Dateline NBC - Talking Dateline: The Menendez Brothers: Chance at Freedom

Episode Date: November 13, 2024

Keith Morrison and Andrea Canning sit down to talk about Keith’s episode, “Menendez Brothers: Chance at Freedom.” Thirty-five years ago, Jose and Kitty Menendez were gunned down in the den of their Beverly Hills home. Their sons, Lyle and Erik, were charged with their murders. A media frenzy surrounded the trial which was televised and captured the nation’s attention. Following each of their juries being unable to come to an agreement, the brothers were convicted in a second trial and sentenced to life in prison without parole. The case is back in the news and capturing the attention of a new audience on social media. And now, the outgoing Los Angeles County D.A. has recommended the brothers be resentenced, which – if a judge agrees – would immediately make them eligible for parole. Keith and Andrea discuss public opinion surrounding the case and details that could be considered in a possible resentencing. Plus, they answer viewer and listener questions about the episode.Listen to the full episode of "The Menendez Brothers: Chance at Freedom" here: https://link.chtbl.com/dl_menendezbrothers

Hi, everyone. This is Andrea Canning, and I'm here with Keith Morrison, and we are talking Dateline. Hello, Andrea. Good to see you and hear your voice. This episode is called The Menendez Brothers' Chance at Freedom. This story is one that has captured headlines. It's about the 1989 murders of Kitty and Jose Menendez by their sons Lyle and Eric. The couple was found shot to death in their Beverly Hills home and what followed were multiple trials, a media frenzy, and now a possible chance at redemption. If you

haven't listened to the show yet, it's the episode right below this one on the list of podcasts you just chose from. So go there, listen to it. Or if you want to watch it, you can stream it on Peacock and then come back here. When you come back, Heath has an extra clip he's going to play for us. It's Lyle Menendez confessing to his therapist. Later, we are going to answer some of your questions about the show from social media. So stay tuned for that. Okay, let's do it. Let's talk Dateline. All right. First of all, Keith, I want you to listen to the sound. Do you hear that? I hear it. Yes.

It's a lot of pages. You know why? Because I've never taken so many notes while watching a Dateline in my life. Really? Those are your notes. Those are all my notes. These are all questions I have for you. Well, this is a long running story. It's full of very strange things. So it's understandable. It really is. And I'm embarrassed to say this as a mother. I found out after the fact that my 15

year old and my 14 year old had watched the Ryan Murphy Monsters. I'm not sure I would have let them watch it. Didn't realize that they found it on Netflix. Did they form an opinion based on watching it? Oh, it's amazing. All these teens are talking about it and they absolutely think that the brothers need to get out based on watching this drama. It certainly got me interested in it knowing that my kids had watched it. And then I watched your episode and I see why

everyone is talking about it. It's incredible all these years later all the interest in the case. Yeah, yeah. I've never seen anything like it and never could have imagined that this would develop beginning way back in 1989. I mean, I first covered this story for Nightly News when it when the murders happened and then later on when the trials happened, and they became a media circus at the time too, in a different way because they didn't have social media in those days. It was always a big story, and it was always based on a varied series of beliefs that people would have observing these guys about the kinds of things that cannot be proved one way or the other. And, you know, sexual abuse is at the heart of it. Did it

occur? I suspect it probably did. But there are people who are convinced that it didn't occur and certainly the brothers did a lot of lying about it too, which didn't help their cause. Like the prosecutor, she was very... Adamant. ...blunt about, you know, that they were not... She does not believe that they were sexually abused. No.

Pam, the prosecutor, she is angry because she believes that they made up these allegations of abuse, that they have dined out on them for many years, therefore, you know, belittled real abuse, which occurs far too often, her main job before getting into homicide prosecutions was sexual abuse. And so she knows what sexual abuse is all about. She encountered many cases of it and believes in it wholeheartedly. But she believes that these two guys were not sexually abused. And it was an extremely brutal crime. There were

some elements of it which I think made it very difficult for people to see that there should be some kind of redemption, as you say, at the end of it. Danielle Pletka It was really awful. The fact that they reloaded, you know, the fact that they shot a kid in the face. Richard Hildreth I'm not just reloading. Let me just tell it this way. First of all, they discussed whether or not to kill their parents for up to about a week before they committed the crime

and decided they would do that. They would certainly kill their father, but then for the couple of days before the murder, they discussed whether to kill their mother too. They decided to make that choice and kill both parents. And Lyle, their mother was still alive. She was crawling across the floor crying and begging for help. And he had run out of ammunition, so he left the house, he walked out to their rental car, he opened the trunk, he got out the ammunition,

he loaded his Mossberg shotgun, he walked back into the house, he walked right up to his mother, he put the gun to the side of her face and blew her face off. So much anger there to be able to do that. The nature of the crime suggests that there was certainly something going on. And, you know, the tendency is to want to believe people when they say things like that. Of course. Do you think there's some version, Keith, of that, yes, they were, you know,

we don't know, of course, but yes, maybe they were abused, but then also, they liked the finer things in life. So maybe there was like a combination, the spending the money, you know, a byproduct of getting rid of the abusive father. It seems like they really liked expensive things for... They sure did, yeah. ...even before the murder. Mm-hmm. But they went on quite a wild spending spree afterwards. The thing that interested me about that was not so much the spending spree,

they were young, they were immature, they, you know, the night of, the night before the funeral, they stayed at the Bel Air Hotel, one of the most expensive hotels in L.A. I know, and took a limo. So their father had threatened to remove them from the will, or so their story went. And the day after the murder, they tried to get into the safety deposit box where the will was to see whether or not he carried out that threat.

And that explains some of the timing of the murders that supposedly they were going to be removed, like he was going to take that action within the next few days. But he didn't do it. But he didn't do it. My goodness. I know. It's one of those stories where, you know, one minute you're thinking you feel bad for

them and then the next minute you're like, wait a second, it really takes you on a kind of a roller coaster of trying to get to the bottom of what really was going through their minds. And it's tough to figure that out. Mm-hmm. It is. This reminded me so much of a case that you and I talked about on Dateline True Crime Weekly about the Olympian's wife in California who said that she was being abused by her husband, but he was, you know, the Olympian, everyone loved him. And you said on the podcast that you felt like if that case was being abused by her husband, but he was the Olympian, everyone loved him.

And you said on the podcast that you felt like if that case was tried today, that it would probably have a different outcome. That we knew, we didn't know as much about abuse back then. People didn't talk about it, but that was her defense was that she was being abused, so she killed her husband. I wonder from you, where do you think this would go if this all happened right now,

this crime? It's truly hard to know for several reasons. One is that people are finding it easier now to say publicly that they've been abused and to kind of reveal all the details of that than they were in those days. So those are really hard questions and the law hasn't kind of figured out exactly how to navigate them effectively twice. Yep, yep. When we come back we have an extra clip from the confession of Lyle Menendez to his therapist Dr. Jerry Oseel.

I felt like in the Lyle interview that you really pressed him. You know, this was a hard-hitting interview, in my opinion. You were really trying to, like, drill down. There were no free passes in that interview. No, but he did well, didn't you think? I do. I think he's been in there for 35 years, as you said. He has a lot to say. And I was glad to see that he did the interview with you. When I talked to Lyle, we went on for quite a long time, as we do with Dayline Interviews,

but I found him to be a very engaging, very interesting, effective, intelligent person to interview. He presented a lot of the facts of the case the way a politician would, you know, just kind of presenting his side of things, which made sense. But I came away from that thinking, you know, I kind of respect that guy. He's pretty good at what he does. Have they ever apologized for what they did? Since they've admitted, obviously, what they did, have they ever said, maybe we shouldn't have done that? Well, they say that if they could go back in time and not do it, they would, of course, do that. But apologize to whom?

Yeah, I know. Or just to show some remorse that we chose the wrong option. I think that they, yeah, they've both said they understand, they made a very bad decision. They did a terrible thing. But remorse, I don't know. It's a hard thing to figure out how much remorse people actually feel. Keith, you have an extra clip you want to tell us about.

These were sessions with Dr. Jerry Ozeale that the brothers were assigned to see this particular doctor. The background of the story and the reason that we're able to hear this is because although, you know, any conversation with a psychiatrist is completely off limits to everybody else. They're not going to tell a single soul in the world about it, except Dr. Ozeal was hearing these confessions from the boys. And he knew what they were accused of.

And here were these kids revealing in graphic detail what they had done to their parents. And so he invited his girlfriend to go and sit in the waiting room and listen at the door. But when the tapes were played, it offered a whole new window into what really happened in that case. And this is a portion of that interview of Lyle talking with Dr. Jerry Oseale. And that's how my mother said it.

I thought that we had to come, like I was saying before, we had to make a decision. It was one of the harder ones. It was a separate issue. Hey, this is the reason I bother to refill it. No question what he's doing is I can handle it with myself and for myself, what he's doing to my mother. Yeah. Solution is to kill your mother. Yeah, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. No, nothing much made sense in this. Nothing much made sense. The reason they had Jerry O'Zeele,

the psychiatrist, was because they had burglarized much made sense. The reason they had Jerry Ozeale, the psychiatrist, was because they had burglarized some homes in the neighborhood that they had lived in before. Their punishment was to see this therapist for a period of time afterwards. For months after the murders, they had sessions with him. They never, ever said anything about abuse. But they confessed to what they had done and they were pretty open and direct about it. That's where I got the business about going back out to the car and reloading. Yeah. Look, if they're not talking about the abuse in these sessions before, you know,

the trial, did they give a reason for why they killed the parents since they weren't fessing up about the abuse yet? Well, they were angry. Their father was a, they felt a brutal man. He was not nice to them. They didn't like him. He made huge demands of them. And that's about as far as it went. Were they just not talking about it because they were ashamed at that point with their own psychiatrist? That's possibly the case. I don't, I honestly don't know. I don't know what to think. What struck me in this episode too were just the details, the level of, the fine details that you and your producer, who was your producer?

There have been several over the years. The current one is Susan Lebowitz. Okay, Susan, I love Susan. Yeah, I mean, just the details that you packed in that for someone like me who doesn't know the story that well, just hearing things like they traded their suits for their sweaters for court and- Oh yes, that was a very big deal at the time. And everybody kind of knew what they were doing, but it nevertheless did present a much different image

on a day-to-day basis for the jury. Yeah, and we talked a little bit about the limo, showing up in the limo and staying at the Hotel Bel Air and details of the house itself. Famous people had lived in that house. And was it Prince? Prince lived there. Lived there. And another little detail that was in there that turned into a bigger detail. I'm thinking as I start watching it, I was thinking very early on, I'm like, I wonder the timing of this with OJ and when this second trial would take place, it was on the heels of OJ. And so it mattered because the prosecutors needed this win with the Menendez

brothers, right? Because they had just lost the OJ case. Well, exactly. Um, and I covered the OJ case too, at the very end. And, and, and so both of these things going on at the same time, you cannot overstate the amount of upset there was in the whole legal system in LA when OJ was acquitted, they felt they'd lost such an obvious slam dunk sort of case. It was an earthquake in the DA's office and they had to do something about it.

From every level from the governor on down was demanding that they get a little sharper about what they did. And the other case that was sitting right there waiting to be retried was another famous case that everybody was talking about, the Menendez case. So that's why things changed a bit. I think that the biggest change was that the California Supreme Court made a ruling about what the important issue was. And that was the boys had claimed imperfect self-defense, which was the thought that they would be, they were in imminent danger.

And they couldn't use that anymore, right? They couldn't use it because the Supreme Court looked at the evidence of that and said that, you know, there wasn't any imminent danger. So they couldn't use that as a defense. It was just a point of law that the prosecutor kept making. One of the things that shocked me was when the prosecutor said that she had armed herself because she was fearing for her safety from all of this and she armed herself with the same type of gun the brothers used in the murders. What's going on with that?

Well, she has an in-your-face mentality, right? I'm going to get a Mossberg shotgun just like they did and she's still angry about this case, because it's easy to use. Because if they could figure it out, I can figure it out. These stupid boys. But also, I mean, the serious side of it is that she, because she prosecuted the case and continues to insist that no abuse occurred, in her opinion,

she has received a tremendous amount of hate mail, threats. The same is true of Alan Abrahamson, the reporter we talked to. Tremendous amount of abuse has been poured on that guy just for restating the facts of the case and offering the opinion that he thought the jury made the right decision. This is our world now. This is social media. This is how people, you know, people hiding behind their phones and their computers. They just, they say ugly things. Right. And it's a little scary sometimes.

It is, and that doesn't do any good at all. You know, people all around the world are talking about manandos and how they should be released. I mean, this is a perfectly legitimate debate, whether or not they should be released from prison. George Gascon believed sincerely that the time had come when they should be. They have been, by all accounts, remarkably exemplary prisoners. And they have helped their fellow prisoners, they have taught them, they have not just beautified the prison yard, but they have been have taught them, they have not just beautified the prison yard, but they have been extremely good people while in prison. They've gotten married, so they've lived as well as you can live in a prison cell. And a lot of people think they should be living on the outside

now. Well, it was sort of what I was thinking was whichever side you're on of this, you think they should be let out, you don't think they should be let out. They have served 35 years. So if they are let out, it's not like they got some easy gig, right? Where they barely got any time or they got some sweet hard deal. That's not the case here. And I'm not trying to take away from the crime here at all, obviously, but are they a danger to society? You know, the answer my gut would tell me is no, right? So, I mean, you kind of have to look at it that way.

They've served a longer sentence in prison than people in most other industrialized countries like ours would serve and be allowed a chance at freedom. In Canada, for example, as you know, a life sentence is 25 years, and then you have a chance at freedom. In Canada, for example, as you know, a life sentence is 25 years and then you have a chance at parole. They've been imprisoned 35 years. And there's a third element too, which was, and this was probably one of the important deciding elements for the DA, George Gascogne, to make the decision he did, was that they

were young men who do not have fully formed intellectual capacities. Danielle Pletka I agree with that. Dr. Richard L. Baxter They grew up a lot in their 20s. And so that's one of the considerations for thinking, okay, they probably deserve a chance at life now. But at the same time, you have to say that there are lots of people in prison for life without the possibility of parole who committed crimes which were far less severe than that and who have behaved themselves in an exemplary way in prison. They don't have armies of people trying to get them released. Just incredible the timing with George Gascon and you know that this election's happening and he gives them this Hail Mary, right? Our viewers or listeners will know that George Gascon was voted out in this latest election,

but he slipped this in right before the election. He's a charming fellow. I interviewed him too at great length. He certainly believes wholeheartedly in what he's doing, and that kind of philosophy actually reduces crime, but he could have made a decision about the Menendez brothers much sooner than he did. So the new district attorney hasn't said too much beyond the fact that he will have to re-examine all the evidence. He wants to talk to everybody before he makes a recommendation. Yes, yeah. After the break, we'll be back to answer some of your questions

from social media. Now, for one of the best parts of Talking Dateline, is when we get to hear from our listeners and our viewers. And I have to say, just skimming through some of the comments, they had a lot of the same observations that we did in our viewers. And I have to say, just skimming through some of the comments, they had a lot of the same observations that we did in our conversation. Sure. The opinion is all over the map on this one, but there's a lot of opinion. Yes, absolutely. This one is from HaleyDiana173. This episode has everything, Menudo, OJ Simpson, Cheesecake Factory, Beauty Pageants, Kardashians, and so much more.

And we can add in their Milli Vanilli, we can add in Batman movie, we can add in Prince even got to mention. Yeah, that's true. And it really described a lot. That was America in that period of time, you know, at least it was well-heeled America in that period of time. Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so this one is from Joan GVS, and she is comparing this to Gypsy Blanchard, who made quite the splash with her release on social media. She writes, Gypsy Blanchard was an abuse victim who killed her mother. She went to prison, served 10 years, and is now free. That's the difference in being an abuse victim then and now. They've served their time. They've suffered enough.

Well, I agree with her. There are lots of cases where people have done a lot less time. The one that always comes to my mind, because I did the story and I was so moved by it, was Mary Winkler, whose husband was the terrible abuser, who shot him in the back three times with a shotgun and then took off with the kids for the beach. And they charged her with first degree murder. But her defense was so revealing that she wound up serving very little time at all. She was convicted of manslaughter, but I think she did maybe less than a year. So these things do happen. And Realtor Kim 15, it seems to me she thinks they should stay in prison. She says stay in prison. She says not saying they were not abused, but they were not in danger at

that moment. They were 18 and 21, right? Why didn't they move out? This case is one that really is kind of hard to define because there are cases where people have been abused. And I firmly believe they probably were abused and they probably could have had, if the circumstances of the actual killing were a little different, more of a motive of diminished responsibility because of that, more of a defense of that rather. But the details are just complicated with the planning, et cetera. I'm very curious about a lot of things still in this story. And they're really side issues. The central legal one will be addressed by the DA, the question of whether they should be allowed

out of prison. But some things like this letter, which has been put forward as evidence, some other things which have been put forward as evidence, and you look at them very carefully and is it really evidence or not? And is the letter real or has it been manufactured? So both the prosecution side and the people who prosecuted the case all those years ago are now looking at that letter, looking at other evidence to see whether it's actual evidence or just something thrown at the fan to see if it'll stick. Well, this is a tough one and it's going to be tough for the next prosecutor who's coming in

since Gascon is on his way out, that definitely threw a big curveball in this story that already has so many twists and turns. So it's a wait and see, and I'm sure you'll update your story whenever we find out what the decision is. You can be sure the debate in the district attorney's office is intense. It's ongoing. So Keith, thank you for answering all these questions. So much appreciated. Really good episode. Thanks. You take care. That is our talking dateline for this week.

Thanks so much, Keith. And thanks, everyone, for listening to us. Remember, if you have any questions about our stories or any cases you think we should cover, reach out to us on social at Dateline NBC. See you Fridays on Dateline on NBC. Also, remember to listen to Keith's all new podcast, The Man in the Black Mask.

All episodes are available to listen to now wherever you get your podcasts.