The Menendez Brothers

Oh, no.

It is one of the most sensational criminal cases in the country.

Lyle and Erik Menendez,

the brothers accused of murdering their rich parents in Beverly Hills.

Beverly Hills, one of the most expensive pieces of real estate.

Beverly Hills is vibrant, alive, chic, and sophisticated.

Beverly Hills was really the American dream.

People wanted to live in those mansions.

People wanted to have that kind of money.

And in the 1980s, Beverly Hills, as well as the rest of the United States,

was really in the era of "greed is good."

90210 is one of the most exclusive zip codes in the world.

It's the place for the rich and famous.

Everybody knows Beverly Hills.

If you live in Oklahoma, you've heard of Beverly Hills.

This was maybe the safest place in America.

Murders don't happen in Beverly Hills,

and then two boys don't kill their parents in Beverly Hills.

At approximately 11:47 p.m.,

uh, we received a 911 emergency call

of possible shooting victims at this location.

Our officers responded and did, in fact, determine that there had been a shooting.

It's not supposed to happen in Beverly Hills.

A movie executive and his wife were brutally slain

in their million-dollar mansion.

There were no clues and no suspects.

Neighbors say they heard several gunshots and then screams

shortly after ten o'clock Sunday night.

The bodies of Jose Menendez and his wife, Kitty,

were found inside their Elm Drive home.

I got a phone call from my brother, Brian.

And he told me Kitty and Jose had been shot.

I... put the phone down,

and I started running around the house screaming.

I... I couldn't... I couldn't bear it,

and it's still difficult thinking about it.

Now that you know what has happened,

do you have concerns tonight for yourself?

Yes, somewhat. It's a very uneasy feeling living in the neighborhood

where something like this has happened so close to home.

I recall distinctly that when the police went into the den

where the two bodies were,

that Jose Menendez's head had been... the back of his skull had been blown off,

and while they were there, his brains fell out on the floor.

There was brain matter and blood, uh, dripping from the ceiling.

The bodies were, you know, in terrible shape.

Shotguns, you know, do horrible damage to a human body.

But the police were really curious

about what happened to all the shells. There were no shells.

Somebody had picked up all the shells from the shotgun casings.

I've been in this business for over 33 years,

and I've heard of very few murders that were more savage than this one was.

Their college-age sons, 19-year-old Erik and 22-year-old Lyle,

said they found the bodies after a night at the movies.

They found the two brothers out in front of the house.

They were hysterical. They were overacting.

But the police were very nice to them.

They were not treated as suspects by the investigators at the beginning.

Beverly Hills is a different kind of police department.

They have much better customer service for their citizens.

Statistically, if you have a domestic homicide,

you would be an idiot police officer not to consider other family members.

On the other hand, this is Beverly Hills,

and the idea that the sons, at 21 and 18, could have been so responsible

for such incredible acts of violence,

you have a tension here.

Could this really have been possible?

Why? What's the motive?

There's something weird going on here.

I began covering the Menendez case the day after the murders,

and I have written a book about the entire trial.

I met Erik and Lyle Menendez at the Menendez mansion

at 722 North Elm Drive.

And they were wearing tennis whites. They were tan.

They were laughing. They were joking.

I kept feeling, "This is so strange."

"How can they be living here after this terrible crime took place?"

Lyle Menendez did 90% of the talking

the first day that I met with the two brothers,

and he told me, "We did so many things together."

"We loved each other so much. We spent so much time together."

At one point, Lyle Menendez asked me if I would like to work with the brothers

on a book about their father. They thought he was such a great man.

He said that the Menendez family was really like the Kennedys.

That Jose was going to move to Miami and run for the US Senate from Florida.

Lyle said that he and Erik would like to carry out their father's plans.

He's telling me these grandiose plans.

These guys are 18 and 21.

There was a memorial service at the Princeton University chapel.

The most poignant moment was when Lyle read a letter from his father.

It said, "I believe that both you and Erik can make a difference."

"I believe that you will."

"I encourage you not to select the easy road."

"I urge you to walk with honor regardless of the consequences

and to challenge yourself to excellence."

Friends of Jose and Kitty Menendez

were surprised at how cool and calm Lyle was

and how beautifully he eulogized his parents.

Erik and Lyle Menendez were each handling the deaths of their parents

in very different ways.

Lyle Menendez really kind of became like his father overnight.

Suddenly, he went from being a goofy college kid

to wanting to be a business mogul.

Friends say it was a strange, swaggering imitation

of his businessman father.

And for a while, Lyle hired these bodyguards,

saying he feared for his own life

because his father had a lot of business enemies.

Their behavior after the murders was startling.

They went shopping.

Now, I love a good shopping expedition, but this was crazy.

They started spending the money as if it was water,

as if they'd been desperate for that kind of money.

Porsche Carrera, Jeep Wrangler, three Rolexes.

Ching. Ching. Ching. Ching. Ching.

Spending money.

Erik dropped plans to enter UCLA

and hired a $50,000-a-year tennis coach to help him turn pro.

Lyle bought a Porsche, expensive clothes,

and a restaurant near the family's former home in Princeton, New Jersey.

Contrary to the way some people think, the police are not stupid.

And when the brothers started spending money,

the police were like, "Hmm."

"Wonder if that would be a motive?"

The thing is, when you have a homicide inside a house,

98% of the time, it's someone you know, it's a relative.

The suspicion was on the brothers, even though they told the police

they thought it was a Mafia hit.

As they investigated,

they'd come to me and say, "We have this now."

And I'd say, "Great, but there's not enough to file a case yet."

I needed the police to find me the guns,

or find me where they bought the guns, or something major like that.

Finally, the investigators ended up in San Diego.

They found the place where they bought the guns,

using Lyle Menendez's roommate's stolen ID card.

The actual murder weapons have never been found,

but authorities say they believe 12-gauge Mossberg shotguns,

just like this one, were used.

And when that happened, the case was ready to go.

Today at approximately 1:20 p.m.,

Beverly Hills police detectives arrested Joseph Lyle Menendez, 22,

for the August murders of his mother and father,

Maria Louise Kitty Menendez and Jose Enrique Menendez.

Police say the motive was apparently money,

a $14 million inheritance to be shared by the brothers.

Police arrested Lyle at the family mansion yesterday.

Younger brother Erik's reportedly returning from an overseas trip

to surrender.

The day I learned that Lyle and Erik were arrested

was a jaw drop.

For seven months, it was kind of a local LA story.

And in March of 1990,

it became a national and international media phenomenon.

Not many Hollywood murder mysteries ever took a more dramatic turn.

The bizarre twist to a sensational California murder.

They should suffer just like their parents did.

The public couldn't get enough.

Overnight, the Menendez case blew up all over the world.

Oh, come on, they're so adorable.

They are too fine to go to prison. Whoo!

I know they don't exactly have an airtight case, okay?

Lyle went on a little bit of a spending spree a week after the murders.

He got, um, a couple of Rolexes and a $70,000 Porsche. But you know what?

Sometimes you have to treat yourself.

From the prosecutor's point of view, it's a phone-in.

Multiple shotgun blasts. A classic motive, greed and anger.

They wanna get their hands on a $14 million estate.

The story of the brutal murder

has suddenly become the most sought-after property in Hollywood.

Two California brothers have pleaded not guilty

to charges they killed their wealthy parents.

The arrest of Lyle and Erik Menendez for the shotgun slaying of their parents

came as a surprise to family members.

I was at work. I worked for the phone company.

Uh, Jose's secretary had called me

to tell me they were arrested.

And I went around my office screaming and yelling and...

It was unbelievable to me that... that this could be so.

I knew they had made a mistake.

It couldn't be that Lyle and Erik would have done this.

Lyle Menendez initially told all the family members,

you know, this was a big misunderstanding.

He and Erik were innocent.

Most of the Menendez family said there's no possible way

that the brothers were involved in this.

Family members, including Lyle and Erik's grandmother,

believe in the brothers' innocence.

These boys killing father and mother?

No, no, and no.

Is that okay?

Frank, give me another XLR, quick.

Jury selection begins in a murder trial,

and it's not your ordinary case.

Lyle Menendez and brother Erik

are accused of killing their parents.

Down in front.

Come on, I've got a cameraman here who's gonna get a shot.

You practice running backwards?

See?