really brilliant guy. when jose menendez was top executive with hertz rental car, o.j. simpson came to their home one night in princeton, new jersey, and he met erik and lyle menendez when they were young boys. from hertz, he was named at rca records. jose menendez was very successful but it came out that he had a bit of a dark side. everybody who encountered him said one of two things about him. he could charm anyone and at the same time could be the most brutal boss that anybody had ever worked for. at work, he was a holy terror. i mean, he would yell, scream, degrade, insult, and the employees were terrified of him. it began to raise questions about what kind of person he was behind closed doors. 47-year-old kitty menendez was a former small town beauty queen who met her future husband
point blank. they would start looking at kitty and jose menendez about who their end msemies were. initially they thought it was related to the entertainment business. it is my understanding is it is the two boys eric o erik and lyle who indicated this might be a mafia involvement. when jose and kitty were murdered, the original idea is it was because jose s business dealings previously had an arm of their company that dealt in soft core porn. i was working in a suburban bureau of the los angeles times and i was covering the pornography business. there had been a previous mob hit of a pornographer the year before, and i started looking into the allegations of the mob hit. fwl the los angeles times is reporting organized crime may have played a part in the murders. so doug and i went to newark.
and interviewed a guy that was part of organized crime. he said we wouldn t have been as messy. we described to him what happened. and we wouldn t have killed his wife. police have no conclusive evidence the shooting was mob-related and would not comment on the alleged mob connection other, than to say they are not ruling it out. there was speculation in the media that because jose was latino, there was some time of drug connection. so then we profiled jose to see if he had any connections, and it was all dead end stuff. at the same time the police are doing their investigation, these two l.a. times print reporters who were looking into this very spectacular, gruesome case. the reporters went to talk to the brothers. when confronted with a sensational murder, you want to talk to the family.
right around the time of my deadline, the l.a. times ran a story that lyle menendez hired a computer expert to come to the house and look for a possible will on the family s home computer. we found out they had hired a computer expert to come in and erase the computer file. because kitty was rewriting the family will and she had let it be known that she was thinking of changing the will so they wouldn t be able to inherit anything. the boys were engaging in all sorts of odd behavior. the boys went to the east coast, i believe it was in new jersey, and started spending large amounts of money which seemed unusual. in fact, three days after they were spending quite a bit of money on lavish items. buying rolex watches. they bought a porsche car.