Why the Menendez Brothers Homicide Trial Was Such a Media Circus

What they did, at round 10 p.m. on Aug. 20, 1989, was shoot their mother and father to demise within the household’s Beverly Hills mansion on Elm Drive, a 9,000-square-foot Mediterranean-style house beforehand leased by the likes of Prince and Elton John earlier than Jose Menendez and Mary Louise “Kitty” Menendez purchased it lower than a yr earlier than the murders.

Jose, a 45-year-old leisure govt, was shot point-blank behind the pinnacle with a 12-gauge shotgun. He was discovered within the den, the place he and Kitty, 47, his spouse of 26 years, had been watching a film. Kitty was discovered mendacity in a pool of blood within the hallway, shot within the arms, chest and face. Every was additionally shot within the kneecap. 

The brothers obtained within the automotive and dumped the weapons someplace off of Mulholland Drive, then threw the spent shotgun shells and their bloody garments in a dumpster at a fuel station. They purchased film tickets in Century Metropolis for a movie they did not see, then went to Santa Monica, the place they tried to search out considered one of Lyle’s buddies who might function an alibi; unable to search out the man, they drove again house.

At 11:47 p.m., 21-year-old Lyle referred to as 911, sobbing to the dispatcher, “Any person killed my mother and father!”