dollars. they were spending money like they were drunken sailors. now lyle and erik menendez face the death penalty, first-degree murder. greedy rich kids kill ozzie and harriet on a sunday night in beverly hills, and there s much more to the story than that. the courtroom at the l.a. superior courthouse in van nuys was actually a very tiny courtroom, and so there were a dozen media people that got to see the trial in the courtroom every day. writer dominic dunn appeared to hear opening statements. i m just a writer here covering this. i had just gotten out of school and started as a cub reporter at this legal newspaper. i got one of the seats in the courtroom. there were the lawyers and the brothers. my editors and i knew from the get-go that it was going to be captivating as [bleep]. okay, now opening statements by the prosecution. thank you, your honor, and good morning. the only time i ve ever thrown up during a trial was right before opening statement
had confessed. they had said that they killed their parents. they said it in the confession, to the doctor. they also said it on the stand. so then this case went from a whodunit to why had they done it. both brothers were calling me occasionally from jail. they said wait until the trial. you ll find out what was really happening in the menendez family. i had done many cases for leslie abramson over the years, and she could not believe this horrific killing was merely the product of them wanting money. so she brought me in as her psychiatric expert, and she said, look, i want you to interview these boys and find out really what went on. lyle proved to be a very, very difficult interview subject, and he was very reluctant to talk about virtually anything, whereas erik, all he would kept telling me was how wonderful his father was and
dollars. they were spending money like they were drunken sailors. now lyle and erik menendez face the death penalty, first-degree murder. greedy rich kids kill ozzie and harriet on a sunday night in beverly hills, and there s much more to the story than that. the courtroom at the l.a. superior courthouse in van nuys was actually a very tiny courtroom, and so there were a dozen media people that got to see the trial in the courtroom every day. writer dominic dunn appeared to hear opening statements. i m just a writer here covering this. i had just gotten out of school and started as a cub reporter at this legal newspaper. i got one of the seats in the courtroom. there were the lawyers and the brothers. my editors and i knew from the get-go that it was going to be captivating as [bleep].
for many television viewers, cameras in court have gone from novelty to necessity. when you see it on tv, you feel like you re there, and you kind of get to be a judge yourself. it s like real life, and i think that all of us like to delve into other people s lives. people could not get enough of this. the high-profile case of the two brothers accused of shooting their parents to death in their beverly hills mansion has captured the interest of people across the country, but some interest has little to do with legal issues. i think they re really cute. at the height of their popularity, which is kind of a funny word to use, erik and lyle menendez were reading a thousand letters a week, primarily from women all over the world, who were sending them naked pictures, telling them that they wanted to come visit them at the l.a. county jail, a combination of infamy and popularity. prosecutor bozanich, throughout the trial, has maintained the brothers actually killed their par