← I Wish You Were Here
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Michelle Cuervo
Hi, my beautiful, gorgeous, handsomest people in the whole entire world. Who is ready to listen to part two of the Menendez case? Because this case has consumed all of me. I breathe, sleep and eat the Menendez case. Actually, that's what it feels like these days. I'm going to keep this intro short because we have a lot of information to talk through. I'm probably going to be sitting in this chair for another two hours, which is fine by me because this is entertaining for me and I hope it is for you as well. But, but quick recap, if you did not listen to part one, go do that because part two isn't really going to make sense unless you've heard part one. In part one, we covered the case, the crime, what happened, and we ended on their arrest. Now in part two, we're going to go through the trial and everything that started unraveling in what felt like an absolute media spectacle. So let's get into it. I do have to give a warning though. We are going to be talking and touching on a lot of sensitive topics, including childhood trauma and sa. So if you think that listening to that is going to harm your mental health in any way, please skip this video and I will see you in my next one. I again sound like a broken record when I say this, but I would hate nothing more than for your mental well being mental health to be affected negatively by some of the content that I put out. So please take care of yourselves. I mean it. I love you. Where we left off in part one, both boys had been arrested. They were arrested in the year 1990. But the trial didn't actually begin until three years later on July 20th of 1999, 1993. And it was that arrest that made this story from a Beverly Hills story into an absolute international media phenomenon. Both of the boys pled not guilty. But Lyle knew in his gut that their trial was never going to be about innocence. And from the very beginning, the entire world knew that this trial was going to turn into an absolute media spectacle. It was never about guilt or innocence. The brothers sat on that stand and they said that they killed their parents. They? Did they or didn't they? That was never up for debate, but it was always about the why. This trial was also one of the first televised high profile cases. Court TV was a new channel at the time and it was a big deal that they were going to be covering the trial and the media ate it up. Each brother had his own defense team and his own jury. Both juries were going to be sitting in the same courtroom, watching and listening and witnessing the trial together at the same time. Both. But when it came to deliberating, each jury ultimately would have to make the decision on each brother separately. Eric Menendez was going to be represented by Leslie Abramson, who is considered to be one of the most brilliant, toughest, and greatest Los Angeles defense lawyers, especially for death row cases. Lyle's lawyer was Jill Lansing, who Leslie Abramson was very familiar. Not only familiar, but also comfortable with, because the two of them had worked together in the past. And it has been rumored that both lawyers were being paid around $700,000 each, although in my opinion, I think it definitely crossed the million mark. When the trial was over and done with, jury selection began three years and three months after the murders. Like I mentioned, the first day of the trial was July 20th of 1993. The prosecution opens up their case. First, we will prove to you that Lyle Menendez planned this murder and then set off to spend the money which he had acquired through the killing of his parents. This murder was unlawful, unjustified, and wholly premeditated. And that but for a few mistakes they made, this was almost the perfect murder. Lyle's lawyer was Jill Lansing. She was up next. The only thing that you are going to have to focus on in this trial is why it happened. And what we will prove to you is that it was done out of fear. They were afraid of Jose Menendez and they were afraid of Kitty Menendez. This trial will take you behind the facade of the rich houses, the fancy cars, the wealthy friends and impressive social engagements. Jose Menendez, he was aggressive, he was talented. He was a charismatic, powerful man. Lyle's violent experiences with his father had been, for the most part, when he was young, if you didn't swim well enough, you were held underwater. When Jose took off his belt, someone was going to get beaten. He reveled in his sadism. Jill goes on to mention that Kitty Menendez discovered that her husband, Jose Menendez, had been having an affair that had lasted a while. Eight years, honestly, if not longer. Upon finding this out, Kitty was said to fall into a very deep depression. And it was so bad that it got to the point that she began writing suicidal letters to her sons. Jill referred to Kitty as a crazy woman who only got crazier. And she stated that both parents were parents that were capable of killing their children. Leslie Abramson gave her opening statement. Next, Eric Menendez will tell you the entire painful and difficult and complicated story of his life. The origin of this killing was a lifetime of abuse at the hands of those same parents. Unlike the alleged crime that the prosecution here presents, those crimes occurred in total secrecy. No police were called, no crime scene photographs were taken. He killed his parents because he could no longer endure the abuse. He had to stop it. And it was in that courtroom that the facade of this perfect family was absolutely and completely ripped apart, chewed on and spit out. Before this case, the Menendez family was seen as an all American, happy, wealthy, close knit family who had everything they could not only possibly need, but possibly want. Sure, they had family drama, but they were rich in wealth, rich in family, and rich in status. And it was inside of those courtroom walls that Leslie and Jill were going to let the world know about the dark truth that was l living with Jose Menendez as your father for the very first time. They were going to expose the psychological, physical and sexual abuse that Lyle and Eric suffered at the hands of the person that they were supposed to trust most. And they would state that their father had been molesting them ever since they were six years old. Six years old babies. So far up until this point, the only other person that knew about the abuse was the family psychologist, Leon Jerome Ozil. And boy, oh boy, nobody could have prevented what this case would grow to be. Welcome to this episode of I wish you were here. I'm your host, Michelle Cuervo. So again, to Leslie and Jill, it was never a case of did the boys do it or did they not? It was a case of these boys were scared, legitimately down to their core, terrified of their parents. They were, they feared for their lives and they were terrified because their parents found out that the boys had been planning to speak out about the abuse. In the last few days before the murders, Lyle found out that his father, Jose, was still sexually abusing his little brother Eric. At this point in time in Lyle's life, Jose had stopped touching him the way that he used to when he was younger because he was older now. And he just kind of assumed that it stopped from for Eric as well, because this wasn't something that the boys liked to talk about. The brothers didn't sit there and discuss what their parents were doing to them because it was the worst thing they had ever been put through. They didn't like to talk about it. They didn't even like to think about it, especially Lyle, because it almost felt impossible for him to open up about his feelings, let alone his trauma. The way that Lyle discovered that this was still going on for Eric was because Eric was planning on leaving for college. He was planning on moving out. And he brought this up to their father and Jose Menendez. It wasn't even an option. He didn't even let him consider the idea of leaving because Jose Menendez wanted Eric to remain living inside of his house. Reason being, he wanted to keep the access that he had had to him his entire life. But days before Lyle found out that he was still abusing Eric. And because of that, there was a massive argument in which Lyle pretty much confronted Jose and said, enough is enough. This is disgusting and horrible, and I'm not gonna let my little brother continue putting up with this. We are going to report this to law enforcement, and you, dad, are going to face the consequences of your own actions. But there was no world in which Jose would let that happen. And he told his sons, if you go to the police, I will kill you. He had been telling them that for years, and he would have them repeat it back to him. This was part of the psychological abuse. Jose would say, what will happen if you tell anyone about this? Until the brothers eventually responded, you will kill me. And Jose would look at them in the eyes and say, correct. So according to Lyle and Eric, at that point, in their heads, it was either our parents are going to kill us or we have to kill them. Did they actually believe that their parents would be capable of killing them? And I personally can't say because I'm not them. But since they were children, as far back as they can remember, their dad had been threatening to end their lives. That was his favorite threat their entire childhood. Their dad told them, if you tell on me, I will kill you. If you leave, I will kill you. And in fact, Kitty Menendez had two loaded rifles in her closet for some time. She had them in there for a while. So I would not find it hard to believe at all if the boys truly were in fear of their own lives. And after that argument that took place Friday, August 18, two days before the murders, that was also the day that Lyle and Eric decided to go buy shotguns from a store in San Diego using their friend's id. When they got home, they left the guns in the car. And the next day, their parents told them the plan for the day. They told the boys that all four of them as a family were going to go out on a fishing trip to. And at that point, Lyle and Eric are thinking, this fishing trip is what they're going to use as their opportunity to kill us. They're going to kill us out there. They're going to dump our bodies in the water and get Rid of us forever. So this is the main point that Leslie and Joe were focusing on. This is the point that they would be arguing in court that Lyle and Eric were so scared that their parents were going to kill them, and it was out of fear of their own lives that they killed them before it could be the other way around. Their job was to make the jury believe them, because they did. But now they just had to make sure that everyone else did as well. And something about this trial that was a big point of conversation as well was that the two head attorneys representing the boys were women. And in the mid-90s, it was rare to see a woman as a lead counsel. And it was completely unheard of to see a defense team with not one, but two female counselors. But this was something that Leslie and Jill both recognized, and it was something that they thought that they could use as an advantage. In the words of Leslie Abramson herself, she states, what I think is something necessary to be a great criminal lawyer is something I think women already have, a desire to understand people and human relationships. End quote. The first four weeks of the trial was the prosecution presenting their case. The lead prosecutor, Pamela Bozenik, argued that the Menendez brothers killed their parents out of pure greed, that they wanted their inheritance money with no one standing in the way. And like I mentioned, she painted this out to be a crime that was 100% calculated, premeditated murder, not self defense. The prosecution began their case by calling up police officers to the stand to describe the crime scene. They wanted to drive home the point of just how brutal the crime was. They used their testimony to argue that the killings had been calculated and on purpose. And it was their argument that Lyle and Eric shot their parents when they were sitting on the couch watching tv. So in their eyes, that means that it could not have been self defense because it wasn't. In the middle of a massive, unexpected argument, the brothers walked in on their parents behind them because they wanted to attack them when they least expected it. And I read from a reporter that walked to the crime scene shortly after everything happened because of the way the house was laid out, because of the floor plan. When you walked in, you were drawn like a magnet to the television room where everything took place. So it was kind of interesting because, say, the boys did sneak up on their parents because of the way the room was set up, where the couch was. It would have been odd for the boys to grab the weapons, walked down the stairs with weapons in hand, turned right, and walked into the room where Jose and Kitty were sitting facing them without Jose and Kitty seeing them way before they had a chance to fire the weapons. It would have made more sense if the boys entered the room through the terrace doors behind the couch, because if so, then Jose and Kitty's backs would be facing the doors, and Jose and Kitty would not have seen them until they were already standing in front of them. And. But I guess that doesn't really matter. So, regardless, anyway, the prosecution then showed graphic photos of how the parents bodies were found. And they played Lyle's 911 call from the night of the murders. They also brought up how the brothers bought two shotguns just days before the killing, supporting their entire premeditation argument. They talked about the money they were set to inherit. They talked about the alleged version of the revised will that was believed to have been on the family computer, but deleted by the computer experts that Lyle hired. And they of course, focused on the long list of luxury items that the brothers brought in the days following the murders, stating that that itself was proof that they felt no remorse for what they did. Next, the prosecution brought in Dr. Jerome Ozil, the family psychologist who was considered to be the biggest and most important witness for the prosecution. He was the psychiatrist that Jose Menendez hired for Eric and Lyle to see after the burglaries that Eric was involved in in the summer of 1988 with his friends. The burglaries took place in July. Ozil was brought in in September. And for the very first time in that courtroom, the public learns that the person who tipped off police about where Lyle and Eric purchased the shotguns was Judalon Smith. Judalon Smith was the ex girlfriend of Dr. Ozil and he was married, so he was having an affair. And. And only three days before Lyle's arrest back in March, she dropped the biggest bombshell that was a huge turning point for the investigation and ultimately the very thing that led to their arrest. Judalon Smith came forward and told the Beverly Hills police about a set of secret tapes. She claimed that the Menendez brothers had confessed to the murders during therapy sessions to Dr. Ozil and that those confessions were recorded and stored inside of Ozil's office. She also told police that the brothers had threatened to kill Dr. Ozil if he ever went to authorities with the information. Judalon then informed authorities that the shotguns used in the killings were bought from that sporting goods store in San Diego. And as we know, three days after she went to the police, Lyle Menendez was arrested. When she went to the police with this information, it was seven months into the case. And until then, police had no idea about Eric's confession. But now with her statement, investigators got a subpoena and searched Ozil's offices, eventually leading them to finding the tapes locked away in a safe deposit box at a bank. And from my understanding, the first initial confession, the official first confession from Eric to Ozil, that itself was not taped. But then Ozil came up with this grand idea to tape them. So in total, there were three audio cassettes of I. I believe. So it was, I believe, some of them the brothers were speaking in. Right. Obviously. But I also think that the very first one was just Ozil talking, and he was kind of taping the rundown after Eric and Lyle left his office because he didn't want to forget any information. So it sounds like he recorded himself telling the story of events that had just happened, everything that Eric and Lyle confessed to him. And then afterwards, the brothers came back in and he taped those confessions. So the three audio cassettes consist of notes dictated by Ozil after therapy sessions with the Brothers on October 31, which I believe that was Ozil's own recap and dictating his notes. And then I believe the brothers were actually speaking in the tapes recorded on November 2 and November 28 of 1989. So Judalon Smith was a woman who went to police with this load of information. But the reason why she knew wasn't only because Ozil told her and because they talked about it, but it was because she herself was there. She was in Ozil's office when Eric confessed. And like I mentioned in the first episode about this case, Ozil was this lazy guy to begin with. Jose Menendez would not hire him as his son's psychiatrist unless he signed a document stating that he agreed to tell Jose everything that Eric told him, completely throwing out doctor patient confidentiality out the door. He literally only hired him because he was the only psychiatrist that he could find who was willing to waive the confidentiality. In October of 1989, Eric Menendez calls his therapist. He says that he needs an urgent appointment. They meet in person October 31st. They are talking in his office until eventually Eric gets up and he asks him if they could take a walk together through a nearby park. Ozil described Eric to be, quote, extremely agitated and extremely impressed. End quote. He said that he looked in a bad state. He recalls looking at him and thinking that he had lost a lot of weight. But they continue their walk. They chat about Jose Menendez, how great of a dad he was, how he impacted his son's life. And then they start heading back to the office. When Eric leans back against a parking meter outside, he looks at him and says something to the effect of, we did it. And Ozil is like, you did it. You did. You did what? You killed your parents. And he said, yes. He then continued to explain in detail not only the execution, but also the planning of the crime, including what him and Lyle had said to the police to fabricate their alibi defense. Eric talked about the pressure that their dad put on them to be perfect, about how Kitty was also completely miserable in her marriage. And he said the reason why Kitty was in the plan to begin with in the murder plan was basically because they couldn't find a way not to to include her in the plan because one, she would be a witness. Two, they didn't think that she could survive emotionally anyway without Jose. And three, because she was so unhappy in her marriage and in her life with Jose, they saw killing her as doing her a favor. Ozil's response to AIR confessing to trusting him with this information is, okay, we need to bring your brother in. We need to get Lyle in here immediately. Eric didn't want to, but he called Lyle right then and there, and he asked him to come to Ozil's office. And Lyle got there around 10 minutes or so after. And he was so angry with his brother when he learned that he confessed to a guy that Lyle knew was not trustworthy out of all people, a guy that they should not trust. Judalon Smith was apparently in the waiting room in the office when Lyle arrived. When he walked in through the front doors, before he found out that his brother had confessed. And allegedly after Lyle arrived, when he walked past Judalon to go into the room to talk to Eric and Ozil, Ozil kind of waved at Judalon to listen in on what they were saying. She kind of like, come stand in the doorway and hear what they're about to say, like, right outside the door in the hallway. And Judalon Smith says she was there for the entire thing. She remembers hearing everything. She heard Lyle get extremely worked up when he learned that Eric confessed to Ozil. She then heard Lyle threaten to kill Ozil, and she was there when both of the brothers stormed out of the office. She says that afterwards, when the boys were gone, Ozil began making calls to people in the Board of Ethics, as well as some lawyers, basically to start asking around and figure out what position he was now in legally when it came to the terms of therapist and Patient confidentiality and I guess, not knowing what he could or could not say. Then Ozil went up to Judalon and they started talking about everything that just happened. But apparently when he was talking about it right after the fact, he was explaining it in a hypothetical manner and without using names, even though she clearly knew who he was talking about, because she was literally there. She was present and listening in on what they confessed anyway. Eric initially called Ozil for an emergency session and to confess because he says that he was so emotionally distraught and completely drained that he was having thoughts about ending his own life. He physically felt like he could not take another day carrying the biggest secret of his life around with him. And Lyle remembers that as soon as Ozil knew the truth, he didn't act in a normal way that a psychiatrist would. He wasn't supportive. He wasn't understanding. He did not approach it in a let me help you sort of way. Instead, he approached it by suggesting that they tape their confession. And it almost immediately felt like blackmail to Lyle. It's Ozil's story, backed by Judalance, that after the fact, after the confession, Lyle threatened him. That apparently as soon as they left his office, Lyle said to Eric, and now how do we kill Ozil? And Ozil claims that he did feel threatened and that he did want those tapes to have a recorded confession, to pretty much be able to use them as his safety net. Belle says that that wasn't the case. He felt like Ozil wanted the tapes because he wanted to be able to hold it over their heads. Because if Ozil did feel threatened, if he actually was scared that the brothers were going to come after him next, then he would have just gone to the police. But he clearly didn't think that his life was in danger because he didn't go to the police after their confession. And after Ozil told Judalon Smith everything that just happened, he also told his wife. Judalon Smith then later went to the police out of anger. She was pissed at Ozil and her reasoning of going to the police in the first place. It wasn't because she was going with intentions to tell on Lyle and Eric, and it was because she wanted to get Ozil arrested. The two of them knew each other because Judalon was actually a patient of Ozil's when they began their affair. Yeah, I told you he's an unethical guy. And she went to the police completely pissed off to report that he had sexually assaulted her. That was the thing that she was reporting that her ex boyfriend sexually assaulted her. And then she mentioned, oh, by the way, my ex boyfriend is the Menendez brother's psychiatrist. And by the way, they confess to killing their parents. And then they threatened to kill him and Ozil. And also, by the way, those confessions are taped. She claimed that after the confessions, Ozil was so scared that Lyle and Eric would come after him. So much so that he told his wife and kids to go stay somewhere else for a little while while he stayed at Judalon's house, because Lyle and Eric knew where he lived. And I guess he was claiming that he was scared, so he moved in with Judalon for a little bit. And then she claims that it turned from Ozil being scared, quote, unquote, scared of the boys and needing the tapes as blackmail, to then a weird excitement from Ozil about how close he was to the case. She said that he acted like he was so proud and happy that he had information about the case, the biggest piece of information that you could have that others did not. And that eventually it went from Ozil claiming that he was scared of his life to then trying to become a sort of father figure to the boys and trying to convince them that they needed him. Like, Ozio wanted to insert himself in the middle of this. And it sounds like he was just getting adrenaline over the fact that he was now holding this massive secret. And he told the boys that the tapes would never be released unless something happened to him. So he was still using the tapes as his safety net. But eventually he was also saying to Lyle and Eric, you guys need to trust me. You guys have to trust me, because I know the truth, and I will be the one and only person to back you should this information about the abuse come out. And as far as Ozil's behavior towards Judalon, she claimed that he began to constantly threaten her to not tell anyone about the confessions. She said that he was constantly holding it over her head to the point in which Judalon felt threatened in her own home. She felt like Ozil was holding her in a prison inside of her own home, and felt that he was only there to make sure that she kept her mouth shut. And then he tried to sexually assault her, and that pissed her off. And. And she went to the cops and told them everything. The defense tried so hard to keep those tapes out of court by arguing that it was protected under doctor patient confidentiality. But of course, the prosecution was trying to do everything in their power to get the tapes to play in court as evidence. And the final decision was ultimately made by the California Supreme Court. They had to decide whether the facts of the case were sufficient enough to get a waiver to waive the psychotherapist patient privilege. And before the trial even started, years before the trial. But while Eric and Lyle were already in custody awaiting trial, while the Supreme Court was waiting to make the decision on whether the tapes would be admissible in court or not, the LA County Sheriff's Office come out. They have an announcement. They announced to the public that Lyle and Eric Menendez have just attempted to escape prison. And because they supposedly tried to escape, that gave law enforcement an excuse to go into their cells to search them. And in the search, they found a 17 page letter from Lyle written to Eric. And in the letter, he spoke about their father, about everything that they felt towards him, about what he did to them. It was an extremely, extremely emotional letter, but it was also a written confession. He wrote about killing their parents and wrote out exactly why they did it. And two weeks later, authorities go back to the public and say, never mind, guys. Eric and Lyle never tried to escape jail. False alarm. But officers finding that letter in Eric's cell meant that they now had a written confession. And at the end of the letter, Lyle had written, destroy this after you read it. So it kind of felt like, oh, we were just trying to say that they escaped so that we would have a reason to go inside of their cells to search them, hoping that we would find something to be able to use against them. And actually, we found our golden ticket. We found a written confession. So now we have what we need. So sorry, guys, about lying to you and saying that they were trying to escape, because they literally were not. And at this point, obviously, the confession to Ozil had already happened. The tapes were already being discussed, but the decision on whether or not they could be used in court was not made yet. So Lyle and Eric truly had no idea if the prosecution was even gonna have a confession to use against them. But after the letter was found, that was the thing that, to Lyle and Eric meant that there was no turning back now. Now they would have to tell everyone that they killed their parents. Now their cousins, their aunts, their uncles, their grandma would learn the truth about what really happened eventually as well. It was ruled that not all, but some of the tapes would be admissible in trial. But when the letter was found, that was also the point in which Leslie approached her client, Eric Menendez, and she told him, okay, now the secret is out. It was kind of like, all cards need to be on the table now. Now it's time to talk finally about what really happened, about your relationship with your father and what he put you through. And you need to tell me everything so that I can then stand in that courtroom and defend you. I need to be able to understand why you two felt the need to do this so that I can defend you to the best of my ability. And Eric says that Leslie Abramson provided him with such a safe space to talk. He said that he got really lucky having her as his lawyer because he, it took a while for him to let his walls down. But over time he did. And over time, him and Leslie got really, really close. She was the perfect mix of empathetic, but also professional. And most importantly, she believed him. So Ozil takes the stand in court. He's put on the stand while the prosecution is still presenting their case because obviously he was their biggest primary witness. And Leslie Abramson then has such a strong cross examination with Ozil. And that cross ends up lasting six days in itself. Leslie accused Ozil of twisting the story to make himself look important and questioned why he hadn't taken any notes during the sessions with the brothers. She also brought up his inappropriate behavior towards his ex girlfriend on top of the fact that he was unfaithful to his wife. And she painted him out to be what he is, a very, very sleazy guy. For six days, Leslie absolutely grilled him, trying to show the jury that he was not trustworthy and that their verdict should not rely on the words that come out of his mouth. The prosecution claimed that the entire point of Ozil being a shitty person, let's call it what it is, they said that it was just a tactic to distract the jury. The last big witness for the prosecution was Eric's old best friend, Craig Signorelli. Craig was important to the prosecution's case for a couple of reasons. First one being that Craig was claiming that Eric confessed to him about killing their parents in September of 1989. So only around 10 days after the murders, he said that he confessed to him while they were inside of their house on Elm Drive, even walking him through the room in which it happened. In Craig also spoke about a screenplay story that him and Eric had written years earlier. And this made up story, it was also a huge thing for the prosecution because the story was about a rich boy who murdered his parents for their inheritance money. And at times people of the public felt that the son in the story written by Eric had a lot of resemblances to Eric himself. In the screenplay, the eulogy, the son gives at his parents funeral reads, My father was not a man to show his emotions. I know that he loved his family and his close friends very much. I can only hope that he loved me as much as he loved all of you. Sometimes he would tell me that I was not worthy to be his son. When he did that, it would make me strive harder to go further to prove him that I was worthy. Just so I could hear the words, I love you son. Nothing I have ever done was good enough for this man and I never heard those words, end quote. Craig Signorelli said that Eric had described the real murder to him in chilling detail. However, when he was cross examined by his Leslie, he admitted that Eric might have just been, quote, playing a mind game. So it really kind of left it unclear whether the story he wrote actually had any real meaning behind it and what he did to his parents. Then it was the defense's turn to present their argument. Leslie Abramson stood in that courtroom and said that for 12 years, from the time that Eric was 6 years old to when he was 18, he was sexually abused by his father. She spoke about how it started off as inappropriate touching, but, quote, escalated in a carefully calculated pattern of grooming the child for his father's sexual gratification, end quote. She mentioned that the abuse included repeated acts of forcing Eric to massage Jose's private parts with his mouth, Jose touching Eric and his private parts, sodomy, rape, and the intentional infliction of pain by the use of foreign objects upon Eric's person. She also mentioned that the most recent time Jose abused Eric was only a week before the murders. And she stated, quote, jose Menendez obvious purpose was to use his child's body to satisfy his lust, end quote. So she, along with Lyle's defense team as well, also spoke about how the abuse wasn't only sexual but also very much emotional and psychological. The defense had witnesses on the stand, including family members of the boys, to talk about their experience with Jose and what they saw when they interacted with a family. Multiple family members testified that they often heard Jose beat Lyle and Eric with belts, leaving them with bruises all over their bodies. They said that this often happened when Jose thought that they were not doing well in sports or doing well enough in school. One of the cousins testified that when the boys were young, Jose would grab them by the hair and hold them underwater as a form of punishment. Another cousin testified that the boys told her about how their father would touch them. And that cousin said she was absolutely mortified when she heard. And the first Thing that she did was run to Kitty to tell her this information, but Kitty, she just dismissed it and she acted like she didn't believe her and acted like it wasn't true and, or that it didn't matter. And it was made evident by the defense that Jose Menendez was a horrible man, not only because of the way that he treated his kids, but literally because he was just an unpleasant person. We know that he was unfaithful to his wife. He was known to have been mistrust for eight years on top of multiple other girlfriends. He was literally incapable of remaining loyal because he wanted to sleep with every female that he met. And he was despised by nearly everyone who worked for him or around him. He loved to humiliate people and embarrass them in front of other co workers to make them feel stupid. He thrived off power, loved to fire people. And it was so bad, you guys, that when Jose was killed, people that worked for him, people in his office were speculating that one of them could have done it because they hated him that much. The trial lasted six months, and then Eric's jury was the first one to come back and announce that they were deadlock. They could not reach a verdict unanimously. Two weeks later, Lyle's jury comes back and says that they can't either. And with that, the State of California officially declares a mistrial and decides that this entire thing, this entire case, would be tried again. And it's really interesting because it felt like a battle of the genders in the jury. All of the women in the jury voted for manslaughter, but all of the men in the jury voted for murder. And some of the men in the jury who spoke to reporters afterwards said that they didn't vote for manslaughter because there's just no way that a father would do that to his own children. A dad doesn't do that. So it was murder, plain and simple. That second trial started in 1995, but that time around it was a completely different story because the judge didn't allow TV cameras inside of the courtroom. And that was partly because of OJ Simpson's trial. That trial overlapped with the Menendez trial, and OJ's trial, as we know, was a complete media circus, as was the first Menendez trial. So I'd like, I think that the judge probably wanted to avoid that happening again for a third time. But OJ's trial was in full swing while the Menendez second trial began in October of 1995. OJ Simpson was found not Guilty. In October, he was acquitted of his charges while the Menendez trial was still ongoing. And five months after his acquittal, the Menendez brothers are found guilty of first degree murder and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. And maybe this is just my opinion, but the verdict of O.J. simpson's trial was so controversial, so many people of the public were pissed that he was found not guilty. Which leads me to believe that then the court felt such pressure to convict someone to avoid having that same reaction, so they found the brothers guilty. I think that in some people's eyes, it was like, okay, well, we failed to convict OJ So we have to make sure that we convict the Menendez brothers. And now we get to where this case stands today. So again, it was never a question of did they do it or did they not. It was always about the why. And their why was because their father abused them. But it was decided that there was not enough solid evidence to prove that. So it was decided that their claims could have been made up and could have been completely fabricated. But now, since then, new evidence has come to light showing the solid proof that they once lacked. Eric's cousin Andy, passed away years ago. But when he did, while looking through his belongings, a letter was discovered. The letter was written by Eric to Andy months before the murders. And it reads, quote, I've been trying to avoid dad. It's still happening, Andy, but it's worse for me now. Every night I stay up thinking that he might come in. I'm afraid he's crazy. End quote. That letter is written proof that the abuse was happening way before the public ever learned about it, way before the brothers ever killed their parents. Not only that, but also, remember how we talked about Jose Menendez's career at RCA Records, the record label company when he was a record executive in the 1980s, he worked with the boy band Menudo. Roy Rosello, who was a part of that band, Menudo, has come forward saying that he was raped by Jose Menendez when he was only 13 years old. He said that it was so terrible that it left him in terrible pain, physical pain, for weeks. His confession completely throws out the prosecution's argument that Jose Menendez was not the type of person to abuse a child. And that new evidence brings in an entirely new argument that not only did Jose do that to his own sons, but he did it as well to someone outside of that family. More than once. Because of that new evidence, along with the letter, the Menendez's lawyer is saying, listen, we need to take another look at this case and the boys need to be released. They served their time. Now it's time to let them free and finally end this case. A judge recently resentenced the brothers, making them immediately eligible for parole. They will appear before a parole board on August 21 and August 22 of this year. The parole board then gets to determine if they are eligible for parole and and if it's ruled that they are, then the governor will be able to review the decision and ultimately make the final call on whether they can be released or not. Crazy, crazy case that feels like it's been going on for hundreds of years. But that is my wrap up on the Menendez brothers case. Let me know your thoughts on this. If you're not in the group chat on Instagram, go over to the group chat because once this is live, I'm going to be talking about it in there and what you guys think as far as them getting released or not released and just overall your opinions on the case. But yeah, I hope you guys are having the best day. If not, go do something to make it the best day. Make somebody happy and I will see you in my next video. Massive kiss on the forehead to every single one of you. Thank you 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 is also available on YouTube. Love you.