Lyle and Erik Menendez say OJ Simpson's acquittal impacted their trial (original) (raw)

What did you miss?

Erik Menendez (L) and his brother Lyle (R) at a pre-trial hearing on December 29, 1992, they have now spoken out for a documentary. (Getty Images)

Lyle and Erik Menendez have spoken out in Netflix's new documentary The Menendez Brothers, which examines their killing of their parents José and Mary Louise 'Kitty' Menendez on 20, August 1989, their trials and subsequent incarceration.

The brothers share their story and reflect on the case in audio interviews conducted in 2023, a year prior to the release of the controversial new Netflix drama about their case Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story. Lawyers, journalists, and even jurors from both their trials appear in the film to give a well-rounded depiction of the events as they happened.

Lyle Menendez shared that he wanted to speak out because it feels like "people can now understand and believe" them, while his brother felt he wasn't "going to live that much longer" and so wanted to explain his experiences in his own words. The Menendez brothers said they killed their parents out of fear their father would kill them for threatening to expose his alleged years of sexual abuse since their childhoods.

In the documentary, the brothers claimed that OJ Simpson's acquittal for the 1994 murders of wife Nicole Brown and her friend Ron Goldman had a "profound" impact on how they were seen and what happened in their second trial.

What, how, and why?

Erik Menendez with his attorney Leslie Abramson and his brother Lyle Menendez during their first trial on 9th March 1994, where they had individual juries. (Getty Images)

At their first trial, the Menendez brothers' defence teams argued they killed their parents as a result of their father's systemic sexual, emotional and physical abuse. The prosecution argued that the pair had committed the murders in order to access their sizeable inheritance.

It was also argued in the trial that the brothers were adults and could have left the family home at any time, but Erik challenged this notion as he explained in the documentary: "I was groomed to know I could never get away, the idea had been whipped, beaten and trained into my brain, programmed into my brain, that I could never get away.

"Remember, my father wasn't a drunken guy sleeping in the street, he was a superstar, successful, wealthy, dynamic, powerful personality, and how he raised his children was how he was going to raise his children, and there was no one who was going to interfere with it."

Ultimately the brothers trials resulted in separate hung juries, and they had to be re-tried. Their second trial came in 1996 just eight days after OJ Simpson was acquitted.

OJ Simpson during his murder trial in 1995, which took place as the Menendez brothers were awaiting retrial after two hung jury verdicts and they have argued his acquittal impacted their second trial. (Getty Images)

Lyle Menendez argued that Simpson's acquittal had a big impact on their case: "I didn't really think that it would have the profound effect on the public that it did in terms of high profile defendants. We got washed in the wake of that."

In their retrial the brothers' defence team were not allowed to present evidence and testimony around their years of alleged child sex abuse, Erik Menendez explained: "The judge said well Erik and Lyle are not women so the battered women syndrome doesn't apply, so all of that trauma it's not relevant and it's not allowed into the second trial."

The judge also instructed the jury that they had to choose between first-degree murder or that no crime was committed, not between first-degree murder and a manslaughter charge as the first two juries were presented with. A juror for the retrial explained that they "voted unanimously to convict" as a result.

Hazel Thornton, who was a juror in the brothers' first trial, said in the documentary: "The second jury convicted the brothers because they saw a completely different trial that was engineered to guarantee murder verdicts. To show them so much less makes it not fair to the brothers."

What else happened on The Menendez Brothers?

Lyle Menendez said: 'I didn't really think that it would have the profound effect on the public that it did in terms of high profile defendants. We got washed in the wake of that.' (Netflix)

The brothers reflected on their experience after being given life sentences without possibility of parole, they were separated until 2018 with Lyle sharing that during that period he "felt no peace, like a part of me was just across the state. I fought for decades to be reunited with my brother."

He added: "Now we are in the same facility I see him everyday and we talk, we are very close. It took 21 years, it was really in large part because of the change in societal attitudes about the case and child sex abuse of boys."

Erik explained that when he spoke of his experience of child sex abuse there "was a culture of silence", adding: "That culture of silence existed up until the '90s and I think it got broken in the 2000s."

The brothers also spoke out about the increased interest in their case from the TikTok generation which, according to people in the documentary, has resulted in people empathising with Lyle and Erik Menendez about their experience of abuse.

The brothers also spoke of how perceptions have changed about their claims of alleged sexual abuse at the hands of their father as societal understanding of male victims of abuse has evolved. (Getty Images)

Lyle said: "They really are a tremendous help, young people have taken time to figure out what happened, and they understand it in ways that older people don't. I feel hope when society is understanding sex abuse better."

His brother added that "it's important that the seriousness of my crime not be minimised or diminished".

Erik Menendez went on to share that he blames himself for what happened, both the murders and what happened afterwards: "I went to the only person who had every helped me, that every protected me. Ultimately this happened because of me, because I went to him.

"And then afterwards, lets just be honest, he was arrested because of me because I told [his therapist] Dr Oziel, because I couldn't live with what I did. I couldn't live with it, I wanted to die. In a way I did not protect Lyle, I got him into every aspect of this tragedy, every aspect of this tragedy is my fault."

The Menendez Brothers is out now on Netflix.

If you are concerned that your child may have been abused the NSPCC Helpline is available at 0808 800 5000 or you can email help@NSPCC.org.uk.