Original subtitles

♪♪

♪♪

Welcome to "How It Really Happened."

I'm Hill Harper.

The Menendez murders are one of the most well-known crimes

in U.S. history.

Jose, a wealthy Hollywood executive,

and his wife, Kitty, gunned down in their Beverly Hills mansion.

For months, the case went unsolved,

until the shocking confessions of their sons,

Lyle and Erik, came to light.

When the case went to trial in July 1993,

nearly 4 years after the crimes,

the public was literally watching along, gavel to gavel,

on an up-and-coming cable network, Court TV.

The Menendez brothers became infamous

pop-culture celebrities,

not just for killing their parents,

but for the reasons they claim drove them to do so.

Their riveting testimony is next.

Check it out.

King: The press calls the case

the Beverly Hills mansion murders,

and the story reads like one of the unsold scripts

that circulate here in Hollywood.

Watts: Are these the words of a saddened, shocked son

or the cool words of a cold-hearted killer?

Reporter: Prosecutors contend the Menendez brothers

were hoping to collect on an inheritance

estimated at $14 million.

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

Some estimates say that in the first six or seven months

after the deaths, they spent a million dollars.

They were spending money like they were drunken sailors.

King: And 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.

Woman: Writer Dominick Dunne appeared

to hear opening statements.

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 hell.

Judge Weisberg: 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.

Based upon this evidence, it will become apparent

that this murder was unlawful,

unjustified, and wholly premeditated.

I had been told by the D.A.'s office

to acquiesce to cameras in the courtroom,

and I went in chambers with the other attorneys, and I said,

"Absolutely not, I do not want cameras in the courtroom,"

and the judge said, "We are not going to have cameras."

And we come in for opening statement,

and there's the Goddamn camera.

But for a few mistakes they made,

this was almost the perfect murder.

Thank you.

Abrahamson: It's very difficult now, 20-plus years later

to think about how -- if the right word is --

innovative the Menendez trial was.

Reporter 2: A Los Angeles courtroom has become the focus

of worldwide media attention.

People were not used to seeing courtroom drama on television.

They just were not.

Reporter 2: 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 real life, and I think that all of us

like to delve into other people's lives.

People could not get enough of this.

Reporter 3: 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 getting

1,000 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.

Reporter 2: Prosecutor Bozanich,

throughout the trial,

has maintained the brothers actually killed their parents

out of greed and hate.

My premise was they killed their parents

because the parents were about to disinherit them,

and the parents were fed up with them.

Abrahamson: So the prosecution's case

was actually straightforward.

Everything showed that Lyle and Erik Menendez had,

in fact, shotgunned their parents to death.

Camerota: The prosecution's star witness was Dr. Jerome Oziel.

He was their therapist,

and he was the person who the brothers had confessed to.

"We did it."

They said, "We killed our parents."

Dr. Heffernan: I didn't believe they were guilty.

I just couldn't fathom that they could have done that.

I never believed whatsoever until it came out at trial.

The defense may call its next witness.

Woman: Defense calls Joseph Lyle Menendez.

Stevenson: Lyle was the first one to take the stand.

Even just hearing his voice was dramatic for everyone

because it's very rare that you get to hear

from the mouth of someone who has committed a murder

exactly how that murder went down.

We just burst through the doors, and I started firing.

They sat there very matter-of-factly

and explained that they did it.

I entered the room.

I saw two people in the room, and I just started firing.

And oh, my gosh, how many people would do that?

I just fired until there was nothing left.

There was things shattering,

and the noise was phenomenal, just chaos.

The most dramatic piece of evidence

was when Lyle Menendez acknowledged that, yes,

he had reloaded his shotgun and taken it

and put it up against his mother's head and fired.

At some point was your gun empty?

Yes, so I reloaded.

And what did you do after you reloaded?

♪♪

♪♪

I ran around and shot my mom.

And then Kitty gets shot and is crawling along the floor,

trying to, you know, get out of the way.

Murdering her, shooting her like a dog,

and then running through all that money on frivolities?

Did they ever even love her?

I felt very betrayed and used,

especially with the whole phenomena

of coaching them after the fact,

and that's when I really withdrew.

[ Camera shutter clicks ]

Rand: The prosecution put on a strong case,

but what they weren't counting on was the power of the defense.

I just told them -- I don't --

I don't --

And now we had an explanation.

Reporter 4: Over the past four weeks,

prosecutors have tried to prove

that the two Menendez brothers coldly plotted

and carried out the execution of their parents for two reasons --

hatred and greed, and defense lawyers concede

that their clients did kill their parents,

but not for those reasons.

We're back, and we welcome Leslie Abramson,

the attorney for Erik Menendez.

She's regarded in Los Angeles and around the country

as one of the best defense attorneys in the business.

If I was in trouble, I would think very seriously

about calling Leslie Abramson because she is that good.

This case has been treated like a soap opera

by you all for a long time, and it isn't a soap opera.

This is real life.

Leslie Abramson was incredibly passionate.

She was almost, like, rebellious in the courtroom.

I'm going to object to that answer, Your Honor.

This witness has been trying to do this --

Man: Counsel --

Judge Weisberg: You will succeed in not mugging for the jury,

not making faces to the audience.

You will behave professionally.

Is that clear? Yes, of course.

I do not believe any jury will ever convict

Erik Menendez of first-degree murder.

Leslie, you know, dressed them up in sweaters in court

and tried to emphasize how young they were.

Grace: I remember watching her in court,

how she would put her arm around them

and rub them and pat them

and, like, pick a piece of lint off their sweater,

just smooth it down in front of the jury.

Who could, you know, harm their parents,

you know, looking like that?

Reporter 3: During their trial, the brothers admitted they shot

and killed film-company executive

Jose Menendez and his wife, Kitty,

in the den of their $4 million Beverly Hills home

because, they said, of a dark family secret.

So in this case, the brothers 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.

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 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 that his mother was such a wonderful, loving mother.

I really wasn't getting anywhere.

It wasn't until four months,

little dribs and drabs started to come out

that there had been some very negative things

going on in the family, and now we had an explanation.

For 12 years, between the ages of 6 and 18,

my client, Erik Menendez,

was sexually molested by his father.

Bozanich: The attorneys stand up,

and they say they killed the parents

because of abuse, and you could hear a pin drop.

And we were all like, "Oh."

People started saying, "Why are we just hearing

about this for the first time?"

Jose Menendez's obvious purpose

was to use his child's body to satisfy his lust.

Dr. Heffernan: I had no idea of that.

The boys had never spoken about that and --

Or anybody that I knew around them

had never spoken about that.

I never saw anything with Jose and the boys at all.

Woman: Between the ages of 6 and 8...

...did your father have sexual contact with you?

Yes.

Stevenson: Everyone in the courtroom was stunned.

People just writing as fast as they could,

trying to get every word.

My dad came in and told me to take off my clothes

and to kneel on the bed.

At one point, I just started screaming,

and I started saying, "Stop, it hurts. It hurts."

I think people were stunned,

not only to hear this claim in the first place,

but to hear the details

about what these brothers said happened to them.

He raped me.

Did you cry?

Yes.

Did you ask him not to?

Yes.

How did you ask him not to?

I just told him -- I don't -- I don't --

I'm sorry.

I just told him that I didn't want to do this

and that it hurt me.

♪♪

And he said that he didn't mean to hurt me, and he loved me.

Rand: I saw reporters that were crying.

It was just such a powerful moment,

probably one of the most powerful moments

I've ever seen in a courtroom.

Bozanich: They had two years to get ready for their testimony.

I happen to know the defense attorneys

were at the county jail almost every day,

so, you know, put two and two together.

They're practicing.

Abrahamson: I thought the defense case

was original, creative,

a fascinating piece of defense lawyering and absolute nonsense.

Reporter 3: Assistant District Attorney Pam Bozanich calls

the brothers' abuse defense a legal smoke screen.

I would bet everything I own

and everything everybody else owns it didn't happen.

I was told by the bailiffs that he and Erik

would high-five each other after their testimony

because they, you know, they did such a great job.

I think the prosecution was confident of their case.

I think they thought,

"The jury is not going to buy this defense,"

and so I don't think they really prepared

a significant response.

Bozanich: You learned to lie as a child, didn't you?

I would say I did.

If you lied about this for all those months,

how are we supposed to know

that you're now telling the truth?

They were all screwed up psychologically, basket cases.

There's a reason why they acted out against their parents.

Grace: Something didn't sit right with me.

Something was wrong.

Reporter 5: Court TV records viewer comments,

and since the trial began five months ago,

the line is often clogged with callers

interested in the Menendez case.

It's hard to describe how I felt,

like I had to run as fast as I could,

that my life was so slipping away,

and that we were going to die.

So this is before social media.

You can imagine if Twitter was a thing

during the Menendez trial, it would have blown up.

Reporter 5: And just who's calling?

Men and women on both sides of the case,

those who believe the brothers are innocent...

They're calling in to say, you know,

"Give these guys more credit.

You can't make up stuff like this."

Reporter 5: ...and those who find them guilty.

"Those kids are absolute lying brats,

a string of four-letter words.

Reporter 5: Even the prosecutor's office

gets up to 50 calls a day.

You've got people calling you from Arkansas,

saying, "I saw you on Court TV, and I really hate your hair,"

and it's like, "Thank you, ma'am,

but, you know, I'm a little busy right now,"

and that happened a lot.

The defendants told Dr. Oziel that they killed their father

because he controlled them and made them feel inferior.

There were people not only in the states,

but all over the world that were watching

every day like a soap opera.

Abramson: Jose Menendez's obvious purpose

was to use his child's body to satisfy his lust.

And people that had to work during the day would record it

and watch it at night,

and Court TV would run a 3-hour highlight show every night.

I'm telling the truth to the best that I can,

and I remember firing directly at them.

-Can you answer the question? -Yes.

Abramson: Okay, it was you telling Lyle what?

That my dad had been molesting me.

People were obsessed. People couldn't get enough.

I remember one of the Court TV employees

saying that NBC had called, and they were going to do a skit

about the Menendez brothers on "Saturday Night Live,"

and it was about Erik and Lyle on the stand

and supposedly blaming everything

on their younger twin brothers

that apparently nobody knew anything about.

Woman 2: Is it your testimony

that you and your brother, Erik,

in fact, had nothing do with the murder of your parents,

Jose and Kitty Menendez?

That's correct.

Then can you tell the court who did murder your parents?

Our other two brothers,

Danny Menendez and Jose Menendez Jr.

You could see the celebrity aspect of this trial

playing out in real time and in real life,

and the zaniness of some of the people who were involved.

Dr. Jerry Oziel is quite a character.

He was almost worthless, except he could say,

"They told me they did it."

I asked them, "You mean you killed your parents?"

He said, "Yes."

And then Judalon Smyth, his girlfriend,

was bat [bleep] crazy.

Bozanich: Are you aware of the fact

that you told Diane Sawyer the following things?

She asked you, in the program which was aired

on August the 30th of 1990,

"Are Lyle and Erik Menendez guilty?

Did they murder their parents?"

Your answer -- "Yes, they did."

Diane Sawyer -- "You know this?"

You answered, "Absolutely, I heard from their own mouths

that they killed their parents."

So now you're saying that you no longer believe

that you heard that, correct?

I was brainwashed.

You were brainwashed?

Camerota: I mean, who brainwashed her?

How could she be brainwashed?

How could she tell Diane Sawyer one thing so clearly,

and then in court decide to completely, you know,

renege on that story?

Abrahamson: I think when Dr. Oziel's girlfriend

was on the stand, you're thinking to yourself,

"Oh, my goodness, what a -- what a show."

Bozanich: I always wanted to try a complex murder.

It turns out that you have to be careful what you wish for.

This was like a circus ride.

Now, do you want to equate a teenager

talking back to a parent with being a homicidal maniac?

Because that is the strongest evidence of aggression

that they think they have in this case.

I mean this admiringly...

Leslie loves the spotlight,

and in the closing argument, she had the spotlight,

and she was determined to milk it for every moment.

I cannot show you the crime that Jose Menendez committed on him,

but you heard about some of the things

that he liked to do to his little boy,

and one of them was to stick tacks like this in his thighs

and in his butt and to run needles across his penis.

The defense attorneys had given these, you know,

extraordinarily theatrical closing arguments.

Pam Bozanich didn't have a lot of theatrics.

Don't assume that just because people have money,

they can't be violent.

I remember being really angry during my closing statement,

and they bought the right ammunition.

They bought the right guns.

They killed their parents.

Look at these defendants.

Look at their crimes.

Look at what Lyle Menendez has tried to sell you as a defense.

Look at the lies that he has told you on the witness stand,

and ask yourself can you believe anything that this man says?

My hope was to make the jury think they were liars.

Stevenson: She stood up and just very quietly

and strictly said to the jury, is like,

"This is a first-degree murder."

This is what they did to their mother.

Stevenson: "And don't let them get away with it,"

and she did that really well.

Because the brothers have separate juries,

the verdicts will not be announced

until both have finished deliberations.

The only question was how long

the deliberations were going to take.

It's really left for the jurors

to determine the credibility and decide who they believe.

In 1993, the murder trials of Lyle

and Erik Menendez captivated the country.

TV networks were clamoring to get their Menendez

made-for-TV movies ready to air once the verdicts were read.

For six months, public opinion was divided

between seeing the Menendez brothers

as cold-blooded murderers or victims of unthinkable abuse.

What would each jury decide?

♪♪

Stevenson: So much had happened during the six months, I think,

that this trial went on, that it almost became,

like, unclear what verdict the jury should come back with.

Rand: The Menendez jurors

were faced with five different choices.

They could vote for first or second-degree murder,

voluntary or involuntary manslaughter or acquittal.

There was quite a bit of debate on what was the level

of the responsibility of the brothers.

Christian: Deliberations began in December.

At Court TV, we clearly kept viewers updated

on what was going on,

which was that nothing was going on.

What does it say when the deliberations

have gone on so many days?

And you're saying you still have a chance?

They're still deliberating, aren't they?

It seems like an eternity because we're, like, you know,

on pins and needles.

I was driving 30 miles to go sit in my office, waiting.

I actually brought in needlepoint to help.

Three weeks and they haven't budged.

It has been our suspicion

that there was some deep division.

I guess this is as deep as it goes.

The deliberations were taking a long time.

The judge just kept telling them to go back

and keep working on it.

I did see, during the trial, that some of the men

seemed to really have their minds made up altogether.

Woman 3: Do you solemnly swear

that the testimony you may give...

We were all given pads of paper

to take notes of things that are important

and things you want to remember and discuss.

Early on, those pads of paper the men had

were thrown on the floor under their feet.

So it wasn't too difficult to assume

how they were going to vote.

And then, in the middle of all the deliberations,

we had the Northridge earthquake.

Reporter 6: The earthquake hit at 4:31 a.m. Pacific time.

It measured 6.6 on the Richter scale.

This was a bomb. It went off under our complex,

picked it up and threw it back down 12 feet

and crushed these first-floor apartments within four seconds.

It was really, really scary for everyone.

Several of you sustained property damage at your homes,

dislocation because of the earthquake.

We all want to determine whether or not the earthquake,

its aftermath, is having any impact

on where you can't form a unanimous decision.

Because a lot of the jurors did have problems

that they needed to attend to.

So I don't think it helped the prosecution

to have that earthquake at all.

Judge Weisberg: The court finds

that there is no reasonable probability

of the jury reaching a unanimous decision in this case.

Therefore, I find that the jury is hopelessly deadlocked,

and the court declares a mistrial.

It turns out that the verdict was that there was no verdict,

and, in fact, it was a hung jury.

Stevenson: It was disheartening that it was a hung jury.

Everybody wants to see an ending to a good story,

and there was no ending to this story.

Woman 4: How deadlocked were they?

How deadlocked do you have to be?

When I first heard the jury hung,

I believed not necessarily

that they bought into the theory of abuse,

but that they were unsure.

And you know what?

If they were unsure, they should have hung.

Let's just all thank our lucky stars

they didn't acquit outright.

Rand: One of the most interesting facts

of the jury deliberations

is that all of the women jurors,

in both juries in the first trial,

voted for manslaughter, and all of the men voted for murder,

and when I interviewed jurors after the first trial,

several of the men told me,

"A father would never do that to his sons."

Abramson: Is it a victory?

No, I don't consider it a victory.

A victory would be if my client were free.

To me, that would be a victory.

I knew early on it was going to hang,

and I was hoping it would hang and not be a not guilty.

I didn't want them going home.

The D.A.'s office announced immediately

that they were going to retry the brothers.

We have an ethical, a professional,

and moral responsibility to go forward with this case

as a first-degree murder case.

We're seeking justice, and that's what we're going to do.

Gil was angry.

They're better actors than even I thought that they were,

if they're able to pull it off a second time.

Christian: So imagine that you're Gil Garcetti,

the L.A. County D.A.

You've got one huge high-profile trial

that had kind of ended with egg on your face,

and right after that, literally right after that,

O.J. Simpson.

King: O.J. Simpson is now one of our most wanted ever.

Reporter 7: It went through the interchange,

continuing northbound on the 405.

Rand: When the Bronco chase was being carried live on TV,

Erik Menendez was watching in his cell

at the L.A. County jail,

and a few hours later,

O.J. Simpson came walking down the hallway

in handcuffs and shackles,

and he was placed in a cell right next to Erik Menendez.

A year after the hung jury, the L.A. District Attorney

is preparing for the second, you know, take two

of the Menendez brothers trial.

And a few days before that trial is set to begin,

a verdict comes down in the O.J. Simpson case.

The verdict is in.

The Los Angeles jury found O.J. Simpson not guilty

of the murders of Nicole Brown

and Ronald Goldman.

Camerota: The O.J. Simpson verdict

was yet another crushing loss

for the L.A. District Attorney's office.

We are, all of us, profoundly disappointed with the verdict.

I don't think anybody can question

but that the D.A.'s office needed a victory.

Garcetti: You're talking about two first-degree murders

of a mother and father, committed by their children,

and be damned with how much money it's going to cost.

We're going to seek justice in this case.

Velez-Mitchell: The public, in the Menendez trial number two,

was in no mood to hear any excuses --

"Oh, my dad did this, boo-hoo-hoo."

They were like, "Unh-unh, we're done with that,"

and I think the O.J. case had a lot to do with that.

People were fed up, fed up with people coming up

with excuses for violent crimes.

The pretrial publicity, the negative publicity,

the fact that the Menendez brothers are a joke

in this country, that's a problem.

There's a bad -- there's bad vibes out there towards them.

Conn: We have now seen the defense take their best shot,

and we know exactly where they're going.

There are no more surprises.

It's round two for Los Angeles and the Menendez brothers.

In the first trial, two juries, one for each of the brothers,

hung, unable to choose between manslaughter and murder.

We believe, in our professional judgment,

my professional judgment,

the evidence warrants a conviction of murder

in the first degree.

A clear desperation for a conviction,

win one for the Gipper.

Reporter 8: The Gipper being District Attorney Gil Garcetti,

whose office has been criticized for losing

a string of high-profile cases recently,

including that of rapper Snoop Doggy Dog,

O.J. Simpson, and the original Menendez trials.

So, yes, a win was desperately needed

in the L.A. District Attorney's office.

It wasn't an easy time in the D.A.'s office.

We were getting buffeted a lot.

You read the stories that, basically,

we couldn't win anything.

King: Television. Yep.

Like it? Don't like it?

Oh, I love television. Right?

In the courtroom? No, I don't.

Woman 5: Defendant Orenthal James Simpson not guilty of...

Stevenson: The O.J. Simpson case had just ended,

and one thing that came out of the O.J. Simpson case

was that nobody wanted

to put cameras in their courtroom again after that.

Rand: The judge made a ruling

a few weeks before the second trial started,

that he was not going to allow the camera in the courtroom.

In order for TV stations to cover Menendez two,

they had to go old school and bring in a sketch artist.

But the way it turned out is people were still wanting

to hear every detail of this case.

Mic check, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6 --

And so every time there was a break in court,

I would go outside on the courthouse steps

and report live everything that happened in the courtroom.

The prosecution is differing this time in that

they are focusing so much

on the really gruesome, ugly details

of what two shotguns can do to two people.

Abrahamson: And the big, big, big change

was that David Conn took over as the prosecutor.

This is a clear-cut case of first-degree murder,

and we hope that we will convince a jury

of that this time around.

I thought, "I'm not doing this trial again.

I don't have to do this trial again,"

and so that's when I said, you know,

"I'd rather chew ground glass for a year

than try this case again."

Abrahamson: David was absolutely no-nonsense.

His idea from the get-go was facts, facts, facts.

What happened here, and who is responsible?

The molestation began...

Stevenson: He had the benefit of knowing

what happened in the first trial...

He just said that it was our secret.

...to be able to craft what would happen

in the second trial.

I think that we have now seen

the defense take their best shot.

We have the advantage of hindsight.

We know exactly where they're going.

There are no more surprises.

Our starting point is that David and I never believed,

for a moment, that they were abused.

Conn: There is no medical evidence whatsoever

to corroborate the claim of the defendants.

There are no eyewitnesses.

So how can they really say that the defendants are telling

the truth concerning the allegations?

The facts were -- when you look at them

and you analyze them objectively,

they don't support abuse.

Allegations of abuse that deadlocked the first juries

are largely banned from the second trial.

Much to my shock, the second trial,

the rules completely changed.

All this information about the sexual abuse

and the terror and sadism, the judge ruled was irrelevant.

The judge just whittles away at our defense,

makes it smaller and smaller and smaller,

and this jury doesn't have as much information

as the last juries had.

As a jury, you are stuck, for better or worse,

with the testimony and with the evidence

that you're allowed to see.

I'm not able to make my decision

based on facts that I couldn't see.

Abrahamson: David Conn's plan in the second trial

was to shut Leslie Abramson down at every turn.

Major motions, objection.

Minor motions, objection.

Abramson: What's taking place in the courtroom today

was a clear effort, on the part of the prosecution,

to prevent this jury from hearing the truth

of Erik's life.

Constant objection.

He objected when there was anything

that would show the brothers in sort of an innocent light.

I objected because I don't think that the judge

has to allow a witness to cry as much as he wants to,

while everyone just sits in the courtroom,

waiting for him to stop.

It's such an obvious ploy,

that they're trying to dehumanize,

you know, these brothers in order

to desperately get a conviction.

Stevenson: She was definitely cut off at every turn because,

by now, the prosecutors knew that this was her strategy,

and I think she felt like the judge wasn't fair to her.

The same kind of objections were not made in the first trial,

by prosecutors who were far more mature and wise and experienced

and professional than Mr. Conn is.

I think he's a punk.

♪♪

Wolfberg: We were given the case to go back in the jury room

and finally start to deliberate.

It was on the eve of the verdict.

They had almost all the votes in place.

Wolfberg: I said, "Well, it's later in the afternoon,

and the defendants would have to come back and all the attorneys.

We could be here until 6:30 or 7:00 at night."

So, at that point, it was decided,

"Okay, we'll finish up in the morning and see how it goes."

The next morning, we show up,

and two of our fellow jurors were not there.

Stevenson: The jury forewoman had a heart attack,

and another juror, on that same night,

went into premature labor.

And we would have to begin deliberations all over.

Erik did tell me that the stress of the trial

was so severe that,

by the second time around,

it was almost more than they can do.

Camerota: Nearly seven years after the murders

and after two trials,

news of potential closure came down.

Stevenson: We got notice that there was a verdict.

Everybody came out to hear what that verdict was going to be

because that would finally be the ending of the story.

It's about to happen. It's about to happen.

The new foreperson was sitting right next to me,

and I just remember his hands shaking when it came time.

All the attention in the courtroom was on us.

The jury has reached guilty verdicts

on first-degree murder for both brothers,

for the charges of killing both their mother and their father.

It wasn't going to be an undecided jury anymore.

[ Cheering ]

The jury has convicted the Menendez brothers

of first-degree murder.

They will spend the rest of their lives in prison.

I really can't say. Excuse us.

It was good for morale. I will say that.

We want justice to be done.

The guilty verdicts were read one by one,

and there was absolute silence throughout.

Leslie Abramson was very silent.

When the second jury came back guilty,

I went into the dumper because they won,

and I didn't, and it was hard.

It was just personally very devastating.

Johnson, Jr.: There was pathology in that household.

Did Jose and Kitty deserve to be murdered for it?

No, absolutely not.

Did Erik and Lyle deserve to be sent to prison for it?

Yes, absolutely.

Dr. Vicary: I'm not satisfied that the criminal justice system

really did justice in this case,

and that a lesser sentence would have been more appropriate.

We did think there was psychological abuse

to some extent.

Sexual abuse,

I don't think we will ever know if that's true or not.

It was also an area that did not necessarily

have to be answered to reach a verdict.

Wolfberg: I have no doubts I did my job,

with the evidence that we were allowed to consider.

You know, I came to the right decision.

Personally I think it's a good thing

we finally got a verdict in this case.

I think that Leslie Abramson in particular,

on behalf of Erik Menendez,

may have a pretty decent appellate argument

after the sentencing,

on the issue of whether the judge, in fact, cut her case

or gutted her case.

The legal part is over, but the human part continues.

As the years go by, I think of those guys

in their 8-by-10 cells for the rest of their lives.

What a waste. They had everything.

Rand: The brothers asked to be sent to the same prison

so they could be together, and the Beverly Hills police

opposed that because they said they were co-conspirators,

and therefore, they might conspire

to commit another crime.

I have not spoken to Lyle in over 10 years.

I have not seen him in over 10 years.

The last time I saw Lyle, we were --

It was 3:00 in the morning,

and we were put in separate vans.

Christian: The brothers are both in prison in California.

They're in their 40s now, which is so hard to imagine

because you think of them as the boys

that they were portrayed as during the first trial.

I was able to meet Erik in person

when he was sentenced to Folsom.

I don't even know how to explain what it was like.

We were establishing a bond of some kind,

which has continued all through these years,

and our trial was over in 1994,

so I'm talking about a lot of years.

Dr. Vicary: The interesting thing about Erik in prison

is that he has really thrived,

and he has become the person responsible for the prisoners

that are working in the hospice unit.

He is taking college courses, and he is getting straight A's.

Dr. Vicary: Lyle has had a more stormy course in prison.

He can be arrogant,

and he can be manipulative and narcissistic,

and he tends to alienate other prisoners.

They both married behind bars,

although I don't believe they're allowed conjugal visits.

I think Lyle has been married twice, actually.

We're back with Erik Menendez and Tammi Menendez.

They are married.

They are happily married.

I can't see my life without Erik.

He's my best friend, and he's a really good person.

Erik: Tammi and I talk about what happened that night,

and I tell her everything, and she's --

It's -- her love has allowed me

to really begin the long road to healing.

At the end of it all, the Menendez brothers

were sentenced both to life in prison,

but still today,

questions remain about what their motive was

and whether or not killing their parents

was actually justified.

-Yes, I do. -Please take the stand --

Stevenson: I heard iteration after iteration

after iteration of their stories,

and I went through believing them and not believing them.

I've never been able to come to my own conclusion

about exactly why it happened.

Abrahamson: I always thought

that Lyle was the pathological problem.

He was the older brother.

He exerted incredible, if not undue,

influence on his younger brother.

Erik was probably smarter than Lyle,

even though he didn't go to Princeton.

Erik was more conniving.

I feel like this was Lyle's show, and Erik followed,

and that's why he was more distraught the whole time.

King: Do you ever regret what you did?

Erik: Immensely so, immensely so.

If he hadn't felt such guilt over what they did,

they probably wouldn't even be in prison today

because no one would have known that they were the murderers.

They just did it because they were little bastards

and greedy ones, at that.

Erik: Not a day goes by when I don't wish

I didn't do this, when I could bring them back.

It's my unending regret, and, in a sense,

it's my real prison.

In 1999, citing the inability

to present their full abuse defense in their second trial,

Lyle and Erik Menendez

challenged their life sentence convictions from prison.

They lost in 2005 in the U.S. Court of Appeals.

But now, a new California statute

could possibly give Lyle and Erik

one final chance at freedom.

Penal code 1473.5 cites jailed abuse victims,

who are unable to present their full defense,

can "seek a new trial or a reduced sentence."

The brothers have until January 1, 2020 to file.

I'm Hill Harper. Thanks for watching.

♪♪