Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Season Five Home For the Holidays 22
1 Plays1 minute ago
In Today’s Episode, we put together our Home for the Holiday cases.
This podcast was made possible by www.labrottiecreations.com Check out their merchandise and specifically their fun pop pet art custom pieces made from photos of your very own pets. Use the promo code CRIMEXS for 20% off a fun, brightly colored, happy piece of art of your own pet at their site.
Music in this episode was licensed for True Crime XS by slip.fm. The song is “No Scars”.
You can reach us at our website truecrimexs.com and you can leave us a voice message at 252-365-5593. Find us most anywhere with @truecrimexs
Thanks for listening. Please like and subscribe if you want to hear more and you can come over to patreon.com/truecrimexs and check out what we’ve got going on there if you’d like to donate to fund future True Crime XS road trip investigations and FOIA requests. We also have some merchandise up at Teepublic http://tee.pub/lic/mZUXW1MOYxM
Sources:
Various News Sources Mentioned by Name
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Case Overview
00:00:00
Speaker
The content you're about to hear may be graphic in nature. Listener discretion is advised.
00:00:22
Speaker
This is True Crime XS.
00:00:29
Speaker
So when we were recording the original Home for the Holiday series, I thought about this, but I only thought about it because some recent media had come out, and you had mentioned it to me. You were like, hey, it's not terrible. I used to check it out. I have i've known about this story for a while. Everybody has. it's one of the It's honestly one of the biggest cases in true crime history. I would say the only thing I can think of that like exists in the same level of like time and notoriety as this
00:01:06
Speaker
happens a little after this, and that's the O.J. Simpson murders. So, us sitting down and doing this. Oh, that's interesting. That's interesting that you think. And there's a lot of the same people,
Background of the Menendez Family
00:01:19
Speaker
yeah. Right. a ah Yeah, because this was in LA. Yeah, this would have been the the gist of all of this happens basically in Beverly Hills. So, yeah, it's, you know, Southern California.
00:01:34
Speaker
And, you know, i've I've looked at this case and I've looked at this case and I come from a defense perspective with a lot of the things that we do. I'm always up for like novel defense ideas. ah This has one of the most interesting ones and um I included this episode kind of at the last minute and like you and I were we were done with home for the holidays and As of this recording, I like less than 24 hours before we're sitting down to record this. I found myself suddenly sitting and listening to a lot of really familiar voices. and I sat in on this long Fox 11 press conference related to this case.
00:02:10
Speaker
And Christina Gonzalez was there. who She's been at Fox 11 forever. um And Christina Devine was there. she's all They both were people who covered this case over the years because this this is truly ah a sprawling case. We have to set it up a little bit with like some backstory, but we're going to keep it as as simple as possible so that we can discuss like the update and like sort of the effect on true crime of this case. The story begins with the parents in this case.
00:02:40
Speaker
And I'm not really going to like hide it. and I'm just going to like walk you through the facts. Jose Enrique Menendez was born in Havana, Cuba in May of 1944. At the beginning of the Cuban Revolution, which would have been 16 years later, he moves to the United States. He goes to Southern Illinois, and he meets a woman there named Mary Louise Anderson. In 1963, they get married. They move to New York City.
00:03:09
Speaker
Jose finishes his degree at Queens College. The degree that he gets is an accounting. Now, without bearing the lead, Mary Louise's nickname is Kitty. So this is Jose and Kitty. The couple's first son, Joseph, he is born on January 10th of 1968 in New York. Mom quits her teaching job after he's born. The family moves down to New Jersey and their second son, Eric,
00:03:37
Speaker
is born November 27th, 1970 in New Jersey. They live in a Hopewell Township. The boys attend Princeton Day School there. I know I called him Joseph, but the audience is going to know him as Lyle. Jose, he starts doing very well. He becomes an executive at Hertz Corporation, like the rental cars. And later on, he moves to RCA Records.
00:04:02
Speaker
He is appointed the CEO of Live Entertainment. So Live Entertainment or Artisan Entertainment is a major North American video and entertainment distribution outlet. Today they own tons of movies that you would be familiar with in television shows that they have acquired over the years. When he's appointed as a CEO, the family moves out to Calabasas, California. Eric goes to Calabasas High School. In 1988, there was a series of robberies committed in the Calabasas neighborhood. It turns out that Lyle and Eric were behind these robberies. They had stolen more than $100,000 in cash and jewelry.
00:04:45
Speaker
At this point in time, the dad picks up the family and he moves them to Beverly Hills. The following year, Eric goes to Beverly Hills High School. He earns decent grades, but he ends up being really talented at tennis. As a junior in high school, he's ranked 44th in the United States.
Criminal Activities and the Murders
00:05:04
Speaker
About two weeks before the incident we're going to talk about today, Eric and a friend of his named Michael Joyce, who is a professional tennis player, a I guess former professional tennis player at this point, and now he's a coach.
00:05:18
Speaker
who rose really high in the ATP singles rankings in the mid-90s. They're entering the 1989 Boy's Junior National Tennis Championship. Now, Lyle, the older brother, he goes to Princeton University. He does some stuff that doesn't help his cause in the long run. He doesn't get great grades. He gets suspended from school, kind of in a situation that his father tries to get him out of but can't. Ultimately, the suspension is for plagiarism. he caused all kinds of issues related to the honor code and university rules. And that kind of brings us to August of 1989. Do you have anything to say about the early days of this story? No. Okay. I will say I love tennis, so that part is always fascinating to me. On August 18th of 1989, Lyle and Eric go on a shopping spree, but it's not a typical shopping spree.
00:06:18
Speaker
They're driving around Southern California figuring out how to buy handguns. So there were some issues with their identification. And at the time, there would have been a two week waiting period. So because they can't buy these handguns, even though they've tried a couple of different places, they decide that they're going to buy a couple of shotguns. So they acquire Mossberg 12 gauge shotguns and ammunition at a big five sporting goods store down in San Diego. california eric in order to do this, he uses a stolen driver's license from one of Lyle's friends named Donovan. On the night of August 20th, 1989, so they just spent on a shopping spree. Less than 48 hours have passed. Jose and his wife are watching television in the den of their huge Beverly Hills home. Lyle and Eric enter the home. They're carrying the shotguns. The shotguns are loaded. Jose is shot six times.
00:07:15
Speaker
He gets a fatal shot to the back of the head. Kitty, his wife, is shot 10 times. Before the fatal shot to her face, she was on the ground crawling away from whoever shot her. Lyle runs to the car, Eric hands him ammunition to reload, and that's when the final shot is fired that kills Kitty. This is a straight up cold-blooded murder between Eric and Lyle on their parents. Immediately after the killings, they wait around thinking the police are gonna come because of the sound of the gunshots, 12 gauges are c incredibly loud. Then they leave, they dispose of their clothes. They bury the shotguns along Mulholland Drive. Then they start to set up their alibi. They go to a movie theater. They attempt to purchase tickets for the film Batman. They abandoned this plan because the idea was they were going to go say the 8 o'clock movie is playing. They're going to go into the 8 o'clock movie late.
00:08:11
Speaker
And they try and get the ticket even though the ticket is for an hour and a half ago because they're there at 930. Does that make sense? Right, and the they wouldn't sell it to them. Yeah, they won't sell them the tickets. So they head over to this food festival called the Taste of l LA. They set up time where they see people and they kind of make themselves known. and then they return home and there's no police So at this point, Lyle gets on the phone and he calls 911. He emotionally tells the operator that someone has killed his parents. The story he gives is that they had just come home and they discovered the bodies. Eric is heard screaming and crying in the background.
00:08:48
Speaker
When the officers arrive, Lyle and Eric run out of the house towards the officers screaming and crying. So the police get there. They don't seek out gunshot or paraffin residue tests from the brothers. This would have told them if either one of them had recently discharged the firearm.
00:09:05
Speaker
Lyle and Eric tell the officers that they were somewhere else at the time in the killings, and Lyle speculates that some of the things in his father's world might be kind of shady, and that this could be some type of professional mob assassination. According to police officers and the crime scene techs and the medical examiner staff that work this crime scene, they describe it as one of the most brutal crime scenes they'd ever encountered. They note that there is blood and brain matter all over this, the room in this house where these people are killed. ah According to Dan Stewart, who was a police detective, he said, I've seen a lot of homicides, blood, flesh, skulls, but nothing quite that brutal. It would be hard to describe, especially Jose,
00:09:50
Speaker
as resembling a human that you would recognize. That's how bad this was. According to the autopsy report, one blast caused explosive decapitation with evisceration of the brain and a deformity of the face to Jose. While the first rounds of shots that struck Kitty in her chest, her right arm, her left hip, her left leg, the contact shot caused multiple lacerations to the brain. So detectives, they do entertain the idea that maybe this is some kind of professional ah situation where an assassination has been ordered just because of how brutal it is and because of how well-known Jose is in the entertainment industry and the other businesses that he's touched along the way. But the brothers, Lyle and Eric,
00:10:34
Speaker
After the killings, they decide it is now time to go on spinning sprees. They buy restaurants, and one of them is in New Jersey. I think another one is in LA. They buy sports cars. They buy Rolex watches. Eric hires a full-time tennis coach, and he starts competing overseas in tournaments, which is an incredibly expensive way
Investigation and Arrest
00:10:56
Speaker
to spend your money. The brothers eventually leave the Beverly Hills mansion and they they get a pair of condominiums in Marina del Rey, California, and they live it up. They take overseas trips. They go to the Caribbean, they go to London, they go all around the world. They managed to spend about $700,000. There's a famous basketball card. i don't Have you ever seen a Mark Jackson trading card?
00:11:23
Speaker
no So they're at a New York Knicks basketball game and a photo is taken of a player and it becomes his his centerpiece photo on his card, like a trading card, and they are sitting in the background courtside.
00:11:39
Speaker
So August 20th, 1989 was the murder date. They will not be arrested until March 8th of 1990 for Lyle and March 11th of 1998 for Eric. The way that we get to arrest is pretty interesting. There's a couple of things that come into play here. The police began to suspect that the brother's spending and the idea that they were going to be cut out of their parents' inheritance is the motivation for these killings.
00:12:07
Speaker
Eric has a high school friend who says that he and Eric had been writing a screenplay, which depicted a son killing his his wealthy parents for their inheritance. They wire this high school friend Craig up, and he has lunch with Eric with the wire on. And when Craig asked Eric if he did it, Eric denies it. So police have also heard from a friend of Lyle's named Glenn Stevens.
00:12:33
Speaker
And Glenn Stevens says that one week after the killings, Lyle made a sudden trip back home from Princeton to do something to the family computer. Glenn says that Kyle told him a family member had found a new will and I went there to erase it. A computer expert hired by Lyle also said that he was hired to ensure that a new will that Jose had been preparing that may or may not have left less or nothing to his sons was deleted forever. They end up in a situation where Eric
00:13:07
Speaker
is going to see a psychologist, and the psychologist is someone that he tells the whole story to. The psychologist ends up telling his mistress, and he begins to record his sessions with Eric, and he brings Lyle into the sessions. When the fiance and the psychologist break up, the fiance goes to the police, and she tells the police that the psychologist has evidence of the brother's involvement in the murders.
00:13:39
Speaker
That is ultimately how they're arrested. So Lyle is arrested outside of the Beverly Hills home. Eric turns himself in three days later because he's in Israel and he returns to Los Angeles. They are held without bond, separate from each other in the Los Angeles County jail. All right. So that's a lot of information in the first 15 minutes of this. Any thoughts so far on this? No, um I think the story's pretty well known. I mean, yeah, it has a lot of information, but we're just giving the summary of yeah the Menendez brothers, so it's not like a whole lot out of the blue or anything. Right. In August of 1990, a few months after they were arrested, the judge rules that these tapes of conversations between Eric and his shrink
00:14:29
Speaker
are admissible evidence. The reason he rules that way, which is really well laid out in this Netflix series that Ryan Murphy did, is because he considered his conversations with Lyle once Lyle is brought into these very bizarre ah counseling sessions to be threatening. And because Lyle had threatened him Albrecht rules that this violates doctor-patient privilege. Ordinarily, there are very limited circumstances where a therapist can disclose information from a client. Usually it has to do with danger to the client themselves or to other people. In this instance, it was danger potentially from the client's brother to the psychologist himself.
00:15:29
Speaker
Right, and typically, especially with when you're having um mental health treatment, it has to be they typically can't report you for past actions that you're seeking to work through.
00:15:45
Speaker
It has to be an imminent. Essentially what I'm saying is without the threat, like he the doctor couldn't just turn him in for killing his parents. Correct. It's a clear and present danger test. The rulings that Albrecht had made, they're appealed and it takes a long time to wind its way through the appellate courts to the Supreme Court of California, a little over two years. The end result in August of 1992, the California Supreme Court ends up ruling that most of these tapes are going to be admissible, except they exclude the tape in which Eric discusses with his psychologist directly the murders. So after this decision, the prosecutor takes us before the Los Angeles County grand jury and indictments end up being issued in December of 1992. So that's these guys have been in jail for over two years.
00:16:40
Speaker
That's gonna be a very long time ago, which I did not realize until I like sat down and looked at all of this.
The Trial and Defense Strategies
00:16:46
Speaker
But essentially, that is, by the time people are hearing this, that's gonna be 32 years ago. yep It charges the brothers with the murder of their parents. And they also end up getting a tag on for this for special circumstances. And that tag on is that the special circumstances were. The killings were committed for financial gain. This is ultimately excluded as being unsupported by the evidence, and it doesn't make its way to the trial. that They were trying to use that
00:17:21
Speaker
to get them the death penalty and they ended up having to go a different route. So they're charged with two counts of first degree murder, but the special circumstances that they're hit with are called lying in wait. All right. So I'm not going to go deep into this, but do you understand special circumstances or the factors that are involved here? Yeah. Okay. And you understand lying and wait. Yeah. Okay. Do you want me to explain it?
00:17:47
Speaker
Well, I'm wondering, I think most people will know what lying in wait is, but it's basically hiding and waiting for someone that you're going to kill or hurt. It would be the opposite of a heat of passion. Correct. it's a Yes, it's used to establish premeditation in a particularly heinous crime. Right. And usually it demonstrates that while you're lying there waiting, you could have decided not to do it.
00:18:15
Speaker
Yeah, you could have done the right thing instead. That's the idea. So the first trial starts in 1993. There's a lot of lawyers involved here. The main ones to remember are Leslie Abramson and Jill Lansing. Leslie Abramson represents Eric and Jill Lansing represents a Lyle.
00:18:33
Speaker
After a period of time of like sort of negotiation before the trial, they come to the decision that they're going to use the defense that the brothers were killing their parents out of fear for their lives after what was essentially a lifetime of abuse that had the mitigating factor of being sexually abused by their father. They go a little bit different way with mom, and they basically say that mom was unstable, she was absent due to substance abuse, alcohol, and various drugs, and that she was enabling her husband's behavior, and that she also encouraged it, and that she herself had been violent towards Lyle and Eric. How accurate all of that is but will become one of the biggest, most contentious parts
00:19:24
Speaker
of these court proceedings. So this revelation that people are talking about now that they were sexually abused, like being is is new, it's not new.
00:19:35
Speaker
Just so you guys are aware, this is from the first trial. Lyle had said that his father began abusing him when he was six years old. He stopped around two years later, never explained it. And then Eric said that he was abused up until shortly before the murders. Lyle took that to mean that essentially his father stopped abusing him and he started abusing Eric. Eric testified that two weeks before the killings, he told Lyle about the abuse that he was experiencing.
00:20:03
Speaker
And this had started a series of violent confrontations within the family. Both brothers testified that their father had said he would kill them if they did not keep the abuse secret. As a result, their story is they were purchasing the shotguns for protection and self-defense. They alleged that the final confrontation occurred on the night of the murder shortly before Kitty and Jose were killed.
00:20:28
Speaker
According to their testimony, Jose walked over to close the den's door during an argument, and they described it as unusual. they said that they were afraid that they would be killed by their parents. So they went outside, they loaded their shotguns, they came back in. And according to Eric's testimony, the minute he walked into the room, he started firing. Under California law, the brothers could only be acquitted for murder. Like there are ranges of murder, but any murder, but particularly manslaughter. If they could prove they were in immediate or imminent danger. Otherwise they've committed some degree of murder. And like you said,
00:21:05
Speaker
the premeditation matters here as to what the degree would be. The prosecution makes an argument that there was no evidence of any kind of imminent danger or self-defense. They argued that the way the brothers purchased these shotguns was contradicting the the concept of anything below a premeditated first-degree murder, including that they were acting in some kind of self-defense. They used the tape conversation between the brothers and Eric's shrink, where the brothers told the shrink
00:21:36
Speaker
that they had planned out what was going to happen ahead of time. The prosecutor argues that the sexual abuse allegations were made up and that nobody mentioned abuse until seven months after the murders when a legal defense was being formulated. And they also tell the jurors that mention of sexual abuse is completely absent in all of the notes and the tapes that happened in the counseling sessions. They said that Eric did not mention any abuse when he confessed to this, allegedly to his friend Craig, when they were writing the screenplay. And the prosecution tells jurors throughout the trial
00:22:11
Speaker
that lyle and eric were basically pathological liars they were capable of lying frequently and in great detail to avoid being called and this is a situation where they would be capable of lying about child abuse sexual abuse and anything else they needed to to avoid capital punishment. They use Lyle's 911 call with all the information now in context to show that Lyle is clearly an excellent performer. Prior to the trial, Lyle had offered his girlfriend Jamie
00:22:45
Speaker
money if she would lie for him in the trial and claim that Jose had made sexual advances towards her. Jamie reported this to the police. Before Lyle was handed off during his direct testimony so that he could be cross-examined by the prosecution, he admits to his attorney that he had done this, among other things. A young lady named Diane, who was Lyle and Eric's cousin, she testified that during a stay with the family in the mid-1970s,
00:23:14
Speaker
Lyle had confided in her that his father was sexually abusing him. She claimed that she told her mom about the incident, but that mom sided with Jose and mom actually accused Lyle of lying. After this, according to Diane, Kitty had sent Lyle upstairs and this issue never came up again.
00:23:40
Speaker
Under questioning from the prosecutor, Diane said she never witnessed the abuse. Now, Lyle said that Diane was the only person that he ever told of the abuse. But there was another cousin that came forward, Andy Cano. He alleged that as a child, Eric had told him about the abuse. And they both had described this as, quote, genital massages.
00:24:03
Speaker
Prosecutors tried to pin Andy in a corner and basically get him to admit that he was lying to protect his cousins from the death penalty. And he said that's not the case. The defense presented faceless photographs of baby boys from the waist down.
00:24:21
Speaker
And Lyle alleged that these photos have been taken by their father when they were very small. The prosecution argued that there was no evidence that photographs have been taken by Jose and that the photos were found on a roll of film in sort of in between photos from a children's birthday party. ah That's one of the most chilling things I've heard in all of this. The murders themselves are chilling. But the fact that there's a birthday party going on and then all of a sudden there's these two naked boys And then there's more birthday party pictures was bizarre to me. Well, don't you think it was the kids taking pictures? I don't know. I have no idea. It could have been. Yeah. But that's a different time in terms of like you actually had to in the if you're in the 70s or 80s, you actually had to have like some experience using a camera to get a roll of film like
00:25:13
Speaker
in it and and to use it. if somebodys take I guess they could have picked it up while it's at the party sitting on the table or something. Right. That's what I'm saying. like it was like They're literally snapping pictures. Yeah. i would ah that That definitely could be what it happened. i have I remember when I was small taking pictures that made no sense to anyone of my feet and like other people and being yelled at by my mom for wasting film. and I did it with a Polaroid camera once and you would have thought that like I had committed a robbery. Right, and yeah.
00:25:44
Speaker
Pictures were a lot different. So they introduced the evidence of taped therapy between the brothers and Eric's counselor. Despite the fact that the the defense had been trying to exclude it, the prosecution used the tapes to disprove the abuse claims in their like in their case in chief. And they said the brothers don't mention it here, therefore it couldn't be real. But they did complain about their father being dictorial or a dictatorial. I don't know how you would pronounce that, but like like a dictator.
00:26:12
Speaker
and that their mother would be suicidal. Lyle stated that by killing their mother that he might have been doing her and the children, Lyle and Eric, a favor by putting her out of her misery. And he felt like they had shown a great amount of courage by killing her. According to the psychologist, he said they didn't kill their parents for money, but out of hatred.
00:26:31
Speaker
and out of a desire to be free from their father's domination, his messages of inadequacy, and impossible standard. The next person who like kind of comes in here is Anne Burgess. And I wanted to ask you, do you know who Anne Burgess is? I don't know. Who is Anne Burgess?
00:26:52
Speaker
but you Did you see the series, Mind Hunters, about like the early profiling by the FBI? like That was on Netflix? Yeah. Ann Burgess is the woman. So all those books I have, like the sexual homicide books and like the different books about profiling that sit on my shelf, yeah she's mentioned with Robert Ressler and she's mentioned with John Douglas. She's the third person. She was a a psychiatric clinical nurse specialist and she focused on the trauma and abuse side of things, but like she was really into serial ah predators. I think she might actually still be alive now that I'm saying that. I don't want to say it like she's no longer with us, but the picture I have in my head of her is from a very long time ago. She testifies at the Menendez trial. She argues that the shrink in this case, the therapist, was manipulative and controlling.
00:27:45
Speaker
And that she feels like once he started taping, he was sort of directing the conversation so that the brothers would say certain things on the tape. Now, his fiance gets up and, you know, hell hath no fury.
00:28:02
Speaker
he the woman who has, you know, broken up with him, ever what role she has in his life, she testified that she viewed what psychologists had done as being trying to control the brothers.
00:28:15
Speaker
when he was taping the sessions. She gets challenged by the prosecution, noting that she is the one who ultimately turned in ah the Menendez brothers and made the police aware of the tapes. But she had joined the defense in the prosecution's mind simply to discredit the tapes and the the counselor. They testify about some of the things they did related to the the abuse itself. There were some things that that don't come in, but like i I think it still exists in testimony form like done outside the presence of the jury. I think some of that's leaked over the years and some of it is quite weird.
00:28:52
Speaker
The prosecution wanted to bring in the screenplay that Lyle had written with the guy Craig. we We talked about ultimately the judge rules against that, saying the play is so far afield and so far ahead in time of the shooting because it's when they're in early high school that it doesn't seem to be relevant.
Trial Outcomes and Sentencing
00:29:13
Speaker
I believe it was Eric. I'm sorry, did I say Lyle there? I believe Eric was the one that wrote the screenplay. Well, whoever had written the screenplay It's it doesn't come out. There are multiple things that were like in that Ultimately were labeled as being too prejudicial for a jury There this includes like some of the stuff that was related to the burglaries they had committed But they did get some of it in with a defense witness so at this point we get the closing statements that
00:29:48
Speaker
the defense and the prosecution wrap up like everything I just mentioned. But there are issues coming to a verdict. the Both verdicts for the brothers are divided by gender. Female jurors were leaning towards voluntary manslaughter. Male jurors were pushing for first degree murder. This trial has a month's worth of deliberations. And both juries end up deadlocked, so Lyle's jury and Eric's jury, both deadlocked, and a mistrial is a announced. I will say that The prosecutor was at no time, essentially as soon as the mistrial was declared, the district attorney's office made an announcement that they were going back on trial.
00:30:29
Speaker
It's going to take till 1995 for the second trial to occur. At this point, the judges kind of had it with like all the publicity surrounding these cases. So there's no cameras or recording in the courtrooms. He says it's because he didn't want the jurors to be exposed to the case outside of the courtroom. Eric has about 15 days worth of testimony. I don't know if you've seen this, but it's a lot. um There was a lot of the jury going out and coming back in to to limit what he was saying. Right, because, you know, Lyle couldn't testify. Why could he not testify? Between the trials, he had met a girl that was basically cashing in, and he had told her everything in
00:31:16
Speaker
sort of an autobiographical way. And if he testified, he would be subject to cross on everything that was written. The chick had recorded him. Gotcha. So he couldn't testify and... ah this is That's better than a jailhouse snitch though. Well, it was recorded. So, you know,
00:31:41
Speaker
It was also damning. Yeah. And so they put Eric on the stand and it's not if you go back to the first trial and you watch Lyle's testimony, it was a it was a performance and Eric did not have that same jeanna zequa ah i would I would agree with that. That's kind of true about them from what I've seen of them over the years anyways. It's certainly true in how they've been interpreted by multiple documentaries and multiple autobiographical stories and biographical stories. The judge here limits the defense
00:32:26
Speaker
They only get 64 total witnesses. According to Eric, when he's testifying, he says that Jose had told him he was written out of the will. They do bring back on Jamie, who's Lyle's former fiance. ah she's the one that She's not the one that like testified about, she was not the one that would testify about the whole but recordings, right? She was the one that he was trying to pay off. Jamie was the one who he was trying to get to say that their father had assaulted her. Right. That's that's why I was remembering. I just wanted to... The girl that he... I don't know that she's named. Of course, supposedly something was released. So we could figure it out, but like whoever it was with somebody he met while he was incarcerated between the two trials. And he was under the very false impression that they were like madly in love while she was just taking him for a ride to get his story. to profit off of it. Gotcha. We have a couple things that happened with Lyle in addition to that. Lyle had written a seven page letter detailing how he would like his friend Brian to fabricate a story and that comes up at trial. Then we also have the prosecution bringing up another letter Lyle wrote to an ex-girlfriend named Tracy and that had come with instructions on how to testify. The defense disputes the authenticity on this. I can't remember how if Baker comes in or not. I do remember that the prosecutor hammers Eric on the timeframe in which he said that he had been assaulted and specifically what's strange about Eric's testimony here.
00:34:05
Speaker
and And this is one of the points I wanted to like ask you about. They go off on him about the fact that like once you're 18, you have a vehicle, you have money, the prosecutor wants to know like why would he stay at home if that's what's happening. Eric's answer was that ultimately this is the most powerful man he's ever met. He has no witnesses to back him up. Do you believe this? Do I believe that that's really what he believed?
00:34:31
Speaker
Yeah. I don't believe the story at all. Okay. I've never believed. I actually, so I was pretty young when this happened. um I remember it being on the news. I remember the lull in time between the murders and the arrest.
00:34:46
Speaker
Right. And then I don't know that I remember the second trial as because it wasn't it right after OJ's trial? Yeah. So the first trial was really publicized and it was ahead of OJ and then OJ's trial. And then this trial was less, uh, like we didn't have the footage of this trial. I feel like I was all trialed out because I would have been like a teenager and like, yeah I feel like, um, I would have taken less interest in this, but,
00:35:15
Speaker
So I remember this all happening in real time. I remember it being constantly on the news. I remember the horrible news that a couple in California and Beverly Hills, no last been murdered in their own home, like brutally murdered, right? yeah So I'm young and I never believed what was being said ever. I never believed it. I feel like the reason Eric said what he said was because that, I mean, what is he supposed to say? You're right.
00:35:45
Speaker
Yeah, this becomes a little bit of a battle of the prosecution and defense witnesses for psychology. They bring on this guy, John Wilson. He testified that Eric was showing signs of PTSD, which supports the allegations of abuse. ah Park Deets testified his encounter saying that the PTSD like it's not something they could measure or know if it was related to a particular thing. Um, he also argued that like Eric was not showing signs of something called learned helplessness. And he pointed out the fact that like Eric and Lyle were pretty slick when it came to things like maneuvering their way through the process of not being able to buy handguns and ultimately buying the long guns.
00:36:27
Speaker
and practicing with these gods. The defense keeps arguing that the brothers had been acting out of fear that their parents were going to harm them for threatening to reveal the secret of all this abuse. Right. And they satisfy every single requirement for imperfect self-defense. Yeah. Which is why it becomes even less believable.
00:36:50
Speaker
Yeah, so the judge basically says that he feels like there's insufficient evidence to support the idea that the brothers were in imminent danger when they murdered their parents. But he did allow the argument that the brothers had shot Jose in the heat of passion and prevented them from arguing that related to Kitty. He concluded that the evidence was there to suggest that Jose might have provoked his sons into committing homicide, but that there was not enough evidence there to indicate that what had happened to Kitty indicated she had provoked them in any way. Because she was crawling away from them. Right. Or away from the shop. The shooting. Yeah. Yeah. A wife of an attorney who had been hired by the brothers, think this was Clara, right? She testified that the brothers had brought a safe into the home and that they were hoping to locate a copy of their parents' will. The safe gets opened a couple of days later and the brother's uncles were there and maybe another family member, but the safe was empty. This is presented as evidence that the brothers were trying to access their parents' money. This second trial essentially leads down the path that they get convicted. They're convicted on two counts of first-degree murder with a special circumstances of lying in wait. They're also convicted on the conspiracy to commit murder. In the penalty phase of the trial, they're sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, in spite of all the defense tricks that go on, because the defense does a lot to try and trigger a mistrial here.
00:38:14
Speaker
ah So July 2nd 1996 the judge sentences both brothers to life in prison without the possibility of parole and this is to be served as a consecutive sentence for the killings and the charges of ah conspiracy to commit murder. Don't they toll the conspiracy charge though? They end up I believe they end up tolling it. I'm not sure if it's part of something to do with the statue I don't really know I think it just didn't matter because they were going to life without the possibility of parole. right I read something about that briefly and I didn't really, I'm not familiar with it because I believe it's maybe specific to ah more than just California. but
00:38:55
Speaker
It doesn't matter. Go ahead. Sorry. No, no, you're fine. Um, like, like I said, people know most of this. I'm just kind of going through all the legal mechanisms to get to sort of the update and like ah the weirdest home for the holidays episode I ever recorded. I think April 4th, 2018, they're moved to the same housing unit. Lyle has moved over to the unit where Eric is. So this is the first time they've been reunited in 22 years. So this would have been since their second trial and their sentence. On April 27th of 1998, just for the course of the legal stuff, the California Court of Appeals, they uphold the convictions. May 28th, 1998, the Supreme Court of California says, we don't want anything to do with this. This allowed the California Court of Appeals upholding it to stand. They filed habeas corpus petitions with the Supreme Court of California. In 1999, those were denied.
00:39:49
Speaker
So this is considered the point where they've exhausted their remedies for appeal in state court and may file separate habeas petitions that start making their way through the United States District Court. March 4, 2003, a magistrate judge recommends denying these petitions. The district court adopts the recommendation. They then decided that they were going to appeal to the United States Court of Appeals in the Ninth Circuit.
00:40:13
Speaker
And on September 7, 2005, we got a ruling that a three-judge panel denied both sets of habeas corpus petitions. And that seems like it should be it in 2005, except in May of 2023, the brothers request a new hearing based upon an allegation that their father had sexually assaulted Roy Rossello, who was a member of the band Menudo, who at the time this assault had occurred,
00:40:43
Speaker
had been signed to RCA Records, April 18th, 2023.
Revelations and Societal Impact in 2023
00:40:49
Speaker
There's a segment of the Today Show about a television documentary. And Rossello stated that when he was 14 years old,
00:40:57
Speaker
that he was drugged and raped by Jose Menendez while he was visiting the Menendez family's home in New Jersey. The appeal cites this and it cites a letter allegedly written by Eric to his cousin, Andy, in 1988, where Eric openly talked about the abuse. On October 3rd, 2024, so like right as you and I are recording our Home for the Holiday series, the current Los Angeles district attorney, which is a guy named George Gascone, he announces in a press conference that his office is actively reviewing this appeal from the Menendez brothers attorneys and that they're also looking at it from a conviction integrity perspective. Well, on October 24th, George Gascone announces that he is asking the court for a re-sentencing of this case. If a judge accepts his recommendation,
00:41:48
Speaker
the brothers will be eligible for parole pretty much immediately. According to Gascon, he said that I don't believe that manslaughter would have been the appropriate charge given the premeditation that was involved. I do believe that the brothers were subjected to a tremendous amount of dysfunction in the home and molestation. Gascon's recommendation considered the length of time the brothers had already served and their behavior while in prison. And what do you think?
00:42:14
Speaker
You know, it's so interesting to me, like this, at some point there was a Netflix that you can't make this up podcast. And I would listen to different things on there kind of in my drives. And this this pops up on there. And I heard them talking, fairly recent episode that that came on and I heard them talking and I was like, I can't tell anymore if I believe them or not. Like, so the take on this,
00:42:40
Speaker
in the media and like a lot of the talking heads were doing this because it's the in-book thing to do. That's why they're doing it. Whether it's true or not, I don't know what to tell you. They're saying that the Me Too movement, which was based on largely women who are in the entertainment industry being abused by men who are in power in the entertainment industry, has a side that we have yet to really see. And that is in the light of children being abused in the entertainment industry, which a lot there's been a lot of documentaries this year that covered stuff about different horror stories of children that like men have largely been ignored and it's time to stop ignoring them. The men who have been abused by their families, who have been sexually assaulted and can't talk about it, molested, a number of things come into play here for what they're talking about. They're using these two guys as sort of the poster boy for that idea. Is that accurate? I don't actually know.
00:43:37
Speaker
I feel like the prosecutor is making a huge mistake. I also feel like everybody who is going along with this charade is making a huge mistake. The Menendez brothers are nothing but manipulative performers. And the only thing I would say is, let's say it were true, that the testimony they initially gave about the abuse was the truth. Why did they act like they didn't do it? Look, i I'm not riding the fence on this case.
00:44:20
Speaker
I just don't know any of the answers to those questions. i That's my thought is if it really were a case, because it all comes out anyway, right? Right. It's the the gut reaction afterward. Now, that's not to say that Like they probably regret what they did. They're 21 and 19. They were very entitled. There's no question. They had a lot of money and they thought that they would be better off without their parents. That they would just have the money and they wouldn't have to deal with their parents. And who knows what went through the 19 and 21 year old's heads.
00:45:01
Speaker
Well, OK, look, I'm going to have a slightly different take on this than if that's if. And I agree with what you're saying there. And if you have more, I'll let you continue. But I'm going to take a different take on that. I think life without parole. I listened to him cite this and I had forgotten this with the thing. He's making this decision based on the fact that they were under 26 years old when it happened. Did you hear did you hear that in the clip I sent you? Yeah, I heard it. I think that we're in a society that Not only is grappling with their problems related to the death penalty, but we're also grappling with problems where we sentence people who may or may not have been abused to life in prison without the possibility of parole. If you go down this road, I'm not saying it's right. umm and Everybody is going to claim that their victim abused them. Look,
00:45:57
Speaker
I think that will write itself in time. I'm not stating it's correct. I'm stating my observation is like, and this goes back further. This goes back to when we started with like, I know you remember this when battered spouse became a thing. Remember like how that became a defense that was accepted in certain jurisdictions and in times and places like battered spouse defense? I guess, but I'm not saying it's right. That's not it. No, no, I'm just saying like as a, as a, a thing in terms of a ruling. So if a battered spouse defense were to be used, but the woman had denied she had done it for six months, a year until her psychiatrist
00:46:49
Speaker
Beyonce side piece came forward and said, hey, there's evidence. would you Would it still be the same sort of defense? Well, so, okay.
00:47:00
Speaker
Or is she standing there crying holding the gun when the cops arrive and she says, you're going to kill me? Well, the codification of like the battered spouse defense was a defense for killing like an abuser you're in a relationship with and you can't get out of. It sort of comes out of the Violence Against Women Act. So it starts in the 90s. It's really codified in the Florida Supreme Court case and I'm going to get this wrong, probably 98 or 99. Right, but and it really isn't the same thing, right? But it's now more looked at from the perspective of how an investigation can turn on the idea. Because prosecutors don't want to take on hard to prosecute battered spouse cases what it results in is appropriate plea deals in some instances. This would be my art. The reason I'm bringing that up in response to your question
00:47:49
Speaker
is I envision dueling psychiatrists or psychologists to answer your question. Like, I think it's kind of a catch-all and it sucks that it's this way, but like, okay, if I'm on the defense perspective and I'm trying to prove battered, abused, whatever, the idea is can I incorporate all the behavior of the defendant and attributed to the abuse. So what I would argue for Eric and Lyle, if I were on their first trial, second trial, whatever, if they were to be retried, I would say, yes, they were putting on a performance. Yes, they were acting and lying and doing all of these things, but
00:48:32
Speaker
their product of their environment. And they learned to act and to lie from their father because they had to act and lie to pretend like everything was okay while they were being abused. And that is how they continued to act after the murder.
00:48:45
Speaker
Right. And so why did Lyle return home from college at 21? Uh, you mean, you mean if he's been abused and he goes away to Princeton and's and he's not in Beverly Hills anymore and he's out of school because of being suspended and being like, why does he go home? No, no, I understand. But I'm saying you're saying why does he go home at that point in time?
00:49:10
Speaker
Well, right, if he's being abused to the point where he has to kill them because he's an imminent fear. Well, he's saying at that point he was not being abused and the catch all they use is that Eric continued to be abused. Right, and Eric is 19, right? Right. And so the 21-year-old brother and the 19-year-old brother could absolutely go get jobs and have a life of their own somewhere else.
00:49:39
Speaker
Yeah, they could probably actually blackmail their parents. in the same They could say, like, I think, personally, looking at this situation, I think Eric could have said, dad, I want out of here. I'm going to Europe. You need to pay for these things so I can live there, have a tennis coach, be in these tournaments. And if you've really been abused and your father's really been threatening you if you reveal it, then you could go do that because I think he will do it if that's the truth.
00:50:05
Speaker
Same with Lyle. Lyle couldn't just say, I know what's been going on in this family. I am going to go and buy a Buffalo wings in New Jersey and you need to be on the ticket so you make sure I get the financing for it. Right. Well, I don't necessarily believe they should have. Well, I guess, I mean, whatever. I don't think.
00:50:24
Speaker
the abuse happened. I think that some of the family members ah after this horrible tragedy occurred thought back on some things that had occurred and had some form of, I don't know, empathetic guilt that if they had in fact been abused, they didn't act. yeah And the only thing they could do at this point was try and help them, right? Which they, you know, in the event that it was happening and these like small things that they're remembering back on, if they had, you know, it's trying to make up for not doing something just in case it was happening. Right, and so what I'm saying is I don't think that the family's necessarily like lying for them. I think that they're just, you know, because two people in this family were murdered by their sons, right? Yeah, it's about your son. But you were talking about Eric having post-traumatic stress. He has post-traumatic stress from committing the murders, and that's a thing, right? Yeah. He was 19.
00:51:36
Speaker
He was probably not the mastermind here. What the prosecutor was going off of was the letter, right? yeah The letter that had been found. And then I saw the interview with Roy from Minuto and I feel like they may have construed his statement. Oh, I think, oh, okay. So are we to the point where we talk about like all the things that are really going on? Is that kind of how we want to go now? Cause I'll do that with you. Um, I wouldn't normally do it, but like this case irks me a little bit. So I tend to give like the devil's advocate from your perspective and stick to the facts. What I truthfully think is happening here is we've experienced and if you can go look this up, it's not uncommon.
00:52:20
Speaker
We've experienced the problem with the head of households in America. Now, you're the head of your household to a degree. You and your husband or are the heads of your household. Like I'm the head of my household with my wife. Like we got out into the world where our parents were no longer taking care of us. From 1984 to 2000, we saw a such significant decline around the world of the number of young people who are leaving their homes and going out into the world.
Public Opinion and Potential Outcomes
00:52:43
Speaker
It's interesting to me that If you look at the statistics on that failure to launch Peter Pan Syndrome type situation, it's largely influential wealthy parents who are having this trouble with their children. I think that's what happened here. I think that
00:53:01
Speaker
Lyle and Eric abuse or not abuse, whatever. It's probably for me, like just looking at it all in terms of numbers, is there abuse? Maybe, but it's not going to be to the extreme. Does that excuse it? No. Does that make it as traumatic as it could be? I don't know. Like I'm not, I'm not that type of expert. I look at it and like, you know, as a defense leaning guy, I absolutely would have used it for a plea deal way back when I guess the prosecutor wasn't in on that. Is it something that like we should consider? Well, these people brutally murdered their parents.
00:53:31
Speaker
Now we've got all these like repeated and if you look it up, look up at all the adaptations and dramatizations and documentaries about these two dudes. There are so many of them and they started right after the murders and they just keep coming. I'm tired of hearing about their story. The only reason I'm talking about their story here today is because I believe Ryan Murphy and all of Hollywood doing this was a mistake. I think they got it back in the prosecutor's eyes again, and that prosecutor looked at it and considered it a political move. He even says during the press conference, if you go and listen to the press conference from ah the October 24th with Gascon, he even says, my office has been so inundated
00:54:20
Speaker
with requests or information in this case that we simply cannot keep up and we're using resources we need to use elsewhere on only answering questions about these two people. So I am making this announcement at this time because I'd already planned to have a hearing on this sometime in November or early December. I am making this announcement to make it stop.
00:54:44
Speaker
I think all of this, if if they want to do that, fine. I think it's something you do quietly in front of a judge and move on. They went into chambers and had a bunch of stuff go back and forth between the state's attorneys and the defense attorneys, so one person could use all of this as a political bargaining chip. That's what's happening with Gasco.
00:55:05
Speaker
He is using this as political fodder for his future and that's fine if that's what he wants to do I think it's nonsense. There's a way to do this without all the fanfare We're glorifying this at this point We have made these two into like these weird failure to launch folk heroes when what they really represent is a decline in society that the way that people cover it up is like, we got rid of toxic masculinity. Okay, that's fine. I'm glad you got rid of toxic masculinity. That's awesome. It still exists over here in some way, in some world. The answer to like, how do we get rid of that in 1988, 89, 90, whatever, it was not we murder our parents.
00:55:46
Speaker
Well, right. And if we were to know for certain and, you know, I've been very clear on my position of not believing a victim. I maintain that position and I don't feel like I'm not believing a victim. I feel like I'm not falling for a performance. But if we were to know somehow that they really weren't abused, how much worse does that make the whole situation? You mean if we had confirmation that like this is still their nonsensical orchestration of all this? Is that what you mean? Yeah, like if somehow we could know for sure. Like we knew 100% for sure that they were failure to launch boys that killed their parents because they wanted them out of the way so they could get their hands on the money and live how they want to do. So.
00:56:36
Speaker
I don't know man, there's a couple different ways I could take this. I don't think they killed their parents to get the money immediately. I think they killed their parents because they thought their parents were going to cut them off. I think that whatever the abuse either way at that point became a like a ah measurement of convenience.
00:56:51
Speaker
Why would you want anything from somebody that abused you? I'm not going to get into that argument. This is not that kind of show. I don't know, but I know that. Well, it's kind of relevant though, because it follows a mindset, right? Well, I would like to ask them if they could do it again, how would they do things differently?
00:57:12
Speaker
And based on their answers, I could tell you what's happening with them. The thing is, I don't even like giving this much air time to them. Like, I feel like I think you brought it up and you were like, hey, you should check out the Netflix documentary, ah not the documentary, the docuseries that the monster. it now it's a It's not a docuseries. It's like a fictional series. Yeah. Yeah. So you brought that up. And at some point, my wife and I, and I don't think we finished it, by the way. I think we watched five episodes. Maybe I don't remember how many it was, but I think we checked out and we were watching it late at night when we really wouldn't necessarily watch the whole thing. That is to say that like, I don't care very much about them. And like, there's a part of me when it comes to this level of
00:57:58
Speaker
like I've heard it described as affluenza, which is weird to me. That's been used in cases where there's a lot of living people at the end of it all, and they have to make an excuse for why some guy... Oh, I see what you're saying. It's like affluent, but making it like the flu? ah Like a disease, yeah.
00:58:17
Speaker
um the the Well, there's there's a whole TikTok trend of free the Menendez brothers. Yeah, that's just delusional people. I mean, and I understand some people are going to, to a degree, I understand there's going to be people out there that are going to disagree with me. Well, but here's the thing.
00:58:35
Speaker
So ah what the prosecutor announced was that in response to the question that was asked, he's saying that it's okay for this to go forward. And so they will either be re-sentenced, which could include them being like sentenced to time served and immediately released. They could possibly have a retrial. Yeah. they could have their sentence changed to life with the possibility of parole. And so this isn't the end, right? There's still a whole lot of stuff that has to happen here. Now, the prosecutor went along with it. I think it was because of all the pressure that was put in specific places. But I think that the system is going to prevail here because at the end of the day... I'm i'm excited to see what a judge does with office.
00:59:26
Speaker
I think that even if they're sentenced to, I don't think they're going to make parole. The only way I think they can make parole at this point is if they like admitted they had lied about all of it, honestly. I mean, that would be ah that would hate that would be an excellent stipulation. But the truth is, if they just change the sentence to life for the possibility of parole, they're automatically eligible in California.
00:59:49
Speaker
Right, but they're not going to get out, is what I'm saying. They have to weigh what the crime was. You can say that now, but I am telling you that with the prosecutor saying that, unless they just get a judge that really, really like cares about this case for some reason, which unfortunately, most of those judges are out of California. Well, they have to go before the parole board. It's not a judge. Look, all the parole board will consider at this point, Hosea and Kitty are victims here.
01:00:17
Speaker
But these are their children. Like they raised these two boys. That's true. But that doesn't allow them to kill them. Oh, no, I didn't say that. I'm just saying. I feel like this is much ado about nothing. I don't think they're going to get out. ah They shouldn't get out. They killed their parents in cold blood and they have used these pressure points to their advantage.
01:00:44
Speaker
It really is a sign of the times, isn't it? Like how many likes and clicks can we get for this? This is a testament to how manipulative they are. And it horrifies me that, I mean, how how is this even a thing? We're talking about the Menendez brothers. Still, we're still talking about them. I was thinking about that while I was watching the press conference. I was like, I cannot believe the amount of time and resources we have wasted on these two numb nuts.
01:01:16
Speaker
And up until this very time that it was filed, every single other plea for relief has been denied as it should be, right? yeah And granted, I don't know what has happened officially because like press conferences aren't official records. Judicial proceedings, yeah.
01:01:37
Speaker
He was cashing in on that moment he had, I guess. I don't really know what's happening there. It's really strange. But up to this point, the system has kept them behind bars. It is unbelievable to me that Because even if they had been abused, they had, you know, they could have just not gone back to the house that night. I don't disagree. There's so many outs here. And if he had been charged with ah sexually assaulting his grown sons, what would his punishment have been? Well, let me ask you this question. And this is getting towards my closing because you and I might have to come back and record five minutes of like what really happens here later. So let me ask you this question.
01:02:21
Speaker
This is the converse of what you asked me. If you could see for sure that from six to eight years old, Lyle Menendez was subjected to terrible molestation and assault by his father, and then that Eric had basically taken his place and been assaulted until he was essentially a college student. Would it change your mind about any of this? I don't think so, because, you know, you can tell a victim's mentality, right? Okay. Well, like, somebody that has been subjected to horrendous abuse, when it boils down to brass tacks, they have different priorities. I follow what you're saying. You're saying that we don't see the, well, what if, what if I were to argue that, like, what we're seeing is their version of that type of survival syndrome?
01:03:08
Speaker
and they're so incapable of anything else that like... Okay, so at the point in time where Eric chooses to break down and tell his therapist... Which is ultimately the downfall of all of this. Well, sort of. I feel like when they killed them was the downfall, but, you know... No, I'm talking about... No, no. That's the... That is the heinous, terrible murder that we can't get past.
01:03:35
Speaker
The downfall of their facade is when he not only tells the therapist, but then keeps talking to the therapist after the therapist is like, bring your brother in. I'm going to start taping this. I don't know that they knew he was taping them, but maybe I don't know. But what I'm saying is if he was because why was he telling his therapist this because he just needed somebody to talk to you?
01:04:00
Speaker
that's ah That's a part of like reckoning with guilt with people who aren't really equipped for killing people. I mean, it's not a good thing to say that, but that's that's what it is. Okay, and so wouldn't that be the prime time to explain why so you could really get to those, get through this? Because that's why he's telling him it, right? Yeah, and so if they know about the taping versus don't know about the taping, I will state this, that they covered this well from the perspective of the press conference, which you have pointed out is not a judicial proceeding or an official thing, even though they filed documents afterwards.
01:04:36
Speaker
They pointed out that there was such a stigma, which is true. There is a stigma about male sexual abuse that it isn't talked about in a way that isn't either pejorative or humorous. And I think that part of it was like a justification beyond the political in terms of how Gascon presented what he was going to do with this case.
01:05:04
Speaker
Well, so that's why they don't talk about it to the therapist because of the stigma, right? Right. Okay. But he's, you know, is there not such a thing with murder? I look.
01:05:18
Speaker
Just on the terms that he's talking to his doctor to move through his... ah Psychologically, that has to do with like control versus not control. He's not in control of what his father did to him. He was in control when he made the choice to shoot his mother or or his father. Every how you want to look at them. Right. and i And I feel like they're not going to get past that either way, their mom.
01:05:40
Speaker
That for me, Kitty, like no matter what you think of Jose, no matter what Menudo's member backs up here, in terms of murdering Kitty as well, you're eliminating a witness. And you know they said they were putting her out of her misery. You won't get well that.
01:06:03
Speaker
That's something you do to a horse. That's not something you do to a person. Like, you know, from the perspective of, I cannot justify that one. I could, like, I could believe two shotgun blasts. One kills him, one kills her. I could believe that is like, I could even put that in perspective from, from like the surprise murder perspective. Like you came in and you were going to do something about this. The weird take that people have on this, like even I heard like a Kardashian talking about this. I don't know what it,
01:06:32
Speaker
I don't know exactly what they were saying, but again, it's in that like the reels and the TikToks and everything that were coming up about this. I heard people talking about like they know what they're talking about. The truth is I don't even fully understand what I'm talking about here, but I'll say this.
01:06:47
Speaker
you justifying that the way they took control of their lives was to commit a brutal homicide. And like I hear a lot of people say it was the most brutal homicide ever. And I understand what the authorities are saying and all the context of when they say that. But this one being egregious from the perspective of like,
01:07:08
Speaker
multiple shotgun blast to your parents to the point that you're basically eviscerating them all over their dead is the type of crime that like really is caught up in this huge ripple effect because it affects so many people that have to come and clean up your mess.
01:07:30
Speaker
And the fact that they're selling this is, well, they had been so abused that they did this, is it's going to cause problems in the future with how true abuse cases are prosecuted. Because there's either going to always be that lingering question or like it's going to be carte blanche that this is the way you get away with things.
01:07:54
Speaker
Well, right. And this is doing a tremendous amount of damage. Just the press conference itself. and And just watch. Just watch and see what happens because it will show up. Even if it doesn't succeed and they don't get out, there was like this giant step taken forward, right? yeah And I feel like everything that was presented was
01:08:23
Speaker
It wasn't anything that because essentially if they believe the new evidence that would warrant a new trial, right? See that's the way that you then does like if you want to if you want to put those out there That's how you do it. You bring you a new trial forward except well, and that's true but but you really start with an evidentiary hearing and we're skipping these steps and Well, they did file a habeas petition. i mean that's But this is the response. The response is the press conference and hey, we're going to resendance them. like And what the hell is that? Exactly. that You just summed up how I view it. like That's the internal thought I have. And the secondary thought to that is we're still talking about these idiots.
01:09:08
Speaker
We're going to until until people stop listening. I feel like ah their re-adjudication of this matter over and over and over again, it really illustrates them. Well, let me ask you this. Do you think Lyle and Eric Menendez are going to be home for the holidays? I do not. You don't, right? I don't think they're ever going to get out. I...
01:09:36
Speaker
I think they will. I think it's a terrible precedent to set. I think that they may not be home for this holiday, but I think they'll be home for the next holiday. I felt really sure they won't be home for this holiday, but I'm thinking that justice will prevail here and they will remain in prison for the rest of their lives as they should. Got anything else on this one? Nope.
01:10:00
Speaker
Special consideration was given to True Crime XS by LabratiCreations.com. If you have a moment in your favorite app, please go on and give us a review or a five-star rating. It helps us get noticed in the crowd. This is True Crime XS.
01:12:07
Speaker
One day it will be my baby and me
01:13:00
Speaker
True Crime Access is brought to you by John and Meg. It's written, produced, edited and posted by John and Meg. You can always support True Crime Access through patreon.com or if you have a story you'd like them to cover, you can reach them at truecrimeaccess.com. Thank you for joining us.
01:13:40
Speaker
This is just a reminder that we are part of the Zincaster Creator Network. And I've put a link in the show notes if you guys want to check it out for your own podcasting needs. um I've always enjoyed using Zincaster. Their quality is great. And we we were able to join their Creator Network at kind of a key time in in their history. um I have enjoyed it. You know, I've considered a lot of other ah places to record and a lot of other ways to put together and host and distribute our podcasts. But I've stuck with Zincaster the longest. We've been with them for hundreds of episodes now. And I'm putting a link in the show notes where you can check out ah what they have to offer and see if it's something you would want to use.