We don't know what's more shocking, this infamous crime or the fact that these details were omitted from the TV dramatization. Welcome to WatchMojo and today we’re breaking down the real-life details that didn’t make it into Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan’s true-crime miniseries “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story.”
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00:00I'm telling you now, that whole defense was fabricated.
00:04And it was done artfully, but it was fabricated.
00:07And if I were an immoral person, I would have fabricated it much the same way.
00:12Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're breaking down the real-life details
00:16that didn't make it into Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan's true crime miniseries, Monsters,
00:20the Lyle and Eric Menendez story.
00:23I feel like I've known you forever, Eric, and that I'm going to know you for the rest of my life.
00:28All my love.
00:30Tammy.
00:30Lyle and Eric were almost caught immediately.
00:33You're not chickening out, are you?
00:36You brought the guns.
00:43No.
00:43We'll get into Lyle and Eric's quote-unquote alibi a little later.
00:47For now, just know that this alibi was masterfully constructed
00:51and prevented the brothers from immediately being pegged as suspects in their parents' 1989 deaths.
00:56Are you having trouble hearing me?
00:58The 950 screening of Batman.
01:00Yeah, but it's 1040 now.
01:02I know, but that's the one that we want to see.
01:04Can you help me out here?
01:05My girlfriend is in there.
01:06Tell her the last half is the best.
01:08Interviewed for the 2024 Netflix documentary The Menendez Brothers,
01:11the two retrospectively expressed disbelief that they weren't apprehended right at the crime scene.
01:17This might have actually occurred,
01:19had the responding police officers thought to test Lyle and Eric's hands for gunshot residue,
01:23which would have almost assuredly proven their guilt in that moment.
01:27The brothers wouldn't be marked as suspects until 1990,
01:30when their mob-slaying theory began to run dry.
01:33Should have been a police response, and we would have been arrested.
01:37We had no alibi.
01:39The gunpowder residue was all over our hands.
01:43Under normal circumstances, they give you a gunpowder residue test,
01:46and we would have been arrested immediately.
01:48The brothers were separated following their arrest.
01:50Wait, why isn't another van following us?
01:52Where?
01:54I thought we were going to Folsom.
01:55You're going to Folsom.
01:57The brothers are going someplace else.
01:58As the audience sees at the very end of Murphy's Monsters,
02:02Lyle and Eric Menendez were broken up and sent to separate prisons
02:05following their 1996 sentencing of life in prison without the possibility of parole.
02:10The two brothers would not see each other face-to-face again until 2018,
02:14when Lyle was transferred to the same prison as Eric.
02:17Jesus Christ.
02:19Can't live in that.
02:21Well, he's about to.
02:23Now get in.
02:25However, one thing Monsters takes creative liberties with
02:29is the fact that immediately after being arrested,
02:31the duo were imprisoned separately at the Los Angeles County Jail.
02:35This is as opposed to being confined within feet of each other,
02:38as Murphy's miniseries depicts.
02:40When did you get back to L.A.?
02:43A couple hours ago.
02:45Cops picked me up at LAX.
02:46The Menendez family was friendly with O.J. Simpson.
02:49Nobody does it better than her.
02:51Nobody does it better.
02:55Hertz leads the others by far.
02:58One of Monsters' most surprising scenes
03:00has nothing to do with the Menendez brothers' heinous crime
03:03or the sordid family secrets they claim pushed them to do it.
03:06The closing minutes of Seismic Shifts, the miniseries' eighth episode,
03:10hint at the fact that the infamous O.J. Simpson murder case
03:13was about to overshadow the media circus surrounding the brothers.
03:16Hey, O.J.?
03:21O.J.?
03:22Yeah, who is that?
03:23I'm... I'm Eric. Eric Menendez.
03:26Simpson was, in reality, friendly with the brothers in prison,
03:29but had encountered the Menendezes before.
03:32Jose Menendez, at one point a high-powered executive at Hertz Global Holdings,
03:36had invited Simpson to dinner at his home on several occasions.
03:40The disgraced football player and movie star
03:42had memorably starred in a popular advertising campaign
03:45for the car rental company.
03:46Hertz is a superstar!
03:49You know it!
03:50Pam Bozanich's controversial argument.
03:52I'm telling you now, that whole defense was fabricated.
03:56And it was done artfully, but it was fabricated.
03:59And if I were an immoral person, I would have fabricated it much the same way.
04:04Bozanich, the fiery litigator for the prosecution in the Menendez brothers' lengthy trial,
04:09has made no secret of her contempt for Lyle and Eric.
04:12The lawyer, who kept a relatively low public profile
04:15in the years since her involvement in the case,
04:17resurfaced for the aforementioned Menendez brothers' documentary.
04:20Bozanich was unapologetic in stating her belief of the brothers' guilt,
04:23as well as her criticism of Leslie Abramson, the lawyer for the defense.
04:27If I told you what I really thought of Leslie Abramson, I would be sued.
04:32Because she, I think, has lost all her money.
04:34And I'm not giving up my house.
04:36However, one surprising element left out of both Monsters and the Netflix doc,
04:41Bozanich's incendiary argument that,
04:43Men lacked the proper equipment to be assaulted and taken advantage of.
04:47Suffice it to say, her statement has aged extremely poorly,
04:51and led to renewed backlash against Bozanich in 2024.
04:55Your beliefs are not facts. They're just beliefs.
04:58And by the way, all you TikTok people, I'm armed.
05:01We got guns all over the house, so don't mess with me.
05:04Discussion of abuse was limited at the brothers' second trial.
05:07When there's a camera in the courtroom, it changes the dynamic of everything.
05:12Everyone thought that this should be just a matter for the jury,
05:15rather than for a national audience.
05:17Those familiar with the Menendez brothers' trial are likely all too aware
05:21of Leslie Abramson's much-discussed abuse excuse.
05:24That is to say, Abramson argued that Lyle and Eric Menendez
05:27did not deserve the death penalty or even a lifelong prison sentence,
05:31owing to their father Jose's alleged abuse.
05:33Judge Stanley Weisberg's position was abundantly clear.
05:37The presiding judge over the Menendez trial,
05:39Weisberg sought to avoid another hung jury in the brothers' second trial.
05:43The teachers and coaches and family and friends
05:46were never on the stand in the second trial.
05:49They hadn't heard any of my family testify,
05:52none of the relatives, none of the evidence had been admitted.
05:54How did he accomplish this?
05:56By barring cameras from the courtroom,
05:58ensuring that another media frenzy would not occur,
06:01and crucially, limiting testimony about Lyle and Eric's abuse claims.
06:05By restricting what the jury could deliberate on,
06:07Weisberg was able to secure a conviction.
06:10When the judge decided what evidence we could consider,
06:13we were given either first-degree murder as an option,
06:17or no crime whatsoever.
06:20We voted unanimously to convict.
06:22Disturbing photos of Lyle and Eric appeared in the first trial.
06:25Well, there is such a picture.
06:28But unfortunately, it only lives in Eric's mind now.
06:32And I doubt very much that Jose Menendez was very troubled by it during his lifetime.
06:37Leslie Abramson's abuse excuse dominated the headlines
06:40during the Menendez brothers' first trial,
06:42which took place from 1993 to 1994.
06:45The harrowing details of the brothers' abuse
06:47were enough to send the jury into what Judge Weisberg referred to
06:50as being, quote, hopelessly deadlocked.
06:52They are sneaky.
06:53After all, they are exploiting weak little children.
06:58And they hide it.
06:59Because they know the rest of us don't think much of that.
07:01Among those harrowing details were photos of Lyle and Eric as children,
07:05without clothes on.
07:07The two accused Jose of capturing the grotesque snaps,
07:10which was denied by the prosecution.
07:12It seems worth noting then that the photos had been held onto by Kitty,
07:16despite the fact that the defense could not prove that Jose had been behind the camera.
07:21Eric and Lyle didn't immediately leave the house.
07:24As depicted on the Netflix adaptation of the Menendez case,
07:27Lyle and Eric committed their infamous crime
07:29and head straight to the movies to start in on their alibi.
07:31This is pretty close to the events of August 20th, 1989,
07:35but is noticeably streamlined from what actually occurred in real life.
07:38In reality, the two brothers didn't head straight for the movies
07:41after taking their parents' lives.
07:43In fact, due to the noise caused by their actions,
07:45they actually stayed at home,
07:47expecting that a neighbor or bystander would call the police as a result.
07:51-"Slower, please."
07:54-"Thanks."
07:55-"Enjoy the show."
07:56Eric was a tennis champion.
07:58-"Eric, you watched a movie and you decided to kill your parents.
08:02Most...
08:04people don't do that."
08:05One of the most stomach-churning monster scenes
08:08has nothing to do with the grisly crimes or dark family secrets at all.
08:11That would be when Jose berates Eric in the middle of a tennis game.
08:15That is, not just verbally.
08:16The elder Menendez takes it upon himself to storm onto the court
08:19and publicly embarrass his son in truly cringeworthy fashion.
08:23-"What have we been working on?!
08:26Jesus!"
08:27This becomes even more of a head-scratcher once you realize
08:30that Eric was a nationally-ranked tennis player,
08:32ranking as high as 44th in the U.S.
08:35Just weeks prior to that fateful night,
08:37Eric had reached the second round of the Boys 18 singles
08:40in the 1989 Boys Junior National Championship.
08:43-"Was your father...
08:46physically abusive, Eric?"
08:52Eric wrote his cousin a letter about what Jose allegedly did.
08:56-"Why didn't you tell...
08:58anybody...
08:59about the abuse by your father?
09:02You're telling us everything else,
09:04but you're not telling us that."
09:06During the events of Kill or Be Killed,
09:08the series' fourth episode,
09:10Lyle Menendez opens up to Leslie Abramson, Eric's lawyer,
09:13about the abuse that he claimed to have suffered at his father's hands.
09:17At one point, Lyle shares that Eric wasn't the only one
09:20who was aware of Jose's reign of terror.
09:22When his cousin Diane Vandermolen came to live with the family for a time,
09:25he confessed to her as well.
09:27-"I told my cousin...
09:29she was, uh, living with us...
09:32and, uh...
09:35I wanted to sleep in the basement with her
09:37so that my dad couldn't come down there."
09:39A letter written by Eric eight months before August 20th
09:42and addressed to Andy Kano, another cousin,
09:44seemingly alludes to his father's ongoing abuse.
09:46Per the letter, Eric wrote,
09:48quote,
09:48"'I've been trying to avoid Dad.
09:50It's still happening, Andy, but it's worse for me now.'"
09:53-"This is done.
09:54This is done."
09:55-"You understand?
09:57No more between you two."
09:58-"And you are never, never to touch him.
10:01Not ever."
10:02Eric and Lyle didn't see each other for over 20 years.
10:06-"The first scene of Tears was just quite an emotional moment."
10:09Monster's final scene quite literally shows the brothers going their own ways,
10:13unaware that they would be sent to different correctional facilities
10:16following their July 2nd, 1996 sentencing.
10:18This was per California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation's
10:22real-life decision to separate the brothers,
10:24and things remained this way until February 2018.
10:27-"There's a good probability I will never see him again,
10:30and, uh,
10:34that would be, uh, that would be very, very difficult to live through."
10:37It was at this point that Lyle was moved from Mule Creek State Prison
10:40to the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility,
10:43where Eric was also held.
10:44The two were individually imprisoned until April,
10:47when the Menendez brothers were reunited.
10:49Eric and Lyle had not met face-to-face since their sentencing.
10:53-"Wait, why isn't another van following us? Where—
10:56I thought we were going to Folsom."
10:58-"You're going to Folsom. The brothers are going someplace else."
11:01The brothers bought luxury condos.
11:03-"Where transportation goes."
11:05-"Well, you have the limousine."
11:07-"Right, but for both of us."
11:10-"You're asking for a second limousine?"
11:13-"Yeah, that'd be great."
11:14One thing that Monster's makes clear, and gets factually right,
11:17is that the Menendez brothers went on a wild spending spree
11:20in the aftermath of their parents' deaths.
11:22Although it can be argued that their spending habits
11:24were in line with the lifestyle they were used to,
11:26those same habits did nothing to help their case.
11:29-"Did you just order a grilled cheese and tap water?"
11:32-"Yeah."
11:35-"How many shrimp do you have?"
11:37-"Like an actual number."
11:38Among their many investments, besides a full-time tennis coach for Eric
11:42and a steak in a Buffalo Wing restaurant for Lyle,
11:44were luxury condos in Marina Del Rey, California,
11:47not far removed from the family's now-empty Beverly Hills mansion.
11:51Eric and Lyle reportedly spent over $700,000 before their 1990 arrest.
11:56-"Look, another TCBY.
11:59It's a freaking goldmine.
12:01See, this is exactly what I want to do with Mr. Buffalo.
12:04Everywhere that there's a TCBY, there should be a Mr. Buffalo across the street."
12:07Eric and Lyle respectively got married in prison.
12:10-"Oh, and here's the best part.
12:13Eric's got a girlfriend."
12:15-"I'm not sure how it would work.
12:17I'm not sure how these feelings have taken me over in the way that they have."
12:22Despite viewer criticism that Murphy implied a fabricated romantic relationship
12:26between Eric and Lyle, they did not get married to each other.
12:29In fact, Lyle is now onto his second marriage,
12:32having divorced Anna Erickson, his wife of almost five years,
12:35after having an affair.
12:36Yes, while imprisoned.
12:38The elder Menendez brother has been married to Rebecca Sneed since 2003.
12:42-"Who are these women who want to date these psychopaths?
12:45What does she get out of it?"
12:46-"Well, this one's not getting conjugal visits, if that's what you mean."
12:50Meanwhile, Eric has been married to Tammy Ruth Sackaman since June 12, 1999,
12:55when the couple wed in a waiting room at Folsom State Prison.
12:58Recalling their wedding night, Sackaman has shared that, quote,
13:01"...our wedding cake was a Twinkie.
13:03We improvised.
13:04It was a wonderful ceremony until I had to leave.
13:06That was a very lonely night."
13:08-"I feel like I've known you forever, Eric,
13:10and that I'm going to know you for the rest of my life.
13:13All my love."
13:15-"Tammy."
13:16Dr. Oziel lost his medical license.
13:18-"I know that it's very last minute, but, um,
13:21is there any way that I could see you today?"
13:23-"It's locked."
13:25-"Uh, looks like I have a two o'clock, if that works for you."
13:30El Jerome Oziel, who is depicted as the Menendez family's therapist
13:34before focusing on just Eric,
13:36was embroiled in a number of scandals of his own.
13:38Some of these were unearthed by Leslie Abramson during the brothers' trial
13:42and included the fact that his license was on probation when the family had hired him.
13:46-"Hello, it's Jose Menendez.
13:49What my sons tell you, they are not to be trusted.
13:52They are liars, they are fabulists, they are sociopaths,
13:55and I need you to know that, okay?"
13:57This was due to a blatant conflict of interest
14:00in which Oziel had exchanged therapy for construction work on his house.
14:03In 1997, the year following the brothers' sentencing,
14:06Oziel surrendered his license voluntarily
14:09rather than admit culpability for a number of illicit deeds.
14:12These included, among other misdeeds,
14:14revealing confidential patient information to Judilon Smith
14:17as well as assault on her and two other women.
14:20-"He said my mom was a witch who was going to poison me.
14:24He used the word thorns to hypnotize me.
14:28So whenever he would say thorns, my mind would just go blank."
14:31Dr. Vickery tampered with evidence at Leslie Abramson's suggestion.
14:35-"I've hired Dr. William Vickery.
14:37He's a forensic psychiatrist and wants you to start meeting with him
14:40to talk about what happened and why."
14:42-"No. No. No. No. No. My strength. I can't."
14:44Early on in Monsters, Eric Menendez meets with Dr. William Vickery,
14:48a forensic psychiatrist and colleague of Abramson's.
14:51Vickery's reputation endured substantial damage as a result of the case.
14:55In November 1993, the mental health professional was set to testify
14:58on the brothers' behalf, but upon meeting with Abramson beforehand,
15:01the lawyer was distressed to find that Vickery's notes
15:04had the potential to hurt their defense.
15:06-"I've spent most of my life building my body up,
15:09trying to eat right, and low-fat,
15:12and carboloading, and all this stuff."
15:15-"Eric, you're just wasting your money here."
15:17Abramson asked Vickery to edit his notes to remove the most damning parts.
15:21Vickery complied, and this went unnoticed until April 1996,
15:26when Abramson accidentally submitted Vickery's original notes to the court.
15:29Eric and Lyle's subsequent request for a mistrial,
15:32filed after this had come to light, was unsuccessful.
15:35-"My job is to help you get to the bottom of all this,
15:38but trust me when I say I cannot do that
15:41unless you start being honest with me.
15:44Like, really honest."
15:46Eric and Lyle appeared in the background of a trading card.
15:49-"Someone recently discovered an old NBA trading card,
15:53and in the background of the card,
15:56you can see the Menendez brothers sitting courtside."
15:59Did you know that the Menendez brothers made their mark
16:02not only on pop culture, but on sports history, too?
16:05To be clear, this wasn't because of their athletic accomplishments.
16:08No, Eric and Lyle's contribution to sports comes in the form
16:11of a totally unplanned, totally left-field coincidence.
16:14-"You push into the background, those are the real Menendez brothers.
16:18Yes, this photo was taken a couple of days
16:21after the Menendez brothers murdered their parents."
16:24The brothers, in their months-long, nearly-million-dollar spending spree,
16:27were photographed at a New York Knicks game
16:30and ended up in the background of a trading card featuring
16:33the Knicks' then-point guard Mark Jackson.
16:35This wasn't unearthed until nearly 30 years later,
16:38when Stephen Zurance, a true crime fan and amateur investigator,
16:41was searching for proof that the brothers' post-crime escapades
16:44had happened as described.
16:46-"They took a picture at the basketball game,
16:48and that became the NBA card."
16:50Before we continue, be sure to subscribe to our channel
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17:06Misconduct allegations against Jose Menendez have surfaced.
17:14While there was little doubt that Lyle and Eric Menendez
17:17were responsible for taking their parents' lives,
17:19speculation and debate persist to this day as to the why of it all.
17:23The two sides are represented on Netflix's Monsters.
17:26Either you believe that the brothers did what they did
17:28because of abuse and trauma,
17:30or it was because they feared they would be denied
17:32a substantial inheritance.
17:34Regardless of individual beliefs,
17:36the former camp was validated by 2023 claims from Roy Rosello,
17:40formerly of Puerto Rican boy band Menudo,
17:42who claimed that Jose Menendez had assaulted him at the age of 14.
17:46Today, the allegations are being denounced by Kitty Menendez's brother,
17:50Milton Anderson.
17:51What was your reaction when you heard about this, sir?
17:54I think that's absurd.
17:56Which part of Monsters the Lyle and Eric Menendez story shocked you the most?
18:00Let us know in the comments.
18:01I don't believe a word you're saying if I am the jury.