in you to shoot your mom and dad. young rich handsome in a case made for hollywood they were ready for the camera it was the first televised courtroom drama that captivated the united states it was a huge deal erik and lyle menendez convicted of murdering their own parents. i ran around and shot my mom! it wasn t real. it just wasn t real. they re sociopaths and pretty big ones. now almost 30 years late chilling new details. evidence never broadcast before! a letter, hinting at secrets too dark to imagine. this is so outside of the norm something is going on i that house did they kill in cold blood or in crippling fear oh man it was gut-wrenching i wanted to bust the door down they spoke the truth abou what had happened. tonight, hear from the brother themselves people were afraid of him let s go through this bit b bit. there was no way he was gonna let this secret get out. silence destroyed our whole family here it was the shinin s
center stage, meaning the tape was now fair game. the defense played the tape to take the sting out active what erik and i did took courage beyond belief. detective zoller, remember, had never heard the tape befor and he was dumbfounded this was supposedly a candid confession tape but on it, the brothers never once mentione the issue that was now the ver core of their defense. why did you ever murder you parents? oh, because they were sexually molesting us that never came out. why wouldn t he tell his therapist? big deal? the prosecution thought so but, by then, the jury had already heard many hours o tearful testimony about abuse. and that is when, in decembe 1993, they retired to consider a verdict. we made a mistake, right of the bat. hazel thornton was on eri k s jury we took a show of hands a to what level of guilt w thought they were.