Page 9 - Robert Rand News Today

Brothers lied to the police for months, starting from the very moment lyle called 911. >> someone killed my parents! >> reporter: and they did it all for the family fortune, the state said. remember, lyle and erik had searched for the will just days after their parents murders. and went on a lavish, multi-state spending spree. >> they were very aggressive about spending money as soon as possible. which i thought was very strange. >> reporter: it was pretty obvious, said the prosecutor. first deg...

>> hello? >> hello? >> reporter: we spoke with lyle menendez for more than two hours. he was confident, articulate, and, twenty-eight years later, still eager to explain why he and his brother killed their parents. he shared intimate details about his childhood, and the betrayal he said he felt when erik confided to him days before the murders that their father was still molesting him. >> my fathers rapes, i said nothing. i felt like part of that pact with my dad is im keeping this secret. and f...

>> as the months rolled by, i got more and more pieces of information. and it got worse and worse and worse as to what was going on in his family. until finally the dam broke. >> reporter: erik and lyles cousin alan andersen had lived with the menendez family, and knew the public didnt understand. >> they just knew that, "okay, we got these rich kids, boom, shot their parents. now theyre -- think theyre multimillionaires," well, thats not the case. >> reporter: alan had begun thinking back to so...

>> reporter: not by the boys. not by kitty. >> she became like his right-hand man in enforcing things. >> reporter: including what diane and alan came to know as the single most important rule in the menendez house. >> you cannot go down the hall when jose is with his kids. >> kitty didnt go down the hall either. >> no. no. uh-uh. >> reporter: but they did hear things. >> ive heard them being whipped, oh man, it was gut wrenchin. the screams and the, "daddy, dont hit me. daddy, dont--" you know,...

Want to do this. >> something horrible is going on in the family. >> oh, man, it was gut-wrenching. i wanted to bust the door down and say what is going on here. lyle and eric had been charged with the unthinkable, murdering their mother and father. alisha hertz, their former neighbor and teacher, recalled two young boy whose parents seemed formidable even to adults. like many others, she was careful around kitty and jose. but there was one episode she found too disturbing to ignore. a dinner ...

Against her cheek, and you pulled the trigger, did you love your mother? >> yes. >> and was that an act of love, mr. menendez? >> it was confusion and fear. >> you were afraid of her at that point? >> yes. >> they slaughtered their mother in a way that was so cruel she got up to run, and they went out, and they reloaded, and they put the gun up to her cheek, and blew her brains out. im sorry, that is the height of cruelty. >> reporter: whats more, observed reporter alan abrahamson -- >> lets cou...

After the murders, those feelings of anger and hurt are still close to the surface. >> my mother was very cruel. i believe - she just very much resented-- my brother and i from early -- early on. >> reporter: as if you and erik had come between her and your father. >> yes, exactly. >> reporter: we reminded him of what his prosecutors still say about him. that lyle is still trying to avoid some level of responsibility by blaming abuse, when the abuse doesnt appear to have been so bad as to -- as ...

Interview erik and lyle." >> reporter: as he would find, getting to the brothers was not so easy. but then, theyd just lost their parents. >> lyle and erik menendez were the grieving sons. >> reporter: alan abrahamson is a journalism professor at usc. back in 1989, he was a reporter for the la times. >> nobody quite knew who had -- who had killed the parents. was it because of joses position in business? had he been taken out by the mob? >> reporter: after all, both jose and kitty had been shot ...

Cuba a territory of the united states. >> reporter: now, with his fathers death, erik said he and his brother wanted to fulfill his fathers dream. >> i wanna become senator of florida and my -- my brother wants to become president of the united states. >> reporter: then the mood shifted and erik described what he saw when he walked into the family den on august 20th. >> they werent real. >> no. >> they -- wax -- they looked like wax. its something that -- ive never seen my dad helpless. you know...

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 joses american dream -- the perfect home. jose moved his family from calabasas, then pre-kardashian and a relat...