Erik and Lyle were two rich kids from Beverly Hills that seemingly had it all. Both were enrolled at Ivy League schools, they were incredibly into tennis and they came from a very wealthy family. Their father worked as an entertainment executive and their mother stayed home. The family lived in an 8,000 square foot home and had just bought a condo in New Jersey for their oldest son who was attending Princeton. It wasn’t until you took a closer look that you saw the tension in the family dynamic. Their father Jose was controlling to a fault, forcing the boys up at 6 am to practice tennis even in the rain and when they were sick. They weren’t allowed to have friends or interests outside of what their father laid out for them. They found no refuge in their mother, who refused to intervene with anything their father did. When Kitty and Jose were brutally murdered in August of 1989, the first thought was that it was a mob hit, it wasn’t until months later that suspicions officially redirected to the Menendez brothers.

Primary Source:

The Menendez Murders by Robert Rand