Dateline NBC - The Menendez Brothers: Chance at Freedom

Episode Date: November 12, 2024

Keith Morrison reports on the latest developments in the high-profile murder case of Lyle and Erik Menendez that continues to captivate the nation.

Tonight on Dateline. I was just firing. As I went into the room, I just started firing. What was in front of you? My parents. 35 years later, their crime still haunts. Lyle and Eric Menendez, the brothers who killed their parents. I just told them that I didn't want to do this.

And that it hurt me. Were they abused? Should they go free? Social media young people have just taken up their banner. Now new evidence. There was a letter that Eric Menendez had written. I'm convinced that he was talking about sexual abuse. There was a connection between Jose Menendez and some Menudo boy band members. Roy Rosella told me that he had been assaulted. Here from the brothers themselves. People were afraid of him.

There was no way he was gonna let this secret get out. But you could have left. But leave and do what? I believe that they should be released. There's no reason they should get out. They killed their parents. I mean, come on. The bone-chilling case of the Menendez brothers.

After 35 years in prison, can they win their freedom? I'm Lester Holt, and this is Dateline. Here's Keith Morrison with the Menendez Brothers, Chants at Freedom. A sensational story we thought was over may soon have a new ending. After more than three decades behind bars, freedom might be in reach for Lyle and Eric Menendez. We're very sure, not only that the brothers have rehabilitated and that they will be safe to be reintegrated in our society, but that they have paid their dues. If you had told me in 1989 that 35 years in the future that I would still be covering this case, I would have left.

The wealthy sons of Beverly Hills, convicted of murdering their parents, are suddenly everywhere. Dramatized on the Netflix series, Monsters, the Lyle and Eric Menendez story, parodied on Saturday Night Live. People keep yelling things like, you're innocent and you're so hot.

And popping up all over TikTok. This is probably one of the most famous cases ever. Their supporters go beyond social media to Hollywood. Here's Kim Kardashian speaking to Variety. I feel like they just never had that fair chance and imagine if no one believed you. We're viewing everything that happened back then through a different lens. had that fair chance and imagine if no one believed you. We're viewing everything that happened back then through a different lens.

A different lens, yes. But is it making our vision any clearer? If you use rational thought on this case, they should stay in prison for life without parole. If you use emotion, then oh my God, why are they still there today? Let them out tomorrow. Let's go way back then, back to the beginning. August 20th, 1989, just before midnight, a 911 operator picked up a call from an apparently hysterical Lyle Menendez. Who is the person that was shot?

My mom and my dad. Your mom and dad? My mom and my dad. Okay, hold on a second. Detective Zoller. Les Zoller was one of just two detectives in the Beverly Hills Police Department who worked homicides back then.

How many murders occurred in Beverly Hills in those days? In those days, approximately two a year. On that particular August night, Zoller was asleep when his boss called. And he said, come on in, we've had a murder. And I asked him for some information. He said, he gave me the address of 722 North Elm. Zoller drove over and walked inside the house. It was eerily quiet and

when I went into the den library, first thing I noticed was Jose Menendez seated on the couch. He was slumped to one side, his head was to the one side. It was bad, very, very bad. He was wearing shorts, and he had a shotgun blast to his thigh, blood-soaked, all the way down. And then I noticed his wife, Kitty, at his feet on the floor. She was curled into a fetal position,

and like her husband, had been shot many times. Several times near her knee knee and most horribly, Kitty was shot point blank in the face. There was a contact wound on Kitty Menendez's face. It blew out her eye. I mean, it was grotesque what happened to her. Back then, Pamela Bozanich was an L.A. County prosecutor in the organized crime unit,

but nothing prepared her for this. Jose and Kitty had been shot 15 times. Shotgun killings are very messy, and there were brains and blood everywhere. It looked as if Jose and Kitty had been relaxing in the den. An empty bowl of cream and berries and Eric's college paperwork were on the coffee table. The television set was on.

There was no sign of a break-in, but... We didn't see any shotgun shells. What did that say to you? Somebody collected the shotgun shells. But who does a thing like that if they've got a messy crime scene of that sort? Somebody that didn't want fingerprints on the shotgun shells is the only thing I could think of. While investigators examined the crime scene,

Lyle Menendez, then 21, and Eric, 18, went to the station to speak to police. The brothers said they were in and out throughout the day, and then as evening approached, they decided that they wanted to go to the movies. They wanted to see a James Bond movie but it was sold out so they saw the Batman movie which they had both seen before. After the movie they told detectives they'd planned to meet a friend for a drink at the cheesecake factory but they had to go back to the house to pick up Eric's fake ID. And when they walked in, they said they saw a haze in the air

and smelled gunpowder smoke. They went into the den and then dialed 911. That's how I kill my parents. The news spread very quickly. Kitty's sister Joan. I got a phone call from my brother, and I remember putting the phone down on the table and walking around the house screaming. As detectives worked into the night,

they had no idea this was the beginning of a 35-year saga. A case we're still debating. Have the Menendez brothers served their time? Or should they, as the jury decreed, stay in prison for life? We were up against the myth that boys aren't sexually abused, that CEOs and upstanding people like my father aren't child molesters. Even with evidence from another alleged victim. He said that Jose Menendez said to him,

I own you, I bought you. Some say sympathy is one thing, the law is another. What matters is not whether they were abused or not. The issue at hand was, was there an imminent fear for their lives? And the answer is no. So a legal conundrum. Today the Menendez family is meeting for a press conference. Now gone viral. History somehow repeating itself with eyes glued once again to the courts in Los Angeles where Eric and Lyle await their fate. It was like she just knew.

Not what happened at the end, of course, but what came before. Mary Louise, or Kitty, as everybody called her, was determined she would be well off someday, even though she and her siblings were raised by a single mother in Illinois. Kitty grew up believing that she was going to marry well and have household help. How would she know such a thing? I think this is probably what my mother had maybe wanted for herself and never got. Kitty was pretty. In 1962, she was crowned Miss Oak Lawn.

You should be in show business, her mother told her. So Kitty studied radio and television at Southern Illinois University. Was that wrapped up in the whole idea of, if you're in that field, you're more likely to meet a successful man? Yes, absolutely. In college, she met a bundle of ambition named Jose Menendez.

He had fled Communist Cuba at 16 with bold dreams of striking it big in business, just the kind of man Kitty was searching for. And so they married in 1963. Diane Hernandez was Kitty's niece, as a teen she lived with the family off and on. I bet you idolized Kitty. Oh I did, from the very beginning. And I was known as a daughter Kitty never had. Of course, as the world would come to know,

Kitty and Jose had sons, Lyle and Eric. Did they seem to get along? Did they like each other? Oh yeah, absolutely. Very close? Yeah, I think Eric depended on Lyle a lot. Eric was quite introverted. Alan Anderson was Kitty's nephew.

He spent summers with the Menendez family as a kid at their home and bonded with Lyle. He was a mischievous boy to say the least. He liked to smile and laugh and giggle. Oh he loved to laugh and giggle. But what the Menendez brothers did most, said Alan, was practice and practice and practice. Jose wanted his kids to be the best, especially in sports, I noticed immediately. Swimming, soccer, tennis, Jose pushed his sons to excel at everything, as his own career skyrocketed. In the 70s, Jose was the general manager at Hertz

and impressed his sons by bringing the company's celebrity spokesman home to dinner. Here's O.J. Simpson in that famous TV commercial from the time. Go, O.J., go! And here's O.J. with Jose, posing at an awards ceremony in 1978. Jose was, of course, living the American dream, and he wanted his boys to continue that American dream. In the early 80s, Jose put rental cars behind him and became a music exec at RCA Records,

where he worked with big names like Eurythmics and Duran Duran. In 1983, he signed the Puerto Rican boy band Menudo to a multi-year deal. Menudo Mania has swept El Salvador. As Dennis Murphy reported for Nightly News at the time, Manudo was huge. They are five Puerto Rican youngsters called Manudo. They are two Latin American girls what the Beatles were 20 years ago.

You'll hear more about Manudo later. Jose traded in music for Hollywood and in 1986 he moved his family west when he took a job with Corollal Pictures. It's nice. The company that produced mega hits like Basic Instinct and the Rambo series. Don't push it, I'll give you a war you won't believe. Jose was put in charge of their new video distribution business.

So we think 1989 will be a tremendous year. I think we will be a tremendous year. I think we will be very happy with the growth of the company. And that was the year, 1989, when Robert Rand, then a freelance reporter for the Miami Herald, went to Las Vegas to cover a trade show for the home video business and happened to meet Jose Menendez. What was your impression of the guy? Talked to him for maybe two or three minutes.

Seemed professional, dynamic. A high-powered career, a beautiful family, and finally the one missing piece of Jose's American dream, the perfect home. Jose moved his family from Calabasas, then pre-Cardassian and a relatively unknown enclave outside of Los Angeles, a more Tony address. Joan was with her sister the day the realtor called Kitty.

They had accepted Jose's offer, and Kitty, you've got your zip code. And that made her so happy. 90210. Mm-hmm. Absolutely. 722 North Elm Drive, a six-bedroom Mediterranean-style home, swimming pool, guest house, tennis court.

Elton John once lived in this very house. So did a Saudi prince, and even prince himself. By August 1989, Jose had truly made it. They were stars in our family, Dalkidia and Jose. His eldest was a student at Princeton. His youngest was about to start at UCLA. The perfect family, or so it seemed, until it all blew apart

in that barrage of shotgun shells. It didn't make sense. Nobody quite knew who had killed the parents. Alan Abrahamson is a journalism professor at USC. Back in 1989, he was a reporter for the LA Times. Was it an armed robbery? Because of Jose's position in business, had he been taken out by a cartel?

Had he been taken out by the mob? Any and all things seemed possible. No one really knew. After all, Jose had been shot in the thigh and kiddie in the knee. A mafia signature perhaps? And then there was the company Jose was running. He had distributed all kinds of movies,

including children's movies. But one of its founders, Noah Bloom, was once an executive in the porn industry. A lot of pornography is organized crime-backed, because it's a great way to make a lot of money in an industry that's not very well regarded. And the brothers thought detectives needed to look at Bloom. I got a call from Beverly Hills Police Department. They wanted to meet with me and ask me a few questions.

["The Last Supper"] Kitty Menendez shot this home video in August 1989, capturing images of what looked like a happy family. Okay, wave goodbye everybody. Eleven days later, Kitty and her husband's murders were front page news. It was a big story from the get-go because it happened in Beverly Hills, California. The big story became a big problem for Coralco Pictures. The company was getting beaten up in the media because all the media stories were,

this was a mafia hit, somehow related to shady dealings that this company was doing. They hired a publicist to help calm the media storm. Sylvester Stallone spoke warmly of Jose. He was a true cornerstone of the company, which I loved. And Jose's memorial service was held at the Directors Guild of America headquarters on Sunset Boulevard.

Lyle and Eric arrived late to the service. How did they behave when they were there? Lyle Menendez was very cool, calm, and collected. Eric Menendez got up and tried to speak, and he lasted about two minutes before just breaking down in tears and sitting down. Kitti's sister, Joan, was at the memorial too and heard something disturbing about Jose.

Several men that worked with Jose talked to me at that memorial service and told me how he loved to humiliate other men. Pretty shocking thing to hear at somebody's memorial service, isn't it? Yeah, not very memorial. So Jose had made enemies, and apparently one of them was his colleague Noel Bloom, who had once produced pornographic films. They'd bicker about a lot of things. Well, mostly it was because of the pornography. Jose didn't like that at all.

Detective Zoller talked to the brothers, who were pointing a finger right at Bloom. Did it seem to you that there was a motive there? Possible. Bloom had been arrested before on obscenity charges, but never convicted. Why would they say you were involved with organized crime? Because people had a perception that people in the adult

business were organized crime, which is totally not true. At least I wasn't. Still, with the brothers' accusations making the papers, he was nervous. Were you sort of day by day waiting for somebody to call you thinking you'd be taking in and putting handcuffs? Yes. I got a call from the Beverly Hills Police Department. They wanted to meet with me and ask me a few questions. And I said, I've been waiting.

That meeting, it turned out, was about all it took. He was very cooperative. And we couldn't determine that he had a motive at all. So, Noel Bloom was no longer a suspect, and the rumored mafia connection to the crime? Not a chance, said Prosecutor Pam Bozanich. The number of shots would tell you that it wasn't an organized crime hit. Why do you say that? Because they were torn apart.

If you think about what the media portrays or Hollywood portrays as a mob hit, it would be… Is this a little hole in the back of the head? Yeah, it would be a little, like a 22 or a 38 to the back of the head. So if it wasn't a mob hit, police were back to square one. They continued gathering information from anyone they could, including Lyle and Eric. Were they believable in those conversations that you recall? Yes.

So they didn't seem to be lying or obfuscating or... No, they answered our questions willingly. Two months after the murders, reporter Robert Rand interviewed Eric, a young man who seemed in awe of his dad. It was just incredible. And people were afraid of him. People were afraid of him because he would walk in the room and know that this man was more powerful.

This man was more intelligent. Eric was emotionally appropriate. He would cry at times. And he was telling really lovely stories about how wonderful his parents were. Eric said his father wanted to get into politics. He was going to become Senator of Florida. And then he was going to spend his life making Cuba a territory of the United States. Now, with his father's death, Eric said he and his brother wanted to fulfill his father's dream.

I wanted him to become Senator of Florida. And my brother wanted to become president in the next days. And then the mood shifted and Eric described what he saw when he walked into the family den on August 20th. They weren't real. They didn't look real. They waxed. They looked like wax.

It was something that I've never seen my dad help us. I think that possibly if Lau and I would have been home, if we would have been able to do something about it, maybe my dad would be alive. While Eric seemed to be mourning his parents, police couldn't help but notice what the brothers were up to in the aftermath of their parents' deaths. They were spending over $15,000 with Rolex watches and money clips. This is four days after the murder. They were just spending, spending, spending.

Very strange. To me it was. Music The Menendez murders remained a stubborn mystery, but in the absence of answers, something kept buzzing around in Detective Ziller's mind. It was about the Menendez brothers. At one moment he couldn't shake. It was when, just hours after the murders, Lyle returned to the house in Beverly Hills. And I said, I'm sorry for your loss. What are you trying to get out of the house?

We want to get our tennis equipment. And I said, well, where is that? He said, it's in the library where my parents were murdered. And he was matter of fact and didn't seem very upset to me. And prepared to walk into that room just for the purpose of getting their tennis equipment. Yes. Weird. As was this. The day after the murders, Lyle and Eric went to the bank, looking for Jose's safety deposit box. They were trying to find Jose's will. Did that surprise you, that they would do it so soon?

Oh, definitely. Why would the brothers worry about the will and so quickly? The detective dug into it and outspooled a little story. Lyle had been caught cheating at Princeton. Eric had fought with his father over tennis and in response Jose had threatened to disinherit them. But those, Zoller discovered, were not the only reasons. There was this. Well in the first house they took the old safe. The second house they got into the safe. Well, in the first house they took the old safe.

The second house they got into the safe. A year before the murders, Lyle and Eric had burglarized the homes of their friends' wealthy parents. These are wealthy, wealthy young men. Yeah, it was just... Privileges in every way. Right. It was just because we can do it. At the time, Jose hired a prominent criminal attorney

who arranged for the younger brother, Eric, to take the fall. Because he was a minor, knowing that Eric probably wouldn't get any jail time. And part of the disposition was that he contact a therapist. In comes Jerry Ozeal. Dr. Jerome Ozeal, you'll want to remember that name, a Beverly Hills psychologist who specialized in phobias and sex therapy. So therapy, no jail time for the burglaries.

But were they written out of Jose's will? Finally, the brothers found it. And? They discovered Jose had not disinherited them after all. They now stood to inherit the family's reported $14 million estate. And as Detective Zoller discovered... They were just spending, spending, spending. Three Rolex watches, a private tennis coach for Eric, a Porsche.

Lyle even bought a chicken wings restaurant and went to visit his cousin Alan in Chicago. He ordered some of those expensive shirts I've ever seen in my life. He ordered some jewelry, ordered these shoes, these expensive shoes, and I was like, wow, and the way he was spending money, for me, was very strange. Cousin Diane said the spending was just Lyle's way of grieving. People would ask, you know, people were like, what's he doing?

And I would defend him and say, well, everybody reacts differently when somebody dies. This is just his way of coping, I guess. Their casual behavior after the murders, the hunt for the will, the spending spree, none of it was criminal, but it certainly caught the attention of the prosecutor. You begin to see a pattern here and you begin to think of greed. But even if they were spoiled and self-centered,

it was a long way from that to killing their parents. Or maybe it wasn't, because Detective Zoller learned about something else. A case of life imitating art, perhaps? Zoller had been talking to Eric's best friend, Craig Signorelli, and Craig mentioned that he and Eric often fantasized about committing the perfect crime and had even written a screenplay together in high school. And I asked him, what's it about? Well, it's about this kid that murders his parents for the money.

And I had actually heard that Kitty typed this for him. Because it was a school project. And then Craig told Ziller something even more disturbing. It happened, said Craig, when he went to see Eric at the Menendez house after the murders. Eric said, do you want to know what happened? And he described shooting the parents, and then he summed it all up by saying, it could happen.

And Craig thought about it, and he says, well, is he saying that's what he thinks happened here at the house? Or did they actually commit the crime? What a story. But the detectives wondered, would Eric tell the story of the shooting to Craig again on tape? They decided to wire up Craig and go to this restaurant. But this time, Eric wasn't at all talkative. Eric didn't admit anything.

I think his conscience said, you better not talk too much about this. Not that day anyway, and not to Craig Signorelli. But Eric did talk eventually, and what he said would change everything. Detective Les Zoller had a growing and disturbing suspicion that Lyle and Eric Menendez had shot gun their parents to death in the den of their Beverly Hills mansion.

The thing was, the story the brothers told about discovering their parents' bodies, it never quite made sense to Zoller. The brothers said that they saw this haze in the air and some smoke that they smelled. Like gunpowder smoke. Gunpowder smoke. But I mean that dissipates pretty darn quick. Well the officers got there right after they did and they didn't smell anything. The gunpowder smoke and fantasizing about the perfect crime and the screenplay and even

what might be called confession. And then one day, he just knew. Was there a particular time when you thought, okay, yes, it's them? Well, when we got a call from Judelon Smith. A name he'd never heard before. What did she have to tell you? Her whole purpose was to talk about this doctor and how he was her therapist and he was having an affair with her. Not relevant information to a homicide detective, but this was.

What was his first name, Dr. Dr. Jerry Ozeal. Dr. Ozeal, the psychologist Eric was sent to after those burglaries. Two months after the murders, Judelon Smith said she was with Dr. Ozeal when he returned a call from Eric, who was asking for an emergency session. Smith wouldn't talk to us for this report, but she did back then, and here's what she told us

Dr. Ozeal said after getting off that call. He's saying he thinks that they killed their parents. Smith told Ziller that Dr. Ozil was worried about what might happen at the session, and so he asked her to stay in the waiting room of his office while he met with Eric on October 31, 1989. And so she said, she did. As she sat there, Lyle burst into the room. Lyle Menendez, who had been at the Elm Drive home, passing out candy to trick-or-treaters,

rushed over to Dr. Ozil's office because Ozil had called him and said, Eric told him everything. Eric said that they shot their parents. Judelyn Smith told Zoller she heard Lyle confront his brother. And she heard him say, Why did you tell him? We're going to have to kill him now. Seriously? Yes. And Eric said, I can't kill anymore.

And he burst in tears and left. Lyle and Dr. Ozeal more or less followed him, and Lyle got to the elevator and Dr. Ozeal said, am I in danger? And Lyle said, that's all I can tell you is have a good life, Dr. Ozeal. And it freaked him out. What followed was a strange and nervous dance.

Ozeal told Lyle and Eric to come back for follow-up therapy sessions. The brothers, afraid Ozil might go to the police, agreed. During one of those sessions, they both confessed to killing their parents. And Dr. Ozil recorded the conversation. Judeleon Smith learned about the recordings, but it was months before she told detectives, who promptly seized the tapes. But there was just one problem. They weren't allowed to listen to them

because of doctor-patient privilege. How frustrating was that? Well, it was very frustrating. Yep, a good piece of evidence. I couldn't even listen to it. Still, they thought they had enough evidence to arrest the brothers. Today at approximately one point... It was March 8th, 1990, more than six months after the killings.

Detectives arrested Joseph Lyle Menendez for the August murders of his mother and father. Eric was playing in a tennis tournament in Israel at the time. Eric Menendez is being sought by detectives of this department. and father. Eric was playing in a tennis tournament in Israel at the time. Eric Menendez is being sought by detectives of this department. He surrendered to police three days later. Could you believe it? No, no. It was absolutely devastating, shocking, just beyond words. Former LA Times reporter Alan Abrahamson. Who would imagine that these two young men of privilege, position, and power to be

could kill their parents? That's the kind of stuff that Shakespeare wrote about. And yet it seemed that's exactly what happened. A few weeks after the arrests, Detective Zoller confirmed another tip Judelon Smith gave them. Judelon said that the guns were purchased at a gun store in San Diego. I was looking through gun records and I said, this is it. The name recorded on the sales slip was that of an old friend of Lyle's.

But the friend was not even in California when the guns were purchased, and he was missing his ID. We learned later that Lyle had taken the wallet. It seemed like overwhelming evidence that Lyle and Eric Menendez killed their parents. But their story of why they did it? Well, that would leave the family and the rest of America speechless.

The media feasted on the story of the rich brothers charged with killing their parents, apparently to get their hands on the family's reported $14 million estate. They were smirking, they were smug. How do you plead? Not guilty. Hard to overstate the public's disgust with those young men. But, on the other side of the country, in an upscale New Jersey town just a few miles from Princeton, people began comparing memories.

Their home at the time was a Tudor-style home. It was on a lake. Bill Curtin was a young tennis coach when he met Jose Menendez and was certainly impressed. There were two clear sides of him. One was the very friendly, outgoing, joking person. The flip side was how driven and controlling he was. Jose engaged Bill to teach his son Lyle and then watch the lessons, but didn't just watch. He would physically come on to the tennis court and start giving instruction to Lyle while I was

still there. That was very, very strange, very uncomfortable. And Bill learned Jose had hired several coaches for Lyle, that the boy was working hours every day to learn tennis. He was incredibly quiet, especially when Jose was present. Neighborhood memories about a successful but slightly imposing family. Everyone seemed to look up to them, but not draw closer to them. Alicia Hertz was a neighbor of the Menendez family.

She was also Lyle's Spanish teacher at the exclusive Princeton Day School. Was he a good student? He tried to be, but he was not particularly talented at the language. Once, she caught Lyle cheating. And she said, Eric cheated too. I think teachers understood deep down inside what they were going through.

That they were being pressured. Yes. Genuously from their parents to do well. Right. And to Alicia, it seemed to be taking a toll on Lyle. Alicia remembers twice seeing Lyle outside her office, staring blankly. I wish to this day that I had gotten out and said,

please come in, please come in. Did you talk to Kitty or Jose about this? Oh, no. I didn't reveal anything to them, no. Not anything that could get them in trouble. Like many others, said Alicia, she was careful around Kitty and Jose but there was one episode she found too disturbing to ignore. A dinner party at the Menendez home. Jose told his guests he brought back a VHS tape from a trip to Brazil. And I have to show you guys this, because it's so unique. And so he puts it in, and I don't remember the name.

What was it about? Children, people doing disgusting things. Two children? In front of children, and it was just like having no respect for children. And we saw a few seconds of it, a few minutes, and we made excuses. A lot of us stood up and said,

we have to leave. We couldn't stand to see it, to watch it. But Jose found this engaging? Hysterically funny. Cousin Diane had her own disturbing memories about Jose. He would take their heads and push them underwater until they started panicking and needed up. He would let them up again. Jose's way of teaching his then quite young boys to swim.

What did Kitty seem to think about it? I mean if Jose did it or said it, there was no questioning it. Absolutely none. Not by the boys, not by Kitty. She became like his right hand man in enforcing things. Including what Diane came to know as the single most important rule in the Menendez house. You cannot go down the hall when Jose's with his kids. Kitty didn't go down the hall either?

No, no, uh-uh. Cousin Alan also followed this rule when he lived with the Menendez family for a time. But he did hear things. I've heard them being whipped. Oh, man, it was gut-wrenching. Just the screams and the, Daddy, don't hit me.

Daddy, don't, you know, that kind of stuff. And there was something else, said Alan. After every sporting event, we got home. That was a very common thing. They would take showers. There were times where he would take like Eric alone. And then there'd be times where he would take Lyle alone. Allegations that remain family secrets

until the sons were charged with murder. And she signed on. Veteran criminal defense attorney attorney Leslie Abramson. Known for her brash style in the courtroom and with the press. Each brother had his own attorney. Abramson handled Eric's case. In this old interview from our archives,

she described how her defense strategy for Eric began to take shape. I'm hearing a lot of very negative and at least heavily psychologically abusive things, but it's not answering, what's wrong with this kid? Because he's incredibly sweet. How does he walk into a room with a shotgun? This kid. And it doesn't add up. I mean, I'm totally, totally puzzled, and that's when I bring in Vickery. Dr. William Vickery, a forensic psychiatrist and graduate of Harvard Law School, agreed to meet with the brothers in jail.

He knew going in, police believed Lyle and Eric killed their parents for money. But based upon the dozens of parasite cases that I had worked on in the past, that's the exception, that's not the rule. The rule is that something horrible is going on in the family. The Menendez brothers wouldn't let on what was so horrible. Lyle was stoic, Eric was a mess. And the minute something would leak out about maybe things weren't so wonderful in the

family, he would start crying. And he would kind of dissolve and whimper, and he just wouldn't go any further. Vickery put Eric on antidepressants and slowly a trust began to form. As the months rolled by, I got more and more pieces of information until finally the dam broke. The father would take showers with them, he would give them massages, he would massage their genitals. The father always had a reason why he did this and that all fathers, all trainers, all coaches, they do this as a part of the expectation of a superior athlete. It's astonishing. The defense was confident it could persuade jurors that

the brothers felt they had no other choice on that August night. Eric and Lyle Menendez purchased the shotguns for their own protection. What happened next in the courtroom would be debated and scrutinized for years to come. A sensational murder trial opened today in California. The defendants, two brothers. The victims, their parents.

The murder trial of Lyle and Eric Menendez began nearly four years after their parents' deaths. July 1993. If convicted here, Lyle and Eric could face the death penalty. Lyle and Eric Menendez will be tried together in the same courtroom but with two juries. But you didn't need to be an either jury or even anywhere near the courthouse to follow every movement of the trial. The idea that there was a camera in a courtroom in California was so new, so novel.

Reporter Alan Abrahamson, once an attorney himself, covered the trial for the LA Times. You weren't just playing to the jury, you were playing to all of America. The judge's decision turned a local LA story into an international sensation. Prosecutor Pam Bozanich knew all of America was watching her every move. How did you feel as you prepared to make your opening statement? As I walked down the hallway, all the cameras were there,

and, you know, I just threw up, because I thought, oh, God, you know, this is really stressful, so... Defense Attorney Abramson appeared every bit to protective mama bear. She wrapped her arms around Eric and Lyle's shoulders. She had them trade their dapper suits for preppy sweaters.

This was a show in which the entire image of the brothers who now were the boys was being completely redone to play to the 24 people in the box, as well as to America. Prosecutor Brezenich steeled herself, determined not to let the optics distract the juries. Based upon this evidence, it will become apparent that this murder was unlawful, unjustified, and wholly premeditated. In basic English, the prosecution's case was this, just the facts, ma'am.

Fact number one, Lyle and Eric driving down to San Diego two days before the murders to buy shotguns and with a stolen ID. Why are you using the fake ID? Because you know you're going to be using the gun to do something you shouldn't be doing. That is evidence of intent. After the murders, the prosecution showed, the brothers lied to the police for months, starting from the very moment Lyle called 911. I was going to kill my parents.

And they did it all for the family fortune, said the state. Remember, Lyle and Eric had searched for the will the day after their parents' murders and went on a lavish multi-state spending spree. They were very aggressive about spending money as soon as possible, which I thought was very strange. It was pretty obvious, said the prosecutor, first-degree murder, and they did it for the money. At the end of the prosecution case, I was like, okay, these these two brothers so guilty, it's not even funny. But then, of course, the defense got its turn.

Miss Abramson for the defense. Thank you, Your Honor. We had a joke. The investigator, myself and my co-counsel, Lester, the joke was, you have a gun, you have two bullets, you go in the courtroom. Who do you shoot, okay? So both the guys say they would shoot Lyle and Eric.

My thing was, I'm going to shoot Leslie twice. I felt that the brothers were evil, but not as bad as she was. Abramson had a reputation for doing whatever it took. You guys haven't been fair to these boys, and you're not fair to me now. She told the juries the brothers had shot their parents all right, but it wasn't murder. It was something the law called imperfect self-defense. That is to say, under all the circumstances,

it was reasonable to the person to think that they were acting in self-defense, but the reality is that that wasn't the case at all. In other words, an honest but unreasonable belief that one's life is in danger. The defense argued that the brothers weren't spoiled, they were damaged, subject to years of abuse that made the decision to kill their parents seem, to them, like an act of self-defense against imminent danger.

If the juries agreed, the Menendez brothers would get manslaughter instead of murder. Our witnesses will paint a portrait of Jose and Mary Louise Menendez as parents that will make understandable to you how they could have died at the hands of their children, what they did to their children to bring this about. The parents were as much on trial as Lyle and Eric Menendez were on trial. And while the prosecution tried to stick to a just the facts ma'am narrative, the defense strategy was emotion, emotion, emotion, emotion.

The defense called teachers and coaches and family members to testify about emotional and physical abuse. Cousin Diane also took the stand, and here came the most explosive issue of the trial. Diane testified that when Lyle was eight years old, he told her a secret about Jose. He and his dad had been touching each other, and he indicated that it was in his genital

area. He asked me if my dad ever gave me massages. Another cousin, Andy Cano, said a young Eric wanted to know if what was happening to him was normal. What did he say about where the massages were? Well, he told me his father was massaging his d***. He used that word? Yes, he did.

Prosecutor Buzanich was, to say the least, skeptical. If my daughter needed me to lie for her, I'd lie for her. If it was a life and death thing, of course she would. If it's your cousin that you grew up with, of course you would. You pretty sure that they were doing that? I'm positive. One reason why? A relative came to me and said that she felt

that the defense was made up, that she confronted Lyle about it, and he said to her, that's the way it's gonna be. So we had to ask, did the brothers ask you to lie for them? No. Did they ask you to sort of like shade things or tell certain stories and not other stories or anything like that?

Mm-hmm. The defense contended the abuse was real, went on for years, and finally. They came to believe that something terrible was about to break loose. Specifically, that their parents were going to kill them if they didn't kill their parents first. Mental health experts testified and said that was understandable. Eric and Lyle Menendez purchased the shotguns for their own protection.

It was a high stakes defense, and by far the most important witnesses would be the brothers themselves. He said I should kill you, and next time I will. When you put the shotgun up against her left cheek and you pull the trigger, did you love your mother? According to Leslie Abramson, there was only one relevant question to consider in the Menendez murders. Why did these killings occur? A question the brothers decided to answer themselves. No one had ever seen televised testimony like this before. Joseph Lyle Menendez. The brothers testified in graphic emotional terms

about what they said were the darkest secrets of their family. Between the ages of six and eight, did your father have sexual contact with you? Yes. We would be in the bathroom and he would put me on my knees and have oral sex with him He raped me Did you ask him not to Yes, I

Just told him that I didn't want to do this and but that it hurt me And he said that he didn't mean to hurt me. He loved me. He just said that it was our secret, that bad things would happen to me if I told anybody. Lyle testified his father stopped abusing him when he turned eight. He said for years he had no idea his brother was a victim too. Then Eric took the stand. He told me that he was going to train me how not to not to feel pain. He would have me give him oral sex and he would stick the needles or the tacks into my thighs as he was doing this. Eric testified that when he refused to cooperate with his father's demands...

He came back with a knife. He put it on my neck. He said, I should kill you and next time I will. Reaction to the brothers testimony was, to say the least, polarized. You either totally believe that the brothers had been abused, or no, you thought the whole thing was a complete crock of, you know what? But the defense said the brothers' explosive claims

were just the lead-up, the backstory, to what really prompted the murders. What do you believe was the originating cause of you and your brother ultimately winding up shooting your parents? Me telling Lyle that uh... You telling Lyle what? Was it you telling Lyle about something that was happening? My dad, my dad had been molesting me. Lyle testified that he confronted his father three days before the murders.

I told him I would tell everybody everything about him, I would tell the police, and that I would tell the police and that I would tell the family. Then, according to Lyle, his father said something that sounded like a threat. He said, we all make choices in life, son. Eric made his, you've made yours. I thought we were in danger, that he would kill us, that he would get rid of us in some way. Later that day, Eric testified, his mother saw him crying. She said something like, oh I understand, I understand a lot more than you think. And that, said Eric, is when he realized his mother was aware of the abuse.

She says, I know, I've always known, what do you think, I'm stupid. And so the brothers decided to drive down to San Diego and buy shotguns for protection, they said. Two days later said Lyle, he and his father had another argument about the abuse. After which, Lyle said his parents went into the den and shut the door and... I thought they were going ahead with their plan to kill us. The brothers knew Jose and Kitty kept two rifles in the house.

So what did you do? I ran upstairs to tell my brother that it was happening now. They ran out to the car, loaded their guns, and burst through the den door. I was just firing as I went into the room, I just started firing. What was in front of you? My parents. At some point, was your gun empty?

Yes. I could see somebody moving, seemed like moving in the direction of where my brother should be. So, Lyle said, he returned to the car, reloaded the shotgun, and ran back into the house. And what did you do after you reloaded? I ran around and shot my mom. So did they act because of the unreasonable belief they were defending their own lives? Yes, said the defense, a classic case of imperfect self-defense.

Perfect nonsense, said the prosecutor. She grilled vile on cross-examination. When you put the shotgun up against her left cheek and you pulled the trigger, did you love your mother? Yes. And was that an act of love, Mr. Menendez? It was confusion, fear. They slaughtered their mother in a way that was so cruel, she got up to run and they went

out and they reloaded and they put the gun up to her cheek and blew her brains out. I'm sorry, that is the height of cruelty. The prosecution believed the brothers were flat out lying about the abuse and the events leading up to the murders. Once they finally heard the tapes recorded by therapist Jerry Ozeal, which had been locked up in litigation until very late in the trial, it just confirmed what they believed. The defense actually played the tape to take the sting out of it. Detective Zola, remember, had never heard the tapes before, on which there were supposedly candid confessions.

But on the recordings of their therapy sessions, the brothers never once mentioned the issue that was now the very core of their defense. Why did you ever murder your parents? Oh, because they were sexually molesting us. That never came out. Because, said the prosecutor, it was a fiction. Eric and Lyle latched onto it as they sat in jail. It is the acting thing of your career, right?

I mean, you're actually fighting for your life. So, um, I was of the opinion that it had been fabricated. That was the prosecutor's view. But is that what the juries would believe? In December 1993, they retired to consider a verdict. Hazel Thornton was on Eric's jury. We took a show of hands, and it was men against women, murder versus manslaughter.

The main issue, said Hazel, was the brother's story of the abuse. The women believed them. The men did not. Did discussions get heated? Oh, yes. Those tumultuous deliberations carried on into the new year. It's kind of a sort of a living hell.

Isn't it just kind of sitting there waiting for somebody to make up their mind? It does cause your blood pressure to go up. Yeah, it was, it's hard. Nothing came easy for the men and women deliberating the fates of Lyle and Eric Menendez. On top of infighting, there were delays from a massive 6.7 magnitude earthquake that hit the San Fernando Valley. And then after six months of trial, two juries, one result. Therefore I find that the jury is hopelessly deadlocked and the court declares a mistrial. The juries couldn't make up their minds. They were split nearly evenly between murder and manslaughter.

DA Gilgarcetti vowed to retry the case. We have an ethical, a professional, and moral responsibility to go forward with this case as a first degree murder case. But before that second trial could begin, O.J. happened. And after O.J. was found not guilty in the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman, suddenly the stakes were even higher. Mr. Garcetti was very upset about the fact that we couldn't win the big one.

And when OJ Simpson went home at the end of his trial, it was very hard in the DA's office. We were, you know, nationally considered to be kind of losers. The second Menendez trial began just eight days after O.J.'s acquittal and six years after Kitty and Jose were killed. The same judge, the same case, Leslie Abramson was back, defending Eric. But this time the trial was fundamentally different. The first major ruling was no TV camera in the courtroom. And this time there was one jury for both brothers and not as much testimony about the

alleged physical and sexual abuse. Cousin Diane, for example, was able to testify just not about Lyle telling her that his father had molested him. One reason that couldn't come in was because this time around Lyle didn't take the stand to lay the foundation about abuse in the first place. In between the two trials there were allegations that he was asking people to fabricate testimony. Lyle was alleged to have encouraged people to lie for the defense. He asked a friend to make up a story about giving their brothers a handgun for protection. And Lyle's former girlfriend told police

he had asked her to falsely claim Jose had sexually assaulted her. So the defense decided they couldn't put him on the witness stand so Eric Menendez had to carry the ball for both brothers and he was a good witness but he was not as strong as Lyle Menendez had been at the first trial. And that expert testimony about the impact of the alleged abuse on the brothers' state of mind? Judge Weisberg severely limited the number of experts because he felt their testimony was repetitive. Dr. Vickery was not allowed to testify about abuse. I was shocked. I said, well, they've gutted the defense. I mean, there is no defense without that.

That specific ruling was in large part due to the objections raised by the new prosecutor leading the People's Case. Deputy DA David Kahn. One thing that we have asked the judge to do is to limit the so-called abuse excuse. The approach that the prosecutor David Kahn took was to attack at every turn and not give any free passes there. Andrew Wolfberg is a lawyer today,

but back then he was a 25-year-old member of the Menendez retrial jury. At the time, the defense attorney was saying, this was a family that was win at all costs. The ends justify the means. To say that their parents had abused them was almost like the ends justified the means. Let's make up this story about abuse.

But one thing jurors figured was not made up were those confession tapes. This time the prosecution got to use that wild card the way they wanted to, as if you will their smoking gun. And they played a section where the brothers seemed to have no remorse about what they had done. I miss just having these people around. I miss not having my dog around.

I think that's such a gross analogy. That really just was like a punch in the gut. Prosecutor Kahn told the jury those Oseal tapes were absolute proof of premeditation. Like when Lyle revealed that he and Eric discussed the question, should we kill our mother too? I didn't even want to influence him in that decision. I just let him sleep on it for a couple of days. As testimony wrapped up, Judge Weisberg's last ruling,

and quite possibly the most important one of all, was this. The jurors would not be allowed to consider an imperfect self-defense. Why? Because after the first trial, the California Supreme Court ruled that imperfect self-defense didn't apply since the brothers were not in imminent danger.

Do you think, in retrospect, had you been offered imperfect self-defense, that you might have maybe started in a different place or come to a different conclusion? I'm pretty confident that we would not have, because we literally started from first degree murder, and when every element was satisfied, we were done. This time around, the deliberations were quicker, more congenial and certain. The verdict said he was guilty on all counts with special circumstances. Guilty of first degree murder, but the fates of Lyle and Eric Menendez were not the only headlines. More came in the penalty phase. Dr. Vickery finally got to testify about the alleged abuse, and under oath, he had to admit

something. The doctor said Leslie Abramson asked him to delete notes she felt could be viewed as evidence of premeditation, including, he said, the brothers discussing what it would be like to live without their parents a week before the murders. She said, look, if you don't take this out, if you don't take these sections out, you're off the case. Really? So I said, well, okay, Leslie, I'll think about it. And, reluctantly, he said, he agreed.

He said he felt the brothers needed him. I'll think about it. And reluctantly, he said, he agreed. He said he felt the brothers needed him. The California Medical Board punished Vickery, 34 months probation. Abramson disputed Vickery's version of events. In the end, the Menendez brothers were sentenced to life with no parole. I think this fairness has been drained out of the system.

After their conviction, they filed many appeals, but none stuck. And then in 2017, Lyle agreed to an interview with me. And not even in the 90s. And he talked about how much things have changed since the 90s. My father looked like the perfect family man. I think we've come to realize today that that can be very deceiving. Lyle Menendez spent much of his life sentenced at Mule Creek State Prison in Northern California. Back in 2017, he agreed to speak with us by phone.

Hello? Hello? So, here we are all these years later. Lyle was 49 years old at the time and eager to explain how outrage and fear led him and his brother to murder their parents back when he was 21. Lyle said he felt betrayed when Eric confided to him days before the murders that their father was still molesting him. And then finally he just exploded. Definitely. I was silent through everything. My father's raped, I said nothing. For you to have done this to my brother,

it was like I kept my part of that sort of devil's pack. And you didn't. You know, and my mother just, you know, you let your children wake up in the home of a child molester every day. Lyle testified in the trial that not only did his mother cover for her husband's actions, she also on one occasion was sexually inappropriate with him. And said Lyle, more than a quarter century after the murders, those feelings of anger and hurt were still close to the surface. My mother was very cruel. I believe she just very much resented my brother and I from early on.

As if you and Eric had come between her and your father. Yes. Okay. Exactly. But certainly that weekend of my parents' death and what happened is when I really learned that my mother knew all along and really had made a choice, you know. I mean, she made her choice to choose her marriage over her children. Lyell said after Eric revealed he was being abused,

Lyell confronted his father and threatened to expose him. I certainly felt, I think, fear of my father's reaction to the possible exposure, something that we just knew was just unthinkable. We knew that we were in grave danger. When did you and Eric decide to kill your parents? We didn't decide to do it. There was a moment where we finally just kind of got overwhelmed with this panic and emotion and made the decision to run in that room.

But there was this irrefutable fact the prosecutor pointed out. Lyle walked out to his car to get more ammunition, reloaded his gun there, and walked back inside the house to fire that final shot directly into his mother's face while she was still alive and crawling desperately to get away. They saw that as the evidence of premeditation and cruelty. I certainly in the room wasn't making kind of decisions in a chaotic situation like that, but you know, reflecting afterwards, you know, it haunts me, it does haunt me.

We reminded him of what the original prosecutor still says about him. The Lyle is still trying to avoid some level of responsibility by blaming abuse when the abuse doesn't appear to have been so bad as to cause a person to do that. I don't know how you can take more responsibility than taking the stand and admitting that you killed your parents, explaining fully why, talking about things that are horrific things to talk about about your childhood. The other comment that would come up was, well, they, you know, they could have just gone out and gotten the car and driven away, you know, they didn't have to do this. They would still be alive and you wouldn't have to have anything to do with them.

Yeah, well, certainly in the state of mind I'm in now, that would be the decision I would make. But, said Lyle, back then he thought, A person like my father is not going to allow you to just take something that will ruin his life, that he has so carefully crafted. He's not going to. He's not going to. No, but you could have left. That's the point I'm trying to make. But leave and do what?

Leave and just wait for yourself to be killed in a parking lot? They didn't believe anyone could help them, said Lyle, not even the police. Speaking of which, that 911 call Lyle made? Who is the person that was shot? My mom and my dad. Your mom and dad? My mom and my dad. So, grief-stricken on that call and lying at the same time.

I don't think I was grief-stricken. I think I was just absolutely broken down with stress. Both of us were just in such a state of trauma that I just, it just poured through on that call. It made it very easy to make that call really. You know, but you could have told them instead you misled them. Why that? I mean, I don't think I was going to tell the Biblio's police department that, yeah, I told my parents and here's why and and they were gonna go, okay, go back home. So, just self-preservation at that point.

Lyle strongly denied the prosecution's claim that he and Eric killed their parents from money. Furthermore, he said he didn't think their case should have even gone to trial. This case should have been settled. There are like two to 300 parasite cases a year where a parent is killed by a child and they are almost all related to abuse and they are almost all settled. This case they picked out is

different. Yeah but Lyle it was different. Exactly and I think that it was very easy because it was Beverly Hills, my father had a lot of money, to sort of sell this headline that these brothers killed for money. But if they didn't kill for money, why didn't they mention the abuse to Dr. Ozeal or even at first to their attorneys? I was horrified. I did not want to tell the public and my family and people in the jail know that I had been sexually abused. I didn't want that out. But of course, it did come out.

My father looked like the perfect family man. And I think we've come to realize today that that can be very deceiving. He was an extremely successful immigrant who achieved the American dream. From outside looking in, your family looked pretty good. You were two handsome guys, very smart, going to good schools, had everything.

Right, exactly. That kind of image is not easily pierced with this kind of news. And certainly not back then. And not even in the 90s when I was in trial were people really believing that someone like my father was a child molester, or that a mother would cover it up. And they couldn't get past that.

In 90s, I wasn't just up against the prosecution. We were up against the myth that boys aren't sexually abused, that CEOs and upstanding people like my father aren't child molesters, that those are deviants in the shadows, that CEOs and upstanding people like my father are child molesters, that those are deviants in the shadows, that dysfunctional families don't happen in wealthy homes. So we had to deal with those myths back then. Today a lot of that is debunked and people realize now that they come, child molesters come in all these forms, all walks of life, and that boys are sexually abused. That is exactly what others are now saying. In fact, there's a wave of support for the Menendez brothers.

And new evidence that may give them a chance at freedom. I knew that this was new evidence that could upend the whole case. After their sentencing, Lyle and Eric Menendez asked to be housed together. They did not get their wish. You haven't seen Eric in how long? Well, 1996. Getting to be a long time. Yeah, I miss my brother every day.

In early 2018, that changed. The brothers were reunited at the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility near San Diego. Outside of prison, a new chapter in the Menendez saga had also begun. I knew the moment I saw it, I knew that it was something of potentially major importance to the case. In March of 2018, Robert Rand, who was writing a book about the case,

visited with Jose's sister, Marta, and got his hands on a letter that Eric had written to her son, Andy. Andy, who testified at the trial, had been close to Eric growing up. He died in 2003. And in it, Eric wrote, referring to his dad, every night I stay up thinking he might come in. I need to put it out of my mind.

I know what you said before, but I'm afraid. You just don't know dad like I do. He's crazy. He's warned me a hundred times about telling anyone, especially Lyle. The letter's undated, but events referred to suggest it was written in December 1988, eight months before Kitty and Jose were killed. But Eric never says exactly what it was that was bothering him.

He complained, although he never used the phrase sexual abuse, he never said anything about sex. Maybe he was just going to come in and yell at him. Apparently, Jose Hernandez was kind of a, you know, not nice man. Look, Keith, you can spin it one way or the other way. Sure. But I'm 100% convinced that he was talking about sexual abuse. So convinced, Rand flew to California to hand carry the letter to Lyle and Eric's appellate attorney.

But Rand didn't stop with the letter. Now a full-fledged advocate for the brothers, he enlisted the help of journalist Neri Inkland to track down another lead. You get a call from Bob, Bob who's been on the Menendez case in Cecilway. Right. Regarding Menendez and... Menendez case in Sessomoy, regarding Menendez and...

Menendez and Menudo. Menudo, the boy band Jose had signed to RCA Records. Rand had heard off the record innuendo about Jose and members of the group. But it would be about a year of talking to former Menudo members before finally... The one Menudo who would go completely on the record and tell me in horrendous detail what was going on was Roy Rossello. At 13, Roy Rossello was picked to join Menudo by Edgardo Diaz, the manager of the band.

What did he tell you about Jose Menendez and him personally? He said Edgardo Diaz said to him, listen, we have this record producer who is going to give us this, you know, gigantic deal, and he may like you. And you need to do whatever he tells you to do. Inclan interviewed Roy for a documentary that aired on Peacock, Menendez plus Menudo. Roy told Inclan it was the fall of 1983 or 1984 and he was driven in a limo to the Menendez house in New Jersey.

There said Roy he was given wine and then Jose took him into a bedroom and raped him. That's the man here. That raped me. This guy. He said he saw Jose again backstage at Radio City Music Hall. Jose Menendez has an entire family sitting in the audience, his wife and kids. And he demanded sex of Roy in a bathroom. And Roy said, no, no, I can't do this. I don't want this. I have a show to do.

And he said that Jose Menendez said to him, I own you. I bought you. You're going to do anything that I tell you to do. Inclan said Roy didn't come forward any sooner because he didn't know his story would make a difference for the brothers. And when I told Roy, Roy, do you understand that you are now a key witness in the Menendez case? And he's like, what are you talking about?

He had no idea that what he had been through would have any impact in that case. And mind you, when those cases were going on, Roy was on alcohol, on drugs, dealing with his own trauma. Roy has also accused the band manager, Edgardo Diaz, of rape, an allegation Diaz has denied. Roy has given Eric and Lyle's attorney a statement saying Jose abused him at the Menendez house and at Radio City Music Hall and along with the Eric letter it was offered as evidence in the brothers latest appeal which was filed in the spring of 2023. And then, nothing much happened. Until this fall, when Netflix debuted the new season of the Ryan Murphy series called Monsters, the scripted show did not claim absolute accuracy,

but portrayed abuse dramatically, and generated a tsunami of interest in the case. I think that they should be walking free on the sidewalks. It got the TikTokers really going. They deserve a life too. The Meninas brothers should be freed. They need to be freed and they deserve to be freed. I'm someone that believes in second chances.

It got Kim Kardashian going too. As she told Variety on a red carpet. They never got a fair second trial and for me watching Ryan Murphy's monster show, it really opened up and showed me so much about abuse. She's made criminal justice reform a big part of her life. After meeting Lyle and Eric while on a visit to their prison, she penned an essay for NBCNews.com saying,

It's time. Though the family was not entirely united, Lyle and Eric's cousins plus one aunt came together on the courthouse steps to say the same. Kitty's sister Joan. It's time to give them the opportunity to live the rest of their lives free from the shadow of their past. And just a week later, the Los Angeles D.A. made a big announcement that could change everything for Lyle and Eric Menendez.

It takes about 35 years of behavior in prison that gives up plenty of evidence, ample evidence. There's always more to the story. To go behind the scenes of tonight's episode, listen to our Talking Dateline series with Andrea and Keith, available Wednesday. As the story of the Menendez brothers has blown up on social media, some people, like the original prosecutor, Pam Bozanich, think the world has gone mad. If you use rational thought on this case, they should stay in prison for life without parole. If you use emotion, then, oh my God, why are they still there today?

Let them out tomorrow. The rest of the world seems to think, okay, let them out, let them out. I actually don't think it's the rest of the world. I think it's a lot of very vocal people. TikTok world. The TikTok world. She still believes the abuse defense was fabricated,

and that letter offered as new evidence was uniches' skeptical. I'd love to know when that letter was written. You don't think it was written when they say it was written? No, I don't. I think people fabricate things. No surprise. Bozanich has made some enemies along the way. Told us she has had to delete her email account.

And... I have armed myself. I took lessons even. Really? Yeah, I went to the range and used a gun. I went out and bought a Mossberg shotgun, which is what they used to kill their parents. I figured it was easy to learn.

Alan Abrahamson, who covered the trials once upon a time, is also pretty unpopular with the Pro Menendez folks. People who are supporters of Lyle and Eric Menendez really, really need to stop with the hate. And in all the online rage, he said, the facts are getting lost. The TikTokers are getting one thing fundamentally wrong about this case.

This case is not about Lyle and Eric Menendez being abused or not. Instead, it's about whether or not Lyle and Eric Menendez were in imminent fear for their lives on the night of August 20th, 1989. They were not. When it came to their mother Kitty, he said, no one ever suggested that she threatened them. This is the thing that gets lost in the discussion about the Menendez case. Under the law of the state of California, even if you think Jose Menendez was the worst human being in the history of human beings, blowing the mother's face off is by itself, by itself, first degree murder and assuredly, under any circumstance, grounds for life in

prison without parole. But... I believe that they have paid their debt to society. Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascon has other ideas. That the life without the possibility of parole be removed. With Lyle and Eric's family members at his side, the DA recommended the brothers be re-sentenced, meaning a chance for freedom, and for a reason having virtually nothing to do with their crime, though he accepts they were brutal murders, and nothing to do with whether or not they were molested, though he believes they were, and not a thing to

do with the much talked about new evidence, the Menudo connection, the Eric letter. Have you been able to authenticate that letter? We haven't. This is not about whether they committed the crime. They did. This is about 35 years of rehabilitation under state law and they'd be released safely. Thus did George Gascon sidestep the heated debate on social media, and instead...

They're likely to be safely reintegrated in the community. Because, he said, they'd become leaders in the prison community. Creating green space in prison, working with prisoners that had severe disabilities to help them, learning sign language, one of them. They're both married. So the decision for me was very straightforward. But Gascon's decision, as he himself admitted, is by no means unanimously supported by his own staff.

We have people in my office that are completely against any kind of relief. They don't like this at all. They want the brothers to be in prison for the rest of their life. So does Kitty's brother, Milton Anderson, who says they murdered for money and should stay right where they are.

In fact, through his attorney, Milton accused the DA of using the death of his sister and brother-in-law to get votes in this past election. Not true, said the DA. And you're telling me this has absolutely nothing to do with your election process? I'm absolutely telling you it has nothing to do with my election process. Right. He lost that election.

So now what happens? The new DA has said he will have to review the case before deciding what to ask the court to do. TikTok will be watching. The brothers will be watching. And after, Lyle and Eric Menendez will rejoin the great wide world or stay where they are in their small one.

That's all for now. I'm Lester Holt. Thanks for joining us.