The Menendez case became an international sensation that was a major story in the United States and other countries. My articles appeared in the Miami Herald, People, and Playboy as well as many foreign magazines.
The Menendez family in 1988, one year before the double murders of Jose and Kitty Menendez at their mansion in Beverly Hills, California. From left: Twenty-year-old Lyle, a student at Princeton University; parents Kitty and Jose; and seventeen-year-old Erik.
March 12, 1990: Lyle (L) and Erik Menendez sit in Beverly Hills Municipal Court where their attorneys delayed making pleas on behalf of the brothers who are suspected in the murders of their millionaire parents, Jose and Mary Louise “Kitty” Menendez, in Beverly Hills, California, on August 20, 1989. (AP Photo/Nick Ut)
Described by the Washington Post as a “nuclear-strength pain in the legal butt,” Leslie Abramson (L) famously defended Erik Menendez through two highly publicized criminal trials. Jill Lansing (R) represented Lyle Menendez during the first trial and was succeeded by veteran public defender Charles Gessler at the retrial. (AP Photo/Chris Martinez)
The public was stunned by the emotional testimony of Lyle Menendez. Jurors, reporters, and family members were all seen crying during the first hour of Lyle’s testimony on September 10, 1993. A TV pool feed arranged by local L.A. stations and national networks live from the courtroom was broadcast around the world.
The testimony of Erik Menendez was equally as dramatic as that of his brother, Lyle. An international audience watched the gavel-to-gavel TV pool feed daily, following every development as if it were a novella.
An unruly six-year-old Jose Menendez with his sisters, Marta (L) and Terry (behind), and their mother, Maria, in 1950.
Lyle and Erik’s paternal grandmother, born Maria Carlota Llanio (top row, R), competed on the Cuban Olympic swimming team in the 1930s.
Fourteen-year-old Jose Menendez at boarding school in Kentucky in 1958.
Debutante Marta Menendez Cano in Havana in 1958.
Baby Erik with his godmother, Marta Cano, who remained supportive of both of her nephews throughout the lengthy criminal trials.
Maria Carlota (Llanio) Menendez in the mid-1980s.
Named “Miss Oak Lawn” in 1962, a popular Kitty Menendez in the 1970s. Mary Louise Andersen was known to her family and friends as “Kitty.” In 1963, she met and married Jose Menendez.
Kitty Menendez in the 1970s.
A 1962 picture of eighteen-year-old Jose Menendez and older sister, Terry (Menendez) Baralt (R), with their goddaughter, baby Marta, the daughter of Marta Cano (L)
Jose Menendez with sons Erik (L) and Lyle (R). The photo became a controversial piece of evidence in the first murder trial in 1993. Arguing that years of parental abuse led the brothers to kill their parents, the defense claimed the photo showed Jose Menendez’s hand in an inappropriate position in Lyle’s lap.
Erik (far L) and Lyle (far R) with their cousin Andy Cano (center L) in a family photo in the 1970s.
Three generations of Menendezes: Young Lyle with his father and grandparents, Pepin and Maria.
The Menendez family of four in Princeton, New Jersey, in 1983, attending cousin Andy Cano’s First Communion celebration.
Jose Menendez gave Lyle (L) and Erik (R) intensive tennis lessons from a very young age. This photo of father and sons was taken in Princeton, New Jersey, in the mid-1980s.
While at RCA Records, Jose Menendez hobnobbed with musical celebrities, including Kenny Rogers, Barry Manilow, the Eurythmics, and Rick Springfield, pictured here with Menendez.
Jose Menendez (L) at a 1984 Menudo concert in São Paulo, Brazil.
Jose Menendez (center) with Grace Slick and other members of Jefferson Starship in the mid- 1980s.
Pepin, Lyle, and Jose Menendez in Princeton, New Jersey, in 1985.
Erik and Lyle at Erik’s high school graduation in June 1989.
Kitty, Erik, and Jose at Erik’s graduation from Beverly Hills High School in June 1989.
The last known picture of Kitty and Jose Menendez, taken outside their Calabasas, California, dream house in early August 1989—a couple of weeks before they were killed by their sons.
Lyle Menendez (R) with his roommate Hayden Rogers outside of Chuck’s Spring Street Café, the chicken wing restaurant Lyle bought in Princeton, New Jersey, in the fall of 1989. (Courtesy The Daily Princetonian)
Judalon Smyth went to the police and said her lover, the brothers’ therapist, Dr. Jerome Oziel, had an audiotape of Erik and Lyle Menendez confessing to killing their parents.
Judalon Smyth wrote an IOU to Dr. Jerome Oziel for 500 sex acts. The girlfriend of the therapist claimed she overheard the Menendez brothers’ murder confession four months before they were arrested in March 1990.
Rand took this candid photo of Dr. Jerome Oziel (center) and his wife, Laurel, who held a news conference at the Beverly Hills Hotel on September 13, 1990. Oziel denied that he had ever asked Judalon Smyth to eavesdrop on therapy sessions with the Menendez brothers.
A page from the unproduced screenplay Friends, written by Erik Menendez and his friend Craig Cignarelli. In the script, which Kitty Menendez helped type, a character named Hamilton Cromwell kills his parents and inherits $157 million. The script was not admitted into evidence during the trials.
Kitty Menendez told her therapist she was hiding “sick and embarrassing secrets” about her family six weeks before she was killed by her sons. (An excerpt of the transcribed therapy notes appears here.)
On January 28, 1994, the Los Angeles County Superior Court announced two hung juries in the concurrent murder trials of Lyle and Erik Menendez. This photo depicts the famously outspoken Leslie Abramson with Rand to the left. District Attorney Gil Garcetti immediately announced he would retry the case and there would be no plea bargain.
Erik Menendez (L) and his cousin, Andy Cano, at Erik’s wedding in prison in 1999. Andy was a key defense witness in both trials who said twelve-year-old Erik had told him about being sexually molested by his father.
Lyle Menendez’s aunts Terry Baralt (L) and Marta Cano (R) attended his second wedding in prison in 2003.
Rand discussing the Menendez case with Joe Fryer on NBC’s Today on September 2, 2016
Dateline NBC correspondent Keith Morrison interviewed Rand in August 2017 for the two-hour special, “Unthinkable: The Menendez Murders,” which aired on November 17, 2017.
Rand on the set in September 2017 with actress Heather Graham, who played Judalon Smyth in NBC’s series Law & Order True Crime: The Menendez Murders. Josh Stamberg played the role of Rand, who has covered the Menendez story since 1989.
The Menendez and Llanio families in Cuba in the early 1950s. Young Jose Menendez (front row, second from L), cousin Henry Llanio (front row, far L), and Jose’s parents, Maria Menendez (center row, second from R) and Jose Menendez “Pepin” Pavon (top row, R).