers were in control of the money. The devastated brothers,

46:51 who didn't know what to do with themselves, then went on a shopping spree of a lifetime. Lyle, for example, got three Rolex watches, He got two money clips. He bought a new porche carrera cabriolet. He bought himself a new house. Eric got himself a jeep wrangler, went and had his custom clothes made. He also bought some businesses. He bought himself a new house. I mean nearly blew through a million dollars right after their parents are slaughtered. So you'll fast forward and eventually we all know this. In March of nineteen ninety, Lyle was arrested by police, and then Eric would turn himself in when he returned from an overseas trip, and at that point they were both charged with the first degree murder of their parents.

47:38 Two witnesses, not one, but two unrelated witnesses would later come forward and would say that they had been asked to fabricate evidence by Lyle Menindez. One's name was Brian s Lamina, and he said that Lyle asked him to lie and to testify that the day before the murders, the brothers said they needed a gun for protection. It never happened to me. That's them trying to set up that, oh, we were scared for our life. They don't have any proof of that. The other witness was Lyle's own girlfriend at the time. Her name was Jamie, and she testified that Lyle asked her to go to the police and claim that Jose had raped her, which had not happened, and she's like, no, I'm not gonna do that. Why would you need to fake abuse? Why would you need a fake abuse of other people? When what happened to you was supposedly so horrible that you had to kill your parents. Why do you need to fake more evidence if it was that bad what happened to you? And real quick, I'm not saying that there's levels of sex abuse.

48:45 There's some that's okay and some that's not. That's not what I'm saying at all. I'm talking about in general, if something horrible happened to you. Why do you need to go fabricate more evidence. It should speak for itself evidence, y'all. It's like a lion, you know what I'm saying. Let that thing loose and it'll defend itself. The truth doesn't need to be defended. So to me, this screams that something may have happened to the Suns, but it could have happened. But they knew in their gut it wasn't enough to justify the double murder that they committed, and they wanted more. They just couldn't justify Kitty's death. And this, my friends, is where my biggest issue lay in this case Kitty's murder. And I'll be honest with you that it sure does seem like something could have happened at the hands of Jose. One member of that band, Menudo, even came forward years later and he claimed that Jose had drugged and raped him as well. And that's hard for me to ignore if I'm going to look at all of the evidence. But that kid also gave specifics too.

49:56 By the way, he said that management asked him to do a favor for them. He wrote in a limo where he was served wine and then he said he lost control of his body, was raped by Jose Menendez and then returned back to the hotel. Another cousin of the Menindez brothers came forward and claimed that Eric told her that Jose was touching him whenever he was around eight or ten years old. So I'm not going to completely discount that. I don't, in my gut feel like anything happened to Lyle other than his father said you're being a son of a bitch and you need to get your life together. That's all I feel like happened to Lyle. I do almost feel like something may have happened to Eric. I can't shake that. But another letter came to light where months before the murders, Eric had written about abuse. But this one I'm not sure I believe, because how long do you think that they actually planned these murders. There's no doubt that this was planned, and this could have been part of that plan. And another thing that I can't forget about is what the brothers said in these recorded tapes that their therapist recorded. This was doctor jerome o'zell and he had sessions. He had done some therapy sessions and completed evaluations of Eric after those burglaries whenever he was younger, and then he wrote the reports which were submitted to the juvenile courts, and that's why Eric was able to get those that diversion program and eventually all of his charges were dismissed, but

51:27 on their own. On their own, the Menendez brothers started seeing doctor Ozell again, and this was in September, October, and November of nineteen eighty nine, and eventually Eric cracked under the pressure. He called doctor Ozel on October thirtieth of nineteen eighty nine, saying I need to speak with you urgently. Whenever the doctor met with Eric, Eric fully and completely confessed to the crimes in detail. Lyle didn't know this, and so doctor Ozell kind of got panicked because, like, my god, when Lyle finds out, what is he gonna do now that I know the truth. So the doctor then called Lyle into the office, where Eric told Lyle and told in front of the doctor that he had confessed to the crime, and that's when Lyle went nuts.

52:19 Lyle started screaming in holling, I can't believe you did this. I can't believe you told him. I don't have a brother. Now, I could get rid of you for this. Now. I hope you know what we're gonna do. I hope you realize that we're gonna have to do something. We've got to kill him and anyone associated with him. That's what Lyle was saying about the doctor who just had it confessed to him. That says a lot to me that Lyle's now wanting to continue to kill people so scared for his own safety. That's when Ozell was really taping all of these confessions, and then he told them, look, I want you all to know I've recorded these, so if anything happens to me, the police are gonna find out.

52:59 So on decem Umber eleventh, nineteen eighty nine, on that tape, Eric and Lyle talked specifically about their relationship with their parents. They said that they felt pressures growing up, that they both loved their parents, but their dad was way too demanding, and then they start going into how their mother had contemplated suicide or attempted suicide and just was a really unhappy person hashtag because her husband was cheating on her. But here are some excerpts from those tapes, and these are direct quotes. Eric says, well, we were we were doing almost in my mom's case, something that that first of all, there was there was no way, never could she live without my father. So he's kind of saying, like Kitty wouldn't have wanted to live without my father anyway, And Lyle comes in and says, that was something that we had to really it was a big thing holding us back from killing my father was that we thought that we would just kill Dad and eliminate the problem.

54:06 And so for my mother's sake, I thought that we did it. It was we had to come, like I was saying before, we had to make a decision. It was one of the harder ones, and it was a separate issue. He's the reason my father should be killed. There's no question what he's doing is he's impossible to live with for myself, But I don't think it had anything to do with killing Helm, had nothing to do with us. It had to do with me realizing a number of things that all culminated, which was we could have culminated at any point, and it was just a question of Eric and I getting together and somebody bringing it up and us realizing the value in it, Like are you listening to this. He's just going on and about the value of killing his parents. And then Lyle says this, there was no way I was gonna make a decision to kill my mother without Eric's consent. I was going I didn't even want to influence him in that issue. I just let him sleep on it for a couple days, cause uh I did. I'm I'm a very good position to influence Eric on a lot of things because he knows that I care, and a whole number of issues that I can talk eloquently or whatever.

55:31 And when it came to that issue, I wanted nothing to do with it. It had to be his personal his own personal issue. If he felt the same way I did about killing mom. So, Kitty, their mother, they're telling you, in their own words, is just collateral damage in their minds, and she needs to be put down because she was unhappy. That's all he has said. Here, are you fucking serious? That's your justification because she's unhappy and she just couldn't live without your dad, So it justifies you killing your mother. Is this the measurement of whether we should be allowed to murder, you know, murder others? Then everyone better watched their back because we've all been unhappy from time to time. Does that justify people getting to kill us like it's a mercy killing or something.

56:21 They're posing this as if they did her a favor, blowing her head off with a shotgun as she then tried to crawl away from them, putting her hand up in defense, and then shooting her in the face with some kind of mercy. Who were they to decide if she wanted to die or not. That's unconscionable. And I'm sorry, but that's cold And they molded over for a few days. Does that sound like you fear for your life. That's the definition of cold blooded first degree murder, And in no way coincides with the statements given that they feared for their lives. And this also doesn't coincide with an argument erupted and that they decided to kill their parents out of fear. And my position is I do have reasonable doubt as to Jose's abuse of Eric. I really do.

57:11 I feel something may have happened. But again, y'all, they were adults. They were nineteen and twenty two years old. They could have left. They could have said screw this, I'd rather live in a barn. I'd rather live under an interstate overpass than spend another day in this household. But they didn't. They didn't leave because they liked their lifestyle. They would have been on their own. And I have a feeling that's the real issue here, is that Jose was cutting them out of his will, per Eric's own words, And that's also why Kitty had to die, because she would then inherit everything she would own the estate, abuse or not, Kitty was murdered in cold blood, and so was Jose. We will never know the truth because the brothers took it upon themselves to take away the opportunity to question Jose, and in doing so, and after all the lies that they've told, they lose the benefit of the doubt. In my eyes, I think it's possible to be abused and to be a greedy asshole. I guess that's what I'm trying to say. I do not think those two are mutually exclusive. In July nineteen ninety three, the brothers went on trial in Los Angeles, each with a separate jury, and their defenses now all of a sudden admit, Okay, yeah, they did kill their parents, but it was out of self defense after years of emotional and sexual abuse by their fathers, and both juries came to a deadlock and couldn't come to a verdict. And then two years later the brothers were retried, but now

58:44 they were retried with one jury, and this time the jury convicted and sentenced both of the Menindez brothers to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Their imperfect self defense argument didn't work. This was a blitz attack, and the jurors agreed. And another thing that irked me was the brothers were claiming that they were lying about the mob, and they were lying about the other falsehoods in an effort to what they called preserving their father's legacy. So you're in fear of your life so much that you're willing to kill both of your parents, but you don't immediately explain why afterwards, because you want to save his reputation. You want to murder him. But then you want to spare his reputation. Yeah right, you wouldn't care, You wouldn't be you would be screaming it from the rooftops.

59:41 You were willing to kill them. You were supposedly so afraid, so scared, But then you want to preserve his legacy, and you want to give a eulogy for him at his funeral, that's beautiful. I don't buy that. I may would have nothing to say as a victim, but I wouldn't have everything to say as if it wasn't me who did it. He also, Lyle was all about writing a book about his father to talk about how great his father was. In the beginning after they murdered him. They weren't worried about their father's legacy or their father's name when they were stealing and having to be bailed out by Dad and burglarizing homes. They weren't worried about their father's name when Dad was cutting thousands of dollars of checks to cover the losses that they caused. And they weren't worried about their family's name when they were plagiarizing papers in college and their father was up there at the college through the embarrassment of what his son has done, trying to help him out. They weren't worried about ruining their names then. And in the jail phone calls, Lyle told a woman, which, by the way jail phone calls are recorded, he told a woman that he was willing to lie to help his case. That says a lot to me. And now comes all the TikTok bullshit it and all of the videos that you're seeing on television, and it's full of the pity arguments of the brothers.

1:01:07 They want us to believe that they're telling the whole truth. Everything they say is the whole truth. But they are still victims. They say that it's because the judge was biased. They say they're victims because their dad was powerful. They say that they're victims because of the OJ case, and since OJ wasn't convicted, they have to pay the price for someone to be convicted. They say that the psychologist was lying and in a bad dealings with their father. They said that the woman that Lyle said he was willing to lie to benefit his case. They said that that woman wasn't credible because she was just in love with Lyle. So everything he said, I guess we discount because she was in love with him, supposedly, and on and on and on, though it's his own words coming out of his own mouth. Supposedly. They also say that judge had a vendetta and needed them convicted. Why would a judge care I want you to really think about that.

1:02:01 This the prosecution would care because the prosecution, you know, they get the DA gets elected because the conviction rates. The judge isn't affected by that. The judge just makes the damn ruling. They also claim victimhood once they were in prison, claiming that they were victimized again by being separated, sent to separate prisons. You killed your parents, Grow a fucking pair. I don't know what else to tell you. Once you go to prison, nobody cares. One of them even went on hunger strike because he didn't get to go be with his brother. So you threw a fit because you didn't get your way. Dude, you are so out of touch with reality if you think anyone in prison gives a shit whether you eat your meal or not.

1:02:47 Like total brat move and Lyle continues to cry to this day. He's cried for decades that he fears that he can't protect Eric Eric. I hate to sound like Ricky Bobby in Talladega Knights, but he's a grown man. He has a beard, like it's a grown man guys by now he's in his late forties. I mean, it just seems a bit much. My brother, I can't protect him. Eric was man enough to blow his father's head off, and he was man enough to put a shotgun to his mother's face and pull the trigger. I'm pretty sure he's man enough for prison. And they have no remorse for their mother. They never mention her. They only talk about how happy they are to see each other in prison.

1:03:34 What about Kitty. I can't say this enough. There's zero evidence that she did anything to these boys other than the son, and we shouldn't even say boys to these men other than them claiming it. They also claimed the mob killed their parents, just like they claimed they went to the movies when they didn't, just like they claimed to be someone else when buying the firearms days prior to their parents' murder. There's no evidence of Kitty being a bad person. And how can people choose no evidence, none over factual evidence just because a film was made and it presents one sided info and every numb nut on TikTok believes it doesn't erase the facts that are being skipped over. They killed their mother because she would have gotten into the way of the money period. They put her down like a dog, and they even admitted it.

1:04:24 So I hope the same people who think that killing this woman was justified. I hope you're not. Also the same people sharing memes online saying adopt, don't shop, don't put down innocent dogs, because it's the same thing. It's a human being this time, and when it comes to Jose, I don't honestly know what I believe, Okay, but I'll be damned if Kitty Menendez's death will be justified on my watch. It wasn't. She was a woman who gave up everything for her husband and her children, was cheated on and betrayed, and then slaughter by her son's for money. Kitty is the ultimate victim here. And something I'll leave you with is this, neither Menindez brother was sorry when they weren't caught lying. They were just fine with it until they were caught. Now that this case is back in the news again, there's some convenient fact forgetting. So I just want to say this, when you are learning about true crime, do more than watching TikTok, because when you follow the masses, sometimes at ELM's silent