Page 17 - Robert Rand News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

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 degree murder, and they did it for the money. >> at the end of the prosecution case, i was, like, "oka...

>> 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 father's rapes, i said nothing. i felt like part of that pact with my dad is i'm keeping this secret. and for you to have done this to my brother, it was like, "i kept my part of that sort of devil's pact....

>> 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 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. >> reporter: alan had begun thinking back to some very disturbing things he had witnessed at the menendez house, as had cousin diane hernandez...

>> 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 didn't go down the hall either. >> no. no. uh-uh. >> reporter: but they did hear things. >> i've heard them being whipped, oh man, it was gut wrenchin'. the screams and the, "daddy, don't hit me. daddy, don't--" you know, that kinda stuff. >> reporter: a disturbing series of stories, that to the defense, began to e...

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 party at the menendez home. jose told his guests he'd brought back a vhs tape from a trip to brazil....