When the Menendez brothers give interviews, creepy things tend to be said. Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’re breaking down the most chilling moments from the Menéndez brothers’ case — in their own words.
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00:00We turn next tonight here to the case that captured the attention of this country,
00:04the Menendez brothers, Eric and Lyle.
00:06Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're breaking down the most chilling moments
00:10from the Menendez brothers' case, in their own words.
00:13I learned from the time I was a small boy to hold in pain and not express it physically.
00:24August 20th, 1989. The Menendez murders. Eric tells all.
00:28Later that night, my dad was pounding on my door, telling me to open up the door in my bedroom.
00:34I remember holding the gun, sitting on my bed, waiting to see if he was going to break down the door.
00:40As we'll get into a little later, the Menendez brothers have always said
00:44that Jose and Kitty Menendez's abuse was so bad that it caused them to fear for their lives.
00:49To that end, Eric's comments about the night of the murders themselves will put a chill down your spine.
00:55I remember this terror coursing through me that this was it. It was all going to happen now.
01:01You know, for the first time, I was going to confront my dad, not back down.
01:07Eric asserts that in the midst of building family tension, Jose pounded on his door.
01:12Eric feared that he would be killed.
01:14As the younger brother elaborates, Eric claims to have been sitting in bed with his gun in hand,
01:19waiting for his father to make a move.
01:21While, per Eric's account, Jose eventually gave up, this incident foreshadows the horror that was to come.
01:27In my mind, it didn't even matter that I was holding this gun.
01:30I felt like as soon as dad broke through that door, I was going to die.
01:33But I didn't care, because I was never going to let dad come in my room and do that again.
01:42It was the same life before or afterwards.
01:45With more money.
01:46With more money.
01:48Speaking to Barbara Walters for ABC's 2020 after their stunning sentence had been handed down to them,
01:53Lyle and Eric answered some of the nagging questions that remained after their years-long ordeal in court.
01:58Walters' characteristically blunt interviewing style left no stone unturned,
02:02nor did it let the Menendez brothers off the hook.
02:05It got to a point where I have all this money and so much pain, I don't know what to do with it.
02:11And eventually...
02:13I don't know, you're losing me.
02:15At one point, the veteran journalist drilled down on the brothers' $700,000 spending spree.
02:20Walters demanded answers as to how two people could even feel like shopping for luxury items
02:25after having committed such a heinous crime.
02:27In response, Eric revealed that no amount of money could fill the hole they had created,
02:32and that it might have simply been a coping mechanism.
02:35I don't think that it's understandable.
02:39People react to a traumatic event like that in different ways.
02:45Just a normal kid. 2020.
02:47I don't know if anyone can be portrayed fairly in the media who they are.
02:50Well, let me say it.
02:52There are people, a great number of people, who think that you two are spoiled brats.
02:58In the same 2020 interview, Walters asked the brother about media speculation regarding the case,
03:03their upbringing, and even themselves.
03:05Lyle and Eric commented that this speculation did not affect the facts of the case,
03:10nor did it imply their guilt.
03:12That's not who I am, but I can't defend that.
03:19Because I came from a family of wealth, it doesn't make me spoiled.
03:25In response to Eric's claim that he's a quote-unquote normal kid,
03:29Walters is bewildered and reminds him that he is a convicted murderer,
03:33found guilty of having taken both of his parents' lives.
03:36While Eric's statement may seem absurd on the surface,
03:39his follow-up, in which he declares himself to be a normal person
03:42who has gone through abnormal experiences, places it in context.
03:46Appearances are indeed often deceiving.
03:49But I don't think you aren't guilty because they found you spoiled.
03:53Or evil.
03:55Or evil.
03:56Just a normal, just a normal kid.
03:59Oh, Eric, you're a normal kid who killed your parents.
04:03Preparation for prison. ABC World News Tonight.
04:06I am the kid that did kill his parents,
04:09and no river of tears has changed that,
04:12and no amount of regret has changed it.
04:15Lyle's 2017 press interview,
04:17his first in over 20 years since the in-person Walters interview,
04:21revealed a calmer, more mature Menendez brother.
04:24While sticking firmly to his long-held positions regarding the case,
04:27Lyle expressed remorse and lamented the futility of the case,
04:31sharing that he and his brother's decision to kill their parents
04:33could likely have been avoided with greater forethought.
04:36My own childhood prepared me surprisingly well
04:41for the chaos of prison life.
04:43The elder brother's more revealing quote from the interview, however,
04:47was a remark that illustrated the depths of Jose's depravity.
04:50That is, Lyle's childhood had essentially trained him to handle prison.
04:55It's still a failed, destructive ending.
04:58That's part of the tragedy of it.
05:01It could so easily not have happened.
05:03New allegations against Jose. 48 hours.
05:07For me, it was very meaningful to just have things come out
05:13that caused people to really realize,
05:15okay, at least this part of what it's about is true.
05:18Throughout the Menendez brothers' trial,
05:20a massive obstacle that they ultimately failed to overcome
05:23was the lack of physical evidence of the alleged abuse they suffered.
05:26While those allegations were backed up by court testimony,
05:29as well as written and verbal accounts on Lyle and Eric's part,
05:32they were still found guilty and sentenced to life in prison
05:35without the possibility of parole.
05:37What do you remember about the Menudo Band members going to your home?
05:42Only that my father had sort of intimate involvement
05:47with that particular group.
05:49They usually would not have too much involvement
05:51with groups other than negotiations.
05:53However, in 2023, new evidence came to light
05:56that tentatively carried the potential of freeing the brothers.
05:59Roy Rossello, a member of Puerto Rican band Menudo,
06:02claimed that Jose Menendez had drugged and assaulted him as a minor.
06:06Lyle's recollection of Menudo visiting the family home
06:09will surely creep you out.
06:10People in the industry were talking about
06:12that maybe something had happened
06:13because there was a sex scandal in the group.
06:16Trading it all away.
06:17Dateline NBC.
06:19I would trade my entire defense for a 30-second video of my father.
06:24In a phone interview with Dateline NBC's Keith Morrison,
06:27Lyle Menendez put the abuse his father inflicted upon him
06:30in no uncertain terms.
06:32When asked by the investigative journalist
06:34if he was avoiding responsibility by blaming the aforementioned abuse,
06:37the elder Menendez brother asserted that, in essence,
06:40a video of his father's atrocious behavior
06:42would trump any legal defense and convince any juror.
06:45I would trade my whole case for it
06:47because I think it's so sanitized and so easy to use the word abuse
06:51over the abuse that abuse wasn't so bad.
06:53Pressed by Morrison as to why the brothers didn't simply pack up and leave,
06:56Lyle countered by declaring that no matter where they tried to run and hide,
07:00their father would catch them,
07:02and that the consequences would be dire.
07:04We finally just kind of got overwhelmed with this panic and emotion
07:08and made the decision to run in that room.
07:10Lyle's devil's pact. Dateline NBC.
07:13I said nothing.
07:15And I just feel like part of that pact I have with my dad
07:19is I'm keeping this secret.
07:21Lyle commented on the events of the case with years worth of hindsight.
07:24Perhaps one of the interview's most chilling moments
07:26was Lyle's articulation of his feelings regarding Jose's alleged abuse.
07:30And for you to have done this to my brother,
07:34it was like I kept my part of that sort of devil's pact.
07:37And you didn't.
07:38Reflecting on keeping the abuse under wraps,
07:40Lyle described feelings that are unfortunately all too common
07:43for victims of such mistreatment.
07:45Most uncomfortably of all, Lyle stated that his mother felt
07:48that the boys had somehow come in between her and her husband.
07:51While, of course, the truth in the Menendez case is likely unknowable,
07:55details like these provide uneasy insights into the minds of abusers.
08:00You know, reflecting afterwards, you know, it haunts me.
08:03It does haunt me.
08:05on taking their mother's life, 2020.
08:08And my mother was on the couch, and she had been drinking.
08:11And she said, what's wrong with you?
08:14And I said, nothing, nothing. You wouldn't understand.
08:16It's inarguable that the Menendez case has been endlessly debated,
08:20scrutinized, poured over, and analyzed.
08:23What is often easy to forget, however,
08:25is that there are real human players at its core,
08:28not just characters in a Netflix miniseries.
08:30As such, hearing about the actual abuse that the boys are alleged
08:34to have suffered will tend to remind you of that.
08:36What do you think? I'm stupid.
08:38And she told me that she knew,
08:41that she had known all my life what my father was doing.
08:45When prompted by Walters to explain why they had decided to kill their mother,
08:49Eric's response is stomach-churning for a number of reasons,
08:52chief among them, a clearly emotional Eric's account
08:55of confessing the abuse to Kitty Menendez goes terribly awry,
08:59with his mother revealing that she had always known,
09:02and that she blamed her sons for it.
09:04And I just saw dad and mom as the same person at that point.
09:07I saw them as a single person.
09:09Why they did it, 2020.
09:11Do you still think about the night of the murder?
09:14Every day.
09:15You both do?
09:16Since their 1990 arrest, the Menendez brothers have maintained
09:20that their decision to permanently take care of their parents
09:23was motivated not by greed or bitterness,
09:26but retribution for past abuse,
09:28as well as alleged threats on their lives.
09:30First thing that comes to mind is terror.
09:33I was so afraid.
09:35A few days before, I had said to myself,
09:38I'm never going to let my father touch me again,
09:41after I told Lyle that it had been continuing on.
09:43When prompted by Walters to comment on what had caused them to snap,
09:47Eric and Lyle shared that in their view,
09:49they were afraid that their father, Jose Menendez, would snap first.
09:52It goes without saying that while the events as described by the brothers
09:56are horrifying and heartbreaking,
09:58it is shiver-inducing to hear the reasoning, rationale,
10:01and level of insight that would lead to such an atrocity.
10:04But you'd bought the guns.
10:05It wasn't something that just happened that moment.
10:07You'd thought about it.
10:09No.
10:10You bought the guns in advance.
10:11They just weren't in the house.
10:12Yes, we bought the guns in advance.
10:14So, this didn't just happen that moment.
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10:36I learned from the time I was a small boy
10:40to hold in pain and not express it physically.
10:45Regardless of personal beliefs,
10:47it seems safe to say that as described by Lyle and Eric Menendez,
10:51the abuse they claimed to have endured was soul-crushing,
10:54mind-numbing, and everything in between.
10:56For a disturbing concrete example of this,
10:59look once more to Eric's own words as part of A&E's
11:02Eric Tells All docu-mini-series.
11:04It came all the way down to not being allowed to cry,
11:07not being allowed to express pain.
11:10And what would happen when I expressed pain,
11:14shame, or I would get hit for that.
11:16The younger brother claims that Jose's boys were forbidden
11:19from demonstrating any kind of emotion,
11:21and that he, quote,
11:22trained them to repress their pain and inner turmoil.
11:25As such, Jose allegedly forced Lyle
11:28to strike Eric's, quote,
11:29pressure points until he was in agony.
11:32As Eric describes,
11:33any resistance only led to harsher treatment.
11:47If you or someone you know is struggling,
11:50please don't hesitate to call
11:51the National Domestic Violence Hotline
11:53at 1-800-799-SAFE or 7233.