Lyle and Erik Menendez were sentenced to life in prison for killing their parents. Now, more than three decades later, they are hoping new evidence could reopen the case.
The question is not whether killed their parents. They admit that they did. Instead, the focus of the case has long been on why they did it. They say they killed out of fear and in self-defense after a lifetime of physical, emotional and sexual abuse suffered at the hands of their parents. Here’s a look at the case.Aug. 20, 1989: Jose and Kitty Menendez are murdered
On the evening of Sunday, Aug. 20, 1989, Jose and Kitty Menendez were shot multiple times at close range with a shotgun while in the family room of their Beverly Hills mansion.911 call: “Someone killed my parents”
Officers responded to the scene after Lyle Menendez, then 21, called 911, screaming, “Someone killed my parents.”The Menendez crime scene
Lyle and his then-18-year-old brother Erik Menendez later told investigators that they had arrived home to find their parents shot to death.Who killed Jose and Kitty Menendez?
At the time of his death, Jose Menendez was working for a film studio, running its home video division. Investigators initially suspected that the killings may have been tied to his business dealings, but attention soon shifted to the couple’s sons, Lyle and Erik Menendez.Lyle and Erik Menendez’ behavior draws scrutiny
In the wake of the crime, the brothers appeared to be spending their parents’ money, and lots of it. They purchased Rolex watches and real estate, and invested in businesses.A tip leads to arrests
While the brothers’ behavior in the wake of the crime may have seemed unusual, it wasn’t hard evidence. But then, about six months after the crime, in March 1990, police got a tip from an unlikely source: Judalon Smyth, the girlfriend of a psychologist who Lyle and Erik Menendez had been talking to. She told police that the brothers had confessed to the killings in therapy and there was an audiotaped recording of it. March 1990: Lyle and Erik Menendez charged in parents’ murders
Days later, on March 8, 1990, Lyle Menendez was arrested by Beverly Hills Police outside the mansion where his parents were killed. Two days after that, Erik Menendez surrendered at Los Angeles International Airport upon returning from Israel where he had been playing tennis.July 1993: Opening statements begin in the Menendez brothers’ trial
On July 20, 1993, the highly publicized trial of Lyle and Erik Menendez began. Although they were tried together, they had separate juries deciding their fate. The brothers faced the possibility of the death penalty if convicted of first-degree murder.Lyle Menendez testifies at the first trial
The defense argued that the brothers killed their parents in self-defense and that they were deserving of a lesser charge and punishment. Menendez brothers testify about sexual abuse
Both brothers took the stand and described how they say they were abused. Lyle Menendez testified that he was sexually abused by his mother and father. He said his father began sexually abusing him when he was only 6 years old.Erik Menendez testifies at the first trial
While Lyle Menendez testified that his father stopped sexually abusing him when he was 8, Erik Menendez testified that it never ended for him and that he finally confided in his older brother Lyle days before the crime — at age 18.
