By Robert Rand
On March 8, 1990, Lyle Menendez was arrested in Beverly Hills and charged with killing his parents.
Brother Erik Menendez surrendered several days later.
The Menendez brothers have been in jail for more than half their lives.
On the Donnie and Grace In Your Face podcast, I explain why the second trial was so different from the first trial, what happened at the April 2018 reunion of the brothers after not seeing each other for 22 years, and why I believe that manslaughter – not murder – should have been the resolution of the case.
Glenn Yeffeth, the boss at my publisher BenBella Books, interviewed me for the company’s podcast, Building Books, and we talked how most of the mainstream media got the original Menendez story wrong in the 1990s.
My first draft was 250,000 words and BenBella only wanted to publish 100,000 words.
Obviously, some some major editing was in store!
All of the early media speculation was focused on a connection between the Jose’s home video business and the Mafia.
It was years before the internet, social media, and the 24-hour news cycle. I spent two days with Lyle and Erik Menendez in October while reporting a biography of Jose Menendez’s rags to riches story that ended in tragedy.
The brothers told me loving stories about their parents and were emotionally appropriate. They were not suspects publicly and I had no reason to be suspicious of them.
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.
Lyle and Erik Menendez were sexually molested by their father Jose, and they told others about it before the killings.
It wasn’t a fabricated tale; it was a real-life horror story.
So despite what the prosecutors would like you to believe, these boys were in fear for their lives and at most should have been convicted of manslaughter — not murder.