oh, man, it was gut-wrenching. i would have bust a door down and said what s going on here. lyle and erik menendez have been charged with the unthinkable, murdering their mother and father. alicia hertz, their former neighbor and teacher withdrawaled parents that seemed formidable. she was careful and kitty and jose menendez. but there was one episode she found too disturbing to ignore, a dinner party at their home. jose told his guests he d brought back a vhs tape from a trip to brazil. and i have to show you guys this. because it s so unique. and so he puts it in. and i don t remember the name. reporter: she said the film showed adults engaging in sex acts in front of children.
reporter: by the young men themselves. they weren t real. wax. reporter: the real-life details of the defense that shocked america. uhm, we would be in the bathroom, and uh, it would, he would put me on my knees. i m lookin to see, is he tellin the truth or not? reporter: tonight, we ll ask the brother at the center of it all about truth. to this day i m still dealing with with the controversy of it, obviously, my own guilt in what in in what happened. reporter: 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. reporter: she was the baby of the family, said her older sister joan vandermolen. it was one of their brothers who came up with the nickname 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. reporter: and then, when kitty was three, her dad left the family for another woman. and as that little girl watched her mother struggle, she imagined a way she could do better. kitty grew up believing that she was gonna marry well, and have household help. reporter: how would she know such a thing? i think this is probably what my mother had maybe wanted for herself and never got. reporter: kitty was pretty. in 1962, she was crowned miss oak lawn. you should be in show business, her mother told her. so kitty studied radio and television at southern illinois university. was that wrapped up in the whole idea of if you re in that field, you re more likely to meet a successful man yes. absolutely. reporter: in college she met a bundle of ambition named jose menendez. he had fled communist cuba at
1989, when robert rand, then a reporter for the miami herald, went to las vegas to cover a trade show for the home video business. and happened to meet jose menendez. reporter: what was your impression of the guy? talked to him for maybe two or three minutes. seemed professional, dynamic. reporter: a high powered career. a beautiful family. and finally the one missing piece of jose s american dream the perfect home. jose moved his family from calabasas, then pre-kardashian and a relatively unknown enclave outside of los angeles, to a more tony address. joan was with her sister the day the realtor called kitty. they had accepted jose s offer, and kitty, you got your zip code. and that made her so happy. uh-huh. absolutely. reporter: 722 north elm drive. a six-bedroom mediterranean-style home. swimming pool. guest house. tennis court. elton john once lived in this very house.
adult business were in organized crime, which is totally not true. at least i had i wasn t were some of the people who you associated with members there was a couple of companies back in new york that i believe was. reporter: in the 1970 s bloom was one of the biggest porn producers and distributors in the country with titles like then he made an unlikely turn to distributing children s programming care bears, for example. along the way, you encountered this guy, jose menendez? unfortunately. what was he like in the office? jose could be very sweet. smile at you. even charming. uh-huh? but he was very ruthless. he would scream at people. if he fired somebody in his office and fired em, even though he had no business doing so you would hear him laughing like it was a big joke. reporter: jose fought with his own family, too, said noel bloom. i i met kitty several times. she was sometimes goin to the into his office, and you know, yellin and screamin