Lyle and Erik Menendez
Joseph Lyle Menendez (born January 10, 1968 ) and Erik Galen Menendez (born November 27, 1971 ) are American brothers who were convicted of the murder of their parents.
The fact
The murders occurred on August 20, 1989 in the family room of their parents' home on Elm Drive in Beverly Hills , California . The brothers shot their parents, Jose and Kitty, then drove away after the crime and disposed of their firearms on Mulholland Drive .
They then bought tickets at a local cinema to use as an alibi . When the brothers returned to their parents' house, Lyle called the police station and shouted "Somebody killed my parents!" In the months that followed, the brothers led luxurious and revealing lives, increasing investigators 'suspicions that they were implicated in their parents' death. The chief attorneys later speculated that the brothers had spent approximately $ 1 million in the first six months as orphans . Both were arrested in March 1990 for the murder of their parents.
The processes
The trial was broadcast live by Court TV in 1993 and attracted a great deal of media attention. The younger brother's attorney, Leslie Abramson, came to prominence in her defense by claiming that the brothers were driven to the murder of their parents through lifelong abuse. The criminal records of both brothers contradicted this. The two juries - although the case was heard together, each brother was assigned a separate jury - came to no conclusion ( hung jury ).
Only in a second trial were both found guilty of the murder of their parents by the jury. Judge Stanley M. Weisberg sentenced her to life in prison on July 2, 1996 with no parole.
Lyle is currently incarcerated in Mule Creek State Prison. Erik resides in the Pleasant Valley State Prison in Coalinga , California. Both brothers have been married since their imprisonment but are not allowed to receive conjugal visits.
In January 2006 Erik conducted interviews for the first time, in which he reported on his crime.
Reception in the media
- The story of the "Menendez case" was filmed several times before the conviction, the first in 1994 as a tabloid version of the FOX television station . In the same year a two-part television series entitled Menendez: A Killing was filmed in Beverly Hills , USA (Director: Larry Elikann). In Germany, the two-part series was shown on RTL under the title The True Story of the Menendez Brothers .
- Oliver Stone let his film Natural Born Killers , in which the connection between extreme acts of violence and the media hype often resulting from it is treated, end with a collage of perpetrators and victims who became “media stars” of the 1990s through crimes. In addition to O. J. Simpson , Tonya Harding , Lorena Bobbitt and Rodney King , brief recordings of Lyle and Erik Menendez are shown.
- The metal band Brujeria thematized the crime in their piece Hermanos Menéndez on the 1995 released album Raza Odiada .
- In 2017, the crime series Law & Order True Crime , an offshoot of Law & Order , focused on the case of the Menendez brothers.
literature
- They took their judgment calmly . In: Die Welt , March 22, 1996