These Brothers Murdered Their Parents | Lyle and Erik Menéndez

Were these murders the result of the cycle of abuse or because two boys wanted to inherit their father’s millions?

Mary Louise “Kitty” Anderson was born to Charles and Mae Helen in Oak Lawn, Illinois on October 14th, 1941. Her father Charles was a U.S. Army veteran, and Mae worked in an airport.

By Kitty’s 10th birthday, though, everything would change. Her father, Charles, was abusive. Her parents had gotten a divorce and Kitty was sent off to boarding school for a year.

Once she had returned, she attended Oak Lawn Community High School, She would graduate and go on to college at Southern Illinois University, This is where she would meet her future husband, José Menéndez, after winning the Miss Oak Lawn beauty contest.

José Enrique Menedez was born on May 4th, 1944 in Havana Cuba. When he was 16, he moved to the United States where he would later attend Southern Illinois University.

In 1963, the pair got married and moved to New York City. Here, José would graduate from Queens College with a degree in Accounting. Meanwhile, Kitty worked as an elementary school teacher.

They had their first child, Joseph Lyle Menéndez, who goes by Lyle, On January 10th, 1968. Kitty retired from teaching after Lyle was born. The pair and their young child then moved to New Jersey before their second son, Erik, was born on November 27th, 1970.

The boys grew up in New Jersey, going to school at Princeton day school.

In 1986, the family moved to Beverly Hills, California. José had gotten a job as a corporate executive at RCA. The family was well off and moved into a mansion formally owned by Elton John.

Erik began school at Beverly Hills High where he showed extreme skill in tennis. He ranked 44th in the United States for players 18-and-under.

Only three years later, this family’s lives would be over.

On the evening of August 20th, 1989, while José and Kitty were sleeping on the couch in their Beverly Hills mansion, Lyle and Erik entered carrying shotguns they had purchased two days earlier.

Lyle shot their father in the back of the head with a 12-gauge shotgun. Their mother woke up and got off the couch when she heard the shots. Erik shot Kitty in the leg and chest. They then proceeded to shoot her several times in the arm, chest, and face. As a result, she was unrecognizable.

The two brothers then got changed and left the house. When they returned later, Lyle called the police and claimed that “Someone killed my parents!”

The brothers claimed to the police that they had been at the movie theater seeing Batman and then attended a festival at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium.

At first, the pair were not suspects. Police had not checked either Lyle or Erik for gunshot residue. They had no real reason to believe they had been involved until months after Kitty and José had been murdered.

Once their parents were gone, Lyle and Erik started spending money like it was nothing. The brothers bought anything they wanted. They bought fancy watches, cars, townhouses, and even business. Erik even hired a full-time tennis coach.

Between the time of their parents’ death to the time of their arrest, it is believed that the pair spent around $700,000. Family members would later say that these spending habits were not unusual for Lyle and Erik.

Lyle was arrested on March 8th, 1990 after Erik had confessed to his therapist. The therapist’s mistress heard the tapes and told the police.

Erik turned himself in just three days later.

They would not be formally charged until December of 1992. After an initial mistrial where the brothers were tried separately, another trial was set. This time, they were tried together by a single jury.

On April 17th, 1996, the jury found them guilty. They were sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

Lyle and Erik both claimed in court that their father had been abusive to them. He was very rough on them when it came to sports. He angrily coached them to be the best.

Kitty’s sister would back up these claims and other claims of sexual abuse from their father. When Lyle was eight years old, he had told his aunt that “he and his dad had been touching each other in the genitals.”

Lyle would also go on to say:

“I love my mother, and I still cry over my mother, and I don’t forgive her. Her life ended and our lives essentially ended all because of this fateful decision. There had to be a series of decisions she made of not to tell what was happening. What kind of mother lets it happen?”

What was it that drove the Menéndez brothers to kill their parents: greed or abuse?