Crime Weekly - S3 Ep208: The Menendez Brothers: Money and Motives (Part 5)

Episode Date: May 17, 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. 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. Prose.com/CrimeWeekly - Get 50% off your first subscription order and a FREE in-depth hair consultation! 2. Skims.com - Shop the SKIMS T-Shirt Shop today and let them know we sent you! After placing your order, select "podcast" in the survey and select Crime Weekly! 3. TryFum.com/CrimeWeekly - Use code CRIMEWEEKLY to get a FREE gift with the Journey Pack! 4. StitchFix.com/CrimeWeekly - Get $20 off your first Fix! 5. TalkSpace.com/CrimeWeekly - Use code SPACE80 to get $80 off your first month!

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And I'm Derek Levasseur. So before we dive into part five of the Menendez murders, I know that we have something very exciting to talk to you about and to announce, and I'm going to throw it to Derek. Yeah, long time coming. Crimeweeklypodcast.com. The new website is officially launched. We've been talking about this since we started Crime Weekly, what, two, three years ago. And I put up something quick myself. It was horrendous. I know. I apologize. It was the bare minimum. But now you can go over there. You can see an updated page. We have an about page. We have an episode page where you can go see the last 20 to 30 cases that we've covered that will continuously be updated with case notes.

And sometimes even we'll have the sources that Stephanie's using if you want to dive deeper into what we talked about. And then we will also have our merch page, which will have all the latest merch that we have currently available. We're going to be adding to that religiously now that we have the infrastructure in place. So if you want to go check it out, head on over to crimeweeklypodcast.com. Thank you for your patience in that one. It was a long time coming, but I really think it was worth it. It was worth the wait. The site has improved greatly, and I think you guys are going to get a lot of enjoyment out of it. That's all I got. Well, let's dive right into today's episode then. So we kind of left off last episode with the actual murders, what happened.

Now, during the trials, because there's two trials, right? So during the trials, they're going to bring in tons of different experts to testify on what the crime scene meant as far as where were Kitty and Jose in the room? Were they standing? Were they sitting? Because Eric and Lyle said that they were standing, that their parents were standing when they came in the room. But there would be some experts who would testify in the trial and say, no, they were sitting. And you can tell by the trajectory of the bullets. For instance, the bullet wound to Jose's head, the back of his head, it came from a downward angle, which, you know, obviously, you know enough about ballistics. And I think anybody listening knows enough to know that that would mean the person who shot Jose was standing behind him or above Jose. Yeah. While Jose was sitting on the couch. And obviously the brothers would want it to appear that their parents were standing because the whole defense would be, we thought they were going to kill us.

We thought they were in that room getting ready to kill us. And if Jose and Kitty are cuddled up on the couch watching a Barbra Streisand movie. Well, we know they weren't cuddling. I know you're just telling a story. They actually were. No, they actually were. So here's the thing. Here's the thing, which I didn't even feel like was relevant because there's just so much information to cover. But in the weeks leading up to their murders, Jose and Kitty's relationship and marriage was improving. Like friends and

family said they were doing things together again for the first time that Jose was genuinely interested in being in his wife's company. He was worried about her. He was trying to pull her out of her depression. He wanted her back. And I mean, he was getting older, which he actually wasn't that old. It's crazy. He was in his early 40s when he died. And I remember when I heard about this case as a younger kid, it felt like he was so much older. But now that I'm 40, it's like, damn. You know what I wonder? And again, I don't know the guy personally, but I do wonder if because Jose was starting to get the impression that maybe Eric and Lyle would expose him, he knew that his strongest supporter, his strongest alibi would be Kitty. And if that

played into his strategy to start warming back up to her in case law enforcement came knocking at the door, he could say that never happened. Ask my wife. She if anybody would know it would be her. I'm just saying, yeah, she'd stand by no means kind of feel like she already would. But yeah, by no means was Jose a good guy from what we know. And so he was getting older. So he may have been like, you know, mellowing out a bit like, all right, I'm kind of not in my womanizing days anymore. Let me try this monogamy thing for once. Who knows? But either way, things seem to be getting better for them, which is why they were deciding to spend that evening together watching A Spy Who Loved Me, which was an old Barbra Streisand movie. Very good if anybody's seen it. But anyways, that's why they decided to do that because Jose was going out on a business trip the next day. And instead of, you know, going out to dinner with some Hollywood executives, he wanted to spend that evening with his wife. And so they were sitting directly next to each other on the couch, according to some of these experts.

But there's two trials and a ton of experts. You've got defense experts, prosecution experts. So they're all going to say different things, whatever fits with the narrative of whichever side that they're on. But either way, after murdering their parents, Eric and Lyle Menendez did some things that might suggest they were sons mourning their parents, but they did other things that might suggest they were not so upset about this loss in their lives. Basically, they would get to spend the next six months walking free. And during that time, they also got to spend quite a bit of their parents' substantial estate. But first, they had to take care of family business. And they started doing this by informing family members that Jose and Kitty had been tragically killed. Now, Jose's

sister, Terry Baralt, and her husband, Carlos, they flew from New Jersey to Los Angeles on Monday, August 21st, 1989. And Jose's other sister, Marta Cano, also flew in from West Palm Beach that same day. Now, in Florida, Marta worked as a financial planner. And so the same day she landed in California, she checked into the Ballet Hotel in West Hollywood where other family members were staying. Eric and Lyle were also initially staying at the Ballet Hotel, but within a few days, they switched from that hotel to the much more expensive Bel Air Hotel in Hollywood. But after Marta Cano checked in, she dropped her luggage off in her hotel room, and then she headed straight to Jose's office at Live Entertainment. And once there, Marta began to go through her brother's finances, including his life insurance policies and his will. And she'd actually sold him his life insurance policy. So that's why she was familiar with it. And she

was trying to basically get this claim going immediately. She was also trying to figure out, were there any issues or anything that Eric and Lyle would have to be aware of before she saw them the following day? Now, at the time of his death, Jose Menendez was making over $1 million a year, and his life insurance policy would leave his sons with about $650,000. But Eric and Lyle claimed they knew that Jose had a will, which had been drawn up in 1981, and this will left everything to them. However, the brothers had no idea where the actual will was located. So they also had reason to believe that the 1981 will may not have been the only one in existence. According to Eric, his mother Kitty had told him that Jose had a new Will drawn up, which had cut him and Lyle off

completely, leaving them with nothing. So Lyle told Eric, listen, the Will might be in Jose's safe, which is in his office, or it could be somewhere on the home computer that he uses. And so they kind of started looking around for this will. And remember, the Beverly Hills mansion, the Menendez mansion is still a crime scene. And it seemed like Eric and Lyle were kind of just allowed to go in and out at will whenever they wanted, because that following Monday, a woman named Clara Wright pulled up to the Menendez mansion on Elm Drive. And Clara was the wife of a man named Randy Wright, who was a Beverly Hills lawyer. And Randy not only had worked

professionally with Jose on some things, but he was also close friends with the whole family because he and Clara had a son that played on the junior tennis circuit with Eric. So at that time when Clara went to the Menendez home, she didn't know what had happened. She didn't know that Kitty and Jose were dead. It was the first thing in the morning the day after. She was simply there to borrow some tennis rackets. But as soon as she pulled up, she quickly realized something was wrong when she saw the police tape, when she saw the police cars, and she saw Eric and Lyle Menendez sitting in a parked car out front. Now, during the second trial, Clara would testify

that Eric was very happy to see her. He jumped right out of the car to greet her, and she said, quote, I asked him what's going on here, and he said his parents were murdered during the night. He was excited. He couldn't speak fast enough to get the words out. He asked if Randy handled wills and probate cases. I was devastated. I felt so bad for them. I told him I would get a hold of my husband. After I saw what happened, I didn't want to bring up the rackets.

But Eric said, no problem. That's OK. And he went in his house and got the rackets, end quote. Remember, this is hours after Jose and Kitty are murdered because it's the next morning. And Eric's like, that's OK. I'll just go into the crime scene and get you your tennis rackets. And not only is he willing to do this, whereas I don't know about you, but if this was a place where my parents had been brutally murdered and I walked in on this blood soaked scene and that was what I saw. I don't know if I'd be really willing to run back into that house anytime soon.

Well, I mean, we know they killed their parents. So that's that simple explanation, right? And I want to hit on these things as you're talking about them, because it's a lot and we still have more parts to go. So to save it all to the end, I wouldn't even remember it all. But these are just another indicators that there was a financial element to this where they were considering this before they killed their parents. In my opinion, that's not a professional opinion. That's just subjective. You want to look at it, whatever you want to look at it. And I know from the comments, there's a lot of people that are behind the Menendez brothers and do not believe finances were any part of the motive at

all. I don't believe that. Do you think they don't believe that finances are part of the motive or they don't care? I don't know. I don't know. I can't get into the mind of everybody who's commenting, but I know there are people that are very strong opinioned on the whole, listen, this is something they were in fear of these individuals. They wanted, they felt like they had to get them before they killed them. And that's their opinion. And that's why we have a dialogue and that's why everyone's entitled to have an opinion. But for me, there's just already a lot of things. Forget the fact that they went into the crime scene after this all went down, because again, we know that they killed their parents. So it's not as traumatic for them. They've seen it multiple times now by this point and they were planning it. So I think they were

mentally prepared for it. What's concerning to me or something that I noted is the fact that, like you had said, this is what, less than 48 hours within the time of the murder? It's literally, no, 48 hours. It's like less than eight hours. Okay. Less than eight hours. And one of the things that's on Eric's mind is, hey, does your husband handle probate or wills? It seemed the main thing that was on his mind, right? That to me is even more concerning than going into the house because again, we know they killed their parents. So the trauma is, I guess it's not as much there as

seeing them dead. They wanted them dead. I believe that. But to me, it's more so, okay, part one is done. Now we got to, part two is the finances. So that's what's on their mind as they're sitting there. And that's potentially why we are so excited to see her because he knew, hey, maybe this is someone who can help us with the other part that we were thinking about as this was all transpiring. So that afternoon, that same afternoon,

the day after their parents are murdered, Eric and Lyle showed up to the home of lawyer Randy Wright, and they had with them physically the safe. And they told the Wrights that they believed Jose's will was inside of that safe. So it's not like they're even really trying to hide it. They're not trying to be, you know, I don't know, underhanded or, you know, kind of on the down low about it. They're just being like, we want this will. So Clara testified that the brothers brought the safe into the spare bedroom of her home. They covered it in blankets. And for the next two or three nights, Eric stayed in that spare bedroom and slept with the safe until a locksmith arrived and opened the safe inside of the Wrights' garage. And why was it just Eric? Well, this is also kind of a weird thing because almost directly after Jose and Kitty Menendez are murdered, Lyle Menendez went back to New Jersey and started kind of like, you know, going back to classes at Princeton. And there was a funeral for Jose and Kitty in Princeton, New Jersey, which we're going to talk about. But he pretty much left California and went back

because the next semester was starting because Kitty and Jose are murdered at the end of August. And as you know, the college semester is going to start right around the end of August and leading into September. So he was like, I'm going to go back to school. And he did. He left Eric alone in Beverly Hills after their parents were murdered and he went back to New Jersey. So there's two different thoughts I have on this. One's as a human being, one's as an investigator.

So as an investigator, if I'm looking at this and we're initially thinking this could be a contract hit or a retaliation for something that had occurred. When we're building our list of suspects, the behavior of Eric and Lyle would be something that would be suspicious. Their ability to move on so quickly, their ability to get over this, what appears to be a very graphic and traumatic scene, right? That's the investigator side of it. Now, as far as the human being in me, I don't really have a problem with this because I don't think they had sympathy for their parents being dead. They killed them. They knew it. And if we're to believe everything they said, which I do for the most part when it comes to the sexual abuse, why would

they feel bad for them considering what they did to them their entire childhood? So it's this really weird, complex fight going on in my own brain where one side of it, I'm looking at it from an investigatory perspective. The other side, I'm looking at it from a human being's perspective. And it's like, well, hey, listen, I don't really blame them for kind of going on with their life and worrying about the finances. This was something where they killed them. They intentionally killed them. They did it because of what they did to them and what they thought they were going to do to them. So clearly they were already over it. They were over it before they shot him. But yeah, as you're looking at it from a detective's perspective, this is obviously something that's going to raise some eyebrows able to go back to classes. I mean, Lyle was not doing great at Princeton before his parents were murdered. And now he's just going to go back and dive right back into classes. I just don't see how somebody who that had just happened to. And not just that your parents died, that your parents were murdered and you found them. Right. So this is what they're. Eric calls a locksmith. He stays at the Wright's house with the safe until the locksmith can come. And then he basically tells the Wrights, like, get out of your garage. I'm having this locksmith open the safe while only I am present. Which, why? Because if there was a will in there, he didn't want anybody to get a look at what it said because whatever he wanted to do with it, he didn't want anybody else to know what was in it. Yeah. Extremely odd, by the way. Extremely odd and suspicious, for sure. I don't know how anyone looked at that any differently.

So it ends up being that there were some papers in the safe and there was some jewelry, but Jose or Kitty's will not in the safe. And Clara Wright would testify that Eric never spent the night at her house again, which is, you know, kind of trying to make you see that this wasn't something common for Eric. He wasn't just like, he didn't even know these people, really. Like, their son played tennis with him, but it wasn't like he slept over with the son and they were like tight friends. And this was someplace he always went and he would go to again in times of trouble. He stayed there with the safe. And when the safe was a non-issue, he just never came back. Clara Wright also claimed that she had a conversation with Eric during the time he stayed at her home. And he told her that he and his

brother Lyle wanted to make sure there wasn't a will on the family computer. And he asked her if she knew of anyone who was good with computers. So this is actually leading somewhere. And we're going to talk about it when we get back from our first break. So the will may have been a question mark, but that didn't mean that Eric and Lyle weren't more than ready to spend their parents' money. There was a memorial service planned for Jose and Kitty on August 25th, and the day before, the brothers took a trip to the Century City Shopping Center with Jose's platinum American Express card burning a hole in their pockets. And as a heads up, like kind of a precursor to this, they ended up racking up a $90,000 credit card bill on Jose's credit card. So first they went to Bullock's and they

purchased some sports coats for the memorial the next day. And their next stop was Slavic's Jewelers for Rolex watches. Lyle picked out an 18 carat gold Rolex President model and a stainless steel model with a diamond dial. Eric selected a stainless steel Submariner model and both men purchased gold money clips. All in all, they spent almost $17,000 at the jewelry store. And remember, this is $17,000 in 1989. Yep. $90,000 in 1989.

You're familiar with Rolexes and stuff. What would an 18-karat gold Rolex President model cost you now? Presidential, I would guess around $40,000. Yes. And I think it cost Eric or Lyle 13, a little over 13 in 1989. It depends on the model, depends on if it has diamonds in it and all that stuff. But a presidential, I'm thinking that's a day date. That would be $40,000.

My Rolex experts in the comments might correct me, but that's my guess. Either way, far more expensive now. So when we're talking in terms of 2024 and we say things like, oh, overall, they spent almost $17,000 or they racked up a $90,000 credit card bill, that's still a lot of money. But some people would be like, oh, that's not extravagant. No, in 1989, that would have been extravagant. $90,000 would have been $400,000, maybe more. I'm just guessing. But, you know, inflation. So that evening, Eric and Lyle had dinner with their Aunt Marta in their suite at the swanky Bel Air Hotel. And also keep in mind, they're staying at the Bel Air Hotel. They've got like the most expensive suite there. And they are they're basically like they brought family

members in and they had, you know, gatherings there. But they were also bringing their friends and they were having parties, drinking, living the life. And Marta said that she set this meeting so she could discuss the Menendez estate with her nephews. I believe you indicated that you told the defendants what your estimate was of the estate of your dead brother. Do you remember your testimony? Yes. And what figure did you quote them? Well, I quote them on a gross basis around 14 million.

And you say that they expressed surprise at that amount. Is that correct? Honestly, not only surprised, they were not even interested in what I was talking about they said I'm Marta we're not in the will they just did not the only surprise that I heard is when Eric said I can't believe my father had so much money was the 14 million dollar figure that you mentioned an accurate figure you know he was inaccurate yes accurate or inaccurate that's correct and did you also mention a net figure as well? Yes, I did.

And do you know what that figure was? You're talking about the conversation with the two defendants? Yes, Your Honor. In this conversation with the two defendants. Yes. The net figure was around seven or eight million. I can't recall right now which one of the two. And those were your computations?

That was my computation based on all the gatherings that I did at his office. And was that also accurate or inaccurate? It was inaccurate. Both those figures were inaccurate. That is correct. And they expressed surprise as to both those figures? Yes. So you hear Marta Cano kind of saying like both of those figures were inaccurate.

And they're both inaccurate because she had basically just kind of looked at the gist of things. But apparently Jose and Kitty had properties in other areas, like they had that Calabasas house that they had poured tons of money into renovating because that Beverly Hills mansion, I know some of us wouldn't look at a Beverly Hills mansion and say, that's just a temporary place to lay your head while you're waiting for your dream home to be finished. But that's what it was for the Menendez family. It was just a temporary place while the Calabasas home, which was Kitty's dream home to be finished but that's what it was for the menendez family it was just a temporary place while the calabasas home which was kitty's dream home was being finished and it was literally

weeks just a couple weeks from being finished before jose and kitty died so they had a lot of mortgages and when you die your estate is going to have to pay off whatever debt you have before it's settled so she hadn't factored that in yet. And she said something like $17 million. And it ended up being at the end of the day, about $2 million, which the brothers actually did inherit. But 1.5 of that ended up going to legal fees and $500,000 to the IRS. So they got zero of the estate, although they did get paid out from the life insurance, but then they spent that really quick. Yeah, a lot of money going out the door. And it's one of those things where on one hand, I say to myself, listen, they deserve the money.

They deserve their money. It's their parents. And on the surface, their parents were quote unquote murdered. So they deserve the money. But we all know that if you're responsible for said murders, you don't get anything. That's just the way this is. If you were the beneficiaries of an insurance plan, but you're the reason that the individuals are deceased, then that would make that insurance plan. I think that's a law in some places, too. No, it is. If you murder the person that's on the insurance plan, you don't get the money. I think that's a law in some places too, right? No, it is. If you murder the

person that's on the insurance plan, you don't get the money. I think that's across the board. So I wonder if the insurance company pays out and then you're found guilty of murdering that person, do you have to reimburse the insurance company? This is obviously a little different than outside of our area of expertise. I actually believe that if it's a murder investigation, if you are considered a suspect in that murder investigation at any point, the insurance companies, let's be honest, the insurance companies try to avoid paying anybody out in any case, no matter what it is. They really do, yeah. So if there's any, even just a hint that you could be involved or responsible for the death,

my understanding is that the insurance companies will wait and allow that to all play out before releasing any of that money. We've seen that in other cases as well, where it comes to a point where the beneficiaries, if they need that money to survive, they may actually have to file some type of civil suit against the insurance company to try to get that money. Well, this one got paid out pretty quick. Right. But you might be questioning and you might say, why? Because you heard also Marta Cano say that Eric and Lyle were surprised. They were like, no, we're not getting any money. We were cut out of the will. And you might ask, why did Eric and Lyle think that they were no longer in their father's

will, aside from what their mother had told them? Which, I mean, she was always just talking shit and being mean. So she could have just been saying that, you know, to hurt them or scare them. But apparently earlier that year, Jose had spoken to his sister Marta several times about drafting a new will. He hadn't told her why, but he said he was considering it. And they planned to kind of talk about the next steps of this in the fall when Jose and Kitty were taking a trip to Cuba and they were going to stop in Florida on the way to Cuba. So the following July, after Jose had talked to Marta about drafting up a new will, Jose had a conversation with his brother-in-law,

Carlos Baralt, who's Terry Baralt's husband. And during this conversation, Jose had asked Carlos and his wife, Terry, to be the executors of the family estate. And Jose also mentioned something about his two sons, about being disappointed in them. Now, when Carlos Burrell testified, he said, quote, he wanted to leave Eric and Lyle off the will. I did express some concern about how he would tell them he said he already had, end quote. So it looks like Jose was just kind of fed up with his sons. And I do think it's interesting that he had this conversation the month before he's murdered by his sons. But according to Carlos, Jose seemed especially frustrated about Lyle spending a lot of money while he was enrolled at Princeton University. And Baralt said, quote, he mentioned that he couldn't understand why Lyle couldn't just go to college and pass

his subjects, end quote. So according to Carlos Baralt, Jose told Eric and Lyle that they were not going to be in the will. And the defense is going to use this as a rebuttal to the prosecution's theory that Eric and Lyle killed their parents for the money. The defense is going to use this as a rebuttal to the prosecution's theory that Eric and Lyle killed their parents for the money. The defense is going to say, hey, these kids thought that they weren't even in the will. So what motive did they have? What benefit did they stand to gain? Listen, that's a pretty good argument. You know, I like that.

I like that for just being impartial. I do like that. If they didn't feel like they would get any money out of the deal, how could you argue that it's financially motivated? So I think it's on the surface a good argument. I feel like there was a part of Eric and Lyle that felt like we could probably make this work in our favor. There's probably some things that we can do. And I don't think that's just pure speculation on my part. You just said it a couple minutes ago. Within eight hours of the murder, they were already starting to think about probate and the will and how they were going to get around that and how they were going to work with that. So it was clearly something that was on their minds. So yeah, but on the surface, I have to give, you have to call it how you see it. And that is a good argument. If you can prove that they believed that they had no financial gain

out of the deaths of their parents, then that is a very strong argument that it was not financially motivated. And that's why they're having people like Carls Beralt testify. Because Carls is like, hey, not only did these kids say they had no idea they were still in the will,

but Jose told me he informed them of that fact. So it wasn't just secondhand from Kitty or just something that the kids were that Eric and Lyle, I keep calling them kids. They were grown men then and now. But I noticed that they do that in the trial, too, by the way, that all the lawyers, defense, prosecution, everybody refers to Eric and Lyle as the boys, even though they were 18 and 21. But even the prosecution does it. So it's like this, it's this mental thing where they are, they were viewed pretty much as, as I think childlike in a way. I mean, 18, 21 years old, I guess they're adults legally, technically, you know, they are,

they're adults. I mean, you look at somebody like Lyle, I mean, the kid's got a toupee, you're not going to call him a boy. Yeah. I mean, that's, that's adults. I mean, you look at somebody like Lyle, I mean, the kid's got a toupee. You're not going to call him a boy. Yeah. I mean, that's, that's true. One more thing I will say just to counter what I just said. Yes. On one hand, they felt like they had nothing to gain, or they were at least telling people they had nothing to gain, but that could also come back and bite them as well. Because you could, if you're prosecution, you could say, yeah, listen, they were under the impression that Jose had cut them out. And as long as that will was out there somewhere that ensured that they would end up with nothing. However, their plan going into it was to kill them, get that safe and get access to that will that cut them out before anybody saw it and

make sure it was destroyed, which lines up with the behavior that was displayed after it. So it could go one way or the other, depending on how you want to look at this. Well, that's the point, right? That's the point, because that's what the prosecution did say. Oh, okay. Hey, listen. They know, yeah, they know the kids, the kids.

Eric and Lyle knew that there was a will drawn up in 1980 that left them everything, right? And Marta Cano, their aunt, tells them this. And she's like, no, your beneficiaries on the will. And she said when she informed them of that, they just didn't believe her. They kept questioning her. They were like, are you sure? You must be mistaken.

We're definitely cut out. And the thing is, they still knew that that 1980 will existed and they also knew that the will that allegedly or that they believed had been possibly drawn up in 1989 may have been out there somewhere maybe Jose hadn't even had time to do a new will yet maybe in July when Jose spoke to Carlsborough and said hey I'm gonna cut these out. He went home to California and told Lyle and Eric, hey, by the way, I just met with a couple of people and I'm going to draft up a new will this fall. Because that was when he was supposed to meet with his sister and talk about it. I'm going to draft up a new will this fall and you guys are going to be out. So is it is it actually a bad thing that this timing kind of ends up like this? Because now it looks like

maybe in July, Jose Menendez said, you guys are going to get caught out. I'm doing it in the fall. And so Eric and Lyle, before the fall comes at the end of August, right on the cusp of when summer's turning into fall, they kill their father and mother. Yeah. Yeah. And that's. And they had to kill their mother. Right who would jose leave the money to if not the kids his wife yeah and i and i i will say just my final point on this is as of right now where we stand or at least where i stand i'm not sitting here saying that these murders were completely financially motivated. I don't think they were. At this point, that could change as we go through this. But initially, I did think episodes one and two, I said to myself, oh yeah, they killed him for the money, no doubt. Then when I learned about

all the backstory and you filled this in over the two or three parts about what Jose and Kitty had done to Eric and Lyle, my opinion changed. And I said that my opinion definitely changed. And now where I sit here on episode five is somewhere in between where I think there's a combination of things going on, which can be the case. I think exactly one thing or the other. It's not binary. It could be a multitude of things, but you have a situation here where there is a sense of urgency because they could end up with nothing and they have to act and they have to do it in a way where they could still financially benefit from their deaths. But also as far as feeling guilty about it, I think in a lot of people's minds, it would be easy to justify killing these two individuals if they had done what they had done

to you. So I think it's a combination of things where they could have been thinking about the money, but also thinking, hey, listen, these people were evil. They need to go answer for what they did anyways. We don't feel guilty about doing this. They deserve this because of what they did to us all these years. And we deserve that money because of what they put us through. I think that could be a world where that's the justification in Eric and Lyle's minds for doing it the way they did. So I'd want to know what was your primary I think that could be a world where that's the justification in Eric and Lyle's minds for doing it the way they did. So I'd want to know what was your primary motive and what was your secondary motive?

Was it more of a, they tortured us our whole lives and now this money will be our consolation prize? Or was it, we want the money and they tortured us our whole lives anyway, so they deserve this? I would kind of want to know. And maybe it doesn't seem like a big difference to a lot of people listening. I don't know what your perspective is, but to me, there is a big difference in that. I agree. And I think a lot of people are going to be listening to this saying,

well, no, they did what they did so quickly because they felt like they were going to be killed. And that's where the conversation comes in. We could talk about this all day because we're trying to get into the minds of two other people. There's going to be people who say the sense of urgency was financially motivated. There's going to be another group of people who say, no, they did this because it was a kill or be killed situation. They felt like they had to act first.

So there's no wrong answer. Only Eric and Lyle know the truth. Or the middle ground of maybe they didn't necessarily think that they were going to be killed first if they didn't act now, but because of the psychological and physical torture they'd gone through, they snapped and it was like, we just can't take it anymore. Yeah. A lot going on here. And by the way, spoiler alert, by the end of this series, we're not going to have a definitive conclusion because like I just said, the only two people- I'll have a definitive conclusion on how I feel. Yeah. But we won't be able to tell you how Eric and Lyle fell.

And that's the point because no one will ever know how they truly felt in that situation other than those two men. That's the only two people who will ever know. And so we can sit here and feel certain ways about this case. The reality is it's all about interpretation and your own perspective on it based on how you take in the information and what you feel about it. But like you said, we can have our opinions on it and try to be as informed and educated about those opinions as we can be. But ultimately, we will never know what they were thinking in those

moments. And that's why this case, I think in a lot of ways is so salacious and so popular because people want, they can't understand it. They're trying to rationalize something that's hard to rationalize. Absolutely. And I don't think that at the end of the day, it matters unless their only motive for killing their parents was the money. Oh, interesting. Because like, to me, whether you snapped or whether you did it because they tortured you and the money was just a nice side benefit, it's still going to be not technically premeditated murder. You know what I mean? Well, that's not true.

I mean, not if they snapped. No, I mean, I mean, so, oh, so you're saying the argument could be made that this wasn't premeditated. Yeah. So like they go and get the guns. They actually want them for protection. Right. And then that night something happened and Kitty and Jose were just banging on him, banging on him.

They were finally like, we can't take it anymore. And it's kind of like what they're saying happened, except they're trying to go for the whole self-defense thing, not the whole I snapped thing. Obviously, self-defense is going to sound better. It's going to play better in a court of law. But if it was this thing where they had the guns just for self-defense in the event they would need them, and then that night an argument happened and their buttons got pushed and they just got triggered and snapped, it's going to be different than we planned to do it just because we wanted their money and there was no form of abuse happening. I don't think that there's a world where that exists. I definitely

think there was abuse happening and I definitely think it contributed to Jose and Kitty's death. But how much did the money contribute? And as I go through this, I'm starting to think maybe a little bit more than we would like it to have. Yeah, I think for me, I want to separate the two and then we can continue on with the story with this thought pattern in mind. There's two different things that you have to think about. As a detective, when you're investigating a case and you're looking at potential suspects, motive is a huge element to that because you're trying to look for individuals who would have an incentive to do something to your victim, right?

So motive is huge. But when it comes to determining how to charge someone or what they're going to be sentenced with, right? What they're ultimately going to be found guilty of. Motive is less important because the reality is regardless of the why, it's about their actions. So regardless of why they did it, if you can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that they planned these murders, then by definition, it's premeditated murder. And so that's one thing where I do see a lot of people

talking about the idea that this wasn't premeditated and you have to, and then they will start to make the argument based on motive. That's a bad argument to make because the reality is it doesn't matter why you did it. If you, we don't have to agree with your reasoning or we might even agree with your reasoning. Did you plan it out or was it in the heat of the moment or was it self-defense? So I think that it's important to separate those two things as we're going forward in the series because they are different if you're trying to find out the why that's okay but understand that regardless of the why if the mechanics of it are the same the mechanics are the exact same yes or no i said it doesn't really matter you know it doesn't matter it may make you feel different.

Yeah. But I think, again, we're going to get there. In the eyes of the law, there's not a huge distinction. Not a huge distinction. Now, that may play into sentencing how much time they served, but we still have to look that up and research that as far as what guidelines were there and what type of, I guess, what's the margin? What was the judge allowed to do? What was his options as far as discretion in that matter? Or was it pretty much definitive? This is what it is. If you're found guilty of premeditated murder, this is the minimum sentencing.

So we will get there, but I just think it's important to make that distinction because I feel like those two are getting convoluted throughout this series in some ways where you could start to incorporate motive into whether it's premeditated or not. It doesn't matter. The motive behind it, the abuse matters. It matters. It would only be considered a mitigating factor during sentencing. It would still be considered murder or manslaughter. That's 100 percent it. Yeah. So let's take our next break and we'll be right back. All right. We're back from break and Marta Cano's talking to Eric and Lyle about, you know, them being on the will still as far as as she knew, the copy she found, which was the one she helped Jose do in 1980. She's like, you're still on the will. And also,

I've already started the process to collect on Jose's life insurance policy that I sold him. And that's going to give you about 250K each. I think the payout was 650 after taxes. Eric and Lyle are each going to get 250,000. So the memorial service was held at the Directors Guild of America in Hollywood. And it's funny because I saw a news report where this reporter was like, it's being held at this Directors Guild of America, but it doesn't really seem like anybody knows who Jose Menendez was because he was pretty much virtually unknown. He was kind of behind the scenes guy, although there was an interview with a very young, very handsome looking Sylvester Stallone, because it was

Carolco Pictures, I believe, that produced the original Rocky movie. And Sylvester Stallone was like, I mean, he's like a great guy who represents a company that I think is great. And it didn't really seem like he knew Jose, just he was, you know, part of the studio. And so he was obligated to say that, but he was looking good. Damn. Let me just say that right now. Shout out Sly. Yeah. For real, Rocky. But it was just kind of funny because a bunch of people were showing up and a bunch of people were curious about it. Like, oh, who's memorial service? And they're like, Jose Menendez. And everybody was like, well, who's that? Nobody really knew who he was. And apparently, Eric and Lyle showed up in a chauffeured limousine an hour late. And Lyle held himself together

during the memorial service. He acted pretty even keeled, cool, calm, collected is how he was described. Eric was a bit more emotionally expressive. They said he showed up, his face was kind of puffy and red, like he'd been crying. He was sniffling a lot during the service. But I thought an interesting thing that I read was Kitty's sister, Joan, she came in for the memorial service. And she claimed that during the service, she had spoken to a few men who worked with Jose. And they told her, oh, yeah, your brother-in-law loved to humiliate other men. And we kind of already know this about Jose, but I think it's telling that these people, I mean, the body's barely cold. You're at his memorial service and you're talking some shit about him to his sister-in-law. It kind of gives

you an indication of maybe Jose wasn't the most popular person in the world where people are so willing to talk poorly about him so soon after his death. I think that is a very good indicator of what a lot of people thought. Like you said, that soon after, he must have really pissed some people off. And then after the service, Jose's personal assistant, longtime secretary and self-proclaimed work wife, Marlene Eisenberg, she gets in the limo with Lyle and Eric. And she claimed that Lyle Menendez was wearing a pair of Jose's loafers and he cracked a joke with her. And he was like, hey, Marnie, because that's what they called her, Marnie, I'm finally able to fill my father's shoes. Or my father always thought I wouldn't be able to fill his shoes. Well, look at me now,

kind of thing, which she found to be in poor taste. The following day, August 26th, a cousin of Jose's who was named Carlos Menendez, he was at the Beverly Hills mansion and he found a will in the drawer of the master bathroom. So it was actually the master bedroom and then across the hall was the master bedroom. But he finds this will in the drawer. And this was the will that was drawn up in 1980. And it's the one that listed Eric and Lyle as the only beneficiaries. But Carlos Baralt, who was Jose's brother-in-law, due to his previous conversation with Jose, he suspected there might be another will out there somewhere. So he kind of took it upon himself to track this will down. And he reached out to several lawyers across the United States,

whether it was Florida, California, New York, New Jersey, people he knew had worked with Jose in the past on other business deals or other personal matters. And he asked them like, hey, did Jose, you know, make a new will with you? And all of them were like, no, we have no idea what you're talking about. However, Carlos Menendez, which is Jose's cousin, after searching the family computer, he was able to locate a file titled Will, but he couldn't access it. He couldn't open it. And because of this, computer experts were contacted both by Carlos Menendez and Carlos Baralt. And then they both made appointments for these computer experts to come out on September 1st and try to recover this file from the family computer.

Now, Lyle and Eric were both informed about these upcoming appointments for the computer. And on August 28th, a funeral was held for Kitty and Jose in Princeton, New Jersey. Once again, during the funeral, Lyle held together. Eric was a mess, falling apart and crying. The following day, Lyle hired bodyguards through the company D.B. Kelly Associates in Princeton. And this was because Eric and Lyle had been telling anyone and everyone that their parents had been killed in some cartel or mafia hit. In an August 30th article in the Star Tribune, we see that this theory, put forward initially by the brothers, had already made its

rounds. And due to some business dealings that Jose had been involved in, it appeared that it was being sort of believed. That was the general belief for the first half of a year until Eric and Lyle were arrested, that this was a mafia hit and the newspapers ran with it. I mean, if you think about the murder itself, how they were killed and the fact that, you know, he was a prominent figure in the industry, maybe not well known, but someone who was making a lot of money, a million dollars a year. And making a lot of enemies, right? And when you're at the, and I was just going to go there, when you're at the top like that, you can end up making a lot of enemies that are competitors or people you've crossed or individuals that you get into bed with to get

in the position that you're in. And then when your debt is due, if you don't pay up, these things can happen. So I think when, especially out in Hollywood, like that, when people are surrounded by these types of things all the time, whether it's, you know, in a movie or in real life, I think it's not as hard to believe out there that these types of things can happen. So yeah, at this point, the brothers are playing it up well. I think the hiring of the bodyguards to create that sense of, listen, we could be next does two things. It builds on the narrative that their parents were killed in a contract hit. It also adds to the narrative that they're in fear that

they could be next, therefore separating them as potential suspects. Initially, at least that's what they thought. Yes, exactly. And also it's kind of like this red herring. If the police are tracking down some obscure mafia or cartel figures, they're not really going to be paying as much attention to what Eric and Lyle are doing. But that wasn't the case because they weren't paying attention to what Eric and Lyle are doing. But that wasn't the case because they were paying attention. Clearly they were paying attention. And if they hadn't been spending money like they were, it might have lowered the bullseye on their backs as well, honestly.

So like talking about that a few minutes ago. Exactly. Coming in there, it's a lot of money. Immediately. Immediately. Rolex watches three days after their parents are murdered. Yeah. And gold money clips clips that's almost symbolic like oh we need gold money clips now because we're gonna be rolling in it like scrooge mcduck style and i'm sure law enforcement was interviewing people and we don't

know the chronological order but some of the conversations that you're talking about now i'm sure these law enforcement officials were having these conversations. Like, for example, the, you know, Eric staying at the house with the safe. That probably got back to law enforcement. They may not have known it, but they were probably on the radar. Not even that. They were talking to people. And some of these people outright were like, I would look at the kids. Yeah.

Yeah. So it wasn't like Eric and Lyle were flying as under the radar as they thought they were. Yeah. The public perception to most people might have been good, but yeah, behind closed doors, like you said, there was conversations, there were rumblings. But also this kind of goes back to like, this is a slippery slope. This is a very big gray area. Because many of the people who were like, I would look at the sons said that because

they knew how bad Jose and Kitty were to Eric and Lyle. So they knew that Eric and Lyle would have a motive. And it wasn't money that they thought the motive was. It was like, oh, yeah, these parents were terrible to these kids. They put too much pressure on them. They drove them too hard. They didn't let them control their own lives. Of course, some resentment is going to build. All right. So from the Star Tribune article that was printed on August 30th, 1989, it says, quote, Exactly who was Jose Menendez? The Hollywood community and police investigators have been furiously pressing that question since Menendez,

a relatively little-known entertainment executive whose career, nonetheless connected with some of the biggest names in show business, was fatally shot with his wife, Mary Louise, in their Beverly Hills home August 20th. Interviews with associates revealed the Cuban-born Menendez to have been an extremely aggressive boss and dealmaker, in whom friends saw a charismatic leader and in whom adversaries sometimes saw an overreacher who cut jobs, cut corners, and occasionally broke his word on the way to the top. Police have publicly identified no suspect in the murders and have put a tight clamp on details of the crime. But law enforcement sources told the Los Angeles Times Tuesday that the Menendez's were murdered in a fashion typical

of mob style executions. It was definitely a message killing, said a source familiar with the slayings. There's no question it's organized crime, end quote. The Miami Herald claimed, quote, officials from Menendez's parent company, Carol Co Pictures, released a statement saying all who worked with Jose find it inconceivable that he was involved in any unsavory dealings that might have led to this tragic event. They considered the idea of the killings being a mob hit bizarre and offensive. That statement is at least naive. The home video business began in the mid-70s because people wanted to watch porno videos at home instead of going to dark theaters full of men in raincoats holding newspapers over their laps. When adult films evolved into videos and mainstream movie studios saw a potential goldmine, they moved into the business. The first major studio movies were released on home video in 1977 and absorbed a number of people who had adult film

experience on their resume. This is interesting. I'm going to cut into this quote for a second, but this is interesting. First of all, they're calling them porno films. I haven't heard them referred to that in a long time. Or pornographic films, if we want to be. Just porn. Porn. It's porn. Call it what it is. But I think it's interesting because I didn't really know this, that the whole home video market, and I kind of looked it up to verify, the whole home video market started with porn films. And then Hollywood was like, oh, shit, this is like taking off. Let's put our into their home video branches of their studios, which I just think is kind of a fun fact.

Are you saying Blockbuster was derived from porn? Yeah, man. That's crazy. I didn't think about it that way. Changed my whole perspective of my childhood now. I mean, who doesn't want to go into a movie theater filled with men in raincoats holding newspapers over their laps i was like yikes yikes i will say this everything's sticky like kind of now that i'm thinking about it and i don't know if you remember this or not i

i wonder if people out there around you're older you're older than me so yeah by like what three days um what's interesting i literally just childhood memory unlocked i remember a blockbuster okay when you'd go into the blockbuster you'd have all the shelves with all the movies that were available you could if the if the you know the the box was behind the movie it was available right but i don't know about you but the dark section the dark section yes do you remember that There was like a thing. Oh, I was intrigued by it. And like, it was like, don't go beyond this door.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's like a whole section. It must be this old. And it was like all dark curtained. And I would just peek in and I'd be like, what's in here? And I'd like look around, try to sneak between the black curtains. So the reason I bring that up is because the irony of all this is that's why it was started. And even when it became very popular, Blockbuster became a real big thing, a household name, they still managed to keep that

in the store as a section because they knew how popular that was. We as kids weren't going back there, but I wonder that was probably a very popular section for a group of individuals. So it's interesting. Now I think about it in hindsight. Like your dad always wanted to take you to Blockbuster. He never wanted to do anything else with you. But when you were like, let's get a movie, he's like, yeah, lock her up. My keys, man. My dad wasn't around, but I'm sure he would. I mean, mine either. But you know what I mean? Like I'm saying your dad in general, like anybody's like, he doesn't want to do anything with you, but you want to go to Blockbuster. It was usually my mom. She was a saint. She would never do that.

Shout out to all the mothers out there. It's a little belated Mother's Day. Happy Mother's Day to you too as well, Stephanie. You just passed. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I mean, I was trying to get up in there.

I was a kid and I'm like, I just, you know, it was the illicitness of it all. That's probably what's wrong with me. One of the many things. Yeah. Some of it. But anyway, so the quote goes on and it says, today, porno films, porno films, once relegated to bachelor parties and dingy back rooms, are now a $700 million a year business. Home video is a $7 billion a year industry.

Some people think he inevitably stepped on a few dangerous toes. In the past three years, Live Entertainment had purchased interest in two companies from people identified by law enforcement authorities as having ties to organized crime. One of these men, Noel Bloom, received a great deal of police and media attention in the days just after the double murder. Bloom was also the owner of the biggest adult film company in the business, Caballero Home Video. video. A 1986 report by the California Attorney General's office identified Bloom as a major distributor of X-rated movies and a former associate of the late Michael Zaffarno of the Joseph Bonanno organized crime family. Bloom was one of the 56 people named in a federal indictment in Miami in February of 1980, connected to Operation Me Porn, the largest pornography

sting in U.S. history. One of the first items on Jose Menendez's agenda after moving to California in the summer of 1986 was negotiating with Noel Bloom to buy the remaining 75% of his company. A former company executive says, Jose was solid in the belief that the company wouldn't turn around with Noel. Their styles were very different. By the end of 1986, Bloom was pushed out of the door completely. He lost his company but walked away with a large check and a promise that the company would cover a $500,000 business loan. Meanwhile, the $20 million loss the company posted in 1986 was replaced by 1987 profits of roughly $8 million. Noel Bloom sued

Carol Co., the parent company of Live, in August of 1987, charging that the movie company had breached its contract to purchase his company by fraudulently promising to pay the outstanding loan while secretly intending not to pay the debt. Bloom later brought Menendez personally into the litigation by claiming that the man who took over his company had also robbed him of rights to a children's film. Ew. Ew. This guy's like the number one distributor of adult movies and he's also into children's films. Yeah. No, I mean, the two should not be together. But in their eyes, it's all about distribution, right? It's all about just getting whatever content.

This makes sense why Jose had some of those crazy videos that Lyle and Eric were talking about, right? I didn't understand, but he said he brought them home from work. And I'm like, what do you mean you brought them home from work? You work at a legitimate Hollywood film production company. Why are you bringing porno home from work?

But that's because Jose was sort of involved in this adult industry because he'd purchased 75% of Noel Bloom's company. Yeah. And back to the investigation itself, this right here, everything that you're laying out, extremely important for detectives. This is about motive, right? They're not looking for the how yet. They're not looking for the who. They're looking for the why. And now they have a potential why here. Okay. Jose was in these business dealings. Who would have lost in these dealings? Okay. Noel Bloom would have. Now you have a potential who. Now we got to think about the how. Is it possible that Bloom could have been involved with this? Well, he had connections

and all these things. Reached out to his old associates. He sees someone owes him a favor. That's right. So you have the why, which is your motive, and then you can reverse engineer it, kind of figure out the who and the how. Same thing goes for the Menendez brothers. Law enforcement is doing the same thing behind closed doors for them as well. So this is where the motive is so important when you're trying to identify who's responsible for the killings once law enforcement is able to do that the why becomes less important and that's what i was saying earlier but yeah when when they have this pool of suspects that they're looking into the whys are going to be at the top of the list what would what purpose or what reason would this individual have for wanting to kill Jose Menendez? And I think the one you're laying out here is a strong argument, is a strong argument,

at least initially when we're considering a mafia-style hit. And I wonder if Eric and Lyle knew that there were connections like this, because it seems so random for there to just be like out of nowhere, oh yeah, like Jose must have come home and talked about this dude, because for them to pick that alternate theory and then to be so lucky that there was actually evidence that that could be a possibility, that just seems too far, too much of a coincidence. Like, nobody's that lucky. Like, they just say, oh, our parents got killed by the mob. And then they read in the paper, they're like, oh, actually, our dad did know people who were connected to the mob. Lucky us.

Oh, happy day. I feel like Jose came home, talked shop, would talk about this stuff almost in like a bragging way to like, oh, yeah, I took down this guy. I tricked him. I took his company out from under him. And he's got connections to the mob. But Jose Menendez, he fears no man. And Eric and Lila are like, all right, dude, thanks. Well, thanks for our premeditation.

I want to elaborate on that. Let's take a break. We'll be right back. So we're back from break. And something just dawned on me as we're talking about this and what you were alluding to right there. You think about this whole thing, right? We're past the point of who did this. We know that the Menendez brothers did this. They admitted to it. But then you say this thing where there could be situations where Jose's discussing his business

dealings at home, specifically the people that he's having issues with, right? And who they could be connected to. I do wonder in hindsight, when we think about the manner in which these murders were carried out, if that played into the planning, right? There could have been cleaner, easier ways of doing this where you poison them or you cut their brake, something where you could have made it more discreet, right? Why shoot them with shotguns in this manner, execute them like that? Could that rationale have been, listen, we have to make this look like a mob style hit to build that narrative. And maybe it's not about them being sociopaths or being just crazy people who wanted to kill these individuals in the worst way possible. This all could have been to create the illusion that they were executed by an organized crime

family that wanted to retaliate against them for something that Jose had done. I do wonder if that was part of the conversation that was going on behind closed doors with Eric and Lyle, which obviously will never be privy to, but it would make sense if they had decided before the killings, okay, we're going to kill him. How do we do this in a way where it draws attention away from us? Well, we know that our dad had some problems with people who were involved in an organized crime. Well, how would organized crime take out an individual that bothered them? They would send a message. Shotguns would be a take out an individual that bothered them? They would send a message. Shotguns would be a great way to do that.

And, you know, it would have been so much easier if they'd made it look like a murder-suicide because Katie was already struggling with mental health. She was like, there was known issues in the marriage with Jose. She was at her limit. And if they could have made it look like she shot him and then shot herself, they might have gotten away with this. Who knows? I mean, they definitely had some missteps for sure. They definitely had some missteps. But I'll tell you, it's so fascinating because, unfortunately,

we'll never know with 100% certainty, but I think that's why another reason true crime is so popular is because we're all sitting at home right now, whether you're listening or watching this, and you're asking yourself, how could someone do this? Because you can't rationalize it because you're a normal person in the sense where you would more than likely never kill someone. And so to see these crimes being conducted by the children of the parents, separate the fact of what these parents did to these children, that changes things dramatically. But just the way this was carried out, we're all sitting at home trying to figure out

how does someone do this and why would they do it? These are the questions we have and we'll never have a hundred percent the answer, but man, I would love to be a These are the questions we have, and we'll never have 100% the answer. But man, I would love to be a fly on the wall in the house, in the mansion leading up to the murders where Eric and Lyle were discussing certain things. If you ask me, I'm 99% sure that they knew because there'd be no way you would just accidentally stumble into this theory that had so much supporting evidence to back it up, right? Of course. Think about the conversations you have in your own home about people, and your children just happen to be present, where you're just discussing it with your

significant other, your partner, and they overhear the conversation, or it's a dinner table conversation. And Jose does come off as the type of guy who would be at dinner discussing about this type of thing. Yeah, because he can't leave work at the office, you know? Right, right. So it's one of those situations where it's highly likely Eric and Lyle were aware of the people Jose was in bed with and who was potentially pissed off at him. Again, this was some litigation going on, so it was a bigger deal. And it'd be foolish not to think Jose was discussing this behind closed doors in his home. Yeah. So that Miami Herald article continues and says, quote, In September of 1988, a court referee ruled in favor of Bloom, saying that Menendez had engaged in highly inappropriate conduct and a squeeze play.

The suit left strong animosities on both sides. Some observers of the court testimony say Bloom was humiliated by Menendez. Then, a month after Menendez died, the company paid Bloom $500,000 to settle the suit. CarricoK and he knew that if Jose Menendez was alive to testify, he might not get it. So he had him taken out, not only just angry because Jose humiliated him in public, not only angry because Jose stole his company out from under him, but wanting that money, wanting that money from the settlement. Now, former police officer Richard Wenskowski was assigned to guard Lyle. And the day after the memorial service, he calls the security company in Princeton, and he's like, I need two full-time round-the-clock guards. And Richard Wenskowski was one of the guards sent to guard Lyle. And he would later testify that Lyle had told him he was in fear for his life because he believed his parents had been murdered by either the South American drug cartel or the Italian mafia.

Could you explain to me what kind of services you provided for Mr. Menendez? We bodyguarded Lyle for approximately a week or so. We spent 24 hours a day with him. At the time that you were providing bodyguard services for him, were you armed with a weapon? Yes, ma'am. What kind of weapon did you have? A Brownie 9mm. And that was carried with you at all times, is that correct? Yes, ma'am.

Now, I'm a little confused. If it was 24 hours a day, did you sleep? Yes, we did. We had adjoining rooms with Lyle. you sleep yes we did we had adjoining rooms with lyle now where did you have these adjoining rooms at the bridgeton hyatt and during the course of this time with mr menendez where did you go with him we went shopping we went to the u.s open we went looking at homes, cars. When you were traveling with Lyle during this period of time, what method, what means did you travel? Lyle was in a limousine, and most of the time I was in a vehicle behind the limousine. Okay. What was the purpose of you being in a vehicle behind the limousine?

That was sort of like a crash vehicle. What's a crash vehicle? Well, if somebody attempted to harm Lyle while we were in traffic or on the roadway, we always had a second vehicle. If something happened to the limousine, we had a second vehicle to take Lyle out of the area. Okay, so that was a security precaution, is that correct? Yes, ma'am. Right. While you were with Lyle Menendez, did he ever tell you why it was he wanted a bodyguard? Yes, he did. Okay, what did he tell you? He said that his parents were murdered by either the cartel or the mob, and he was in fear of his life. In regards to that, did you take any special precautions to protect yourself?

Yes. What did you do? We purchased bulletproof vests. Now, did you purchase bulletproof vests just for this job? Yes, ma'am. So prior to that, in your experience as a bodyguard, you hadn't used one? Not, no. I believe you indicated during the period of time that you were guarding him

that one of your activities was shopping, is that correct? Yes, ma'am. Did you ever shop for any vehicles? Yes, ma'am. Could you describe what you did in that regard, please? We went to a Porsche dealer located on Route 1 in the Princeton area, at which time Lyle was looking at a white Porsche convertible. Did you ever see him or did you ever go with him while he test drove a Porsche?

Yes, we went for a test drive. Did he appear to know how to drive the car? Yes, ma'am. Did he break any speed laws? Yes, ma'am. Okay. Did you actually see him close the purchase of the Porsche? No.

Did you do any other shopping involving real estate? Yes, we went to a housing development in the Princeton area where we looked at patio homes. Did Mr. Menendez have any discussion with you about whether or not he wanted to buy one of these patio homes? Yes, he brought me into the home and asked me if I liked it, and we looked around the house. Now Now in regards to the Porsche did Mr. Menendez ever ask you your opinion about the Porsche? Yes he did. What kind of discussions did you have generally? Generally when he looked at things he asked my opinion if I liked them would it be good for him and do you think he would enjoy it. Did he ever tell you why it was he was

asking your opinion about these things? Later on, during the time I spent with him, he said that I kind of looked at, reminded him of his dad. He said I was kind of about the same age, and he looked at me as a father figure. Now, did Lyle Menendez ever indicate to you that he was in fear of someone that you should guard him from? Yes. Okay, what generally did he tell you about that? He figured that him and his brother were in severe danger because if they did that to his parents, they're going to try to do the same thing to him and his brother.

And it was he that gave you the idea that it was someone in the cartel or the mob, is that correct? Yes, ma'am. Were you ever asked by Mr. Menendez to get you prices for any other kind of vehicles? Yes. Could you tell us what Mr. Menendez told you in this regard, please? He wanted a price on a bulletproof limousine. And did you in fact try to obtain prices for a bulletproof limousine? Yes, I passed that information on to my superior and he looked into it. He was looking into purchasing a limo.

Now at some point, I believe your employment was terminated, is that correct? Yes, ma'am. Okay, did Mr. Lyle Menendez ever tell you why it was that your services were no longer required? Yes, ma'am. He said that his uncle had contacted somebody in New York City, a mob figure, I believe that was the exact term he used.

His uncle went to see somebody in the mob in New York City, and they assured his uncle that Lyle was no longer in danger, or his brother. And that was the end of your contact in 1989 with Mr. Lyle Menendez? Yes, ma'am. Now, I believe you indicated you did other shopping. What kind of shopping did you do with him, aside from homes and vehicles? We went clothes shopping. He bought suits and shoes, shirts, ties.

We went shopping for tennis equipment, tennis rackets, sports sneakers, and outerwear. Did you ever take Mr. Lyle Menendez anywhere to get more money? Yes. And did Mr. Lyle Menendez tell you where he wanted to go and why? Yes. Okay, what happened there? Lyle said that he needed more money, and he was going to visit his Uncle Carlos. We went there twice, I believe, and both times Lyle said it was to obtain money. And did you actually accompany him inside of the house to get the money, or did you wait? I waited outside. And when he came back, did he ever indicate on either of the two occasions that he had been successful in getting money?

Yes, he did. When you went to look at the Portia and you went to the patio homes, could you describe his demeanor for me? He was normal. Him and Glenn were laughing and talking and joking. There was no... He didn't look upset. Did you ever see him cry?

No, ma'am. Now, as a police officer in your 18 years, had you ever seen people who had been the victims of crimes or witnesses who were aggrieved? Yes, ma'am. Did he appear to be aggrieved to you? No, ma'am. When he was purchasing these items, did he appear unhappy? No, not at all.

Did he seem to you to be genuinely fearful during the period of time that you were with him? No, sir. On the contrary. He would jump out of the limousine before we even would stop and go running into stores. Several times he'd walk away and we would say, wow, wait a minute, let us go out of the store first. He wasn't fearful.

Did the limo driver at some point indicate to you that he thought someone was following you? Yes, he did. He mentioned something about the FBI. He was informed by his office that he thought that the FBI was following Lyle or the limousine. So how expensive do you suppose round-the-clock guard services would be, even if it's just a week? I couldn't even imagine back then, but very expensive. Tens of thousands of dollars. Not to mention. Has to be.

Not to mention, Lyle's already got an Alfa Romeo car. Now he's buying a Porsche. And he's paying for a limo to drive him everywhere. And not just in New Jersey. When he's in L.A., he's paying for a limo to drive him everywhere. And not just in New Jersey. When he's in L.A., he's paying for a limo to drive him everywhere. Then he goes to New York City, you know, to hang out, party, shop, paying a limo to drive him everywhere. Went to Chicago to shop, party, paid for a limo to drive him everywhere. And he's flying back and forth from the East Coast to the West Coast several times a week.

First class. I also think it's important when we're talking about these types of behaviors to evaluate it against behavior before Jose and Kitty's deaths, right? From what I understand, and you can correct me if I'm wrong on this, you've done the research, they obviously lived a very good life. They were not hurting. And you said this, I don't know if it was episode two or three with specifically Lyle, who was already driving a nice car, dating a supermodel. They weren't hurting, right? They're doing okay. You mean Eric and Lyle or the family in general? Well, Eric and Lyle weren't doing terribly because I was mentioning that he had a nice car and all these things.

And you're like, yeah, well, obviously he's got his dad's got money and all this stuff. But it didn't appear to me. And by the way, correct me if I'm wrong right now, you can stop me in my tracks. It didn't appear to me that before their deaths, Lyle specifically, because that's who we're talking about here, was out looking for real estate and was out doing these types of things before their deaths, which does raise an eyebrow. It raises an eyebrow because it appears that these were things he had been thinking about prior to the incident. It wasn't like basically what I'm trying to say to summarize, because I'm beating around the bush here. These weren't behaviors he was displaying before their deaths. And therefore, the reason that he's doing it after the fact does come into question because you can't make the argument, hey, listen, I've always done this. This isn't out of the ordinary for me.

Yes, I've always been financially well off. I've always gone out and looked for real estate. I have an interest in investing in my portfolio that involves actual structures. And as far as cars, I have three or four cars already. So this, again, is something normal. This appears to have been elevated after their deaths, which does give some fuel to the fire if you're in the camp of this was in some way, at least to a certain degree, financially motivated. Yeah. And I mean, after the murders, all of a sudden Lyle and Eric are both interested in like business investments and real estate and all of this. And it's like they had no interest in that before. And it was something their dad was always trying to push them to get into. And they were like, we just want to be kids and play tennis and drive around Princeton and be carefree.

But what happened is Lyle and Eric weren't necessarily getting money, especially Lyle being at Princeton. They wasn't getting money from his family and he wasn't working for a paycheck. But his father did give both boys access to a credit card, but he would monitor it. And if they spent too much or if what they were spending money on wasn't something he thought was a worthwhile expenditure, then he would cut them off or berate them or threaten them like, oh, next time if you do this, I'm going to do that. So they had access to money before their parents' death, but not an unlimited amount where they could buy. If they had bought a Rolex on

Jose's credit card when he was still alive, he probably would have cut them off for good. Yeah, he would have lost it. And so it's almost like this thing now where it's like, okay, we can go ham. Nobody's here telling us we can't. It's like when you're home alone and your mom doesn't come home, she's running late and she's like, you know, I left some dinner for you, warm it up. And you're like, I'm not warming that up.

I'm going to have ice cream and put Rice Krispie treats inside of the ice cream and watch it in front of, you know, some R-rated movie I'm not supposed to be viewing. You kind of go crazy. Like when the money in it and they just were blowing it all. I think there was a small element of that, especially when we talk about Rolexes and things. But I also think there was an element of preservation where they knew they were going to get a lump sum, but they also knew that Jose was no longer around to generate additional income. So whatever the lump sum was that they received, they had to find a way of stretching that. So I do think this was somewhat of a business decision as well, where they're saying, okay, we're going to have a little fun, but we have to find ways to invest this sum into something else that can continue to generate additional income that we can use as we go forward because the gravy trains over to a certain degree where

whatever we have now, we got to make that last. So I also think that could be an element of it as well. Maybe, possibly. I don't know if they ever had to be on a budget before. I don't think they understood that money runs out. I think they thought that their dad had more money than he did because they weren't aware of the debt that he carried. Yeah, it makes total sense. So Lyle's over here. He's spending money on the East Coast, renting limos, hiring private security guards. He's in the market for cars. He's in the market for homes, new suits.

And Richard Wienkowski said they were staying at this hotel. And then Eric basically just left a bunch of clothes and shoes and stuff. And Richard was like, oh, do you want me to grab this stuff? We can pack it up for you. And Lyle was like, no, this is all stuff from before. I'm going to buy all new stuff because I have the money. I can do that now. I don't want anything to remind me.

And when he was asked at trial what he thought Lyle meant by that, Richard Winskowski said, well, I think he meant like anything that maybe his parents had bought him or anything that reminded him of his parents. And you could kind of look at that either way. Like, is this Lyle saying I'm shedding the skin of my past? Any affiliation that I had with that person that my parents raised, I'm becoming a new man now? Or was it like I miss them so much that anything they bought me, I don't want around? Which the latter seems less likely.

Because, I mean, if you loved your parents and they gave you something or bought you something, even if it's a pair of pants or a suit, you're probably going to want to hold on to that for sentimental value. So what Eric is spending that first week or so in New Jersey, that's the tip of the iceberg. And we're going to talk about that later in the episode. But after Lyle had hired his security guards, he made a quick one-day trip back to LA to take care of some business. Specifically, he told his security guard, Richard Winskowski, that he had to do something with a will. We're going to talk about that when we come back from our last break. With August 31st, around 1.30 p.m., Howard Witkins, who was

a co-owner and president of Leviathan Development, which is a computer technician company, he received a call from his office asking him to respond to an emergency service call in Beverly Hills. Now, the emergency service call was from Lyle Menendez, who he flew his ass back from New Jersey when he found out that his uncle and his cousin were basically calling around having computer technicians come in to try and open that file that said Will. computer technician company. And he told the company, like, I need this computer tech here ASAP today, because in a few hours, I have to get on a plane and fly back to the East Coast. And Howard Whitkin happened to be only a few blocks away. So it only took a few minutes for him to reach 722 North Elm. Once you gained entry into the house, where did you go? Lyle escorted me upstairs into a bedroom and showed me the computer which was an IBM XT computer immediately to the right of the door. He stepped in the door and to your right in

the corner was the computer. When I arrived, when we walked upstairs, I asked Lyle what it was that he needed me to do, what he was trying to accomplish. And what he told me is that he had a series of files that he desperately needed to recover, that they had been erased or damaged, and he needed those files, and could I please try to find them on the computer for him? Did he identify the names of the files? Yeah, as I remember it, it was four names, Lyle, Eric, Will, and Menendez. Once he gave me the names of the files that he wanted to find the first thing I did as I sat down and I typed a directory

you can the way a computer stores information on a hard disk is it keeps a list of files as if you're keeping a file drawer you would have each file folder and you'd write the name of a file and store it. So what I did is I sat down at the computer and first looked the simplest way was just to look and see the names of every file on the hard disk. And there's a little software program you can run that will show you every single file anywhere on the hard disk and show you the name of the file. The simplest way people lose files is they just misplace them. They move them to a different list.

They put it in the wrong drawer, so to speak. So the first thing I did was look to see whether the file existed. All right. Now, you said something about you had a program to look to see what was on the hard disk. Is that correct? Yeah, the first tool I believe I used was Xtree. First I used just the standard, the standard DOS, the standard operating system. Okay, now, you're starting to talk computerese, alright. Could you explain what DOS is? Alright, DOS is the basic, it's the very elementary program that tells a computer how to act like a computer. One of the wonderful things about a computer is you can make it do anything.

I mean, I can use a computer as an imitation airplane, so I can sit and look at a screen and play. I can use it as a game. I can use it to write letters. You can basically do anything with it. The thing that tells the computer how to be an IBM computer is something called a Disk Operating System, DOS. And it's the very, very basic program. There's a certain set of commands or things you can tell it to do,

one of which is something called DIR, D-I-R, which says, give me a list of every file. Now, if a file has been deleted from the directory, is there a way to see if it's still stored inside of the computer? Yeah, in fact, the way DOS deletes a file. So, for example, when I create a file, it writes it magnetically onto the hard disk. So now the information is stored as a series of ones and zeros on a hard disk. And then it has another place, which is this index, the list of what's there.

When I delete a a file it doesn't actually touch the data when i say delete or erase a file it leaves the information on the disk it just goes to the list and changes the name of the file in the index to like a question mark so for example if you have you know take a telephone book the yellow pages if i want to hide your if i want to hide your information or if I want to erase your information, I don't have to actually take the information out. If I just change the first letter of your name to a question mark, it makes it very difficult to find it again. All right, so let me stop you for a second. Then if you had deleted the file from the directory, okay, the directory is what you turn on the computer, you write DIR, and it will give you…

It will show you a list of what's on the computer. If I delete a file, when I turn the directory on, the name won't be on there anymore. Right. The file will be on the disk, but the name won't appear on the directory. So is there a way by which you can go into the hard drive and ask it to give you all the files that have been deleted before? Right. So there's a tool called Norton Utilities that I used. N norton is that spelled n-o-r-t-o-n utilities is that a program that is a program now in relationship to the four items that you were asked to look for did you look for them in the directory first i looked for them in the directory did you find them in the directory? I found a couple of the names of the file. Like I found a file called Menendez as an example. But when I looked at the actual

file, so when I looked at the actual file, what the file contained was a printout of the directory that someone or somehow had managed to already erase the file but not by telling it please erase me by copying something else over the top of it now did you you said you found the word menendez in the directory as a file name okay did you find any other file names in the directory um i also believe i found will eric and liah okay Mr. Witkin, when you were told the word Will, W-I-L-L, did you consider that to be an abbreviation for the name William, or did you understand it to be the name of a document?

Or what was in your mind? As I understood it, it was three first names, three proper names, and one last name. Like Larry Moe and Shirley Jo. Right, but it was Lyle, Eric, and short Lyle, who I knew there existed a human being named Lyle because I was standing there talking to him. Eric, which I assumed was another male first name, and Will, which I assumed was short for William. Now you've testified that you found something in the file called Menendez, but it was basically just...

Each of the files, what I found was each of the files that I did find had no meaningful information. Each of them was an exact copy of the other, and what they contained was a listing of the actual directory, as if someone had copied the directory over Those files if your colleague said when you delete a file it doesn't actually take the information up It just changes the name it just changes the name the one way you can get the information off is Write something else right over the top of it Apparently someone had written over the top trying to obscure these three files or either purposefully or accidentally, but someone had actively covered those files with. All right, now is one of the things you're asked to do in your profession to go and correct mistakes

that people make on their computers? One of the most common things you do. All right. I mean, a major piece. In fact, this tool, Norton Utilities, Peter Norton, who originally created it, managed to build a multi-million dollar company out of one product, out of an un-erased product, a product essentially for just taking

when someone else accidentally erases a file and recover it. So it's a very, very common thing to want to do. After you located these various files and found that there was no meaningful information inside, did you communicate that fact to Lamanendos? Yeah, I did. The first thing I did, once I realized that they had nothing meaningful, the next step that I took, I told them that there was nothing in the files, but there was a tool I could use, again a piece of Norton Utilities, to search through the whole disk, ignoring files,

but just looking at every letter on the disk and trying to find those names to see if they existed someplace else, either in a different file name or in a file that had been erased and just was still, where the raw information was there but no longer attached to a file. Did you ask him if you should do that or did you tell him you were going to do that? I told him I was going to do that. Okay. Now, during the period of time that you were making your search, where was Lamanendos? Coming in and out of the room when I began he stood behind me

and stood with me he left the room came back in in several times a couple of times he was in the room with me made a you know made a phone call and walked back and forth he was arranging a dinner date or a dinner appointment for that afternoon and arranging a flight back to or discussing a flight back to New Jersey but he was with me you know watching what doing, would leave, come back and watch again what I was doing. And Mr. Witkin, did you in fact then use the portion of Norton Utilities to search the hard disk to see if you could find any other words or references to the items you'd been asked to look for? Right. So I searched the complete hard disk everywhere and found that those files,

the words existed in no place else on the hard disk except as those three file names containing essentially meaningless information. And I told Lionel this, that unfortunately I had failed and was unable to recover any useful or meaningful data for him. What did he reply to you after you told him that? What he told me is that was very good, because in fact he didn't want to recover the information. He wanted to make sure that the information was not in fact there and couldn't be recovered even by someone who was actively trying to recover the information.

Now, were you actively trying to recover the information? I was doing my best. And about how much time do you think you spent doing that? 20 minutes to half an hour. Alright, after Lamanin has told you what you just related to us, what happened then? I told him I'd been unable to recover it, and then he asked, could I erase it to make sure that even if I hadn't been good enough at recovering it, maybe someone else could. Was there a way I could erase the information to guarantee that it could never be recovered?

Did he tell you why he wanted that done? He told me that the computer actually contained personal financial information, that they were selling the computer, and the information on the machine was confidential. They did not want it released or anyone else seeing it, which again is a common thing to do. If you have a computer and you want to give it to someone else and you have confidential information, there's a tool for erasing it. Again, part of Norton Utilities. Alright, did you in fact erase the computer at that point? So I then used

the Norton Utilities has a file called WipeDisk, which will go, and I said, you know, the only true way to erase a file is to write something else over it. So what WipeDisk does is it goes to the whole hard disk and every single character, every possible place to put a piece of information, it writes a 1 and then a 0 and then a 1. And it forces it so that there is no way to ever see what was on that disk beforehand. First I was asked, could you recover? When I said it was impossible to recover, I was asked, can you make sure that it's really impossible to recover? When I did that, the next question that I was asked is, can you make it look as if you were never here? Can you restore

the files so that it does, so it would not be clear to someone that the disc had been erased? And who said that to you? Lyle asked me to do that. He asked me, could you erase it? Could you, could you make it look as if no one had erased anything on here? Yeah. So this is the digital stuff and this is early on in it, but it's still a lot of the methods today would still apply where you write over something, but even though you write over something, or I should say you delete something, it's not completely gone until you write over it or until you reformat that drive. The other side to it is obviously this is very suspect, everything he's asking him to do. The other thing to talk about is

making it so there's no digital footprint left behind that you were there. After the fact, that's very difficult to do. When we were working with child molestation cases and child pornography cases, we actually had to go to a class where you're able to enter a computer through an external drive. And it's basically you're accessing the files of the computer without actually going onto the computer. I know it sounds kind of contradictory, but smarter people would be able to explain this. But essentially, we use a software to access a backdoor of the computer. We would then have to report or illustrate what we did and make note of all of it. But on the surface, we're never

actually going into the computer so there would be no digital footprint left behind. Why was that important in those cases? Well, we would access the computer through the backdoor of a potential sex offender who would have access to child pornography on their computer. And we never wanted there to be an argument that we inserted that material on their computer. So we would have to go in there without disrupting anything, without changing anything, so that it could be used for evidentiary purposes later with a clean chain of custody. So the same method could be applied here. I don't know if this individual had that ability to do so,

where we'd leave behind no digital footprint whatsoever. And you definitely can't do it after the fact. You have to go in there under that pretense where you know, oh, I want to access the information on this computer, but without anybody being able to trace it. So on the surface though, this is just not good, not good at all. This is what Lyle's asking someone. And this is a really strong witness. Honestly, when we start to think about whether or not the Menendez brothers killed their parents and the reasoning behind it, this is an impartial person who has no skin in the game, just kind of came in because Lyle brought him into it. And he's just giving his honest assessment of what he saw and what he heard and what Lyle said to him. So he might not seem like the most important player,

but this is a critical part of this case. Yeah. And it was funny because when he was in the courtroom, the lawyer was like, and did you make it look like you'd never been there? And he was like, well, apparently not good enough because you guys found me. Correct. Correct. And that's why I bring it up. After the fact, there's no way to remove it completely. Anything you do, any click, any turning on of the computer, there is a log.

Which I feel like that dude should have known, by the way, but it was 1989. It was 1989. 1989. And he probably thought, there's a difference, right? He's thinking, okay, I just want to do it so that Lyle's family members or friends can't find that I've been on there. Well, no, because Lyle told him, we're selling the computer. And this guy, Howard, he was like, yeah, that makes sense. That's what people want to do.

You want to get rid of your stuff. So from the perspective of, would another person who purchases a computer be able to see anything or know I was here? No, of course not. They're just a layman. But another digital expert going in there would be able to go into the data logs and see that you poked around. Which is what you're going to have when you go to trial for murder, right? Two different experts for sure. They're going to be competing against each other. And one of Eric and Lyle's cousins worked for IBM and she's kind of the one who was like, oh yeah, get computer experts in here because they can, even if they can't retrieve the file, they can see what happened to it. Was it deleted? Was it overwritten? When did that happen? Who did it? Et cetera. So they kind of, I don't think Eric

and Lyle really planned for that, but I also don't know if they, and honestly of I don't think Eric and Lyle really planned for that. But I also don't know if they and honestly, I don't think that this will was ever drafted up. I almost feel like it was just something Jose had created like an outline of hoping to bring it to his sister, Marta in Florida in the fall so that she could make a legitimate will. So it may not have even been legally, you know, considered to be accurate. I don't know how that would work if it wasn't, what is it called, when you have to be notarized and it has to go through certain legal methods. I don't know how that would work. But either way, they clearly didn't want anybody to know that that second will existed. Or since people already knew it existed,

they just didn't want anybody to ever find it. Because if you can't find it, you don't know what it says. Exactly. So Lyle, he's flying from coast to coast trying to put all the pieces in place, not knowing that as he sat on his first class flight from Newark to LAX, the Beverly Hills Police Department was getting approval for two sealed search warrants requesting phone records for the Menendez home with the intention of retracing the brothers' movements on the day of their parents' brutal murders. For the next several months, Eric and Lyle spent money like they

would never run out of it, and the team of detectives, which was headed by Les Soller, they watched it all unfold. Eric and Lyle had moved out of the Beverly Hills mansion, and they stayed at a series of luxury hotels for a little while before they purchased side-by-side condos on the water in Marina del Rey. Eric lost some money gambling. He decided to not go to UCLA for a year. And then he hired his former tennis coach, Mark Hefferman, to act as his personal trainer and get him ready for competitions again with the hopes of going pro. So both Lyle and Eric are taking classes with Mark Heffernan in their side-by-side condos every single day. Mainly it was Eric that wanted this. He was paying Mark Heffernan $60,000 a year by hiring him. And Mark said they trained for 10 hours a day because what Eric wanted to do was get back into tennis and start traveling internationally and hopefully go pro. Now, Lyle, he went back to New Jersey. He went back to his classes at Princeton, except he didn't really go to his classes.

He didn't at all. As you heard from the testimony of Richard Wendkowski, he mainly spent his time shopping. Not only did Lyle drop over $60,000 on a Porsche, which once again, remember, $60,000 then is going to be a lot more today. He also bought $40,000 in new clothes. And then he decided to purchase a restaurant, Chuck's Spring Street Cafe, which was a popular off-campus spot for college kids in the Princeton area. Lyle paid $550,000 for the place.

And then he renamed it Mr. Buffalo's, hoping to one day turn it into a franchise. So all of a sudden, Lyle's super business-minded, you know? I'm telling you, this definitely goes towards what I was saying, where he was trying to diversify his portfolio with multiple investments that would continue to generate income going forward. This was the replacement for what Jose was providing. Yeah. Yeah. Which, I mean, not dumb. Not a bad business move. If we're just looking at it on the surface, it's incredibly smart instead of just blowing through all the money until you have none left. And he's buying real estate.

He bought a home in the Princeton area. Was he going to live in that home? Probably not. It was a patio home, like the security guard was explaining. And he probably was going to rent it out, hoping to get some passive income, right? 100%. Eric, he purchased a new tan Jeep Wrangler. He also spent forty thousand dollars on this idea that a friend of his had to fund a rock concert at the L.A. Palladium. And the friend ended up not following through. And so Eric lost be playing in competitions. They also went on ski trips to Aspen and Lake Tahoe. They booked a vacation to Cancun, Mexico. Lyle bought a car for his girlfriend. The list goes on and on and on. Within six months,

the brothers had spent all of the life insurance money and then some. Family members noticed this pattern of behavior, and Carls Beralt, he said he'd asked Lyle to slow down the spending. But mostly, they seemed to believe that these big ticket purchases and these shopping sprees were Eric and Lyle's way of coping with the loss of their parents. You can see that. I can see how they would say, listen, they're just trying to keep their mind off it. That's how I cope. I'm serious. I'm serious. So, I mean, I'm not going to argue against that. I can see how on the surface, it's like, all right, listen, they're going through a rough time. They're trying to keep their

minds off things by fulfilling whatever void they have right now. Just getting those dopamine hits, gambling, making purchases that's scientifically proven to give you dopamine hits. And obviously, this is before they know they killed killed their parents. So I don't blame them for coming from that angle. I mean, honestly, even after they knew they killed their parents, the majority of their family members were like, we understand why and we forgive them. But we do.

And even Kitty's sister said something where she said, I forgive Eric and Lyle, but I'll never forgive my sister. Which I, once again, a huge testament to the fact that it seemed people knew something was not right with the Menendez family. Yeah, it was bad.

It was bad. And we're not disputing that either. No, I think regardless, and they may have exaggerated the abuse. I'm not saying they did, but even if they did, just the baseline of what we know to be true on supporting evidence, those pictures and other people. Yeah, no, it was bad.

Even Carlos Baralt saying he saw Jose physically abuse those kids multiple times when they were young. That's right. No, I believe the majority of what they said was true. And so when you're looking at it through that lens, it does change things. Well, as the brothers spent more and more money and the investigation progressed, it seemed less and less likely that Jose and Kitty Menendez had been the victims of organized crime. So it appeared that whoever had killed them maybe wanted it to look as if it had been a hit. Specifically, the police cited

certain bullet wounds to the knees of Jose and Kitty and kind of saying like this may have been a trademark of some sort of cartel or gang. But law enforcement also knew that the scene was far too messy and erratic to be seriously attributed to professional killers. And after the murders, a Miami Herald reporter named Robert Rand was given the assignment of writing a 5000 word piece on Jose Menendez being a Cuban-American success story ending in tragedy. And so this author, Robert Rand, he sat down with Eric and Lyle at their parents' home in October. And in the book he would eventually write about the case, Rand said, quote, over the next hour, Lyle did 90% of the talking. He compared his father to John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. and described his death as a tragic loss for the Cuban people who didn't even know who he

was or what he was going to do for them. Eric told of the books his father read, his suffering in Cuba, and that Jose was a regular contributor to Radio Marti, the Spanish-language equivalent of Radio Free Europe, broadcast to the island from transmitters in Florida. The few times Eric spoke when Lyle was in the room, he looked to his older brother as if seeking his approval. He was low-key and measured. Lyle was much more outgoing and confident and maintained eye contact. Eric spoke of his father in the present tense. He said his dad loves practical jokes, loves corny jokes, tells the stupidest jokes and over and over again and just laughs at them.

But he's not an idiot. He just enjoys the silly humor, end quote. And overall, generally, anybody you ask will say, Lyle seemed to be fine. Eric was way more broken up about what had happened to his parents. And this is eventually going to be their downfall because Eric's going to start seeking mental health therapy from a man named Dr. Jerome Ozel. And it is during these sessions that Eric confesses to killing his parents. And the way that these confessions were allowed to be submitted into court is kind of crazy. And we're going to talk about that next time. But the brothers told this reporter, who would end up becoming the author of probably the most well-acknowledged book

on this case, they told him that it was their goal to complete their father's dreams. Eric said he was trying to tour on the pro circuit, and then he was going to retire from tennis at the age of 30 and then go back to school and then into politics. Eric said that his brother, Lyle, wanted to become president of the United States. But Eric would be happy to settle for being a state senator in Florida. When Rand told Eric that he had spoken to the Beverly Hill police detectives as part of his research, he said Eric seemed super interested and wanted to know what the police had said. And Eric also admitted to Rand that detectives had been trying to get a hold of him, but he hadn't called them back, which also probably didn't look super good for the police when they're trying to talk to Eric and Lyle after their parents are murdered. And Eric and Lyle are kind of too busy going on spending sprees and it might be a mafia hit or there might

be somebody out there that you're allegedly scared of so scared you're hiring around the clock security you might want to hear what updates the police have right yeah you might want to hear and to go back because i don't want to skate over as far as this interview and lyle talking so highly of his father oh yes we want i want to talk about that too go ahead i have never been a victim of sexual abuse fortunately and so i don't I can't speak for everybody who has, but I would think in a situation like this, you may not go out there and step on someone's grave after they're gone, but I don't know if I would be as prone to go out there and talk so highly of a person who I know was an evil monster. I don't know if I would allow their legacy to

grow into something even more than it was, and I would be the one advocating for that legacy. That's just my opinion. I don't know how victims would feel about it if they didn't kill their offender, but to me, this comes off as contrived and it comes off as an opportunity- Calculated. Calculated. Calculated an opportunity for Lyle, more Lyle than Eric, to build on the narrative that they loved their father. And it was a great relationship. And they wanted to follow in his footsteps.

And they wanted to be just like him, again, to separate themselves from the possibility of being connected to the murders themselves. So I did want to talk about this. And I'm so glad because we think very similarly in a lot of situations. During the funeral in Princeton, Lyle gets up and he talks for 20 minutes about his father. And he was just they said it was glowing that he was like, my father was the best, strongest man. I look up to him so much. I have been the victim of abuse, luckily and thankfully, not child sexual abuse, but of abuse. And I can tell you that if I hadn't killed my abuser and somebody was asking me about them or asked me to speak about them, I would say, no, thank you. I don't want to speak at their funeral. I'm too hurt. I don't want to

first of all, like send somebody else because you're not going to get what you need from me. And secondly, I'm just kind of going to say nothing if I'm asked, you know, I'm not going to say this was the best person ever. And I'm not going to say he was an abusive piece of shit. But I'm just going to just probably keep silent because either way, it's not going to be good. It's not going to be good because I'm not going to lie about it. I'm not going to make this person seem like they were great. It's not in me to do that. But also, I can't say what I really want to say.

So I'm just going to say nothing. You know, that's how I would go about it. But I felt the same way. And people thought it was very strange in the aftermath. And they looked at it as a calculating move that Eric and Lyle were the murder and making their parents seem like, you know, they were the best parents ever. We were the happiest family ever and projecting this image that was not true. What's your motive to do that? Had you not been responsible? I agree. Yeah. I, it's not a good look. I would look great to hear from people in the comments on this one. I know we have some individuals who've been through some things who've spoken up throughout this series and would love to have your input on this topic as well. So now we're going to talk about Glenn Stevens. Glenn Stevens was a friend of Lyle's

from Princeton University. And during the investigation, detectives, like you said, were questioning friends and associates of Eric and Lyle's and of Kitty's and Jose's, whether it was the East Coast or the West Coast, they were all over. And Glenn was one of these people. And he had some interesting things to say. Did you have any conversation with Mr. Lyle Menendez at the wake? Yes, I did. Okay. Did he say something to you about how he felt about what had happened? Yes, we spoke for a little while. I had asked him, you know, how he was doing, how he was getting along.

And he had a response that I remember that stuck out of my mind. What did he tell you? He said, well, I've been waiting so long to be in this position that I'm well prepared for it. Now, when he said well prepared for the position, did you understand what position he was referring to? Well, I took it to mean being the man of the family now, being in charge. Did he say anything to you about the Rolex the first time that you noticed it on him?

Oh, I commented on it, and he told me that it was his father's and that he was wearing it. And when he made this comment to you, was that at the wake? Yes, that's correct. Okay. Did you later learn from Laumanendis that, in fact, he had purchased the Rolex? Yes, that's correct. At some point after you became aware that he was being guarded by bodyguards, were you aware of the fact that he went to Los Angeles for a day? Yes.

After the trip, did he tell you why he'd gone to Los Angeles? Yes. What did he say? He told me that his uncle Carlos had found a file in the computer that had had three headings on it. One of them said Menendez, one of them said List, I believe, and one of them said Will. And he went out there to try and open the files and read what was in them. Now, when he told you the term Will, did you understand that to be the name of a document or somebody's name, like Will being short for William? The name of the document, the family Will.

Like a last Will in Testament. Yes. Did he tell you why he wanted to access the computer? He wanted to read what was in the Will because he knew that his father was drafting a new Will, and he wanted to see if he could read what was in there. Did he tell you the results of his search? Yes. What did he tell you the results of his search? Yes. What did he tell you? They opened the files and found

nothing legible inside. They couldn't be opened, they couldn't be accessed for some reason and he told the computer expert that he had hired just to erase the contents. Did he tell you why he wanted the contents erased? Yes. What did he say? He said, well my father wasn't very happy with me at the time and since the will that was found gave me and my brother everything I had nothing to lose by erasing this one I'm not sure if I would have been in it. Now when Lyle Menendez told you about erasing the will did he say anything about the person who had done the erasure?

Yes. What did he say? He said that he had found a little Jewish guy, a computer expert, who he didn't think anybody would be able to find. Wow. I mean, listen, the dominoes are starting to fall. What trust to say that to someone openly? To say, you know, listen, I hired someone that no one will ever find. Why would that be important? If your intention is to find the will for everybody to see,

it wouldn't be about destruction of the evidence or destruction of the documentation would be the retrieval of it. So you can tell right from the jump, it doesn't take a detective to figure this one out. Lyle's intentions were never to read that will or to, or to bring it to light. It was to destroy it and to make sure that no one ever saw it. Exactly. And I mean, it's suspicious behavior. It's just kind of suspicious behavior. But the most damning testimony against Eric and Lyle would come from a man named Dr. Jerome Ozel. This was a psychiatrist treating Eric, who was a mess. And not only do we get his testimony, but we get the testimony of his affair partner, Judalyn Smith, and we get recorded confessions during these therapy sessions

with Eric and Lyle. And then you have Lyle, who once he finds out that his brother said something to Dr. Ozel, he goes into Dr. Ozel's office and, according to the psychiatrist, threatened him, threatened him, making the psychiatrist fear for his life. So we are going to get into that next episode. This is going to be a very good episode because Dr. Jerome Ozel is a character, as is his affair partner, Judalyn Smith. And it's very, very different to hear Eric's voice on tape confessing to what he did and what he and his brother did. And I think it's going to be very compelling. So stay tuned for that. Any final thoughts?

No, I can't wait because I was under the impression going into the series that law enforcement built a case against the brothers and eventually got them to confess during an interrogation or something of that nature, or maybe turn them against each other. I didn't know. I did not know that it was the confession through a therapist that ultimately did them in. So I'm really interested to hear those tapes firsthand as well, because it would be my first time. Well, that is going to be it for today, but we will see you next week. Don't forget to like, follow, and subscribe if you're watching on YouTube. Don't forget to leave us a review, a five-star review, preferably on any podcast platform that you're listening on.

And we will see. Go check out that website too. Yeah. And we'll see, and we'll talk to you next week. Bye.