joan was with her sister the day the realtor called kitty they had accepted jose offer, and kitty, you got your zip code and that made her so happy uh-huh. absolutely 722 north elm drive a six-bedroo mediterranean-style home swimming pool. guest house. tennis court elton john once lived in thi very house so did a saudi prince, and eve prince himself by august 1989, jose had truly made it. now, to ensure his sons did, too. by then lyle was a student a princeton. younger brother erik was going to ucla in the fall. so perfect so why did diane feel this way i said, well, i know thi sounds crazy but unless i am crazy somebody who s really close to me i gonna die. and it s gonna be horrible. horrible?
what really happened and why. so to understand, where to begin? how about here illinois the 1940 s everybody who knows this story knows her as kitty but that wasn t really her name, was it no. it was mary louise she was the baby of the family, said her older siste joan vandermolen it was one of their brothers who came up with the nicknam that stuck for life. how did she get to be known as kitty i think it was when brian went out to get her for dinner one night or something and he said, here, kitty, kitty, kitty. and she came and then, when kitty wa three, her dad left the family for another woman. and as that little girl watche her mother struggle, she imagined a way she could d better kitty grew up believing tha she was gonna marry well, an have household help. how would she know such a thing? i think this is probabl what my mother had maybe wante for herself and never got. kitty was pretty. in 1962, she was crowned mis
oak lawn you should be in show business her mother told her. so kitty studied radio and television at southern illinoi university was that wrapped up in the whole idea of if you re in tha field, you re more likely to meet a successful man > yes. absolutely in college she met a bundle of ambition named jose menendez he had fled communist cuba a he had fled communist cuba a 16 with bold dreams of strikin it big in business just the kind of man kitty was searching for. and so they married in 1963. they were stars, in in our family, kitty and jose diane hernandez was kitty s niece and lived with kitty and jose for a few years i bet you idolized kitty. oh i did from the ver beginning. and i was known as the k daughter kitty never had. of course, as the world would come to know, kitty an jose had sons. lyle and erik. did they seem to get along? did they like each other > oh yeah. absolutely very close? yeah.
he was slumped to one side, hi head was to the one side it was bad. very bad i could immediately tel that his face was disfigured from the shotgun blast that he took to the back of the head he was wearing shorts. and he had a shotgun blast t his thigh, blood soaked all th way down to the white couch. and then i noticed his wife, kitty, at his feet on the floo she was curled into fetal position and, like her husband had been shot many times, several times near her knee. and, most horribly, kitty wa shot point blank in the face shotgun killings are very messy. and there were brains and bloo everywhere back then, pamela bozanic was an l.a county prosecutor in the organized crime unit but nothing prepared her for this jose and kitty had been riddle with 15 shots. one image in particular live with her still
shotguns for protection, they said. two days later, said lyle, he and his father had another argument about the abuse. after which, lyle said his parents went into the den and shut the door. and? i thought they were going ahead with their plan to kill us. remember, jose and kitty kept two rifles in the house. so, what did you do? i ran upstairs to tell my brother that it was happening now. they ran out to the car, loaded their guns, and burst through the den door. i was just firing as i went into the room. i just started firing. in what direction? in front of me. what was in front of you? my parents. at some point, was your gun empty? yes. i could see somebody moving.