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Hi, beautiful people. I was just thinking about how I mentioned, I don't know if it was in an episode, podcast episode, or TikTok, how usually when I'm filming, I'm just wearing comfy clothes, right? Obviously, because I'm at home. I guess I was wearing a nicer shirt than I usually do the other day and someone commented, thanks. Thanks so much for dressing up for us today. I'm like, oh, sass. Anyway, I'm not gonna do that long of an intro in this video because I'm eager to get into it. However, I will say that for every single story that I cover, there's a warning, right? Because they're horrific stories. They're usually involving a lot of things that can be harmful to listen to. And I will say, guys, this case, although it's spoken about by so many people and it has been spoken about for years, every single point of view has been examined and inspected and people just have so many thoughts on this case. There are years worth of information on this case, and I didn't want to leave anything important out. So I hate to do this. This is not my favorite thing to do. This is unlike me. But I did have to turn this case into two episodes. So on the first episode, we're going to be covering what happened, kind of the background of it all. And the second episode, we're going to be talking about the trial, trials, actually, Pearl, and how that all went down. With that being said, I will give a warning in this case. There's going to be a lot of talk of childhood trauma, essay, emotional manipulation, psychological abuse, all the things. This case has it all. But if you think that listening to this is going to harm your mental health in any way, please skip this episode and I will see you in my next one. I also want to point out the essay is a massive thing in this case. Probably one of, if not the most important things that plays into the case. A lot of it is surrounding that. However, I will be focusing on the details of that and everything that we know and have heard and have learned in regards to the essay. More on episode two. So do not come at me. I'm not going to be talking about it much in the first episode because I kind of have this case organized in the way that we didn't find out about the essay and all of that until we were inside the courtroom. Obviously not me. I wasn't in the trial. But you know what I mean, it didn't come out until after the arrest. So I kind of have the story lined up in that way because it just makes more sense in my head that we kind of talk about things as we learn from them. But anyway, it's in this case, there was a double homicide in a place where homicides did not happen. Jose and Kitty Menendez were found dead inside of their Beverly Hills home. Lyle and Eric Menendez became the two most controversial figures in the United States in what felt like overnight. But why would they commit a crime of that nature? How could they commit a crime of that nature against the very people that brought them into this world? Was it a crime out of fear, resentment and anger that had been building up inside of them for years? Or are the sons just cold blooded murderers? Today we are discussing one of the most viral true crime cases to date. This is the story of the Menendez brothers. Today's case takes place in a beautiful Beverly Hills neighborhood in one of the most not only expensive, but also exclusive blocks that are of California. Jose Menendez purchased a beautiful home for him and his family to live in. In 1988, he bought the house for $4 million. The house itself sitting on North Elm Drive. It was originally built in 1927 and it was renovated in 1984. Turned into a six bedroom, eight bathroom, beautiful piece of real estate. The house itself was a little bit over 9,000 square feet and, and think grand, expensive, luxurious. Imagine that kind of style of house in your head, you're probably pretty spot on as far as what the house looked like. It was described to have high ceilings, soundproof walls, which I didn't know, which is an interesting detail. A grand entrance. And once you walked into that beautiful entrance, you saw this beautiful spiral staircase, custom detailing all throughout the house. A pool, a beautiful outdoor terrace, a private guest house, a tennis court, a home theater. I mean on honestly the list of what the house did not have would probably be shorter than the list of what it did have. But to be able to purchase this home in addition to a house they already owned in the Calabasas, it was a dream come true for Jose Menendez because his background, his story, where he came from, it was what you would describe a successful American dream. It really was. Jose Menendez was born and raised in in the city of Havana, Cuba. He immigrated to the United States when he was only 15 years old. And he came to the States to escape Castro's rise to power during the Cuban Revolution in Cuba though, while his family lived there, when they were all there, as he was growing up, the life that they lived was so pristine. The Menendez name had such A good reputation to it because it was filled with hard workers. The family was filled with lawyers, doctors. They were well respected. They were wealthy. However, they lost everything through the revolution, when they had to flee Cuba. And when it comes to describing Jose Menendez as a person, annoyingly so. He was the kind of guy that was just good at everything that he did. He played soccer, he played basketball, he was good at swimming. Just overall the kind of person that is just a good athlete through and through. And. And once he moved from Cuba to the States, he carried the drive and the dedication that he always had with him. And now he found himself in a completely different situation than he was comfortable in. He was stripped of every privilege that he had. And he knew growing up, finding himself now to be a refugee in the US and he had to work hard to basically rebuild his entire life. He wanted to build a new kind of success, and he knew the amount of work that it would take to get there, and he was more than willing to work for it. When he arrived in the States, he moved in with his cousin. He was actually living in his attic at one point while he was trying to figure out how he was going to get a scholarship so he could attend college. But he did. He figured it out. He earned a swimming scholarship, and he began attending the Southern Illinois University. He was in his freshman year when he met and fell in love with Mary Louise Anderson, otherwise known as Kitty. And Kitty was a beautiful person. She was. She was a beauty pageant queen. She was known to have a very outgoing, fun, loud personality. When the two of them met, she was a couple years older than Jose. Jose was only 19 years old, but even as a teenager, he had this ability to captivate people. And he did so with Kitty, not in a negative way, but they met, and Jose kind of sold her this dream of this beautiful life of success that they could have together. And Kitty fell for it. I mean, it sounded like a dream life. The two of them got married in 1964, and they moved to New York City shortly after. Once they were in New York, Jose ended up transferring schools, and he was now attending Queens College at the same time. Simultaneously. I always have a hard time saying that word simultaneously. I don't know. He was working at a restaurant in Manhattan. He was working as a dishwasher. And he did so until he finished school. Then he ended up graduating with a degree in accounting. And it was in January of 1968 that Jose and Kitty gave birth to their firstborn son, a little boy they named lyle. And only two years later, in November of 1970, Kitty gave birth to their second baby boy. Lyle, now had a little brother named Eric. And now the family was a family of four. And having this family that Jose needed to provide for, it gave him a kick that he honestly probably didn't even need, but a kick nevertheless. To work harder, to be more successful, to become the best of the best at everything that he did, business wise, to be able to make the kind of money that would mean that the Menendez family would never have to worry about money for generations to come. He had success, power and wealth running through his veins, Jose did. And he was a relentless hard worker that you can't deny. Not an ethical guy, not a pleasant guy to work with, but a hard worker nevertheless. And his career of this kind of extraordinary success, it really started when he worked at Hertz, the car company at Hertz. He managed to work his way up to become the head of the company in charge of car and commercial leasing. And coincidentally enough, it was during this time as well that his life sort of started merging with big name celebrities. He was just climbing, I guess you could say climbing the corporate ladder, but just climbing a ladder of success. And actually he ended up hiring. While he was working at Hertz, he ended up hiring the one and only O.J. simpson. He was involved in so much of the marketing, you can look it up. He's in so many commercials and flyers and all this stuff for Hertz, which is honestly such a eerie feeling knowing that O.J. simpson would find himself in prison underneath the same roof as Lyle and Eric Menendez only years later. That's so weird to think about. Both accused for murder, trials going on at around the same time. It's pretty insane that the two of them, their lives, The Menendez and O.J. simpson's life were already intertwined, you could say, before their life of crime. Jose Menendez then became the head of RCA Records. RCA Records, an American record label company. And there he really started merging his life with big name celebrities. And he was working for and alongside celebrities such as Dolly Parton, Kenny Rogers, Duran Duran. And during this time, the family was living very comfortably. Okay, they were doing well. They were living in a million dollar house in Princeton, New Jersey. Lyle and Eric had been enrolled at the exclusive Princeton Day School. And with the encouragement from their father, they also began to play sports. They started off playing soccer and tennis and. And then around 1968, Jose's career led the family to make the move from New Jersey to Los Angeles. When they first moved, they were first living in the Calabasas suburbs on a house that sat on nearly 14 acres of land. They were really happy there, but then they ended up moving to Beverly Hills. But the entire reason for their move, the reason why the family relocated to California, was so that Jose could take a job in the movie industry. And he started working for Live Entertainment, which was an American film studio company. And again, he succeeded massively there too. It just really fell. And he was kind of known for bringing success along with him wherever he went, annoyingly. So, like, don't get me wrong, I do not like speaking highly of this man. I'm just saying what he did the year before he started working at Live Entertainment. The company, it was not doing well. It was not in a good place financially. They were under $20 million. And however, then Jose joined, he earned the company $8 million. And the year after that, in 1988, he only doubled that amount. So he was thriving in his business endeavors. And that move to California, it only grew his wealth and in turn the family's wealth by a lot. Jose had received a big payout from RCA Records. He was now earning approximately $1 million at live entertainment, which would be a around $2.8 million in today's money in 2025. Needless to say, he was a business machine. Someone who worked with him during this time said, quote, he was the perfect corporate executive. He had an incredible dedication to business. He was focused, specific about what he wanted from business, very much in control. He believed that whatever had to be done should be done with no heart if necessary, end quote. And his the kind of guy that he was, the personality style that he had, how he carried himself of loving to be in control, needing to be in control. He absolutely carried that with him even after business hours, after he was done working, when he got home, when he was hanging out with his family, he was the exact same guy. And their family dynamic was very much so. The father is the head of the household. Jose was a provider. He was working hard to give his family the wealth and the reputation that he wanted for them. Kitty was a stay at home mom who would stay home with the kids, raise the kids, she would take care of them, take them to every sporting event, et cetera, et cetera. But Jose was very much at the top of the pyramid when it came to respect in their family. Whatever Jose said, that's how it was going to be, whether you liked it or not. And in the same way that he wanted his businesses to succeed, he wanted his children to succeed, and, and he almost Treated them as such, as if they were just another one of his business endeavors that he had to shape up and create to meet his expectations. And if they didn't, he would make sure that they knew so, and he would make sure that they were punished for it. In regards to his father, Lyle Menendez later said, quote, my father suffered from being a perfectionist. It carried over into his home life and it was sometimes difficult for Eric and me. So much so that he couldn't really do something well enough. It wore on him tremendously, mentally, and it wore on us. Jose Menendez cared so much about his sons being so perfect that this is just. This is kind of a meaningless detail, like a small example. But just to give you an idea of how far he was willing to go, he would do their homework for them. He would do the homework for Lyle and Eric so that their homework was perfect to make sure that Lyle and Eric would be perceived as nothing short of perfect. And also, while we're on the topic, important to note that as we keep talking about their family dynamic, Lyle has been said to be the son that was more like his father. He was driven, he was headstrong, he was strong willed. Eric, on the other hand, the younger brother, he was known to be more like Kitty, like their mother. So he was more emotional, he was a little bit quieter, more likely to be vulnerable than Lyle was, which I think checks out because Lyle was very much big brother. But growing up, like I mentioned, the two of them were always in sports. The one sport they really showed the most potential in, or I guess the two sports they showed the most potential in, it was swimming and tennis. And Jose Menendez took so much pride in this because it was something that his sons were good at and he liked that. So he coached both of his sons. Definitely too hard, though, because the thing about Jose is the line of being supportive versus being controlling, it was a very blurred line when it came to Joseph, actually. The line of becoming way too overbearing. It probably was a line that was non existent for him. He was. Oh, my God. How do you describe this guy? Like, I know I kind of sound like a broken record when I'm talking about him, but I'm just trying to put as much emphasis so you just know how much of a thing this was. Every single person in Jose's life described him like this, but he was so competitive in nature. All he wanted to do was win. All he cared about was winning. And he would push and push his sons and to their breaking point. He was always there Whether it was on the court, on the sideline, near the pool, wherever. He was always present, yelling at his sons to do better, be better and work harder. Eventually, both of them, Lyle and Eric, they started pursuing tennis competitively. And of course, there Jose was doing everything in his power to make sure that they climbed to the top. They had a tennis court behind their house, and the boys were always there. They were always outside practicing tennis. Neighbors remember hearing Lyle and Eric beginning to practice tennis and Jose yelling at them even as early as 6:30 in the morning some days, he would throw balls at them, he would order them around, and he would do so even hours before their private coaches showed up. And when they did, Jose was still there. He was staring at his sons and at the coaches, yelling at them, staring at them to the point where he would not only just yell at his kids, he would then start yelling at the coaches. He would physically go out on the court and yell at the coaches, trying to tell them what to do, which is crazy. I think one of the coaches ended up resenting Jose so much that he quit his job. Not because he didn't like his job, but because he literally could not stand listening to Jose's voice another day. And it comes to no one's surprise that the constant pressure of needing to become the best, it ultimately just had the complete opposite effect on both of the kids, because nothing they ever did was good enough. Lyle was a student at Princeton University, and Eric had at this point, transferred from Calabasas High to Beverly Hills High, both very good schools. But again, both kids always under immense pressure from their father that only seemed to get worse and worse the older that they got. He drove those kids to perfection. And. And when they didn't meet his standards, which, by the way, were standards that were completely unrealistic and near impossible, he would make sure that they knew, so he would make sure that they knew that he wasn't proud of them, that he was disappointed in them. And of course, of course, Lyle and Eric took so many of the things that Jose said to them to heart. Because this was their father. All they wanted was love and acceptance from him. And their entire lives, they never got it. Lyle and Eric were really close growing up. They had a really close sibling bond. Lyle was very protective of his little brother, Eric. Eric grew up to idolize his older brother, Lyle, but his older brother idolized their father. Not because he was a good idol, not because he was a good person to look up to, but because that's what little boys do. You would like to Think that the person who is supposed to love you the most in this world would be good to you, would have your best interest at heart, would be a person that you should look up to. But that wasn't the case. Regardless, little Lyle looking up to his dad, it does make sense because he wanted to make him proud. And he would only be proud of him if he was the best at everything. And when it came to business, Jose was the best at everything. Or at least it felt like it. People made it out to sound like he really was. So it just became this sick, toxic routine of Lyle chasing his father's approval, Eric looking up to Lyle, but both of them never being able to quite meet the standards. Both Lyle and Eric have been described by a few people to be sort of standoffish. And I don't mean that in the way that they were lonely, like, not in the way that they didn't have friends. And they only hung out with each other because they did have friends. Actually, Eric had this one friend that he considered to be his very best friend at one point. And we're going to talk about him a lot in episode two of this case because he ends up testifying in the brother's trial. But Eric met this friend. His name is Craig Signorelli. And they met when the Menendez family was still living in Calabasas. And Craig's father, much like Jose, was also successful and wealthy. He was a prominent television exec at mgm, which was one of the major film studios. So Eric and Craig having this in common, it was something that they bonded over. And the two of them would often hang out. They would spend some time together. And sometimes when they were together and they just kind of felt like they needed silence, like they needed to get away, they would climb up one of those dusty hills above Malibu. You know, the kind I'm talking about, the hills that are covered in dry bush and silence. They would sit up there, they would look over the lights of California and they would talk for hours, and they would talk about everything. They would talk about their family, about life, about girls, sometimes about the most random things. But Craig says that at times when the two of them were sitting up there, they would sit there and begin imagining and discussing how someone could pull off the perfect crime. But like I said, we're gonna get back into that later. My point being, the brothers did have friends they hung out with. They both had their own friend groups, but they were really, really close knit with one another because they were each other's safe space. They understood each Other on a level that other people couldn't. And it was a sibling bond. But also, we later on learned that they were definitely trauma bonded as well, because both of them were experiencing horrible things behind closed doors. And only they knew what living in that house was really like. Only they knew what it felt like to have Jose Menendez as your father. And they at times did give off the idea that they were kind of. I don't know if snobby is the right word, but ish. Snobby. Ish towards other people. And again, I'm not saying they're perfect. I'm not defending their actions, but I do think their behavior and their actions really is a reflection of the way that they were raised. For example, one time, Lyle was hanging out with his friends. He was out at a restaurant, and one of his friends pointed out the way that he was speaking to the waitress, kind of like ordering her around almost. And Lyle looked at his friend and said, quote, I get that from my father. They are here to serve me. Another time, when Lyle had a friend over at their house for dinner, they had maids or servers, they had staff at their house, and the friend was over. They were all eating dinner together. The friend tried to get up to go grab a glass of water, glass of milk, whatever it was. And Lyle kind of sat him back down and said, this isn't your job. Like, these people are here to serve us. So it kind of gave a little bit of, I think I'm better than everyone. But again, that is how they were raised. Jose Menendez was the one person that taught them everything that they knew. And Jose Menendez, if you ask literally anyone that knew him, was a horrible man. And his parenting style, like I already mentioned, it carried on and off the court. It carried into their home life. It was way beyond just sports. The kids were always getting lectures about how they weren't good enough. And sooner than later, his quote, unquote, discipline, I guess he would probably refer to it as discipline. Even though it was abused, it began to take a physical turn. Kitty, on the other hand, the mom, she was very much in the headspace of whatever Jose says goes. He runs the house. We do as he says, and he is my husband, so I will stand by him no matter what. My marriage over, my kids, always Kitty Menendez, she was always around. Whether she was aware of how her husband treated their sons to the horrifying degree in which he did is up for you to decide. However, if you ask me, there is absolutely no way that Kitty wasn't aware of how horrible Jose was to their kids. And if we fast forward a little bit to the trial, standing in the courtroom, Lyle and Eric both ended up testifying. And on the stand, they say, this is what was happening to me. It was the worst thing that had ever happened to me. I was miserable, and I was seeking help out from my mother, but she did not care. Kitty lived in that house. Lyle and Eric were treated awfully inside of that house. The only way that you can make me think or make me even consider that Kitty Menendez wasn't aware of just how bad it was, would be if Jose was really careful about the way that he acted in front of her. Because. And I mean, look at the kind of person that Jose is. I really do not think that Jose Menendez was the kind of guy that would change himself to please other people, because he didn't care about that. He only cared about himself. And again, we know this because the boys testified, and I've heard them say it in multiple interviews. I don't know if it was once or more than once, but at some point, the kids would go up to their mother and say something along the lines of, mom, dad keeps touching me. I don't know what to do. And later on in the courtroom, the brothers testify that Kitty said to them, not long before the murder, she said to them, I have known about the abuse the entire time. What do you think I am, stupid? She wasn't clueless. She didn't lack information. It was in black and white that Jose was horrible to those kids, and Kitty just turned a blind eye to it, either because it was because she didn't want to get involved, or she didn't care, or maybe she feared Jose herself, and I don't know. But her role as a mother was to protect those kids, and she never did. Throughout the years that they were growing up, getting older, there were signs of rebellion from both Lyle and Eric. As a freshman, Lyle got suspended from Princeton for plagiarism. And around the same time, I think actually a little bit before, Eric was accused of committing burglaries one summer with his friends. Eric, in his case, he managed to avoid jail time because his dad stepped in and kind of helped clean up his mess for him. But it was soon after those burglaries that the family started seeing Leon Jerome Ozil, a psychologist who each one of them were seeing individually and a psychologist who really ends up becoming a very significant person in this case. And if you know this case well, you might be thinking that I'm not mentioning him as much because there is a lot when it comes to him. But don't worry, in episode two, we go into depth, into him. But just to give you an idea of the kind of psychiatrist that this was, Jose wouldn't hire the psychiatrist for his family unless he agreed to tell him everything that Eric Menendez said in that room. So completely forget about doctor patient confidentiality, whatever it is. From day one, this psychiatrist was proven to be a sleazy guy because he was willing to break the rules. He agreed to tell Jose everything that Eric said. So. So it's not shocking when we learn about Ozil just kind of being a weird guy. He really was. He was a sleazy guy and being hired because he agreed to tell Jose everything. I mean, like, from day one, this guy couldn't be trusted anyway when it came to Lyle and his plagiarism. When the school asked him to leave, not even Jose could get the school to change their mind. Lyle was suspended for a year, and Jose Menendez was not happy. He immediately called for a meeting with the university president. He was trying his hardest to fight the decision, but it didn't work. And some people have said that Jose was angrier at the school more than he was at Lyle. And I believe it because he probably felt out of control of the situation. And his biggest thing was feeling like he was the most powerful, he had the most control. And in that situation, it was clear that he had no control. And it probably drove him crazy. So he wasn't happy. He especially wasn't happy. Shortly after, when Lyle asked him if he would pay for a long trip to Europe, Jose said, you're crazy. Sit back down. You're not going. However, Lyle went anyway. He went away with an older girl. I have read that she was a girlfriend, but I also read that she was a fiance, so I'm not really sure. But she was older, she was a tennis pro, and the two of them spent three months traveling in Europe to 12 different cities for her tennis tour. They returned in early 1989. Lyle returned to Princeton, and his girlfriend ended up taking a job at a restaurant, working as a waitress. And it was in that job that she met a fellow waiter, a guy named Donovan J. Goodru. I want to say that that's how you pronounce his name. Good Rue Guru. I'm not sure. But the girlfriend introduced Donovan to Lyle, and the two of them became really close friends right up until three months before the murders. Donovan says that he was Lyle's best friend. He became a part of Lyle's close circle and in turn got a firsthand look at just how intense and driven Lyle could be. According to Donovan, Lyle often talked about his dad's obsession with success and with money. And he would also often talk about this book. It was called the Greatest Salesman in the World. Lyle was obsessed with this book. This book was always in his tennis bag. He was always encouraging his friend Donovan to read it. But it was a book full of motivational quotes. A book that, I guess, had things in it that would teach you how to win at life. Put it that way. To this day, Donovan still remembers the words that Lyle swore by. Quote, I will persist until I succeed. I am a lion and I refuse to talk, to walk, to sleep with the sheep. The slaughterhouse of failure is not my destiny. End quote. And yeah, even though, like, that sounds a little bit intense, right? Even though it sounds intense, it made sense to Donovan when he saw just how much effort Lyle was putting into living with this mindset because of his father, Jose. Because he wanted his acceptance and his approval so bad. It was the one thing that he craved his entire life. But no matter how hard he pushed or no matter how hard he tried, he never got it. And again, please do not think that I'm ignoring the essay and I'm not going into detail about every. All the abuse that happened, because we're going to talk about it a lot in episode two. We have not even gotten to the worst of it yet, not even close. We're not even at the tip of the iceberg. But do not fret. We will get there. However, this pattern of chasing perfection to get love from their father, to feel accepted to, then not being able to do so and feeling like a failure and then doing it over and over again, it was exhausting on the boys. I mean, what an exhausting thing. It would be exhausting for any human being. And to kind of put it into perspective, if you're lucky enough to have a relationship, a loving, healthy relationship with your parents, that's amazing, that's beautiful. Not everyone does. But if this dynamic is kind of hard for you to understand because you haven't experienced it, switch it over to a different perspective, right? It's a completely different thing. But if you've ever been in a toxic relationship with a toxic boyfriend, girlfriend, whatever, or if you've had a loved one, a loved one in a toxic relationship. Like, for example, one of my friends, she had a terrible boyfriend. He was awful to her. She knew that he was awful. We all knew that he was awful. But time and time again, she kept going back to this guy because at one point, he was a good guy and she spent however many years trying to find the good side of him, and she was willing to break herself down just to be able to see the 1 percentage of the good in him, even though 99, the other 99% of him was bad. Does that make sense? And it happens so much in romantic relationships. We see it all the time, people being in toxic relationships because they're craving a love that kind of doesn't exist. So this is kind of the same concept, but more intensely because this is a toxic relationship, a toxic pattern that they were born into. From the moment they were born, this is what they knew. And they broke themselves down trying to find the good, when really it seems like there was no good to be found in Jose. But with all that being said, my point being that as a result of the way that they were treated, it was only natural for Lyle and Eric to begin to build up resentment towards their father to the more and more that they were growing up. It really feels like a textbook case in my eyes, of dad is disgustingly controlling, obsessive, abusive, demanding in every way, shape and form. Mom is focused on saving her marriage or taking care of her marriage and focused on what the public image her family has. And the kids are being broken down year after year after year until they are left with feeling nothing but disappointment within themselves. And please, let's not forget that this was happening to these boys while they were growing up. They were raised by this man. And the male brain typically finishes developing at the age of, what, 25. And I'm not sitting here and telling you that murder is okay. I'm not defending their actions. I will not, cannot and will not sit here and tell you that killing someone is okay and it's the right thing to do, because it absolutely is not. But what I am saying is that from the moment they were born up until the time they were arrested when Lyle was 22 years old, Eric was 19 years old, they. They endured deep psychological trauma as a result of what they described to be years and years of every kind of abuse, primarily at the hands of their father, Jose Menendez, this has such an effect on a young boy's mind whose brain is quite literally still developing. I mean, how could it not? And I was actually texting my mom about this. We were actually talking about childhood trauma in regards to Bryan Coburger and the Idaho four case. But my mom, she's a therapist. If you didn't know, and that woman has more emotional intelligence that I've literally would ever know what to do with. And I personally don't have any medical knowledge or psychological knowledge. Like I. I'm not a doctor, but I'm just going to try to explain this to the best of my ability in the way that my mom explained it to me. And hopefully it makes sense to you guys. When a child is abused, so many things happen in their brain and in their mind, especially in their ability to regulate natural emotions towards their abusers, in this case their dad. A cognitive dissonance forms. A cognitive dissonance is when someone holds two related but contradictory thoughts. So like when two things can be true at once, but they contradict each other. So when you experience abuse as a child, a cognitive dissonance can form, allowing your still very much so undeveloped mind to feel confusion of experiencing something that you don't quite understand, but you for some reason feel ashamed towards. And this, over time, of course confuses the basic concept of what a child can understand. And what I mean when I say that is a child who hasn't experienced abuse is able to develop a secure attachment with another person, a safe and healthy relationship. But on the other hand, for a child who has been abused, it creates a confusing relationship where they mistake love for pain. And because they confuse love for pain, they quote, unquote sexual stop feeling. It becomes way more difficult for them to be able to register and show emotions the way that someone else would, because the love that they've been shown has been a love that hurts. So it makes them think that not only is it okay when they feel pain, but it's also okay when they give pain. A lack of empathy can be created when they cause pain upon other people because they've learned that a form of love can be a love that hurts. And yeah, it generates such a confusion and disruption in a child's development. And it's confusing and it's scary and it builds up a deep, raw anger inside of them over time. And with siblings, sometimes it turns into extreme protectiveness because the sibling bond has been the only thing in their entire life that has felt safe to them. And again, don't twist my words. It's not an excuse to kill anyone. It does not excuse what they did, but it definitely does help understand it. Because Lyle and Eric, they were not born bad. They were not born broken. Nobody is. They were broken at the hands of someone who probably experienced the same thing. Because hurt people hurt people. I hope I explained that correctly. When my mom was Explaining it to me. She was explaining it to me in Spanish, so I kind of had to translate a little bit, but I hope that that was somewhat easy to understand. August 20th of 1989. It was a Sunday, and it was like any other summer. Sunny day in Beverly Hills. The Menendez family woke up early. The boys went out to go practice tennis on their tennis court. And later that night, because Lyle and Eric had plans to go to a movie theater to go watch a movie, Jose and Kitty Menendez settled in for a night in. They got into their comfy clothes. Jose was wearing shorts and a sweatshirt. Kitty was wearing comfy pants and a sweatshirt. They got some ice cream and strawberries in a little bowl, and they settled in on their couch to begin watching TV. Around 10pm that night, a neighbor reported hearing sounds that sounded almost like firecrackers coming from the Menendez house. But he didn't really think much of it. And after Lyle and Eric were done with their movies, they claimed that they had plans to go meet up with some of their friends. However, Eric forgot his id, so the two boys had to go back to their house to pick it up. And when they arrived, they walked into the most brutal crime scene. The 911 call was made at 11:47pm A very distressed Lyle was on the phone saying, someone killed my parents. Someone killed my parents. Beverly Hills police officers reported to the 911 call. When the officers arrived at the house, both Lyle and Eric were inconsolable, distraught, completely hysterical, with which makes sense because they just witnessed parents dead bodies. A neighbor recalls seeing Eric curled up in a ball on the front yard of the house, screaming in grief. Jose and Kitty Menendez were pronounced dead at the scene, the cause of death being multiple gunshot wounds. Jose suffered four shots, Kitty suffered seven. The wounds to Jose's legs occurred after he was already dead. An autopsy report stated that a shot to Jose caused, quote, explosive decapitation with evisceration of the brain and deformity of the face. When the officers got there, they were walking around the crime scene. The back of Jose's skull was completely destroyed. And as they were on the scene, his brain fell onto the floor. As far as Kitty's injuries, she suffered shots to her chest, her right arm, her left hip and her left leg. Those were the first shots. The ones that came after happened after the killer reloaded the gun and fired at her face, causing, quote, multiple lacerations of her brain, end quote. Kitty's face was completely unrecognizable. A retired police detective that was Hired actually by the family to investigate the murders. He described what he saw at the crime scene as, quote, I've seen a lot of homicides, but nothing quite that brutal. Blood, flesh, skulls. It would be hard to describe, especially Jose, as resembling a human that you would recognize. That's how bad it was, end quote. And the Beverly Hills police chief described it by saying, quote, I've been in this business for over 33 years, and I have heard of very few murders that were more savage than this one was, end quote. The nature of the crime was so brutal on top of, completely unheard of for Beverly Hills, that the police's immediate suspicion was this must have been a targeted mop hit. They did question Lyle and Eric. They did speak to them that night, but they did not suspect them at all. They were not on the police's radar whatsoever. They didn't even perform a chemical analysis on them or on their clothing to see if they had gun residue on them. They had no reason to suspect them. Eric has since then said that if the police did, did suspect them that night, they 100% would have been caught. Their story was that they were at the movie theaters, they were not home. But Eric has said, quote, there should have been a police response and we would have been arrested. We had no alibi, the gunpowder residue was all over our hands. We would have been arrested immediately. There were gunshelves in my car. My car was inside the search area. All they had to do was search my car. And if they would have just pressed back me, I would not have been able to withstand any questioning. I was in a completely broken and shattered state of mind, end quote. But to authorities, again that night, it was clear that this was a targeted attack. It was clear to them that it was brutal. And they assumed that whoever had done this, this wasn't their first time doing something like this. It was quickly being described as a gang style killing, and the brothers were nowhere near the suspect list. However, of course, officers and investigators did notice almost immediately that there were no shell casings. Someone had picked up and removed every single shell casing. And it's so bizarre to think how differently things would have played out, how different this entire case would be if they had just searched Eric's car that night, just like they were searching everything inside of that home. In the early days of the investigation, authorities spoke to Lyle and Eric and they asked them if Jose Menendez would have any kind of enemy that would want to do something like this to him, because, I guess you could say, limited amount of people but there were people that liked Jose. However, there were even more people that did not like him. In fact, a lot of people hated him because he was overall a controlling, ruthless, manipulative, feared, and a completely excuse of a man. When authorities asked him, Lyle Menendez did have someone in mind. He gave authorities the name Noel Bloom, who has been referred to as Jose's former business rival. He also mentioned the possible link to the Colombian cartel. Eric brought up the possibility of this being a Mafia murder. But now, of course, authorities know that the brothers were just attempting to turn their attention elsewhere. The very next day after the murders, Randolph Wright, who is a family friend, but also an attorney, he spoke to Lyle and Eric. And it was in that conversation that Eric brought up the idea that the Mafia might be behind the killings. That's also when he brought up a question about their father's will. Lyle mentioned something about Jose possibly having changed the will recently. And he suggested that the most updated version of his will would probably be saved on the family computer. He also thought that if it wasn't there, it could have been in a family safe locked away. So he recovered the safe and he took it to Randolph's house. Eric ended up staying at Randolph's house for two nights. He was sleeping in a spare bedroom with the safe in the same room. And it was really important to Lyle that when they opened the safe, that only he and Eric be there in the room. After they did open it and after they did look inside privately, Lyle informed the family that it was empty. There was nothing in there. Later that same day, relatives found an older version of Jose's will from 1981. According to that will, in the event that something happened to Jose, everything would go to Kitty. In the event that something happened to the both of them, everything would go to Lyle and Eric. And to give you an idea of how much money the Menendez family had, when he passed away, Jose was chairman of the board at Live Entertainment. He was earning an annual salary and benefit package of approximately $1.3 million. His assets included the family home in Beverly hills, valued around 3.5 to $4 million, and the property in Calabasas with a value of approximately $1.3 million. He also additionally from that owned stock in Live Entertainment that was valued around $5 million. It was said that there was a $14 million inheritance to be shared by the brothers after their parents passing around the same time that this was all going on. This kind of happened somewhat quickly, but around the same time that they were looking for Jose's Will. Someone noticed that the family computer had three different files. One was labeled Lyle, one was Eric, and one was Will, but no one could open them. A computer expert named Howard Witkin said that he got an urgent call from. From Lyle Menendez asking him to come over and check the computer to try and see if he could get into the files. And he found the files, but they were empty. Lyle then told him to erase everything on the computer. He asked him to completely wipe it clean because he claimed that he was planning on selling the computer and he didn't want any family financial information to be leaked. He also told one of his friends, Glenn Stevens, that he hired someone to wipe that computer clean. And when Eric was wrapped up in the burglaries and when Lyle was suspended from Princeton, there were rumors of Jose being so disappointed in his sons that he planned to revise his will completely. Allegedly, he was thinking about revising his will so Les would go to his sons and more would go to other family members. And it's not crazy to think that the brothers would have been aware of that, considering, despite everything, the family was said to be pretty close and. And money was always a topic of conversation. The boys disappointing their father was also always a common topic of conversation. So did Jose tell them that he was planning on revising his will? Did the boys figure it out on their own? And is that why they destroyed the family computer? Who knows? After the murders, Lyle himself said that he felt quite lost because his entire life he had his dad. His dad had always been there directing and monitoring every single little thing that he did. And now that was completely gone. And he quite literally did not know how to move without his father. A really big question when it comes to this case is, well, if their parents were that bad to them, if everything they are saying is true, if they were that awful, why didn't they just leave? Why didn't Lyle and Eric walk out of the house and never return? And first of all, to that, I say it is impossible for me, for you, for anyone else in the world to see things in the way that Lyle and Eric saw them. I'm not saying their perspective and their opinions and their actions were correct. I'm not defending what they did at all. But I am saying that my reality, your reality, my background, your background, family dynamics, everything is different than theirs because we are not the same person. So you could spend hours trying to understand why they did what they did, but you're never going to. The way that we think, feel, react, it is shaped by the things that we have lived through our homes, our families, our traumas, our safety. So when we look at someone else's choices, especially at a choice as extreme as murder, and we try to make sense of it through our own eyes, we will not be able to because we can't. Our brains build patterns based on what we know, based on what we felt. And if we've never lived in a home where love and fear were twisted together or where silence was what felt like survival, we can't just put ourselves in their shoes, because their shoes were made in a completely different world than ours. But back to the case for Lyle. His father was the one person who he idolized more than anyone in the world. And he lived his entire life with what felt like the sole purpose of making his father proud. After his passing, he spoke so highly of his father, telling anyone and everyone that would listen about all the plans that he had to keep up his dad's legacy. And he was described to having become a mini rough copy of a Jose Menendez overnight. Eric, on the other hand, was internally completely falling apart. And he says that his behavior afterwards, it wasn't an indication that he was having a good time. And it was his way of covering up the unimaginable pain that he was experiencing of not wanting to be alive. And he was right to say that, because a lot of people would have said that it did look like the boys were having a great time. Shortly after their parents passing the behavior of both of them together, it quickly brought on suspicion onto them. Not only because the boys were said to have been acting really weirdly calm, but mainly because of the shopping spree that they went on. It was the shopping spree of a lifetime. The boys first replaced the furniture in the house from the room their parents were killed in. And it's been estimated that they spent around $700,000. Lyle bought a $60,000 Porsche. Eric bought a tan Jeep Wrangler. Lyle bought $40,000 worth of clothing in a $15,000 Rolex watch. Actually, I think there were three. A total of three Rolexes purchased. Eric hired a $50,000 a year tennis coach. Lyle decided to get into the restaurant business and paid half a million dollars for a cafeteria style eatery restaurant in Princeton. A lot of money was spent. So much that investigators working the case couldn't ignore it. And they started thinking, would they, could they have. Would Lyle and Eric be capable of committing such a crime? And slowly but surely, they started to pay extreme close attention to these boys. But even so, if they were going to be moving forward with pinning the murders on the family's very sons. They were going to need more solid evidence. So they went out looking for it, and then they received a tip, and they found it. Remember Eric's best friend that we talked about, Craig Signorelli? The 18th, which was a Friday. So two days before the murders, somebody had used Craig's ID to buy two shotguns at a store in San Diego. Craig's license number was written down during the sale of those guns. And even though the guns have never been found, police highly believe them to have been the murder weapon. But Craig didn't buy those guns. He also, in fact, was not even in possession of his id. He lost his id and the last time that he saw it was inside of Lyle's dorm room. And Craig also later says that it wasn't uncommon for him and Lyle to use each other's ID while they were in Princeton. Seven months after the murders, on March 8th of 1990, Lyle Menendez was arrested. Police approached him as he was driving out of his neighborhood in the Jeep Wrangler. He was made to lie on the street, out in public in his own neighborhood, in front of all his neighbors as police placed handcuffs on him before taking him to the police station on suspicion of murder. Learning about his brother's arrest, Eric, who was overseas at the time for a tennis tournament, he flew to Miami, and then he flew to Los Angeles to turn himself in. He did so on March 11th. This arrest, it turned the case from a local Beverly Hill story into an international media phenomenon. The media blew this case up overnight. And it painted the case to be a classic case of greed and anger. It painted out the boys to be completely soulless monsters. All of Lyle's and Eric's family members, they believed their innocence. They didn't think that they were capable of doing something like this. But the rest of the entire world, they could not put them behind bars quick enough. But no one could have predicted what this case would turn out to be. And no one could have imagined the truth that would be revealed inside of that courtroom of just how disgusting and vile of a person Jose Menendez really was. This is where we're going to leave off, part one. So much information to be revealed in part two. So I will see you guys on that episode, but thank you for watching. I love you guys so, so much. I hope you guys are having the best day. If not, go do something to make it the best day. Let me know what you think on this. I'm gonna. I'm gonna be annoying and bring up the Instagram group chat again. This is probably like, what, the 15th time I've talked about this group chat? But I'm to be talking about this case on there. So hop on over to Instagram if you want to chat. Anyway, love you guys so much. Massive kiss on the forehead to every single one of you. Thank you guys so much for tuning into this episode of I wish you were here. As a reminder, you can listen to this podcast any way you get your podcast video version also available on YouTube. Love you guys.