5 chilling details about Lyle and Erik Menendez's crimes

In 1989, the murders of José and Kitty Menendez by their two sons, Lyle and Erik Menendez, rocked the entire nation. Both brothers were accused of killing their parents in their Beverly Hills mansion. The years have revealed many chilling details about the crime and the actions of the brothers, making this case one of the most notorious in U.S. criminal history.

Set to be released on September 19, 2024, Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story explores this case as it features Nicholas Chavez as Lyle Menendez with Cooper Koch as Erik Menendez. The Netflix series also stars Javier Bardem as José Menendez and Chloë Sevigny as Kitty Menendez.

The following are five chilling details about Lyle and Erik Menendez's crimes. Each of these facts highlights the disturbing elements of this tragedy involving a family.

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5 shocking Lyle and Erik Menendez's crime facts

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1) The cold-blooded conspiracy of the murders

Perhaps the most chilling aspect of the Menendez murders was the supposed intricate planning that went into it. Two days before they killed their parents, Lyle and Erik purchased shotguns. They traveled hundreds of miles to a different county to avoid raising suspicion.

The night they killed the parents, they waited until the couple were seated together in the living room before they attacked. José Menendez was shot first, and when Kitty tried to run away, they shot her many times till she was dead.

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2) The crime scene staged as a mafia hit

Lyle and Erik killed their parents and then tried to camouflage their role in the murder by creating a crime scene that looked like a mafia execution.

José Menendez was a successful businessman who had ties in the entertainment business, and the brothers thought investigators would believe their father had been killed out of revenge for some business-related grudge. They shot their parents in the kneecaps, a known mafia tactic, to further mislead investigators.

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3) Their spending spree after the murders

The months following the murders did not reveal the actions of the sons. The press saw Lyle and Erik Menendez indulging in an extravagant spending spree, laying waste to the riches their parents had built with costly, high-performance cars, designer clothes, luxury watches, and even a restaurant.

Lyle purchased a Porsche and a Rolex watch, and Erik bought tennis lessons and personal trainers. This expensive style, funded by the estate of their parents, highlighted the suspicions of the investigators and proved that the boys did not intend to renounce their crimes.

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4) Erik's confession to his therapist

One of the most significant turning points in the case was Erik's confession to his psychiatrist, Dr. Jerome Oziel. Guilty of the murders, Erik had confessed to the killings during one of his sessions. Until his girlfriend inadvertently heard his confession and notified the police, Dr. Oziel kept the confession as a confidential doctor-patient relation.

The confession of Erik was the crack that the police were looking for to take the brothers into custody, and it was the tapes of the therapy sessions that formed important evidence in their trial.

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5) Claim of abuse and defense strategy

Lyle and Erik Menendez, in their very long trial, maintained that they killed their parents out of fear for their lives, asserting that for years they were s*xually and emotionally abused by their father, José. They presented testimony stating that they believed their parents were going to kill them due to the intensity of the abuse.

Other observers viewed it as a plea for sympathy and not to be convicted, but the abuse claims drew even greater controversy over the case. This line of argument resulted in a mistrial in the first trial, however, both Lyle and Erik Menendez would eventually be convicted in a retrial.