All language subtitles for The.Menendez.Murders.Erik.Tells.All.S01E02.WEBRip.x264-ION10

*

- Violent things don't happen
in Beverly Hills.

They just don't.
It was shocking.

- Everything was colliding
at that moment,

and my brother said...

- This was it,
and they were gonna kill us.

- And I just felt chills
over my body.

- I'd been in this business
for over 33 years,

and I've heard
of very few murders

that were more savage
than this one was.

- What I'd done was just--

I just wanted to undo it.

I just wanted to go back
in time.

I didn't want this moment
to be real.

- The police began to focus
on the boys

as possibly the killers.

- The police
were making it clear

that they felt
that we were involved.

And just to be candid,

I was acting
like a guilty person.

- I had to tell someone
what I had done,

so I went to Dr. Oziel.

- It was a very intense
meeting,

Oziel telling me
that I seemed menacing to him.

- Nothing is more fundamental
to the Menendez brothers case

than the outrage perpetrated
by Oziel.

Nothing.

- Today
at approximately 1:20 p.m.,

Beverly Hills Police
detectives

arrested Joseph Lyle Menendez,
22,

for the August murders
of his mother and father,

Maria Louise "Kitty" Menendez
and José Enrique Menendez.

His brother,
Erik Galen Menendez, 19,

also wanted for the same crime,
is being sought

and is believed to be
out of the country.

- I was in Israel,

playing on the lower circuit
of the pro tour in tennis.

And I got a phone call
one morning

from a person that I knew
in Los Angeles.

He said, "I don't know how
to tell you this,

but your brother's been
arrested."

And he said, "It's all over
the news here."

My thought was,
at that point is,

"I got to get back to Lyle."

It never crossed my mind
to run away.

I could have.

- Erik, it turns out,
was in Israel

at a tennis tournament
with his tennis coach.

And Lyle's uncle
Carlos Baralt said,

"Please don't extradite him.

"I will get him back.

I will get him back
immediately."

- I was in Tel Aviv

and, using my passport,
bought a plane ticket,

and I assumed that would
pop up on the computer screen.

As it turned out,
that did not happen.

I remember flying into Miami,

and that's when I was met
with my aunt Marta

and my cousin Andy
and a Miami detective.

I went on the plane
with my cousin Andy,

not the detective,
no police officers, nobody.

And I flew to Los Angeles
with Andy.

I told him what happened.

We had a special connection.

We were like brothers.

Those were the last few hours
that I was able to spend free,

which turned out to be

very precious moments
in my life,

because Andy would later die
in 2003.

I knew that I was going to be
arrested and sent to jail.

There was a firestorm
happening in Los Angeles,

and they were waiting for me,
and that's where I was headed.

And I knew
that I would no longer be

in control of anything
that happened to me.

I'm Erik Menendez.

I'm speaking to you from the
Donovan Correctional Facility

in California,
near the Mexican border.

I'm serving a sentence
of life in prison

without the possibility
of parole.

I've heard many different
versions of my life

told in the media,
and those stories are fiction.

I think it's time
people hear the truth

from my own words,

without the restrictions
of a courtroom.

You may think
you know my story,

but, really,
you couldn't possibly,

because I'm telling it
to you now for the first time.

*

- When Lyle and Erik Menendez
were arrested,

it was shocking.

- When they were both arrested,

the first thought was,
"Oh, my God!"

and then "Oh, my God."

Sort of a second thought was,
"Wow,

maybe the pieces fit here."

- I promise you
everyone was stunned.

There was nobody who said,

"Ah, I figured that
from the beginning."

Nobody.

*

- I was in the back
of the police car,

and Detectives Zoeller
and Linehan

were driving me
to Los Angeles County Jail.

They actually said
that they regretted

that I had to go there,
because they were worried

that I wouldn't make it
to trial.

That's how dangerous
the place was.

The Los Angeles County Jail
was packed

with some of the most violent
criminals of the day.

When you first enter it,
it actually looks

like a dark nightmare.

It's dirty.
It smells like urine.

At night, rats come out.

Literally, these large rats,
they take over.

Then you hear screams.

You hear screams echoing
through the halls

of people being beaten.

You hear people
being tortured.

You hear people being
assaulted

in other cells or
raped.

In quiet, you'll hear
just people start crying.

They're sobbing.

My first week there,

the guy three cells down
from me hung himself.

*

Dr. Vicary was coming
to visit me in the county jail

and trying to basically save
my life.

Many of my thoughts
were simply suicide.

Emotionally, I was collapsing.

- My impression of Erik

during my first hours
that I spent with him

was that he was so distraught,
he was so emotional,

he was so depressed

that he would break down
and start sobbing

at any discussion
about his family

that even involved me asking
simple background questions

about his parents.

My impression of Erik was,
"Boy, this kid is a mess."

- And so Dr. Vicary
was there,

I think, just about
every week,

and I pretty much just spent
the whole time just crying.

- For months and months,
all he did was tell me

how wonderful his parents were,

how his mother was heroic
in her own history

and his father was
a heroic figure

and came from a heroic family.

- José Menendez

was a Cuban refugee

who came to this country
with nothing,

just with the clothes
on his back.

- The Menendez family history
was told

over and over and over again
to Lyle and I.

The legend and the stories

that my father was eager
to tell

were of
the extraordinary story

of my family's rise in Cuba

to a kind of--like,
almost like a nobility state

where they were--
where my grandmother was

this Olympic swimmer

that had won medals
in the Panama Olympics

and my grandfather was
a national soccer star

and they were this power
couple in Cuba

and they had this terrific
sort of fairy-tale life.

When Castro eventually
betrayed the country

and executed 600 people,
their homes were raided,

and they were under the threat
of being imprisoned,

and so they had to escape
the country.

And when they escaped
the country one at a time,

they had to leave everything
behind.

*

He's now in Midwest America.

He's alone.

He didn't look
like everyone else.

He doesn't speak
like everyone else.

So he's derided.

Now, my mother is a senior,

and she is just the opposite
of my father.

She's very popular.

She works
for the television--

for the whole--
you know, for the university

in the communications
department.

She's a good-looking woman,
and she's outgoing,

and she's charismatic.

I think that my mother
represented to my father

everything that he wanted
to be in America.

My mother was attracted
to my father

because my father represented

this kind of mysterious
Latin figure

that was also very focused
on her.

- They get married in '63,

and they came to Arizona
to visit,

and that was when I met him.

Kitty loved him,
I loved him,

and that was all
that mattered.

My brothers and my father
weren't happy

that he wasn't...

Caucasian, perhaps.

Once he started making money,

everything looked better
to them.

*

- It was a mission on his part

that he had to become the
richest, the most powerful,

with the most beautiful sons,
with the most beautiful wife,

with the--he was going
to accomplish everything.

- José told me
a number of times

the thing that was
the scarring thing in his life

was, he worked as a dishwasher
at the 21 Club.

And that job, in which
he sensed his terrible fall

from a solid
upper-middle-class life

to that kind of position,

he never, ever got over it.

- With José, it was only work.

Every time he came to town,

somebody got fired.

And he was--he was just a--

you know, no-emotion type
of guy.

- He was this radically
determined person,

and he had this almost--

almost a delusional
self-confidence.

- José Menendez
is chairman of the board,

president,
and chief executive officer

of Live Entertainment,
joining us here in Los Angeles.

And I should point out
this is the company, folks,

that brings you the Teenage
Mutant Ninja Turtles video,

which, seriously,
is a hot video right now.

- It is.

So the company is broad-based,

and it provides pretty much
what the consumer wants.

- Mm-hmm.

And you must have projections
for down the road,

what you're expecting
to make at some point.

- We think 1989
will be a tremendous year.

- He was not
the most popular person

in the entertainment industry.

And he was ruthless.

I think that is the word
for José.

He was known
for being ruthless.

And he was ruthless
with his kids.

He could have
whatever he wanted

except the love of his sons.

And that was what killed him.

*

- In Los Angeles, two brothers
have pleaded innocent.

- First the Menendez brothers.

- The Menendez brothers,

accused of murdering
their parents in Beverly Hills.

- It was the trial
of the century.

- The Menendez case
was a real shocker.

- It was sensational
almost from day one.

- The Menendez murder case
has become so sensational

that every development in it

becomes the center
of public fascination.

- The Menendez brothers--
the media goes wild,

puts them on the cover
of "People" magazine,

and makes heroes out of them.

- The Menendez trial
was classic human drama.

- The world was riveted to it.

- The Menendez trial

launched Court TV.

- There will be

television camera
in the courtroom.

- Cameras were all over.

- It was just a spectacle.

[dramatic music]

- Were you shocked to hear

that Mr. Menendez was murdered
by his own sons, possibly?

- Beyond belief.
It's beyond belief.

- This was supposed to be
a slam-dunk case.

- Guilty, guilty, guilty.

There were those kinds of cases

where it kind of felt like

a jury would go
into the jury room,

say that, and come
right back out and say it.

- As a juror, you were aware
of why they were there,

and they had confessed.

It wasn't ever a question

of finding whether
they were guilty or not.

You knew that was a given.

- The real explosion of media
became so overwhelming

that I was in shock.

I was being portrayed
as a monster,

someone who would kill
for money.

When I first came
into the arraignments,

I was so nervous,
and so I walked out there,

and Leslie made a joke,

and it was so nerve-racking
that I smiled.

And it was this defense
mechanism that came out,

but on the cameras,

from then until
the rest of eternity,

have me smiling as if I think
the whole thing is a joke.

And, ironically,
it's exactly the opposite

of how I felt,
because behind the scenes,

I can't stop crying.

I'm on massive doses
of antidepressants,

and I just want to die.

Instead, what's portrayed
is this arrogant kid

who thinks
that this is all a joke.

And who does he think he is?

And what an awful person.

And it's exactly the opposite

of what was actually
happening.

- Erik Galen Menendez,
how do you plead?

- Not guilty, Your Honor.

Because the media attention
became so extreme,

there was no reconciling
the trial

with the district attorney.

It became a fight

with the Los Angeles County
District Attorney's Office

that wouldn't not normally
have happened.

- Erik was out on the lawn
weeping.

mm hmm.

-in agony.

mm hmm.

That's your characterization of
it. Not mine.

- We had a number
of high-profile trials,

and we had pretty much
lost 'em all.

And so each time
a new one came up,

one would end
and we'd lose,

a new one would come up,
you know,

and we were like, "Oh, my God."

- Both juries are present.

Good morning to you all,
ladies and gentlemen.

all: Good morning.

- And we're ready to resume
with the trial.

- Judge Weisberg was
a prominent judge

in Los Angeles,
superior court judge.

He was a former prosecutor.

He had presided
over the McMartin trial.

- Through more than
2 1/2 years on trial,

Raymond Buckey and his mother,
Peggy McMartin Buckey,

sat accused of horrendous acts
of child abuse.

In the end, the jury reached
a verdict on 52 charges.

- We, the jury,
in the above-entitled action,

find the varied defendants
not guilty.

- He was also
the presiding judge

over the Rodney King
beating trial

of the four officers
that were accused

of beating Rodney King,

and then the four officers
were acquitted.

[people shouting]

And that sparked
widespread looting and riots

and burning in Los Angeles.

crowd: No justice, no peace!

- And he became
pretty famous for that.

- There was just
a lot of concern

that we in Los Angeles
were all flakes

and we couldn't
convict anybody.

- The DA's office
needed vindication,

and the Menendez brothers case
looked to them

to be a slam dunk.

- When you're the prosecutor,

when you get a high-profile
case

where you know you're
the shizzle in that office,

to get that kind of case
means you made it.

The case went
to Lester Kuriyama

and Pam Bozanich.

- Pam Bozanich was
an excellent lawyer.

She was absolutely convinced

that these young men
should be convicted of murder.

- This is the woman
who gave birth to them.

This is what they did
to their mother.

- Let's be honest.

In our Los Angeles County,

most murder cases,
prosecutors easily win.

They're the tough ones,

and Pam in particular
was known as being tough.

- At the time you had
the conversation

with Erik Menendez,
was there anything about it

that made you think you should
go run and write it down

for later reference?

- The judge determined

they would have to have
two juries.

Each boy would be tried
separately, in essence.

And Jill was chosen
to represent Lyle,

and Leslie represented Erik.

They were an interesting team,
Leslie and Jill,

because Jill was elegant,
almost patrician, subdued.

- He's anxious.
He's frightened.

It's very difficult
to be facing a trial

where your life is at stake.

- Leslie, on the other hand,

was very fierce,
very articulate,

and she dominated
the courtroom

when she was talking
to a jury.

- Ms. Abramson
for the defense.

- Good afternoon.

- I remember
when Leslie came in.

She's a whirlwind:

high energy,
eccentric personality,

very smart,
talking a mile a minute,

just larger-than-life
personality.

And it became really clear

from just meeting her
for five minutes

that this is someone
who will fight for you.

- Leslie Abramson.
[laughs]

- I'm surprised he doesn't just

take out a rifle
in the courtroom and shoot him.

That's a fascinating theory.

- Well, fascinating or not,
that's what happened.

- Well, I object to it.

- They called her
a ball cutter.

She was tenacious,

she was a good lawyer,

and she was intimidating.

And she scared people.

- Isn't that what happened?

- Ms. Abramson,
I'm sure--

- Is that what happened?

- She was very nurturing.

She was compassionate.

But she was also very tough.

Leslie Abramson
is a tough person.

She's got a huge heart,
but she's very strong.

And so there was a lot
of accountability with her,

not a lot of excuses
and excuse-making.

She was motherly but sort of
like a tough mother bear.

- I admit to an enormous bias
in favor of this client.

- If I ever got in trouble,

if I ever got
accused of murder,

I'd want her to defend me.

- It had been
three to four years

after we were arrested
that the first trial began.

It was just long
sort of waiting periods

in the Los Angeles
County Jail.

*

- I'll now turn to the lawyers,

and they may make
their opening statements.

- The evidence will show
that Erik Menendez is guilty

of the premeditated
and deliberate murders

of Mary and José Menendez.

*

- There is no issue

as to who killed José
and Mary Louise Menendez.

Why they were killed
is what the focus

of all of our evidence
will be on.

- The prosecution went first

and made the case that they had
killed the parents for money.

- The defendants lied
a great deal

before they were caught.

What makes you think
they would stop lying now?

- These two men did it
for selfish financial reasons.

- Did you consider
his intelligence and his acting

in evaluating the truthfulness
of the information

that he gave you about
what had happened to him?

- I took that
into consideration, yes.

- Did you reject those?

- Yes.
Essentially, yes.

- They cared about their sons.

They might not have been
perfect.

But they were human beings,
and they had the right to live.

- The whole prosecution
strategy

was to show that the reason
for the killings

was that they thought
that their father

was going to disinherit them.

- We had a pretty good case.

- They just kept saying
the same old phrases

over and over.

- And what was the phrase?

- "Oh, my God.
Oh, my God."

- What was the cause
of death?

- Multiple shotgun wounds.

- What was the mode
of death?

- Homicide.

- We had their spending.

- Do you remember about
how much this automobile cost?

- Between $60,000
and $70,000.

- Now, I believe
you indicated

you did other shopping.

What kind of shopping
did you do with them,

aside from homes
and vehicles?

- We went clothes shopping.

We bought suits and shoes.

- We had the record of sale
of the shotguns

that we thought they used.

- It's a Mossberg
12-gauge shotgun.

It's a pump-action shotgun.

And it has
an 18 1/2 inch barrel

and is capable
of holding a total

of six 12-gauge shot shells.

- The break in the case
had come from a woman

by the name of Judalon Smyth.

She said, "I have
some information

"about this guy
that was treating me,

"and he turned out to be
my boyfriend,

and he was also the psychologist
for the Menendez brothers."

- Erik unburdened himself
to Dr. Oziel

and he, in turn,
to Judalon Smyth,

and that was, as you know,
what caused them

to ultimately be arrested.

*

- Seeing Dr. Oziel,
I was falling apart,

and I needed extensive help
and therapy.

I had huge, huge waves
of guilt and remorse,

and I just broke down, and I
told him what I had done.

When I went to him,
he was married with children,

but he was having an affair
with this woman,

Judalon Smyth.

And he would tell her things

that his clients talked
to him about.

- She fed enough information

that we knew
that there were tapes.

- He's recording

their therapy sessions

without the consent
of the patient.

You cannot do that.

This is confidential,

and everything
a patient is telling you

is privileged communication.

- If you otherwise fit
the definition of "patient"

and they fit the definition
of "therapist,"

what you tell them
is like talking to God.

It is sacrosanct.

- Then he has his mistress,

who I believe was also
a patient of his,

standing at the door
and listening in

on their therapy sessions.

And then she gets pissed off
and calls the police

when he breaks up with her.

- She wanted--
I guess you'd call it revenge.

- Because he told
Judalon Smyth,

he was facing
disbarment

if he didn't specifically say

that he was afraid
of Lyle and I.

There was a clause in the law
that said

if he claims
that he was afraid,

that he could legally
divulge that

to anther person.

- A state court ruled
that audiotapes made

while the Menendez brothers
were undergoing therapy

could be admitted as evidence
in their murder trial.

- It went back and forth
for a while in the court.

They finally were allowed
to admit the evidence

of the recordings,
which were wrong to begin with,

because the doctor-patient
privilege

had been violated or nullified

because Lyle had threatened
the psychologist.

- And could you please
describe his demeanor

when he came into the office
where you and Erik were?

- He was extremely upset,
threatening, menacing.

- The only legal reason
he could give for doing that

is to say that he was afraid,

but he was never, ever afraid
or threatened.

- And what did he respond
to you

when you said
that you did not choose

to life your life in fear?

- He said,
"Neither did my father."

- Nothing upset me more about
the Menendez brothers case

than the admission
of the Oziel tapes

and the behavior
of Jerry Oziel.

When Erik was burdened
so heavily

with what was on his mind,

he went to the one person
he thought he could trust,

his psychologist.

The idea that Dr. Oziel
got on the witness stand

and talked about that
confidential communication

outrages me.

It's indefensible.

- It just really pisses me off
that somebody could do this,

somebody could violate
the privacy and the safety

of their patient.

That idea that they should
never tell anybody anything,

it was proven to them.

*

- You wound up moving
your unstable girlfriend

into your family home
for three months,

starting in December,
didn't you?

- Would you like to ask me why?

- No, I would like to ask you
what I would like to ask you,

and that's
what I just asked you.

Now, can you answer it?

- Okay, let's not argue.

- There are good lessons
to learn from what Leslie did.

Most prosecutors are used to
defense lawyers stipulating

or being conciliatory
to the experts.

Not her.

- And after all,
you did take these notes.

These are all your words,
correct?

- It was such
a crazy, crazy case.

The Menendez brothers
in those sweaters.

I'd like to know the science
behind the sweaters.

Now, we always thought, "Oh,
yeah, they're dressing them up

to look like Joe College."

- Now, looking back on it,
okay, yeah,

maybe the sweaters were
a little too much.

But I get the idea.

You were trying to make them
look like, you know,

everyday kids.

- For us, they were butchers.

They were just
spoiled, rotten kids

who loved money more
than they loved their parents.

*

- And I started receiving
letters from people,

and then there would be people
outside the courtroom

with signs either for me
or against me.

It was just too much

for me to sort of cope with
in my brain.

- I was really surprised
at kind of the groupies

that have been here
for a while.

- I'm kind of obsessed
with the trial.

It's a real interesting trial,
and I--

I want them to acquitted.

- I think they're really cute.
[laughs]

- Not being on the jury
and not being their lawyer,

there's a limit
to what I can do,

other than show my support.

*

- I wrote one letter to Erik.

Generally, the letter was,
"I support you.

"I feel sorry
for what you're going through.

I believe in your testimony."

We started a communication
through letter writing

through the trial.

He was telling me about
how they put him on Xanax

and how stressed he was

about how the trial was going.

- I was being portrayed
as someone

who would kill for money,

someone who had no empathy

or had a disregard
for the lives of my parents.

These were horrible, horrible
things.

And the truth of what happened
wasn't being told,

and I had to get used to
simply being the villain,

and there was nothing
I could do about it.

If you can imagine
the worst moment of your life,

the one moment
you want to undo

and would give your own life
to go back in time and change

suddenly becoming the center
of a media storm,

it was horrifying.

What was surreal and bizarre

was me reading a newspaper

and there'd be an article
about Lyle and I,

some of which
were simply false.

- The "LA Times"
sensationalized this case.

I read their stories.
I read them every single day.

I couldn't believe it.
It was not objective.

It was overtly slanted
against the Menendez brothers.

- If you're portrayed

as a greedy, arrogant,
playboy bastard kid,

then that's what you're going
to be seen as,

and that's how
you're going to be judged.

That was the narrative,

and that was the narrative
I was seeing,

this persona
of me being portrayed.

I didn't like the persona
of Erik Menendez.

- They did take certain actions

that brought this
upon themselves.

They're not entirely victims
here.

In fact, they're more--

they're more perpetrators
than victims

when you consider
that they took two lives.

- They were known as "the boys"
throughout the trial,

even though they actually went
into their 20s

by the time
the trial was over.

- Boys are not supposed
to be "victims."

- At 18, you're not a boy.

You're not a child.

You're not this young little
victim, basically.

- The people
of the state of California

rest their case in chief

against defendant
Erik Menendez.

*

- Everyone thinks the case
is going pretty well.

But, I mean, I know Leslie,

and I know how good she is,

so I was just wondering.

I said, "Is it really?"

But there's nothing I could do
at this point.

- I don't believe
that there is any such thing

as an all-American family.

What the facade is,
it has nothing to do

with what's really going on
inside.

Every family has a secret.

It just depends on how bad
that secret really is.

- At some point, I think
Leslie fully understood

everything that happened

and the trauma
that has happened in my life

and just built up
a presentation for a jury

about the most horrible stuff
of my life.

*

- Between the ages of 6 and 18,

my client, Erik Menendez,

was sexually molested
by his father.

If a boy, even a teenage boy,

is being sexually molested,

is it his fault?

- It was a very strange case

unlike anything
that we had seen in LA.

It was the first case
to bring out

what I call the dir--
America's dirty little secret

of child sexual abuse
in upper-class families.

- Well, the big question is,
do you believe him?

I mean, I think people
were really surprised

by the defense in this case.

- What mattered in the trial--

I think the only thing
that mattered--

was what happened that week

that caused me
to be so terrified

that I could ever pull
that trigger.

And so to get there,

to understand
how I could think this,

who's gonna tell that story?

- This family was living
the American dream.

But all of a sudden,
this American dream

was just a facade.

- I have tried,
but I can't remember one time

when I ever saw Kitty and José
hug each other.

They would pose for pictures.

They put on the airs

of being this great, happy,
well-together family.

Inside, there was threatening.

There was yelling.

I lived with them
for over a year.

I couldn't take it anymore.

- I wish
I never lived with them,

because I wouldn't have known

the behind-the-doors scenario
was going on in that house.

- My bedroom was downstairs,

and there were
two single beds.

And Lyle came downstairs
one night--

it was before bedtime and--

wanting to sleep
in the other bed.

And he said that he was afraid

that his dad was going to come
into his room,

that he and his dad

had been touching each other
"down there."

And he indicated
his groin area.

So I went to get Kitty,

and I told her
what was going on.

She didn't say anything.

She just took him by the arm
and took him back upstairs

and took him back
to his bedroom,

and that was it.

Kitty and José were
like king and queen,

and so
it was just not in my head

to second-guess what they did.

- What I experienced
while living with them

was kind of strange.

One time, I went
into their room.

I was talking with Lyle,

and as I'm sitting on the bed,
I'm looking,

and under the bed
is a Tupperware container.

"What the hell is that for?"

And then Lyle goes,
"No, don't touch that."

Only it was too late;
I'm already on that,

and I just went over,
and I grabbed it out.

And to my dismay,
it was a Tupperware container

that had feces in it.

And I looked over at him,
and I said,

"What the [bleep] is this?"

He looked at me, and he says,
"Oh, I get nervous.

"I don't want to go
to the bathroom

"or tell Mom that I have to go
to the bathroom,

so I just go to the bathroom,
and I close it up."

I'm like, "What the [bleep]?"

*

- You learned, "Don't talk

about what goes on
in this home."

And the reason is

that climate of secrecy.

And these families often
are isolated,

so they don't have a sense
of even what's normal.

- The trauma that both of
the brothers suffered

not only involved verbal
and psychological humiliation

and hypercriticism.

Erik told me it involved
physical abuse at times.

But there was something more
going on as well.

- Lyle and I had fought so hard

to keep the secrets
from coming out.

But when I was first molested,
it was by Lyle.

He would take me out
to the woods,

and he would have me
bent over,

and he would stick things
in me.

He was an abuser, a bullier,
and he hurt me.

- My father would fondle me,

and he would ask me
to do the same with him,

and I would--
I would touch him.

We would undress.

He used a toothbrush

and some sort of
shaving utensil brush

in the bedroom.

We'd have what we called
object sessions,

and he'd just slide
my pants down

or take my pants off.

He'd have a tube of Vaseline,
and he'd rape me.

I took Erik out to the woods.

I took a toothbrush also,

and I played with Erik
in the same way.

[in shaky voice]
And I'm sorry.

- Lyle was just modeling
behavior

that he had experienced.

This occurred when they were
very, very young,

and they didn't quite
fully understand

what was right
and what was wrong,

and they didn't know
it was wrong at the time.

Lyle was mimicking what
his father had done to him.

- It was about six to eight
months of work with him

before it started to come out

in a very halting, limited way.

Erik said the father began
touching their genitals,

and this made the brothers
uncomfortable,

but Erik didn't know
what to make of it.

He thought that
this was normal,

'cause his father said,
"This is all normal.

"This is part of helping you be
a better athlete,

helping you to relax"
and so forth.

*

- This house in Monsey,

that's where
a lot of the bad stuff

began to happen in my life.

The scariness and the violence
for me as a child

began in that house

and in the forest
outside that house.

The darkness started
when I was six.

At the time, I actually saw it
as just the opposite.

I saw it as a way
of my dad expressing

that he loved me.

I believe he was
a brilliant man

and a sick man.

I loved him, and I hated him.

But the most overwhelming
memory of my dad

is that I feared him.

He had a darkness.

- Objection, Your Honor,
and move to strike.

- Overruled.

- Speculation, Your Honor.
- Overruled.

- Leslie Abramson
wouldn't back down.

And the judge
would reprimand her.

- Somehow, it seems
that you might be interrupting

just a bit here.

- She would keep going,
and she would keep going.

- You tend
to shake your head negatively

when the court rules
against you.

- Yes, I do, Your Honor.

- And you had better stop
doing that,

or the court's going
to find you in contempt.

- Well, the court may be
finding me in contempt

pretty soon anyway,

because I'm finding
the court's rulings

astonishingly biased.

- It was like a prize fight

when you watched those two
in the courtroom.

- She knew
who she represented,

and Leslie could care less

about whether she made
a judge angry

or she made
the prosecution angry

or even reporters.

- You want that?
That's what you get today.

- It was her job
to be a warrior.

- You want to convict him
for his crime? Fine.

You want to victimize him more?
Not fine.

Do you have another question?

- Leslie was a fighter
and a believer.

I dated Angie Dickinson
during that time,

and Angie hated
the Menendez brothers,

hated everything
they stood for

to kill their parents.

You know, she was
law-and-order Angie.

And we had dinner
with Leslie Abramson,

and Leslie Abramson said
at the dinner,

"These boys,
I would adopt them.

That's how much I love them."

And Angie kicked me
under the table

with a kick I still feel
the pain in the shin

with the high heels.

She gave me
a schwerzach schachamug.

But she was very mad at Leslie,
but Leslie believed it.

Leslie, she did a hell of a job
that first trial.

- In the early stages

of José Menendez's seduction
of his son,

which our experts will tell you
is a classic pattern

among incestuous males,

he told the child that this was
their special secret,

to be shared with no one.

- A couple of years,
we moved to Pennington.

And I know
that my night terrors,

the things where it began to
manifest inside of me, began.

In Pennington,
things had progressed

where he would have me
massage him,

and I would do so
with my mouth.

And I remember one time
him holding my head

and I started to gag,

and he forced himself
in my mouth,

and I got scared.

I remember that moment,

because that was
the first time

that I really remember
feeling fear.

And I remember afterwards,
he kind of rubbed my head

and said that, you know,
I'd been good and a good boy.

- This is page 41 of my notes.

The molestation started
at age six.

That was the massages.

Then it became sexual
at the age of seven,

and it involved
oral copulation.

Then there was intercourse

between the ages
of nine and ten.

- The first time that he tried
to penetrate me,

I--I didn't just feel fear.

I wanted to scream inside.

I wanted to--I wanted
to scream.

I remember the moment
that things really changed.

I was--pretty sure
I was, like, 11.

And I remember there was
an argument

that he was having
with my mom,

and it had become, like,
a violent argument.

And I could hear him
coming up the stairs,

and he came,
and he opened the door,

and he slammed the door,
and he...

made me get down on my knees.

He had me perform oral sex
on him.

I remember afterwards,
he pushed me away,

and I started to--
I started crying.

He said, "Why can't you just
be more like your brother?

"And why do you have to cry
all the time?

"Why can't you just be
good enough

to be a Menendez?"

And then he said,
"You'll get used to it."

There was no more "this is
something I am doing

"because I love you and
because we have a special bond

that I don't want anyone
to know about."

That was no longer a part
of what was happening.

- It wasn't anything
that came up

until after the attorneys
got ahold of them.

They're arrested,
and lawyers come in,

and then the next thing
you know,

"I was abused."

It was too pat.

It just didn't seem real.

- The fact that they didn't
report it at the time

did not mean
that it was a lie.

The fact that they were healthy,
good-looking, wealthy young men

didn't mean that it was a lie,

that certainly
child sexual abuse happens

in every kind of a family.

- Children who've been abused
oftentimes don't tell,

because sometimes they don't
know that they've been abused

until later in their lives.

Children tend to trust adults,

so at certain times
in their development,

if they've been abused
or punished,

they feel that they've done
something wrong.

- We were taken aback

at this revelation
of what caused this murder.

We even interviewed,
in New York, a girlfriend

that José had at the time.

He was having an affair
with another woman,

and he was married to a woman.

- Having mistresses
has nothing to do

with being a pedophile.

You can have mistresses
and still, you know,

be sexually inappropriate
in other areas of your life.

- You know, this is kind of
a farfetched defense.

Let's see how this plays out.

- You heard
about some of the things

that he liked to do
to his little boy.

- In the media,
that's all you would hear,

is that these two rich boys
killed parents for money.

The people who think that

did not sit through
the same trial that I did.

- He'd rape me.

- Would you cry?

- Yes.

- Gut-wrenching.

And then the grief
that they shared, really,

between each other, I think,

was extremely compelling.

- I thought the testimony
was compelling,

just as watching
Laurence Olivier act

is very compelling as well.

- You will have to ask
the question,

"Why did she never enter
her son's room

when José Menendez
was alone with him?"

- I think there could have been
some abuse.

I always tend to think,
in these high-profile cases,

that the truth is somewhere
in between.