All language subtitles for How.It.Really.Happened.S01E01_English

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Welcome to
"How It Really Happened."

I'm Hill Harper.

It was a hot August night
in 1989

when media titan José Menéndez
and his wife, Kitty,

were gunned down in cold blood

in their multimillion-dollar
Beverly Hills mansion.

The gruesome double murder
shocked residents

of this well-heeled hamlet

and would later transfix
a nation drawn

to the lurid testimony playing
live from a Van Nuys courtroom,

but for the first several months
following the murders,

the world would be riveted
by one of the most publicized

whodunits in history,

and it was straight out
of a Hollywood film noir.

But how did it really happen?

♪♪

Velez-Mitchell: Beverly Hills
represents wealth,

represents exclusivity.

Prettiest people,
the fanciest cars.

Crimes happen all over L.A.,
but rarely in Beverly Hills.

Beverly Hills, California,
averages two murders a year,

and in August 20, 1989,
their quota was filled.

♪♪

The phone rang, and it was
the watch commander indicating

that I needed
to respond to the station.

They had a double homicide
at 722 North Elm.

Reporter: The first patrol car
pulls up.

Erik Menéndez is curled up
in a ball,

weeping hysterically
on the front lawn.

At this time, we have
two deceased persons inside,

a male and a female.

They escorted me into the home
to show me the crime scene.

As you enter, there is
a large double door

directly in front of you.

♪♪

The -- The victims were
in their home, you know,

watching TV,
having dessert, relaxing.

Apparently, that's where
they started shooting

the second they were
in the room.

Fogg: Mr. Menéndez was sitting
on the couch

and quite a bit of trauma
to the legs,

to the head, to the torso,
just immense carnage on --

on the body itself.

Just below, on the floor
between the coffee table

and the couch, was
Mrs. Menéndez, Kitty Menéndez.

In my 38 years
in law enforcement,

I've seen murder victims
and I've seen suicide victims,

but the condition in which
these two bodies were in

just I'll never forget
the look.

They were basically
unrecognizable.

The way movies depict
a crime scene

is tamer often
than what it really is.

It's always shocking,
the amount of blood.

It's more than you can fathom.

Fogg:
Occasionally, you would hear
a flop here and a flop there,

and that would've been the
tissue falling down from the --

the bookcases or the ceiling.

My partner needed to hold an
umbrella over my head and camera

so that it would
protect us both

from the types
of tissue falling down.

Edmonds: When they picked up
José's body,

the brain fell out of his head.

It was just a -- a scene you
don't want to see very often.

♪♪

It was quarter to 12:00,
12:00 at night,

and the phone woke us up.

Erik was screaming on the phone,
"My father is dead!

My father is dead!"

The house was cordoned off
already with that yellow tape.

There was a number
of police cars.

They blocked off the traffic,
no traffic.

Lyle was on the sidewalk
talking to one or two

either policemen or detectives.

The police show up
at the scene,

and there are
these two distraught sons,

these two boys,

and they've just found
their parents murdered.

Lyle and Erik Menéndez,
the brothers,

they had a good reputation.

They were good students.

They were great tennis players.

Heffernan: I was quite close
to them at that time,

and I felt like they needed me.

We went down to the police
station, and I went with them.

I interviewed the two boys,
Lyle and Erik,

and Erik was very,
very tearful

and told me that they had been
to a food festival

and a movie in Santa Monica.

And when they came in,
they entered the house,

they found their parents
deceased.

I tried to console him and then
tried to get information

as to who would've
possibly done this.

Camerota: The first hours
after the crime,

the police are scrubbing
the crime scene,

and they're looking
for DNA evidence.

They're looking
for fingerprints.

They are looking
for eyewitnesses

and for what people
might have heard,

particularly when the crime
is gunshots.

♪♪

I believe,
at 10:00 in the evening,

the neighbors heard a banging

but did not want
to get involved.

It sounded like
[Imitates gunshots]

Shotgun blasts
over and over again --

you're talking, you know, a good
16 shots with a shotgun blast.

Nobody called the police,
which is very surprising.

They call on barking dogs
all the time in Beverly Hills,

and parking violations.

I remember first hearing

about the Menéndez murders
on local TV,

and it seemed
completely unreal.

The names of the victims
that we have

is Joseph Enrique Menéndez,
45 years old,

and his wife, Mary
or Kitty Louise Menéndez,

44 years old.

Who could get into the home
and creep up on them

as they're watching TV,
you know, in their den?

There was no real struggle.

How did the perpetrator
do that?

Reporter: People in this quiet,
exclusive neighborhood

remain surprised
at the murders.

Woman: It said Beverly Hills,

and I thought it was
somewhere else, you know?

Reporter: Why?
Why'd you think that?

Well, I didn't think
it would be here, right --

right where
I come to work at.

After what happened here
last night,

some of the neighbors
are worried and afraid.

We don't know if this is
an isolated incident.

Fogg: There was an urgency
that we needed to solve this --

this case,
not only for the victims

but for the community
at large.

Was it a gang-related
type thing?

Was it a Mafia-related
type thing?

This was a horrific crime.

Reporter: Police have
no conclusive evidence.

Who hated them?

Who had they crossed?

♪♪

Reporter: It happened
at this mansion

in the heart of Beverly Hills.

At approximately
11:47 P.M. last night,

we received a call
on our 911 emergency line

from the residents stating

that there had been
a shooting here.

On the night José
and Kitty Menéndez were killed,

Erik and Lyle Menéndez,
you know, made this 911 call.

Reporter: All morning,
detectives and technicians

from the crime lab
continued to look for clues

behind the huge oak doors
and the ornate windows.

Heffernan:
This was all about loss.

They had lost their parents,

and it was a huge issue of loss
and immediate grief.

♪♪

Lyle: It's really hard
to describe the --

the feelings, just the shock,
just not believing

that this was happening
and that my parents were dead.

Rand: There were three
memorial services

for José and Kitty Menéndez.

There was a third memorial
service that was held

in late September '89,

about a month
after the murders,

for the Cuban-American
relatives in Miami,

and Erik and Lyle
didn't show up.

They told their aunt that
they were just too emotional.

♪♪

Camerota: In the days
following the crime,

police were confused,

and they were baffled.

You had two dead people in
a high-class residential area,

which is like a red light to
the press and to this community.

And we had no leads, zero.

Reporter: Is it as much of a
mystery to everyone around here

as it seems to be
to the police right now?

Yeah.

I mean, we just have no clue
how --

how anything like
that could -- could happen.

♪♪

The goal
was to solve the crime.

We checked everything
trying to find some evidence

that possibly
the crooks left.

We found quite a bit of shotgun
pellets that were left behind,

and those were everything
from bird shot,

which is very small,
to double-ought buck,

which is very large.

There was some pieces of wadding
in there

from the shotgun rounds.

I believe that there were 13
of those that we recovered

throughout the floor,
but the interesting fact

was the expended cartridge cases
were all picked up.

And fingerprints on
a plastic shotgun shell

would be pretty darn good
for fingerprints.

So it was a very calculated move
on the suspects' part

of trying to collect
as much evidence as possible.

Why they didn't pick up the --
the wadding, I don't know.

Camerota: So when a crime
happens in Beverly Hills,

the first kind of snap judgement
you would make is,

"Oh, robbery.
This involves money."

There were no apparent signs
of a forced entry.

We're uncertain,
as of this time,

as to how whoever committed
the crime

actually got into the home.

Curtis: Was it a robbery?
Probably not,

because we don't believe
there was any property missing.

The next thing the police
have to do is,

what could be the connection
between the murderers

and the victims?

There were a lot of signs
at the scene

that indicated there was
some type of relationship,

that the killer and the victims
knew each other in some way.

A lot of the shooting occurred
very close

because Mr. Menéndez was sitting
on the couch,

and right on the arm
of the couch was a remote

that did not fall off.

Also, the coffee table
immediately in front

of both victims,

the items on that
were not disturbed,

so the shooters were very,
very close-range, point-blank.

Camerota:
They would start looking
at Kitty and José Menéndez

about who their enemies were.

The initial media speculation
about the Menéndez murders

was that it was somehow related
to the entertainment business.

Curtis: It's my understanding
that it was the two boys,

Erik and Lyle,
who also indicated early on

that this might be
a Mafia involvement.

Johnson: When José and Kitty
were murdered,

the original idea
was that it was supposedly

because José's business dealings

previously had an arm
of their company

that dealt in soft-core porn.

I was, at the time, working in
a suburban bureau

of theLos Angeles Times,

and I was covering
the pornography industry.

There had been a previous
mob hit of a pornographer

in Los Angeles
just the year before,

and I started looking into
the allegations of a mob hit.

Reporter: TheLos Angeles Times
is reporting organized crime

may have played a part
in the murders.

So Doug Plog and I
went to Newark...

...and interviewed a guy that
was part of organized crime.

He said, "We wouldn't have
been as messy,"

because we described
to him what happened,

"And we wouldn't have
killed his wife."

Reporter: Police have no
conclusive evidence

that 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 José was Latino,

that there was some type
of drug connection.

So then we profiled José to see
if he had any connections,

and it was all dead-end stuff.

Camerota: At the same time
the police are doing

their investigation,

these twoL.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.

My colleague, Ron Soble, and I
visited them at their mansion.

It had been only a few weeks,
and so I walked in fully

expecting to see
two traumatized young men,

and with Lyle, there --
there wasn't any trace of that.

He had some ideas
to start businesses.

He was much more interested in
talking about his business plans

than he was about what happened
with his father and mother.

Erik took his cues from Lyle
in trying to show that he was,

you know, ready to assume
the mantle of adulthood.

We had a strong suspicion
at that point

that there was something Lyle
and Erik were not telling.

Something wasn't right.

Bye!

Bye, everyone!

♪♪

♪♪

My editor at theMiami Herald
wanted me to write a biography

about the fascinating life
of José Menéndez,

Cuban-American
rags-to-riches success story

that ended in this
horrible tragedy.

We lost a friend as --
as well as a -- a --

a business associate.

Rand: The people
that worked with him

at Live Entertainment
tended --

tended to like José very much,
admire him very much.

José worked like a demon
to succeed in America,

and he did.

♪♪

Reporter:
45-year-old José Menéndez

was a talented, tough-minded
show-business exec.

When he left Cuba at 16,
he was penniless.

Well, José was the youngest
child in a family in Cuba.

Although they weren't rich,

they were certainly
a well-respected family

and considered themselves
part of the Cuban elite.

When Castro came to power,
they lost everything they --

they had, and, you know,
his family gradually,

one after the other, left Cuba.

The company is broad-based,

and it provides pretty much
what the consumer wants.

Edmonds: He started off working
at Hertz as an executive

and worked himself up
like a rocket,

really a brilliant guy.

Rand: When José Menéndez was
a top executive

with Hertz Rent a Car,

O.J. Simpson actually came
for dinner one night

to the Menéndez home
in Princeton, New Jersey,

and he met Erik
and Lyle Menéndez

when they were young boys,
and from Hertz,

he was named head
of RCA Records.

José Menéndez,
he was very successful,

but it came out that he also
had a bit of a dark side.

Johnson: 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.

Vicary: 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.

Reporter:
47-year-old Kitty Menéndez

was a former
small-town beauty queen

who met her future husband
at a college debating class.

When José met her, you know,
he --

he was a brash, handsome guy
with wavy, dark hair, 6'1",

and he swept her
right off her feet.

Camerota: According to Lyle,
her son,

Kitty Menéndez
was miserable in her marriage,

and she wasn't trying
to hide that.

It's very hard not to feel
for Kitty.

She seemed trapped in a marriage
she didn't know what to do about

with a man who
was obviously very difficult.

Kitty Menéndez was
the doormat in the family,

and she allowed everyone
in the family

to treat her like a doormat.

I think that the father
treated her with no respect,

and therefore her sons
treated her with no respect.

José did, to his associates,

praise his sons filled
with admiration.

At the same time, it was filled
with expectation.

Vicary: The first thing were
the indoctrination of the sons

by the father,
who would sit them down

in a chair in the basement
for hours at a time.

Johnson: Especially Lyle.

Apparently, he would, like,
almost put his forehead

against his forehead
and, like,

to try to inculcate in him
his winner-take-all philosophy.

Vicary: The Menéndez family
was like a royal family,

that, "We were better
than other people,

that we were
athletically gifted.

We were smarter."

Johnson: I think the most
dangerous thing he did

was to teach them the lesson
that if you want something,

go for it, and don't worry about
what you may do to people.

Things began to escalate.

The ends justifies the means,

and that's what
he taught his kids.

♪♪

Rand: About a year and a half

before José and Kitty
were killed,

Erik and Lyle Menéndez
were involved

in some burglaries in Calabasas
where the family was living.

These two had more of
a checkered past

than the family ever let on.

Johnson: One of their friend's
parents had gone away.

From what I understand,
it was Lyle's idea

to break into the house and
steal jewelry from the people.

It's a way of directing
their frustration

and resentment and anger
and acting out.

In an attempt to keep
Lyle Menéndez out of trouble,

because he was over 18,
basically,

Erik Menéndez took the fall for
these burglaries in Calabasas,

and José Menéndez made a deal
with the DA's office

that Erik would be charged
as a juvenile.

They couldn't stay
in Calabasas

because their sons had burgled
the neighbor's houses,

and so they moved
to Beverly Hills.

For them, that was the ultimate
in showing success.

Rand: When the Menéndez family
moved to Beverly Hills,

one of Kitty's closest friends
said,

"Kitty, you finally made it.

You've got your 90210 zip code."

Kitty: Erik?

Hello, everyone out there
in TV land!

Rand: This was a family that was
perfect on the outside,

but the perfect family
turned out

to actually be a nightmare
in real life.

Bye!
Bye, everyone!

Who could've brutally murdered
the Hollywood executive

and his beauty-queen wife?

For months,
the public breathlessly

followed every lead.

Was it a mob hit,
a drug deal gone bad?

They all seemed to be dead ends,

but behind the scenes,
the trail was getting hotter.

Beverly Hills police detectives
and two newspaper reporters

were zeroing in simultaneously
on two prime suspects.

If the secret investigations
proved true,

the revelation would rock
the case and the country.

♪♪

♪♪

Vicary: This was
a horrific crime

in a very prominent family,

and it was a mystery
as to what had happened.

In October of 1989,
I came out to Los Angeles

to work on my biography
of José Menéndez

for theMiami Herald
Sunday magazine.

♪♪

Marta Cano, their aunt, said,

"You have to talk
to the brothers

to really understand
the Menéndez family."

At a certain point
in the interview,

I, you know,
gently said to Erik, "I --

I need to ask you
a few questions

about the night of the murders."

He told me repeatedly
how close the family was,

how much he loved his parents,

and he told me what a shock
it was to walk in and --

and see his parents.

As we were walking around
the house,

straight back
from the main foyer

was the room where José
and Kitty had been killed,

and I felt a chill
as I walked by the room,

and I thought to myself,

"if my parents had been killed
in this house,

had been brutally murdered,

I wouldn't be living
in this house."

We had put in several
interview requests,

and they finally agreed to sit
down with us at their mansion.

It started out just as
any interview

that any journalist would do
with the survivor of a family.

You want to draw them out
and see what --

what they might know as --
as much as anything,

and so I finally
just asked the --

the question
that all of us journalists

are embarrassed to ask,
but we ask anyway

because you never know
what somebody will say,

which is, "How are you doing?"

And Lyle said, "Well, it's been
kind of a long time now,"

and remember, this has only been
a couple of months,

"so we're pretty much over it."

The only thing I could
compare it to was somebody

who might have lost a pet
that they cared about,

but, you know,
you can get a new pet.

These two print reporters
from theL.A. Times

were not the only ones
who were picking up

on the strange response
and reaction

from the boys to the crime.

There was just something
about them

that did not sit right with me,

especially when I needed
to take an inked

set of fingerprints
from Lyle Menéndez,

and I asked Lyle,
"Can we go into the house.

Is -- Would that be all right?"

As soon as we were in the foyer,
he looked over at me,

and he said,
"Is that where it happened?"

And I looked at him like,

"You're the one who discovered
this, not me."

He looked like he just blew it.

Edmonds: He wanted to know
if we had leads

and were solving the crime.

He was overdramatic actually,

and that's
when we were starting to --

had our eyebrows
up about him.

Behind the scenes, the police
were quietly finding clues

that they did not share.

Fogg: There was quite a bit
of evidence,

computers that were
in the home.

Right around the time
of my deadline,

theL.A. Times
that Lyle Menéndez

had hired a computer expert
to come to the house

and look for a possible will on
the family's home computer.

Johnson: We found out
that 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 that 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.

Fogg: In fact, 3 days after,

they were spending quite
a bit of money on lavish items.

Buying Rolex watches.
They bought a Porsche car.

They spent a lot of money.

In fact, I think some estimates
say that,

in the first 6 or 7 months
after the deaths,

they spent $1 million.

That's a lot of money.

They had leased a condo
in Marina del Rey

that was part of their
insurance settlement.

They lived well.

Edmonds: They bought
a restaurant

in Princeton, New Jersey,

a buffalo wing place.

They were spending money
like it was --

they were drunken sailors.

Fogg: Not the typical behavior

that someone who just lost
their parents would demonstrate.

So all that is incriminating,
but police need cold,

hard facts to actually
charge somebody.

It's been 3 months, 4 months,
5 months,

6 months, and then boom.

Edmonds:
A woman came to the station.

She related a lot of things that
only the shooters would know.

That's it.
The game is over.

I knew it then.

Camerota: For 7 months,
there were no suspects.

The police were
hitting dead ends,

and then, in March of 1990,

something happened
that changed the whole equation.

Iannone: Over the months,
we gathered a lot of evidence.

It has been very circumstantial,

and we were waiting
for the glue,

if you will,
to bind it all together,

and just recently
that glue has come about.

♪♪

Rand: In the first week
of March 1990,

Judalon Smyth walked into
the Beverly Hills police.

Edmonds: She related
a lot of things

that only the shooters
would know,

and the key fact
that we got out of it was the --

the guns were
thrown off Mulholland Highway.

They took the guns, and they
drove up to Mulholland Drive,

and they just threw them over
the side of a very rural hill.

So we had a team
of our S.W.A.T. team

and every detective rappel,
checking every slope.

We didn't find any shotguns.

Police never find the weapons,

but they do follow her
next lead,

and that is to the place
where the guns were purchased.

We went to San Diego, goal being
we were going to check

every buy book in the town
or the county if we had to.

They visited a lot of gun stores
all --

this is just basic
good detective work,

and they looked at the registers
where people would buy guns.

The second place was a Big 5.

At first glance, it seemed like
this was going to be

yet another dead end.

They didn't see the Menéndez
boys' names in the register,

but they saw a name of a friend
of the Menéndez boys.

Edmonds: And the purchase
of two Mossberg 12-gauges

and some ammo.

After that, this case started
going together real well.

So the real question for police
was, how did this woman,

Judalon Smyth, happen to know
so much about this case?

It turns out that Judalon Smyth
was the former mistress

of the Menéndez brothers'
therapist.

Abrahamson: Just when you think
you've heard everything,

you have a spurned girlfriend
of the therapist

who may know something,

and the something turned out
to be explosive.

Erik becomes,
after the homicides,

more and more depressed.

I think Erik was haunted
by the murders afterwards,

and I think he needed
to talk to --

to people about it.

Reporter:
Psychotherapist Jerome Oziel

counseled the brothers.

Johnson: Erik,
he trusts Dr. Oziel,

and so he confesses
to Dr. Oziel

that they killed their parents.

Evidently, Erik was stressed out
from killing his parents,

Lyle not so much.

Lyle immediately rushed
over to Dr. Oziel's office.

Vicary: He tells Dr. Oziel,

"I understand what
my brother said here,

but I want you to know
that this must remain a secret.

If any of this comes out,
you're a dead man."

Well, Oziel got scared,
and he realized,

"I might get murdered.

I'll be the only one to know."

So Dr. Oziel came up
with a plan.

Rand: About a month
after Erik Menéndez confessed

to Dr. Oziel,

Dr. Oziel told the brothers
one afternoon that,

"I think it would be a good idea
if we record an audiotape

of one of our therapy sessions,

and just in case
you ever get arrested,

that we'll be able to show
that you had remorse,"

and so the brothers agreed.

So he says,
"I'll take the audiotape,

and I'll put it
in the safe-deposit box,

and nobody has access
to that safe-deposit box

unless something happens to me,"

and Dr. Oziel becomes upset and
dissatisfied with his mistress,

and he kicks her out.

Rand: The next morning,
Judalon Smyth walked into

the Beverly Hills police
and said,

"Dr. Oziel has an audiotape

that's in a safe-deposit box in
Sherman Oaks with a confession."

Hell hath no fury
like a woman scorned.

And we got a call
at 6:00 in the morning,

and Erik was panicked.

For 7 months, nothing,
seems like this is a cold case,

at least to the public,

and then after 7 months,
boom, an arrest.

♪♪

Johnson:
The Beverly Hills police,

they cordoned off the street.

They were afraid Lyle
was going to run.

I think that's why they moved
when they did.

And when he got into a car
to drive away, they --

they did a -- a stop
and arrested him at that time.

Dispatch:One oh seven seven.
22-20.

En route to a vehicle.

On the day that
Lyle Menéndez was arrested,

I was actually
in West palm beach, Florida,

and I had four
or five frantic messages

from the city desk
at theMiami Herald,

and they told me
that Lyle Menéndez

had just been arrested
in Beverly Hills.

Reporter: Erik was believed
to be in Israel

playing in a tennis tournament
when his brother, Lyle,

was arrested yesterday
by police.

Heffernan: We wanted to see
if Erik could actually

do this pro-tennis thing,
so we went to Israel.

He was in Israel to take part
in a tennis tournament.

That was the information
that we had.

And then the big question
was getting Erik back.

And we got a call at 6:00
in the morning

from Lyle's then attorney,

"You have to leave Israel
immediately,

or you will be extradited."

I didn't know what to think,
and Erik was panicked.

He said nothing, nothing.

Camerota: The first lawyer that
the Menéndez brothers

reached out to and hired
was Robert Shapiro.

He ultimately became very famous

because he became part of
O.J. Simpson's defense team.

Robert Shapiro negotiated
a surrender for Erik Menéndez.

We checked out,
went to the airport,

found that there was a flight
to London, and the next day,

I flew to L.A.,

and he flew to Miami
to see his aunt.

Reporter: 19-year-old
Erik Menéndez, accused,

along with
his older brother, Lyle,

of the brutal deaths
of their parents,

may be about
to turn himself in.

We have some unconfirmed reports
that he may in fact

be on his way back
to the United States.

We don't know what
his destination would be

or what his intent is.

His Cuban relatives had
to talk him into coming back,

and they said,

"We'll face it with you and do
whatever we can to support you,"

and they certainly did that.

They convinced him the right
thing to do was turn himself in,

so he and his aunt, Marta,
that actually both the brothers

were very close to,
flew to Los Angeles,

and he surrendered
to authorities.

Judge: Would the defendants
please rise?

Reporter: Brothers Lyle and Erik
Menéndez late this afternoon

were brought
into a Beverly Hills courtroom

and told of the charges
against them,

both accused of murdering
their father and mother,

José and Kitty Menéndez.

When I heard that the sons,
their sons that they had raised

with a silver spoon
in their mouths,

were the killers,
I wasn't stunned.

I was just disgusted.

Both brothers are being charged
with both murders.

We believe that both brothers
were involved --

actively involved
in the murders.

Both charges are official
circumstances

for which you could
be sentenced to death.

Do you understand
the charges?

Yes, Your Honor.

Rand: It was extremely difficult
for the Menéndez family

to process the arrest
of Erik and Lyle

for the murders
of their parents.

They couldn't believe it.

They said it wasn't possible.

Reporter: You believe strongly
in the boys' innocence?

Extremely. You can't --

You cannot imagine
how strongly I believe in that.

I -- I cannot --

I don't have words to say
how strong I feel

about the complete
impossibility of them

having committed the act
that they're accused of.

Heffernan: I think anybody
that knew these boys

couldn't imagine that they
could've shot their parents.

Reporter: 22-year-old
Joseph Lyle Menéndez

and his 19-year-old brother,
Erik,

were charged earlier this month
with two counts of murder each.

The sons were arrested
after a warrant

was served on
the family psychologist

in search of evidence.

Abrahamson: You had these
two boys of privilege

who had gone to a therapist
and bared their souls,

thinking that it was going
to be kept confidential,

and the next thing you know,
there's a big legal fight about

whether everything they said
was going to be admissible

against their interest
in a court of law.

It was awesome.

On behalf of Erik Menéndez,

we are going to vigorously
defend his

right to have
a confidential communication

with his therapist.

If the doctor is threatened,
then he can breach

patient confidentiality in order
to save his own life.

The defense was hoping that,
in suppressing the tape,

they could also convince
the judge

that Dr. Oziel
should not testify,

and the judge made it clear
throughout the hearings

that that was not
going to happen.

Months after their arrest,

the Menéndez brothers
decided to make a change

in their defense team.

Out went Robert Shapiro,
and in came Leslie Abramson.

We always assumed that
Dr. Oziel

would be part of the case.

That's what litigation is for.

Some you win.
Some you lose.

And Leslie was going to --

to take every ounce
of her energy,

of her soul to make sure that
if the state was going to prove

that these boys
were guilty of murder,

that the state was going
to have to prove it.

But the DA admits
that he is fighting

for every piece of evidence

to convict
the two Menéndez brothers

for the sensational murders
of their wealthy

Beverly Hills parents.

Rand: Both brothers were calling
me occasionally from jail.

They said,
"Wait until the trial.

You'll find out what was
really happening

in the Menéndez family."

He just said that it was
our secret,

that bad things would happen
to me if I told anybody.

After 2 years of high-stakes
preliminary hearings,

the judge finally allowed Erik
and Lyle's sensational audiotape

confessions to
be played at trial.

Based on that key piece
of evidence alone,

it looked like it would be
an open-and-shut case

for the prosecution,

but just before the trial
was set to begin in July 1993,

more than 3 years
after the murders,

the defense team introduced
a shocking new strategy,

which would soon shake
the state's case to the core.

The trial that transfixed
the nation in part two

of "The Menéndez Brothers:
How It Really Happened."

♪♪