Who are the Menendez Brothers?

TW: mentions of sexual abuse and sexual abuse of children

 

Hello everyone, I'm Genesis Benavides and welcome to my blog. I have been into true crime content since middle school, and I first heard “The Menendez Brothers” through a WatchMojo YouTube video titled “Top 10 Most Evil Kids in History” back in 2015 when I was around 12 or 13 years old. However, I never got deep into the case until I listened to an episode of a true crime podcast called The Last Podcast on the Left and they did an episode on the Menendez brothers and the members of this podcast didn’t believe the allegations the brothers made. 

 

I started to do my own research and the more I dig into this case and into the lives of the brothers. The more I believe them through the testimonies of family members, friends, and evidence I find more compelling proof of the allegations of abuse that the brothers made are true.

 

There has been a recent resurgence in the case of Lyle and Erik Menendez because of the newly released crime drama series Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story created by Ryan Murphy and The Menendez Brothers documentary that are on Netflix.

 

There is also a chance that they will be released after 35 years of incarnation from Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility because of newfound evidence that supports their claims of abuse, specifically sexual abuse by the hands of their father.

 

On August 20th of 1989, José and Kitty Menendez were murdered in their Beverly Hills home by their sons Lyle and Erik Menendez. On Halloween of 1989, Erik Menendez confesses to his psychiatrist Dr. Jerome Oziel that he murdered his parents and Dr. Oziel doesn’t say anything about it to the authorities. Dr. Oziel meets with Erik and Lyle that same Halloween evening and talks to them about what happened but according to Dr. Oziel, he was threatened by the brothers. However, the psychiatrist was having an affair with a woman named Judalon Smyth. Smyth was eventually the person who turned Lyle and Erik into the police by giving them information such as an audio recording of a therapy session where the brothers are discussing the death of their parents after they confessed to Dr. Oziel. However, this tape was made by Dr. Oziel to extort money from the brothers. Dr. Oziel put this tape in a safety deposit box that Judalon had access to. She later gave this tape to the police. 

After this, Erik had gone to Israel to play tennis and Lyle moved back to Princeton, New Jersey to open a restaurant. In March 1990, Lyle Menendez was arrested and then Erik turned himself in shortly after finding out Lyle had been arrested.

You would think that this case boils down to spoiled rich brats that were told “no” for the first time and on the surface, it does seem that way, this was the narrative that the prosecution pushed but the defense would claim that the brothers did what they did out of fear for their lives. 

I have been researching this case for a while and I find great evidence that supports the defense, and the brothers claims of sexual abuse at the hands of their father. Also, I have found evidence from individuals that testified for the prosecution against the brothers that are either blatant lies or contradict of prosecuting testimonies. 

Erik and Lyle Menendez 

Lyle, Kitty, Jose and Erik Menendez