how does he walk into a room with a shotgun? this kid i mean, i m totally, totally, puzzled. a dark secret was about to come to light. i just told him that i didn t want to do this. something horrible is going on in the family. oh, man, it was gut wrenching. i wanted to bust the door down and say what s going on here? lyle and erik menendez had been charged with the unthinkable. murdering their mother and father. alicia hertz, their former neighbor and teacher, recalled two young boys, whose parents seemed formidable, even to adults. like many others, said alicia, she was careful around kitty and jose menendez. but there was one episode she found too disturbing to ignore. a dinner party at the menendez home. jose told his guests he d brought back a vhs tape from a trip to brazil.
portrait of jose and mary louise menendez, as parents, that will make understandable to you, how they could have died at the hands of their children. what they did to their children to bring this about. the parents were as much on trial as lyle and erik menendez were on trial. and and while the prosecution tried to to stick to a just-the-facts-ma am narrative, the defense strategy was emotion, emotion, emotion, emotion. the defense called teachers and coaches and family members to testify about emotional and physical abuse. one of them was cousin, alan. and would you see bruises on the boys after that? yes. and above their above their thigh area where about would be hit. and then, cousin, diane, took the stand. and here came the most explosive issue of the trial. diane testified that the abuse jose inflicted on his sons was not just physical, but sexual. he and his dad have been touching each other, and he indicated that it was in his genital area. and diane told us
family, too, said noel bloom. i i met kitty several times. she was sometimes goin to the into his office, and you know, yellin and screamin and hollering. i mean, really loud. oh, so they d argue a lot? oh, yeah. a lot. and i think a lot of it was about the kids. what was your impression of them? they were kinda quiet. they weren t that friendly, but it seemed like they were a bit troubled. and you know, i know they were afraid of him. afraid of their father, jose. i saw him just stare them down a couple of times but after jose was murdered, lyle and erik seemed to be afraid of noel bloom. they told police they thought bloom may have killed their parents and might want to kill them, too. bloom had been arrested before on obscenity charges, but never convicted. still, with the brothers public
detectives arrested joseph lyle menendez for the august murders of his mother and father. erik was playing a tennis tournament in israel at the time. erik menendez is being sought by detectives of this department. he surrendered to police three days later. could you believe it? no. no. it was absolutely devastating, shocking, just beyond words. former l.a. times reporter alan abrahamson. who would imagine that these two young men of privilege,
professional, and moral responsibility to go forward with this case as a first-degree murder case. but, before that second trial could begin, oj happened. and suddenly, the stakes were even bigger. when o.j. simpson went home, at the end of his trial, it was very hard in the da s office. we were, you know, nationally considered to be, kind of, losers. the second menendez trial began just eight days after o.j. s acquittal, with judge wiseberg presiding, again. the same judge. the same case. but this time, the trial was fundamentally different. the first, major ruling judge weissberg made was no tv camera in the courtroom. this time, one jury for both brothers. judge weissburg also scaled back testimony about the brothers physical and sexual abuse. cousin, diane, for example, was able to testify, just not about lyle telling her that his father was molesting him.