Erik flew to Miami, where several members on the Menendez side of the family reside. During the year he was out of school, Lyle asked his father for money for a trip to Europe with a girlfriend, but Jose turned him down and told him that if he was not in school he should find a job. He wanted us to be exactly like him.. You enter a spacious hallway with a white marble floor and a skylight above. The door opens, exposing the luxurious suite and Mr. and Mrs. Cromwell lying in bed. But Lyle did return, and worked briefly for Live Entertainment, where he showed all the worst qualities of the spoiled rich boy holding down a grace-and-favor job in his fathers company. There they split up. His attention span was brief. Lyles arrest was reported almost immediately to the local Los Angeles newscasts. Months earlier, however, a person close to the situation mouthed but did not speak the word incest to me. The tale in all its gory grimness was the cover story that week in People magazine, many copies of which were being read on the plane. Now this. Expressing dismay with the verdict, Rickys mother told reporters she had hoped her son would be spared a prison term. Money & Power The Menendez Murders After shooting their parents to death, Lyle and Erik Menendez partied, gambled, and indulged in pricey shopping sprees. Why the Menendez Brothers Killed Their Parents Nearly seven years, three trials, and many thousands of hours of TV coverage later,. As self-protection, she told them that the Menendez boys had killed their parents. They had gone to different schools. He was by far the brightest, toughest businessman I have ever worked with, former Live executive Ralph King told the Wall Street Journal last August. But then, Lyle had once kept a puppy in his room at Princeton, and having animals in the rooms was against the rules, too. The Menendez Brothers MURDER House - REAL True Crime Locations 4K When there is a murder rap, Leslie is the best in town.. The brothers claimed that their father was a harsh perfectionist who physically and sexually abused them. We thought murder was bad enough, says Terry Baralt. Yeah, he replied. . Menendez Murder House (Bing Maps). One person leaving the service was heard to say, The only word not used to describe Jose was prick.. The first round of shots apparently struck Kitty in her chest, right arm, left hip, and left leg. There are more people by far who will tell you that he was greatly disliked. By signing up you agree to our User Agreement and Privacy Policy & Cookie Statement. In this case, we have two children who allegedly participated in the killing of each parent, not in the heat of rage but in a carefully orchestrated scenario after a long gestation period. Police seizure of therapy tapes is rare, because ordinarily conversations between patients and therapists are secret. We felt 1990 had to be a better year. She told me he made threats to Oziel that they were going to kill him. Im not going to live my life for my father, but I think his dreams are what I want to achieve. He believed that whatever had to be done should be donewith no heart, if necessary.. Im not attracted to you. He said he just wanted a hug. Craig has since been requested by the police not to speak to the press. To escape the death penalty, he incriminated his brother. Smyth claims that Oziel used the boys as a way of moving into her house and taking over her life. Located in Beverly Hills, California, the home was a rental that the Menendez family was living in while renovations were being done on the home that they owned on Mulholland Drive in. They were told to rise. Joseph Lyle Menendez (born January 10, 1968) and Erik Galen Menendez (born November 27, 1970) are American brothers who were convicted in 1996 for the murders of their parents, Jos and Mary Louise ("Kitty") Menndez. The property contains 9,063 square feet, six bedrooms and eight bathrooms for a total of 23 rooms. She wanted to go on his business trips with him. Jose dealt with his sons transgressions the way he would deal with any prickly business problem, said a business associate, by minimizing the damage and going forward, fixing something that was broken without actually dealing with the problem. He simply took over and solved it. Subsequently, a rich woman in Los Angeles told me that her bodyguard, a former cop, had heard from a friend of his on the Beverly Hills police force that Kitty Menendez had been shot in the vagina. Erik was playing in a tennis tournament in Israel, where he had been for two weeks, accompanied by Mark Heffernan, his $50,000-a-year tennis coach. The gruesome murders became known as the Menendez Brothers Murders. When Lyle had passed him, Smyth says, Oziel indicated to her with a gesture that the door from the waiting room to the inner hallway was unlocked. When they found the lines too long, they went to Batman instead. He recalled how they would drive out to Malibu late at night, park on a hilltop overlooking the ocean, and talk about their hopes for the future, about how much smarter they were than everyone else, and about how to commit the perfect crime. On August 20, 1989, Jos and Mary Louise "Kitty" Menendez were shot to death in their Beverly Hills home. The swagger, the smirks, the smiles were gone. The lawyer, Leslie Abramson, who is considered to be the most brilliant Los Angeles defense lawyer for death-row cases, compared Arnel Salvatierra to the tragic Lisa Steinberg of New York, whose father, Joel Steinberg, had been convicted of murdering her after relentlessly abusing her. He was consistently late for work. With Sylvester Stallone, he sat on the board of Carolco. Did she tell you her theory? During the arraignment in the Beverly Hills courthouse, I was struck by the glamour of the young Menendez brothers, whom I was seeing face-to-face for the first time. They were seen renting furniture at Antiquarian Traders to replace the furniture that had been replaced from the television room. The tapes are said to contain crucial evidence against the brothers. And a Saudi prince, for $35,000 a month. At the time, the boys were hiding out in hotels, saying they thought the Mafia was after them. What was taped was Oziels documentation of everything that happened in that session and subsequent sessions with the boys, giving times and dates, telling about the confession and the threat on his life, a log of what was happening during the time his life was in danger. Smyth further contends that, as time went on, the relationship between the doctor and the boys grew more stable, and the doctor no longer felt threatened. Yet the scripts existence, intriguing though it was, seemed for a time merely coincidence. The same former employee continued, Jose must have made a lot of money in California. A person present at that meeting told me of the resounding silence that followed the reception of that information. The police approached Craig. An interesting sidebar to the story concerns two policies that were thought to have been taken out on Menendez by Live Entertainment. Her husband was flagrantly unfaithful to her, and she was devastated by his infidelity. Shortly after the purchase, Lyle changed the name of the restaurant to Mr. Buffalos and was planning to redecorate in a Western motif then open other locations in New Jersey and California. His life was family and business. I was falling in love over the phone, she said. Today the home where the Menendezes lived and died still stands and people currently occupy the multi-million dollar Beverly Hills estate located at 722 N. Elm Dr. Once, Jose took the Concorde to Europe just to watch Lyle play in a tennis tournament, and then came right back. It had previously been rented to Elton John. Both family and friends were stunned by the arrests. He also persuaded him to call Lyle and ask him to come to the office immediately. His diary is a mainstay of the magazine. The judge then ruled that young Miller, who had been diagnosed as schizophrenic, was legally innocent of murder by reason of insanity. At the elevator, I heard Lyle threaten Jerry again. What happens if they get older, and if the cumulative effect of all these years of abuse finally drives them over the edge, and Lisa Steinberg pulls a gun and kills Joel Steinberg? Arnel Salvatierra, who had been charged with first-degree murder, was convicted of voluntary manslaughter and placed on probation. Or The mother kept moving, which is why she was hit more. Or If they just killed the father, the mother would have inherited the money. She is considered one of the most merciless cross-examiners in the legal business, with a remarkable ability to degrade and confuse prosecution witnesses. One of the most interesting aspects of the case is that the fourteen shell casings were picked up and removed. Lamm is often presented as Kittys closest friend and confidante. They were the ideal family; everyone said so. During the meal, we talked. Back in Princeton, people remember her on the tennis courts with affection. Frightened that she might be caught listening if the boys came out of the office, Smyth went back to the waiting room. In 1986, when Carolco began its acquisition process, IVE was owned by Noel C. Bloom, whom the California attorney generals office has described as a major distributor of X-rated movies who once had ties to the mob. The home is located on the east side of the street and is a large, white, spanish style home with a red tile roof. He found nothing to suggest that Lyle was involved in the murders. But the story line was not without interest, particularly to investigators looking into the brutal murder of a Cuban-born Hollywood millionaire and his wife. A girl I was going out with lusted after him, a student told me. After losing $20 million in 1986, the company posted earnings of $8 million the following year and $I6 million in 1988. Ill make it look like Fatal Attraction.. In court, Arnel Salvatierras lawyer convinced the jury that Arnel was the victim of a lifetime of physical and psychological abuse by his father. He interjected himself into their lives, said Smyth. Two people from Live Entertainment gave glowing eulogies. Living with friends of the family in Pennsylvania, Jose won a swimming scholarship to Southern Illinois University at Carbon-dalehis mother, Maria, had been a champion swimmer in her youthbut gave it up because of the exhausting training schedule. He earned a degree in accounting at Queens College in Flushing, New York, while working part-time as a dishwasher at the swank 21 Club in Manhattan, where, later, successful and prosperous, he would often dine. The Menendez Brothers: Still Behind Bars After 25 Years During the year that followed, the two women became intimate friends, and Kitty confided in Lamm, not only about Joses infidelity but also about the many problems they were having with their sons. Surprisingly, a buyer did come along. I have to admit I read that and I was like, Go mom, laughs Clea Newman Soderlund, speaking about her fathers posthumous memoir. Then Erik Menendez came., Although Dr. Oziel had not seen any members of the Menendez family since Eriks counseling had ended, when news of the murders was announced in August 1989, according to Smyth, he became consumed with excitement at his proximity to the tragedy. Ill tell you why, she answered, bristling at the memory. They almost certainly wore rubber gloves. An employee at Life Entertainment said, Kitty called Jose at his office every thirty minutes, sometimes just to tell him what kind of pizza to bring home for supper. If you don't, you can check out 722 N. Elm Drive, Beverly Hills, CA, 90210 on Google Street View.Apr 6, 2018 Advertisement Advertisement Located in Beverly Hills, California, the home was a rental that the Menendez family was living in while renovations were being done on the home that they owned on Mulholland Drive in. Menendez House | This is the home where Erik and Lyle Menend | Flickr In the embarrassing aftermath of the burglaries, the family moved to the house on Elm Drive in Beverly Hills. At his neck was a tiny gold cross. The closest friend of the Menendez brothers, with whom I talked at length on the condition of anonymity, kept saying to me over and over, Its only the tip of the iceberg. No amount of persuasion on my part could make him explain what the iceberg was. After a long trial, two hung juries, and an earthquake, the story of Lyle and Erik Menendez seems murkier than ever. Erik told police and early reporters on the story that Bloom and his father had despised each other after a business deal turned sour. To deface them? Their demeanor seemed remarkably lighthearted for people in the kind of trouble they were in, as they smiled dimpled smiles and laughed at the steady stream of Abramsons jocular banter. One of Joses relatives found a reference to a will on Joses home computer but did not know how to gain access to the document. There is also the possibility that the killers, knowing the carnage twelve-gauge-shotgun blasts would cause, wore boots, gloves, and overalls. The romance was instantaneous. And an aunt from Miami. You never hear a bad word about Kitty. I was told that at the memorial service in Los Angeles which preceded the funeral in Princeton most of the two hundred people who attended had a business rather than a personal relationship with him. In every account of the murders, Kitty was said to have run toward the kitchen. He went to the U.S. at 16 without a father. IVE and its successor, Live, profited handsomely under Menendezs leadership. He was the perfect corporate executive, I was told by one of his lieutenants. Erik, less successful as an entrepreneur than Lyle, put up $40,000 for a rock concert at the Palladium, but got ripped off by a con-man partner and lost the entire amount. On the back wall is a floor-to-ceiling bookcase, filled with books, many of them paperbacks, including all the American-history novels of Gore Vidal, Joses favorite author. In the days following the brothers arrest, members of the Menendez family gathered in the eight-bedroom Beverly Hills house, where the blood-stained Oriental rug in the library had long since been replaced. I have heard of very few murders that were more savage, said Beverly Hills police chief Marvin Iannone. On the afternoon of the following Tuesday, Lyle and Erik, accompanied by two uncles, Kittys brother Brian Andersen and Joses brother-in-law Carlos Baralt, who was the executor of Joses will, met with officials at Live Entertainment at the companys headquarters to go over Joses financial situation. Leslie will fight to the grave for her clients, I heard from reporters in Los Angeles who have followed her career. Her passion for the welfare of the accused murderers she defends is legendary. Now, almost at the same age, we dont have a father.. But is it really possible for a child to kill, for merely financial gain, in the manner Kitty and Jose Menendez were killed? Visiting The Menendez Brothers Murder House - YouTube I never thought I believed in evil, but when I heard those boys speak, I did, she said. When Jose clashed with a senior executive at RCA in 1986, after having been passed over for the executive vice presidency of RCA Records, he uprooted his family, much to the distress of Kitty, who loved her life and house in Princeton, and moved to Los Angeles. His voice was cold. She knows when she has you. The purchaser was said to have been intimidated by the event that had occurred there, and worried about the reaction neighborhood children would have to his own children for living in the house. Though Princeton officials will say only that he withdrew, the student newspaper reported that Lyle was suspended for copying another students psychology lab report. To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. The method is called neurolinguistic programming. Because of the brutal nature of the murders, and evidence of careful planning beforehand, authorities may ask for the death penalty if the brothers are convicted. She is fearless. That same week, Lyle suddenly shaved his head. Jose made Lyle white bread. Been waiting long? he asked her. (When questioned, Bloom denied any involvement whatsoever.) Vanity Fair may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. The Menendez family home is located in an area of Beverly Hills known as "The Flats", about 1 block south of Santa Monica Blvd on N. Elm Dr. The home is located on the east side of the street and is a large, white . Lyle and Jerry followed. From a window in the office, Smyth could see Lyle and Oziel talking to Erik, who was in his Jeep on Bedford Drive. This friend went on to say that the immediate problem for Erik was to get out of Israel before he was arrested there. The murders happened on a Sunday night. They used to say about Kitty that she was Jose with a wig. And, as new heirs, they embarked on a spending spree that even the merriest widow, who had married for money, would have refrained from going onfor proprietys sake, if nothing elsein the first flush of her mourning period. He also bought a shotgun for his wife. Erik did not want to do that. Maria Menendez, the loyal grandmother, was also in the front row, and aunts and uncles and a probate lawyer were in the same section of the courtroom. She has her own business, an audio-video duplicating service called Judalon Sound and Light, in the Fairfax section of Los Angeles. Visiting The Menendez Brothers House in Beverly Hills, CA. He was advising them about attorneys for the will, etc. This was a grave blow to Jose, who loved to tell people that he had a son at Princeton. As the months passed, it was whispered that Erik had confessed to the murders to Craig. Jerry tried to put it into my head that I loved him., Smyth says Oziel would call her at eight p.m., and some of the calls would go on until midnight. Tried separately, Stewart was convicted of first-degree murder. Fearing the boys might come after him, Oziel called his wife and told her to get the children and move out of the house. Though the deal was started before Menendez arrived at the company, it was left to Jose to cope with Blooms complaint that he was owed $500,000. Lyle and Erik Menendez murdered their parents on August 20, 1989. That was the first time Jerry indicated that he thought the boys had done it, said Smyth. She was to have called for help if any violence erupted. My brother wants to become President of the U.S., said Erik. Judalon Smyths lover was a Beverly Hills psychologist named Jerome Oziel, whom she called Jerry. Marta Cano, Joses sister, says Lyle did it by mistake. He worked short hours, leaving in the afternoon to play tennis. I feel hes in me, pushing me.. Off the waiting room is a doorway that opens into a small inner hallway off which are three small offices. After moving from hotel to hotel to elude the Mafia, who they claimed were watching them, the brothers leased adjoining condos in the tony Marina City Club Towers. Both of them. During the trial, the Menndez brothers. A beautiful former actress and model who was once wed to the late Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys, Lamm is now a television producer, and she and her partner, Zev Braun, are developing a mini-series based on the Menendez case. Theyre both adorable., In the avalanche of media blitz that followed the arrest of the Menendez brothers, no one close to Lyle and Erik was the object of more intense fascination and scrutiny than Craig Cignarelli, Eriks tennis partner, with whom he had written the screenplay Friends. The brothers cells are not side by side. I wasnt either. Since their arrest in March, Lyle and Erik Menendez have dwelt in the Los Angeles County Mens Central Jail, in the section reserved for prisoners awaiting trial in heavily publicized cases. Donovan Goodreau has subsequently said on television that he can prove he was in New York at the time of the gun purchase in San Diego. Benjamin was a partner of the film director Taylor Hackford in a production company called New Vision Pictures, which Menendez was interested in acquiring as a subsidiary for Live Entertainment. Then he moved her into his own house with his wife and children. With their kids at the movies in Century City, Jose and Kitty settled in for a comfortable evening of television and videos in the television room at the rear of their house. He did not have many personal friends, and he and Kitty were not involved in the party circuit of Beverly Hills. In what had the look of a gangland-style coup de grace, the barrel of a gun had been thrust into his mouth, and the explosion had blown off the back of his head. 30 Years After Newborn Was Found in Trash, Miss. Menendez House This is the home where Erik and Lyle Menendez murdered their parents. He probably wouldve done it, and he probably wouldve been assassinated somewhere down the line. According to Erik, he and Lyle planned to move to Florida, where they would establish a political base. Five months of hearings and deliberations to see whether the audiotapes of Dr. Jerome Oziel were admissible in the murder trial of Lyle and Erik Menendez. Parents Are Arrested, Murdaugh Murders: A Complete Timeline of Alex Murdaugh's Trial, Alex Murdaugh Photographed in Handcuffs Moments After Being Found Guilty, 2 Brothers Beat California Groom to Death at His Wedding Reception After Crashing the Celebration, Everything to Know About the Murdaugh Family Murders, Including Alex's Conviction, Alex Murdaugh Gets 2 Life Sentences in Prison for Murders of Wife and Son, Minnesota Mom Convicted of Murdering Her 6-Year-Old Son After Going to Gun Range for Shooting Practice, Buster Murdaugh Sheds Tears While Testifying About Murders of Mom and Brother, Says They 'Destroyed' Alex, See All of the Celebrity Babies Born in 2020, Young Va. Father Who Vanished Before Christmas Is Found Dead in Md., 2 People Arrested, Who Is Kathy Hilton's Husband? The brothers got involved in two very serious criminal offenses, a burglary at the home of Michael Warren Ginsberg in Calabasas and grand theft at the home of John Richard List in Hidden Hills. Early this month the police moved. However, for all the seeming closeness of the family, the sons were proving to be disappointments, even failures, in the eyes of their perfection-demanding father. The family lived at first in Calabasas, an upper-middle-class suburb of Los Angeles, inland beyond Malibu, where they occupied one house while building a more spectacular one on thirteen acres with mountaintop views. 1 singles player on the team. She says he threatened to remove himself from her life if they didnt have sex. ft. mansion is now. She was introduced to Lyle, who, in turn, introduced her to Erik as Moms friend. She said that Lyle had become Jose overnight. Thirty years ago this week, a shocking crime unfolded in a Beverly Hills mansion. And the probate lawyer. Another complication occurred when Erik Menendez, from jail, refused to provide the prosecution with a handwriting sample to compare with the handwriting found on forms for the purchase of two shotguns in San Diego, despite a warning by the court that his refusal to do so could be used as evidence against him. Dominick Dunne is a best-selling author and special correspondent for Vanity Fair. Where is the Menendez house in Beverly Hills? - Kembrel.com At a point Craig decided to tell them what he knew. When I asked this same spokesperson about the possibility of a second screenplay written by Craig and Erik, he said he had never seen one. Craig Cignarelli, the son of a prominent executive in the television industry, is a Tom Cruise look-alike currently studying at the University of California in Santa Barbara. He was later booked at the Los Angeles County Mens Central Jail on suspicion of murder and held without bond. Oziel was forty-two at the time. Estimates of their spending have gone as high as $700,000. The Menendez family dream house, a Calabasas mansion featuring a tennis court, swimming pool and mountain views, was auctioned off Thursday in Probate Court for $1.325 million. Dr. Oziel was the same Dr. Oziel whom Kitty Menendezs psychologist, Les Summerfield, had recommended to her a year earlier as the doctor for her troubled son, after the judge in the burglary case in Calabasas had ruled that Erik must have counseling while he was on probation. Oziel came out and asked Lyle to come in. Taken before a disciplinary committee, he was told he could leave the university voluntarily or be expelled. Residents of Beverly Hills, California, were left shocked when corporate executive Jose Menendez and his wife, Mary Louise "Kitty" Menendez, were murdered inside their home in cold blood. Brothers Lyle and Erik Menendez were convicted of the 1989 murders of their parents Jose and Kitty Menendez at their Beverly Hills mansion. There is no way the killers could have gone up the stairs, however; the blood on their shoes would have left tracks on the pale-green stair carpet. On Aug. 20, 1989, Mary "Kitty" Menendez and her husband Jose Menendez were infamously killed in the living room of their Beverly Hills home while watching a movie. At one point, Cignarelli was presumed to be in danger because of what he knew, and was sent away by his family to a place known only to them. As for Erik Menendez, a 1989 graduate of Beverly Hills High School, his goals were even more expansive than Lyles. Built in 1927, rebuilt in 1974, the house had good credentials. They had sexual hatred for their parents, one of the friends told me. Worse, the charges seemed an incomprehensible insult to the memory of Jose and Kitty Menendez and the dream they had worked so hard to fulfill. The arrangement for Live Entertainment to purchase the property from the estate failed to go into effect, once the police investigation pointed more and more toward the boys, and so the estate has had to assume the immense cost of maintaining the properties. The incident sparked a close friendship between the two, which would culminate in the co-writing of a movie script called Friends, in which a young man named Hamilton Cromwell murders his extremely rich parents for his inheritance. Gerald Chaleff, with whom she frequently teams, is representing Lyle. The original blood-drenched furniture and Oriental carpet had been hauled away, never to be sat on or walked on again. Los Angeles district attorney Ira Reiner stated on television that one motive for the murders was greed. On July 22, 1983, in a Sunset Boulevard mansion in Bel-Air, twenty-year-old Ricky Kyle shot his father, millionaire Henry Harrison Kyle, the president of Four Star International, a television-and-movie-production firm, in the back after awakening him in the middle of the night to tell him there was a prowler in the house. Then they had to get rid of the guns. In the event that both died, everything would go to the boys. The money and jewels were returned, and $11,000 in damages was paid. A chilling look inside the house where the Menendez brothers murder Although a great friend of the boys dismissed their scrapes as merely rich kids sick jokes, two event occurred in Calabasas, where the family lived before the move to Beverly Hills, that were to have momentous consequences for all the members of the family.