#Dateline secrets uncovered vendetta movie
#Dateline secrets uncovered vendetta trial

They also questioned the brothers’ story about finding their parents, including that odd detail about seeing gun smoke in the air. With their parents’ money at their disposal, they went on a lavish spending spree.Īlthough both men “willingly” answered police questions, Zoeller said police started to suspect the brothers after they learned about a screenplay Erik had written about a man who killed his parents to inherit $157 million. Within just days of the deaths, Lyle and Erik went to the family’s bank to try to get their hands on their parents’ will. While investigators first suspected the brutal deaths may have been a mob hit or linked to Jose’s business dealings, they soon turned their attention to the couple’s sons.

Lyle headed to Princeton and Erik was planning to start at UCLA in the fall, but the family’s image of perfection would come crashing down on August 20, 1989, when both Kitty and Jose were gunned down in their home. Those who knew the family said Jose’s need to succeed extended to his sons, who he pushed to achieve on the tennis court, soccer field, and in the pool, often to an extreme. The Menendez family moved into that Beverly Hills mansion - once owned by Elton John and music star Prince - cementing their place as Hollywood elite. “They were stars in our family,” Kitty’s niece Diane Hernandez said of the family’s success. The couple had two sons, Lyle and Erik, and by all accounts Jose found success in the business world through his own ruthless drive and determination, serving as general manager of Hertz and later as an executive in a Hollywood film company. Jose Menendez was seemingly living the American dream when the successful executive was shot to death.Īs a teenager, he had fled communist Cuba to find a better life, marrying Kitty in 1963. “You weren’t just playing to the jury, you were playing to all of America,” former Los Angeles Times reporter Alan Abrahamson said of the sensational nature of the case. The case polarized the nation - and the jury - as an argument broke out about whether the brothers were cold-blooded killers or traumatized victims.

#Dateline secrets uncovered vendetta trial

The sensational 1993 trial helped define the relatively new cable network Court TV, and while, by then, Lyle and Erik had admitted to being the killers, they claimed to have snapped after enduring years of physical and sexual abuse from their father. The evidence would eventually lead back to the brothers themselves in a case that shocked the nation. “They were just spending, spending, spending,” Zoeller told 'Dateline' correspondent Keith Morrison. But as the months passed after the execution-style deaths, police were struck by the sons’ lavish spending sprees: buying Rolex watches, private tennis lessons, expensive clothing, jewelry, a Porsche, and even a chicken wings restaurant.

#Dateline secrets uncovered vendetta movie

The couple’s two sons, Lyle and Erik, told police they had arrived home after a movie to the grisly discovery as smoke from the gunshots still loomed in the air. “I mean it was grotesque what happened to her.” “There was a contact wound on Kitty Menendez’s face, it blew out her eye,” prosecuting attorney Pamela Bozanich said. She had taken a shot gun blast to the face, along with several shotgun wounds to the knee. Jose’s wife, Mary Louise Menendez - who was more commonly known as Kitty - was curled into a fetal position on the floor near his feet. I could immediately tell that his face was disfigured from the shotgun blast he took to the side of his head.” “He was slumped to one side, his head was to one side. “It was eerily quiet and when I went into the den/library, the first thing I noticed was Jose Menendez seated on the couch,” Detective Les Zoeller told “Dateline: Secrets Uncovered,” airing Wednesdays at 8/7c on Oxygen. Watch Dateline: Secrets Uncovered Peacock and the Oxygen App.īeverly Hills police rushed to the six-bedroom Mediterranean-style mansion where they found Jose Menendenz bleeding out, his blood soaking the family’s white couch.