Page 18 - Robert Rand News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

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. i'm sorry, that is the height of cruelty. >> reporter: what's more, observed reporter alan abrahamson -- >> let's count how many seconds it might take to go out to the car. walk, walk, walk, walk, walk, grab the sh...

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 doesn't appear to have been so bad as to -- as to cause a person to do that. >> i would trade my entire defense for a 30-second video of my father...

Interview erik and lyle." >> reporter: as he would find, getting to the brothers was not so easy. but then, they'd 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 jose's position in business? had he been taken out by the mob? >> reporter: after all, both jose and kitty had been shot in the knees. a mafia signature, perhaps? and then there was the company jose was running. "live e...

Cuba a territory of the united states. >> reporter: now, with his father's death, erik said he and his brother wanted to fulfill his father's 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 weren't real. >> no. >> they -- wax -- they looked like wax. it's something that -- i've never seen my dad helpless. you know, i think that possibly if lyle and i would've been home, if we would've been able to do someth...

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 ...