Robert Rand is an Emmy and duPont-Columbia Award winning journalist who began covering the Menendez brothers’ case for the Miami Herald over 33 years ago – the day after the killing of Jose and Kitty Menendez on August 20, 1989. He is the only reporter who covered the investigation in the fall of 1989 and was in court daily for each six month long Menendez trial in 1993-94 and 1995-96. He provided analysis for Court TV, CNN, ABC News, and CBS News. Rand spent three days interviewing Erik and Lyle Menendez two months after the murders and five months before their March 1990 arrest. The Miami Herald published the first speculation that the investigation was focused on them in December 1989 in Rand’s story titled “Who Killed the Next U.S. Senator from Florida?” Rand’s cover story for People Magazine two weeks after the brothers were arrested, “A Beverly Hills Paradise Lost,“ was published March 26, 1990.
Robert Rand is Co-EP of a new documentary series ‘Menendez + Menudo Boys Betrayed’ that began streaming on Peacock May 2, 2023. New evidence Rand has developed could be the foundation for the Menendez brothers to reopen their case. A new habeas corpus petition asking the courts to review the Menendez Brothers’ case and vacate their 1996 convictions was filed a day after the docuseries premiered on May 3, 2023.
In March 1991, Playboy published Rand’s article “The Killing of Jose Menendez.” The 14,000-word story is the longest article ever published by Playboy. His second Playboy story on the Menendez case titled “Menendez Confidential” was published in July 1995. Rand’s print work includes stories contributed to The Guardian, People, Playboy, Stern, Grazia, and Tropic, the Sunday magazine of the Miami Herald. He covered the 1991 William Kennedy Smith rape trial for Paris Match.
Rand was awarded a Los Angeles Emmy Award in 2001 for two years of stories at KCOP in L.A. about an illegal immigrant who was wrongly convicted. The stories resulted in the overturning of a ten-year-old conviction and the release of the man from jail. Rand was nominated for several Emmy Awards for stories he produced as a member of the Special Assignment investigative reporting group at KCBS (CBS 2) in L.A. He was a member of the I-Team at KYW (CBS 3) in Philadelphia that won a duPont-Columbia Silver Baton Award for a yearlong series about wealthy property tax dodgers.
In July 2016, Rand was hired by Wolf Entertainment as a consultant for the development of NBC’s eight hour limited series ‘Law & Order True Crime: The Menendez Murders’ which aired in the fall of 2017. Rand’s book, “The Menendez Murders,” published by Ben Bella Books in September 2018, provided the primary source material for the series. Rand has appeared as a featured interview in dozens of documentaries about the Menendez case, including ABC 20/20’s ‘Truth and Lies: The Menendez Brothers,’ and Dateline NBC’s ‘Unthinkable: The Menendez Murders,’which both aired in 2017. ABC 20/20 aired ‘Inside the New Menendez Brothers’ Supporters Movement’ in April 2021 (now streaming on Hulu). Rand still maintains contact with Erik and Lyle Menendez through phone calls and visits them regularly at R. J. Donovan prison near San Diego. March 2023 marked the 33 year anniversary since the Menendez brothers were incarcerated
Robert Rand is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania. He lives in Los Angeles.
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