Lyle and Erik Menéndez

Lyle and Erik Menéndez are a killing team imprisoned for the murders of their parents, José and Kitty Menéndez, in 1989, in a highly publicized criminal case and trial in 90s California.

Background[]

The Menéndez brothers were born to José and Mary Louise "Kitty" Menéndez (nee Andersen). José is a Cuban-born accountant, who originally followed his family in professional athletics, until he worked to get his degree in accounting. Kitty studied for school-teaching and left behind a household where her father beat her mother and the family's kids. José and Kitty met at Southern Illinois University, eventually marrying. Joseph Lyle Menéndez was born on January 10, 1968 in New York City, Erik Galen Menéndez on November 27, 1970 in Blackwood, New Jersey, Kitty quitting her job shortly after Lyle was born to support the family. The marriage was shaken, but not broken, by José's numerous affairs. José held executive positions in multiple companies, including Lyon Container, Hertz, RCA Records, and Artisan Entertainment. The family moved to Beverly Hills, California for José's final position of employment. José always wanted to be called "Joe" in the office, to acclimate and show his work prowess over his white colleagues. He also left the family estate to his sons in the vent he and Kitty died.

The brothers had mostly average academic performance and were reported by news outlets as loners in school and codependent on each other, as well as manchildish, Lyle still struggling with bedwetting as a teenager. Lyle hoped for a business partnership with José for opening a restaurant, which José refused due to his expectations for his sons to have Ivy League educations. Lyle was probated for poor grades at Princeton University, as well as suspended for plagiarism. His employment at Artisan by José's encouragement didn't last long either, as colleagues disliked his disinterest in the work and his personality. When Lyle wanted to marry Jamie Pisarcik, José refused to give his blessing, believing Lyle too young to marry. Erik took up tennis and practiced with future player and coach Michael Joyce. Kitty pushed him to find a girlfriend out of being homophobic and fearing Erik was gay, but he was too controlling and uncommitted to maintain a relationship. The brothers committed burglaries where they lived, but José covered for them by making Erik take the blame and getting sentences heavily reduced. The brothers overall learned from José to blame their problems on other people, while José would pick up after their scrutiny. when Lyle's last girlfriend Christy was pregnant, José bribed her into an abortion. With Lyle's grades and Erik's tennis performance faltering, the family grew distant. Psychotherapist Jerome Oziel, court-appointed to the brothers after the burglaries, informed Kitty her sons were sociopaths when Erik agreed Oziel update her on their sessions, so much so Kitty locked all the house's shotguns in her room while she slept.

By certain accounts, the brothers sexually abused their cousin, Diane Molen, on at least two occasions, specifically while she visited the family in 1982. She also heard, among other family members, varied accounts from Lyle and Erik that their parents sexually abused them for years, which divided their entire extended family over the validity and significance of their accounts.

Murders and Trials[]

On August 20, 1989, Lyle and Erik grabbed two shotguns, went into the den where José and Kitty were watching TV, and killed them with multiple blasts from the weapons. They shortly thereafter settled on the local Taste of L.A. festival for an alibi later that evening, having had trouble with the movies when the time stamps would've given the brothers away if investigated. Shortly before midnight, Lyle called 911 to report the crime, and the brothers presented themselves as extremely emotional and distraught once running out of the house to greet responding police. They weren't tested for gunshot residue. Lyle and Erik spent the next several months applying for their full family estate, spending exceedingly after arranging a lavish funeral for their parents. The leading investigator, Detective Les Zoeller, who worked on the "Billionaire Boys Club" murder case, suspected them once he was informed Lyle hired an expert to wipe the hard drive of Kitty's computer. Oziel and Lyle's friend Craig Cignarelli reported that Erik confessed to the murders, saying Lyle and he feared they'd be disinherited by José, Oziel himself being threatened by Lyle, who also fought with Erik over his confessions. Oziel surrendered Erik's session tapes and notes under court order, and the brothers were arrested in separate dates in March 1990, Erik after returning from tennis tournaments in Israel. Court-ordered handwriting samples from the brothers matched the forged signatures for the shotguns used to kill José and Kitty.

The tapes were stricken from the record of the trials, Lyle and Erik being prosecuted separately for their roles in the murders. Their defense leaned primarily on their admission of the murders, but without culpability due to rape trauma as a consequence of José and Kitty. Prosecutor Pam Bozanich saw outrage, and still does today, over denying that men can be raped during the trial. The prosecution called 26 witnesses, the defense calling 50, which was the final count after reducing the count from 90 witnesses. On January 25, 1994, the juries remained deadlocked, resulting in declarations of mistrials. The brothers were swiftly brought to retrials which began in February 1995. The prosecution called 30 witnesses, the defense 25 witnesses. On March 20, 1996, Lyle and Erik were found guilty on murder and conspiracy to murder charges, with special circumstances. In April, the jury formally recommended life imprisonment for the brothers, arguing they had no past criminal records and execution was too severe. The judge accordingly sentenced both Lyle and Erik to consecutive life without parole sentences on the charges.

Aftermath[]

Numerous legal and medical officials involved in the case were fired, resigned, or were transferred after the trial's conclusion. Prosecutor Leslie Abramson was investigated for three years for telling Dr. William Vicary, Erik's appointed prison psychiatrist, to suppress details in his notes, but she faced no penalties. The Menendez brothers remain incarcerated as maximum security prisoners, having reunited after being separated by the correctional system for 22 years in April 2018. They've both married, though Lyle's first wife divorced him after she found out he was writing to another woman. All their appeals have been denied, but the most recognized one was recently filed in 2023, when Puerto Rican boy band singer Roy Rosselló reported he was drugged and raped by José when Rosselló was 14. The appeal is currently being reviewed.

The Menéndez murders case remains one of the most highly publicized crimes in American history. Numerous documentaries and TV films have been released over the murders and ensuing trial, along with crime shows writing episode scripts alluding to the cases, including Law & Order, CSI, Criminal Minds, and Rizzoli & Isles. The case has been the subject of numerous parodies in various fiction media and comedy skits. The only season of Law & Order: True Crime was centered around the Menéndez case, as well as the second season of Monster. Erik released a public statement denouncing the production as complete sensationalism, to which co-creator Ryan Murphy responded more so with bragging about the production's attention.

Modus Operandi[]

Since the Menéndez brothers only killed two people in one attack, the term "M.O." is misused. The brothers killed their parents with multiple Mossberg shotgun blasts, José dying almost instantly while on the couch, Kitty continuously, particularly when trying to crawl away. The brothers retrieved more ammunition from the car at the house to continue shooting. They concentrated some shots on their parents' legs, to misdirect the police with staging the crime as a mob hit. When the police didn't arrive, they threw out their bloody clothes, buried the shotguns, and went to look for an alibi, settling on the movies and the Taste of L.A. Festival. They pretended to "find" José and Kitty dead and called the police once they returned home.

Known Victims[]

August 20, 1989, Beverly Hills, California, United States: José and Mary Louis "Kitty" Menéndez (shot with Mossberg shotguns)
- José Menéndez (shot six times)
- Kitty Menéndez (shot ten times)

On Criminal Minds[]

The Menéndez brothers' mugshots appeared in the show's opening credits.

On Suspect Behavior[]

Season One
- "The Time is Now" - While never directly mentioned in the franchise, the Menéndez brothers appear to be the primary inspiration for Veronica Day - Both cases involve sons of couples who were murdered with shotguns, the defendants were painted as manipulative psychopaths, their defenses were that they were victims of violent crime, and they filed appeals for retrial (though only Day was successful), only to remain in prison, and the defendants in both cases eventually confessed to their roles in the murders.

On Evolution[]

Season One
- "Pay-Per-View" - While never directly mentioned in the franchise, the Menéndez brothers appear to be inspirations for Gael and Jude Bruneau - Both are sibling teams of murderers with codependent relationships, primarily targeted their families, lived in affluent neighborhoods on coastal states in the U.S., had histories of burglaries before their attacks on their families, and defended their crimes as retaliation over trauma from their families' past actions.

Lyle and Erik Menéndez

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