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>> there's really not a word that you can use to describe what our family has been through. >> and you've got such a nice, sunny disposition. how do you do that? >> i get my strength from my mother. >> that's all for this edition of "dateline." i'm craig melvin. thank you for watching. this was a gruesome murder, a high profile executive and his wife shot to death in beverly hills. we don't really think that children can murder their parents. you have to have a lot of evil in you to shoot your mom and dad. >> young. rich. handsome. in a case made for hollywood, they were ready for the camera...

Beverly hills, california. >> beverly hills emergency. >> reporter: careful what you wish for. >> someone killed my parents! it's still the case that has the power to shock. >> it's beverly hills. it's the movie business. it's kids killing their parents. >> reporter: what possessed those two handsome young men. who had been given, everything. >> a porsche or a rolex. they got pretty much what they wanted. >> reporter: why did they give back murder. >> how do you plead? >> not guilty. >> a sensational murder trial. >> reporter: theirs was the case to usher in wall-to-wall tv coverage. even befo...

Anti-depressants and slowly, a trust began to form. >> 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. i erik and lyle's cousin alan andersen had lived with the menendez family and knew the public didn't understand. >> they just knew that, "okay, we got these rich kids, boom, shot their parents. now they're-- think they're multimillionaires. well, that's not the case. >> alan had begun thinking back to some very disturbing things he had witnessed at the menendez house, a...

>> abramson had a reputation for doing whatever it took. >> you guys haven't been fair to these boys and you're not fair to them now. >> and she had an unusual strategy for defending the brothers. a law known as imperfect self-defense. >> that is to say under all the circumstances, it was reasonable to the person to think that they were acting in self-defense. but the reality is that that wasn't the case at all. >> in other words, an honest, but unreasonable belief that one's life is in danger. the defense argued that the brothers weren't spoiled. they were damaged. subject to years of abuse t...

>> oh, yeah. a lot. and i think a lot of it was about the kids. >> what was your impression of them? >> they were kinda quiet. they weren't that friendly, but it seemed like they were a bit troubled. and you know, i know they were afraid of him. >> reporter: afraid of their father, jose. >> i saw him just stare them down a couple of times -- >> reporter: but after jose was murdered, lyle and erik seemed to be afraid of noel bloom. they told police they thought bloom may have killed their parents and might want to kill them, too. bloom had been arrested before on obscenity charges, but never co...