Lyle Menendez on the far left and his little brother Erik. Both have been in the media recently due to Netflix’s movie and documentary about them killing their parents. (Photo used with permission by Wikimedia/Orsf)

On Aug. 20, 1989, Lyle and Erik Menendez shot their parents at close range, leaving them both deceased in the living room of their home. As can be imagined, how could anyone carry out the act of ending the lives of your parents, who should be loving you unconditionally? The Menendez brothers case has transpired to be one of the most famous true crime stories in the past few decades. 

From an outside perspective, the Menendez family seemed perfect. They lived in a Beverly Hills mansion owned by a successful businessman and his wife. Nothing was out of the ordinary. However, behind those mansion doors, everything out of the ordinary, everything unimaginable was unfolding. 

When Lyle was as young as six years old, his father Jose would touch him in ways no father should touch their son. Jose went to every extreme in a sexual manner with him, and eventually, Lyle told his father he had had enough – and Jose listened. Come to find out, although Jose was not getting sexual satisfaction with one son, he would go to the other. Erik was then a victim of the assault for the remainder of his childhood up until two weeks before the murders. According to Lyle and Erik’s cousin Alan Andersen, the boys would be brought up into their rooms with Jose and Kitty Menendez (Lyle and Erik’s mom) would make it known that no one was to go in the room when the boys were in there. This abuse lasted for as long as the boys lived in the presence of their father and were told to keep it a secret. Erik found out that Kitty was aware of the abuse his whole childhood, which set his mother on the same bar as his father. Erik was in disbelief that she cared more about the reputation of their family than the mental and physical well-being of her sons. 

“The brothers testified that Lyle soon confronted their parents — and in the days leading up to the crime, things grew so contentious that they believed their parents were going to kill them to keep the family secret from coming out,” said Alicia Tejada, a producer and journalist for CBS News.

The boys bought shotguns with cash and proceeded to walk into their home and end the lives of their parents. They confessed that their acts were done through self-defense – it was kill or be killed. The shots were fired at close range, leaving 10 wounds in their mother and six wounds in their father. After the murders, the brothers picked up their shell casings so their fingerprints could not be identified. They then went to a movie and when they returned, they made a call to the police pretending they had gotten home to find their parents murdered by someone unknown. Weeks had gone by without anyone finding out until Erik confessed to his psychologist Jerome Oziel that he and Lyle had carried out the murders of their parents. Oziel had told his girlfriend, Judalon Smyth, about the matter who then informed the police. 

After the murders, Lyle and Erik spent excessive amounts of their parents’ money. The police concluded that they could have killed their parents for the means, however, it was not until the boys confessed to their lawyers and in court about the abuse they had gone through that other theories began transpiring. The brothers were ultimately sentenced to two life sentences without parole; however, their story has come to light again with the new series “Monsters” airing on Netflix. This series gives the perspective of everyone involved in the case, allowing the public to gain their own opinions on the crime. New evidence was unveiled,causing a possible resentencing in their case.

Do the Menendez brothers deserve to be free considering they lived their childhood in the walls of their father’s prison?