Hello! Hello!
Welcome to another episode of Diagnosing a Killer. I'm Koelle.
And I'm Kenna.
I already have to throw my throat a bunch.
Nice to see you. How's it going everyone? It's been a day.
Yeah, a little bit. Just like really throwing in, you know, the rest of the research.
And then yesterday it was like kind of rainy and then it was like blue.
Yeah. And I also just started my period. So it's like...
Yeah, I'm sourced.
I'm sorry. I went on a run slash walk today and I've been doing that like every day for the last like five days.
And I feel really good about myself. I mean, I haven't seen any results.
So I could be wrong. Like I'm not like skinny.
I'm not.
But just one day walking.
I'm thin.
I'm healthy. Just like follow me for health tips. You know, just you can call me, text me, email us on the podcast.
Yeah.
I was looking it up today and apparently running can be really good for your mental health even.
And like, of course your physical health, but it can boost your mood.
It can help you sleep better, you know at night.
Because of course you're expending more energy during the day.
And it can also like reduce symptoms of like depression and anxiety.
So I was wanting to share that with everyone because of course this is a psychology based podcast as well.
So yeah, get out and walk or run if you want.
I think I have the energy to walk 12 hours a day, but what do you mean?
No. Okay.
Like you need constant relief from depression?
Yeah.
It was saying like even walking 10 minutes a day or whatever is beneficial.
Yeah.
My son and I walked up to the little grocery store down the street last week and it was pretty nice because we got to spend time together too and like talk.
Yeah, of course.
And it's really, it makes me feel really safe like in our neighborhood because there's a lot of people around the time that I've been going out.
There's a lot of people out as well.
Yeah.
I mean, of course I carry a knife with me when I go just to be safe.
And you have my location, but still.
She said she was listening to True Crime too while she was walking, which is probably not the best thing to do.
Yeah.
So I like, I like to listen to a True Crime podcast while I'm walking because they're usually about an hour long and it's just about the same amount of time as my walk slump.
But we were making jokes earlier where Koel was like, and then in the podcast, she's like, and then the girl got kidnapped from her own neighborhood.
She was just blocks away from her house.
She didn't realize there was a van down the street.
It's like they had her all along.
I was like, oh gee, that was right before I left.
She was like, damn it.
I'm going to think about that this whole time.
Oh, anyway.
So today we are going to have a DAK first.
Okay.
We are going to be talking about the Menindez brothers.
Ooh.
You know, I know I've heard an episode on them, but I can't tell you what happens.
Okay.
Well, I'm excited.
It's been a while since I've listened to anything about them.
They're young, right?
They were 18 and 21, 22 when they committed the crime.
When they committed?
When they committed.
They committed.
They committed to keep it vague when they committed.
Yep.
You don't know what they committed.
Burger.
Ah, that was a strong start.
They committed burgers.
I was trying to say burglary and murder at the same time.
It said burger.
Burger.
Big as.
Oh, God.
So Jose Menendez was born in Cuba in 1944.
He was born to an upper middle class family in Havana, Cuba.
His mother was a sports holofame swimmer, and his dad was a soccer player who later
owned his own accounting firm.
His parents' sports careers weren't necessarily the most profitable jobs, but the family was
very well known and respected throughout Havana.
In 1959 to 1960, when Castro overthrew the Cuban government, along with his revolutionists,
things began to change very quickly.
The upper and upper middle class were actually forced to relinquish their properties while
farms became government property.
It was essentially about leveling everything out, right?
So that, you know, take from the rich, give to the poor, kind of a leveling out.
Castro felt just that the U.S. had way too much influence over the people of Cuba at
this time.
So lots of things began to change very quickly.
Like I said, it wasn't the type of standard of living that the family had been used to
up until this point.
Jose was 16 years old when his parents decided to send Jose to the United States with his
brother-in-law, which is his older sister's husband.
And the two began to work and try to establish some type of a life for the family, for them
to eventually move over to the States.
Jose and his uncles settled in Hazelton, Pennsylvania, and they were completely broke, not appending
to their names when they arrived.
Jose didn't speak any English either, and he's 16.
Oh man, that's hard.
In a brand new country.
Well, you know, like they say, if you're going to teach someone like another language,
like the easiest time to learn it is like, I think it's like from like five to seven
years old or something like that when you're like really developing your speech.
Jose did have big dreams though.
He set a goal for himself to be accepted into an Ivy League school at some point.
No small task, of course, but Jose did work very hard, and he even had a part-time job
to assist his uncle at home with rent and bills.
Jose was intelligent enough and made remarkable grades in high school, but that wasn't what
held him back from attending an Ivy League school and achieving his dreams.
What held him back was a lack of finance to help with tuition.
Oh man.
Jose was an amazing swimmer, and he did win a scholarship to Southern Illinois University,
and although it wasn't his dream, he did attend SIU and use some of the scholarship
money to help his family back home.
He eventually quit swimming to focus on just studying and swore that if he ever had children
of his own, he would be successful enough that his children could live out his dream
for him.
Oh.
And that's what made him a great student in Ivy League school.
That's kind of not the way you should go into parenting.
Okay, cool.
Now I have a second chance to make my child do what I couldn't.
Well, a lot of people do that though, and especially where he came up from and stuff,
that was his dream.
He couldn't achieve it, but he would hope that one day his sons could.
Okay.
It's kind of interesting, right?
Well, quite the opposite happens, I'm pretty sure.
Even after focusing on his studies, however, Jose met a young lady by the name of Kitty
Anderson.
Kitty was born in 1941, and she was the baby of the family.
She had three older siblings, and the family lived in a small community in Chicago.
The family was middle class, and her dad was in heating and air conditioning maintenance,
and he made decent money.
It was enough money for her and her mother to stay at home, or her mother to stay at
home with the kids.
Kitty's father was an often angry man, and Kitty would often hear or witness her father
beating her mother and sometimes her siblings.
Oh my god, that's so awful.
Being able to hear it and not be able to stop it is helpless.
Kitty's father would eventually leave the family for another woman.
Good.
And she was about five or six at this time.
Sorry, but good, if he was beating them, good thing that he fucking left.
But this also forced her mother into the workplace.
Kitty's mother actually got a job as a flight attendant, and she would never remarry.
Kitty grew up having difficulties making lifelong friendships, and she was a very withdrawn
person.
Her parents never failed to complain about one another to the children as they grew up.
Oh my god.
Eventually this would be the entire reason why Kitty would lose contact with her father.
That's like, that's one of those things that we've talked about before.
It's like, don't bring kids into adult problems.
Yeah.
Like, they do not have the capacity to understand those complex emotions.
So bringing them in, like literally, it's gonna fuck them up.
It breaks their brain.
It breaks their little brains.
God, that's awful.
Kitty described that her parents' divorce was likely the worst thing that had ever happened
to her and her family.
Yeah, and if they had split amicably, that might not be the rememberance that she has
of that.
Or had no contact with her dad at all, you know what I mean?
Yeah.
But she also still has siblings, older siblings that probably still talk to the father.
It would have just been better though if like, the parents kind of kept their big fucking
mouth shut and then just silently said, you know, look, it's not gonna work out.
It's fine in a way that they can understand.
Don't just fucking argue in front of them and then talk shit about each other.
It's not healthy.
Because then you're creating people that are gonna do that later in their lives when
they do get married and stuff.
Either way, Kitty did graduate and was accepted to Southern Illinois University.
There she began to make friends and found a passion in broadcasting, believe it or not,
since she was so shy.
She loved learning about radio and television and she actually became quite popular.
Over the course of her four years at SIU, Kitty was thriving.
She actually became so confident that she would participate in 1962's Miss Oak Lawn
Beauty Pageant.
Oh no.
Isn't that cute?
What?
That's really cute when you said beauty pageant and all I could think of now was, France!
Oh my god.
Everyone knows that.
I know that everyone knows.
What's your favorite food?
Surprise!
Oh man.
Alright.
Kitty had decided after graduation that she would move to New York to continue to pursue
a career in radio and television.
Cool.
However, right before she graduated, Kitty met Jose.
This was during his freshman year.
His freshman year?
Yes.
She was a senior?
Yes.
It was kind of awesome.
Once the two met, they became inseparable.
Jose loved that Kitty came from a family that had to start from almost nothing.
He loved the idea of the all-American dream, right?
Did she speak Spanish or did he know English at this point?
I think he knew English because this is a few years later.
True.
And he also graduated with like a scholarship.
Oh, duh.
Okay.
For Kitty, I mean she's got this gorgeous young Cuban man hanging on her, so I bet that
felt really nice.
Yeah, for sure.
She was really attracted to Jose.
Not only that, that he was an attractive man, but that he had come to America to make his
own life and he was successful at that.
Well, he's clearly like, he has grit and he's passionate and he knows what he wants out
of life.
That's attractive.
He knows an attractive quality to have.
Yeah.
That's the two of them.
Oh, he is handsome.
I just looked him up.
No, he's a handsome looking guy.
Okay, I can see that.
They were almost in their own naive little world because they were just really attracted
to each other and it was the early 60s.
Let's not forget that.
There's not a lot of interracial couples walking around.
Yeah.
I think Kitty's friends wouldn't approve of their relationship since he was Cuban.
I'm sorry, Kitty was white.
Yeah, Kitty was a white woman.
I didn't know if I heard that or not.
So not only that, but they were kind of judged by their age gap as well.
You know, like, I mean, you even mentioned a little bit.
Couple years ago.
Oh, it's a freshman, senior.
Oh, yeah.
Which doesn't seem like a big deal now.
We kind of like laugh at that, but then it was a little serious for her parents and
his parents.
Yeah, I don't know about all that.
Yeah.
But their parents didn't approve of the relationship either.
They believed that Kitty and her family were not as affluent as they were.
Therefore, yeah, thought that maybe she might have been a little money hungry, which is interesting,
right?
Because they still see themselves as affluent people.
Wait, I'm sorry.
His parents?
His parents.
Still back in Cuba.
Oh, okay.
Okay.
But remember after Castro came in?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
They don't really have as much as they used to, but they still consider themselves to be
affluent and she was not.
Okay.
And it seemed like, okay, does she really have interest in him or is she just looking
for something else?
Exactly.
The ulterior motive.
And then especially since he's worked so hard to get where he's at, they might have
thought she's trying to come in and she was older.
She was older.
True.
They thought she's going to be along for the ride while he does all the hard work.
Exactly.
So when the concept of marriage came up, they further tried to convince Jose that this is
not the best move for him and they wanted him to focus on school.
Jose would graduate from SIU and in an effort to remain in the relationship, Jose left his
swimming scholarship behind and went with Kitty to New York to pursue her career.
His whole life achievement, he wanted that.
He wanted that.
It makes sense that he wanted it for his sons because he left school and didn't, oh my
god, just for a woman.
Right?
Just for a woman.
They better have lived a happily ever after life.
Well.
We're eating on that.
So he enrolled in Queens University.
I'm sorry.
Kitty began to teach and actually within a year of the moving, Jose's mother and father
would actually leave Cuba and come to stay in the New York area.
And they were just like cool with him leaving and they were like, let's come visit you or
they're going to try to like come change his mind.
I don't know.
I'm sorry.
Were they married at this point?
No.
They just moved away together.
Right.
Okay.
So when the family continued to be ever present, Jose and Kitty would elope 1963.
There it is.
There's usually an eloping in this story.
It's just funny that it is not the main topic of person that has been eloping.
I don't know.
Maybe in the future they do.
Let's see.
So with Jose still in school at Queens University and wanting to support his dreams of being
the breadwinner for a future family, Kitty decided to not obtain her master's degree
even though she was teaching at this point.
She decided to not continue her education.
It's like they're just like, this is like a theme in there.
They just drop out of school back and forth.
That's their thing.
She would eventually accept the fact that she would not be pursuing a career in broadcasting,
which is really sad because that was her dream, you know?
Hey, love makes people do crazy things.
It's true.
Jose would graduate from Queens University with a CPA degree and began working for an
accounting firm in 1967.
So they've been together for four years at this point.
By the following year, the couple would become pregnant and Joseph Lyle Menendez was born
January 10th, 1968.
It was my birthday.
20 years before you.
Yeah, he's 20 years older than I am.
Kitty quit her job and decided to be a stay-at-home mom full-time.
Jose continued to climb the ladder in the firm, but after a major disagreement with another
manager about the direction that the company was going, Jose decided to leave the firm
and began working for Hertz.
He was successful here as well throughout 71.
That's where mom and dad bought their car from today.
I know.
As soon as I saw that, I was like, hey.
Hey, yeah.
By the way, our parents got a new car today and it's freaking nice.
I'm so jealous.
I'm excited for them.
Oh, yeah.
No, they haven't bought a new car for themselves, either one of them in probably never eight
years.
Never.
Well, I'm saying they haven't gotten, they've been driving the same vehicles for the last
like at least eight years, but they've never bought a new car.
I don't think I've ever bought a new, new car.
Well, this one's technically two years old.
Yeah, it's slightly used, but it's very nice.
It's a nice car.
So all throughout 71, Jose was successful with Hertz.
He welcomed his second son, Eric, on November 27, 1971.
72 and 73 passed while Jose rose through the Hertz company from becoming executive to chief
financial officer and then eventually in 1979, worldwide general manager.
Geez.
He was like, nose to the grindstone doing it.
Yeah.
By this time, however, Jose had become hardened.
Several of his employees throughout the years had lobby complaints against Jose for being
verbally abusive and had stated that he was known to have such a ridiculous standard that
rarely any employee was able to meet his mark.
Like impossible standards.
What does that sound like?
That sounds like the mental breakdown that we did a couple of days ago about narcissistic
personality disorder.
Yeah.
Not making assumptions here.
That just sounds like one of the symptoms.
So I know he went through those years pretty rapidly, but now we're in 1980.
Jose would once again switch careers and began to work for RCA Record Company.
In the same year, he would sign the Eurythmics.
Sweet dreams.
One made a living.
Yeah, yeah, the Eurythmics.
In an effort to reframe what RCA was doing, just to make it a little bit more hip, this
is in 1982 when they signed.
But of course, Jose was really successful at this venture for the most part, but yet
he has this tyrannical way of overseeing others that is just ever more present.
Way more buckled down than he was previously and even previously.
It's just like years and years and years go by and he's just this very hard individual
to get to understand.
He's like leaning almost like too far into his career.
Yes.
Yeah.
Jose would ask his colleagues to call him Joe in an order to integrate himself into
a mostly white industry.
You need to call me the colonel.
Call me the colonel.
You gotta call me the colonel.
He would actually regularly poke fun at white colleagues when making simple mistakes in
order to make himself seem superior.
Interesting, right?
It just, I guess, to make himself feel, again, more important, more superior, smarter.
Jose had made a few questionable business decisions, but overall Jose was making more
money than ever.
Jose being at the head of the household would oftentimes make family decisions without consulting
Kitty like where they would live.
Hell no.
You know what I mean?
Absolutely not.
Just like this house isn't good enough for moving.
Yeah.
Pass.
Jose wanted his sons to live out his dreams of being rich, successful, and attend Ivy
League schools.
Red flags all around.
Jose would often tell the children what to eat, what to wear, how to speak, who they
were allowed to be friends with, and what they could watch and read.
Okay.
It's one thing to want the best for your kids and to want them to not have to grow up
the way that you grew up, but that's beyond controlling.
They're not your little employees.
Yeah.
They're your children.
Oh my gosh.
Jose would often quiz the kids at the dinner table about current events.
Mostly Lyle.
He was given the harder questions because he was older.
Yeah.
What's his name?
Lyle.
He was born in Joseph Lyle, but he went by his name.
Oh, okay.
I see.
I was like, I didn't remember his name.
I think like Joseph because it was close to Jose or Joe, right?
Like making it feel like I'm Joe Sr. and this is Joe Jr.
Yeah.
I mean, it's kind of the way it, but he went by Lyle.
Growing up, the boys would begin to develop stutters, anxious stomachs, often having stomach
aches and would grind their teeth in their sleep from the stress.
God, that's so terrible to impose like such, like you're holding them to such a high standard
in their children.
Like they're going to probably get like stomach ulcers or something like that's not good
for your fucking physical health.
It's just, I mean, they're young.
Like that's so sad.
They're like nine and like 11.
Oh my God.
They're just kids.
And you just want them to know like everything about everything.
Like again, you're trying to get kids to respond in an adult way.
Like that does not compute.
Like that doesn't happen.
The boys were very average when it came to their grades and it was suggested to them
in indices that both of the boys have suffered from some kind of a learning disability.
This was immediately shot down by Jose as he was not willing to admit that his boys needed
academic help.
Oh my God.
Not only is he like making these things happen, but now he's like, nope, nope, they're perfect.
They're perfect.
There's nothing wrong with them.
No.
Conveniently around this time, the boys homework was very well done.
Given the illusion that the boys were succeeding in class.
Him.
Oh my God.
However, in class, the boys didn't seem to have retained any of the material.
What a control freak.
Oh my God.
Isn't that messed up?
And the kids are probably like, hell yeah, dad, do my homework for me.
You know, I don't care.
They're not college kids studying like pre-calculus and they need a little help.
This is like basic like middle school homework.
God, that's so bad.
Like the link and they're willing to go.
Like you're robbing them of that education.
Seriously.
Oh my God.
Like they're never going to get better.
Like, first of all, admit that they have, you know, a learning curve and then take them
to get help if needed.
You know, don't just be like, oh, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope.
Nope, they're fine.
They literally said, here is what might be going on here, but they've never been diagnosed
with anything because they never went to go see anybody for it.
God, that's so sad.
And could you imagine if they were, if they were, you know, had attention deficit disorder
or something and they were on medication that could help them, they probably would have
been succeeding in school.
Yeah, exactly.
Oh, it's so awful.
Or if not just getting a tutor, you know what I mean?
If it's not a learning disability.
Or why doesn't he fucking tutor them if he's so brilliant himself?
No, the boys, boys didn't have time to do that, I guess.
God.
By the time that the boys were in middle school and high school, Jose demanded that the two
participate in some kind of a sport.
Of course.
However, the boys were only allowed to pick a sport that was not a team-based sport so
that his sons would be the standouts rather than fading into a team.
No basketball, no football.
Oh my God.
You know, no lacrosse, no soccer.
You gotta play like golf or you gotta be like on the dive team or you gotta like-
Right?
Oh my gosh.
This is literally like so, so-
It's so controlling.
It's so damaging.
It's controlling.
To these boys' mental development.
Lyle chose to participate in tennis and soon Eric would choose to follow his brother.
Tennis.
In tennis.
The brothers throughout these years began to become very close.
Eric viewed his brother Lyle as some kind of a hero.
Lyle seemed strong and Eric could talk to his brother in a way that he couldn't talk
to his father.
Of course not.
So Lyle-
He can be imperfect in front of his brother but he can't in front of his dad.
Exactly.
And Lyle kind of became his father figure.
Oh God, that breaks my heart.
The boys usually kept to themselves choosing to hang out with each other rather than making
any new friends.
Lyle did have some friends and charisma that Eric seemed to lack.
Eric was mild mannered, quiet, and shy.
Even with Lyle's seemingly well adjusted behavior, he was secretly snuggling stuffed
animals and wetting the bed until age 14.
Dammit.
What?
Well, you know what?
It's way beyond the age that is normal for bed wetting and that's a really bad sign.
This may explain why the bed wetting stopped but Lyle did have his first girlfriend at
age 15.
Okay.
So maybe it might be like a distraction of some kind or like a growing up type deal.
That's why I thought like maybe-
That is interesting because I don't know how those two things would correlate but maybe
it was like a mental change.
Yeah.
Like a majority of some kind maybe.
Or like focusing on, I don't know, it didn't really specify if there was like this specific
shift.
Or maybe it's documented that it stopped at that age because he said it stopped at that
age and maybe it actually didn't.
Maybe it didn't, you know.
So her name was Stacey.
Stacey was a sweet girl and she fit into this kind of prim proper facade that the Menendezes
had going on.
So she kind of fit in perfectly.
She worked on the tennis team as a manager like at their school.
They went to Princeton Day School and so part of-
It's all too- my throat is dry.
It's all like Voldemort.
So she was like, you know like in high school there's like some people that are part of
like the equipment team or whatever.
So she's like a manager, right?
And he's playing tennis on the team.
Not team but you know.
Yeah.
Because he's not allowed to be on the team.
It's an individual sport.
Let's make that clear.
Yeah.
Lyle loved movies and some of his favorite memories around this time were watching films
with Stacey.
He could really escape those harsh realities that Jose had kind of created at home.
Stacey and Lyle would date all throughout high school and they were even voted quote
most likely to be married and quote which is kind of cute.
Aw, that is cute.
And that was by the end of senior year.
However, the couple would split once Stacey moved off to college.
So Eric, the younger brother, spent the first two years of high school living in his older
brother's shadow.
But Eric didn't kind of mind this because a lot of the pressure and the focus was put
onto Lyle while they were in high school together.
But this doesn't mean that Eric went on without craving the nurturing attention from his parents,
of course.
So by 1986, Lyle had applied to Princeton University and planned on staying in Jersey
to attend college while Jose had founded a company called Live in Hollywood, California,
moving the whole family to Hollywood.
Without anybody's fucking, no, like knowledge or anything like that.
But why can't Lyle stay though?
Because he's going to college?
That's what Lyle said.
He said, I'm applying to Princeton, I'm not moving.
And Jose was like, okay, well we will rent you an apartment or a dormitory or whatever.
Yeah, no, that reminded me when you said this is what you wanted.
This is literally what his dad's dream was for his kids.
And now he's going to be like, nope, sorry, move to California.
No, yeah, he was mostly Eric that took the brunt of this because he was literally uprooted
from the only high school he'd ever known.
And he didn't have a choice.
He didn't have a choice.
And he moved across the country, not like to another state, but like across the country
or the other side of the country.
Away from the only person that he could be like imperfect in front of his brother.
Exactly.
God, that's awful.
Isn't that awful?
This feels really bad for Eric.
So again, halfway through what would be his high school career, he starts attending Calabas'
High.
Kitty around this time had begun to suspect that Eric was gay because he never seemed
to be interested in dating.
And of course, Kitty had to keep this to herself.
She knew that Jose would just have none of that.
No, my kid's okay.
He's perfect.
Yep, he's not gay.
Perfect, meaning not gay.
Yeah, that's awful.
That's terrible.
So you can just hear it though.
Yes.
You can just hear it.
It's a possibility thing.
You can just fucking hear it.
So after Eric began to attend Calabas' High, Kitty told Eric that he had to find a girlfriend
within six months of school.
You have to have a girlfriend.
Oh my God.
You have to have a girlfriend.
Setting them up for so much failure.
Isn't this awful?
It's like you are wrong.
If you're feeling this way, you are wrong.
And now this is what you have to do to please your father.
Is go against, I'm not sure if he is gay or not, but it's go against what you could potentially
be feeling and now imagine the identity fucking crisis that he had.
And it's all for the look of the family.
Like it looks better on us that you have a girlfriend.
I'm just going to go out on a limb here and say that these two boys killed their parents
later in life.
I'm not trying to be funny.
I'm being serious.
That is, oh God, that's my guess.
That's a good guess.
I don't actually remember the story at all.
That's a good guess.
God, that's awful though.
Eric met a young lady and began sort of talking with her.
Eric was interested in the girl, but the girl not so much.
She found him to be quite odd because he was quiet, he was shy, and he was honestly a little
pushy.
Oh, I wonder why, right?
He's like, okay, we have six months.
You're going to be my girlfriend, right?
A little while later, the two would actually run into each other at a party.
Eric wanting to force this relationship, perhaps only for the sake of his controlling parents,
locked the girl into a bedroom at the party and began to plead.
No.
Beg and force this girl into being with him.
She was able to escape unharmed, but like, whoa.
Why does it have to be that one girl?
Why can't he just find another girl that's interested in him?
Yeah, I don't know why he chose her.
I mean, he could have even had the pressure of his parents being like that one.
I don't know, you know?
Pick her.
Like their invasion of the body snatcher people.
You need a good host.
But that's pretty much like-
Yeah, that's all we really know about her.
I- out of respect for her, I didn't choose to include her name.
As I said before, Lyle was able to convince Jose to let him stay in New Jersey to attend
Princeton.
So finally, Jose has made it, right?
One of his sons is going to an Ivy League school, right?
Even though he tried to not let him in the beginning, like he tried to move him to California.
Lyle was actually not accepted when he applied the first time to Princeton in 1986.
Oh no.
Jose was livid.
Oh yeah.
Like livid, that Lyle didn't get accepted.
So Jose told Lyle, like you can't turn here.
Strong trying again.
Yeah.
You can't come to California.
Yeah.
So Lyle opted to enroll in community college while he waited for his answer for the 1987
school year.
Jeez.
Yeah.
So during the summer of 1987, Lyle would meet a young lady named Jamie.
Jamie was a server at a local restaurant and an avid tennis player.
Needless to say, Lyle fell in love very quickly.
However, Jose and Kitty were not happy that the two were dating as Jamie was five years
older than Lyle.
Oh, I'm sorry.
Isn't exactly what you fucking did when you were in college.
Right.
You left school for her and then your parents not mad and I'm sure you were like, and my
parents are being so fucking.
And now you're doing the same fucking thing.
Yep.
Oh my God.
That is, there is not a lot of things worse than a fucking hypocrite.
Furthermore, Jose felt like the relationship would be way too distracting when Lyle would
eventually be accepted into Princeton.
Oh, because you just can't accept the fact that he didn't get accepted.
Yeah.
No, that didn't happen.
What about fucking Jose that literally left a swimming scholarship and just fucking ran
off to New York?
Yeah.
And you're saying like, at least he's there.
At least he's enjoying his time.
He's a fucking hypocrite.
He is a fucking hypocrite.
So I literally wrote in here, I found this interesting because when Jose met Kitty, like
I recap, but I'm so glad you caught on.
I was just like, oh my God, that's the worst.
God, what a dummy.
Like, they were essentially the same age.
Like the same scenario almost.
And he didn't even leave school.
He just started dating her.
He was still trying to please daddy and get into this fucking Ivy League school.
Ivy League school.
Ivy League.
Further compounding this whole like scenario that they hated Jamie, Eric had actually begun
to date a young girl named Janice, which Kitty and Jose just adored.
She was perfect.
Because they picked her out.
They picked her out.
So Lyle would be accepted into Princeton for the 1987 school year.
And with this exciting news, Lyle wanted to continue this feeling of being accepted and
loved by this amazing person.
He like finally got away from his dad, all this stuff.
So he actually proposed to Jamie.
Here we go.
Another elope situation.
He announced to his parents that Jamie and him were engaged and seemed to be married.
Of course, Jose and Kitty hated this.
Like it was just the worst thing that he could have done.
Because that's not like anything like what they did.
No, not at all.
Not at all.
They believe that the only explanation as to why this woman would want to marry Lyle is
because his family is wealthy.
Sound familiar?
Sounds like Jose is fucking parents.
And then they're doing the exact same thing.
It just irks me because you know when they were that age, like they were so annoyed by
the way that his parents were acting.
They're like, wow, I can't believe they're acting like that.
And now they're doing.
Yeah, exactly.
God.
I'm sure that his parents also never failed to remind Lyle that all he was good for was
like money.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
Like she only wants you for your money.
She only wants you for your money.
I don't even know why you're with her.
She's a gold digger.
Like she doesn't actually love you.
She just wants your money.
Nonetheless, Lyle was dad fast and his decision to be with Jamie, although Jose's wish would
come true when Jamie was offered a job teaching it in Alabama.
Teaching tenants.
Oh no.
However, Jose would be shocked when Lyle expressed that he would want to follow Jamie
and quit Princeton.
Like double down, dad.
Double down.
Jesus.
And did he?
Jose was so infuriated by this that he actually paid someone in Europe to sponsor her for
a 12 city European tennis tour.
I'm sorry, what?
Neither Lyle nor Jamie knew this at the time, but either way, Jamie would take the opportunity
to do the tour in Europe and she left Lyle in New Jersey.
It's fucked up, right?
That is an entirely new level of control.
I'm going to literally control your future by taking this woman out of your life without
you both either of you knowing that I did that.
Oh my God, that is so fucked up.
Oh my God.
Okay.
It pisses you off beyond belief, like that somebody would do this to their child.
That is so gross.
You can tell he's also fucking jealous as shit of his kid that's in Princeton.
Oh, I'm sure she's gorgeous too.
Actually, I think I've seen pictures of her.
She is gorgeous.
Oh my God.
That like actually makes my stomach hurt.
That is so fucking gross.
So when you're accepted into Princeton, you actually have to sign this kind of decree
saying that you're going to follow all the rules.
There is no bending.
There is only breaking these rules when it comes to manipulating them.
And we all know that Lyle isn't known for the best academic performance.
So with his first semester at Princeton, Lyle would be accused of plagiarism.
By who?
Of course, Lyle had a beautiful excuse as to why his paper looked so much like his lab
partners, but this would not save him from having to attend a disciplinary hearing before
a committee.
Oh my God.
So he did plagiarism?
It's like very serious.
He did it though.
Well, I didn't really put it in here, but essentially he had said that on a family trip
to California, he had taken his like study journal or something with him and he had
lost it either on a flight or in the airport or something.
Well, he had this paper that was due like within the next few days and that's why he
was going back because he had this paper presentation or whatever it was or this paper that needed
to be due.
So he had asked his lab partner for notes and it was too much like his partners is what
his claim was.
But he actually like Big O fat did it?
Probably.
Like probably.
Yeah.
But that was his excuse.
But either way, it's like even if it wasn't, I just feel like I would remember quite a
few things if I personally wrote them down or typed them out.
I would at least remember like certain freezing or at least even when we do these cases, I
remember certain things that I've written down.
Yeah.
I could probably just go through the story even if I didn't have this in front of me,
right?
So how long could it come?
Yeah, it's true.
Well, this isn't the worst crime in this story, so we don't need to dwell too much on
it.
Exactly.
It's not a crime.
He was sentenced.
Oh no.
Well, when Jose found out about this hearing, Jose himself wrote a statement that Lyle was
to read verbatim in front of the committee representatives.
I can do this better than you.
You need to read exactly what I wrote and everything will be okay because I'm fucking
panicking.
This guy really bugs me.
After a four hour hearing, Lyle was found guilty of plagiarism and was suspended from
school for an entire school year.
I'm surprised they didn't just flat out kick him out.
Well, I don't know.
I don't know why they did or didn't or whatever, but do you think it's the degree of plage?
It's like it depends.
Well, maybe.
Maybe he had a good enough case.
Maybe they were like, anyway, he's going for Lysie and the Diagnosing a Killer.
I'm called.
That's it.
Let's go.
So he was sentenced.
He was found guilty of plagiarism.
He was suspended from school for one year.
Well, that can't be good.
Do you think Jose was like, yeah, okay, cool.
Come to California for a vacation for the next year?
No, he's like, so which other Ivy League school are you going to apply to?
Hell no.
He fucking flew his ass out there and he demanded to speak with the Princeton presidents.
He did one worse than I thought he did.
He literally flew and was like, I need to speak to the Princeton presidents right now.
He is a narcissist.
You can tell he's a fucking narcissist.
He thinks like he's going to sway this dude's mind.
Just hear me out.
Just let me talk to him.
I'll talk to him.
Everything's fine.
Surely there's something we can do.
Surely there's some kind of a donation I can make.
Surely.
I can give you all this cash that I just carry around in my pocket all the time.
Surely.
There's $100,000 that just happened out of my back pocket.
Yes.
Oh my God.
Jose thought that the punishment was absolutely unfair and he really couldn't argue with
Lyle's poor grades and that's essentially what the principal, not principal, but the
president said.
He was like, you're lucky we didn't just let him go.
His grades are terrible.
And the one time that he gets a really good grade, it's for plagiarism.
It's plagiarized.
And Jose slash Joe is like bullshit.
Just completely dumbfounded.
I don't know what to say.
The president of Princeton stood by the decision that the committee had made and told Jose
that as long as Lyle stayed out of trouble for the remainder of the year, he would be
able to attend this time next year being the fall semester of 1988.
Granted, his grades were better when he came back.
Right, hopefully.
Lyle didn't want to wait a year to continue his education and he actually asked Joe if
he could just transfer to any other university in the area.
Of course Jose told them no.
He insisted that Lyle come back to California and work for him at his company live until
he would be able to come back to Princeton the next fall.
Oh, but don't worry.
You're not off the hook.
You're going back to Princeton.
But you're going to work there.
Yeah, exactly.
But you're going to go to work, which is not uncommon.
You're like, oh, you're not in school.
Then you got to be working.
I probably fucking do the same thing.
Lyle did as he was told and he went to work for Jose.
Lyle fucking hated it.
Needless to say.
He felt like everyone around him picked on him for being the boss's son.
But in reality, Lyle was disliked because he had a terrible attitude and his overall
despondency.
Well, I'm sure that Jose never let anybody forget about his fucking nepotism though.
I'm sure that he was like, oh, my son could do this and the other really boasting about
him even though he's not perfect.
He's a shit.
Yeah.
Just like him.
He was essentially a brat.
So everybody just thought he was a brat.
He misplaced important paperwork.
He would call off to go play tennis.
Like, Lyle, you're not really trying here, okay?
Even with all of this, Lyle would begin to see that Jose's domineering personality was
all over the office, not just at home.
So this is the first time he's had exposure to like, oh shit, my dad's like that all of
the time.
He's, my dad's an asshole.
My dad's an asshole.
He would witness Joe yelling and name calling his employees.
Mostly he could feel the air be sucked out of the room anytime Jose would walk into it.
Oh my god, that's so miserable.
So maybe that's the reason for Lyle not to be there sometimes.
Like just, I'm gonna go play tennis instead of witnessing how important my dad is to people.
He's like, at least I have eight hours out of the day that I don't have to do with him
because he's at work.
Exactly.
Jose intended to treat Lyle like every other employee and honestly I think more so to like
prepare him for the real world kind of thing.
This is how it's gonna be, but he can fucking prepare.
This is how it's gonna be.
Like it doesn't have to fucking be like that.
You're making it like that.
First of all, and even if that is how it's gonna fucking be, why do I have to do it now?
Why can't you just let me experience that when it's gonna be instead of making it?
He's like 18, 19 at this point.
Oh my god.
That's what he sounds like in my mind.
It's one day you're gonna have to do this, you're not gonna like it.
You're gonna have to do it with a real world party you get used to it.
Sometimes you're gonna have to do things you don't like.
Let's be in an adult.
Wait, Jose had even, I forgot about this, Jose even made Lyle schedule appointments
to see him at the office.
Make an appointment, okay?
You can't just go talk to a doctor if you don't want to and you're gonna have to do
it, you're gonna have to make an appointment.
You're not always gonna be on your time.
It's a real world.
So eventually everybody around the office is like, it's really difficult to work with
Lyle, he's unreliable, all this other stuff, and his kind of advisor guy came in and Jose
was like, if he was a regular employee what would you do?
And he said I'd fire him.
So Jose fired him.
Sometimes you get fired, it's a real world.
I'm gonna feel like such a dick if this guy dies later.
Will you though?
Will you?
Oh.
During this time that Lyle was working for live, Eric was somewhat thriving on his own
in school.
I was just about to ask about Eric.
Yeah.
What was he doing?
Not in the shadow of his brother.
He kind of started over in Calabasas and it seemed like it was really good for him.
He was really successful at tennis.
He was actually the number one on the high school team, quote unquote, because it would
be on a team.
Jose didn't like that word, no.
He went to the high school and he was like, hey, how much money to change that word?
To change the day of your book.
How about he's the only tennis player in high school?
So he was the number one on the high school team and he actually made it to 44th in the
US placement.
Damn.
Isn't that cool?
And the under 18 tournaments.
But yes, that's really cool.
So Eric, who is now dating Janice and through Janice had also met Craig, who was his Craig.
Craig Kinarelli.
He was the tennis captain.
The two became fast friends and they had admired each other's ambitious natures and successes.
Along with this though, the two were actually really bad troublemakers.
They felt like they could get away with quite a bit because they were just really popular
and they were successful and they came from rich families and all this stuff.
So they would run around the streets at night and they would try to steal stuff from cars
or committed small vandalisms around the neighborhood.
The two daydreamed about being in films, directing films and such.
And the two actually wrote various screenplays or write movie scripts.
They thought they were going to be directors or the actors.
That's kind of odd that two really successful sports guys at school would be committing
petty crimes when they're not in school.
It's affluenza.
They thought they could just get away with it.
It's true.
To them it was rough housing.
There's nothing wrong with it.
Daddy will take care of it if I get in trouble.
Notably Eric and Craig wrote a piece about a son who murders their parents in order to
receive a hefty inheritance.
By the time Lyle moved back and then was fired from live, the three began spending a lot
of time together come the summer of 1988.
The three began escalating their delinquency to robbing homes.
Mostly they stole jewelry and cash to supply their fun, like going out on the town or shopping.
But really they were just pretty much trying to stay out of the house as much as possible
in another reason.
And Eric still has this girlfriend during this time?
So I don't think that Eric and Janice were dating anymore at this point but it was mostly
that you knew that that's how they met Craig.
But even then it kind of stopped being Craig too.
It was mostly just Eric and Lyle that were committing these.
Keep it in the family.
These strings of robberies wouldn't go unnoticed in the surrounding area of Eric and Lyle's
family home.
Police began to investigate these robberies and heightened patrol in the area.
The police would soon find a break in the case as the boys had returned a safe from a previously
burgled home.
The boys either returned it because of guilt or maybe they didn't want it in the house,
maybe in fear that Jose would find it.
They couldn't get it open, they were like, okay let's put this back.
Either way the dummies returned it to the wrong house.
Oh my gosh.
Although this house had also been previously burgled.
They couldn't remember which house the safe belonged to.
So yeah.
Geez.
Eric and Lyle had also been pulled over on a traffic violation and stolen items would
be found inside the car they were driving.
By this time Eric and Lyle had stolen over $100,000 worth of cash and goods.
Oh my gosh.
Jose of course was pissed.
He immediately hired an attorney and was advised that since Eric was a minor, if he was the
one that took the fall for both boys Lyle would not be charged.
And Eric would have a lesser sentence.
No.
That sucks.
Eric had no choice.
He did take the fall for his brother and was sentenced to have community service and
that both boys were to go through psychological counseling.
Thank you.
Somebody right?
Jesus.
The parents aren't going to do it.
They're a fucking hour into this episode.
They finally got fucking help.
The court had ordered that all property that was still salvageable be returned to the victims
and anything that wasn't recovered needed to be paid off.
Which Jose did pay off $11,000.
I'm sure he was just like, here just take it.
I have it in cash right here.
Yeah, exactly.
How much is this going to cost?
This is the real world.
When any friends or family asked Jose or Kitty questions about the robberies and why the
boys would have done such a thing, they blamed Eric's friends saying that they were bad influences
and the boys were just naive and were essentially tricked into doing it.
They weren't the masterminds at all.
No.
They were just naive.
They were tricked.
Even though they did it by their damn selves.
Yeah.
Like a whole ass robbery a bunch of times by their damn selves.
That was just, they were just coerced?
Yeah.
Of course.
Innocent?
Innocent by standards.
Needless to say, I guess Eric wasn't allowed to be friends with Craig anymore.
Poor Craig.
He probably got blamed for a lot of things.
Being one, the last part of that was just being one of the guys, I guess.
They're just being one of the bros.
It's real life.
It's like six strangers living in one house, true story.
Both brothers.
Is it six strangers or eight?
It's seven.
Oh shit.
Seven strangers living in one house, true story.
I love that.
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Both brothers completed counseling treatment, although Eric liked his psychologist so much
he really felt like it helped him so he continued to seek counseling afterwards.
Oh that hurts my heart.
With the same guy.
So this, yeah.
After this incident, Jose felt the immense judgment of the people all around him in his
neighborhood.
You know, since his kids had robbed everybody's fucking house.
So he just up and left.
Everyone just moved.
He claimed that the family was receiving harassing phone calls, that his tires had been slashed
on a few occasions and he just overall didn't feel safe.
So he decided that the best move was to move closer to Beverly Hills.
Oh my god, your kids are the fucking problem.
It's not anyone else, it's your children.
And it's you.
And he's like, oh god, I just don't feel safe.
Let's move to one of the biggest fucking neighborhoods.
The most expensive fucking city.
The most expensive, affluent fucking city.
Nobody will find us there.
We're all the fool people.
Well that's a narcissistic tendency too.
You want to surround yourself with people that are like high status.
It's true.
Okay, so not only that, but I was just thinking like all of these people that are around him
in this like Calabasas area that's like talking shit about him and like all this stuff, he's
like, I'm going to prove them better.
Like I'm going to get a gigantic house and they're going to see like their talking isn't
going to like keep me down.
You know what I mean?
Calabasas is like a really nice part of Calabasas.
Calabasas is really nice.
I'm not saying that it's not.
That's where the Kardashians live.
I know, some of them.
It's just that it's not in the city.
Yeah, that's a little thing.
It's like not close to Beverly Hills.
It's not in the middle of it all.
Like that's exactly.
It's not in the middle of it all like he wants to date.
People go to Calabasas to escape Beverly Hills.
Yeah, exactly.
You know what I mean?
But that's the whole thing.
It's like it would be the equivalent of like saying, you know, oh, like I live in New Bromphils
in this really nice area, but like I'm going to move to San Antonio because it's a city
or I'm going to move to Austin because it's a city.
You know what I mean?
It's more populated.
It's more expensive.
It's more for me to boast around.
Exactly.
And that's what I mean.
That's so gross.
And Lyle would go back to Princeton in 1988 for the fall semester.
Oh, he went back.
He did.
Well, of course, he was going to stick around his fucking fight, especially not after that.
Jesus.
Oh, I'm sure he was excited to go back after he got himself arrested.
He was shocked, however, to see that his once single tenant arrangement was not honored
this semester and Lyle was given a roommate in the dormitories.
Lyle called his father immediately and told Jose about this arrangement.
He's plotting.
And of course, Jose flew into a rage about this.
Once again, he wrote a letter.
Jose wrote a letter to the school requesting that Lyle be in a single room and it didn't
matter the cost.
Yes, I'm going to write a letter.
I'm going to write a I'm going to write a strongly worded letter.
I love to say that.
That is so stupid.
Like I ordered extra avocado and when I got home, it wasn't on my sandwich.
I'm going to write a strongly worded letter.
Yep.
Dear Mr. Royal Hampton.
Lyle met a man this semester named Donovan.
Donovan loved to travel across country.
He happened to just land at Princeton to finish his degree.
Right?
Is this his roommate?
No, just a friend.
And they were roommates.
But did he did they honor the single dorm thing?
They did.
So he got what he wanted yet a fucking game.
Yeah.
Him and Jose.
Of course.
They wanted.
Exactly.
Well, they didn't want to be distracted, which is so funny because Lyle was always described
as like never leaving his dorm.
Like ever.
Like not even to do like extracurricular activities.
It was just like tennis kind of and then like studying quote unquote.
Yeah.
Sleeping.
He was probably Uber depressed.
He was probably excited to have quiet.
That's true.
Fuck.
Lyle and Donovan became fast friends and the two were almost inseparable.
Kitty and Jose permitted Donovan to be Lyle's friends and even offered to pay Donovan to
Donovan.
It's Donovan.
Hello.
It's Donovan's brother.
They paid Donovan to complete Lyle's homework and research papers so that Lyle wouldn't
fail and he could just focus on tennis.
My God.
No, they fucking did it.
Yes, it did.
Coinciding with this, Lyle would continue to rob in the local areas, specifically in
the family's old neighborhood and the dormitories.
This is enabling at its fucking finest.
It's like, oh, he couldn't possibly be bothered to study.
He needs to rob things.
Oh my God, that's disgusting.
Rumors began to spread that either Lyle or Donovan could have been the perpetrator due
to the mistaken eyewitness that saw one of them go in and out of a dormitory.
Okay.
Lyle saw his opportunity for an out.
In a big display, Lyle and two other friends would loudly confront Donovan as being the
person who was sneaking into rooms and stealing from other students.
Oh, that's so dick.
Isn't that fucking disgusting?
He just like, first of all, he's literally getting you through school by doing the academic
shit for you and now you're just going to turn on him and oh my God, make it out to
be this criminal.
After these very serious allegations that were made, Donovan was so embarrassed and distrusted
by others that he would quit Princeton and move away.
Oh my God, that breaks my heart.
That's so sad.
Poor Donovan.
He's the true victim.
Well, at least he got away when he fucking did, Jesus.
Eventually Lyle would be investigated for these crimes after a buddy of Lyle's listened
to an audio recording that Lyle recorded of himself burglarizing a home.
Yeah.
Why did he have an audio recording device on him while he was doing this?
I don't know.
And why was it actively recorded?
Was this around when those like talk boys were around?
Maybe, but like, do you want the documentation?
I don't know.
I guess.
Maybe, no, you know what it was?
He's so dumb because he couldn't remember what he stole the safe and so he has to document
because now if he steals something he has to return, he has to remember where he was.
Duh.
That would make so much sense.
We didn't get caught again if he ever felt the need to return something.
Yeah, no, definitely.
I mean that would have been the motive for sure.
Like, there's no other explanation other than he's just a fucking dummy.
Oh my God, that's so...
Yeah, apparently he had it like hooked up to his car so they were like listening to the
tape while they were like driving down the street or some shit.
Sounds like me listening to podcasts in the car.
Yeah, exactly.
It's like listening to a podcast but it's like of yourself robbing people.
You don't do that.
Destroy this audio recording.
And it is.
We're actively been burglaring this whole time.
We're actually burglarizing people right now.
That's what we're doing.
And this is our alibi.
We're in a closet, I promise.
No, we're recording the podcast.
We're in whose closet?
Whose closet?
So this friend had come forward to police about this information and around this time, Lyle
actually began to date a model named Christie.
She was nine years older than Lyle so you can imagine.
What the parents had to say about that.
I'm sure they were like, don't date anybody older than you.
So they really did.
And then we fucking did that.
And then we moved across the country from each other.
So Lyle expressed his desire to quit Princeton and move to LA and attend UCLA and of course
Jose didn't want any of that.
He did not entertain that at all.
He thought that Lyle wanted to move because he knew that police were looking at him for
robberies.
I mean, essentially that's probably another big reason why he was like, yeah, let's get
the fuck out of here.
Like I'm leaving.
Are we ready to hate Jose?
Like just full on hate Jose?
No.
I already do.
Lyle had even bigger news to tell his parents over the phone.
Shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up.
Christie was pregnant.
Oh my God, I thought I heard that.
I saw the coming.
Jose immediately flew to New Jersey to confront Christie.
Jose told Christie that she was not to keep the child and paid her $100,000 to have an
abortion.
Oh my God.
I literally, oh my God, that's not fucking funny at all.
I'm so sorry.
It was just my face that made you laugh and then it made me laugh.
I literally, I could not even speak for a second.
That is so fucking disgusting.
She did.
Oh my God.
I mean, it's like, and then she left Lyle, of course.
Use whatever money, however much it costs, and then the rest is literally like fucking
hush money and leave my family alone.
It's fucking awful.
Oh my God, that is so fucking gross.
He's not even allowed to be with anybody, like nobody.
God, I kind of feel bad for him.
It's awful.
I almost feel like, you're right, he is getting the worst of it between him and Eric.
It's abuse.
It's really abuse through and through.
Yeah.
That is, oh my God, that is so disgusting.
And he was excited to tell his parents this news.
Yeah.
He was like, I'm coming home because of this great news.
And he was like, you're not coming here.
And he's like, well, this is the news.
Like, nope.
He flew there without Lyle knowing.
I don't know what transpired between Lyle and Christie.
If she just said that she lost the baby or whatever, but without Lyle knowing, he met
up with Christie and paid her $100,000.
That is so, like, and then the other girl, yeah, that he called the person in Europe
to call, oh my God.
To sponsor her.
Like, I want you to sponsor her.
I will pay you to sponsor her and get her out of the country.
You are, like, I am so fucking glad that we don't know anybody that's that fucking manipulative
and controlling.
Like, that is just, it literally makes me nauseous.
That is so despicable.
Like, that is a, he is a shit of a human.
So Lyle's grades were so abysmal, which I'm sure he was going through a lot of depression
as well because of everything that's going on.
He was placed on academic probation.
Furthermore, Lyle was placed on disciplinary probation from a party that he had thrown
in the common room of the dorms, but it had destroyed two pool tables, which of course,
he blamed on his friends, but-
It was Donovan, even though he doesn't go to school here anymore.
It was him.
It was Donovan.
Wherever he went.
He's MIA, I don't know.
He showed up randomly and then he did that and now he's on.
I have the tape recording if you want to listen to it.
It's definitely him.
It's not me.
His license had also become suspended.
His reputation was just quickly becoming tarnished and it started extending to his parents'
reputation as well.
Oh, they didn't want that.
The family was suspended from the country club that they attended.
After Lyle destroyed some of the property, he drove a golf cart through the property.
This is just a sporadic-
He's just all over the place.
He just doesn't fucking care.
Do you think that he knew that his dad did that to Christie and that's-
I'm sure he's pissed about a billion different things.
It's true.
He just doesn't give a shit.
He's probably drinking a lot.
I don't know what kind of drugs he was doing.
Kitty and Jose were completely fed up at this point.
Eric was soon going to college and Eric was looking forward to moving away at this point,
much like Lyle had, but to Eric's disappointment, Jose told Eric that he was to stay at the
house so that they could keep an eye on him academically.
Because there's no way he can go off to college because look what happened to Lyle.
And he fucked up and now look at him.
He's a fuck up.
Furthermore, Jose and Kitty insisted that they would buy Lyle a two-bedroom condo in Jersey
so that they could stay with him any time that they wanted to, like a routine checkup
thing.
Enabling.
How embarrassing.
What really got to them the most was that their parents threatened to take the boys off of
their will.
What?
They said, if y'all keep fucking up like this and like blah blah blah and all that stuff,
there's like no inheritance for you nothing you'll just be on your ass.
That's fucking motive right there.
Better do this before they take us out of their will.
At this time, the will included a almost $20 million life insurance policy to the beneficiary
through Jose's company, not to mention all the assets including the four acres they still
own in Calabasas and the Beverly Hills home that they had.
And now the condo in Jersey.
Yeah.
Lots of property.
Kitty had told her own therapist around this time that she had become very concerned about
her son's behavior.
She told her therapist that she believed that the boys were narcissists and capable of showing
little to no remorse for the people that they hurt and she feared them.
Who does that sound like?
Her fucking husband.
Her husband.
Needing a break from all of this stress, Jose offered to take the family on a fishing
trip, chartering a boat with a staff on board in mid-August before college would start back
up in the fall.
How much does it cost?
Just whatever you want.
You're just writing a blank check.
This is reality in its life.
Jose and Kitty flew Lyle out.
This is about a week before the stay on the boat and the four stayed on the boat all day.
This was I think like the 19th of August.
Kitty mostly stayed in the cabin.
She was experiencing seasickness and the boys mostly kept to themselves at the front of
the bat.
The boys mostly kept to each other kind of chit chatting at the front of the boat, avoiding
pretty much all contact with either parents.
This is what the staff said.
Let me pay for this.
Very uncomfortable.
Let me pay for this family trip and then the whole family is just going to be separate
the whole time.
Yeah, exactly.
On August 20th, 1989, 911 received a frantic phone call at 11.47 p.m.
No.
So, I will play you that 911 call now.
You have it?
I have it.
Oh my gosh.
Content warning if sounds of somebody in distress makes you really uncomfortable, just go ahead
and fast forward a few minutes.
Probably like two or three minutes is good.
I will detail what is in.
The 911 call that way you don't, you know, again, I can just tell you what's in it.
You don't have to listen to it, but it is distressing.
So, yeah, absolutely.
So again, this was August 20th, 11.47 p.m.
What's the problem?
I'm sorry to my parents.
Pardon me?
Are they still there?
Do they shop?
Yeah.
I have a hysteria at the first time.
I was trying to get to the computer.
I don't know if it's fine.
Is the person still there?
What happened?
We have units around.
What happened?
Who shot who?
My mom and dad.
You know they're still in the house.
The people that did the shooting.
Get away from me.
Okay.
Let me talk to Eric.
Who is the person that shot?
My mom and dad.
Your mom and dad?
My mom and dad.
Okay.
Hold on a second.
Okay.
We're on our way over there with the ambulance.
Okay.
I gotta go.
Okay.
Oh.
Hello.
This is police department.
Yes.
Okay.
I want you to come outside.
Okay.
Please come out the front door and improve.
I'm gonna see my brother.
Jesus Christ.
Wow.
That's hard to listen to.
And I'm under the assumption that they are going to shoot me.
I'm under the assumption that they had something to do with their parents' murders.
So if that is the case, that's eerily convincing.
It's really sad.
It is really sad.
Listening.
He's heartbroken.
Myle is heartbroken.
Heartbroken.
I'll just read the transcripts just briefly.
The 911 call is taking place.
The caller says yes and he begins to speak, but he's mostly just crying.
The dispatcher asks what's the problem.
The caller says someone killed my parents.
She asks for clarification.
He just repeats someone killed my parents.
And this is Lyle saying that she's a little confused.
She's saying are they still there?
But she's meaning, is the perpetrator still there?
Yeah.
He says no.
And the woman says where they shot.
And Lyle starts to call for Eric, but you can't really make out what he's saying.
He's just saying Eric, Eric, don't go near them or something like that.
Yeah.
It sounds like he almost said get away from them.
Yeah, get away from them or something.
He also tells Eric to be quiet at a certain point.
I think he says shut up or something.
The woman is asking for help from another dispatcher and says I have a hysterical person on the phone.
I'm not really sure what to do.
Again, she asks is the person still there?
Lyle says I don't think so.
The male dispatcher hops on and says what happened?
Are you able to figure out what happened?
And Lyle is just sobbing uncontrollably.
You can kind of hear Eric crying in the background as well.
The male dispatcher who has now gotten on the call says who shot who?
Lyle says I don't know.
I found them and then he asked for confirmation.
You came home and you found who?
He said my mom and my dad.
The male dispatcher is a little confused.
He says you're in bed.
Are you still in the house?
The woman dispatcher says the people that did the shooting are they still in the house?
And at this point Lyle is so hysterical.
He starts saying let me talk to Eric.
Let me talk to your brother.
And so they try to get more clarification again.
It goes back and forth for a little bit.
My mom and my dad, your mom and your dad, okay.
Okay, well we're sending someone over and it's just a bunch of crying.
It's really, really sad.
And then they hang up the phone and then when the police arrive at the scene,
they call inside the house to ask the boys to step outside.
Yeah.
Wow. Yeah, that's really heavy.
You can tell like, I mean, I'll be the first to say like that seemed like very real raw emotion.
Like that's not something that you can fake.
So I'm just gonna go out and live here and make an assumption that they are again,
they had something to do with it.
But if that's the case, then that is truly a guilt cry and a what have I done kind of a reaction.
So officers arrive at the scene at 22 Elm Drive and begin to inspect the front of the house.
And about this, this is about the time that 911 calls back and says, you know, step outside.
Two young men are seen running from the front door.
They begin to run around the yard, seemingly in distress.
The men are like falling to their knees.
They're kind of punching the ground.
They're punching trees.
They're yelling things like, oh my God, and I cannot believe it.
The younger man seems to be so hysterical, the older one tries to kind of calm him or soothe him.
When police enter the house, they saw both Jose and Kitty lying dead in the den.
Jose had been shot six times and Kitty had been shot 10 times.
Oh my God.
The brothers stated that they found their parents this way after being out to see a movie and had gone to a local food festival.
The brothers were not immediately suspect given the amount of emotion that the boys were experiencing.
They were clearly in shock.
But they're running around the yard and they're punching the trees and the punching the ground.
That seems a little overacting.
Yeah.
I think I want to say it was Eric that tried to ram his head into a tree.
It's a little dramatic.
I don't know what I would do in that situation, so I can't speak for that.
When they were asked what they thought happened, the brothers said that they had grown increasingly concerned about their mother.
That she was becoming incredibly paranoid and depressed.
She shot herself 10 times?
They assumed that the couple were victims of a murder suicide.
That's what they told police though.
They said, I don't know, we found them dead.
They even said that when they walked into the house, they saw smoke in the air, indicating that they were there when the guns essentially went off.
You didn't hear anything from outside or anything like that.
You also realize that these people are professionals, right?
And they're aware that you could easily kill.
They're 18 and 21 at this point.
They're kids.
But do they not realize that if someone's going to kill themselves, they're not going to shoot themselves?
Okay, at minimum six times.
Like 10 times, maybe not the mom.
A minimum of six times someone had to shoot themselves.
In my opinion, I didn't feel like whatever they said, none of it makes sense.
Of course.
None of it makes sense.
I don't think that it was something that they were like, okay, let's just say that it was a murder suicide.
I think maybe just with the commotion of the office, I don't know.
They were just trying to throw anything in the air as if it would stick.
What I'm saying is that if you found two people that had clearly been shot, what would you think?
You don't know how many times they were shot, right?
So they are telling the police officers it might be a murder suicide, even though it's clearly not.
Yeah, but like, that just says something that, okay.
That's like when people call 911 and they're like, oh, my wife was shot 12 times to death.
I think it was a suicide, you know, or whatever.
It was to death.
Well, do you know what I'm saying?
But it had, or like when people stumble upon someone who clearly died a violent death, you don't know if it's a gunshot or stabbing or whatever.
You know what I mean?
It's true.
Or a bludgeoning sometimes.
There's been plenty of people that call them like, I think someone's been shot, but they've actually been bludgeoned or something, you know?
So I'm wondering if that's not why they said that, is because they're like, well, shit, I have to like remove myself so far away from it.
Like actually pretend like I walked in on these two people dead.
Exactly.
And then like what would I say?
Exactly.
But the fit, okay, let's just hypothetically say that they didn't have anything to do with this.
The fact that their first, one of their first thoughts is to say murder, suicide, like I would be concerned that that would be the first thing that they said.
Like they're like, well come to think of it, mom was acting kind of crazy.
Well, murder, suicide.
It's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, what's leading you to believe that your parents are capable of a murder, suicide?
Jose.
Yeah, but the mom.
Well, but it could have been him too.
Not like I was way too narcissistic.
He wouldn't have killed himself.
That's true.
I'm sorry.
I don't want to speak out of the dead.
I do feel poorly for this whole situation, but that guy Jose was a, I don't think he deserved to die, of course, but he was not a good human.
He's a shithead.
Can I have some toilet paper?
Shithead paper.
Not the piece that you've blown your nose on.
Yes, exactly.
I had to cut that part out because I pulled toilet paper over the microphone and it was very loud and then I blew my nose very loudly so you didn't hear that.
Interesting part.
Back to the story.
Back to this horrible crime scene.
The boys stated that Kitty had actually tried to take her own life before a few years prior.
Say what?
By trying to overdose on her medication.
That's really sad.
Lyle also said something about maybe the mob was involved.
Okay.
It's like the real world.
We're just so important that the mob is really worried about us and they just came over and they just did this horrible crime.
But at this time, nobody knew who Jose was capable of doing dealings with, honestly.
That is true.
Neither of the boys were tested for GSR or gunshot residue.
They just weren't suspects.
They didn't suspect them at all.
Once the autopsy revealed how many times the couple were shot, of course, detectives knew that this was a homicide.
The autopsy had also revealed that there was kind of a strange pattern when it came to the order of the shots.
It seemed like there were several somewhat superficial wounds to both Jose and Kitty,
but the seemingly fatal shots were both in the head from behind.
So unlike a mob shot.
And also suggesting that they were probably dead after the first shot and all the other extra shots were just like a big old fuck you.
Well, the reason that they determined that was because of the pooling and the way that the blood had pooled.
It was like leg, arm, arm, chest, head.
Like kind of in a very specific way.
Like to torture the shit out of them.
I see what you're saying.
So the fatal gunshot was the last one.
Yes.
So awful.
Kind of.
They would have blood to death just from the amount of damage from their bodies.
But the fact that the perpetrator hit the back of the head last,
A, to like probably ensure death, or B, just it didn't need to happen, but they did.
So, okay, I was under the assumption that they were shot in the head first and then the rest of their body was shot with the other bullet.
So they shot them multiple times.
About the body.
Seemingly while they were still alive.
And then moved to the back of the head.
Oh my God, that's so awful.
And I'm wondering if that's not what gave them this like mob thing.
It's like, oh shit, like the mob just wouldn't stand there and like blow people away.
They'd like execute them.
You know what I mean?
Yeah, I guess.
Given the amount of shots that were fired, the killer would have had to reload in order to give the few fatal shots that Kitty received.
By the way.
Five days later on the 25th, a memorial service was held for Jose and Kitty.
They were both buried together in a grandiose ceremony.
Lyle was stoic and Eric's face was swollen from crying.
Lyle began to talk to participants about his intention of taking over Jose's position in the business.
Five days later.
He's like, oh, you don't have a college degree.
Business is going to keep going.
You're failing all your classes.
Yeah, let's just give you a company.
What a fucking...
Oh my God.
Is that the hangover when he's like, oh, I'm going into the family business.
I'm a doctor.
Oh, it's stepbrothers.
No.
I'm going into the family business.
Dale, I'm a doctor.
You can't just go into the family business.
You have to earn a degree, dummy.
Go into the family business.
On me notes to the mourners in attendance, the brothers have began spending Jose and Kitty's money for the last few days since they were murdered.
Like the day after they were killed.
Oh, all this money. Here we go.
Most notably included in a shopping spree just three days after the murders included $15,000 Rolex watches.
Each.
Actually, they bought three.
You know, just one for Craig.
Yeah, one for Craig.
Craig.
Sorry, I don't want to lump him into this.
Poor Craig.
One for Donovan.
No.
Oh, Donovan.
Oh my God.
That's like that shows lack of remorse right there.
They're just like, okay, well, what are we going to do with all this money that we just got?
That's terrible.
I feel really bad for saying everything that I said earlier about Jose.
I do.
The boys expected about $90 million in inheritance.
Jesus.
Including the $14 million home that Jose and Kitty resided in, boats, cars, the Calabasas property, and 330,000 shares that Jose had in live entertainment.
Each share worth $20.
Jeez.
However, the boys would be disappointed that after taxes and loans, they each would only receive just a mere $2 million.
Oh my goodness.
There's a $2 million.
I'm so sad about that.
I've never fucking seen that much money in my life.
Not enough.
That is kind of like really hilarious though that they would only get $2 million out of 90.
Well, because, you know, the car is slowly to be paid off, the boat's only to be paid off, the houses need to be paid off.
Like, it's not all your shit, right?
Yeah.
Fucking dumbasses.
They were like, well, just get all this money and then we'll just, you know, do whatever we want, we'll be rich.
But whatever, because they were also expected to receive that $20 million life insurance policy, right?
Yeah.
Oh, okay, so $12 million each.
Not $2 million.
Actually, that was incorrect.
The insurance would not pay it out because Jose actually never went in for the initial physical.
That is not correct.
Yeah.
This lazy bum didn't get his physical.
He was too busy.
He was too busy living the perfect life.
How could he, couldn't even go get the physical.
So they just vetoed the life insurance policy?
Yeah, they were just like, well, he never went to take care of the rest of the process.
So, no, there's no $20 million.
I bet the boys felt so silly after that.
They were like, damn it.
Sorry, that sounds really bad, but like, silly.
Oh, well, my mistake.
Whoop.
It was just guilty of people and we could have just asked these questions first.
God, no, that's really, that's really bad.
They're children.
They don't fucking think about things like that.
That is so, like the thing is, is like, this is one of those cases that like, I feel like almost just as bad for the kids as I do for the victims.
Because they're victims like, in themselves, like they had no fucking chance growing up.
Oh, God.
Either way, Eric and Lyle were too scared to stay at the house.
They feared that whoever murdered their parents may have sought to kill the whole family or maybe the intended targets were the boys all along.
Okay.
Like those cross eyes.
The brothers stayed at friends' houses and hotels.
And they even racked up an $8,800 hotel bill under live entertainment.
$8,800?
$8,800 for five days day.
For porn?
Mostly it was food, like room service.
Oh, under live entertainment like the company.
Yeah.
Jose's company.
Jose's company paid the $8,800 for the hotel room for five days.
They ordered live entertainment.
Like, porn?
Pay their views.
Super grand.
No.
Yeah, no, live entertainment, Jose's company paid the $8,800.
Okay, I forgot that was the name of his company.
The hotel bill, yes, for five days.
They also provided the boys with limos and bodyguards because of the mob.
Stildes did not stop the boys from spending more and more money.
They each rented apartments with rent being over $2,000 a month for each one of their apartments.
Bought it out right?
Lyle hired more bodyguards after live stop providing the bodyguards.
He hired more bodyguards that followed the boys around for weeks after the murders.
Soon, some would question why the boys were always out and about and not hunkered down
in safety if they were so concerned.
So concerned for my safety.
They're so concerned but they're out and about like eating, drinking, shopping, all this stuff, right?
Well, they have bodyguards, they're fine.
Sure.
From the mob.
A bodyguard can save you from the mob.
Well, this is brought up later in the trial.
But it's like one of those things where it's like, okay, Lyle hired these bodyguards even
though they knew that they were the perpetrators, either A, meaning that he didn't give a shit
about how much money it costed, or like B, he was trying to further the lie.
And that'll be really important later.
So around this time, Lyle began to tell people that his uncle had connections with the mob
and came to some kind of agreement with the mob that like the boys' lives would be spared.
You know, because like the mob's cool like that.
You know, like a liar.
Like a liar.
So when people were like, oh my gosh, you don't have as many bodyguards around like whatever
it's going on.
It's probably because they were fucking running out of money.
Yeah.
And he couldn't have them around anymore.
And so he had to like make something up and was like, oh no, the mob's cool with us now.
But part of it is that I can't answer any more of your questions because I told them I wouldn't talk about it.
Oh my gosh, just like a big ass farce.
24,000 dollars in stereo equipment, a Porsche for 64,000 dollars and over 90,000 in private flights from New Jersey to California later,
the boys showed no signs of stopping their spending habits.
Oh my gosh.
What was he going to New Jersey for?
Well, he still kind of lived in New Jersey.
For shiggles?
He was going to prison.
He was going to Princeton.
Well, then.
Porsche.
No, he's still kind of going to Princeton too.
Oh, okay.
By the end of the year, however, the brothers would spend over one million dollars.
Remember, the crime happened in August.
Oh my gosh.
So by the end of the year, like, you know, like three months later.
Why would he even go back to school?
I feel like he doesn't need to go back to school.
I mean, in his mind, he wouldn't think that he would need to go back to school because he had all this money.
We already just spent the fourth of their fucking inheritance.
Like that's crazy.
At first, investigators had no reason to think that the boys had killed their parents.
In fact, there was about a billion people who would have had enough motive to kill Jose.
Because he was such a dick.
He was, after all, this tyrant in his businesses.
But who would also want to harm Kitty?
Yeah, exactly.
The police took this into account.
And of course, the brother's spending, which is pretty sus.
Pretty sus.
Pretty fucking sus.
Princess.
Pre-sus.
Prit.
Princess.
They also learned that shortly after the murders, the brothers contacted a computer expert to erase Kitty's computer,
which conveniently held the contents of the Last Will and Testament.
Oh my God, that's so...
Wait, why did they want to erase it though?
Erase it because they might have been written out of it.
Oh, yeah.
Or altered or something.
Investigators went to visit Eric to talk about the night of the murders.
He seemed genuine, but closed off and the police could tell that he was really nervous.
Uh, yeah.
Eric mentioned that Lyle's spending habits were completely out of control,
and that his behavior had begun to resemble their fathers.
Oh no.
And I do remember looking at it, I think maybe during this time, Eric had only spent like $10,000.
And it was all Lyle.
It was all Lyle.
Jeez.
Yeah.
Which mostly Eric, um, I think most of his spending had to do with like tennis.
Like he really poured himself into tennis after the murder of his parents.
Oh, that's sad.
Once police left, Eric called Lyle, but Lyle didn't receive his phone call.
Desperate to find somebody to talk to, Eric called his therapist and asked that they have an emergency session.
No.
Eric explained that he was in a huge amount of pain due to the grief he was experiencing with this entire situation.
And that he was struggling with suicidal thoughts.
Oh my God, I really feel bad for him.
I know.
It was like you don't want to feel bad for him, but like, you do kind of.
Yeah.
By the end of the session, it had become too much for Eric to hold in any longer.
He had admitted to the therapist, quote, we did it, we killed our parents, end quote.
Oh my God, I bet like all of the hues and all of the juice happened in that room like right at this point.
It would be like what? Because I guarantee you that wasn't on his radar at all, the therapist.
I don't think it was. I don't think it's not on anybody's. That's the thing.
They're not even being investigated.
That's wild.
Wow, what a fucking monkey wrench.
This is the same therapist that he's been seen.
Yes.
So he's known for a long time.
For the problems with his dad seemingly. Like who knows what they talked about as far as his parents go in those sessions.
Eric began to detail the crime, but his therapist stated he didn't want to hear anymore without Lyle.
I would have done the same thing. I would have been like shut your mouth. I don't want to know.
Like hold on, let me get my recording device and let me get the cops and a lawyer.
Eric called Lyle again and told him to come home immediately.
And you would think that the first course of action would be call the police or notify authorities.
But no, hold on, but that could potentially spook them and they could try to flee.
Yes.
So that might have been what the therapist was thinking. Like let me get my facts straight before I make this call so that we know we have everything. Correct.
The therapist then allowed the boys to talk and confess to the crimes.
He was at their house? He met them at their house?
No, I think, well, when Eric initially went to go see him, they went for a walk.
And then when Eric admitted to it, it was like almost on the steps of the building of the therapy office.
And so they walked inside to the building.
And then he called Lyle and said, I need you to come over here.
Like I told the therapist.
Oh, okay. Because I thought you said I need you to come home when he called him. That's why.
Yeah, Lyle was, I'm pretty sure Lyle was in Jersey.
Oh, I see what you're saying.
I had just come back from Jersey or something.
Like he wasn't answering right away.
So he, I thought, okay, I misunderstood.
You meant home as in California, not as in like their house?
Yes. Okay. Yeah.
Oh yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
Anyways, Lyle and Eric, I don't know if it was like hours later or whatever when Lyle was able to show up at the office.
They began to admit to the crime.
Wait, that's interesting to me because I feel like Lyle would have been like, what the fuck is wrong with you?
Like absolutely not.
Why did you say that?
He's just lying.
No, he doesn't know what he's talking about.
I feel like he would have like tried to talk himself out of it.
Let me finish.
Oh, I'm sorry.
Jumping in and out.
You're looking at me like, shut the fuck up.
Shut the fuck up.
Lyle and Eric talked about them purchasing shotguns two days before the murders.
They talked about how they both shot together and when they ran out of bullets, Lyle was the one to retrieve more ammunition from the car to end Kitty's life.
Her suffering, rather.
They talked about how tired they were of their father and not only that they were mad at Kitty for allowing it to happen,
but that she likely would have taken her own life anyways if her husband was dead and her sons went to prison for life for committing the murder.
That's not a decision for you to make for her though.
I understand.
I'm not telling that to you, I'm just saying that in general.
That is the most backwards way of thinking.
Yeah.
That she just would have suffered like socially and that and financially and you know, she wouldn't know what she was doing with like the money.
So they're like justifying it to themselves that they did something right.
Like they put her out of her misery almost.
They prevented her from that suffering.
That's disgusting.
The brothers had waited about 10 to 15 minutes after the shots rang out expecting that a neighbor would call the police.
Yeah, I was thinking about that earlier too.
I was like, why?
Like did anyone else call?
Right, it was such an affluent area.
Police response time was usually just a few minutes in this area.
So when the cops didn't arrive after a while, the boys gathered up the shell casings, the guns, and hopped into Eric's car.
Eric was so distraught that he couldn't drive, so Lyle did.
They drove up and down the streets all the while looking for somewhere to dump the evidence.
They found a random set of bushes off of Mahallan Drive and ditched the guns there.
On the way back to the house, the boys placed their clothing and the shell casings in a dumpster behind the gas station.
Trying to further create an alibi, the brothers had known of a small gathering at a local restaurant where some of their friends were in attendance.
Eric was entirely too distraught for this, so the boys decided to head home instead and place the 911 call.
Lyle was not happy about all of these details being expressed to the therapist, but Eric seemed to trust the man so well,
and this would be proven by fact that the therapist did not say any word to police.
What?
However, the only person who would actually be the one to break the case was someone that the therapist told.
You're a mandated reporter. If you know that a crime has taken place or is going to take place, you are legally required to report that.
Oh my gosh.
That's you, Q-ball, his lawyer?
His therapist?
So, Judalyn Smith was actually dating Eric's therapist.
One day on March 5th, 1990, she was sitting in an adjacent room in the therapist's office when Lyle Menendez stormed through the office
and into the room where Eric and his therapist were seated.
He slammed the door.
That was the day that he came in to confess, quote-unquote?
Yes.
Okay.
Judalyn heard the men arguing, I can make out small sentences like, quote, I can't believe you told him, end quote, and quote,
I can't kill any more people, end quote.
Seemingly to threaten the therapist.
Oh, hell no.
Judalyn would contact the police about this information.
So on the 8th, which was three days later after this conversation happened, the seeming confession, police confiscated 17 tapes and three pages of notes detailing the crimes,
and detectives soon realized that there was something far more sinister potentially happening inside the Menendez family.
What?
So, just a recap, right?
So, Judalyn's little girl is just sitting in her boyfriend's office.
Lyle Menendez comes walking in.
Eric is already seated in there.
Lyle has said, I can't believe you told him, and then blah, blah, blah, right?
Seemingly threatening the therapist to not tell anybody, like, oh, I'm gonna have to kill any more people, anybody that knows, I'm gonna have to kill.
So, she had confessed to police around this time, whatever, like, either the next day or the 7th, either way on the 8th,
they go into the therapy office, they confiscate 17 audio recordings, 17 tapes, tapes, not even recordings, tapes,
and three pages of notes detailing all of this information.
So, what I'm saying is that I think the therapist was a little corrupt.
I think he was like, let me get all of this information, and maybe one day I'll write a fucking book, you know, or some shit like that, you know what I mean?
Do you think he knew that it was gonna happen before it happened?
Like, based on what Eric was saying, or like...
No, I don't think so. I think, like, I think he really knew that Eric was troubled, and I think that Eric did find a lot,
and of course, Eric had Lyle for so long to be this father figure.
I'm wondering if he didn't bond that way with his therapist.
Like, a man that could give him advice and he could be open and free with.
So, they confiscated 17 tapes and pages of notes just from that one day?
No, I think it was probably over the course of, like, anything that would be pertinent to maybe the murders or something like that.
So, I don't think it's necessarily all detailing the crime, but it was probably...
Supporting evidence, whatever.
Supporting evidence, yeah, of him, of whatever, right?
So, what was happening in the family?
We'll get to it.
On the afternoon of the 8th, Lyle left the family home with some friends to go have lunch when he was pulled over and arrested by police.
So, same day that they confiscated the tapes.
When the police asked where Eric was, Lyle told him he was out of the country.
Which is like, what? Eric? What?
When I was like, oh my God, what? What happened?
Well, it didn't really seem like that, right?
Well, I told you earlier that Eric had poured himself into tennis, right?
He was actually in Israel for a tournament.
Oh, he actually was out of the country.
He actually was out of the country.
Asking the family if they think that Eric was a flight risk,
they told the police simply tell him that Lyle has been arrested and he will come home.
Because he loves him so much.
And that was true.
That's true, yeah.
It was true.
He hopped on the next flight to come home once he heard.
Wow.
Yeah.
He wasn't gonna leave his brother.
Sad.
Eric immediately came home and was promptly arrested.
Although the detectives had found what seemed like confession tapes,
they had no real actual evidence that the boys had committed the crimes.
Any fingerprints that would have been in the house,
of course, would belong to the victims and the brothers,
since they lived there.
And they hadn't found the guns yet,
but they eventually did find records of sales for the guns that were issued
to two of the brothers' friends, which were forgeries.
One of them being Craig, I think,
and Craig was like, I was in fucking wherever.
Poor Craig, dammit.
Yeah, it was like Craig and Donovan again.
Yeah.
I was like, these two guys, I don't know, Craig and Donovan,
yeah, they came in here and they bought shotguns.
Donovan's like, I haven't even been to California.
Either way, the paperwork, it was forged.
All kinds of weird, like, it didn't even match driver's license or like whatever.
It was bogus as shit.
So their arraignment was held on March 28th,
where both boys pleaded not guilty to the charges of first-degree murder.
Even though they fucking admitted it already.
The remaining members of the Menendez family showed their support for the boys,
saying that they would always stand behind them throughout these horrible circumstances.
Oh, how it's so sad that they've been falsely accused of this crime.
The judge allowed the therapy tapes to be entered into evidence
and furthermore determined that Eric's therapist
worked within his means of confidentiality
when it came to what the boys had told him.
No, confidentiality is trumped when a crime has been committed.
Yes, this doesn't make any sense.
Mostly I believe it seems like maybe he was like,
well, this is an isolated incident.
They've been having problems with their parents for so long.
They're clearly not of risk to anybody else in society.
I don't.
Maybe only at risk to themselves.
That wouldn't...
Eric said that he was contemplating suicide.
That's also a manned-in reporter's job.
Yeah.
If you think someone's gonna harm themselves.
I stand by what I said.
I think he was trying to gain this as much information as he possibly could
because he wanted to be on that side of it.
Yeah.
He wanted to know everything.
You know what I mean?
I don't know, man, that's wild.
But either way, it kind of benefited the police
because they have these recordings now.
Yeah.
So once the tapes were heard aloud in court,
the vast majority of the Menendez family
retracted their support for the boys.
Like straight up.
Bro, dead ass, I might do the same thing.
Yeah, just like, no, we stand by you.
It's probably the mob, you know?
Yeah, like, damn, they did it.
Like they fucking did it, and they just...
Some of them just got up and fucking left.
I might have done the same thing.
I'm not gonna be a part of this fucking circus.
With the trial yet to begin,
the brothers were sent to live in the Los Angeles County Jail
in the high-profile wing.
This wing housed the infamous Richard Ramirez and O.J. Simpson.
What?
Right.
They were confined to single cells.
They had to be not together.
Because they're not allowed to be on a team.
Well, during...
Thank you.
They can't be in the general population.
You had to find yourself a single sport.
God damn it.
During this time, Eric struggled with suicidal thoughts
and sought the company of a priest
who would often come and visit Eric as sort of a council.
Eric would talk about his life, the crimes,
and then back to that age-old secret we keep talking about, right?
I still wanna know what it is.
Lyle spent most of his time on the phone,
which all the inmates took notice of
because he was a fucking hog,
and I guess he could afford it.
He could afford to be on the phone all day.
But people got pissed off about that,
because it was him blabbing on the phone all day.
Well, I'm surprised that money didn't get taken from them.
I mean, technically, it's still their inheritance, though.
As long as... Well, like the life insurance policy wouldn't,
but their inheritance.
Lyle always seemed to be plotting an escape, by the way.
What a narcissist.
I know. He's also like 22, and he's a dummy, because he's young.
I can get out of this. It's just stupid metal bars.
Yeah, exactly.
It's just a reinforced steel.
He's on the phone in front of the COs.
They're just stupid bars.
You can see what they're just breaking into reality.
Like, smuggle me in a chisel, please.
Yeah.
On several occasions, when being returned back to Lyle's cell,
COs would notice that his leg chains would be cut or taken apart.
How did he have time to do that shit?
I don't fucking know.
If he's on the phone all day, I don't know.
Several notes had been found in Eric's cell,
describing different escape options
or certain places listed in South America that they could hide out in.
This is like...
Written to him from Lyle.
Not a very well-run jail.
Well, it's just a jail.
That's true. It's not like I'm prison.
Yeah, exactly.
I was like, this guy thinks he's John Dillinger or something.
He's like, I'm just gonna escape one day.
He's D.B. Cooper.
In one of these letters, Lyle wrote that he would never turn on his brother,
and that if Jose and Keri were still alive today,
they would commend them for never leaving each other.
He said, quote,
I am not an ordinary person.
I do not see things in terms of manslaughter and life terms.
I only see when, loss, honor, and dishonor,
Dad is watching me and I will not disappoint him or mom a second time
by giving up and having their deaths be in vain, end quote.
Which is interesting.
It is interesting.
Eric almost thrived in jail.
Routine is always good.
We say that, right?
Lyle, not so much.
He was seen as a problem.
There have been talks of at least one occasion
that Eric was seen being intimate with another prisoner.
Oh, that comes back around.
But this has not been confirmed by Eric.
Wow.
So I don't know if that's true.
God, that poor thing, it's like been ingrained in his mind
that like his way of like thinking is wrong.
Yeah.
On May 14th, 1993, the boys would begin their trial,
and they would be tried together, which I found interesting.
That is very interesting.
The judge's reason for this is that it would save time and money.
Oh, cut corners to save time.
There would need to be complete duplication,
meaning same witnesses, same testimony, same evidence,
and I guess it just made sense to her.
We just don't have time for that.
I'm very busy.
I have things to do.
Which would I be leaving school?
Yeah, I don't understand that either.
In kind of a weird way, though,
I think that the brothers would have wanted it that way
for like support of each other, though.
Because they literally sat next to each other the whole time.
I get it that it's kind of like same crime,
and they kept maintaining that they did it at the same time,
or they had at least said that in the therapy session.
Yeah.
Touching.
So prosecution.
The prosecution, of course, laid out their case.
Two rich boys who were so greedy,
they were greedy enough to kill their very cookie cutter,
successful life, successful parents
in order to obtain their hard earned fortune.
Right?
The defense had laid out their case,
that Jose and Kitty Menendez
weren't just terribly mean to their children.
They were downright abusing these boys.
Not only that, but each had suffered sexual abuse
by their father and their mother covered it up.
No.
So content warning, we are going to be talking about child abuse,
explicitly like sexual child abuse,
if that makes you uncomfy,
thank you for stopping by,
that's pretty much going to be the rest of it.
And check out any of our other episodes.
We love you. Love you. Bye.
I'll give everybody a second.
So there was one problem with this defense,
is that the boys had never specifically complained
of sexual abuse to a single other person their whole lives,
at least not on record.
Psychologists testified that many children
who kill their parents or someone else living in the house
who has been experiencing sexual abuse by their hands,
often do keep these things to themselves
and they suffer in silence until they explode.
It's only after many, many years of abuse
do these children snap and fight back.
That's so sad.
And usually when these cases do explode,
it's usually overdone,
representing the years of fear and hatred
and all sorts of stuff, right?
It's overkill.
The gunshots.
So there's this diagnostic tool
of which has 30-something questions
that you might ask survivors of sexual abuse,
and both boys ticked most of those boxes.
Things like creating a fantasy world,
disassociating with family, stealing, lying, impulse control,
not to mention Lyle wanting to hold on to stuffed animals
and even bedwetting up until 14.
Those are all signs.
Not wanting to be alone, really clinging to like one person,
which the brothers found in each other.
And the girlfriends.
Yes, and the girlfriends.
So it's something that we see throughout their story
as them not wanting to be apart.
The prosecution laid out more of the theory
that the boys intended to murder for money.
They spoke about the bodyguards that Lyle had hired
after the murders, further perpetuating
that the boys hadn't done it,
but in a way this was a continuation of the lies
they had been telling.
Not to mention all of the money was spent lavishly.
The defense explained to the jury
that this murder was only committed
after years of abuse at the hands of Jose.
Lyle had been sexually assaulted
between ages 6 to 8,
but stopped once Eric became around that age.
When Lyle had the opportunity to get away from Jose,
he did. That's why he stayed back in New Jersey
and the family moved to California.
But unbeknownst to Lyle, Eric had been
being abused by his father
all the way up until the murders.
What? Yeah, give him my knees 18.
The week that Lyle came back into town
for the presumed family trip,
Eric was then told by Jose
that he wasn't moving away from college
but staying in the family home.
This is almost the catalyst that made the boys snap.
In one week, Eric would learn of his impending doom
by having to stay at the house with his abuser.
And Lyle would learn of the abuse
his brother had suffered at the hands of his own abuser.
Oh my god.
An argument ensued over the topic.
Jose and Kitty on one side
and Lyle and Eric on the other.
In this heated argument,
Jose would threaten the boys several times,
alluding that he would rather the boys be dead
than reveal this family's secrets to the world.
Because he can't be imperfect.
God forbid, he's a criminal.
Yeah, of course.
A child abuser, a pedophile.
It was explained by the defense
that the boys still wanting to be loyal
and make their father proud
kept the secret even months after incarceration
and mental health processing the trauma.
So it was like even in death
they wanted to not expose that information.
Exactly.
And that's why when
prosecution was saying
why are we just now hearing about this?
Nobody's ever said anything about it.
Oh my god, that's so awful.
They said that it took counseling
the trauma to really talk about it.
The prosecution held on
to how the murder seemed premeditated,
how the boys never sought help for the supposed abuse,
and that the spinning habits of the boys
were extremely abnormal so close to their parents' death.
I mean, I agree with that.
One of the most disgusting things I have ever heard in my life,
and I will go ahead and put a trigger warning out here for that,
one of the prosecuting attorneys stated, quote,
men can't be raped because they lack
the necessary equipment, end quote.
Excuse me?
It's fucking disgusting.
That's absolutely horrendous.
And I...
Are you fucking kidding me?
No.
Ew, that's so ugly.
Yep.
That's absolutely
like baffling, like beyond words.
That is so gross.
The brothers testified on the stand about the abuse.
They both testified.
Really?
Yes.
Lyle revealed that on one occasion
he had actually sexually abused his brother as well.
I think he was confused.
Oh my god.
Or he was made to do it, and I don't know.
The boys cried as they described
what they had endured over the years
and described the week leading up to the murders,
including the fishing trip that they took the day before.
Lyle and Eric were convinced that the ominous things
Jose was doing a few days prior,
and seemingly this random trip
was a matter of a war.
And they were convinced that Jose had set up
a war up or an alibi or scouting mission of sorts
that Jose had set up,
proving to them that Jose was intending on killing the boys.
Really?
To them.
They felt like...
They thought that?
Do you think that...
They really thought that?
They were using that?
I don't know.
He did say that he would rather them be dead than...
But the only people that know that
are the four people standing in that room,
and two of them are dead.
Exactly.
The boys' attorneys touched the young men.
The defense tried to paint this picture
like they were these children.
They dressed the boys up in khaki slacks
and colored shirts,
and they brushed their hair to the side.
The defense attorneys would often pick lint off the boys' shirts
or whisper to them in a childlike manner.
The prosecution argued that this type of behavior
wouldn't be accepted by someone who just came to the point
where unwanted physical contact
was no longer acceptable to them.
I mean, that's a good point.
It's a really good point.
Yikes.
Like, these people are strangers to you.
I don't...
And I'm not saying...
Again, I'm not saying it is...
We don't know.
But it was brought up in the trial.
That's a really good point.
If I was a prosecutor,
I might argue that same thing.
Yeah.
Especially if it was so unacceptable,
you would murder someone because of it.
That's true.
On January 25th, 1994,
after 24 days of deliberation...
Oh, my God.
...the court declared a mistrial for both defendants
as the jury could not agree to whether or not
this was cold-blooded murder for money
or victims putting an end to decades-long abuse.
How awful.
Like, how long has it been?
And like, all of a sudden, it's like,
Okay, throw it out.
They waited 24 days to hear from the jury
on whether or not they were guilty or not.
Just a month.
That's crazy.
The brothers would be back in court
starting August of 1995.
They would go through the trial process once more,
together again,
and on March 20th, be found guilty
of both counts of first-degree murder on their parents.
Oh, my God.
On April 17th, 1996,
the brothers would be sentenced to life
in prison without the possibility of parole.
The brothers were very concerned
about whether or not they would be housed together,
and the judge said that it wasn't confirmed,
but that the brothers would be...
would know pending a psychiatric evaluation.
So they had to go through the psychiatric evaluation,
although apparently it seemed that the judge did know
that they were not going to be housed together.
No.
The brothers would ultimately be separated.
Their defenders would say that it was a cruel statement,
but their doubters would say that the boys are dangerous together.
The boys' murder convictions were upheld in February 1998,
and as of today, they have exhausted all of their appeals.
Oh. That's that right.
Like, I don't want them to be...
I think they just need help.
This is so conflicting for me.
I don't know who to feel bad for,
and who is really worse in the wrong.
It's like a Gypsy Rose situation.
It's like, what would you do?
If you think that your only way out of that
is to kill the person that's been doing that to you
or the people that have been directly affecting you in that way,
like, what the fuck would you do?
Like, that's so sad.
I'm not going to cry.
Like, that's so sad.
Especially because you don't think that you're going to be believed,
because your parents or whoever is such an influential figure
and like a pillar in the community.
Like, even Dee Dee Blanchard, people knew her.
They had given her money.
Like, and then what? Gypsy's just going to stand up and walk
and like, you know what I mean?
Like how, because then maybe she would be labeled as a liar too.
Or whatever.
That's just so awful.
Like, everything that he said that he wanted for his fucking kids
was a complete fucking lie.
Like, that breaks my heart.
Like, it really does.
Do you want to hear some nice things about Lyle and Aaron?
Yeah, I do.
And I also just want to say, like,
I'm not expecting anybody to agree with me.
The way that I'm feeling is my personal.
I'm allowed to feel these things.
Some people, you know, they're not,
everyone's going to be on the same page with this.
Like, please, if you guys have a conflicting opinion,
I'd love to hear it.
And I'd love to, you know, chat with you guys about this,
because this is something that's like,
again, I don't even know how to feel.
You know, this is just my personal reaction.
But I'm going to leave it in here because it's genuine.
So, that's all I'm going to say.
Lyle was briefly married from 1996 until 2001,
and his wife discovered that he was having multiple emotional
affairs, pen pals, with other women.
But a few years later, Lyle married Rebecca Snead,
and I love that last name because it reminds me of
Sneadville.
He had known her for close to a decade,
and they married in 2003, and they are still married today.
Sweet.
I know.
In 1999, Eric married Tammy Sockerman.
She had a daughter from a previous relationship.
When the two met and then they married,
Tammy would make regular trips to visit Eric,
and her daughter eventually called him dad.
So, that's her dad.
Oh my God.
She called him daddy on earth, so I don't know if maybe
her bio dad maybe passed away or something.
Yeah.
I was going to say, did they meet these?
I mean, Lyle knew this girl previously,
but did Eric meet this woman through like a pen pal
situation?
Or is Tammy the, I don't think she's a model,
but she's gorgeous.
If you ever look at a picture of her,
she's beautiful, and she's still beautiful.
Like, she will be forever beautiful.
She's like, pressed in time.
But I don't know.
I think that maybe they did.
I think maybe she had written him or something during the
trial, and then they kept in contact and then married
after seven days.
Okay.
I'm going to look at her really quick.
She's really pretty.
Yeah.
Oh my God.
She's beautiful.
Isn't she?
Not that Rebecca's not either.
Rebecca's pretty.
So, Tammy's written a book about her life as Eric
Menendez's wife, and the two are still married to this
day as well.
So, happily married.
They're both happily married.
Although the two would eventually move to the same
facility in February 2018, on April 4th, 2018,
after 22 years of being completely separated,
the brothers would reunite when they were moved to the
same housing unit.
Lyle and Eric cried as they hugged each other,
and it was an emotional moment for all who had
witnessed it.
That's like really sweet.
22 years, not seeing the person that like only ever
had your back.
Carrying it down, it feels so good.
Anyways, we're like cheering on these murderers.
I hope I hope you know.
They were children.
They were children, though.
I mean, they were legal adults.
No, they were.
They probably didn't have the mental capacity of legal
adults, though.
They probably still had children's minds because of the
abuse that they suffered.
I agree with that.
Even when it came to the learning disability period,
I don't know if they had learning disabilities,
or if they were just told what to do every day all the time.
They couldn't think for themselves.
They don't think for themselves.
There's no advanced processing there.
Yeah, God, that's really it.
So I don't, when you brought this case,
I was thinking of a different case of two brothers,
so it was not the same case.
I didn't know that story.
I know that immediately in the beginning,
I was like, let me guess, the dad dies.
That sounds really bad, but it's wild.
And again, I stand by my argument that I don't know who
to feel bad for, and I really, really think this is a case
of nurture for sure.
Maybe a little bit of nature because of the way
Jose was growing up.
He almost had munchausen by proxy.
Almost, without the physical aspect.
I guess he sexually abused, of course.
Well, yes, for his own gratification,
but it's almost munchausen by proxy because
he's still getting attention through his children's accomplishments.
You know what I mean?
But he only wanted the positive attention.
He didn't want the negative attention,
and that's munchausen by proxy.
They don't care if it's negative attention.
Yeah, but God, that's just so awful.
And that 911 call is eerie.
It's chilling, dude.
I got, Teria, I'm listening to it just sitting here with you.
I know the same.
I was like, you saw me staring off into space
with my mouth open.
You can hear how much pain is being experienced
for literally everything.
And whether the sexual abuse allegations are true,
we can all agree that Jose was a difficult person.
Not that he deserved to die, I'm not trying to say that.
I agree to you.
What I'm saying is that it must have been sadness
over losing his parents.
The adrenaline because you were the one that just perpetrated it.
Relief.
Relief because you don't have, you know, like,
but then not knowing where to go next,
like it was like, oh, I don't know, murder or suicide,
and let's drive around for a little bit, and whatever.
Like there's just no real focus.
And there has been another case where it was that woman where
she killed her husband while he was sleeping
because she was suffering abuse over many, many years.
And so it was kind of this like prosecution says,
well, he was asleep.
He wasn't harming her in the moment.
Not self-defense.
But the defense saying, psychologically, she was damaged.
Like she didn't know when the next time something was going to happen.
So she took her opportunity because it's not in a moment of having to fight back.
It's you're taking the opportunity to do it when you're not being abused.
Because you have the strength to do so.
I don't know.
I mean, I don't think there's really, I think that if anything,
if anybody in this story has a mental disorder, it's Jose.
It was Jose.
And I think he definitely, I think he really,
it's funny that we just talked about narcissistic personality disorder
because that rings a lot of bells for me with him.
And I don't think that the boys had that.
I don't think that.
I think Lyle might have had it, but I think it's because he was older
and he was pushed into doing it.
I think it was induced though.
I don't think he would have had that if he had a better childhood.
Right.
And that's like really, I don't know, that's just like through and through,
like just a terrible, awful story.
Like from the beginning, like there was like no,
the only people that could have changed the outcome of that were,
especially it was Jose and Kitty, but mostly Jose.
Like, I feel like he, I don't want to say he,
I don't want to blame a victim blame at all,
but I think that he directly caused not that specific behavior,
but the boys' mindsets and mental, you know,
mental health issues growing up.
Again, nobody deserves to get murdered or to die or anything like that.
That's not what I'm saying,
but he directly caused these terrible feelings that the boys had
and that is very unfair.
He like robbed them of any sort of a good childhood or a good, you know,
quality of life.
I think what's really interesting about cases like this,
and you mentioned Gypsy Rose and Dee Dee Blanchard,
that's like, periscide like this is very rare.
Yeah.
It's very, very rare.
That's why most of the cases that you hear about it are
quote unquote big cases, right?
Like cases that a lot of people know about.
It just doesn't happen very often.
Yeah.
So yeah, it's definitely, it's an interesting one.
Yeah.
I mean, wow, that's a good one.
That was way far off of what I thought you were going to do.
And especially in the 90s,
because the 90s had this kind of heightened,
like court TV was around where you could watch trials all day long.
And it, you know, we see a lot of that today, you know,
like with Johnny Depp Amber Heard,
like all these, you know, big name cases.
And I mean, even today, if you go on,
I think it's like livenetwork.court or whatever,
you can just watch court proceedings all day long.
Well, they didn't do that in the 90s.
They didn't.
They didn't even have cameras.
Or the 80s rather.
And they had little sketch people, right?
Yeah.
But with like OJ and like even Richard Ramirez,
like those cases around that time, late 80s or late 90s,
cases like this were sensationalized and they're gorgeous.
I mean, come on, you know, they are really good looking guys.
Good looking dudes, you know, I mean.
We'll post a picture on the Instagram when the episode comes.
And athletic and again, all of these things that, you know what,
every shit, everything that Jose wanted, right?
For them to be recognized for going to an Ivy League school
to be gorgeous and have, you know, a career in sports
and all of these things, those are the things
that sensationalize this case.
It's a little like, it's a little ironic.
It is ironic.
That they became, I mean, they became famous,
like really well known and really, you know,
they became famous because of their accomplishments.
Yeah.
Because they murdered.
They murdered the man that pushed them to do all those things.
Oh God, wow, that's, that was a heavy one, man.
That was a really heavy one.
I'm going to get a good night's sleep.
Yeah, same.
I'm God, man.
I don't even know how to end this.
Thank you guys so much for listening and hanging out with us.
I hope you have been enjoying these long cases.
I hope everyone's excited that the mental breakdowns are back.
Yeah.
We have another one coming out pretty soon and then we're just going to keep going
like we have been just keeping the wheels turning,
making the world go round.
You can follow us on any social media platform at Diagnosing a Killer
with the exception of Twitter, which is at Killer Diagnosis.
Shoot us an email, let us know what you guys want to hear
or just give us your love if you'd like.
Donate to the Patreon if you'd like.
We love having our patrons.
We're still working on some stickers and again patches and pens.
And yeah, we love you guys.
And thanks for hanging out with us.
Love you.
Bye.
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