October 27, 2024 • 21 mins
So why, after 34 years, has this case returned to mainstream media? TV shows, specials, podcasts, and Reddit threads are all buzzing with renewed interest.
In this episode, we explore why this is happening and what new evidence Lyle and Erik’s lawyer, Cliff Gardner, will rely on in their bid to get them released.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Approache production.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
He almost got away with it, didn't you You characterize
it that way, and do you think it's funny. But
my brother in my life was very miserable for six
months before we got arrested, and obviously it wasn't better
after we got arrested, and it isn't a good now
and it never really has been great.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Larl and Eric Menendez have been in jail for the
first degree murder of their parents since April seventeen, nineteen
ninety six. That's ten three hundred and eighty five days.
The first jury in nineteen ninety three was a hung jury.
Six decided it was murder, six couldn't.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
The quirk declares a mistrial yew. That completes this hearing.
Speaker 4 (00:55):
Jurors have told the jury they are unable to reach
a verdict, hopelessly deadlocked.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
In nineteen ninety six, twelve jurors voted unanimously for life
behind bars with out the chance of parole. Cliff Gardner
has been their lawyer who's been working on this case
since ninety six. In twenty twenty three, Cliff filed a
habeas corpus writ in the California Court to bring new
evidence to light. It's evidence you've heard before. It's about
(01:22):
the letter Eric has sent to his cousin Andy eight
months before Eric and his brother shot his mom and dad.
Speaker 5 (01:29):
To me, the heartbreaking piece of new evidence, and to
me it's gut wrenching is the letter Eric wrote to
his cousin Andy, think about eight months before the shooting.
The shooting I think is in August, and he writes
this letter around Christmas time. He writes a letter to
his cousin Andy, who was really one of the only
people in life.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
That Eric really speaks to other than Lie and this letter.
Speaker 5 (01:53):
Andy unfortunately goes off to college, gives all his papers
to his moms has saved these and within a couple
of years Andy dies of an overdose I think, and
his mother doesn't look through the papers for many years.
When she finally does, she finds this letter, and that
sort of kickstarts the behaviors process.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
So we're talking this is in the twenty twenties that
she finds this letter.
Speaker 5 (02:17):
Actually it's a little more complicated than that she finds
this letter. She's part of an interview process that Barbara Walters,
the American journalist too. You probably have heard of Barbara
Walters does a special on the Menendez brothers.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
I can't remember when you can YouTube it.
Speaker 6 (02:36):
There was something the jury did not know about. It
was given to me recently by a Menendez relative.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
Aunt. It's Marta Kano, the boy's aunt. I call her aunt, Martha.
Speaker 5 (02:47):
Aunt. Marta is talking to a producer and he says,
do you have any papers, anything that can refresh your recollection?
And she goes and she looks tough Andy's papers and
she finds this letter. And Barbara Walters actually shows this
letter on camera and she says, this letter was excluded
at the second trial.
Speaker 6 (03:02):
The judge said the letter was not necessarily evidence of
sexual abuse and ruled it inadmissible.
Speaker 5 (03:10):
And then she goes and reads a portion of it
that's extremely important.
Speaker 6 (03:14):
It's still happening Andy, but it's worse for me now.
I can't explain it. He is so overweight. I can't
stand to see him. I never know when it's going
to happen, and just driving me crazy. Every night I
stay up thinking he might come in. I need to
put it out of my mind.
Speaker 5 (03:36):
And soon thereafter the wheels get turning and I get
a call and someone says, Cliff, you know was this
letter introduced at trial? And I said, I don't remember
a letter like this. I would erase this as an
issue exclusion of a letter like this, but I don't
have the record anymore. It's sixty to ninety thousand pages.
I don't remember, And so it takes years to find
to put together the record again to find if this
(03:58):
was in fact introduced, and we finally find out that
this was not introduced if Barbara Walters got the information line.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
Now this is not Cliff blaming Barbara Walters, but this detail,
the fact that this letter was never admitted to court,
therefore never excluded from the first door second trial, was
critical for Cliff and his team to file this current
habeas corpus.
Speaker 5 (04:21):
And the reason I'm telling you this Jay is because
if it was introduced to trial, it's not new evidence.
It can only form the basis of a habeas petition
if it's new. So when she represented that this had
been introduced to trial, and she does that on the footage,
you'll see it on YouTube, so you can't raise a
new evidence claim based on this. She says it was introduced,
(04:41):
I mean it was offered and excluded, So it's not
a basis for a Habeast claim until and unless you
can find out that, in fact, it wasn't introduced or offered.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
So it took years to find that out.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
Without trying to blow smoke. That's really good lawyer work
from you and your team to go just because she
said it on TV doesn't necessarily mean that it's true.
Speaker 5 (05:05):
Oh well, yes, but and thank you for the kind
of compliment. But it's not really that big a stretch
to understand that a journalist can get something wrong, even
someone as competent and.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
His extraordinary as Barbara Walters. You know, I can read.
Speaker 5 (05:22):
It's a three page letter, and it's you know, it's
a letter you might expect any seventeen or eighteen year
old to write to his cousin. He's he's urging his
younger cousin to do well in school because college is
coming up. He's talking about a company party that mom
and dad had, and he talks a little bit about Mom.
Speaker 3 (05:43):
She says, I feel bad for her. I don't know
why she puts up with Dad's shit. Excuse my language,
excuse his language.
Speaker 5 (05:50):
At times, I wish I could talk to her about things,
you know, someday, especially Dad and I but the way
she worships him and tells her and tells her everything,
I'm afraid. I'm afraid she'll tell him whatever I say.
I just can't risk it. And then he goes on.
He talks a little bit about Lyle and Mom getting
into a fight about where to spend Christmas. Lyle apparently
decided to spend it with some family members elsewhere. And
(06:13):
here's what Eric writes, And this is what sent chills
down my spine when I first saw He says, So
now I'm stuck here alone. I've been trying to avoid Dad.
It's still happening Andy, but it's worse for me now.
I can't explain it. He's so overweight that I can't
stand to see him. I never know when it's going
to happen, and it's driving me crazy.
Speaker 3 (06:34):
Every night I.
Speaker 5 (06:35):
Stay up thinking he might come in. I need to
put it out of my mind. I know what you
said before, but I'm afraid you just don't know.
Speaker 3 (06:42):
Dad like I do. He's crazy.
Speaker 5 (06:44):
He's warned me a hundred times about telling anyone, especially Lyle.
Am I a serious wimpass. I don't know if I'll
make it, if I'll make it through this. I can
handle it. Andy, I need to stop thinking about it.
The reason that's so important is that when you look
at the second chime, when the state was successfully able
(07:08):
to exclude so much evidence about Lyle's abuse and about
the sexual abuse, you look at the state's closing argument,
and again and again, I have that here. I submit
to you, ladies and gentlemen, that the abuse in this
case was a total fabrication.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
Which was done for a conscious strategical reason.
Speaker 5 (07:27):
There's no way of corroborating the allegations of Eric Menendez
and he was sexually abused by his father. None of
this happened. The abuse never happened. There's no corroboration of
sexual abuse. It's not corroborated. The claims of physical abuse
are not corroborated.
Speaker 3 (07:45):
It just goes on and on, and in fact, it
is corroborated.
Speaker 6 (07:54):
You know.
Speaker 3 (07:54):
That's the importance of the new evidence.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
And even without that letter in ninety three, through various
people on the stand, it was corroborated, including cousin Andy
and Andy.
Speaker 5 (08:05):
In the first trial talked to and second trial talked
about a conversation he did with Eric when Eric was
thirteen and Andy was ten. And Eric swore Andy to
secrecy and asked him if it was normal for a
father to massashe his son's penis. He didn't use those words,
and Andy, whose parents were divorced, said I don't know.
(08:29):
And Eric said, well, you know, my dad's doing that,
and he says that's how parents express love. And Andy
tests bright to that at both trials, and the prosecutor's position,
at least at the second trial was that Andy was lying.
And Andy was Eric's cousin. He loved Eric and he
would lie for him. And we now, I think this
(08:49):
letter puts the lie to that Andy wasn't lying about
the confidences Eric had opposed in him.
Speaker 3 (08:57):
We have a hard copy of a letter.
Speaker 5 (09:01):
The other thing that's really important to understand it in
terms of the different the two trials is that is
Diane Vandermiller, who I think was the key witness in
the first trial and who the Chiald court excluded in
the second trial. Diane was a cousin of the boys.
She spent the summer when she was sixteen with She
spent the summer at the Menendez house and she lived
(09:23):
in her bedroom downstairs, and I think they were in
Beverly Hills, maybe it was Princeton. And one evening, Lyle
came down and asked if he could sleep.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
In Diane's room.
Speaker 5 (09:32):
And Diane said why, and Lyle said, And Lyle was
seven or eight years old, and Lyle said, because my
dad is massaging my penis, I don't want to sleep
in my bedroom. And Diane was sixteen years old, and
she did what any sixteen year old girl would probably do.
She went and she told Kitty Menendez, Lyle's mom. Kitty
(09:52):
came downstairs and dragged Lyle upstairs.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
Screaming, dragged him by the arm.
Speaker 5 (09:57):
Now that evidence, remember the defense, is that the boys
have been abused since they were children. The trial court
excluded that evidence in the second trial. So you can
understand why the first jury understood that sexual abuse had
probably occurred and they reached that second question we talked about,
but without evidence from Diane and with Andy Kano being
(10:18):
alone and being called a liar, and without the letter,
you can sort of understand why the second jury reached
its urd.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
Can I ask a really simple question, why would that
be excluded from the second trial? What was the judge's reasonings?
Speaker 5 (10:31):
The judge's reasoning was that ignoring California case law. The
judge said, you can't introduce testimony from Diane unless you
testify a law now under the United States or Green
Court lawnder California law. You can't force a defendant to
waive one constitutional right in order to exercise another. You
(10:54):
have the constitutional right to remain silent, and you have
the constitutional right to present evidence in your defense. You
can't force the defendant to waive his right to silence
in order to exercise is right to present a defense.
Speaker 3 (11:06):
You just can't do it. But the judge did. That's
the legal reason he gave.
Speaker 5 (11:13):
The practical reason is probably a different one.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
There's two dates that play out that have been the
subject for much of the scrutiny around the second trial
of the Menendez brothers. On October third, nineteen ninety five, O. J.
Simpson was acquitted the murder of his ex wife and
her friend.
Speaker 7 (11:39):
Before the verdict was even read, Regina McGee could not
hold back the tears. The moments leading up to the
acquittal were filled with tension.
Speaker 8 (11:47):
We the jury and the buff and kind of action
find the defendent or oral James Simpson not guilty of the.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
Primal America was divided.
Speaker 9 (11:58):
I'm so glad, you know he's not a guilty I'm
relieve for him.
Speaker 3 (12:01):
I'm happy for him, you know, not because he's black,
but wrong is wrong.
Speaker 4 (12:05):
Across the nation and around the world, virtually everyone watched
as judgment day came swiftly for OJ Simpson.
Speaker 3 (12:12):
The jury was pretty irresponsible. Money can buy you justice exactly.
I was hurting when they went guilty or not guilty.
I was feeling the emotions. There was just a feeling
a saw house scared. O. J.
Speaker 7 (12:24):
Simpson is a perfect example of a man innocent until
proven guilty. Just don't think justice has served. I don't
think the jury did their jobs.
Speaker 4 (12:32):
This former lover Keith Slompsowitch, I can't believe it. In
Los Angeles, Ronald Goldman's close friends, Mike Davis and Jeff.
Speaker 7 (12:40):
Keller, Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, is this your verdicts?
Speaker 4 (12:46):
He'll say you once, he'll.
Speaker 7 (12:46):
Say you all.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
Both trials, the Midnandez brothers and IJ Simpson's trial happened
in the Los Angeles County Superior Court and were handled
by the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office. I wanted
to from Cliff whether this fact was significant in the
second trial that convicted both the brothers eight days.
Speaker 5 (13:13):
Before the second trial started and before all the rulings
started changing in the second trial eight days before that
Menendez brother second trial, O. J.
Speaker 3 (13:21):
Simpson's equitted, and it's also in LA.
Speaker 5 (13:24):
It's the LA District Attorney. And the atmosphere for those
of us that lived through that moment, the atmosphere was
sort of remarkable that we talks about getting rid of
the jury system, or modifying the jury system, or taking
away unanimous juries, or giving judges the power to decide
cases rather than juris. So there was an enormous backlash,
(13:46):
and the second Menendez trial was litigated in the shadow
of the OJ.
Speaker 3 (13:50):
Simpson equitted.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
It's a loaded question which you might not be able
to answer, but you think it played a part in
the outcome.
Speaker 5 (13:56):
It is a loaded question, and as you're right, I
think I'll steer clear of that. I will, as we
say in my business plead the fifth.
Speaker 9 (14:07):
Eric and Lyle were forced to carry the entire defense
on their backs, and jurors are understandably concerned about the
veracity of a criminal defendant whose life is on the line.
Telling them the truth when they sit in the witness
chip very deaf and second trait.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
We began the show to try and look at the
difference between the Menendez trials and what we saw in
the Netflix dramatization. You've heard so far that the Netflix
show was just that a dramatization. It portrayed a few
things that are different from reality. In real terms, Lyla
and Eric were not in some sort of sexual relationship,
although Lyle had molested Eric as a young boy. The
(14:51):
special never really showed the fact that there were two trials.
We only saw one on the show. We think this
is an important fact, but again we aren't dealing with
the facts on a TV show that's made for entertainment.
Cliff told me from the outset that he doesn't watch
or listen to anything that's been on the TV. He
hasn't watched the Monster Show, nor has he watched the
(15:12):
other documentary that the brothers took part in. Cliff actually
appeared on that documentary but still hasn't watched it. I
first got interested in this story, again not just because
of the TV show, but more it was about how
much it was a hot topic on socials. You remember
it was my own teenage daughters that came home to
(15:33):
give me their view on the Netflix show before I
even knew it existed. So I wanted to know why
gen Z cares so much about a case that happened
thirty four years ago.
Speaker 3 (15:43):
Why do you think, lol and it shouldn't be in
jail because.
Speaker 8 (15:50):
They were abused. I think that they should have gone
to jail for but they shouldn't be in jail for
this long. They should have only gone to jail for
like a really short amount of time. They shouldn't be
in jail for the same amount of time as like
Jeffrey Dharmer was in jail, who's like a serial killer.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
How did you first hear about the Menandez case.
Speaker 8 (16:19):
Well, it was just on TikTok and I like watching
I guess crime videos and stuff like that. So it
was on TikTok and then I heard about the new
Netflix show coming out and I wanted to watch it,
and I watched it, and then I just I thought
it was a bit it didn't portray them that well, yeah,
(16:42):
it kind of changed to some people's opinions on the
case and on them. Well, i'd like read the case
before the Netflix series came out, and then when I
watched the Netflix show, I was like, they probably did
have they had a good bond and a good relationship.
(17:06):
The show made it was dramatizing it and making it
seem like something that.
Speaker 4 (17:14):
It was not.
Speaker 8 (17:17):
I felt bad for them because I first saw it
on TikTok, and then when I watched the show, I
kind of just still felt bad for them. People that
just watched the show and didn't have any background information
probably wouldn't have had the same feelings because they didn't
know the story, the actual story. They made it more
(17:41):
dramatic for viewing purposes.
Speaker 3 (17:44):
Did you then go and have a look at the
story on the YouTube or anything.
Speaker 8 (17:47):
I watched multiple interviews with them, and I watched the
new documentary that came out on Netflix about them that
they approved because they didn't approve the show. Of course,
they should be in jail because they killed someone. That's
a crime, But it's about on what the circumstances of
(18:11):
why they killed their parents. They killed their parents because
they feared for their lives and they didn't feel like
they had any other way out, and they probably weren't
thinking in the moment, or they probably weren't thinking when
they thought it. They were probably just so sick of
their dad abusing them.
Speaker 7 (18:29):
And their mom.
Speaker 8 (18:31):
Being a bystander not doing anything about it. They felt
trapped and like they didn't have a way out, and
no one's ever gonna really know what they did. But
I believe that they were abused and that's the reason
(18:52):
that they killed their mom and their dad. A lot
of things in the show, like I know from watching
the show, and I don't know if I'm right in
saying this, but I've seen like comparing the show to
the court the actual court case, like the recordings and
stuff like that, and there's a lot of like differences,
(19:15):
especially like in the show, I guess when even to
the point where like they made the call, Like there's
just some things that didn't happen in real life that
happened that they put in the show. And I think
that the show is from the courts perspective of what
(19:37):
they think happened to the Menandez brothers people, theories of
what people thought happened, and they kind of just turned
the theories and the perspective into a show. They could
have done that stuff in the show, but when you're
watching it it's perceived as like they wanted to kill
(20:00):
their parents and that they were like happy once they
killed them because they were like just partying and like
spending money. There was no one recording them when they
were actually spending the money and stuff, so you don't
know if they were like happy, but do you know
what I mean? And the first and second trial were
very different from each other. In the first trial, they
(20:23):
were allowed to have witnesses, and their witnesses even said
that like their cousins said that they'd been touch like touched,
they told their cousins and stuff. And in the second trial,
none of that happened, Like they weren't allowed to have
any witnesses or anything. And it's hard to win a
case if you have no witnesses or no one on
(20:45):
your side.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
Really, in the next episode of Menendez the Monsters.
Speaker 3 (20:51):
Oh boy, that's not a legal question, that's a political one.
Speaker 5 (20:55):
And let's talk about what the problem really is, because
this was the problem in the case from day one
when I became counseled to this day, the prosecution has
never given an explanation for why there's this extraordinary rule
in the Minetta's hastle
Approache production.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
He almost got away with it, didn't you You characterize
it that way, and do you think it's funny. But
my brother in my life was very miserable for six
months before we got arrested, and obviously it wasn't better
after we got arrested, and it isn't a good now
and it never really has been great.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Larl and Eric Menendez have been in jail for the
first degree murder of their parents since April seventeen, nineteen
ninety six. That's ten three hundred and eighty five days.
The first jury in nineteen ninety three was a hung jury.
Six decided it was murder, six couldn't.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
The quirk declares a mistrial yew. That completes this hearing.
Speaker 4 (00:55):
Jurors have told the jury they are unable to reach
a verdict, hopelessly deadlocked.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
In nineteen ninety six, twelve jurors voted unanimously for life
behind bars with out the chance of parole. Cliff Gardner
has been their lawyer who's been working on this case
since ninety six. In twenty twenty three, Cliff filed a
habeas corpus writ in the California Court to bring new
evidence to light. It's evidence you've heard before. It's about
(01:22):
the letter Eric has sent to his cousin Andy eight
months before Eric and his brother shot his mom and dad.
Speaker 5 (01:29):
To me, the heartbreaking piece of new evidence, and to
me it's gut wrenching is the letter Eric wrote to
his cousin Andy, think about eight months before the shooting.
The shooting I think is in August, and he writes
this letter around Christmas time. He writes a letter to
his cousin Andy, who was really one of the only
people in life.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
That Eric really speaks to other than Lie and this letter.
Speaker 5 (01:53):
Andy unfortunately goes off to college, gives all his papers
to his moms has saved these and within a couple
of years Andy dies of an overdose I think, and
his mother doesn't look through the papers for many years.
When she finally does, she finds this letter, and that
sort of kickstarts the behaviors process.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
So we're talking this is in the twenty twenties that
she finds this letter.
Speaker 5 (02:17):
Actually it's a little more complicated than that she finds
this letter. She's part of an interview process that Barbara Walters,
the American journalist too. You probably have heard of Barbara
Walters does a special on the Menendez brothers.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
I can't remember when you can YouTube it.
Speaker 6 (02:36):
There was something the jury did not know about. It
was given to me recently by a Menendez relative.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
Aunt. It's Marta Kano, the boy's aunt. I call her aunt, Martha.
Speaker 5 (02:47):
Aunt. Marta is talking to a producer and he says,
do you have any papers, anything that can refresh your recollection?
And she goes and she looks tough Andy's papers and
she finds this letter. And Barbara Walters actually shows this
letter on camera and she says, this letter was excluded
at the second trial.
Speaker 6 (03:02):
The judge said the letter was not necessarily evidence of
sexual abuse and ruled it inadmissible.
Speaker 5 (03:10):
And then she goes and reads a portion of it
that's extremely important.
Speaker 6 (03:14):
It's still happening Andy, but it's worse for me now.
I can't explain it. He is so overweight. I can't
stand to see him. I never know when it's going
to happen, and just driving me crazy. Every night I
stay up thinking he might come in. I need to
put it out of my mind.
Speaker 5 (03:36):
And soon thereafter the wheels get turning and I get
a call and someone says, Cliff, you know was this
letter introduced at trial? And I said, I don't remember
a letter like this. I would erase this as an
issue exclusion of a letter like this, but I don't
have the record anymore. It's sixty to ninety thousand pages.
I don't remember, And so it takes years to find
to put together the record again to find if this
(03:58):
was in fact introduced, and we finally find out that
this was not introduced if Barbara Walters got the information line.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
Now this is not Cliff blaming Barbara Walters, but this detail,
the fact that this letter was never admitted to court,
therefore never excluded from the first door second trial, was
critical for Cliff and his team to file this current
habeas corpus.
Speaker 5 (04:21):
And the reason I'm telling you this Jay is because
if it was introduced to trial, it's not new evidence.
It can only form the basis of a habeas petition
if it's new. So when she represented that this had
been introduced to trial, and she does that on the footage,
you'll see it on YouTube, so you can't raise a
new evidence claim based on this. She says it was introduced,
(04:41):
I mean it was offered and excluded, So it's not
a basis for a Habeast claim until and unless you
can find out that, in fact, it wasn't introduced or offered.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
So it took years to find that out.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
Without trying to blow smoke. That's really good lawyer work
from you and your team to go just because she
said it on TV doesn't necessarily mean that it's true.
Speaker 5 (05:05):
Oh well, yes, but and thank you for the kind
of compliment. But it's not really that big a stretch
to understand that a journalist can get something wrong, even
someone as competent and.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
His extraordinary as Barbara Walters. You know, I can read.
Speaker 5 (05:22):
It's a three page letter, and it's you know, it's
a letter you might expect any seventeen or eighteen year
old to write to his cousin. He's he's urging his
younger cousin to do well in school because college is
coming up. He's talking about a company party that mom
and dad had, and he talks a little bit about Mom.
Speaker 3 (05:43):
She says, I feel bad for her. I don't know
why she puts up with Dad's shit. Excuse my language,
excuse his language.
Speaker 5 (05:50):
At times, I wish I could talk to her about things,
you know, someday, especially Dad and I but the way
she worships him and tells her and tells her everything,
I'm afraid. I'm afraid she'll tell him whatever I say.
I just can't risk it. And then he goes on.
He talks a little bit about Lyle and Mom getting
into a fight about where to spend Christmas. Lyle apparently
decided to spend it with some family members elsewhere. And
(06:13):
here's what Eric writes, And this is what sent chills
down my spine when I first saw He says, So
now I'm stuck here alone. I've been trying to avoid Dad.
It's still happening Andy, but it's worse for me now.
I can't explain it. He's so overweight that I can't
stand to see him. I never know when it's going
to happen, and it's driving me crazy.
Speaker 3 (06:34):
Every night I.
Speaker 5 (06:35):
Stay up thinking he might come in. I need to
put it out of my mind. I know what you
said before, but I'm afraid you just don't know.
Speaker 3 (06:42):
Dad like I do. He's crazy.
Speaker 5 (06:44):
He's warned me a hundred times about telling anyone, especially Lyle.
Am I a serious wimpass. I don't know if I'll
make it, if I'll make it through this. I can
handle it. Andy, I need to stop thinking about it.
The reason that's so important is that when you look
at the second chime, when the state was successfully able
(07:08):
to exclude so much evidence about Lyle's abuse and about
the sexual abuse, you look at the state's closing argument,
and again and again, I have that here. I submit
to you, ladies and gentlemen, that the abuse in this
case was a total fabrication.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
Which was done for a conscious strategical reason.
Speaker 5 (07:27):
There's no way of corroborating the allegations of Eric Menendez
and he was sexually abused by his father. None of
this happened. The abuse never happened. There's no corroboration of
sexual abuse. It's not corroborated. The claims of physical abuse
are not corroborated.
Speaker 3 (07:45):
It just goes on and on, and in fact, it
is corroborated.
Speaker 6 (07:54):
You know.
Speaker 3 (07:54):
That's the importance of the new evidence.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
And even without that letter in ninety three, through various
people on the stand, it was corroborated, including cousin Andy
and Andy.
Speaker 5 (08:05):
In the first trial talked to and second trial talked
about a conversation he did with Eric when Eric was
thirteen and Andy was ten. And Eric swore Andy to
secrecy and asked him if it was normal for a
father to massashe his son's penis. He didn't use those words,
and Andy, whose parents were divorced, said I don't know.
(08:29):
And Eric said, well, you know, my dad's doing that,
and he says that's how parents express love. And Andy
tests bright to that at both trials, and the prosecutor's position,
at least at the second trial was that Andy was lying.
And Andy was Eric's cousin. He loved Eric and he
would lie for him. And we now, I think this
(08:49):
letter puts the lie to that Andy wasn't lying about
the confidences Eric had opposed in him.
Speaker 3 (08:57):
We have a hard copy of a letter.
Speaker 5 (09:01):
The other thing that's really important to understand it in
terms of the different the two trials is that is
Diane Vandermiller, who I think was the key witness in
the first trial and who the Chiald court excluded in
the second trial. Diane was a cousin of the boys.
She spent the summer when she was sixteen with She
spent the summer at the Menendez house and she lived
(09:23):
in her bedroom downstairs, and I think they were in
Beverly Hills, maybe it was Princeton. And one evening, Lyle
came down and asked if he could sleep.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
In Diane's room.
Speaker 5 (09:32):
And Diane said why, and Lyle said, And Lyle was
seven or eight years old, and Lyle said, because my
dad is massaging my penis, I don't want to sleep
in my bedroom. And Diane was sixteen years old, and
she did what any sixteen year old girl would probably do.
She went and she told Kitty Menendez, Lyle's mom. Kitty
(09:52):
came downstairs and dragged Lyle upstairs.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
Screaming, dragged him by the arm.
Speaker 5 (09:57):
Now that evidence, remember the defense, is that the boys
have been abused since they were children. The trial court
excluded that evidence in the second trial. So you can
understand why the first jury understood that sexual abuse had
probably occurred and they reached that second question we talked about,
but without evidence from Diane and with Andy Kano being
(10:18):
alone and being called a liar, and without the letter,
you can sort of understand why the second jury reached
its urd.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
Can I ask a really simple question, why would that
be excluded from the second trial? What was the judge's reasonings?
Speaker 5 (10:31):
The judge's reasoning was that ignoring California case law. The
judge said, you can't introduce testimony from Diane unless you
testify a law now under the United States or Green
Court lawnder California law. You can't force a defendant to
waive one constitutional right in order to exercise another. You
(10:54):
have the constitutional right to remain silent, and you have
the constitutional right to present evidence in your defense. You
can't force the defendant to waive his right to silence
in order to exercise is right to present a defense.
Speaker 3 (11:06):
You just can't do it. But the judge did. That's
the legal reason he gave.
Speaker 5 (11:13):
The practical reason is probably a different one.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
There's two dates that play out that have been the
subject for much of the scrutiny around the second trial
of the Menendez brothers. On October third, nineteen ninety five, O. J.
Simpson was acquitted the murder of his ex wife and
her friend.
Speaker 7 (11:39):
Before the verdict was even read, Regina McGee could not
hold back the tears. The moments leading up to the
acquittal were filled with tension.
Speaker 8 (11:47):
We the jury and the buff and kind of action
find the defendent or oral James Simpson not guilty of the.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
Primal America was divided.
Speaker 9 (11:58):
I'm so glad, you know he's not a guilty I'm
relieve for him.
Speaker 3 (12:01):
I'm happy for him, you know, not because he's black,
but wrong is wrong.
Speaker 4 (12:05):
Across the nation and around the world, virtually everyone watched
as judgment day came swiftly for OJ Simpson.
Speaker 3 (12:12):
The jury was pretty irresponsible. Money can buy you justice exactly.
I was hurting when they went guilty or not guilty.
I was feeling the emotions. There was just a feeling
a saw house scared. O. J.
Speaker 7 (12:24):
Simpson is a perfect example of a man innocent until
proven guilty. Just don't think justice has served. I don't
think the jury did their jobs.
Speaker 4 (12:32):
This former lover Keith Slompsowitch, I can't believe it. In
Los Angeles, Ronald Goldman's close friends, Mike Davis and Jeff.
Speaker 7 (12:40):
Keller, Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, is this your verdicts?
Speaker 4 (12:46):
He'll say you once, he'll.
Speaker 7 (12:46):
Say you all.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
Both trials, the Midnandez brothers and IJ Simpson's trial happened
in the Los Angeles County Superior Court and were handled
by the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office. I wanted
to from Cliff whether this fact was significant in the
second trial that convicted both the brothers eight days.
Speaker 5 (13:13):
Before the second trial started and before all the rulings
started changing in the second trial eight days before that
Menendez brother second trial, O. J.
Speaker 3 (13:21):
Simpson's equitted, and it's also in LA.
Speaker 5 (13:24):
It's the LA District Attorney. And the atmosphere for those
of us that lived through that moment, the atmosphere was
sort of remarkable that we talks about getting rid of
the jury system, or modifying the jury system, or taking
away unanimous juries, or giving judges the power to decide
cases rather than juris. So there was an enormous backlash,
(13:46):
and the second Menendez trial was litigated in the shadow
of the OJ.
Speaker 3 (13:50):
Simpson equitted.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
It's a loaded question which you might not be able
to answer, but you think it played a part in
the outcome.
Speaker 5 (13:56):
It is a loaded question, and as you're right, I
think I'll steer clear of that. I will, as we
say in my business plead the fifth.
Speaker 9 (14:07):
Eric and Lyle were forced to carry the entire defense
on their backs, and jurors are understandably concerned about the
veracity of a criminal defendant whose life is on the line.
Telling them the truth when they sit in the witness
chip very deaf and second trait.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
We began the show to try and look at the
difference between the Menendez trials and what we saw in
the Netflix dramatization. You've heard so far that the Netflix
show was just that a dramatization. It portrayed a few
things that are different from reality. In real terms, Lyla
and Eric were not in some sort of sexual relationship,
although Lyle had molested Eric as a young boy. The
(14:51):
special never really showed the fact that there were two trials.
We only saw one on the show. We think this
is an important fact, but again we aren't dealing with
the facts on a TV show that's made for entertainment.
Cliff told me from the outset that he doesn't watch
or listen to anything that's been on the TV. He
hasn't watched the Monster Show, nor has he watched the
(15:12):
other documentary that the brothers took part in. Cliff actually
appeared on that documentary but still hasn't watched it. I
first got interested in this story, again not just because
of the TV show, but more it was about how
much it was a hot topic on socials. You remember
it was my own teenage daughters that came home to
(15:33):
give me their view on the Netflix show before I
even knew it existed. So I wanted to know why
gen Z cares so much about a case that happened
thirty four years ago.
Speaker 3 (15:43):
Why do you think, lol and it shouldn't be in
jail because.
Speaker 8 (15:50):
They were abused. I think that they should have gone
to jail for but they shouldn't be in jail for
this long. They should have only gone to jail for
like a really short amount of time. They shouldn't be
in jail for the same amount of time as like
Jeffrey Dharmer was in jail, who's like a serial killer.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
How did you first hear about the Menandez case.
Speaker 8 (16:19):
Well, it was just on TikTok and I like watching
I guess crime videos and stuff like that. So it
was on TikTok and then I heard about the new
Netflix show coming out and I wanted to watch it,
and I watched it, and then I just I thought
it was a bit it didn't portray them that well, yeah,
(16:42):
it kind of changed to some people's opinions on the
case and on them. Well, i'd like read the case
before the Netflix series came out, and then when I
watched the Netflix show, I was like, they probably did
have they had a good bond and a good relationship.
(17:06):
The show made it was dramatizing it and making it
seem like something that.
Speaker 4 (17:14):
It was not.
Speaker 8 (17:17):
I felt bad for them because I first saw it
on TikTok, and then when I watched the show, I
kind of just still felt bad for them. People that
just watched the show and didn't have any background information
probably wouldn't have had the same feelings because they didn't
know the story, the actual story. They made it more
(17:41):
dramatic for viewing purposes.
Speaker 3 (17:44):
Did you then go and have a look at the
story on the YouTube or anything.
Speaker 8 (17:47):
I watched multiple interviews with them, and I watched the
new documentary that came out on Netflix about them that
they approved because they didn't approve the show. Of course,
they should be in jail because they killed someone. That's
a crime, But it's about on what the circumstances of
(18:11):
why they killed their parents. They killed their parents because
they feared for their lives and they didn't feel like
they had any other way out, and they probably weren't
thinking in the moment, or they probably weren't thinking when
they thought it. They were probably just so sick of
their dad abusing them.
Speaker 7 (18:29):
And their mom.
Speaker 8 (18:31):
Being a bystander not doing anything about it. They felt
trapped and like they didn't have a way out, and
no one's ever gonna really know what they did. But
I believe that they were abused and that's the reason
(18:52):
that they killed their mom and their dad. A lot
of things in the show, like I know from watching
the show, and I don't know if I'm right in
saying this, but I've seen like comparing the show to
the court the actual court case, like the recordings and
stuff like that, and there's a lot of like differences,
(19:15):
especially like in the show, I guess when even to
the point where like they made the call, Like there's
just some things that didn't happen in real life that
happened that they put in the show. And I think
that the show is from the courts perspective of what
(19:37):
they think happened to the Menandez brothers people, theories of
what people thought happened, and they kind of just turned
the theories and the perspective into a show. They could
have done that stuff in the show, but when you're
watching it it's perceived as like they wanted to kill
(20:00):
their parents and that they were like happy once they
killed them because they were like just partying and like
spending money. There was no one recording them when they
were actually spending the money and stuff, so you don't
know if they were like happy, but do you know
what I mean? And the first and second trial were
very different from each other. In the first trial, they
(20:23):
were allowed to have witnesses, and their witnesses even said
that like their cousins said that they'd been touch like touched,
they told their cousins and stuff. And in the second trial,
none of that happened, Like they weren't allowed to have
any witnesses or anything. And it's hard to win a
case if you have no witnesses or no one on
(20:45):
your side.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
Really, in the next episode of Menendez the Monsters.
Speaker 3 (20:51):
Oh boy, that's not a legal question, that's a political one.
Speaker 5 (20:55):
And let's talk about what the problem really is, because
this was the problem in the case from day one
when I became counseled to this day, the prosecution has
never given an explanation for why there's this extraordinary rule
in the Minetta's hastle
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