Crime Weekly - S3 Ep202: The Menendez Brothers: Trouble in Beverly Hills (Part 2)

Episode Date: April 26, 2024

Beverly Hills, located just southwest of the Hollywood Hills, was and still is a place that the rich, famous and glamorous choose to make their homes. Known for its opulence and luxury, the homes in Beverly Hills are some of the most expensive in the United States, with some properties worth tens of millions of dollars. But behind the country clubs, cocktail hours and shopping trips, there was something much darker brewing in a high end Beverly Hills neighborhood. On August 20th, 1989, business executive Jose Menendez and his wife Kitty were brutally murdered while sitting in the living room of their sprawling Mediterranean style mansion, and what seemingly made this tragedy worse was the fact that their two son’s, Lyle and Erik, were the ones to make the gruesome discovery of their bodies. Suddenly orphaned, the Menendez brothers were initially looked at with sympathy, but soon they would be on trial for the murder of their parents. Lyle and Erik didn’t deny that they had taken their parents' lives, but according to them it was because they were scared and broken down after a lifetime of abuse. At the time, most people believed this was a fabricated excuse, and the prosecution gave greed and money as the true motive. A tragedy and trial played out for the world on television, ending with both Erik and Lyle confined at the Richard Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego for life, with no chance of parole. Recently, newly discovered evidence and testimony has raised questions of whether Erik and Lyle were being honest about the constant state of stress and fear their parents forced them to live under. Use code CRIMEWEEKLY at www.CrimeCon.com for a discount on your CrimeCon 2024 Nashville tickets! Try our coffee!! - www.CriminalCoffeeCo.com Become a Patreon member -- > https://www.patreon.com/CrimeWeekly Shop for your Crime Weekly gear here --> https://crimeweeklypodcast.com/shop Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/CrimeWeeklyPodcast Website: CrimeWeeklyPodcast.com Instagram: @CrimeWeeklyPod Twitter: @CrimeWeeklyPod Facebook: @CrimeWeeklyPod ADS: 1. JoinDeleteMe.com/Crime - Use code CRIME for 20% off! 2. ZipRecruiter.com/CrimeWeekly - Try ZipRecruiter for FREE! 3. SkylightCal.com/Weekly - Get 15% off your Skylight Calendar! 4. SimpliSafe.com/CrimeWeekly - Get 20% off when you sign up for Fast Protect Monitoring! 5. Prose.com/CrimeWeekly - Get 50% off your first subscription order and a FREE in-depth hair consultation!

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Selection varies by location. Hello, everybody. Welcome back to Crime Weekly. I'm Stephanie Harlow. And I'm Derek Levasseur. Today, we're diving into part two of the Menendez murders. Do you have anything you want to talk about before we get into the meat and potatoes of the episode? Thank you to everyone who watched part one. The response has been great. The engagement has been great. We're really getting into it. And I think this case is interesting because hearing the responses on social media and in the comments on YouTube,

it's very divided. I mean, well, I wouldn't even say divided. It's definitely not 50-50, but this is a case where you know what occurred to some degree. And there's a lot of people saying that these two brothers should no longer be in prison. They should be free. And so it's an interesting conversation to be had. It's bringing up some really good dialogue. And I'm looking forward to continuing that conversation today. And final note, I apologize to everyone that I look like I ran my face along some sandpaper.

I'm sunburned. And I hope that the pain is you can see that through the lens if you're watching on youtube are you in pain though like it does it hurt uh slightly slightly not gonna lie you know you can't go out in the sun what are you thinking you know i'm trying to trying to get a little bit of you know i'm trying to get some skin complexion here so we the the argument of who's tanner at crime con uh is a no-brainer that it will be me. Did you wear sunscreen at all?

I'm going to say no. And I did every day. This is at the pool later the last day where, you know. The pool gets you, man. Pool got me. Just the water. The water. But yeah.

Once I was in, just really quick, I was like 13. I spent all day in a wave pool hanging out with other kids. I got sun poisoning. My skin like fell off. Yeah. I spent all day in a wave pool hanging out with other kids. I got sun poisoning. My skin like fell off. Yeah. And I was a kid. I didn't know any better.

You know, I had like a sun hat on, but the water will get you, man. And I'm saying 100 SPF. That's what goes on this skin. You are now tanner than me. At that point, just stay inside. Just stay inside. But no, it was well worth it. The pain was worth it. But anyways, looking forward to getting into it. Got all my notes ready to go. I think I have not read the

script yet. I never do. And I feel like we were just scratching the surface last week. And we probably have a lot more exposition, a lot more context to go through to really understand the family dynamics here. And I will say for anybody right now who's, and I didn't see any of this really, but we know that Kitty and Jose are the victims in this case in a lot of ways as well. I mean, they were both murdered. So by no means are we trying to demonize or villainize them, but we're trying to give you the full picture because as I started off the show saying, there is a lot of you out there who believe that Lyle and Eric should be free right now. And so we're

building up the storyline behind why those people feel that way. Maybe it'll change some of your minds. Maybe it won't. Maybe you'll hear everything and say, still, I think they're where they need to be, but we have to go back before we can go forward. And that's what we're doing. So looking forward to continuing down this path and diving into the Menendez family. Yes. So Kitty Menendez, we talked about Jose and him growing up and we're going to talk a little bit about Kitty. She had grown up doing very well in her social life. She was pretty smart, popular. She had a tight knit group of friends who called themselves the Party Dolls, with a Z. And when she was 20, Kitty was named queen of the Oak Lawn Roundup Beauty Pageant. But her personal life, her home life, was not so picture perfect. In July of 1944, Kitty's father, Andy Anderson, left his wife after 15 years. The Anderson brothers were relieved because their father, Andy, had been smacking

them around for a while. But her father's departure was hard on Kitty, who later told her friends that she would often cry herself to sleep at night after he left the house. Andy Anderson was known to have a controlling person. What is an Andy Anderson, the name of the lead character in How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days? I don't remember, but I love that movie, and I can't remember the name. 100% was Andy Anderson. Okay. Well, then it was Andy Anderson.

All right. So Andy Anderson was known to have a controlling personality and a dominating presence. He would verbally and physically abuse his children while forcing his wife to fall in line and watch it happen so that he and his wife could present a united front. So what happened is basically Kitty's mother, whose name was Lua Mae Anderson, she was oftentimes unable to be obedient when it came to this, and she would still step in and try to interfere and get between her children and her husband. Kitty's sister, Joan, said, quote, that would irritate my dad. Mom tried to interfere and

ended up getting hit herself. Then dad left her. I think years later, Kitty saw that in her subconscious. Maybe she wasn't even aware why she was doing it, but standing up for her kids caused our mother to lose her husband and led to a divorce. I think Kitty grew up with a distorted value system, end quote. Which makes a lot of sense because who didn't really protect Eric and Lyle from their father's wrath, Kitty, who even oftentimes ended up taking part in the abuse against Eric and Lyle, possibly to align herself with Jose, to show Jose they were on the same side. They were presenting a united front. She knew what he expected of her as a wife and a mother,

and she was going to do it, even if it meant betraying her own children. I had a very different childhood experience with with my mother. She was obviously a big defender of mine, especially with my real father at first and then my stepfather when he came into the picture. experienced anything like this, but overall you can see how parental decisions and behaviors can be hereditary in the sense of like, what you learn is how you will treat your kids. And it's generational and it's, it's passed down to kids to their kids and so on. And sometimes it can create a chain link that just is a never-ending cycle of abuse because they don't know any better until they have someone come in from the outside and say, hey, what you're doing here is wrong. And I really just wish I could get inside Kitty's head as far as what she was thinking in these moments, why she decided to do what she did in those

situations. Like you said, she, she dealt with some things where that's what she knew. And that's why she decided to make the decisions and support Jose. Like she did it overall. I just keep writing down, you know, tragic, terrible, you know, vicious circle. Just, it's, it seems like it's a lot of patterns here that if just someone had broken it, maybe we would have had a different outcome in this case. But unfortunately that's not the situation. Well, I always, I always feel like it goes one of two ways. When you're a kid, you either do exactly what your parents did to you or you do the exact opposite because you are self-aware enough to know you don't want to do that. You don't want to repeat and perpetuate the toxic cycle.

But sometimes you end up marrying somebody who then does still repeat and perpetuate the toxic cycles. So it's hard to get away from it. We have patterns and we have damage and trauma that causes us to repeat those patterns, even unconsciously, mostly. So it's just, it's difficult. And once again, I feel for everybody involved with this because you try to do your best and you just don't always know what that is or how to do it. I have a question for you.

The psychology of this. Do you think what I just said as far as some of these patterns of behavior, right? It's a mental thing more so than a physical thing in some ways. Do you think that behavior can be hereditary that I said? Like, can you see like a genetic predisposition to it? You mean like a nature versus nurture kind of thing? Just the way people handle certain things. A lot of it, I think, is learned through seeing it, visually witnessing it, and then that's the behavior that's passed along. But do you think there's a correlation where it could be somewhat genetic, where you're predisposed to react to these situations a certain way? Or is that just an excuse?

No, I think it's definitely both. I think that it's 100% learned because when you're a kid and your synapses are firing and making connections, your brain's being programmed. That's what's happening. You're watching other people, your brain's being programmed to know how to live, how to do things. You know that when you say this to somebody, this is the reaction you're going to get. And you basically develop these connections in your brain, like a computer that's programming you. However, I think there's some genetic, there can be some genetic part of this, because let's say Jose Menendez was born with maybe a smaller or underdeveloped frontal lobe, which affects impulse control.

Yes, something like that he could technically pass down to his sons. Let's say Kitty had some sort of personality disorder, borderline, histrionic, NPD, that obviously would potentially be passed down to her children. So I think it's definitely both. And I really do think that it's the people who don't have those genetic qualities of low impulse control or any personality disorders that end up breaking those cycles or attempting to break those cycles because they're self-aware enough to know it's wrong. But the people who share maybe some of those physical traits or some of those personality disorder traits, they are the ones who are going to sort of go along with it because not only is it all they know, but they're also not

adept at identifying that this is wrong. It feels wrong, but they don't know that it feels wrong because it's familiar. What does familiar stem from? Family. What you grow up with becomes familiar to you. Just because it's familiar to you doesn't mean it's good for you. So somebody who grows up in a very toxic or abusive household, a toxic and abusive partner is going to feel familiar to them, but not necessarily good for them at all. And it's just kind of trying to have enough self-awareness to break out of that cycle. And some people can't and they don't. Agreed. So overall, is it fair for me to say that you feel the same way I do where there could be some genetic predisposition, but overall, a lot of this is learned through the behavior that you're

seeing that's being displayed. And even if you have some things inside of you that may not be the best cards in your favor, It's more so what you're learning at home and being taught right from wrong and how ultimately your raise is the way you're going to raise your children. So what we're looking at here is a situation where we have two parents, Jose and Kitty, who both didn't have the best. We did talk about Jose's parents as well a lot in episode one where Jose's mother was a gold medalist and his father was successful as well. But again, there's things that they both took from their parents and they passed them on to Eric and Lyle. And unfortunately, it seems like they took on a

lot of the negative things that they experienced from their parents and passed along as opposed to some of the positive things. Yeah. So I think that because we didn't have a ton of information about Jose's relationship with his parents. Correct. But what we did hear from Jose's sister is that Jose was his mother's favorite. He was the golden boy. He could do no wrong. Now, what's what's that kind of behavior? So it's like you can you can love your kids too much or too little. And I honestly don't think that picking a favorite amongst your kids and showering them with preferential treatment is loving your kids at all. You're not doing them any service by telling them that the sun shines out of their ass and they're perfect and nobody can ever match up to them because what's that going to do is it's going to lead to entitlement and jose's going to go out into the world thinking oh my god i'm a golden boy nobody's as good as me everybody else sucks compared to me because this is what he's been told since he can he has a memory his mother just sitting there being like you're amazing and no one's as good as you and everybody's just jealous of you because you're so amazing and

you're like the the god apollo you know and so he's going on to the world with this very distorted self-perception that he now has to protect at all costs because it's become his identity and he can't compromise that. He can't compromise that ego, that identity, because then what's left? Nothing. Because he was told he was amazing, didn't have any improvements to make his whole life. So now if he figures out like, oh, I'm only a human and actually I'm not the best at head from his mother from a very young age. So once again, he's been programmed and this did not do a service for him, maybe in business, but not in his personal life. Definitely not as a father. Not as a father, not as a husband, not as a friend, not as a coworker or a boss. It served him personally and no one else. Yeah. It seems like that was a lot for him, right? If you didn't serve him in some capacity, he had no use for you. Even when it came to Kitty, he would describe that he wasn't in love with her anymore. Especially when it came to Kitty, I'd say. Yeah, he wasn't

in love with her anymore, but she served a purpose as far as raising his children. So she had some justification in his life, and that's really the reason that he chose to stay with her, which is unfortunate. Yes. Well, let's take our first break and we'll be right back. So maybe the pain of losing her father had also taught Kitty that a family must be kept together, no matter what's happening, no matter how bad it gets. When Kitty found out that her husband, Jose, had been having an affair with a woman named Louise in New York City for eight years and she confronted him, Jose claimed it was over. But Kitty could not stop digging. Between October of 1986 and February of 1987, Kitty had 16 sessions with a psychologist named Dr. Edwin Cox.

Three of these sessions had been done jointly with Jose, and Cox ended up determining that Kitty was dependent on prescription drugs and alcohol. And what was the basis for your opinion in that regard? She talked about her drinking patterns. She drank every day. She was proud that she drank cognac. What do you mean she was proud she drank cognac it was important to her that people think well of her and I think she thought that cognac was a high-class alcohol did you form an opinion as to whether this alcohol dependence was a recent phenomena or a long-term problem? Yes, it was a long-term problem for her.

Did you form any opinion as to whether she was suicidal? Yes. And how is it that she came to be a patient of yours? She was referred to me by a therapist in New Jersey who called me and said that he had a client who was moving to California and he was worried about her depression and her suicidality. So was that one of the first areas that you looked at? Yes. With regard to her? And did you find her to be suicidal? Yes. What was the basis for that opinion? Well she talked of of killing herself and of the depression and anger that she felt.

And she talked about how she would do it. She talked about previous attempts at doing that. So it was a serious threat. And what is the dynamic of suicide? Is this just exclusively someone who's in a great deal of pain or does it have another purpose? Well, reasons for suicide are very complicated but one of them would be It's too painful to be alive. Another reason would be

That for some people that's the only way of getting back at somebody and expressing their anger at someone And did you have any impression as to whether there was someone that she wanted to get back at? Yes, I did. And what was that? Who was that? That was Jose, her husband. And this was to punish him for something? She was extremely angry at him for having had an extramarital affair that she knew about. I think one of the main reasons that she was suicidal was because it was so hurtful for her and to punish her husband. And in addition to punishing her husband, it would obviously have an impact on her children.

Absolutely. Did you have an opinion as to whether the impact this would have on her children was of significance to her? Yes. And what was that? The impact on the children would have been secondary to her. What do you mean by that? I think her purpose was to punish her husband, and she didn't think much about the effect on her children.

Did you find her, did you diagnose her to be depressed? Yes. And did you find that to be a recent occurrence or a long-term problem? Well, initially I thought it might be just related to the discovery of the affair, but as I learned subsequently, it had been a long-term condition for her for many, many years. And what are the symptoms of the depression? How did it manifest itself? Well, sleeplessness, withdrawal, sometimes bursts of anger,

but withdrawal from life, lots of sadness, tears. And when you say sometimes bursts of of anger bursts of rage is that one of the symptoms well when someone's depressed they don't talk a lot and so their feelings build up and every now and then and some people those feelings emerge in bursts of anger or rage as you said that would be true with regard to mrs.endez, did you find that these were symptoms that she manifested? The ones that you've described? Yes.

Do you have information with regard to the symptoms that you've discussed? Yes. And what information do you have with regard to the crying that you talked about? She told me about how she would have fits of crying, fits of anger and the anger would be triggered by an event and the response or her anger might be much more severe than the triggering event would have naturally caused. You had information about her not only from herself, but from her husband, is that correct?

Did you find her to be an obsessive personality? Yes. And what was the basis for that opinion? Well, the first meeting I had with her, she told me that she constantly read self-help books. And in our sessions together she was very very focused on her husband's affair and it was very difficult for her to consider or discuss anything else and did she describe any efforts in

connection with that affair yes yes she did once she found out about it she wanted to find out everything about it. She went through her husband's American Express card receipts from his office. She even flew to New York, and she told me that she stood outside the address of the woman he had the affair with and waited for her to come out onto the street so that she could see her and then she walked past her so that she could see her up close and she was constantly thinking about her and her husband the affair with her and did she talk about this woman louise in the first session every time every session. Was Louise and the affair the focus of every session you had with her?

It would have been if it had been her choice, and the attempts that I made to move to other areas were difficult for me to move to other areas. She kept going back to that issue. Did she appear to be consumed by this affair? Yes. Did she appear to be consumed by her own pain? Yes.

Dr. Cox also testified about how Kitty's obsession with her affair and the subsequent devastation it caused to her mental state affected her ability to be a good and present parent. Based on your training and experience, having seen that she was depressed and obsessed and alcohol dependent and suicidal, were you able to form an opinion with regard to her availability as a parent? Yes, that's one of the things that we're trained to do in family therapy. The actions of any member of a family

impact all the other members of the family. And so it was natural for me to be concerned or to be interested in her availability to the other members of her family. She was so focused on Jose and the affair that she was not available to I think at that time one of her sons was living at home and she was not available for that relationship is one of the things that you look at in a family where the

alliances are who is connected to whom yes it is were you able to make a determination as to who was the most important person in the family to Kitty Menendez? Yes. So it would have been Jose rather than the children. Oh, absolutely. So seeing how upset Kitty was due to the affair, Dr. Cox brought up the topic of divorce. Kitty absolutely refused to even talk about it. She said she didn't want to walk down

that path for many reasons. But one of those reasons was her concern over how it would look. Did you discuss with her the advisability or the option of divorce? Yes, we talked about the option of divorce. And did she indicate to you what her feelings were in that regard? Yes, she did not want to consider divorce. She stated that she loved her husband very much, although she was very angry with him, and that why should she divorce? She had no place to go. And did she express any feelings with regard to what a divorce would say about her in

the eyes of the community? Whether it would be a personal failure of some sort. Yes, it was important. Appearances were very important, and a divorce would have demonstrated that that family had failed. And that was important to her that it did not look that way. That the family looked successful. Yes. And even if that meant staying in a very painful marriage.

Yes. She cried a lot of the time, but she talked about the times she had to pull herself together to go someplace, to a soccer game or to a tennis match or to some kind of an event, and then she talked about how she would then return from that and then feel sad again but she had to pull herself together for the appearances of the family so she could function yes at times is that correct yes obviously the videos are self-explanatory i'm not going to weigh in on them anyone who's watching them or listening to them pretty self-explanatory where the kids were on the hierarchy what was important to her some of the extent the extent she went to for certain things, and ultimately family optics, like how her family was perceived by others and how important that was

to her. But there was some questions that I had in the comments from people, and even for myself, I wasn't aware of it. Two things. First off, were there multiple trials for the Menendez brothers? Yes, yes. Is it fair to say that some of these clips, because they're all very compelling, you're obviously telling us a story. You're pulling video footage from both trials, correct? Yes. Okay.

That's all I wanted to clarify for anybody who doesn't, who didn't know that. Although I believe the majority of the footage is from the first trial. Okay. There was, I think, a couple comments where the abuse of the children may not have been brought in as heavily until the second trial. Don't ask me why. I don't know.

That person could have also been wrong. I don't want to go there yet. Yes, we're not. But a specific type of abuse was not focused on heavily until the second trial. Which is why we haven't touched on that yet. Right.

And so also, if you're watching on YouTube, even for me and the brothers look different or they like that, that's why these are, there's two different trials going on here. We're building the story. We're going through it. You may see footage from both, which Stephanie's using as a reference to obviously support what we're talking about. So for the people like me who didn't know there were two different trials, that's, that's why we're seeing that.

I think it's I just want to put that out there. Yes. So Dr. Cox also, because remember, he had a few joint sessions with Kitty and Jose and he had one solo session with Jose. So he was asked during the trial, like, well, what are your thoughts on Jose Menendez? And Dr. Cox, of course, had some. What personality characteristics did you observe in him? He was a very, very strong personality, very bright, quick, very dominant, dominating. His presence was felt every instant that he was in the room, very much in control of every situation in our sessions together.

How would he demonstrate that control? Would he yell and take control of the conversation, or what would he do? Well, he would take control of the conversation, but also he would indicate his opinion with a look or a word, and Kitty would react to that very quickly. Did you react to that? At first I thought I was curious, and I would talk to him about that. And then it became very clear that once he made an opinion or a statement, that was a closed subject. He was not interested in discussing it or

debating anything. So I came to learn that when he said something or looked a certain way, that the case was closed, or the conversation was closed for him. You said that you saw Kitty respond to these, you know, one word or one look. Yes. Is that correct? Yes. And did she respond immediately if he made a gesture? Oh yeah, if she began to say something and I sensed that he didn't like what she was saying, he would look at her or he would grunt or something non-verbally or slightly verbally,

and she would stop. It was very controlled by him. Did he strike you as someone who was emotional? Maybe he had emotions, but I sure never saw them. He was very, very much in control of his emotions. Now, when you talk about someone who's in control of their emotions, is part of what you look at whether they're going to make decisions based on emotion or not? Yes. And what was your opinion in that regard?

My opinion, he made decisions based on rationality, cognition, not emotions. Very unemotional decision maker. Did you discuss with him whether he wanted to stay in the marriage or wanted it to end? Yes. And what did he tell you he wanted in that regard? He wanted the marriage to continue. Why? Did he say why? Did he say why? Yes, he did. Okay, what did he say? He said that divorce was out of the question and that that was ridiculous. Why? What did he say he wanted out of the marriage? What did he want from Kitty? He wanted a wife. And one of the conversations that we had was, what does that mean? And Kitty wanted to have a friendship as part of the marriage.

And it was very clear to him that a friendship was something different from what a husband and wife had what a wife was is somebody to be in the family and to take care of things run the family yeah run the household yes did kitty seem to want more out of the relationship than that absolutely was he willing to give her that did he say whether he was willing to meet her needs with regard to the love relationship she wanted? He said he was not willing to work at being a friend with her, but was willing to work at keeping the marriage

as a husband and wife. Ma'am, what an interesting household that must have been. So, Jose sounds like a straight-up narcissist, honestly. And even this psychologist, Dr. Cox, he's like, well, his presence was felt in the room every second he was in there. That's purposeful. Jose does that purposely, especially around other men.

It's like the need to show and exert dominance as soon as you're in the presence of another man. So that man is under no delusion that they have some control or pull over you. Even if this person is the one who's educated in psychology and what you're there to get help for, Jose wasn't there to get help. He was there to show Kitty that he was willing to try. And I think it's very interesting because, once again, Kitty is over-emotional at this point. She's drinking. She's taking pills. She's crying all the time. Well, why is that? That's because all her feelings, all her desires, the things she wants and needs out of life and from a partner

are being suppressed. Why are they being suppressed? Because he doesn't want to hear it. Jose doesn't want to hear it. You're allowed to have a different opinion than him as long as you never vocalize it. You can think whatever you want as long as you don't challenge him. So she's holding everything in. And at some point, this doctor, Dr. Cox, he's like, she wanted a friendship. Jose didn't want that. He wanted a wife. To Jose Menendez, people are not people to create attachments, bonds with, to be intimate with. They're just objects to be moved around the board for his use. Kitty kept the house, raised the kids. When he's got these girlfriends on the side, they're there for sexual pleasure. He doesn't want to be friends with them either. He's got everybody in a little box. And that's something that, remember I said he was dating that other woman from California, and she said

very much the same thing. Jose puts people into boxes. He puts situations into boxes. That way, when he's with his girlfriend, he's not thinking about his wife. When he's with his wife, he's not thinking about his girlfriend. Everybody has their place. Everybody is used by him to saying Jose did not want to get a divorce. He wanted to stay married. Well, that's not necessarily true because Jose had actually considered a divorce. He'd even discussed it with his sister Marta, who had also recently ended her marriage, and his mother Maria. And his sister Marta agreed with Jose that staying together for the kids wasn't the best option, especially if there was tension or arguments in the household. But his mother, Maria, insisted that Jose should not break up his family, no matter what. Now, Jose did eventually end his multi-year relationship with Luis from New York City, but he still had his thing going on with the California booking agent. That is until he and

his family made their move to the West Coast. And at that point, this woman ended things with Jose saying, quote, I didn't want to drive down Rodeo Drive and see my lover and his wife and their children, end quote. Once this relationship had ended, Jose started being home more often. He was home for dinner after work. He was, I guess, trying to make an attempt to be a present husband. But the damage may already have been done. Because in California, Kitty Menendez just got worse and everyone noticed it. She was no longer subdued. She was no longer easily placated or controlled or silenced with a look or a grunt.

She had become aggressive, passive aggressive and outright aggressive at times, often aiming her anger at Jose Lyle Menendez said quote she would attack him verbally and he would just take it he seemed very tense and he just continually took it and tried to placate her end quote she just I mean seeing her attack him was in public was something unbelievable. And she was extremely unhappy, suicidal. And I was incredibly concerned. I was concerned for my brother, who was actually in the house.

Did you ever hear her threaten to kill herself? Yes. And when was that? Was it just once or were there more than one occasion? She was threatening suicide for a long period of time, pretty much all the way through those years. And she would threaten to take everybody with her. How did she threaten to take everybody with her? What would she say? She would threaten to poison herself and everybody, meaning my dad and Eric and myself. When did she make these threats to poison herself and everybody else?

In 1987 and then in Beverly Hills. What house were you living in in 1987? In the Calabasas house, the rental house. Do you have specific memories of those conversations in that 1987? In the Calabasas house, the rental house. Do you have specific memories of those conversations in that house? I remember the screaming and the threatening and my dad saying that he didn't trust her and to the point of at times refusing to eat the food that she had served and that we actually would leave. How would that happen that he would refuse to eat the food that was served?

He would just suddenly right before the meal was about to be served tell Eric and I that we were going out to eat and my mom would the time I remember there my mom would be furious and basically he just said I don't trust you and he wouldn't say any more than that and I would ask my dad why he felt you know it was crazy because there were days you know obviously we ate at the house but there were just some days when my dad felt she might do something based on the way she was acting that day or things they had said. He wouldn't tell me, but that's what I figured. So we would all leave.

So how would you know when it was okay to eat the food? We would just rely on my dad. You didn't feel that your dad now could set the limits for your mother or control her behavior like she had before. Did that have any effect on how she behaved toward you? Did it change? Did how she behaved toward you change? Yes. In what way? In the way that she was much more threatening. It was usually connected to killing herself also, but she had a much bigger role in my life, really, than my dad did even. How about feelings that she had toward you? Did she express them differently during this period of time? I wouldn't say that they

were different. She just expressed the same hatred feeling of me being the major problem in her life um but it was it was more uh frequent and it would happen in front of my dad and had she ever expressed in front of your dad the fact that she hated you or you'd ruined her life had she ever said those things in front of your dad before no and was she saying them during this period of time frequently and what would he do he would do nothing when your brother told you that he'd found a suicide letter you talked to your mother and told her to leave your dad and and to come live with you is that correct yes why did you do that when she had behaved this way toward you all your life because i wanted her to know that i felt like all the things she had done to me and just our bad relationship

i thought she was suicidal and I wanted to help her. And I wanted her to know that it wasn't that I loved my dad more, that I loved her and my brother loved her. And if she seemed like she wanted to stay in Princeton, that seemed to make her happy, and that we would, in a divorce, side with her and stay in Princeton. And that, because that seemed to be what was causing her to want to kill herself, was the divorce. And I wanted her to know that her family would be with her. Did you write a letter in july of 1987 when you were in madrid yeah um hi mom how are you i hope you're all right and hanging in there i often worry about you you're the only mother i have and would want made any new friends done anything interesting I hope so I'm all right over here Cole and I

traveled I hope everything everything's all right at home with dad and Eric I miss you all I miss you all I will write very soon again so check the the mailbox. Love you, Mom, Lyle. When you wrote that letter to her, were those true feelings? Yes. Did you love your mom? Yes. Were you worried about her? Yes.

Did you continue to try to reach out to her during this period of time? I tried a few times and tried to let her know that we loved her, but she never acknowledged that. So this whole series, I think for a lot of people, I don't know if you're experiencing the same emotions that I'm experiencing, but there's definitely a tough guy. He had a rough life, you know, as far as what he was experiencing. But up to this point, I definitely have a mix of emotions for Eric Lyle and Kitty, even though we've already heard some things about Kitty that I'm not a fan of, especially the way she talked to her children and basically said that they were the reason why she was so unhappy. I'm not dismissing that. I'm just saying it seems like she had a lot going on that put her in the position that she was in and made her feel the way she was feeling.

And clearly there was some mental health things going on as well that she was dealing with. Obviously she was seeking professional help for it as well. So just overall, a lot of emotion that watching these videos. And I feel differently as we go throughout this episode about different characters in this story. Yeah, I feel bad for Eric and Lyle because even as teenagers and going into their 20s, they're still trying to connect with their mother. Yeah. We're there for you. Are okay you know Lyle's traveling the world he's writing her letters she doesn't respond she never even acknowledges that he wrote her these letters and

this is a sweet thing to do as a son because most kids they're out of the house they're in freaking what did he say Peru or something probably having a great time with his friends he's still taking the time to check in on her because he's worried about her. But that's what happens when you don't love yourself. You don't love yourself. And so when other people show love for you, you don't even know why. You don't know what that looks like and you don't trust it and you don't think you deserve it at times.

And I do feel bad for Jose because in my opinion, part of the human condition and part of living a full life is being able to experience love and human connection with others. And he wasn't able to do that. He didn't do that. So there's, you know, there's a that's a half life lived, in my opinion. And yeah, it doesn't give him the freedom to go and just destroy everybody else and hurt everybody else. But these were all broken people. And it seemed like they just continued to break each other. No, I agree. And I think part of this is reminding me of my days as a patrolman where I would have situations where you have young teens and the situation where they're clearly being abused and we have enough to make an arrest. Or witnessing like horrible things at home. Yeah, no, like literally actual abuse where they're experiencing physical abuse, both

them and their mother in most cases that I was dealing with where as we're arresting their father and removing him from the home based on what, you know, our probable cause that we find at the scene of a domestic dispute or whatever, they're saying, you know, our probable cause that we find at the scene of a domestic dispute or whatever. They're saying, you know, don't hurt my daddy or don't take my daddy. And they're all red or bruised up or cut from the abuse they just experienced from their dad. And now I'm obviously not going to ask them, why do you feel that way? That's not going to traumatize them more, but they are programmed to love their parents even when they're being severely neglected or even abused. And a lot of cases, in spite of all that, they'll still have this unconditional love.

And I think in a way that's the case for Lyle here too, where in spite of everything she has said and done to him over the years at his core, that's his mother and he loves her. Yeah, and that's the hard thing dude that's the hard thing to watch when you know that a parent is abusive toxic bad to a child and for a child but because it's that child's parent they the kid keeps trying to connect keeps trying to connect, keeps trying to appease and please. The kids like that become people pleasers. They become hypervigilant. They become adults who continually place themselves in their abuser's hands because they're like, that's still my dad, that's still my mom. And they're unable to set boundaries because they were never allowed to as children.

And so they go into adulthood and they do not know how to set boundaries, not with their parents, not with anybody else because they were never allowed to. They were never allowed to exert any autonomy as an individual human being. They were always just an extension of the parent. So they had to think what the parent thought,

feel what the parent felt, do what the parent wanted them to do. They, once again, never developed an identity of their own. They don't know what they want. They don't know who they are. It's tragic. But let's take a quick break. We'll be right back. The Menendez family was briefly split during this time with Jose, Kitty, and Eric moving to California in the summer of 1986 and Lyle remaining behind to attend college locally the following fall. It had always been his father's dream for his first son to attend an Ivy League school, and Princeton was the most obvious choice

due to its location and prestige. But Lyle was not immediately accepted at the university, and he was forced to attend Trenton State University before being admitted into Princeton the following year. Now, during this first year, Lyle lived in a boathouse a mile north of campus on his family's New Jersey estate, which included an elegant white house overlooking Mountain Lake. Mountain Lake is an artificial lake created in the late 19th and early 20th centuries through multiple damning efforts. Fun fact. But it appears that Lyle had become a little bit entitled and sloppy without his father's domineering force constantly over him. And once again, we will see this in children who have very controlling parents, who have very present parents who are always telling them what to do,

what to feel when they get out on their own. It's like they're kind of lost. They go a little ham. And Lyle was known for speeding around in his red Alfa Romeo, and he got so many tickets that he ended up losing his license. And to solve that problem, he arranged transportation by hiring a limo to get him around. It also seemed that success did not come as easily to Lyle in college as it had throughout the rest of his life. Lyle would end up being placed on the Princeton tennis team, but it's one of those like small fish in a big pond sort of thing. So like when he was in high school, when he was younger, there was just less competition. Now he's at Princeton.

It's an Ivy League college. They have an award-winning tennis team. He was ranked last on his team. And reportedly, he was constantly late to practice, and he just didn't seem to feel badly about that. One of his college friends said, quote, he just wasn't cut out for the Ivy League. He really didn't have the desire to work hard. He would go to class, but there was no point, end quote. And then the life plan that Jose had lined out for Lyle took a huge blow when he was asked to leave Princeton University under accusations of plagiarism. Here is Lyle's aunt, Terry Brault, explaining how this came to pass. I don't think Lyle, okay, Lyle didn't think he had cheated.

He had had permission from the teacher's assistant to go and get the notes from his lab partner. And he did. So did Lyle tell you that he had been accused of cheating? Oh, yeah. All right. And did you do something, either you or your husband, do something the same day that Lyle gave you this information? Yes. We told him, I said, Lyle, I think this is serious matters. He said, Terry, I didn't cheat. I said, well, they're accusing you. You have to

take it seriously. And so he said, I think you should call your parents and inform them of this. He said, but this is, I didn't cheat. I said, but you're accused of it. And that's when we picked up the phone. My husband talked to Jose. I said, I think Lyle has a problem. So talked about it and put Lyle on the phone, and he explained to his parents exactly what he had explained to me. Shortly thereafter, did Mr. Menendez then come to the Princeton area? Yes. Within how many days of this phone call did he

I don't remember exactly. I think that I think he came when there was supposed to be a hearing on in front of the Honor Code Society. I don't know Princeton has their own little formal thing. And he came over for that and he talked to the dean. Now, when your brother came to see his son, did they ever have any meetings at your house before this academic committee met? In other words, did you ever see Jose Menendez with his son discussing this incident? Yes, I did. Was he angry with his son or did he

appear to be angry? Jose wasn't angry. Jose blamed the university for it. All right. He didn't think, you know. So he didn't express anger towards his son in any way for this incident? No. So I think it's interesting that Jose would blame and punish his sons for things that were not completely in their control, such as losing a tennis match. But when they were genuinely most likely at fault for something, because I don't believe Terry brought here like Lyle just got notes from a friend and he thought that he could do that. And there's no plagiarism going like Princeton isn't just going to kick someone out and accuse them of plagiarism when they don't have pretty good evidence of this. But when Lyle's genuinely responsible for something, Jose's going to point the finger at anyone and everyone else, which most likely was not the best tactic

to instill a sense of accountability in his children. Jose appealed the university's decision, but he was denied, which probably pissed him off, and Lyle was forced to leave school for an entire year, during which time he moved to his family's home in Calabasas, California. Jose had purchased his family a beautiful home located on 14 acres of woodland at mature Syrah vines, and the house was over 7,000 square feet with six bedrooms, a gourmet kitchen, guest house, and an expansive dark-bottomed pool and spa overlooking the Saddle Peak Mountains. It would have been a dream property for anyone, and Jose hoped it would improve his wife's progressively sour mood. Kitty got right to work turning the

house into the home of her dreams, starting a two-year renovation project that included adding 3,000 additional square feet and paying thousands of dollars to have the pool moved only a few feet to open up space for an entertainment area. The sad part, I guess, about this is Jose and Kitty died before, right when this renovation was about to be complete. And while they waited for the work to be finished, the family rented a house nearby, and Eric enrolled at Calabasas High School, where he was an unremarkable player on his school's tennis team. This is where he would meet and become friends with several people, including fellow students Craig Signorelli and Kevin Whalen. Now, Kevin Whalen would later testify that Eric was no longer interested in playing tennis. He wanted to play football, but his parents would not let him.

During the time that you were close friends, did Eric ever express to you a desire on his part to play some other sport besides tennis? Yeah, he wanted to play football. And did he ever play football and uh did he ever play football no he did not and do you know why he didn't um his parents wouldn't let him and let me show you um yeah that's my yearbook and do you recognize this inscription inside the front cover yes ma'am and who wrote that inside the cover of your book? Eric did. And in that inscription, does Eric make reference to the fact that his parents would not allow him to play football? Yes, ma'am. And does he say, in

fact, parents can be that way? Yes, ma'am. Now, did you consider that when Eric wrote that in your book to be a complaint on his part about his parents? Oh, without a doubt. Well, he complained about it to me before even writing it in the book about not being able to play. And was that the only topic about which Eric ever complained to you about his parents? That I can remember, yes. Parents can be that way.

That's what he wrote in his yearbook, huh? Tell you what. Parents can be that way, I guess. But just to just write, parents can be that way. That's it. I'm sure they had other conversations throughout their time together, and that's what he decided to write in his yearbook. It goes to show you, honestly, I'm not trying to make light of this. It just goes to show you what was going through, at least at this point, Eric's mind and how there

was obviously some, a high level of resentment towards his parents. Not only, I think it was a lot deeper than not being allowed to play football. That's what I'm getting at here. That may have been what he was discussing with Kevin, but I think it was a lot deeper than not being allowed to play football. That's what I'm getting at here. Like that may have been what he was discussing with Kevin, but I think it was a lot deeper for Eric and the not being able to play football was a small thing and a much bigger issue for Eric, which is why in a moment where you're, for the most part, you're saying some farewells or some positive words to this person. His, his decision is to write about his parents and their ability to be that way. I'm assuming purely speculation on my part that maybe Craig had complained about his parents at some point. And maybe Eric felt like that was a commonality that they could relate about and talk about, which is why he chose to write that in his yearbook specifically. But you're only pulling out clips of the trial and clips of the testimony.

So maybe that wasn't discussed or maybe it just wasn't mentioned because it wasn't relevant to why they were there. I mean, so from what I could tell, as Eric got older, he's like going to school and we're going to see because he's going to leave Calabasas High School. He's going to go to Beverly Hills High School in a little bit. He's exploring different things. Remember, these kids never had the opportunity to develop their own identities, to go through life as humans usually do and figure out what they're good at, what they like, what they're passionate about. So now you have a little bit more freedom and you're kind of being exposed to other people, whereas you've been kind of sealed off from that your whole life because your father didn't want their influence. And now you're influenced because not only are you around other people, but they're older, they're doing cool things, football and, you know, going out and doing this. And Eric wants to be a part of

that. He wants to do things that he was not even thinking were possible before, and he's still being blocked. And as he's growing and kind of developing more independence and autonomy, it's going to be agitating to him more. And this is something that we might want to take into consideration when people say, well, you know, this abuse happened when they were kids. Why did they all of a sudden, you know, kill their parents now? We're talking right now in this time loop or this timeline. This is 1986, 1987. Kitty and Jose Menendez are killed in 1989. I would say the abuse, the controlling, the manipulation was still happening to both Eric and Lyle as they became young adults and adults. So it wasn't that like, oh, we were abused and we were children and then everything was great and we had the most loving family ever and nothing was wrong. There was still a continuation of these abuse tactics, even as they reached teenagers in their early 20s.

So, yeah, I think, and as you get older, you start realizing, hey, I am a separate entity for my parents. You start, you know, like we said in the last episode, Jose raised his sons to fight for what they wanted, to always be top dog, to always be the man. And that came back on him because now they're thinking as they get older, well, we don't have to put up with this. Our father told us we don't have to put up with this and we don't have to put up with it from him either. Well, I also think you hit on something where you were starting to talk about there where when you're younger and you're more sheltered because you're a child and you're not exposed to as many outside influences, there really is no reference point. What Lyle was describing in episode one and what is kind of talked about a

little bit here in episode two, mostly episode one, at the time when this was occurring, although it was uncomfortable and traumatic and difficult, all those things. For him, that was the norm. It was the devil he knew. Yeah, that's all he knew. That's what he knew. That was his life. Well, once they are exposed to outside influences and they're around other people their own age and also maybe get to experience how children their own age interact with their parents, they start to see not only

what was happening in their house, how wrong it was, but how maybe, I don't know, not good of people their parents are in comparison to others. So although they were experiencing these things their entire childhood and didn't act on them then, it's probably because it wasn't until much later looking back on it, even though you could be right, they may have still been experiencing some form of abuse. I'm not saying they weren't, but looking at it- Well, I mean, Eric's in high school and his parents are like, no, you're not playing football. Correct. They would, Lyle's at Princeton in New Jersey, across the country. His parents are flying there constantly because eventually they'd get him an apartment. And then they're telling him like, oh, we know you're dating this girl, Jamie, her name was.

We don't want her to live with you. And they would have like Terry Burrells, who was still in Princeton, go and have a key to Lyle's apartment so she could check and make sure when he wasn't there, check and make sure Jamie's things weren't there. They were still exerting so much control. Lyle was like 21 at that point. So it's like the abuse and the control continued. And like you said, once you get out in the world and you're like, oh, hey, parents are not all like this and they're not all like up their kids asses controlling every single aspect of their life. That's just my parents. Your feeling of discomfort that you had as a child of like, ah, something's not right,

is going to turn into maybe a little bit of anger. Like this was my life and it didn't have to be like that. Right. And when we start to talk about it again, putting my detective hat on here, a possible motive, yes, there could have been things going on currently. But I also think that as we dive deeper into this, we're going to maybe come to a conclusion that this motive to a certain degree was retrospective, right? They were looking at things that had happened before and becoming angry about those things as well, which led them partially to do what they did. Now, again, there's going to be other... Which I totally get that, by the way. Part of it. And now I'm not saying, I'm not excusing other. Which I totally get that, by the way. Part of it.

And now I'm not saying I'm not excusing it. I'm not making justifications for it because we're going to talk about financials and all these other things. There's so much to kind of dissect here. But, again, looking at it and understanding why people say, well, this happened before. Why is it now? So this example, this small example here with Kevin Whalen, we have to ask yourself, how many other Kevin Whalens were in their lives at this point with Eric being at the local high school and then Lyle being at Princeton and being exposed to all these new individuals who maybe even had some conversations to them and said, wow, really? That's what was going on in your house?

So, again, that outside exposure, I do think, was not the tip of the iceberg here, but the start of something major and why we're sitting here discussing the Menendez brothers now. Yes, absolutely. And so we got Kevin Whelan, right? And there's also somebody else we're going to talk about. That's Craig Sigournalli. We're going to touch on Craig today, but he is going to come back up. So Craig said that when Eric first came to school, they were both on the tennis team. Craig was actually the captain of the tennis team. So he saw Eric show up and he was like, oh, I know this guy's going to be on the tennis team. He walks up to him. He introduces himself. They become like best buddies overnight. The two went to practices and tournaments together, and Eric said they would go up into the hills off Mulholland Drive and talk about dreams for the future, plans for business opportunities.

They talk about girls, life, everything. And while Eric was living the life of a typical overprivileged California teenager, his older brother Lyle was being as unserious about life as possible. For a little while, he sort of messed around. He went out on the town. He didn't really want to commit himself to anything, but his father encouraged Lyle to come and work with him at Live Entertainment, a rapidly expanding firm of 2,000 employees who had bought video rights to feature films and delivered video and music software to big retailers. Founded in 1988 by Jose Menendez when he merged Lieberman Enterprises with International Video Entertainment, growth at Live began almost instantly when in March of 1989, they paid more than $6 million to acquire a part of Vista Organization Home Video Corporation.

Because remember, this was the time when VHS tapes were hot, you know, like Blockbuster was popping up on the scene. Everyone was like, oh, we can watch movies, Blockbuster movies at home. This is amazing. And Jose Menendez took advantage of that, you know that burgeoning sort of fad. Jose acted as chairman and CEO of Live while also sitting on the board of Carolco, an independent film producer that controlled a major stake in Live. And basically, Jose was making a crap ton of money right now. Like the money was rolling in. But according to Lyle, Jose was kind of over it all. He was like, I really don't want to do all this. I want to run for politics.

I think Jose wanted to be a state senator or something. And he was like, I want to run for office. But the money's too good right now to leave. So he was just going to stack everything, get as much money as he could. And then he had this plan to, I think he wanted to buy a peninsula or something and start a compound and have all his family live there and his sons live there with their wives in different houses and all live close together. Once again, is this because he wants to be close to his sons because he loves them? Or is it because he wants to put them out on a peninsula on a Menendez compound where he can continue to watch everything they do and control them? You be the judge.

I think the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. And we have a lot of evidence from independent parties who worked with him, who associated with him. That would, I think, lead most people to come to a similar conclusion as to the motive behind all of that. I agree with you. Definitely it was control. Keep them all close, right? Keep them all close so you can continue to exert your will and your force. Now, from the book, The Menendez Murders, quote, he, Jose, put Lyle in the sell-through division of Live, assigned to find discrepancies in expense reports. Lyle worried that if he found anything wrong, people would be demoted or fired.

The executive assigned to supervise the boss's son remembered that Lyle walked in with an attitude of, I don't want to be here, but I'm forced to, so here I am. The first day, he stayed 20 minutes. People were uncomfortable that he never looked anyone in the eye. One called him an iceberg, and another said he was nasty, saying, quote, I just felt uncomfortable around him, and I don't feel that way around many people, end quote. He arrived late, left early, and struck the staff as arrogant and groundlessly self-satisfied. The job as it was lasted a month. I failed that job pretty miserably, Lyle admitted later. I was basically getting in the way, end quote. Now, because both Lyle and Eric were bored with their lives in the lap of luxury,

and because they had friends who were similarly spoiled and bored, they did what rich kids do when they need stimulation, commit crimes for a hit of dopamine and a rush of excitement. And we're going to talk about what they did after this next break. Skyping the summer of 1988, Eric, Lyle, and a handful of friends, including Craig Cignanelli, began burglarizing upscale homes in the Calabasas area, specifically the homes of Michael Warren Ginsberg, whose sons were friendly with the Menendez brothers, and the home of John List, once again, whose sons were friendly with the Menendez brothers and the home of John List. Once again, whose sons were friendly with the Menendez brothers. List told the police that the intruders had removed $100,000

worth of jewelry as well as $2,400 in cash. And at Ginsburg's home, the burglars had cut the screen from the back door and made off of an entire safe from the closet as well as jewelry, china, silverware, and a computer. So the police got reports that some teenagers had been seen in the area, and Eric specifically had been identified as being amongst them. Eric ended up admitting to his part in the robberies, and he directed law enforcement to a storage unit where they had hidden their stolen goods. Now, his brother, Lyle, would later admit that he had not been with Eric during the first burglary, which I believe was the List House. But for the Ginsburg House,

Lyle was present and had taken part in that. Now, Eric was placed on probation and he was ordered to do community service as well as attend regular mental health therapy. He began seeing a psychologist named Dr. Jerome Ozel. And according to Lyle, Jose had gone along with this whole mental health counseling thing for optics. Lyle said, quote, it wasn't like Eric was seeing him for therapy. My dad wanted to bring this to court and put it all behind us. My dad would never risk putting Eric in therapy. That would never happen at all. Eric was very aware that Ozel was somebody dad hired to resolve this burglary issue, not to be discussing life issues or anything else. My father told me that he did not want

anything to come up from this 10 years from now. He was worried this would be very bad for his reputation and his future plans to run for U.S. Senate, end quote. So, first of all, Dr. Jerome Ozel is going to become a very important player in the Menendez brothers saga. Very important. The whole situation is kind of ludicrous and bananas, but we are going to talk about him more. Now, Jose and Kitty, they were so embarrassed about these burglaries, so paranoid about how they would be seen by the good people of Calabasas,

you know, like the Kardashians. They completely left Calabasas and they moved to the house on Elm Street in Beverly Hills, where they would eventually be murdered. Real quick, can we crack that nut open a little bit more? Because for me, I'm talking, as I'm going through this a lot in my head,

as you're kind of going through the story about motive, and we're about, I'm guesstimating here because this episode hasn't been edited yet, but between last episode and this one, we're over three hours of information about this family at this point. And I think it's a fair statement to say, if you were to cut the episode right here and then cut fast forward to the brothers killed their parents, there's gonna be a large portion of people who are saying, oh, they killed them because finally, after talking

to other friends outside the house, realized how poorly they were treated between Jose's physical abuse and Kitty's verbal abuse and talking to them and saying that she didn't want them and all these things. And they just were outraged and they killed them. That's why they killed them. And there would be a lot of people that would have sympathy for them. However, not trying to discredit that, but I want to point out here that what you just discussed, and it's, again, we're just starting to get there, talking about Eric and Lyle committing burglaries for hundreds of thousands of dollars in jewelry. Yeah, you could say that they're doing it because

they're bored with life and they're looking for a thrill and it was the excitement for them. You could also make an argument that it was financially motivated, that they wanted the cash or they wanted items of value, intrinsic value that they could sell or trade and make cash off of. Now, did they need that money? They didn't really spend it. They didn't really spend any of it though. I'm not saying they spent it. They also got caught.

They got caught. So they didn't really have an opportunity to spend it. I bring this all up to you because as we're going through this, and I don't know this entire case, but I know there's going to be an element of this where people are going to say that the Menendez brothers didn't kill their parents because they resented them or they hated them or they were in fear of them. They killed them because their family, their parents were worth more to them dead than alive. saying right now that we have a history, a criminal record of the brothers committing financial crimes, crimes that involve the gratification of obtaining something that doesn't belong to them, is a very, very important note to this story. And a change, I would say,

I would argue a change in the narrative since we started this series, to a certain degree, a different wrinkle, if you will. I agree. And I do think that there was some sort of entitlement bred into these kids. And I think once they kind of got out into the real world, they were like, oh, like to make the kind of money that our family already has, we're going to have to work so hard. Why? When they already made all this money. Why should we have to work so hard when the money's there?

Dad's bringing in the money like crazy, but he wants us to make our own money? Like, ew. So I do think there was that element. I'm not going to lie to you and say that these kids were not spoiled, entitled, and, you know, snot-nosed brats, basically. They were, for sure. For sure. And I don't want to go too far down this path yet. There's going to be time for it. But I know what I said last episode, and it's funny how we always come back to it.

But Jose Menendez Sr., that mentality of kill or be killed, take what you want. Go out there and get it. These kids, they wanted something. And as you mentioned, they may have realized that life, regardless of who you know, was not going to be as easy if mommy and daddy weren't helping them get there. And as they got older and realized they had to work for those things and they weren't just going to be given to them, could they have inherited a mentality that was instilled in them by their father, where when they realized that maybe the gravy train was coming to an end, they had to do something in order to continue the lifestyle they

were accustomed to. And that whole mentality was kill or be killed, right? And I'm saying that literally. So just something to keep in mind as we go forward here. I know we're feeling bad and I'm saying this about myself when I say we. Feeling pretty bad for Eric and Lyle up to this point in the story. But I'm surprised by this new little thing that you've brought up here and it's not little. We're talking $100,000 in jewelry i know right like i'm i'm freaking 17 18 19 years old you know lifting packets of gum that's what i'm saying this was a package of gum yeah no i mean this is a full-on they took a full-ass safe out of the closet this is a big deal and then they said they just like

figured out the combination accidentally. This is a big deal. And I don't see how anyone could sit here and tell me or convince me at least that there wasn't some type of gratification in the idea of stealing something that didn't belong to them and that they weren't in some capacity motivated by money in this situation. So that's why you rob people. You want something from them or you need the money, whatever the case may be, there is a financial element to it. So really interesting development in this series for me, when we're starting to try to build out a motive, which as we said in part one, could have multiple factors. It may not just be one specific thing.

There could be different parts of their lives that led to their actions, and it may not just be one thing or the other. It can be a combination. Yeah. Well, I mean, in general, it seemed that the Menendez family was unraveling a bit, all of them, right? With Lyle being chased out of Princeton, Eric's committing crimes for attention or whatever reason, and Kitty is just spiraling deeper into a dark depression. On November 8th, 1987, Kitty was admitted to Westlake Community Hospital in Thousand Oaks, California, and Dr. Warden Emery, coolest name ever, he diagnosed Kitty with acute Xanax and alcohol ingestion along with depression. She took an excessive amount, six of Xanax and again another six was not suicidal. She is alert,

oriented and cognitively intact. She is not self-harmful, and there is no reason to keep her in the hospital. She is having breakthrough anxiety due to low tricyclic antidepressant level impression on axis one dysthymic disorder, on axis one panic disorder, axis two suspect personality disorder. I noted when I took the history that Mrs. Menendez was trivializing her circumstance, her overdose. It appeared to me that she was. I noted that she seemed quite frightened. an interaction between her and her husband, which resulted in both of them wanting her to leave as soon as possible. They did sign out against medical advice. There was a sense, in my opinion, that she was not being honest. And when I find that a person is making me feel that they're not candid and forthright. I have a concern about character disorder or personality disorder.

There is a note here on the emergency room form. Do not give patient her own medications. Attempts to put more pills in mouth when I was not looking. That is a nurse's note. I did recommend to her and her husband that she be transferred to a psychiatric unit for several days for purpose of stabilization. She requested that I follow the medications

which had been prescribed by a previous professional, and I did so for approximately, I think, about eight months. I was giving her Xanax. It's a much higher dosage than the average person requires. Xanax is a so-called minor tranquilizer, which is an inhibitory medicine and inhibits and diminishes the emergency fight-flight response that is at the basis of anxiety. What struck me about this person was that she seemed inordinately more distressed than many people I usually see with these diagnoses. I could never understand her level of

professed distress. I queried Mrs. Menendez on each occasion about why she seemed to be in persistent distress and I never received an answer that made me able to explain her level of distress. It was my opinion that there was a woman who apparently had some kind of marital problem, which I thought that was the difficulty, but was unable to extricate herself from it, and unable to shift and do what apparently needed to be done in order for her to improve her circumstance. That is the reason why I would still have suspected a personality trait or personality disorder. Did she appear to you to be secretive during the time that you...

Yes. She gave me her explanations to the best of her ability, but I was not able to comprehend because they were couched in physical complaint terms without sufficient data relevant to her life. So I never felt that I really had the information necessary to really understand her. Do you want to use the word secretive or the information just wasn't there. The woman never was able to articulate other than there was some problem with her husband. I tried to get her to give me more data, but I never got it.

I thought it was interesting how she comes into the hospital with acute Xanax and alcohol intoxication. And he's like, I gave her more Xanax, way more than any person should need. So it's just, yeah, but did you hear what he said? Suspected personality disorder. Now he doesn't say what, but once again, this is the 80s. So at that point, it's just like they kind of all mesh together, but suspected personality disorder. It seems to be that Kitty Menendez was a person who could only identify who she was and what she wanted through someone else. And she'd become so enmeshed and codependent on her husband that she'd learned to only see herself through his eyes. And so relations between Kitty

and Jose degraded and her mental state degraded as well. You can see this illustrated in letters written to Jose over the years. Quote, throughout my life, I lived with a tormented mother who bared her soul to me and i could always feel her hurt but i was powerless to help her except by a show of strength i lived in a broken home and knew of no other like mine i swore this would never happen to me end quote in another letter kitty ruefully writes quote for 24 years i lived in a dream i tried so hard to keep my marriage complete but i didn't know how i thought if i concentrated on the house and our boys their And finally, quote, You are a brilliant, aggressive, soft-hearted man, and I am truly in love with you even as I write this.

Please find someone you can truly fall in love with and start again. Build a new family. I know our boys will always be most special to you. They are special. My gift to you. End quote. And these are in chronological order. So you can see the stages of grief as Kitty stumbles through them. And it's really icky for me that she said, I know our boys are special to you. My gift to you. As in like, they don't mean anything to me.

I gave birth to them because you wanted them and I gave them to you. I don't need to have anything to do with what they're raising or their personality shaping. They were my gift to you, like their belongings, like they're not humans. It's so weird. I gift to you.

I don't know, man. I, she's not here. So I wish you. I don't know, man. She's not here, so I wish we could ask her, but I will say based on what Lyle had said during the trial as far as her resenting them and her basically looking at them as the reason why she didn't accomplish her dreams and ambitions, it does look like in a way it's not only her saying, hey, I physically gave you these two boys, but I also gave up on my dreams and hopes and what I had goals of doing for you so that you could have these two sons. So there's a lot more than just my gift to you or these two physical humans. It's everything that I sacrificed in order to give them to you. So when we think about the credibility, which I think should constantly come into question when we're listening

to both Lyle and Eric speak after the fact, right? After they've committed murder, when they're talking about these things and they're talking about people who are no longer here to defend themselves. We have to look at outside sources, both people and writings like this, to determine whether or not we to be the handwriting of Kitty, is just in and of itself. Even without knowing everything we know and what we've heard Lyle say, as you just mentioned, is very questionable. And as you said, kind of icky where you're, why would the mother of these children describe them as gifts to her husband? They're a gift to her as well. I mean, it's especially disturbing when we do talk about the abuse that comes up more readily in the second trial. Correct. That's going to be even more disturbing.

Right. So as I'm sitting here trying to kind of cut through the bullshit, if you will, trying to weed through everything and come to my own opinion on what parts of these stories I believe from Eric and Lyle as they're giving their testimony. The part about Kitty saying that I didn't want you guys, you know, basically you ruined my my life. I gave up everything for you guys. And that's that's what you remind me of. This letter to Jose does give some credibility to that thought process that she may have actually said those things to her sons because this letter kind of suggests that. So again, I'm not sitting here trying to step on a grave, but having this letter in conjunction with what Lyle has told us, it, to me, independently, it does seem to sound truthful now, more so that that's how she

perceived them. And honestly, it feels like Kitty starts to see herself and even her children as objects because that's maybe how she's been treated by Jose for so long. Like, yeah, go start a new family, you know, have more kids. Like, like you can just replace people like, okay, this family isn't, you know, meeting your needs anymore. Go, go start a new one. It's, it's just, it's bananas to me. What did we say earlier? We, and what have other people said, including the doctor?

And I apologize. I don't remember his name. Which one? There's been like 17. Oh, Dr. Cox. Yeah, Dr. Cox. You know, talking about people in Jose's life having a job description, serving a purpose. We were talking about it from the perspective of how Jose looked at people. Well, the truth is some of those people, especially ones that were in his

life frequently, started to see how he viewed them. And obviously Kitty would be at the top of that list where we're not saying something that wasn't known to her. She knew how Jose looked at her. It wasn't as a friend. It wasn't as his significant other, his spouse, someone who he wanted to share his life with and build memories with. He viewed her as a means to an end as far as providing him with his children and taking care of the house. That was her job description. That was her purpose. And make no mistake about it, he made that very well known to her, which again is why she's describing at the end of this letter as saying, hey, I did my job. I did what you wanted me to do. I gave you what you needed. You go on to the next thing and find what you want. So, again, this isn't just us speculating or diagnosing how Jose perceived people. These are people actually in his life who viewed it the same way.

Correct. I mean, probably knowing him, it would be hard not to. She would know better than most. Yes. And it really did feel like the only way that Kitty could cope with the emptiness and the aimlessness inside of her was to self-medicate and numb it all out. And this is when Kitty starts telling her family that she's going to poison them all, including herself. And her weight dropped. She got cosmetic surgery. I think she got a facelift. She was constantly seen with a cigarette dangling in her fingers and a distant look on her face. She just was not doing well. Let's take our final break and we'll come back for the rest of the story. Spring Beverly Hills High School, Eric Menendez discovered

two things about himself. He had a natural talent for acting during his drama class, which by the way, was a required course at Beverly Hills High School. It doesn't surprise me, but that's awesome. So drama was a required course. It's like math, English, drama. So he's in his drama course, and he was able to impress his teacher by memorizing and performing a portion of Shakespeare's Richard II. And then Eric attention and praise he was receiving in drama class. But when his teacher wanted to suggest Eric for a special program which would allow him to hone his acting skills, Jose said no. And almost overnight, Eric's academic performance began to suffer. This led to many parent-teacher conferences, and that's when his English teacher informed Kitty and Jose about their son's condition. Now, this news may not have actually been news for Eric because according to his English teacher, Dr. Barbara Zussman, Kitty was not surprised, informing the teacher that they had been told Eric was dyslexic when he was younger

after they had had him tested for dyslexia. And the teacher was like, well, do you think maybe that's something like we should have known and i i read an article that was written i think in like 1996 and the teacher's like yeah these were bad parents like when you're not even telling this that your your kids new school that your son has a condition which makes it hard for him to read and write and you're just sending him in there you're literally starting him off at a disadvantage why why would you do that when it's so easy to just say, by the way, he's dyslexic, and then we can accommodate for that. It's like you didn't even care if he did well or not. I think it's somewhat of an ego thing where they look at it as a deformity. This is a black spot

on the record where no child of ours is going to have a learning disability. As a quick input, Derek's not saying it's a disability or it's like a black spot or it's a deformity, as you initially said. That is what Jose and Kitty would look at it because they were so obsessed with image, which is why Jose was kind of like, Kitty doesn't need to stay in this mental hospital. You know, she doesn't have to stay here and be seen by a psychiatrist. Like she can go home. I agree with you. Actually, it was an image thing. It's all about optics. It all makes sense with what we're talking about, even with the pool story with Lyle, where he's held underwater. He's struggling. He can't breathe and he's doing it. And he's, he's doing it in the worst way possible, but to expand his lungs, he's making them go through hell. And instead of doing it the right way, and he's looking at it this way where,

you know what my son, although he may have this dyslexia thing, he's going to sink or swim. He's going to man up and do what he needs to do to get this done., he's going to sink or swim. He's going to man up and do what he needs to do to get this done. And he's going to overcome this because he has no other choice. I'm going to stick him in there in spite of what he has, in spite of what situation he's dealing with. It's a tough world out there. No need to cry, no excuses, Get it done. Now, I don't have to preface this, but I will. That's not the right way to do it, but that's, again, Jose Menendez's approach to these things. It's a hurdle. You can overcome it on your own. Suck it up. Get it done. You shouldn't need help. You shouldn't need assistance. Do it on your own or somebody else is going to step on you.

Yeah, but I mean, obviously, Jose didn't really understand how dyslexia works. So clearly, clearly. But Eric's dreams of being an actor had only been temporarily stalled by Jose, not killed completely. Craig Sigrinelli, one of Eric's friends on the tennis team, he was the son of an MGM executive who owned a cabin in Central California. And so he and Eric went kind of on a writer's retreat to this cabin. And over the course of several days, they wrote a 66-page screenplay called Friends, which Eric was supposed to star

in. Now, Friends is the story of a dashingly handsome 18-year-old named Hamilton Cromwell, who finds out from his parents' will that he stands to inherit a $157 million estate in the event of his mother and father's deaths. Reportedly, according to Sigournalli, Katie Menendez helped Eric type up the script, and handwritten notes from Eric on the script describe the character that he was intended to play, which was Hamilton Cromwell, as, quote, immensely psychotic and extremely anxious to obtain his inheritance, a character worthy of Jekyll and Hyde, end quote. In one scene, Cromwell kills both of his parents, and the scene is written like this, quote,

a gloved hand is seen gripping the doorknob and turning it gently. The door opens, exposing the luxurious sight of Mr. and Mrs. Cromwell lying in bed. Their faces are of questioning horror as Hamilton closes the door behind them, gently saying, Good evening, mother. Good evening, father. End quote.

Now, let me ask you this. You're saying Kitty helped Eric write this? Oh, yeah. Hold on. We're going to talk about that. Okay, because I really want to break this down, especially when considering why we're here. So after taking the lives of his parents in a chillingly similar manner to the way that Jose and Kitty Menendez would be killed, Hamilton kills three other people, including his ex-girlfriend. And when he is finally arrested, the bodies of his five victims are discovered frozen in ice

in his basement, and Hamilton Cromwell dies at the hands of a friend with a smile on his lips. Although Kitty Menendez must have read the script in order to type it up, and there are reports that she made fun of it with her friends, she clearly didn't see any prophetic meaning in her son's words, not even when she read the tortured words of young Hamilton Cromwell speaking about his father and saying quote sometimes he would tell me that i was not worthy to be his son when he did that it would make me strive harder just so i could hear the words i love you son and i never heard those words end quote yeah so kitty helped him type up the script and she she would tell her friends like just pick it apart and make fun of it i just i think looking at it from a practical standpoint,

when we say Kitty helped him write the script, she, I just want to make sure I'm clear here, she helped type up what he had written. She helped type it up. So he gave it to her handwritten, yeah, and then she helped him type it up. Right, but she didn't develop or create the storyline. No. And I'm not going to fault her for not looking at this

and seeing it as, you it as a potential thought process of what could happen down the road, prophesying what's going to take place to her at a certain point. But when we look at it for what it is, and this is a story that was derived from the mind of Eric Menendez. It's a pretty dark story to be written by. How old would he be at this point? He was in high school, so 18 at the oldest. Let's say 17, 18 years old. And this is the storyline that he comes up with.

And we can now definitely see the parallels with it between these characters and what they yearned for from their father that they never received. What love and an inheritance? Yeah, to both. So again, when we're talking about motive- If they couldn't get the love, they were going to get the money. If they couldn't get the love, they were going to get what they could get out of it. And so again, when we're thinking about motive and we're also thinking about a crime of passion, right? I don't know what the defense is here. I really don't know how, which way this is going to go. But when I, when we lay out the defense for the Menendez brothers, as we go forward, I'm really interested

to hear if the description of what happened is going to be described as something that happened in a moment of an argument or some type of fight that ensued and this rage came over them? Or are they admitting that it was premeditated? Because you're not bringing up this story for no reason. It was definitely premeditated. Okay. And they admit to that? I mean, the evidence admits to that. And to speak to that point, right, this script here, what we're talking about here, this screenplay that came from the mind of Eric Menendez, I'm assuming you're not just bringing it up to bring it up to us. I have a feeling, a suspicion that this may have been brought up at trial. Am I wrong in saying that? No, it definitely was. Okay. Okay. So there's a reason why that we're interpreting it that way.

And the prosecutors did as well. I mean, it's like, it's like blow by blow the same thing, the same, like that's what happened. Right. So, and this is how, how long before the murders? A year. Not much time. So really interesting stuff here, especially when

we think about the fact that this was written by one of the offenders and in their own script, they're talking about two different things. In their own script, in the part that they were slated to play. The part they were slated to play, good point. There's two elements to play. The part that they were slated to play. Good point. There's two elements to it. It's not just they killed them because they couldn't obtain their father's love. There was a financial element to it as well. And I really, I really do think it was like, okay, well, we've tried so hard to get his love, his acceptance, have him be proud of us. That's not going to happen. Well, what else does this man have to offer besides, you know? Yeah. If we can't get his love, we might as well get his money. And I, and I bring this up, I bring this up because at the top of this episode, and we're going to come back to this

numerous times, but at the top of this episode, I had mentioned that there's a lot of people saying free the Menendez brothers, get them out. They should be out. And I ask all of you, regardless of where you fall, right at this point in the story, if you're in that camp, you're not wrong. You probably know more about the case than I do at this point. Well, it's not like you're not wrong. It's like, that's your opinion. You're entitled to it. That's your opinion. You're entitled to your opinion. But I ask, I pose this question. If I could tell you definitively that they killed their parents for money, for mostly for the money,

would you still feel the same way? And that's a question you have to answer. That's where I'm at right now in the story is I'm trying to figure out the why we know that we know they did it, but the reason is why. If the, if the abuse and the stories that Eric and Lyle told about their parents were true, then, yeah, I agree. They still they shouldn't be in prison. I would I would feel the same. Yeah, I don't care. So let's let's see where this story goes.

You don't create monsters and then act surprised when they turn on you. It's like Frankenstein's monster. You know, Dr. Frankenstein makes this likeous, violent monster. And then he's like, I'm so surprised that this monster turned on me. I want to debate this with you. Kind of like karma a little bit. I definitely want to debate this with you, but we're in part two, so I won't.

What I'll say is this. I'll pose this question to you. Kitty and Jose allegedly, potentially created these monsters. Your words. The question becomes, do we want those monsters back out amongst society where they could harm others? But do you think they would harm others? Like, look at Gypsy Rose, right? She's out there walking free.

I have nothing against Gypsy Rose, but I don't know what Gypsy's going to do a year or two from now. I have no clue. I don't know her. I mean, even if you knew her, you still probably couldn't say whether she would or she wouldn't. No, we're going to see over time. But my point being, there are people out there that have committed heinous acts. And I think some of them had had very traumatic child upbringings and it's horrific. But then they've gone on to do really horrific things and they were in prison for the rest of their lives. Again, I'm not leaning one way or the other. These questions that we're talking about right now, these conversations are things that I'm writing down that I hope a lot of people are thinking about because this series is not about if they did it or not. It's about why they did it and do we think that the justice system

got it right. Spoiler alert, we're not all going to agree on it. That's what makes this series great. And to continue on, meanwhile, Eric's over here writing a script about killing his parents. Lyle Menendez

had returned to the East Coast and Princeton to finish out his education and it seemed Lyle Menendez had returned to the East Coast and Princeton to finish out his education. And it seemed that Jose Menendez didn't only want his firstborn son to be a tennis champion and a wildly successful businessman. He also wanted him to go into politics, like a father-son politics team.

However, Jose had some thoughts about Lyle's physical appearance, that if he improved certain things, he would have a better shot at being a public political figure. When your dad was talking about going into politics, was he also talking about you going into politics? Yes. In the summer of 1987, did he make a decision about your personal appearance that was based on the idea that you were going to go into politics? Yes.

Is this something that's hard for you to talk about? Yes. Can you tell me what the decision is, your dad? Well, let me go back Had you started losing some hair earlier in your life? Yes, how old were you when you started noticing that you were losing some hair? I think 14 And Did you did some people tease you about it?

Yes. And who is it that teased you about it? Mostly tennis coach. Occasionally someone at school would say something about it. I was losing very little hair, but it still was disturbing to me. Did you talk to your dad about this? No, not back then. You weren't bald at 14 or 15, were you?

No. So you were just losing a small amount of hair? Yes. And in the summer of 1987 did you and your dad have a conversation about the state of your hair? Yes. And what was that conversation? He felt that he wanted me to go into politics and that I would be going to Princeton in the it wasn't very noticeable at that point, that I would probably continue to lose my hair and that it would be a good idea to maybe right now before I meet these people at Princeton to get a hairpiece. And did you do that? I did.

How old were you? I think I was 19. And what did they have to do to give you a hairpiece? I had lots of hair, so they shaved my head. Your whole head? Just the area where the hairpiece went on. What area is that? Essentially just around the crown area and all the way back.

Did you get a hairpiece then? Yes. Are you wearingpiece then? Yes. And are you wearing it today? Yes. How did you feel about getting a hairpiece at 19? I was very worried. Mostly for superficial reasons like dating and stuff. I had a girlfriend at the time,

and I was glad for that because I was concerned about dating and, you know, just jokes, people finding out. But my dad was pretty insistent that it was the right thing to do. So I did it. I'm not going to say a ton about this. I mean, a hairpiece at 14. What are we talking about?

I mean, I just, I will say this positive note. I had no clue it was a hairpiece until he just said it. I didn't either. It's a great job. Excellent toupee. It's excellent. Especially considering he's been in like jail yeah it looks great good for him right but yeah 14 years old and that's where your mindset

is your your your son doesn't even know who he is or who what he wants to be and yet you're already pointing him in the direction uh of what you want him to be to the point where you're going to change his physical appearance because it may affect his ability to get to where you want him to be to the point where you're going to change his physical appearance because it may affect his ability to get to where you want him to be. It's just unhealthy to say the least. It's pretty self-explanatory. I don't think many people are sitting here going, oh no, that seems like something I would do. Yeah. I mean, it's the same thing as like mothers telling their 12 year old daughters like, oh, you're fat, you know, you lose weight, like you have to diet, you know, stuff like that. It's it's it's telling you it's sending a message to your child that what's on the outside matters more than what's on the inside at a time when they are impressionable and when they're learning how how to see themselves and how the world sees them. It's very, very toxic.

So, yeah, toxic. Yeah. Unfortunate. Yeah. But like Lyle said, he was also dating somebody at that time, a woman named Jamie Lee Pizarro. She was five years older than him. She taught tennis classes, so they had things in common. They'd met in the fall of 1986, and they dated for the next three years. But something or someone came between them, and it wasn't another woman.

His name was Donovan Goudreau, originally from Los Gatos, California, where he had attended San Jose State University. But when he moved to New Jersey, he was homeless and broke. Jamie Pisarek met Donovan when they were both serving tables at TGI Fridays in the Princeton Market Fair during the winter of 1989. And when she found out he'd been sleeping in his car during the cold New Jersey weather, Jamie asked Donovan if he would like her to ask her boyfriend, Lyle, if he could crash on his couch.

Donovan was 22 years old, very outgoing and friendly, and Jamie told him she thought he and Lyle would get along great because they were so alike. Now, one of the things that made Jamie feel Lyle and Donovan were kindred spirits was that they were both going to be attending Princeton University. But that ended up not being true. And Donovan ended up not being as genuine as he made it seem. And when you met Lyle Menendez, did you and he become friends? Yes, we did.

And after becoming friends, did you, in fact, become his roommate? Yes, we did. And after becoming friends, did you in fact become his roommate? Yes, I did. And when you were his roommate, where did you live with him? Gauss Hall on campus. And that was student housing for Princeton University, is that correct? Yes, it was.

So even though you were a non-student, you were living in the student housing, is that correct? Yes. How long did you actually live in this room at Gauss Hall with Lyle Menendez? Approximately two months. student housing is that correct yes how long did you actually live in this room at gas hall with lao menendez approximately two months and at the end of two months did you leave the room yes i did and under briefly under what circumstances did you leave um it was towards the end of the school year for him and uh he was under the assumption that I was a Princeton student and I think

he had found out that I wasn't going to be a matriculating student, becoming a student the next year and was kind of under the understanding that I was and it upset him so he wanted me out of the room. So did you in fact leave? leave yes i did from the time you met him to the day that you left his dorm room did you see him on a regular basis yes how often did you see him every day were you with him all day pretty much all day were the two of you the closest of the friends of the group of people who were around? Yes, until the end, shortly before the end. It started to change a little. And you were not going to classes with him, obviously, because you weren't a student. Is that correct? I still went to a couple classes.

Okay. And I sat in on some lectures and stuff. What other things would you do together? Everything. All day long. I was working in the evenings at TGI Fridays, but outside of that, we spent all our time together. We ate together, did everything together. Did you talk a lot?

Yes, we did. And did you talk about your families a lot? Yes, we did. Did you think that you and Lyle were on the same footing in terms of economics? No. No, not at all. What was the difference? He came from a wealthy family and I didn't. Okay. And how did you know he came from a wealthy family?

He told me. Actually, I think Jamie told me first. Okay. And did you see him spending money? Yes, I did. What kinds of things would he buy? Well, he wasn't extravagant. I mean, he wasn't any more wealthy than any of the other kids. At Princeton? Yeah.

He didn't have all the money in the world. I mean, he was basically on allowance like most students there. He spent, you know, accordingly. Did he have credit cards? I think he had one credit card, yes. And could he sign for things at the student store? Yes, he could. And what types of things could he buy, or did you see him buy? At the student store? At the university store. I think the most expensive would have been a computer, which his father approved of, and clothes and other things.

How much was the computer? I'm assuming a little over $3,000. And who was the computer for? Did he use a computer? Actually, it became more, he used the computer, but I think a couple other people came and used it too. And did you use it? Yes, I did.

So he could just sign at the university store for the... For just about anything, and the bill went to his father. Okay. Did other people borrow things that belonged to Lyle? Yeah, Lyle was pretty lax about that. His dorm room was always open, except for maybe every once in a while he would lock the door. And people would come in and borrow shoes,

and there were several occasions where people would come by and borrow a shirt here and there, and then return it later, or CDs. Hayden was very, if we were missing anything, we'd just go over to Hayden's room. So Lyle's door was open and people helped themselves. Yeah. I take it. And he didn't seem to stop that.

No, everyone was under the assumption that it was okay as long as you told him about it. And if he wasn't there, then they returned it. Great guess, he brought a pair of shoes one time and he loudly bit his head off. There wasn't any problems with that. Was he generous with his friends? With his close circle of friends, yes, very generous. In what ways?

Well, again, he didn't have a whole lot of money. He had what little allowance he had and whatever. He spent that very quickly. But if he had $10 and we were hungry, we would all eat. And while you were at Princeton, was he helping you out economically while you were living in the dorm room with him? Well, aside from living in a dorm room, which was the greatest help of all, I have to say, I want to say no, but there was a couple of times he did help me. So it turns out that Donovan was something of a con artist.

And before he'd moved into Lyle's dorm room, Donovan had shared an apartment with Lyle's girlfriend, Jamie. And during their time living together, Jamie found out some suspicious things, such as, you know, multiple unpaid parking tickets in Donovan's name. And very soon he was coming up short with money for the bills. And then things started going missing from the apartment, including a large sum of money that Jamie had hidden in her closet. And so she started telling people that she thought her roommate could potentially be a criminal. And she said he'd admitted to taking her things and the money.

But then Donovan said that taking her things and the money. But then Donovan said that Lyle had taken the money, and then Jamie broke up with Lyle in April of 1989, at which point Donovan started living with Lyle at the dorm room with three other roommates. And within a week of this new arrangement, a green leather jacket that Jamie had given Lyle as a present had disappeared. And eventually, despite the red flags, Lyle and Donovan became quite close, as you heard, spent every day together, very close. And Donovan claims that Lyle confessed something to him months before Jose and Kitty Menendez were murdered. And it was after Donovan was sort of discussing his own childhood experiences. Did Lyle Menendez ever tell you that he had been sexually abused by either of his parents?

No, never. Okay. Now, I believe that you indicated on the stand yesterday that you had been sexually abused. Is that correct? Yes. Did you ever divulge that to Lyle Menendez? Yes, I did. Could you tell me the context in which it was that you and he had this discussion about your abuse? It was during that same dinner at the Chinese food restaurant that you just mentioned and I had told him that I was sexually abused as a child. Alright now what prompted you to tell him that? Well we were discussing how well we knew each other towards the end of the school year. We had spent a great amount of time together.

And he said he knew everything about me, and I told him, no, there's something you don't know. And I thought he should know, and so I told him. And what did you tell him? I told him that I was sexually abused as a child. By whom? A friend of my father's. Not by your father, but a friend of your father's?

Yes, that's true. And when you told him that, were you at this dinner? Yeah, at the Chinese food restaurant. What was his reaction when you told him? He was very shaken. How did he exhibit the fact that he was shaken? He just sat there motionless, listened very intently, tears were welling in his eyes. Did his reaction, did you know his reaction? In other words, was it peculiar to you or something? Yeah, it seemed peculiar.

I was shocked. He was quite emotional when I told him what had happened. Did that cause you to question whether something like that might have happened to him? Oh, sure. Did he ever tell you at that time that something had happened to him? No. Now Donovan here says no, Lyle never told him something like that had happened to him. But later Donovan does say yes, Lyle had admitted that his father had sexually abused him as a child.

And we are going to talk more about that as this unfolds. But back in California, Kitty Menendez started seeing a new mental health professional, Dr. Lester Summerfield of Thousand Oaks. Between February 27th of 1989 and August 16th of 1989, Kitty had 90 sessions with Dr. Summerfield. That's a lot of sessions. I think that's a lot of sessions. I mean, that's about seven months, 90 sessions, maybe not. But either way, in July of 1989, Kitty revealed to Dr. Summerfield that she was hiding some family secrets. She said she was concerned that her two sons might be sociopaths due to their lack of conscience and their narcissism. And this would be just a month before she and her husband would die

at their hands. And that is where we are going to wrap up tonight. It's a lot to unpack. As far as what Donovan said at the end there, I'm not saying I don't believe him, but you've kind of laid the groundwork where he hasn't been the most truthful with the people around him. And his opinion as far as how Lyle interpreted that information, if I were a lawyer, I would say, objection. He's not a psychologist. He can't tell. That's his opinion. But maybe he was just reacting because Lyle's a good friend and felt bad for his friend. Empathetic. Yeah. Now, I'm not saying that's the case. I'm just saying we don't know. But overall, my takeaway from this episode is there's definitely, I don't want to say a complete

change in course, but I just want to say a fuller picture. That's where I'm leaving this episode for episode number two is first episode. I remember thinking about it even while I was on vacation, just really felt bad for Eric and Lyle. And I still do to a certain degree, still do. But now I'm getting a little bit more of a complete picture of, yeah, they went through some things and it definitely impacted their development as children and who they eventually came to be as it would any child, right? I mean, you are the company you

keep and they were raised by two parents who, let's just put it out there, weren't the best parents. But now we're seeing some other things here where they didn't really need much. Eric and Lyle did not have a need for money. And yet it seemed to be something that they were, specifically Lyle and so Eric to a lesser degree, that they were intrigued by finances. It was something they were concerned about. It was something they thought about. We see it in both the criminal history, but also the script writing. And so there's starting to be a little bit of a narrative where maybe Eric and Lyle are thinking about other things other than what happened to them, but also how they're going to get on in life. Because for the most part, they've kind

of had the silver spoon where anything they wanted was provided for them. Even though they didn't necessarily love the way they were treated, everything was handed to them. But as most of us find out in life, as we get out of high school and get out of college, that the world's tough out there. It can be very difficult. And it's a reality check and a culture shock for a lot of people. And so for people who have been given everything their entire lives to consider the idea that they may have to earn their own way, coupled with the fact that they don't like these people to begin with, or they resent them. Could that, could that mean something?

Could that have driven them to what they ultimately did? The jury's still out for me. I have to know more. I feel like we have a lot more to cover. There's so many people involved in this story and it's going to be interesting to go through this and then to also break down the actual crime, because that's really what it's about, you know, to talk about how this was all done, how it was conducted. We haven't even gotten there yet. No, we will, though, obviously.

Of course. That's where we're at in the timeline now. But check this out. Just food for thought before we leave the episode. I wonder, because I know parents like this, wealthy parents who use that money and the promise of an inheritance to sort of control their children while they're alive, while the parents are alive. If Lyle and Eric had been threatened by their father, if you don't do exactly what I want you to do in life, I'm going to cut you off. So as they're starting to develop

other interests like football and drama, and Lyle was like, I didn't even want to go to Princeton, and I thought I would be better off at, you know, like a less intensive school. Like I wasn't cut out for this, but there was just no choice. So they want different things now. Their paths are diverging from their father's. And maybe they thought like, we're going to live in a box our entire lives because our father is going to cut us off if we don't do what he wants us to do. So maybe that was why. It was the money, but it was also like we feel so controlled. We feel so like we can't breathe. We can't be our own people. And we're not going to ever have the lives that we want while these two people still walk on this earth. There's so much to go over. I mean,

we could talk for another 20 minutes. I also look at how Joe treated other people in his lives outside of his children. Now, when we're talking about his employees, it's again, it's kill or be killed, sink or swim, either you serve a purpose or you don't. Jose strikes me as the type of guy who as children, he would do everything he could to strong arm influence, push his way to make sure that his children were successful. And not necessarily because he wanted them to be successful, but because they were a reflection on him. But he seems like the type of guy there where at a point when they're older, if they are not living

up to expectations and they are now an embarrassment, instead of helping them, he would distance himself from them. And as you just alluded to, basically tell them right out, hey, if you're not going to be able to live up to my expectations, if you're not going to do what I want you to do, the gravy train's going to stop. Don't expect a thing from me. And I'm sure there were multiple times where he, he made that very well known to them that, listen, I'm not going to be here forever. Just to, you're not going to just skate by. I didn't skate by and neither are you, you got to earn your keeps

and that's just it. And so could that have been a part of this equation where they were willing to tolerate this type of behavior and abuse for a period of time because they were getting what they wanted. But when they realized there could come a point where he was still going to treat them poorly, but also not provide for them. Was this something that became an option because of that? I don't know yet. I want to hear more. Yeah. And you will, you will, everyone, you all will. I want to thank you guys for being here tonight. It's another, I think a really deep episode. It's a lot to digest. We'll be back next week with another crime weekly news on Tuesday and Wednesday for audio and video. And then we will be out with a part three for the Menendez series. And we're going to start

getting into the case or the actual crime here from what you're saying. Mm-hmm. Oh, yeah. So, a lot to dive into. Everyone stay safe out there. We will see you guys next week. Bye. Bye.

Bye. Bye.