By Robert Rand
In July, the L.A. Times published two major stories about the Menendez Brothers that highlighted the new evidence and legal maneuvers that could finally set the boys free.
Earlier this week, I had no idea how Tuesday would go. For the past three years, my reporting partner Nery Ynclan and I have been in the middle of an intense investigation. We couldn’t tell anybody what we were doing
On March 20, 1996, 23 years ago today, a jury of eight men and four women returned with a verdict after deliberating less than four days:
Erik and Lyle Menendez were both found guilty of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder.
It was a miscarriage of justice.
On Monday, March 12, 1990, Erik and Lyle Menendez – who were being held without bail – were arraigned at Beverly Hills Municipal Court.
The charges against the brothers were read to a packed courtroom that included many supportive family members.
Erik Menendez looked exhausted because he hadn’t slept since his voluntary surrender and return from Israel a day before.
It was the beginning of the end the lives the boys once knew.
Yes, Erik Menendez was the co-author of a screenplay about a young man who kills his parents and inherits $157,000,000. The script that was completed — and shopped around Hollywood — before the murders.
No, it was never included as evidence in either of the two trials.
Did the media firestorm influence the verdicts?
Criminal defense attorneys Jessa Nicholson Goetz and Nicholas (Nick) Gansner discuss high-profile trials, defense strategies, popular culture’s fixation on crime, and all other things related to criminal law in their GETTING OFF podcast.
How about this interview with Robert?
“There’s so much going on here, we can’t even take it!”
From a craft standpoint, one of the things I have to applaud Robert for is brilliantly weaving the multiple and complex storylines together to show the many aspects of this strange story, including the brothers’ own account of the days leading to the murders as well as when witness statements conflicted on certain points.
He was still writing the final chapter as the book went into production because new facts kept coming up.
Normally that would be an editor’s nightmare, but in this case it was a welcome challenge to have an author able to capture the latest scoops.
Thanks to the iHeartRadio stations, I was able to share the Menendez brothers’ story in Chicago, Philly, San Diego, Minneapolis, St. Louis and more.
I’m grateful to be spreading the truth – one station at a time.
Here’s my iHeart interview with La Dona Harvey and Ted Garcia of KOGO radio in San Diego, the local station near the prison where the Lyle and Erik are now incarcerated.
I became a reluctant witness in the trial when I caught a major prosecution witness in a lie, all because of an audiotaped interview he did with me a year before.
The witness was a Princeton friend of Lyle Menendez.
The friend, Donovan Goodreau, exchanged the mutual confessions with Lyle in the spring before the murders. BOTH boys been sexually molested when they were kids.
Three decades after the infamous Menendez brothers killed their parents and were sentenced to life, who gives a damn about what happened to them?
One former Philadelphian does, disturbed by a perceived miscarriage of justice.
Robert Rand is a latter-day Don Quixote, a journalistic knight errant carrying a pen rather than a broken lance. He has no Sancho Panza as a sidekick, just an unquenchable pursuit for justice. — Stu Bykofsky, Philly.com