‘Monsters’: How many times did the Menendez brothers shoot their parents?

The Menendez brothers’ case gripped the nation in the early ’90s, attracting more than a million viewers to the broadcast of their sensational murder trial.

The brothers, Erik and Lyle, 21 and 18, respectively at the time of the parents’ murders, admitted to killing their parents, but why they did it was one of the questions that surrounded the case. Now, their story is the subject of Netflix’s Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story.

Erik and Lyle came from an affluent family. Their father, Jose, was a Cuban immigrant who worked his way up to become a businessman and executive in the entertainment industry. He was a strict and overbearing father who pushed his sons to succeed. Their mother Kitty, on the other hand, was a former pageant queen and worked as a teacher before becoming a full-time homemaker after the birth of Erik. 

The Menendez brothers grew up in New Jersey but moved to California in 1986 due to Jose’s job. At the time of the murders, they lived in a 9,000-square-foot mansion in Beverly Hills that Jose bought in 1988 for $4 million.

The night of the murders

On Aug. 20, 1989, just before midnight, Lyle called authorities to report that he and his brother Erik found their parents dead in their home. “Someone shot my parents,” he told the police on the phone. Authorities arrived at a grisly scene in the home’s library where the couple seemed to have been watching television when they were ambushed. Jose was on the couch, while Kitty was on the floor. Both were riddled with gunshot wounds. The murders were so gruesome that investigators initially thought it was a mob hit. “It was definitely a message killing. There’s no question it’s organized crime,” a law enforcement source told the Los Angeles Times just over a week after the murders.

According to the autopsy, Jose was shot in the back of the head with a shotgun, which instantly killed him. However, he had five other gunshot wounds on his body. Kitty had 10 gunshot wounds throughout her body, with the one on her cheek deemed to be shot at close range. In total, the Menendez brothers shot their parents 16 times.

Initially, the Menendez brothers weren’t suspects in their parents’ deaths. However, their behavior after the murders was suspicious. They didn’t act like they were grieving and they spent large amounts of money from their late father’s estate, which was worth $14 million when he died. Reports indicate that Lyle and Erik spent about $700,000 in a period of six months after the murders.

The Menendez brothers were found guilty

Months after the crime, investigators received a tip from a woman named Judalon Smyth, the mistress of Jerone Oziel, Erik’s psychologist. She stated that Erik had revealed to Oziel during one of their sessions that he and his brother killed their parents. Smyth also said there were recordings of the session.

Lyle and Erik were arrested in March 1990. During the trial, the prosecution argued that the brothers murdered their parents to gain access to their wealth. The defense team, however, said that while they admitted to killing their parents, they did it in self-defense. Lyle and Erik also took the stand and said they suffered years of physical and sexual abuse. The first trial ended on a hung jury. The second trial, which wasn’t televised, ended in a guilty verdict. The brothers were convicted of two counts of first-degree murder and conspiracy to murder, and they were sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.