Crime Weekly - S3 Ep204: The Menendez Brothers: Kill or Be Killed (Part 3)

Episode Date: May 3, 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. LiquidIV.com/CrimeWeekly - Use code CRIMEWEEKLY for 20% off your first order! 2. TryFUM.com/CrimeWeekly - Save 10% off the Journey Pack! 3. Thorne.fit/Weekly - Use code WEEKLY for 10% off your first order! 4. For their buy 1 get 1 50% off deal, head to 3DayBlinds.com/CRIMEWEEKLY 5. MagicSpoon.com/CrimeWeekly - Use code CRIMEWEEKLY to save $5 on your order!

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Valid through 615. While supplies last. Selection varies by location. Hello, everybody. Welcome back to Crime Weekly. I'm Stephanie Harlow. And I'm Derek Levasseur. There's going to be a lot of testimony from Eric and Lyle because honestly, when we're talking about their experiences of our Crime Weekly followers. And we're going to talk about it right now. We're going to talk about it right now. You can tell we're both wearing our Criminal Coffee t-shirts. That's by design. It's been a long time. It's for me. I wear my criminal coffee t-shirts like every day. You do wear them a lot. You do wear them a lot. Every time I see you got a criminal,

not a bad thing. You're repping the brand. They're so soft. And so like just the perfect weight, not too hot, not too cold. Hey, we're not,

we're not pushing merch tonight. We don't have to push. I'm just saying that I'm not pushing it. I love it. But we are pushing criminal coffee. Yeah. And decaf is here guys decaf is finally here i've gotten so many emails from everyone regarding decaf not as many as i did for k cups

but definitely a lot so if you go over to criminalcoffeeco.com right now you will see our new character helen and we're calling this roast the Stealth Roast. And that's for a couple of reasons. Obviously, the stealthiness of, if you want to call it that, of decaffeination and not having- Yeah, because it tastes like coffee, but- Right. It still tastes just as good, but it's decaffeinated. And we spent a lot of time on this. So I'll let Stephanie dive into the character, but as far as the decaffeinated. So, and we spent a lot of time on this. So I'll let Stephanie dive into the character. But as far as the decaffeination process itself, I didn't know a lot about it initially.

And then as I was going through it, trying to select the perfect roast for criminal coffee, I found out there were different processes to it. And there are people who are very cognizant about this as far as using chemicals as opposed to just an all-water method. And I'm happy to report that we're using an all, this is a top secret, all-water method developed. And I want to make sure I'm saying this right, the Decaffeinators Mexicanos. This is out of Veracruz, Mexico. They've created this process. It's supposedly one of the best and obviously the safest because again, it's all water. So there's a couple other scientific facts about it. Stephanie, you want to talk about that? You

want me to talk about it? I think it's awesome that they use a top secret all water method because it's perfect for criminal coffee. Yeah. And you guys can look them up. They're like a real, it's a real thing. They're not messing around over there in Veracruz, Mexico. Yeah, they're not. And so what they do is they put unroasted green coffee and they soak it in water. This causes the caffeine and the flavor components to dissolve. They then filter that through a special charcoal filter that traps the caffeine molecules and it allows the flavor components to flow through. This removes 97% of the caffeine in the process. We think that as far as decaf goes, I mean, I tasted it and it doesn't taste like decaf. I couldn't ever say that any coffee tastes like decaf because I don't drink decaf coffee,

but I did drink it not knowing it was decaf because it was sort of a blind test and I couldn't tell the difference. It just tasted like really good coffee because it is really good coffee. It's got this really like a chocolate nutty kind of finish. It's silky. It's sweet. It's very well balanced, not bitter at all, which probably has a lot to do with this top secret filtration method that they've come up with. It's a really well-balanced cup of coffee. And like Helen is a well-balanced kind of character. And I definitely want to talk about the character because there's a lot to go into there. But also this will be our darkest roast.

Some of you have said you wanted something darker. This is going to be it. If you've seen the bags before, they have the magnifying glass. We have undercover roast. Some of you have said you wanted something darker. This is going to be, if you've seen the bags before they have the magnifying glass, we have undercover roast. We have rogue roast, which is medium alias, which was our darkest. This will now be our darkest roast. So you also have that as well. If you're someone who's looking for a darker roast, you have that, but you were mentioning Helen. And I think it's important to talk about the character because she's now joining the criminal coffee universe. She will be one of the main characters. So what should people know about Helen? What's something they should take away from this? Obviously, they can go read her

bio right now. Just the overview. And I was going to say that you can go to criminalcoffeeco.com, read Helen's full bio. But basically, Helen was born and grew up in Garland Grove. And as most people in Garland Grove, she saw violence everywhere she looked. And she kind of kept on the straight and narrow path. She stayed in school. She just tried to do well, but she had a lot of issues at home. And she kind of just grew up knowing that she wanted to do good for the world because there wasn't enough of that. So she went to medical school, and she became a doctor, and obviously, as most doctors do, she survived on caffeine and commitment to her family,

including her fiancé, Sam. Who else has a partner named Sam in real life? Well, our editor, Shannon, who the character of Helen is based off of. Shout out, Shannon. Yeah. If you've seen Shannon and some of you have had the opportunity to meet her and meet Sam, the character looks a lot like her. And we wanted that. And we asked Shannon for her permission to do so. And she was down with it. And so, yeah, we tried to incorporate people in our lives. And Shannon's a huge part of Crime Weekly. So what better person than her?

And yeah, and that was the other element to stealth, right? Like you'll find out when you start to read Helen's description and then also her first incorporation into the first development of her story and how she interacts with Chase, actually, that not only is the coffee stealth, but also her role in the world is kind of one of her skill sets as being stealthy and kind of going under the radar. So yes, she practices general medicine, but she also has skills in stealth and perception.

So these are things, these are skill sets that are gonna come in handy as our story progresses. So there's a lot of different elements going on there, a lot of little Easter eggs that you can pick up. And the only way to do that is to head on over to criminalcoffeeco.com. Go read the stories, go get your decaffeinated coffee, if that's what you're into, and let us know what you think. That's really all.

I think that's basically our plug. We took about four or five minutes there. So I think we're good, right? And the decafs available right now, right now. The only thing I will say is you'll see that the K cups are not available yet. That is a, they're coming. I already ordered the boxes for them in the lids, but it takes a lot longer. You guys have waited long enough. If you like the bag and you want to switch over to K cup when they come, that's great. But I wanted to at least get the bags going. It'll be offered in whole bean and in ground. Try it out.

See if you like it. If you do, when the K-Cups come in stock, they'll be uploaded to the website. We'll definitely make an announcement. But it could take, I would say, another month before those boxes are printed and ready to go and ship. So don't hold your breath. I would say try the coffee now. And if you like it, you can order the boxes later.

It's good stuff. We're biased. We think you'll like it. Check it out. Let us know what you think. But that was our plug for Criminal Coffee. Thank you for listening. For those who stuck around and fast forward through it.

I guess we should dive into the episode now. Yes. I definitely think there's a lot of people going, all right, come on. Because this series is getting a lot of engagement. A lot of definitely think there's a lot of people going, all right, come on, because this series is getting a lot of engagement. A lot of people are watching. A lot of people are listening. A lot of people with strong opinions.

People didn't necessarily agree with my takeaway from the burglary element of it and it being financially motivated. I didn't agree with you either. I thought it was just acting out. Which is normally the process. But overall, I think that's what's good about it because there were people in the comments, not as many, who do agree with that. So I think that's where we're going to come together.

We're going through the exposition. I think the fact that a lot of people feel that maybe they should be out goes to show the type of story, how good we're doing building the case for them initially. And then when we get to the facts of the case, maybe you'll feel differently. Maybe you won't. But you'll develop an educated opinion and whatever conclusion you come to, nobody can knock you for it because it's not without fact. So, you know, whatever your opinion is, got to respect it.

And we can all have discourse respectfully and amicably. Right, Stephanie? Oh, I would hope. I always. Oh, I would hope. I would. Yeah, I would hope so. Sometimes. Let's get into this week's episode. We've got a lot to cover.

Like you said, a lot of B-roll. I can see you here right now. So this episode, as a heads up, it does discuss alleged sexual abuse against children. And I know that this can be a triggering topic for many. But if you're watching this series, you kind of already know that it was coming. So hopefully you've prepared for it. And I want to talk a little bit about intrafamilial sexual abuse, because that refers to abuse that happens within the family unit. And according to the National Child Traumatic Stress Network, this is far more common than we would like to think,

because more than half of all children who are sexually abused suffer this at the hands of a parent or other relative. And that actually makes sense because it's the same thing for abductions. We talk about it all the time. Stranger abductions are actually very rare as opposed to familial abductions. Even children being murdered, it's far more common to happen within the family unit than for it to be some random stranger. Now, we know that random strangers do kidnap, abduct, murder children, sexually abuse children, etc. But when you look at the statistics, it's just far more common that it's going to be somebody closer to home. And so although we look at this story that the Menendez brothers are telling and we're shocked and we're horrified and we're like, oh, my God, this is so hard to believe. It's actually not hard to believe at all because it's quite common.

It just doesn't get talked about because when children who are abused by adults that are supposed to protect them from harm, their ability to trust and rely on adults, it could be shattered. It usually is. And knowing that their abuser is liked or even loved by other family members makes it all the more difficult for children to tell others about the abuse. So not only do they have the fact that their parent is an authority figure, the person who tells them what to do, who guides them through life, and that person's now telling them, this is our secret. You don't tell anybody. It's hard for children, especially young children, to go against what their parents tell them. But now you have the fact that you look around your family, even your extended family,

and they all seem to like and respect this person who's harming you. So you feel like you're the one who is wrong, that you somehow caused this or it's completely normal and fine. And the fact that you feel bad or wrong about it means that you're the one that's not on the right page. As a child, that's how they feel. Children who have been abused by a family member are more likely to blame themselves. And as a result, it can often take victims weeks, months, sometimes even years to let anyone know what happened and even longer to reveal details. Additionally, children from cultures that frown on talking about sex or sexuality may be even more reluctant to speak up. On top of that,

boys who have been sexually abused may be more reluctant to speak up because they will experience shame and self-doubt, sometimes even more so than their female counterparts. And historically, children who have revealed sexual abuse were rarely believed or supported. They often face negative reactions ranging from being told to keep quiet to being punished for telling lies, which if you look at this case, that's exactly what happened to Eric and Lyle initially. I mean, they were being made fun of on comedy skit shows for what their allegations were. And something I picked up as I was watching this trial, Lyle and Eric are consistently referred to as boys by the prosecutors, by their defense attorneys, even by the witnesses. They would say the boys, the boys, the boys. And I mean, we're talking about

grown men at this point, right? But even watching Lyle and Eric testify on the stand, you see that they're grown men, but there's something about them that's very childlike, very broken, very hurt, very vulnerable. And it could be an act. It absolutely could be an act. And I will say that there are times, and we will talk about it in this episode, where they'll say something or they'll make certain claims that it doesn't ring true to me. But for the most part, the kind of emotion that these two men were able to emote on the stand, I don't know how you could fake that. I mean, if they are faking it, the way they're sobbing up there, they should have been actors. They were in LA. That was the right place for them to be because this is like some award-winning performance. I'm not trying to be cynical, but it's amazing what you can do when your life literally depends on it. That's all I'm going to say. It may not be the case with them, but I've seen people sit right in front of me where I have the case notes or

the video surveillance and they don't know I have it yet. And if I didn't have that, if I were to just listen to them, I would 100% believe them. They just, I know, but I'm talking about like the, like the,

the kind of like the crying, just the, the way that it's like so raw. And it's like, there's a difference between like shedding tears and being like wracked with grief, you know? And I see that difference in them, but once again. That's why I'm interested to watch it. And I know that some of you have said, hey, listen, we like when you just give a synopsis or a summary of what was said at court and you keep it more in the moment between you two. This is not one of those cases you can do that. When we're talking about such serious allegations, you need to hear from the source. You need to see it with your own eyes. You need to listen

with your own ears. There's no way we can articulate or relay the feelings and emotions that they had when saying those words that we would just quote unquote summarize, that's going to do it justice. And for me, I've never seen this part of it. I've never seen any of it before. I really want to listen and watch them as an investigator because let's get right to the meat and potatoes here. We're talking about a situation where there are people, including myself,

who are questioning whether or not they brought all of this up to justify their actions, point blank period. So I'm trying to read between the lines to see if I believe them or not. Do some people think that they completely made it up to justify their actions or do they think that they're just bringing it up at the time of trial to justify their actions? Or do they think that they're just bringing it up at the time of trial to justify their actions? That's my feeling. I don't think that most of this was made up just completely out of the, because we've already had, which is why we spent two episodes on it. We already have character witnesses outside of Eric and Lyle who have talked about the type of behavior that Jose and Kitty have displayed to other people. So we know

it's just not coming out of left field here, right? We can say that at this point, there's other unbiased witnesses who have kind of supported some of the behaviors that were lesser extreme, but still to a certain degree, it rings true to what Eric and Lyle have said as far as the physical abuse, where we talked about that gentleman, I forgot his name, who witnessed something and said Jose shouldn't be doing that. And he said, this is my house. You can leave if you don't like it. It was a big ordeal.

And there's going to be more witnesses that come out in the trial that say- More witnesses. Yes. Even before the murders, Eric and Lyle told us what was going on. Even when they were kids, they had told cousins and things. Before they murdered anybody. So there's a lot there. So I guess what it comes down to me is not necessarily trying to figure out whether they're telling the truth or not. I know there's some of you that don't know the story, so I don't want to get too far ahead, but based on what they

did, were they that traumatized for it? Even though they were much later in life, was it enough for them to come back and do what they did? And again, I don't have the answers yet. I want to hear what they have to say and see that emotion to see how much they're physically and mentally affected by this and make my own opinion as a human being. So I think we all have to do that when we come to the conclusion. And that's why I think the B-roll, especially for this episode, is super critical. And I saw a lot of comments, especially on the last video, where they were saying, you know, they were adults. They could have moved out. They could have just left the house. And I agree. I thought that previously, too. Why not just leave?

But I think that today's episode is going to hopefully shine a little bit of a light on that situation for you. Is it true that one of them was already out of the house? Yes. Lyle was at Princeton and Eric was supposed to go to, well, we're going to talk about it, but he was supposed to go to a college on the East Coast, but then we're going to talk about it. There's a lot there. Thank you for answering the question. It's tough to not go too far ahead. Okay. So let me also say, because I did not put this in the script today. Yes, Lyle was not living in the Beverly Hills home.

That's what some people were saying. However, he was living in an apartment in Princeton that his parents not only rented for him, but that his mother would fly from California to New Jersey several times a month and just pop in. And his mother made sure that his aunt, who lived in New Jersey, had a key to his apartment so she could just go in and make sure that his girlfriend wasn't living with him. So it wasn't as if he was free and untethered. He still had minders and keepers and people watching him and his parents consistently reminding him of their presence, of their control, of their ability to shape his life, who he lived with, where he lived, who had access to his apartment. That doesn't sound like a grown man to me. If I'm 21, 22 years old, and my parents are giving people keys to my apartment and telling

them like, yeah, go in anytime, check up on this dude. I would feel a little like trapped still, even from across the country. Yeah. And that is very important, especially with this case. We're not saying anything most of you don't know. Eric and Lyle killed their parents, and the question is why. And what Stephanie just discussed, what we're going to discuss tonight, is a lot of what the defense is going to be surrounded about and what they're going to justify for their action. So we really got to get into it.

We really got to talk about it, and I'm looking forward to it. This was the episode that I was probably the most intrigued by to hear from their lips what their perception was of this whole incident and how much I can tell, at least from a trial, how much they were affected by it. So the Menendez brothers would claim that they had both been sexually abused at the hands of their parents. Yes, I said parents, not just Jose. So that's going to come. We're going to talk about that. For Eric, it had started at the age of six and allegedly had gone

on until he and his brother took their parents' lives, a total of 12 years. It had started with exposure to adult-themed videos, leading to inappropriate touching, and then followed by a carefully calculated pattern of grooming. Jose began taking pictures of his sons naked from a very young age, something they never even knew about until after they were arrested and these pictures were found. Do you recall when it was that you first saw or shown that naked photograph of yourself? Just before I got to court. With why you'd been in jail? Yes. How long from the time you were six when you say your father started to molest you?

How long did that go on? Twelve years. And were there episodes of sexual activity with your father over that last summer? Yes. Over the course of the 12 years, did the type of sexual activity that your father engaged in with you vary and change? Yes. Were there patterns to the behavior so that there were actually different kinds of sexual incidents with your father? Yes. And did you come over the years to give those different kinds of sexual incidents names? Yes. And would? Knees. K-N-E-E-S? Yes. That was one type? Yes. What was another kind? Rough sex. Rough sex. And was there another kind still? Yes.

And what name did you come to give that kind? Just sex. You called that sex? Yes. And was that that you called sex some form of intercourse? Yes. All right. So that was Eric Menendez discussing the different types of abuse. I'm not going to call it what he called it, the different types of abuse that he suffered at the hands of his father. And they were showing these pictures. And some of these pictures were taken on the same day as Eric's sixth birthday party.

So you've got, it looked like kind of in the same camera roll, pictures of kids blowing out candles, wearing birthday hats. And then these naked pictures of young boys' genitalia, which, by the way, was shocking for me. But they put them up in court. They put them up in court, like on a board. And they showed them on YouTube, which is why I cut it, the clip right there. I was stunned. She actually starts asking about the pictures. And she's like, do you remember this? Do you remember this picture? Do you remember this day of your birthday party? And he's like, not really. I was six. But then she's putting the pictures up as she's asking and they're just straight out these naked pictures of these little boys on YouTube. It was a little

jarring for me. I had to go back and I was like, did I just see what I just saw? And yes. So imagine, okay, there's people who are going to say that the Menendez brothers were lying completely about this abuse. But what if they weren't? So imagine that you not only lived through that, but now you're sitting in court as a grown adult and these pictures are being put up, not only for everybody in the courtroom to see, but for everybody in the world to see because these trials were televised and now obviously they're on YouTube forever and ever and ever. Imagine the trauma upon trauma upon trauma that's building as this is happening. It's like you're being re-victimized and there's no private spot in your life for you to go now. Everybody can see everything. Everybody knows advocate. I agree with everything you said. And I'm not just saying that to soften my stance here. I agree with everything you said. It's terrible to see that.

And I'm going to talk about not specifically, but what we just saw in that video, because that's my first time seeing it. But I will just say this as a counterpoint, none of that would be up for everyone's public consumption if they didn't murder their parents. They're in this position because of their own actions. That's all I their parents. They're in this position because of their own actions. That's all I'll say. They wouldn't be out there for everyone to see if they hadn't killed their parents. Now, it doesn't change what you said. Two things can be true. And I definitely agree with what you said, but that's, I just want to where my lack of sympathy comes from. I guess that's maybe I'm wrong for it.

Maybe I'm going to get killed in the comments, but I'm just being honest. That's, that's all for that. But as far as what I just saw hard to watch, and I'll tell you why it's hard to watch for a couple of reasons. I believe him first and foremost. And the reason I believe him is for a few reasons, not only because we have corroborating photos to support his allegations, but in my experience over the years, when you have someone who's lying, they tend to want to keep it general, especially if there's other people involved who could weaken their stance if they get the facts wrong, right? If they have two stories and they just don't line up, that's where investigators can start to pick it apart. And whenever more than one person is involved, I don't care how close you are, how much you planned ahead of time, how much you worked on your stories, you can start to screw up the detailed facts and then it starts to unravel what you're trying to create. So when he starts talking about the specifics of what they called the sex and things like that Those are unnecessary details for the for this But it adds a layer of authenticity to it

And they run a risk if they're lying every time they go that deep because if it doesn't align with something that Lyle had said earlier or someone else had said it could jeopardize their whole defense So the fact that they're willing to go to those details coupled with his emotion, add in the photos themselves, I find it very credible as far as his allegations. I do too. So we're going to talk about Lyle Menendez, but first we're going to take a quick break. Now for Lyle, the abuse started when he was six, but it stopped when he was eight. However, when he was 13, Lyle had gotten the impression that his brother Eric had become Jose's next victim, which would make sense why the abuse lasted only two years, because now Eric is coming of age. Now Eric is six, which appeared to be the age that Jose was drawn to. And it's not just Eric and Lyle that I'm using as an example of this,

but Lyle definitely kind of suspected and felt that something was going on. He knew what it looked like when it was happening to him. He knew how his father behaved and acted when he was doing it to him. And he saw this replicated with his brother, Eric. When you were about 13, did you think that it might be happening to someone else? Yes. And who did you think it was happening to? Eric.

And did you do something about it? Yes. What did you do? I talked to my dad. What did you say to your dad? I told him that I knew what was going on with him and Eric, and I heard noises, and that I wanted him to leave Eric alone.

And what did he say to you? He told me that Eric was... that Eric made things up sometimes, but that it would stop. And we should keep it just between us us or he'd kill me. Did you ever tell anybody what you thought was going on? No, I told him I would never tell anybody. I just wanted to stop. Yeah, that's tough to watch.

I mean, short answer, could someone fake that? Of course. But that doesn't seem like that's someone who's making that up. It sounds like they're reliving that memory and having some regret about maybe not acting further to protect their little brother. He was 13. What's he going to do? So, yeah, it's very believable. That's, I mean, to put it out there, it's very believable. But I agree with you.

It doesn't matter that he's 13 because now he's a grown man and he's thinking about being 13, but from the mind of a grown man and he's thinking I could have done more because that guilt, that shame, that's the common thing to feel. You feel shame because it happened to you and you feel guilt because it happened to somebody else and you didn't stop it. It's very traumatic. I mean, it's common, too, even to a lesser extreme. I can tell you myself, there's been regrets that I've had as a kid or even as an adult, whether it was with my dog or could I have done more, where you start to think about it and you cry over it. You get emotional about it because to you, it's right there. It brings up all those memories, all those emotions you had at the time, and it can affect you. And having this in a courtroom where he's looking, I believe his brother was in the same courtroom with him at that time, right? Or was he? So he's looking at his brother. There's a lot going on. And again, very believable. You know, nothing's a hundred percent, but if you were to, if I were a betting man, I would say he's, he's telling the truth. And again, he's being very specific, very detailed and doesn't seem like he's sensationalizing it for the sake telling the truth. And again, he's being very specific, very detailed, and doesn't seem

like he's sensationalizing it for the sake of the story. He's telling you what he remembers. Yeah. And Lyle also talked about these videos that his father would have him and Eric watch and how they were basically exposed to this kind of content that honestly, I would say kids shouldn't be exposed to. But the way he describes them, it doesn't really seem like anybody should be exposed to them. And remember, Jose worked for a video company, so he was constantly bringing home all these videos. I don't know where the hell this dude's getting them from, these kinds of videos that Lyle's going to talk about. But he had them and he brought them home. And then he had his sons, his children watch them. We see that a lot with online predators,

people who are in positions where they're watching children, whether that's a nanny or a babysitter or a teacher or whatever it might be. But it starts off very light, right? Hey, what do you think of this photo? Of course. What do you think of this video? And they're trying to lower their guard and get them adjusted to seeing and hearing and reading certain things. And so that when they decide to discuss it with them, it's not as unnerving. It's not as unexpected. They can kind of follow up with, what do you think of that? Did you like that?

Did that turn you on? Did you have a feeling? So they can start to gauge where they're at. And if they're not where they need to be, they can start to slowly, like you just said, groom them to get them to a point where they can take advantage of that situation. So it can start with videos and photos where it might just be a joke or a cartoon, very light, innocent in the surface. At least it sounds like that. But obviously, this is an onset to something much more sinister. It is. And like I've said before, this is the prime time for these neural connections in children's

brains to be forming. 100%. That's going to form the framework of how they believe that life is lived. And if you're wiring them to think that it's perfectly normal for them to see this kind of content and for them to think that this kind of violent sexual content is what intimacy between a man and a woman is, you're setting them up for relationship failure, sexual failure, aggressive behavior, just, you know, disrespect towards women, treating women like objects. You're spoiling them not only for themselves, but for everyone around them.

You're basically taking away any chance that your kids have to be happy, healthy and normal, normally functioning. I've had this happen in interrogations with child molesters where it's almost like a way of disguising what they want to do and almost like setting up a defense in the future where I'll say to them, did you watch porn in front of her? Oh, yeah. But she walked in on it. I wasn't like I had. You know what I mean? They're setting it up like they already knew I was going to ask that question. They already knew what she had seen and what they had done with her. And they were prepared for it. They had this answer in the back

of their head for months or years, however long it had been going on. So when I say, oh, isn't it true that you were watching porn with her and had her sit down? No, no, no. I was watching it. She walked in. I'm not allowed to watch porn. Like they are, they go back into defense mode. No, technically you are not. If you're, if're minor child can walk in at any time. Yes. That is considered child abuse. Can I tell you a little secret? Yeah. We love when they start to admit to those things though. That's the best. They think they're giving us a defense, but when they say, Oh, what? We can't watch porn. Thank you. You just admitted that you were, and she walked in. So you're admitting to the story occurring. You're giving her credibility and I'm starting

to chip away at that rock. So thank you. Cause now we're building credibility with our victim and you're admitting that there were things that she's accusing you of that happened. You're not going to come out and admit that you did what we know you did, but you're going to, if you start even just giving us a little bit, we're going to keep working that. And so they think like, just nailed that question. And I'm like, thank you start even just giving us a little bit, we're going to keep working that. And so they think, like, just nailed that question. And I'm like, thank you. You just acknowledge that what our victim is talking about is actually true. And this is just the start of the interview, not the end.

So I love when they start admitting to these trivial things in their mind, quote unquote, trivial that they think are irrelevant. They're very relevant and very important to what we're going to lay out to a court. The fact that they think it's irrelevant is the worst part because- Yeah, all the citizens. Yeah. You got to love these criminals with zero self-awareness, so low self-awareness that they're not even cognizant of the fact that they should lie about what they're doing because to them, what's wrong with this? This is completely fine. And that just that whole standard of thought is a danger to a child. So exactly. You've revealed yourself to be somebody who's depraved and probably not okay to be around a minor. No, of course not. No, it is great though when they start to admit,

oh yeah, that happened. And then I can start to pick apart their excuse for it. But didn't this happen? Oh, by the way, wasn't it the middle of the day? Is that when you start to break down that alibi, if you will, the reasoning behind it, and then you start to discredit it. So it's like, thank you for opening the door. I'll let myself in now. And you start to go into it and you can dissect it. And by the time it's over, most of the time, they're like, they have no clue what just happened. And that's why these types of things where a victim will tell us like, oh, he showed me this photo one time, or he showed me this clip of something. Well, what was it? Those details are important because that's what I'm going to start with. I'm starting with the quote unquote light stuff to open that door to see what he's willing to admit to. And then I'm going to get into the heavy stuff, but I need to get him on the hook for the little stuff first to show the type of person we're dealing with.

So when you said this, when you, when we're starting to talk about videos, it completely brought me back to those days when I, when I did a couple of these cases involving children where their offender was a parent who started with something like a video or a photo that was innocent in nature. And again, air quotes on that one, but just something that was either innocent or accidental. That was the excuse a lot of times too. Oh, they just happened to look at it. I wasn't showing it to them. Well, let's hear Lyle talk about these videos. Were there pornographic films

that were made available to you and your brother? Yes. And where did these films come from? My dad brought them home with other videos. And would you and your brother sneak and watch them or how would you see them? No, my dad would, we would just watch them together. With your dad? And what's the earliest age you remember being shown films like this? I remember some films in Muncie at the end. Mostly I remember in Pennington,

Pennington House. What types of things would be portrayed in these films? It was mostly violence, sexual violence. I remember a whole bunch of the films there would be films with gang rapes there was one film centered around a woman that was riding her bike and was abducted and brought to a forest and gang raped and there was another different film where there was females, three females attacking another female and the same in the men's locker room with three guys and another guy. Violent sexual acts. Other film, it was like a film within a film where this filmmaker was making a lot of money selling these violent sexual pornography that he would take place in a red room and then the premise of the film is they eventually find out that the killings and the sexual violence in the red room is real, and that's why the films are so good. And there were lots.

Did your father show these films to other people besides you and yourself and your mother? Only as... like in a... just shock value. How do you mean? Who did he show them to? He showed him to, that I remember, Peter Goldsmith.

He showed him to neighbors in the Pennington house when they would come over at times. It seemed like he would tell me in advance he was going to do this and it was more to embarrass my mother than anything else, but he would just put on this video and people would sort of settle in and then he'd shock them. He showed them for some of my friends that would come over every once in a while. He'd just throw one on, and I really wasn't very bothered by him, and we would watch them together. Do you ever take photographs of you and your brother? Yes.

And what would the circumstances be in which he would take photographs? He would take photographs of us, um, our private parts. And would he have you come in and pose for these photographs? How would that happen? I would just, if we were in the showers or bathtub or changing, he would just use the same camera that my mother used, and then he would come in,

take just a photograph or two, and he wouldn't say anything, and then he would leave. Do you ever show you those photos? No. He would take photographs of your genital area, the lower half of your body, or your bending over, or just different parts of your positions

is what I never really knew. Because you never saw them afterward? Was that yes? He would be focused on those areas, but I've never seen these pictures. Is today the first time you've seen these pictures? Is that yes? Yes.

Did your dad used to have talks with you about sex between men? Yes. And what types of situations would he talk to you about? He would talk about bonding between men, going into battle or in competitions, mostly with regards to battle and history, and that sexual interaction and touching and hugging but also sex was throughout history was something that men that had gone in the battle had done together. Had me read passages about it. What do you mean had you read passages about it? What would he give you to read?

Excuse me, Your Honor, can we have a time period, please? Yes. What time are we talking about in your life? We're talking about when I was six. What would he have you read? He had history books with passages outlined, various battles and strategy, but in terms of on this subject, there would be particular passages about Greeks, soldiers having had sex with each other before they went into battle as a way of bonding with each other so they have a stronger connection and he would talk about the same thing with regards to sports and and he and I. And did he talk about fathers and their firstborn sons in this regard?

Not unless, not that that's what, I don't understand the question. Did he talk about, you said he talked about soldiers and having sex between them as a bonding mechanism. Yes. Did he talk about teachers and students? No. Did he? Oh yes, he did actually, not teachers.

He talked to me about, I don't know, they were like lecturers or traveling lecturers, professors, and they would have arrangements with very close special students, young boys, and they would have sex and they would touch each other. And did he talk about it with regard to fathers and sons? He talked about it with regard to our relationship as being very special and our family history with first the firstborn and the father. And what was special about the relationship of the firstborn and the father? That it was special and that that was really all that mattered was the firstborn

and that the sons should do what the fathers say and then they grow up and they become like the father and the father teaches them, molds them and someday me and my son do the same and between the ages of six and eight did your father have sexual contact with you yes and how did it start? It started with, after sports practices, he would massage me and we would have these talks, and he would show me, and he would fondle me, and he would ask me to do the same with him, and I would touch him, and we would undress.

Where would this take place? In my bedroom. And how often would this happen? Like two or three times a week. And for how long did this happen? Like two or three times a week. And for how long did this happen? Not too long. It began to change. When did it begin to change?

I'm not sure exactly at what time, but almost close to when I was seven. And how did it change? I just became more involved. What do you mean more involved? We would be in the bathroom and he would put me on my knees and he would guide me, all my movements, and I would have oral sex with him. Did you want to do this? Yes. What else did he do to you? He used objects. What kind of objects? A toothbrush and some sort of shaving utensil brush.

What would he do with the toothbrush? Well, in the bedroom, we'd have what we called object sessions. And just slide my pants down or take my pants off. Sometimes it would be for a short period of time, sometimes longer. He'd play me on the bed. He'd have a tube of Vaseline, and he just played with me. And was there some point in time when he decided to use something besides the toothbrush? Yes. And did he try to anally penetrate you with something else? He did.

And what was it? It... It... It... It... It... It... It... It... It...

It... It... It... It... It... It... It... It...

It... It... It... It... It... It... It... It... It... It... Yes. How did you ask him not to? I just told him. I don't, I don't... I'm sorry.

I just told him that I didn't want to do this. And that it hurt me. And he said that he didn't mean to hurt me. And he loved me. Was that important to hurt me. And he loved me. Was that important to you, that he loved you? Yes, very. But I still didn't want to do it. Did you tell your mom?

Yes. What did you say to your mom? I told her to tell Dad to leave me alone. And he keeps touching me. Really hard clip to watch. Especially, it's obviously hard to watch Lyle in that condition, talking like that, right? Like at his age now. But it's even harder to watch when you think about the fact that he was a six or seven-year-old boy when these incidences were taking place. And I will tell you,

I'm not sitting here disagreeing with you or anybody else who's involved in the series now with us. I understand the passion, the frustration, and the anger and the resentment and the feelings towards Jose and Kitty. I'm not saying they're unwarranted. I have said numerous times on the show how I feel about people who hurt or who do anything to children. There's no me getting around that or disputing it, and I'm not backing off of it either, but I'm just trying to separate those emotions from this case and the separation of what happened. And it's a lot and it's hard to do. But yeah, just watching that clip, extremely difficult to go through. And I'm glad you gave the warning at the top of the show because that's going to be hard for a lot of people to hear,

especially if they have any type of connection, they can connect to what he's saying because of their own personal experiences. And it's just a difficult clip to watch. But I think it goes back to what we said earlier as far as you could summarize what he just said, but would it have the impact on me or on the people watching or listening that seeing it with your own eyes or hearing it with their own ears has? And I think the answer is clearly not. So tough to watch, but I also think necessary

when we're really trying to understand what we're dealing with here. The whole story about how Jose would tell him, oh, before Spartan men went off to battle, they would have sex with little boys to get closer and bond, and then they'd all go off to battle together. And like, one day you'll do this with your son. He's trying to normalize it. He's trying to parallel love with sex and basically make this kid feel like using different sources. This is just what happens. And that's so unsettling to me because that's going to change Lyle's framework forever. And I mean, clearly, how many years later, he's still so affected. I think that it was interesting when Lyle said he told me if I ever told anybody he'd kill me because we're going to hear this echoed again from Eric. But yeah, there's more, right? Because like I said, it's going to change Lyle's entire framework. And it's not going to take until he's a 20-year-old man shooting his parents with shotguns to see that it changed his framework. That's going to

happen a lot earlier, as it does. We are going to talk about that after our next break. So we're back and you reminded me of something because that was a long clip that you said right before we took the break. And that's some of the other things that were said in that clip. And I go back to credibility and building out a case and showing validity in what Eric and Lyle are saying as far as how it relates to their defense. And again, here's another clip where Lyle is talking about something he's experienced and he's using a lot of descriptions and a lot of details that I don't think most people would go to unless they've experienced it. There was a lot of unnecessary stuff there if it weren't true. You could get the point across with one or two stories. He had a lot of stories.

But most importantly, the stories about the grooming with the videos, when asked if other people have seen this, yes, many people who can corroborate these stories. And again, it's not corroborating what happened in the bathroom or the bedroom, but it does show the behavior that he's willing to display in front of people he barely knows. And it does give you a different look into the

eyes of Jose Menendez Sr. and his mindset. And so again, when you're trying to evaluate Eric and Lyle, and they're talking about these stories involving porn and all these different things, when they're able to say, yeah, other people saw that as well. Don't think for a second investigators and prosecutors and defense teams can't go and interview those people and see if they're telling the truth or not. So they wouldn't say those names of those individuals, those neighbors, unless it were true, because it would hurt their defense. So there you are having another person where they can go and check and verify their stories, which is obviously important to the investigation. Which they did.

And exactly what you- They didn't. They wouldn't be doing their job, right? Right. Which is exactly what you said. This anecdote of other people seeing these videos, if it wasn't true at all, even his- Eric Lyle, they never would have said this stuff. And their defense attorneys, if they did say it before going, you know, before going to trial, the defense

attorneys would be like, okay, who can cooperate that? Because if they can't, you're not saying this. You got 55 other stories. Leave that one in the edit bin because if we don't have support, it's not being said on the stand. Common sense. You and I rob a bank, right? It's just me and you. The police come and talk to us. You and I are going to have a preset story, right? It's just me and you. The police come and talk to us. You and I are going to have a preset story, right? But you know what we're not going to do? If we're lying, we're not going to say, yeah, our friend John and Tammy and Sam can confirm our stories. No, we're going to keep it to you and I, because we can keep that in check. We're not going to start bringing other people into our illusion because that's when it can get exposed.

I mean, at that surface level, but that's the truth of it. We're going to keep it between the two people who are in on the actual story, who have had a chance to kind of compare and contrast notes and kind of get their I's dotted, their T's crossed to make sure everything lines up. They're not going to start bringing other people into the equation that could ruin the whole thing. So yeah, them doing that and him doing it so freely and being able to do it off the top of his head like that, to me, I think at this point, it's very clear that there's a lot of truth, if not all truth, in what he's saying. I agree. And let's return to the statistics on sexual abuse in children and

see what the warning signs are in an adult who may be a perpetrator of such abuse. Refusing to allow a child enough privacy to make their own decisions about personal matters. Insisting on physical touch, whether it's kissing, hugging, wrestling, tickling, even when the child makes it clear that they do not want that. Discussing or sharing sexual jokes or sexual material with a child. Check. Insisting on alone time with a child with no interruptions, check. An adult also may treat one child as their favorite, check. And as we know, the abused child may then turn around and repeat the toxic cycle with someone younger and more vulnerable, which is exactly what Lyle claimed he did to his brother, Eric. So during the time between six and eight, when this was going on, did you tell your brother?

No. Did you do something to your brother? Yes. What did you do to your brother? I took him out to the woods. Whenever I felt... I don't know. I took him out sometimes.

I took a... a toothbrush also. and I played with Eric in the same way. And I'm sorry. real quickly because there was just a lot of crying there for anybody who did who's only listening on audio the camera's on Lyle and he's talking about it and you can obviously hear how emotional he is but then it pans to Eric who's obviously in the courtroom and he has a lot of emotion. He's crying as well. And you can see that again, he's reliving that as well. Really emotional moment in the trial, in the testimony there. And when you go back to what we were just saying a couple minutes ago, as far as trying to build a defense, trying to maybe, if this is a fictitious defense, just trying to get people to believe them. This story, completely unnecessary. Doesn't help Eric,

doesn't help Lyle. It's just very embarrassing for them to talk about. And obviously Lyle is regretful of what he did and the fact that he even thought that was okay. So does this help them defense-wise? You could argue that it does because it builds a level of sympathy for them and it makes them, I don't want to say relatable, but it makes them more human and shows that they were just children. But on the surface, when I'm trying to evaluate their truthfulness, this doesn't help them in their defense argument to the degree that I think it would be necessary to say. And yeah, they're going there. They're showing a level of vulnerability that would most likely come from people who are just telling the truth and just telling their experiences. like vicious cycle being repeated. The abused becomes the abuser. So it could help their case in that way because it is a common side effect in abused children. But like once again, that emotion,

that level of emotion, I think it would be hard to just pull out of your ass. Where did Lyle get this from, right? To take his little brother out there and do that. Where do you learn that from, right? If this isn isn't if this is all true someone had to teach him that right so and it's not i mean i don't know what i know they were watching some graphic pornography but this seems like something you wouldn't even graphic pornography that they were exposed to at the hands of their father yeah yeah no it's all all roads lead back to to jose menendez so far so far yeah but you did that previous clip. You cut it there. Cause I think we're going to go there eventually,

but there was a point where we, you left us on a little bit of a cliffhanger there, but Lyle was asked if he had ever told his, his mother. And he said he did. Oh, he did. We stopped it,

but we're going to get there. I'm sure. I'm sure you're not going to leave that stone unturned, but yeah, just really hard stuff to listen to. And you know, if there's too much for people But yeah, just really hard stuff to listen to. And, you know, if there's too much for people out there, certain people, feel free to skip ahead. We get it.

But it is important to kind of go through it so we know who we're talking about here, especially if we're going to come to the end and say, oh, I think they should be let out for what they did. This is important. Once again. OK, I'll go back. They alleged that Kitty knew. OK. OK. So I who knows? Like they alleged that Kitty knew. Okay. Okay. So who knows? They alleged, meaning Eric and Lyle.

Yeah, so it's difficult to gauge the situation because the person that they're talking about is no longer with us, so she can't confirm or deny. And if she was still alive, would she admit to knowing that her husband sexually abused their sons and she did nothing? It's kind of one of those he said, she said situations. One of those we'll never know situations. No, but I appreciate you saying that though, because they're alleging it. And I think it's super important. Everything else at this point can kind of be verified. Jose's behavior

to other people can be verified. But it looks like what you're saying that this allegation of they tried to tell Kitty and see if she could stop it, it's only been relayed to us by Eric and Lyle, which does open the door that the question, could they be lying? They killed both Kitty and Jose. Could they be telling the truth about Jose and lying about Kitty to justify that? So I'm glad that you pointed that out. And I'm glad that you qualified that by saying, hey, we don't have anything as substantial or concrete about Kitty's behavior that we do have about Jose. At least as far as her being aware. Knowing of it. Correct. Yep. But still important. Yes. Both Lyle and Eric claimed they tried to tell their mother,

Kitty, what was happening. She wouldn't listen. And even as Eric grew older and the abuse continued, his mother still refused to help. And I mean, as she's as time's going on, Kitty's becoming progressively more and more disassociated, detached. She's drinking. She's got stuff going on. She's seeing psychiatrists. She's on a bunch of medication. Was she even really completely there? No. She did mentally and emotionally check out, I think. Do I think Kitty knew? Probably. Probably. But it may have even been one of those instinctual things. Just like, I live in this house. I know the people, you would notice something was off. And maybe that's one of the reasons she started drinking and started self-medicating and then actually medicating with real antidepressants and anti-anxiety things. Because she just, you know, it was this dichotomy in her head of like what she knew was happening and what she knew was right.

And she couldn't really align those two things anymore. And she had to sort of check out. Well, for what it's worth, I believe Lyle, I believe that he did. He did tell Kitty. I think it's a natural thing for a child to do is there's two protectors in your life at that point. If you are lucky to have both, you have your mother, you have your father, and you have a situation where if the father is touching you in a certain way or abusing you or hurting you, you go to the other protector because you've kind of viewed those two together. So, you know, hey, mommy, can you tell daddy to stop hurting me or touch, whatever. Like it's not even like to get him in trouble. Yeah. Cause when you're a kid, of course. Yeah. It's like, oh,

just you relay it to her. So, and again, he had some emotion when he said that as well. So at this point, and this is why all the little details are important because it can go the other way, right? If I'm able to disprove other parts of his stories that may be insignificant, but it just shows that he's embellishing or not telling the truth, then it makes me question everything. But up to this point, it seems like the majority of what he has said can be verified. So I have no reason not to believe him when he says, yeah, I told Kitty as well. And she, you know, I don't know what happened after that. It just, you cut it there, but it doesn't sound

like she did anything about it. So if that's true, then obviously it doesn't make her look good. And you could, you could say this is part of the reason that she was brought into what eventually happened because they felt that she was responsible as well by her just ignorance to it or her pretending like she didn't know. That's not complacency. By being a bystander. Yeah, by being a bystander. Just by being a bystander and being complicit doesn't make you not responsible. No. And Eric, when he's in high school and he's starting to approach college, he knew that his mother, Kitty, wanted nothing more

than to get him and his brother off to college and out of the house as soon as possible, which was fine with Eric because that's exactly what he wanted as well. He said he knew it was the only way that he could make the abuse stop. Did you hear your mother talking about what her expectations were after you went off to college? Yeah, she was excited to get Lyle and I off to college and away from the house so that she could take trips with dad and she wouldn't have to let, she didn't want dad to go on business trips alone. And so she would be able to go with dad to business trips and she'd just be able to have the house to herself and have dad to herself yes how important was this idea in your mind that

going to college would end the molestation by your father? How important was it? Yes, how significant a notion was this? It was the most important thing in my life. It was everything in my life. It was all I thought about. Why was it all you thought about? I don't understand. All right. Why was it all I thought about?

Yeah. Because it would end the sex, and that's all I thought about. How did you feel at 18 about the fact that your father was having sex with you? I hated it. I hated it. I hated it. What did you think your options were with respect to sex with your father?

Options? I had no options. Well let me ask you this did you over the course of that, well did you over the course of the preceding three years never consider killing yourself? Yes. And what was the reason as far as you understood it why you thought about killing yourself? Because it would end the sex and that's

all I wanted. Had you ever tried to end the sex through confrontation or violence against your father? Yes. Yes? You were violent towards your father? No not violence no but I said no to him once. You said no once? Yes. How old were you when you said no? I was 17. Was there a reason that you gave him for saying no? Not that I gave him. Was there a reason, though? Yes.

What was the reason? I just couldn't take it anymore. I didn't want it anymore. And I was really in a bad state that day and he just walked in the room and i said no were there certain things or signals that he did when he walked into your room that told you that he wanted sex of some kind yes and did any of those things happen on that day when you said no? Yes.

Now, without going into the details of it, on that particular occasion, after you said no, did your father become upset? Yes. And did he do anything violent? Yes. And would you just tell us, not what happened, but just generically, what violent things did you do? He threw me on the bed and I went to get a knife and put it up my throat. Put the knife to your throat? Yes. And was there sex with your father that day? Yes. Was it that fourth kind that you called sex. So Eric is thinking, you know, he's about to go off to college and get away. But then he finds out that Jose, his father, had other plans for him,

which did not include having his son leave home. During the summer of 1989, Eric and Jose had lunch together and they talked about Eric's future plans. Jose told Eric that he wanted him to major in business and economics and after college enroll in a special business law program at UCLA. Jose planned to move to Florida with his family and get like that whole peninsula and have like a family compound and then go into business with both of his sons. Eric was never known for his academic skills. He had been an average student for most of his school years and so much focus had been put on tennis and other athletics that it may surprise you to find out. According to Eric, his father wanted him to drop tennis so he could focus on getting his grades up so that he could be considered for entry into that UCLA business program. This was a surprise to Eric as well, since UCLA had one of the best tennis teams in the nation, and he'd been scheduled to spend some of his summer at a tennis camp so he could hone his skills before the team tryouts. My father expected me to make the team if I tried out for it. I guess that didn't work into his calculations. I don't know.

But he just told me that he hadn't decided whether or not I was going to be playing on the team that he hadn't decided whether or not I was going to he wanted me on the team and that he would let me know before tryouts now was this a new experience for you your father sitting you down and telling you what you're gonna do with yourself in your life and your sports and your work and all of that no this is very typical yeah that's what happened so did it however bother you in some senses in some ways in what way did it bother you well it bothered me because it was a big challenge for me to get on the team they didn't have a junior varsity team it was they

cut that program so it was just the varsity team. There were only like 13 or 14 players that made it. And so it was a big challenge, and I was really working to get on the team. And I was looking forward to it. But in a sense, it was sort of a relief if the pressure ended. What pressure? The pressure of tennis, of of just just I felt part of me didn't want to play on the team because I didn't want to have to have the pressure of

of winning the matches at the tournament. I mean, at the matches that they played. What was the source of the pressure? Was this in your head? Was this the coach of the tennis team? No, it was my father. He had all my course sheets lined up on the coffee table and had his writings and his papers. What do you mean by his papers? Well, he had, I guess, written out different courses I could take and then alternative courses and then alternative

courses to that and what I would be taking my second year and basically how I was going to line up my college years and what courses I was going to take. And did he have some materials from UCLA there that told him what courses were available what courses were offered? Yeah he had all the course sheets all the I never saw them so I don't I don't know but I mean I saw them when I was in that room with him. What do you mean you never saw them? You were gonna be the student, weren't you?

Yes, I was gonna be the student. And no one ever gave them to you to look over? No, my dad had them. And the papers you say, these are things that had his handwriting on them? No, well, some had his handwriting on papers, and then the other ones were the UCLA form sheets and course sheets explaining what all the different courses you could take in

your first semester, I guess second semester, and your second year, and so on. So if this is true, it all illustrates that Jose kept a firm grip on the lives of his sons, not only when they were young children, but even when they grew into young men, which may sort of shine a light on why they didn't just leave, because they felt like they couldn't. They didn't know that they had that option. They were never given that option. He couldn't, Eric couldn't even pick out his own courses for UCLA. He said he never even saw the course selection. His father picked it all out. And also, his father decided what college he was going to go to, what he was going to major in, and where he was going to live. But before we talk about that, let's go to our next break. Jose Menendez had plans to form his sons into his clones or into his vision of what and who he thought they should be.

And then when they'd been molded, he was going to move them all to Florida so they could go into business together. There was literally no escape. Lyle and Eric looked into their future and saw that becoming an adult, going off to school, starting their careers, starting their own families, all of this would be done under Jose's thumb. And it would never end until they died. But for a little while, Eric did have hope that his life was going to improve, especially with him going away to college and moving out of the house. At least he would have a break from living under the same roof as his controlling abuser. Initially, Eric had wanted to get as far away from Calabasas as possible, and he had plans to attend Brown University in Rhode Island. Eric had applied. He had an interview. He'd even spoken with the school's tennis coach.

He was looking forward to getting back to the East Coast and away from Jose and Kitty. But then this hope was yanked away from him. Yeah, it was after the coach called me and told me that he needed to confirm that if i got in i would go because apparently they have like they can get two players in or or something like that each coach of every sport as long as i have the minimal grade point average and he said if i get you in you got to promise me you'll go and that's when i had to talk it over with my dad and he said dad said no was there also some discussion in the family which included your mother about your going to the university of california at berkeley yes my mom wanted me to go to berkeley and did you have some sense of why your mom wanted you to go to Berkeley? Yeah. What was that?

She didn't want me around the house. She wanted me to go to Broadway to Berkeley. She wanted me to go to Brown. But then once my dad said no, she wanted me to go to Berkeley. Were you aware of the fact that your mother had some dreams that when you were gone to college, she could stay with your father all the time,

travel with him all the time, never leave his side. Did you hear that sort of thing? Yes. So Jose doesn't want Eric to leave because he's still abusing him, according to Eric. So he doesn't want his supply to leave. Lyle's gone. Jose stopped messing with Lyle when he was still a kid. But Eric has been his long-term victim and he wants to keep him close. Can I say one thing real quick, just because I was very, I found Lyle very believable. I will say that not a huge difference, but I don't find Eric as believable, or I guess I should say likable. Again, it doesn't matter, just saying as a witness or as a jury member, looking at this,

his mannerisms are a little harder. Now, that could be because he's experienced a lot more abuse than Eric. I mean, there's a lot of justification for it. And at the hands not only of his father, but his brother. His brother as well. So I'm not getting into the reasons behind it. I'm just saying on the surface, watching the clips,

I just find, I guess I could, I guess I say, I find Lyle's statements more impactful. That's all. Yes. And, you know, he's older.

He may be more in touch with his emotions. Don't take too much into it. Just my observations. Could feel more comfortable talking about them in front of other people i don't know i do wonder too if he's speaking to the prosecution here where because i obviously can change the demeanor to where right when you're talking to your your attorney it's a little softer it's more softball questions you kind of have a little bit of preparation. You're not on guard as much. Exactly. You know they're not trying to lead you down the wrong path.

If he's talking to the prosecutor here, everything's going to be combative. Everything's going to be defensive because you know they're not trying to help you out. They're trying to lead you somewhere. You're just trying to figure it out on the go. It'll never be as bad as Wendy Adelson, though. It's true. That is true. She took the cake for talking to the prosecution.

But it seemed like Jose didn't want Eric at UC Berkeley either. He wanted him close by at UCLA. And even when Eric thought that he would still gain some freedom and independence and space while living in a dorm room on campus, Jose informed him, no, you're not going to live on campus. You're going to be commuting from home. And Jose said it was so that he and Kitty could keep an eye on Eric and make sure he was doing his schoolwork and getting the grades that he would need to be successful after college and in life. But Eric did not think that was the real reason. So things weren't going well for Eric. The future was starting to look pretty bleak, and Lyle wasn't doing much better either.

On Tuesday, August 15th, 1989, five days before the murders, a heated exchange took place between Lyle and his mother while Jose was on a business trip. Eric had tried to play tennis that morning, but he'd been feeling so depressed and down, he was unable to finish the game. And when he got home, he walked in on the confrontation between his mother and his brother. They come out of a room. They came out of the den. And my mom came out first and she was yelling and she was saying, you don't need it. I don't care. I don't care what you want. You're not having it. And Lyle was right behind her saying, please, please, I need it. It's not that big a deal. It's important to me. Now, at that point, did you have any idea what they were talking about? No, I had no idea what they were talking about. And do you know where you were coming from? I was coming from my car. How typical was it for your mother to be yelling at Lyle? She yelled at Lyle all the time. Did she yell at you all the time not as much as she yelled at lyle and this particular on this particular

occasion on this tuesday was she did she appear to be angry yeah she was really angry and was that an unusual condition for her in relation to when she was dealing with lyle no she was usually very angry when she was dealing with lyle but she was really angry a lot that summer. What happens after you hear this exchange between your mother and Lyle? He was just saying I need it, and finally she just took a hold of his hair and just ripped it off. What did you think at that point? I didn't know what to think. I couldn't believe it. I didn't understand at first, and then couldn't believe it. I didn't understand at first and then it hit me and then I realized and I...

What didn't you understand? What hit you? What did you realize? She just pulled off his hair and I knew he had something done to his hair, but I didn't know what. And within a moment I realized that it was a hair piece, but I just couldn't believe it. At first, what did you think it was? I thought it was his hair. That she was ripping off his scalp basically yes i'll tell you what that's crazy because i mean at this point they're 17 years old around that age right and so eric would have been 18 because this is just right before the murders and lyle would have been 20, 21. So, and he had that hairpiece since around, am I wrong in saying 14 years old? Was it, I feel like.

I think he started losing his hair. Around 14. Or like thinning around 13, 14. And then a few years later, he got it. So let's just, for the sake of this, say he had the hairpiece for two or three years before this. It's probably longer than that. But let's just say for the sake of this conversation, two or three years, that just shows you the dynamic in that house that his own brother didn't even know he had a hairpiece. They clearly weren't spending that much time together and they

weren't that close. And to not have that be something that everyone in the house knew about, including his brother, is just an odd circumstance now maybe people in the comments will disagree with me but i think it was just like embarrassment lyle was very very embarrassed about it and it seemed that you know like kitty and jose super obsessed with their image that is going to pass down to their kids in a way where there's they're not going to want to reveal any signs of vulnerability any signs of weaknesses not even to their own in a way where they're not going to want to reveal any signs of vulnerability, any signs of weaknesses, not even to their own family members. And I actually understand that. His own brother didn't know that he had a hairpiece? I don't think it's odd at all.

Wow. I mean, there's things that I would never say that I knew about my brother and my sisters, and they know about me that I wouldn't want the public to know, but it was kind of hard to avoid in the house because there's maintenance with those hair pieces and stuff too. Right. Like, cause you still have like stubble and stuff growing underneath it. So you have to take it off. You have to reshave the area. You have to do all these things. So he must've been doing all of that behind closed doors. And, and yeah, I guess Eric was, but again, just shows that they weren't that close. He didn't even feel comfortable sharing it with his own brother.

They were very, they were very close, as close as two people who don't understand what intimacy is can be. Yeah, I guess. I didn't even know he had a hair. I mean, I just, I feel like that's something that would come up. He's like, I just thought she just ripped the hair off his head. Yeah. I mean, that would be shocking. I think it's, it's just an important piece, I think, because it really, to me, sheds a light on the relationship between Eric and Lyle, the relationship in the house where there was like this huge secret, not a big secret. I mean, a lot of people have hair pieces, but a secret that you

would think everyone in the house would know. And, and then here's Eric thinking, my mom just ripped off my brother's hair before realizing, oh no, it's a hair piece. Like that's, that's a revelation to me. I thought he would be in on what was going on in the house. I think that this whole, this whole family kept secrets from each other. Everything was a secret. Yeah. That, That's what I'm saying. The dynamic is not something I would expect in a family household. I think most of us have experienced, even if your family members don't get along. It's just something where what happens is if you have those skeletons, your family members, when you argue with them, they'll be the ones to throw the stone, you know, like, oh, you did this or you did that. But the fact that he didn't even know about it just shows that there was secrets within secrets in that house. Some of them more serious than others, but there was just a lot of things that were being kept close to the

vest by everyone. And that's gotta be exhausting to not even keep these things from the outside world. But even when you're home with the people you should be close to, you can't be yourself. Walking on eggshells under your own roof. That's tough. Like think about it, right? If you're home with the people you should be close to, you can't be yourself. Walking on eggshells under your own roof. That's tough. Yeah. Like, think about it, right? If you're right to not even feel comfortable enough in your own home, that secret, you know, it's enough of a secret to keep when you're out in public. But to also have to hide it from people that are your own blood, that's stressful.

That is stressful. And, I mean, it makes sense. It does. It does. It does make sense. It makes me sad. But the embarrassment of having his hair pulled off by his mother during an argument was one thing. But when Lyle saw that his brother had witnessed the event, he became even more ashamed.

And Lyle would say, quote, Eric didn't know I wore a piece. There were so many things we didn't talk about. End quote. It's a culture of silence. It's a culture of silence that abusers create in their victims, right? No, there you go, though. That was just there was just not a lot of conversation because if they had been having conversations, they would have discussed probably what was happening with their father as well. Well, Eric attempted to speak to his brother, but with tears stinging in his eyes, Lyle fled the main house

and fled to his bedroom in the guest house where he locked himself in the bathroom to put himself back together, you know, put his hair back on. When he was done, Lyle found Eric sitting in his room wanting to talk to him. According to the brothers,

a conversation was had at this point that changed everything forever. Did you have in mind what you were going to talk to him about? Not really. Just that, you know, I understood or I didn't mind that he wore a hairpiece and that I was feeling down too. Just to talk to him to comfort him. You heard your brother testify that you talked to him about how you wanted to be close to him yes and is that what you said yes did the conversation then evolve into talking about something else yes and what where did it evolve to what else did you talk about i was telling him that uh that things in the family didn't seem to be going so well. There seemed to be a lot of secrets and that

people seemed to be getting apart and that I didn't want that to happen between Lyle and I. I remember asking him if he remembered a conversation that he had with Dad when he was a lot younger, when I was 11. And did he respond? Yeah. He said he didn't know what I was talking about. And I asked him several times if he remembered anything about conversation that he had had with Dad or conversations that he had had with me about things that Dad was doing to me,

and he said that he didn't know what I was talking about. So eventually, did you clarify what you were talking about yeah what did you say I told him the things between dad and I were still happening and that uh and he kept he kept asking what I was talking about and you tell him what you were talking finally I told him I told him they were just sexual things sexual things yes now why did you tell him that why did you bring that up because i was feeling i was feeling really really depressed and really down and i didn't i didn't know what to do at the time so i figured i'd tell lyle and maybe he could

help me you heard him testify you heard your brother Lyle testify that when you told him that sexual things were still going on with you and dad, that he was very nasty towards you. Yeah, he was very angry. And who did he appear to be angry at? He was angry at me. He was asking me why I never told him. He was asking me why I never did anything. He asked me if I enjoyed it, if I liked it, if I ever fought back. He just didn't understand, and he was asking all these questions that were really surprising me. And apart from surprising you, how did these angry questions make you feel? They hurt me, and I was denying them. I was saying, no, of course not, no, of course not, and I was just trying to make him understand.

And at some point, did it appear that he did understand? Yes, he sort of. He sort of changed his tone. I could tell he was now just trying to understand where I was coming from. He was asking me who knew. He asked me if Mom knew. Okay, and what did you say when he asked you if Mom knew?

Oh, I told him, of course Mom didn't know, that if she would have known, she didn't know. And is that how you felt at that time, that your mother did not know? Yes. He started talking about how it was not going to happen again, and he started to get really, really angry. And he was, he was really upset and saying that it wasn't going to happen again. And I was saying, you know, I didn't know. Dad said it was going to keep happening, and I was really worried about it going on when he went away. And he said, I don't have anything to worry about,

that it's not going to happen again. Did he tell you anything else that was going to change besides that this wasn't going to happen? Yes. What else did he say was going to change? He said that I was going to go to Princeton with him. He said that if I couldn't get into Princeton, then I was just going to live with him over there. And did he tell you how these changes

were going to come about? Yes. And what did he say? He said he was going to talk to Dad. Talk to Dad about what? About the stuff that had happened between Dad and I. He said it was going to stop and that I shouldn't worry about it because it was going to end and he was going to make sure of it.

And did he seem confident when he said these things? Yeah he seemed really optimistic, too optimistic. Did you feel as optimistic as he seemed? No I I was trying to tell him you know dad's gonna be a little bit more upset than you think, dad's not gonna be little bit more upset than you think. Dad's not gonna be too happy about you telling him this information. And he said, no, no, don't worry about it. It'll be okay. It'll be fine. And he was really, I was just trying to warn him, but not too much. What do you mean you weren't trying to warn him too much?

Well, I was, I was really afraid that if I told him all that was happening that he might not talk to Dad and just leave me there. And so I didn't want him to get worried about it, that Dad might react badly. So I wanted to just tell him that Dad might not like what he's going to tell him. And I wanted to allow him to understand it a little bit more, but I didn't quite want to tell him. What was it you didn't want to tell him? Was there something your dad had said to you repeatedly?

Yes. I didn't want to tell him that dad said he would kill me if I ever told anyone, and he was serious. And I just thought it might scare him off. Scare who off? Lyle off. There you go. And by the way, this goes back to my previous clip. Because for people, including myself,

who are going to say, this was a collaborative effort. These two guys were close. They talked all the time. They planned this all out. We just got done an incident talking about a situation where Eric didn't even know Lyle had a hairpiece. So yeah, they were close in some ways, but clearly not close in others. So when you have two individuals that, in my opinion, weren't that close,

both corroborating a threat that Jose Sr. told to both of them at different times, it shows an MO for this person, this offender, that this was his way. He would do what he would do, and then he would intimidate his victim by threatening to kill them if they told anyone. Now, I know there are still people who could say, yeah, they could have compared notes beforehand before they killed him and came up with this. Yeah, it's possible. I got to concede that. But I do think the hairpiece story on the surface, you may say, that's insignificant. Why is this in here? It's obviously terrible that Kitty did this, but why are you, Stephanie, Derek, why are you talking about this? I think it's important now after you playing it, because I don't think it, I think it

shows that they weren't that close, which I think is significant when we're thinking about premeditation. These two really didn't trust each other that much. Look at this conversation that's happening five days before the murder. They're still not being completely transparent with each other. I also think it was like this little, this little like crack in Pandora's box, you know, where they finally like kind of saw each other. And it was like, oh, it was like the cracks of the foundation, the cracks of the mask that the Menendez family wore starting to sort of spider out. And they looked at each other and they were like, OK, we can't keep up the charade anymore. It kind of was like the straw that broke the camel's back. It put Lyle in an extremely vulnerable position where he where Eric felt, OK, I can share something vulnerable for me now.

Yep. I agree. It's probably a defining moment in their relationship. Maybe one of the first of its kind where they talked this openly. And I see what Eric was saying at the end there where I don't know if the lawyer was getting it or maybe she just wanted him to explain it more. But he was trying to warn him as like a good brother. Like, I don't want to see you get hurt or killed. But also didn't want to scare him off because he really wanted him to talk to his dad because he didn't, he didn't want

to happen anymore. So he was trying to be honest enough where he didn't have some feeling of like regret after if something happened between his dad and his older brother. But also he didn't want to say too much and have Lyle say, oh, now I'm not going to talk to him. I'm scared. To have Lyle say like, well, I'm not going to talk to him. I'm scared. To have Lyle say like, well. Yeah, you're on your own.

I'm over here on Princeton, man. Yeah, you're on your own. So wish I could do more. Yeah, he wanted to feel like, hey, I gave him enough warning. I feel confident with that. I'm comfortable with it, but not too much to scare him off. I totally get it. He didn't want the person who could potentially come between him and his father

to get hurt but he also didn't want him to leave and not try to to free eric from it so yeah i know we make light of it a little bit but isn't that isn't it funny how a hairpiece did so much like it's such a vulnerable thing that that's what potentially opened up Eric to say, Hey, I know something about you. I want to tell you something about me now. A hairpiece. Like it's, it sounds stupid. I'm not saying it to be comical.

Like that could, like you had said, be what allowed Eric to open up to him. I think it was, I think it was. I think you may be onto something there. Yeah. And I, I, I think we've all had moments like this with somebody. Yeah, it's a bonding moment. It's a bonding moment, and it's like this almost trauma dump. Yeah, yeah.

Like you've been waiting for so long, and it's been a weight you carried, and now you can release it a little bit. So the next day on August 16th, Eric and Lyle had lunch together at the Olive Garden. They talked more about their plans for the future to live together, to get away from Jose and Kitty. But once again, Eric told Lyle, don't be too hopeful because he genuinely didn't believe that he would be allowed to get away. By Thursday, August 17th, Jose was scheduled to arrive home from his business trip and Eric was feeling positive about Lyle's optimism. He was sort of letting it, you know, make him feel like there was a chance. And that day, Eric and his coach Mark were playing tennis in the backyard. And then afterwards, Eric left the house and he left the house because he knew Jose was coming home from the business trip and Lyle was going to talk to Jose about what he was doing to Eric and basically tell him like,

no more is enough is enough. And so Eric didn't want to be home when that happened. So he left. And then he would keep calling the house, calling Lyle's personal line that went to his bedroom in the guest house to be like, is dad home yet? Like, did it happen? And Jose's flight had been delayed. So every time Eric called, Lyle was like, no, he's not home yet. No, he's not home yet. Now, by the time Jose came home, it wasn't until after 11 p.m. At that point, Lyle claims that he took his father into the library. And he was nervous to bring this topic up with Jose, but he had made notes and he'd written a script prior. So he felt somewhat ready.

Lyle testified that he told his father that he knew everything about what was going on with Eric. And he needed to stop immediately or they would be leaving the house that night. Lyle said that at first, Jose was calm and quiet. And he asked Lyle, he was like, are you finished now? And Lyle was like, yeah. And then all of a sudden, Jose exploded into rage. And he told Lyle, like, shut your mouth. Don't ruin your life. Go to Princeton in the fall. Forget that we ever had this conversation. In turn, Lyle yelled back at his father, telling Jose that he was sick and that Lyle was going to tell everyone about him, even

their family, even the police. Lyle claims that Jose became calm again. And he was sort of like, oh, is that what you're going to do? Is that what you're going to do? Kind of like, remember in the first episode of this series, we talked about Jose's brother-in-law. I think his name was Carls Baralt. And he said that Jose had this way of speaking to people where he would be very calm and then he would get you all agitated. And then he'd be like, look at you. You're pathetic. You can't even control yourself. So that's kind of the tactic that Jose is using right now. And he gets real quiet again. He's like, oh, that's what you're going to do? And Lyle was like, oh, no, I mean, I'm not going to like I'm not going to tell anyone if it stops.

And he said his father responded, yes, you will. Jose told Lyle, I know you're going to tell people whether it stops or whether it doesn't. Basically saying like, you're a liability to me now. So Eric returns home. He goes into his bedroom and he's in there getting, you know, getting ready for bed. And then all of a sudden he hears pounding on his door, and it's his father. He's banging on the door.

He's demanding to be let in, and obviously, Eric's terrified. He started yelling at me. He was saying that he had told me never to tell Lyle and that he had warned me not to do that, and now he said that Lyle was going to tell everyone and that it was my fault, and now Lyle was going to tell everyone, and he was not going to let that and now he said that Lyle was going to tell everyone and and that it was my fault and and now Lyle was going to tell everyone and he was not going to let that happen he said he wasn't gonna let Lyle tell well he didn't say he

wasn't gonna let Lyle anyone he just said he wasn't gonna let that happen Lyle telling anyone well he had told me never ever to tell anyone and did he ever tell you what the consequence would be of telling anyone he would kill me oh yeah he he was angry he was more angry than i ever seen him he was angry and what did he do after he made these statements to you uh i started saying no he's not going to tell anyone i promise and he just told me to shut up and just rush toward me and did he come in physical contact with you yeah Yeah, he grabbed me as I was trying to get over the desk. Yeah, I was trying to jump over the desk because I just wanted to get away from him at that point. And he somehow stopped you from jumping over the desk and did

what? He grabbed me and threw me on the bed. He was grabbing toward me and I was able to just to fling my body away and run out the door. So you got away from him? Yeah. What was your mother doing in the den? She was sitting on the couch watching TV. She just looked over at me. And what condition were you in when you got into the den? Do you know? I was crying. And did she say anything to you? Did she make any comment to you? Yeah, she said, what's the matter with you? And what, did you respond to her when she said that? Yeah, I said, no, nothing, you won't understand.

You said... I said, no, nothing, you won't understand. And did she say anything to that? Yeah, she said something like, oh, I understand, I understand a lot more than you think. What did you say when you heard, well, first first of all what did you think when you heard that I couldn't I I thought that she was saying that she knew what was happening between dad and I but I couldn't I thought I had it wrong and and so I said what do you mean what do you mean you understand what do you understand and I just I couldn't understand.

And what did she say? Well, she said, oh, I know. I've always known. You think I'm stupid? She was real snide. I think she was either, I think she had been drinking and was real- Sarcastic?

Yeah. I didn't know what to say. I just said, I hate you. I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe what she was to say. I just said, I hate you. I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe what she was saying. All you said was, I hate you? I said, I hate you. And what did you do?

I ran out the back door. And what did your mother do? She immediately got up and started chasing me outside. Was she saying anything? Yeah. She was saying, get back here, you bastard. Don't ever say that to me. How dare you say that to me?

What was she referring to? Did you know what you're saying, I hate you? Is that what she was referring to? Yeah, that's what she was angry at. She was angry at this point? Yeah, well, she was, I don't understand the mood she was in before I even got to the room. She was in a mood that she had been in a lot, but she was angry at that point. So was this phrase, I hate you, was this something that you heard over the course of your life?

Yes. Had you ever said it to your mother before? No. Did you hate your mother, Mr. Menendez? No, I didn't hate my mother. And where did you go when you ran out of the den? I ran to the guest house. And did your mother follow you?

Yes, she chased after me. When you got to the guest house, did you call out to your brother? Uh, yes. And do you remember what it was, what the first thing was, that you said to him? I just said, she knows, Mom knows. What happened next in the guest house? Mom came up the stairs right after me, and she said, get back. She was still yelling at me.

Was it a discussion? Was it an argument? It was an angry argument between Lyle and Mom. And what were you doing while this argument was going on between Lyle and mom? I was standing behind Lyle. I used to stand behind Lyle a lot. That's pretty much my fixed position. Okay, so we're going to go to our last break quick, and then we're going to talk about this. This is it.

I mean, obviously this is it. I mean this is it i mean captain obvious over here yeah this is this is all it where it's all coming to a head it's all coming very fast a lot of different secrets are coming out all the the yeah it's all coming out and on top of that you have this understanding not by both of them yet they don't know they both know the same thing, but you have to remember that Lyle was threatened that if this ever got out, he would kill him. And he just had his father look him in the face and say, no, you will. You'll still tell people. And he remembers what his father told him initially when he said, they said he'd kill him. And then on top of that, Lyle knows what now that his dad knows he knows and he knows

Eric knows. Now when his dad goes and talks to Eric, he tells Eric the same thing. Now he's going to tell people, I can't let that happen. All these stories are starting to align. And then I didn't expect this to happen, but obviously based on where we are today, it's not surprising. I was always wondering how Kitty got into this equation because to me, it seemed like a triangle between Eric Lyle and Jose and Kitty was kind of staying out of it. But I think where she got dragged in is this, this moment here where maybe it was misinterpreted wrong. Maybe it's not being relayed correctly to us, but the way that, and this is why I think it was important what you said earlier we don't we don't know kitty side of the story but based on what eric is telling us he has this

conversation where to him he interprets as kitty knew kitty knew the whole time right what jose senior was doing to lyle and eric and that to him in that moment where he's like well I hate you too then you know in that moment even though he he retract that after in this trial in the testimony here but in that moment he felt like they're all in on it they're all in on it and they're doing it to both of us and I'm gonna I'm gonna say how I feel about this narrative in a little bit, but when we give our final thoughts at the end of the video. So Lyle Menendez would later testify that it was not just his father who sexually abused him, but his mother Kitty as well. He said that until he was 13 years old, his mother would wash his body everywhere and she would invite him into bed with her and instruct him to touch her everywhere. Lyle said that initially he took the actions as love and it made him feel good in the way that he clearly saw Kitty was enjoying it.

When he had been young, Kitty would show Lyle pictures of herself in a bathing suit and lingerie. Some of these photos were shown in court, so we know they exist. Kitty in some black lacy lingerie. Some of these photos were shown in court, so we know they exist, Kitty in some black lacy lingerie. And when Lyle was 11, Kitty would walk around topless and sometimes just wearing a robe open with nothing underneath, and she would sometimes ask him how he thought she looked. When Lyle stopped sleeping in bed with Kitty at the age of 13, she became very angry and he said she harassed him. He said, quote, we had arguments and problems over that for a long time, really my whole life, end quote. And that makes sense because Eric said, oh, Kitty would scream at Lyle far more than she would scream at him. And it's almost like Kitty treated Lyle as a romantic partner who had rejected her

with bitterness and resentment in the aftermath of it. Now, aside from this, Lyle detailed more bizarre and frequent emotional and physical abuse at the hands of his mother. When he would go away to summer camp and feel homesick, Lyle would call his mother collect, but she would never accept the charges. He said that he would often see Kitty on the floor of their home, arranging cards, marbles, and rubber bands, and sometimes she would play with the dirt and stare straight ahead blankly. When his ferret died, Kitty had it stuffed and mounted on a log, which she placed above the television so that she could, quote, always see it. When she was mad at Lyle, Kitty would throw his favorite toys and stuffed animals out of the window. Lyle said that Kitty was often violent.

She would beat him, kick him, and drag him into his room by his hair. She even once chased him around the house holding a kitchen knife. When Lyle was older and he started dating, no woman he brought home was ever good enough. Kitty told her son that his girlfriends were whores, bimbos, and gold diggers. And when he dated a model briefly in 1989, Kitty insisted that this woman was infected with HIV and she refused to let Lyle eat off the family dishes in the dining room with the rest of the family. He was relegated to the den with paper plates to eat alone because of who he was dating, which is bananas. He was dating a model at 17, 18, or was this?

No, it was 1989. He was like 20. 20? Yeah. Okay. It's, you know, he's got money and he's like at Princeton. So it makes sense. Okay.

He also was like driving around a new Porsche and stuff, you know? Right. Right. All right. That makes sense. So yeah, I mean, but on the surface that whole that whole story is obviously troubling this is actually very common what's common to if there's issues in your marriage a parent will bring on their child as like a a surrogate spouse

andrew conanan's mother did it to him and i because I did a series on Andrew Cunanan who killed Gianni Versace. His mother did it to him and he turned into, you know, a serial killer. So it's very, very toxic and very damaging. But I wouldn't say it's common, although I do kind of think it is somewhat common. It does happen. The parent who feels rejected by her spouse will project her feelings of love and her need for companionship and intimacy and physical touch onto her child. And, you know, it makes sense, actually. And it makes sense why she would be almost like jealous of the women he dated, because the way that she's speaking about Lyle's girlfriends isn't the way a mother would speak about her son's girlfriends but it's kind of the way like an ex-girlfriend would refer to her her ex-boyfriend's new partners did Eric ever say that he was also uh sexually assaulted molested by his mother? No. Well, it looked like Jose picked on Eric. So Jose treated Lyle better than he treated Eric. We kind of put him in the golden boy position, but abused Eric sexually for longer. longer and kitty treated um lyle she she had sexually abused him but she treated eric kind of like her golden boy so they each parent had picked a favorite and and maybe that's why and then they abused the other more readily i'll tell you what man and what a what a household

you know a house of horrors it is tough too because everything you you hear you have to take it through the through a filter because jose and kitty are no longer here to defend themselves now i've already said multiple times throughout this episode that i believe eric and lyle specifically when it comes to jose but obviously the foundation of the allegations towards Kitty are much, much weaker because we don't have a lot of character witnesses saying that she displayed this type of behavior with individuals in her life outside the children. This is kind of like a side thing here with Lyle, where he's saying these things happened as well. On the surface, I would say,

why lie about this? If you're going to make a defense for why you killed her, it could be simply, listen, our father was molesting us and my mother knew about it and did nothing. So in our eyes, she was just as guilty. That would be enough. Why add insult to injury and make up these false allegations that these things happened while in bed with her? I don't think it's necessary to get the point across. I don't know. How do you feel?

Do you tend to agree, like believe it? About Kitty? Yeah, about Kitty. Jose, I think we're on the same page. And I feel like on the surface, I do believe him about Kitty as well. I don't know. How do you feel about it? Yeah, I believe it.

Okay. Yeah, I think I do too. I just feel like it's unnecessary to lie about at this point. Yeah, I definitely, I definitely think that. Yeah. Why would you, especially if she was like innocent and just collateral damage, just like they killed her cause she was there and they really loved her. Why would they make up all these things about her in the aftermath? Yeah. Cause just saying that she ignored the abuse, like you said, that would be enough to, to show that they were. Yeah. We, we killed her too because she was in on it she was allowing it to happen she did nothing you don't have to i guess disrespect her after death by saying she did something she didn't do i don't know i don't know i definitely want to hear people's opinions

on this in the comments because i feel like we have an abundance of evidence towards Jose, not as much towards Kitty. How do you guys feel about it? Do you agree that they both were doing the things that they were alleged to do? I guess that's one of the questions for this week. Yeah, well, Eric and Lyle claimed that after the conversation that Lyle had with Jose and after the fight they both had with their mother, they truly believed that their father was going to kill them. So they didn't tell anybody his dirty little secret. They had considered fleeing the house that same night. Eric said, quote, Lyle was really concerned that they were going to come kill us right then.

We locked the door and we checked the outside to see if anyone was coming. And then he said, we got to leave. We got to get out of this house. I said, where are we going to go? He said, we got to leave. We got to get out of this house. I said, where are we going to go? He said, we got to get away. End quote. Eric said that even then he knew there was no place in the world they could go where Jose wouldn't find them. He knew who his father was and what he was capable of.

And Lyle would testify that he knew his father would never let them live. He was too obsessed with his image, too concerned with how the world viewed him, and how Jose was seen was more important to him than the lives of his own sons. So where did the conversation with your brother Lyle lead to Thursday night? It led to us having to buy guns. Ityle saying we got to protect ourselves we've got to do something because I kept eliminating all of his options okay he was coming up with options yeah I was I was pretty much just crying and doing whatever I was doing he was saying well what if we could do this well what if we do that he said calm down and work it out and I was just not being very helpful

did you think any of the options would work no so a decision was made to try to protect yourselves yourself is that it on that night on Thursday night when you were talking to your brother about what might happen you were talking about the fact that dad would kill you. Is that right? Yes. Did you think your mother would stop him? I thought my mom would do it with him. There wasn't no one and the other. Why did you think your mother would do it with him? Because that's who my mom was. They were very much a team.

Besides the fact that my mom hated us, they were a team. Were you so sure that your mother hated you before Thursday night as you were after? After, I definitely knew. I mean, for her to have known all those years, I knew she must have hated me. But I thought it before as well. So I see, I see the angle now because I've been going back and forth as far as they could have probably come up with a better story as to why they shot their parents, something more elaborate where it was in the moment they had no choice. Something happened where Jose was about to kill them. So they killed him. Kitty tried to stop him or whatever,

but it seems like this was a, we're going to get him before he gets us type thing, because if we choose not to get him, he's going to get us eventually. So we have to do this, even though we would prefer not to. So I see the angle and I don't know. I have a lot going through my mind. You obviously have had a chance to digest all this. You wrote the script. What do you what do you make of all of it? happening. Now, do I think that they felt there was no other choice? Do I feel that they thought they would be trapped forever and never get out from under Jose's thumb? Yeah, I do believe they felt that. But also, I kind of feel like they maybe sort of exaggerated that part of it because you could leave, right? Like, yeah, Jose might track them down. But if you leave, you start a new life someplace else. What's he going to do to you? Really? What's he going to do to you?

You're adults. You could just call the police and say they're harassing you. I think that they didn't want to go out and start new lives because neither one of them had any idea how to make a living on their own. I think they were so used to being dependent emotionally, physically, financially on their parents, which was by design. That's what abusers do. They make you dependent on them. It's just another steel tie to keep you close to them. If you need them, then you're less likely to leave. But in Eric and Lyle's mind, they're like, man, our dad made a lot of money, a lot of money. And that's technically going to be coming to us. And

are we willing to walk away from millions of dollars to start new lives when we could just start new lives with millions of dollars away from our abusers? So I believe the abuse happened and it's horrendous. And I believe that there was anger there. The way that Jose and Kitty were killed shows that there was anger there. This wasn't for money. This wasn't some like, oh, we just want to get the money because two bullets to the head would have been done. And we're going to talk about how Jose and Kitty were killed and how brutal it was next time. But the way that they were killed showed a lot of anger, a lot of anger. And that doesn't come just from wanting somebody's money. So I think that they definitely were angry.

They definitely were abused. But was it their only choice? No. It was their only choice if No, it was their only choice if they wanted to have their own lives that were financially comfortable. Yeah. So I will start by saying this. We're in part three here. We're finishing part three. And I usually come into these cases completely cold, not knowing anything about it. So I'm going through it with you guys just right in the middle until we really start to develop the story together. This is a case that I've heard of

before that I knew the highlight points and I've had some opinions on it just from what I knew as far as how Kitty and Jose were killed, the money and the things you hear. I'm like, oh, this is what my initial thought was. I will tell you this. I don't know where I'm going to end up, but if I'm being honest with you guys, initially coming into the series, I said to myself, and I think I kind of conveyed this in the first episode, I felt like there was probably some truth to what they were saying, but it was more being used as defense because they really, at the core, wanted the money. Right now, I'm definitely more towards the middle. I think they felt like the money was their consolation prize for lives destroyed. Right.

Like they took the first, you know, 18, 20 years of our lives and made our lives their own. And now we deserve this. We're entitled to this so that we have the opportunity to make our lives whatever we want. They owe us this. And while they breathe air, we will never get it. And that's why I'm in the middle right now, because I want to hear all the specifics. I also want to hear about, was there consciousness of guilt after the fact? What was the behavior after these things took place? I want to know it all before, obviously, we come to any conclusion on our opinions. But something you said just a few moments ago is where my head's at. And that's this. When they're going over the different options, there are some options available other than this. This is the extreme. Okay. There are some other

options available. They may not be as pleasant or they may not involve living the lifestyle that they're currently living. As you pointed out, Lyle's dating a model, driving a Porsche, living in the guest house. They're doing very well for themselves financially, right? I'm not saying what they're going through on a day-to-day basis, but financially, Princeton, all these things, they got everything they need, right? Like you just said a couple moments ago, they're going through the options, but many of those options leave them without any type of financial stability. So as I leave this episode, I don't know where I fall, but I am asking myself the question, was part of the reason for the murder's habitual abuse?

It seems to be the case. However, was also part of the motive. We can't leave on our own and just run away because we want to have the same lives that we're having now. And the only way to that conclusion, although it doesn't tell the whole story, it does mean that part of their motive for killing their parents was financial in nature. There was a financial component to it. And that's something that when we're evaluating whether we feel they should be out or not, that is something that has to come into the metric, the equation as we're going there. We're not there yet. And I think a lot of what's going to happen after the fact may give us some insight into their actual true feelings on why they killed their parents, but we're going to have to get there. Fascinating stuff though. I'm already moved. I know it's not your intention, but, and I don't know how everyone feels out there, but you already got me in the middle.

I wasn't in the middle at the beginning and I'm definitely there now where maybe they should be out. Maybe they should be out by now. But that is the question that I have still, as far as this financial component. I, I mean, what's the reason to keep people in prison so they don't reoffend? You know, they do their time, they pay the price, but mainly if you're keeping them in there for life, it's so that they don't reoffend, right? Because we know very well, and a lot of people are going to be like, no, that's not why. Like for me, I'm genuinely of the belief or generally of the belief that if you take a life, you should pay for that with your own life. There's extenuating circumstances and this kind of childhood abuse would fall under those extenuating circumstances for me. prison would go on a murdering spree or hurt or kill anybody ever again? I don't. So some people

will be like, oh, it should be like an eye for an eye, like you should be in there for life because you took a life. That's not true because that usually doesn't happen. People usually do not get life in prison for murder. I've seen people get 15 years, 30 years. You know what I mean? Like they don't. And if it had been a manslaughter charge, Eric and Lyle wouldn't have. That's the point. Like there's a difference between murder and manslaughter when you're getting a sentence. And if they'd been given manslaughter, they would have gotten 30 years or whatever. They wouldn't have been in there for life.

Yeah. And I do want to save this for the end because we're already this is a long episode. I believe they got they got life without the possibility of parole, right? Yes. Okay. So I'm going to save it. I think it's a longer conversation because we're talking about the judicial system and not every case is the same. And you kind of alluded to that right there. There are different circumstances and factors that should be figured into the sentencing of every single case. And it should be specific to that crime and specific to the people involved and specific to the motives and the

circumstances leading up to it. So I'll say this. Looks like it's premeditated murder as we're leaving this episode, right? They planned this out. There's really no doubt about it. This was premeditated murder. It wasn't a form of self-defense. It's- No doubt. It's not. So the question's going to become over these next few episodes, what factors should be considered when sentencing these individuals? And you bring up some great points. That's where I'll leave it. You bring up some great points. And I'm in the middle. You got me there.

Well, I'm glad I moved you to the middle. I know it wasn't your intention. It's just the facts are the facts. And I'm not going to stay in my way. I feel like everybody should always kind of be in the middle, you know? Well, I try to always start there. But with this episode, having some preconceived notions about it, going into it, and knowing a little bit about it, I felt like I knew what was going on here and, and, and hearing from Eric and Lyle and all the abuse and honestly, their story

of how it led to the murders. It does make sense how it kind of, it was in a three or four day span where things just hit that the shit hit the fan to put it bluntly. So looking forward to next episode, we're going to get into the specifics of the murder itself. We're probably going to talk about some things after the murder that kind of give us an idea of where their minds were after killing their parents, which is obviously extremely important in sentencing. So I'm looking forward to hearing it all and to try to understand why they ultimately decided to give them life without parole. What was it after the fact where a judge said, nah, F these guys, they're going away forever. I'm trying to see if I can find what that is.

Oh, we will. No final words from you? I gave my final words. You did. You did. You did it. Guys, go check out criminalcoffeeco.com if you want to check out the stealth roast with our girl Helen on the cover there. We'd love for you to try it. Let us know what you think. Everyone have a safe night. We'll see you next week. And every time you buy a bag of stealth roast, Shannon gets her wings. Shannon gets her wings. Okay. On that note, as Shannon's laughing

as she's editing this right now, we will see you guys next week. Take care. Bye.