Welcome back to the Deep Dive. It is Monday,
February 2nd, 2026. Today, we are opening a file
that I think for most of us feels like it has
been sitting on the desk of American culture
for our entire lives. It really is the endless
case. We are talking about the Menendez brothers,
Lyle and Eric. If you were online or watching
the news or frankly just breathing air in 2024
and 2025, you probably thought this story was
over. Oh, absolutely. There was this massive
cultural wave, documentaries, the dramatizations
on Netflix, Kim Kardashian getting involved.
It felt like a done deal. They were coming home.
It felt inevitable. The momentum was unlike anything
we've seen in the criminal justice space in decades.
You had public sentiment shifting, the district
attorney's office pivoting. It looked like the
final chapter was being written. And yet here
we are. It's February 2026. The welcome home
banners have been taken down. Lyle and Eric Menendez
are still waking up every morning in a cell at
the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility.
Still there. So my question and the question
we need to answer today is simply, what happened?
How do you go from almost free? to denied in
the span of just a few months? And to answer
that, we can't just look at the parole hearing
from last August. We have to look at the whole
picture. I mean, the entire timeline. So what
are we working with today? For today's deep dive,
I've brought in the full stack. I've got the
original 1989 police reports, the psychological
evaluations from Dr. Ozio, which are just fascinating.
I can imagine. And then the transcripts from
both the 1993 and the 1996 trials, and critically,
the actual text of the parole board's decision
from August 2025. Okay, so our mission is to
connect the dots. We want to understand not just
the crime, but the legal machinery that has kept
them in, let them almost out, and then slam the
door shut again. That is the goal. We need to
parse the difference between a resentencing,
which they won, and parole, which they lost.
Those are two very different legal beasts. And
to do that, we have to start at the beginning.
We have to. Before the TikToks, before the Netflix
shows, we have to go back to that house in Beverly
Hills. Let's start with the image, because I
think people forget before they were the Menendez
brothers killers, they were the Menendez family,
the American dream. On paper, you could not script
a better success story. It centers on the father,
Jose Menendez. And I think to understand the
boys, you have to understand the sheer force
of will that was Jose. He was an immigrant, right?
From Cuba. He was. He came from Cuba at age 15,
right after the revolution. His family lost everything.
So he lands in the U .S., a teenager with nothing.
And he climbs. That's incredible. He gets a scholarship
to Southern Illinois University. He meets Kitty
there. Louise Anderson. They marry in 63. He
grinds his way through an accounting degree at
Queens College. But he didn't stay an accountant
for long? No. No way. His rise was meteoric.
He was aggressive, charming, and ruthless in
business. He moves to Hertz, then RCA Records.
By the time they get to California, he's the
CEO of Live Entertainment. Live Entertainment?
That was a big deal on the home video market,
wasn't it? A huge deal. Think Dirty Dancing.
Think Rambo. He was the guy who could make or
break careers in the entertainment industry.
He was synonymous with power. And with that power
came wealth. Extreme wealth. They moved from
New York to New Jersey, where the boys went to
Princeton Day School, which is very elite, then
to Calabasas, and finally to 722 North Elm Drive
in Beverly Hills. The famous house. The famous
house. A Mediterranean -style mansion, tennis
court, pool, the works. It was the absolute pinnacle
of the 90s. In Kitty. The mother. Where did she
fit into this picture of power and ambition?
She was the homemaker, but the sources paint
a really complicated picture. She was a former
teacher, won beauty pageants in her youth. But
as Jose's career skyrocketed and the pressure
mounted, she struggled. In what way? The sources
from the trial from both sides highlight heavy
drinking, depression, and weird shifting dynamic
with her sons. She was described as sometimes
suffocatingly close and other times completely
detached, almost neglectful. stable presence.
Very. And that instability, coupled with Jose's
rigid perfectionism, created this pressure cooker
environment. Let's talk about the sons then,
Lyle and Eric, because the prosecution's narrative
was always spoiled brats. And looking at the
early sources, there's some truth to that, isn't
there? There were definitely behavioral issues
that money was covering up, or at least trying
to. Take Lyle, the older one, born in 68. He
gets into Princeton University. Which is a golden
ticket. Your dad's dream for you. It is, but
he treats it like a playground. He was placed
on academic probation almost immediately. Then
he gets suspended for plagiarism. Plagiarism,
wow. But it's the dorm life notes that are really
interesting. He lived in Goss Hall. He was reportedly
a nightmare to live with. How so? There are reports
of him just throwing his roommate's stuff into
the hall because he decided he didn't want to
share the space. He was overflowing sinks, causing
water damage. He essentially acted like rules
didn't apply to him. That sounds like deep entitlement.
I'm a Menendez. I do what I want. Precisely.
It wasn't just college kid pranks. It was a fundamental
disregard for other people's existence. Okay,
so that's Lyle. What about Eric? Eric, two years
younger, born in 1970. He's at Beverly Hills
High. He's not the academic star like Lyle was
supposed to be, but he's a tennis prodigy. I
remember that. He was nationally ranked, wasn't
he? He was. Ranked 44th in the U .S. for his
age group. He was being groomed for a professional
career. That was his path. But there's something
else in your notes here about a screenplay he
wrote. This detail always gives me chills. This
is one of those details that feels like it's
straight out of a movie. In high school, Eric
co -wrote a screenplay called Friends with a
Classmate. Craig Signorelli. Okay, teenage boys
write scripts. What was it about? The plot was
about a wealthy young man who murders his parents
to inherit their fortune. And he plans and commits
the perfect crime. Wait. You're telling me he
literally wrote the script for what he was going
to do? It's almost too on the nose, isn't it?
The prosecution certainly thought so later. It
suggests that the idea of parenticide for profit
was at least a fantasy in his head long before
the night in question. A fantasy that was about
to get a lot more real. And it wasn't just fantasy.
In 1988, a year before the murders, the brothers
went on a burglary spree. Burglary. They lived
in a mansion. What were they stealing? The thrill,
mostly. But they stole over $100 ,000 in cash
and jewelry from their neighbor's houses in Calabasas.
That's not a prank. That's grand larceny. That's
serious felony territory. It is. And this is
actually why the family moved to Beverly Hills.
It was a geographical cure. Jose smoothed it
over legally. Money makes problems disappear.
But the tension in that house was nuclear. So
you have a father who demands perfection, a mother
who is fraying at the edges, and two sons who
are committing felonies for fun. The pressure
cooker is hissing. Which brings us to August
1989. The week of the murders. But it didn't
just happen that night. There was planning involved.
A lot of planning. And this is what destroys
the idea that they just snapped in a moment of
passion. On Friday, August 18th, two days before.
Lyle and Eric tried to buy handguns. Handguns.
But they got flagged. California has a waiting
period and there was an issue with Lyle's license,
so they couldn't get them. If they had gotten
handguns, do you think the crime scene would
have looked different? Completely different.
Handguns are surgical. You point, you shoot.
It's relatively contained. But because they were
denied, they went to plan B. Which was? They
drove down to San Diego to a Big Five sporting
goods store. Lyle used a stolen ID belonging
to a friend, Donovan Goodrow. So now we have
premeditation and use of a stolen ID. And they
bought two Mossberg 12 -gauge shotguns. See,
I'm not a gun expert. But I know that a 12 -gauge
shotgun is not a precision instrument. That is
a weapon designed for massive damage. It's a
weapon of obliteration. And that speaks to the
psychology of the killing, the rage involved.
So they have the guns. Sunday night, August 20th.
Jose and Kitty are in the den. They are eating
ice cream, vanilla, and berries and watching
a movie. Do we know what movie it was? The Spy
Who Loved Me. A James Bond film. It's so mundane.
Yeah. Just a wealthy couple winding down their
weekend. Until the door opens. Lyle and Eric
enter carrying the loaded shotguns. They didn't
say a word. They just opened fire. I've read
the autopsy reports in your stack here. They
are difficult to read. They are brutal. They
are horrific. This wasn't just shooting. Jose
was hit six times. The first shot blew out his
elbow. The second hit him in the back. The fatal
shot was to the back of the head and at that
range with a shotgun. The medical examiner described
decapitation and evisceration. Oh, my God. It
was overkill in the extreme. And kitty. This
is the part that really hurts the self -defense
argument later on. Kitty was shot. She was wounded.
She was on the floor, crawling away, trying to
escape. And Lyle ran out of ammunition. So he
stopped. No. He ran out to their car, reloaded
the shotgun, walked back into the house, and
fired the final fatal shot into her face while
she was helpless on the floor. That reload moment.
That's the pivot point, isn't it? Legally speaking.
It's everything. In the eyes of the law, that
pause running to the car, fumbling with shells,
loading the chamber, that is time to think. That
is time to choose. It takes it from a panicked
reaction to a deliberate execution. So the deed
is done. The house is a slaughterhouse. What
do they do next? Do they run? No, they go into
scriptwriter mode. They meticulously collect
the shell casings, though they missed a few,
which were found later. They take the guns and
their bloody clothes and drive up to Mulholland
Drive and dump them in a canyon. And then the
alibi. Then they need an alibi. Their first idea
was flawed. They bought tickets to see Tim Burton's
Batman. Right. I remember this detail. But they
realized the timestamps on the tickets wouldn't
line up with the coroner's estimated time of
death. They were thinking clearly enough to realize
that their alibi had a hole in it. Which is pretty
cold and calculated. Extremely. So instead, they
went to the Taste of L .A. Festival at the Santa
Monica Civic Auditorium. His walking around eating
appetizers after executing their parents. It
suggests a profound level of dissociation. or
sociopathy, depending on which expert you ask.
They return home later that night, discover the
bodies, and Lyle makes the call. The 911 call.
Someone killed my parents. It's hysterical. He's
screaming, sobbing. To this day, people debate
it. Was that the performance of a lifetime? Or
was that the reality crashing down on a 21 -year
-old who just blew his father's head off? And
the police at the scene, they bought it. Hook,
line, and sinker. They walked into that room,
saw the carnage. I mean, blood everywhere, brain
matter on the walls. And they thought, mob hit.
It looked like a professional, brutal message
from a cartel. Which led to a critical error.
A huge one. They didn't even test the brothers'
hands for gunshot residue. Which is police work
101, isn't it? It is. If they had swabbed Lyle's
hands that night, this case would have been over
in 24 hours. Instead, the brothers were treated
as grieving victims. They were interviewed, comforted,
and sent on their way. They were free. And this
brings us to the grieving period and the spendings
free. Because if you just killed your parents
to escape abuse, you might lay low, be in shock.
If you kill them for money, well, you might go
shopping. And go shopping they did. This is the
greed argument in a nutshell. In the six months
following the murders, while the police were
chasing phantom mobsters, Lyle and Eric spent
approximately $700 ,000. In 1989 dollars. That's
like spending one and a half or two million today.
What could two college -aged kids possibly buy?
Well, Lyle bought a Porsche Carrera. He bought
three Rolex watches. And this is my favorite
detail of his. He bought a restaurant. A restaurant.
He was, what, 21? Yes. Chuck's Spring Street
Cafe in Princeton, New Jersey. He wanted to be
a tycoon like his dad. He was playing businessman.
And Eric, what was he spending his share on?
Eric hired a full -time private tennis coach
for $50 ,000 a year. He was flying to Israel
and Europe for tournaments. They bought adjoining
condos in Marina del Rey. They were living the
high life. Trips to the Caribbean, London. There's
a photo you showed me earlier. A basketball card.
It's such a bizarre artifact to this case. Yes.
This is a legendary piece of trivia. It's a Mark
Jackson NBA trading card from the 1989 -1990
season. In the background, courtside at Madison
Square Garden, you can clearly see Lyle and Eric
Menendez sitting there. That is chilling. They're
sitting there, spending the inheritance, watching
the Knicks while the police are looking for their
parents' killers. It highlights their arrogance.
They felt untouchable. But the walls were closing
in, and from two very different directions. First,
technology. Lyle had tried to wipe a file from
the family computer. What was the file? A new
will that Jose had apparently drafted, which
might have disinherited them. Lyle tried to delete
it. Which screams motive. Right. But the real
smoking gun, the thing that blew it all open,
came from a place of trust. Eric started seeing
a psychologist, Dr. Jerome Oziel. And he confessed.
On tape. He did. He confessed everything. But
here's the twist. Dr. Patient Privilege usually
protects that. But Dr. Oziel had a mistress,
Judelon Smith. Of course he did. It's a Beverly
Hills soap opera. Oziel told Judalon about the
confession, presumably to impress her or maybe
because he was genuinely scared of the brothers.
When Oziel and Judalon had a messy breakup, she
went to the cops. A scorned lover. She blew the
case wide open. She told them everything. The
police got a warrant for the tapes and that was
it. So when were they arrested? Lyle was arrested
at the mansion on March 8, 1990. Eric was actually
in Israel playing tennis. He flew back to L .A.
and surrendered on March 11. So they are in custody.
The grieving orphans mask is off. And now we
enter the 1990s, the era of the TV trial. The
tale of two trials. And this is where the narrative
war really began. Before we get to the courtroom,
though, I want to applause on the defense strategy,
because up until the trial, everyone thought
greed. How do they pivot to abuse? That came
later, right? It did. That was the masterstroke
of Leslie Abramson, Eric's defense attorney.
She realized they couldn't deny the killing.
The confession tape existed even if they were
fighting its admissibility. So they had to explain.
why. And the why was imperfect self -defense.
Can you break that down for us non -lawyers?
Sure. Perfect self -defense is you have a gun
pointed at me, I shoot you. Justified. Acquittal.
Imperfect self -defense is I genuinely believe
you are about to kill me, even if that belief
is unreasonable or maybe wrong, and I shoot you
out of that genuine fear. So if the jury buys
that, it's not murder one. Correct. It drops
the charge to voluntary manslaughter, which carries
a much, much lighter sentence. That was the goal.
To prove they lived in a state of terror so profound
that killing their parents felt like the only
way to survive. OK, so trial one, 1993. Court
TV is born. The entire nation is glued to the
screen. It was a circus. The defense painted
this picture of the house of horrors. They claim
Jose was a sadistic pedophile who had molested
the boys for years. They claimed Kitty was a
broken, drug -addicted enabler who knew and did
nothing to stop it. And the prosecution's response?
The prosecution said this is a complete fabrication.
They pointed to the Oziel tapes and said, look,
in these tapes, when you first confessed, you
never mentioned sexual abuse. You only talked
about hating your dad and wanting the money.
So they argued the abuse story was invented for
the trial. Exactly. They argued it was fabricated
after they got caught, specifically to fit the
legal defense that Abramson had designed. But
the defense did have a witness, right? A cousin.
They did. Diane Vandermolen. She testified that
Lyle had told her about sexual abuse back in
the 70s when he was a little boy. That was huge
for the defense. It was outside corroboration.
But then you had these bizarre, specific... claims
that were harder to prove. Right, like the cinnamon
story. Eric testified that he used to put cinnamon
in his father's tea to mask the taste of semen
he was forced to ingest. The prosecution brought
in taste experts to say cinnamon is a distinct,
powerful flavor. It doesn't mask anything. That's
a lie. It became this gritty, granular, and frankly
kind of gross debate over the mechanics of abuse.
And in the end, what was the result of that first
trial? Total deadlock. They had two separate
juries one for lyle one for eric both juries
were hung hung juries wow and it was split right
down gender lines which is fascinating the women
on the juries tended to believe the abuse and
voted for manslaughter the men on the juries
saw the shotguns and the spending and voted for
murder mistrial so let's do it all over again
but the second trial That was a different ballgame.
Night and day. It starts in 1995. The O .J. Simpson
trial had just happened. And the public and the
judiciary were frankly sick of celebrity justice
circuses. No cameras. No cameras. And critically.
The judge, Judge Weisberg, severely restricted
the abuse testimony. He wouldn't let them talk
about it. Not in the same way. He said, unless
you can prove you were in immediate danger at
the very moment of the shooting, the long history
of abuse is largely irrelevant to the charge
of murder. He basically handcuffed the defense.
Lyle didn't even testify in the second trial.
So without that whole emotional narrative of
the abuse, what was left for the jury to consider?
Just the cold, hard facts. Buying guns. Using
fake IDs, reloading the shotgun, going to the
festival, eating ice cream, the spending spree,
the Porsche, the Rolexes. And that was enough.
It was more than enough. Convicted, both of them.
Two counts of first -degree murder with special
circumstances. The main one being lying in wait.
And the sentence. Life in prison without the
possibility of parole. And for almost 30 years,
that felt like the end. They went to prison.
The world moved on. They exhausted their appeals
by 2005. They were just inmates. Case closed.
Until 2023. This is where the story wakes up
again, and in a big way. What happened in 2023?
What changed after all that time? Two crucial
pieces of evidence emerged that the defense argued
fundamentally changed the game. The first was
the Menudo connection. Menudo, like the boy band
from the 80s. The very same. Roy Rossolo, a former
member of the band Menudo, went on the Today
Show in April 2023. He alleged that when he was
14 years old, he was drugged and raped by Jose
Menendez. Whoa. Remember, Jose was an executive
at RCA, their record label. This is a bombshell.
Because the prosecution's whole case in the 90s
was, Jose wasn't a monster, the boys made it
all up. Exactly. This corroborates a pattern
of predatory behavior. If he did this to a 14
-year -old employee, it makes the claims of him
doing it to his sons infinitely more plausible.
It destroys the fantasy argument from the second
trial. Okay, that's huge. And what was the second
piece of evidence? The Canoe letter. This was
a letter found by a family member in 2018, but
it really hit the legal filings in 2023. It's
a letter written by Eric to his cousin, Andy
Canoe. The key thing is when it was written.
How was that? 1988 months before the murder.
What did it say? In the letter, Eric explicitly
references the abuse happening at that time.
He writes about his fear of his father, about
what's happening in the house. So that just kills
the prosecution's argument that they made it
all up after the arrest. It's contemporaneous
evidence. It proves the state of mind, the fear.
It existed long before the crime was committed.
So armed with these two new pieces of evidence,
the defense filed a habeas corpus petition. Habeas
corpus. is meaning you have the body basically
challenging the legality of their imprisonment.
Yes. They argued that if this new evidence had
been heard in the second trial. The verdict would
have been different. It would have been manslaughter,
not murder. And then you had a major political
shift. George Gascon. The L .A. District Attorney
George Gaston reviewed this in October of 2024.
And Gascon was known as a progressive reformer.
Right. And he looked at the case and said, essentially,
I believe them. He cited the dysfunction, the
molestation allegations from Rossello. He recommended
resentencing. He argued that manslaughter was
the appropriate charge all along. But then, just
like in the 90s, the political winds shifted
again. Gascon lost his reelection. The new DA,
Nathan Hockman, came in. He was much more of
a tough on crime prosecutor. He opposed the petition,
calling the self -defense claims lies. But the
train had already left the station. The legal
process Gascon started was still moving. It was
moving toward a judge. And that brings us to
2025, the year of the roller coaster. Let's break
down the mechanics of what happened last May,
because I think this is where a lot of people
got confused. OK, this is the legal pivot point.
In May 2025, a judge officially resentenced Lyle
and Eric Menendez. The new sentence was 50 years
to life. Now, hold on. They've served about 35
years at this point. If the sentence is 50 years
to life, shouldn't they still have 15 years left?
Why did everyone think they were getting out
immediately? Because of a specific California
law regarding youth offenders. This is where
it gets technical, but it's really fascinating.
OK. Because they were under 26 years old at the
time of the murders. Lyle was 21. Eric was 18.
The law now views their brain development differently
than it did in 1989. The idea that a 20 year
old brain isn't fully formed, less impulse control,
that kind of thing. Exactly. So under these new
statutes, if you committed a crime under age
26, you are eligible for a parole hearing after
serving 25 years, regardless of a nominal sentence
length. They had already served 35. So the resentencing
wasn't a get out of jail free card. No, it was
a become eligible for parole immediately card.
The sentence of 50 to life effectively. became
time served plus eligible for parole. So the
resentencing was the key that unlocked the door.
All they had to do was walk through it at the
parole hearing. They had to walk through the
parole board. And that is a very, very different
room than a courtroom. Right. The court looks
at the crime. Was it murder or manslaughter back
in 1989? The parole board looks at the person
today. Are you rehabilitated? Are you a risk?
Correct. And that brings us to August 2025. The
hype was unbelievable. Social media was counting
down the days. Everyone thought this was a formality.
Let's talk about Eric's hearing first. August
21st, 2025. What was his prison record like?
Eric's record, by all accounts, was a model of
rehabilitation. He leads meditation groups. He
works in the prison hospice with terminally ill
inmates. He has painted murals. He is the definition
of a rehabilitated prisoner on paper. So what
on earth happened? He was denied. The board cited
ongoing rule violations and concerns about public
safety. That feels incredibly vague. What violations?
It is vague. And that's the thing about parole
boards. They have immense discretion. They can
look at very small infractions from years ago
and say, this shows a lack of respect for authority.
Ultimately, they felt he hadn't fully taken responsibility
or addressed the root causes of his violence
despite the decades of therapy. Wow. OK, so Eric
is denied and then Lyle. The next day, August
22nd, Lyle was also denied. But for him, the
reason was much more concrete. And frankly, it's
frustrating for his supporters because it feels
so avoidable. Who was? Repeated cell phone infractions.
Cell phones. They're in prison because of cell
phones. In prison, a cell phone is major contraband.
It's a huge security risk. Lyle has a history
of getting caught with them. He uses them to
talk to his family, to advocates, to participate
in his own defense. But the board looked at that
and said, you know the rules. You keep breaking
them. If you can't follow the simple rule about
a phone inside, how can we possibly trust you
to follow the complex laws of society outside?
That is a brutal irony. The court acknowledges
the abuse, lowers the sentence, basically says
justice has been served, but he stays in prison
because he wanted to make phone calls. It highlights
the dual nature of our system. You have to win
the legal argument about the past, but you also
have to win the behavioral argument about the
present. Lyle failed the behavioral test in the
eyes of the board. So as of today, February 2026,
they are back to square one. Not square one exactly,
but they are in a holding pattern. They remain
incarcerated. Their next eligible parole hearing
is set for 2028. Three more years of waiting.
I want to pivot a bit here to the personal side,
because despite being locked up for three and
a half decades, these guys haven't lived in total
isolation. They've had surprisingly full. personal
lives in a way. They have. It's one of the stranger
aspects of the case. They both got married in
prison. To women on the outside who they met
after they were incarcerated. Yes. Lyle has actually
been married twice. He married a pen pal Anna
Erickson in 1996. They had a ceremony over the
telephone. Telephone wedding. They divorced in
2001 because she found out he was writing to
another woman. Even in maximum security prison
there's infidelity drama. Chuckles, exactly.
Then in 2003, he married Rebecca Sneed in a prison
visiting area. Though it's worth noting in the
lead up to the 2025 hearings, the sources say
they separated back in 2024. And Eric, his marriage
seems more stable. Eric's marriage is fascinating.
He married Tammy Sackman in 1999. They got married
in the Folsom prison waiting room. And I have
to ask about the wedding cake. I read this in
the notes. The wedding cake was a Twinkie. A
tweaky. You work with what you have. But jokes
aside, Tammy has been incredibly steadfast. She
wrote a book about their relationship. They said
we'd never make it. She drives 150 miles every
single weekend to visit him. They've maintained
a relationship for over 25 years without ever
being able to live together. That's dedication.
It speaks to a profound connection, whatever
you think of the crime. It also speaks to the
human ability to normalize almost anything. But
let's zoom out. The culture has shifted so dramatically
around them. In the 90s, they were pariahs, they
were monsters. What happened in the last few
years to change that? The Menendez movement,
and it was almost entirely driven by Gen Z and
TikTok. This is a generation that didn't watch
court TV in 1993. They watched the Netflix series
Monsters in 2024. They saw short emotional clips
of the abuse testimony on their phones, completely
decontextualized from the rest of the trial.
So they saw the victims, not the killers. Right.
And then you had these high profile figures like
Kim Kardashian visiting them in prison, writing
essays, advocating for their release. The narrative
completely flipped from greed. greedy sociopaths
to traumatized survivors who snapped. It's interesting
how generational that divide is. My parents still
see them as the guys who bought Rolexes with
blood money. The younger generation sees them
as victims of a justice system that didn't understand
trauma or male sexual abuse in the 90s. That's
the core tension of this entire saga. And the
parole board denial in August 2025 was a huge
splash of cold water on that new movement. It
was a reminder that Internet popularity and hashtags
don't equate to legal freedom. The board doesn't
care how many views a TikTok gets. So what does
this all mean? We've looked at the murders, the
abuse, the trials, the new evidence and the parole
denial. When you step back and look at this 37
year saga, what is the takeaway for you? I think
it's about the complexity of justice. The legal
system is, believe it or not, capable of correcting
itself. We saw that with the resentencing. The
system acknowledged the abuse context. It effectively
said, we got the sentence wrong in the 90s. Life
without parole was too harsh given this evidence.
That is a victory for the system. There's a big
but. But it's also a rigid system that demands
compliance. The parole denial reminds us that
while the cause of a crime matters, the behavior
of the individual post crime matters just as
much, if not more, to the people holding the
keys. You can't separate the abuse from the murders,
but you also can't separate the prisoner from
the prison rules. It's all one messy, complicated
package. It's just tragic all around. A family
was destroyed in 1989. Two parents dead in a
horrific, brutal way. Two sons whose lives effectively
stopped at age 18 and 21. And now two men in
their late 50s still waiting for a door to open
that they thought was already unlocked. And we
will all be watching again in 2028 to see if
it finally does. Before we go, I want to leave
our listeners with a final question. It's something
I've been wrestling with while prepping this
deep dive. Go for it. Can a narrative ever truly
be rewritten? We have the Menudo testimony now.
We have the Cano letter. We understand the context
of the abuse in a way the jury in 1996 did not.
But we also have the unchangeable brutality of
the act. The shotguns, the reloading, the final
shot to Kitty's face. Are some crimes simply
too brutal to ever fully forgive, regardless
of the cause? Is there a line between an explanation
and an excuse that we are still, as a society,
afraid to draw? That is the ultimate question
here. At what point does the reason for the violence
stop justifying the violence itself? I don't
think we have a clear answer for that yet. And
the Menendez case is ground zero for that debate.
Something to think about. That's it for this
week's Deep Dive. We'll be watching closely as
2028 approaches. Until then, stay curious. And
stay critical. See you next time.