>> $14 million provides ample motive to some people to commit murder. >> if he is guilty, he's the world's greatest actor. >> everyone wants to know, why did this murder take place? why did it end this way? >> i was studying them, trying to figure out, how do you get two kids capable of slaughtering their parents? >> honor thy mother and father. that is a story as old as the bible. >> it's always the perfect crime until they get caught. >> if i killed my parents, i don't think i'd buy a porsche that first week. >> i saw what happened and i said, this is wrong, this is awful, how could this have happened? i couldn't accept it. >> what? >> erik menendez was the abused son of wealthy parents. >> the crowds in the roman coliseum, you know, blood, they smell blood. >> my dad had been molesting me. >> he raped me. ♪

>> i was just living in the wake of what had happened. now you have secrets upon secrets. you're not living in the reality of what has occurred and why it occurred with anyone in your life. you're almost, like, emotionally, you're a ghost. you're just living like a ghost among people that are alive. and so, you're just -- you're just adrift. >> entertainment executive jose menendez and his wife were slain in the family room of their beverly hills mansion by killers using 12-gauge shotguns. >> they were murdered, killed gangland style in cold blood. >> homicide detectives say it could have been a mob hit contract killings. >> they tried to make it look

like a mafia hit by the kneecapping. they told the police it was a mafia hit. >> the sons said they discovered the bodies when they arrived home several hours later. >> i've never seen anything like it. they weren't real. wax, they looked like wax. it's something that -- i've never seen my dad helpless. you know, i think that, possibly, if lyle and i would have been home, maybe my dad would be alive. >> the police felt it necessary to start investigating the organized crime aspect, and they soon realized th was a dead end. they knew that the brothers had done it, but knowing it and proving it are two different things. >> i remember, it was the morning after the murder. i pulled up to the house, and then all of a sudden, my car door slammed open, and erik jumped in and scared the hell out of me. and frantically said to me that they needed my husband legal help. i said "erik, what's going on here?

what's happening?" he says, "mrs. wright, my parents were murdered last night." and i said, "what?" he was not sad, not crying, no emotion whatsoever. who would think of legal advice the day of your parents' murder? unless you're guilty. >> i don't know how much they thought they were going to get, but i understand the estate was worth about $14 million at the time. >> in the days following the murders of jose and kitty menendez, erik menendez was a complete mess. he was emotionally distraught, and several days after the murders, craig cignarelli claims that erik menendez confessed to him, and told him that he was responsible for the deaths of his parents. >> it was a friend of mine that called me and said, "dude, turn on the tv." >> how many shots do you think went off? >> about six in a row. >> my first instinct was to -- to call erik and get to erik, and find out what happened. we went back to the house, and -- and eventually sat down at a chessboard. and he looked up from the

chessboard and as he had his fingers on the pieces, he said, "do you want to know what happened?" and i made a big mistake and said, "yes." i can remember him telling me where the blood and the skin landed, and literally being in the room where it happened. it was a very intense, heavy moment. i realized that conversation was going to change my life and change his life and, you know, he had now burdened me with something that i was stuck with a pretty heavy moral dilemma. >> so, craig didn't know how to take that, whether he was saying it as a new plot for a new script or whenever he did commit this murder. >> five weeks after the murders, erik and lyle menendez received an insurance policy payout of $400,000. >> and they went on a huge spending spree. i mean, if i killed my parents, i don't think i'd by a porsche that first week. >> one kid bought a rolex watch,

another a brand-new porsche, another bought a restaurant in princeton, new jersey. i mean, the list goes on and on. >> they weren't shattered and traumatized by grief. they were having a grand old time, spending the money of the dead man. >> you went off on a spending spree? i mean, i would think that you would be in such grief that you wouldn't be able to buy rolexes and invest in businesses. explain to me, let me understand. i'm, you know, i'm the public. >> lyle didn't buy anything without first approving it with my uncle or my aunt. >> you weren't just two greedy kids who wanted a lot of money. that's what you're saying? >> i didn't know what to do with the money. i went to -- it got to a point where, i have all this money and so much pain, i don't know what to do with it, and -- >> do you still think about the night of the murder? >> every day. i had a dream once that was my mother having been shot, hugging me and me hugging her, and i woke up crying.

and i woke up, and i said, "i'm back in the nightmare. i want to go back." i can never forgive myself. i just could not face god. i could not face god with what i had done. it's hard to live with that, and i thought of suicide, and for six months i was in agony. and i just wanted someone to talk to, and i couldn't tell anyone. >> you went to your psychologist, dr. oziel, and told him that you had committed this crime. you were in torment and you told him. >> i felt that i was the worst person on earth, and i -- it got to a point where i couldn't live with myself anymore and i needed help. and so, i went to him, and that is what the catalyst was for me getting arrested, and lyle. >> erik had confessed the killings to dr. oziel. dr. oziel then went onto tape further conversations with erik and lyle and ask them details about the killings, so he could get on tape their confessions.

he told his lover, judalon smyth, that if anything were to happen to him, the tapes are in the lockbox. go and get them and give them to police and they'll know what happened. >> she's the one that came to the police and said, "i have information about this oziel, who, parenthetically, is the psychologist for erik and lyle menendez." >> they didn't talk about shooting the father a whole lot. they did talk that they had to keep shooting the mother. >> erik filled dr. oziel in on many details about what had happened, including where they bought the shotguns. >> and abc news has learned that two 12-gouge shotguns were purchased at this sporting goods store in san diego on august 18th, two days before the murder. >> and the following day is when we got warrants to recover these tapes and arrested lyle. >> i couldn't believe it. the family was on the phone to each other.

we were talking back and forth. how could this possibly be? >> the glow of innocence once surrounding the menendez brothers is now shadowed by charges of murder. >> i thought the whole time it was done by the mafia. i -- i did not believe that it was the brothers. >> prosecutors say greed drove the boys to shooting their parents to death last august. >> $14 million provides ample motive to some people to commit murder. >> to me, it was like a nightmare, like a movie, like it couldn't be reality. >> when somebody does something that horrible, and you put it on television, there's a lynch mob mentality around somebody who commits a murder. we want justice. we want blood justice fast. [ "let 'em say" by lizzo & caroline smith ] ♪ let 'em say what they gonna say ♪ ♪ they gon' feel how they gonna feel ♪ ♪ and i love it, ♪ i love it and baby hey, ♪ you should too

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"truth and lies: the menendez brothers" continues. >> the menendez brothers' trial was really the first big trial i covered. and it was a spectacle. >> it's like the crowds in the roman coliseum, you know, blood, they smell blood.

>> when i first saw erik menendez walk into the courtroom my blood went cold, because i had never seen someone who had murdered his parents before. and it really was the menendez case. >> and it was complex. and they said they did it because they'd been sexually abused. so, the question -- the question in the trial, if you believe that they were sexually abused, does that lessen their responsibility for murder? >> it will be your job to decide what kind of killing this is. that depends on what you come to believe was the reason for the act. the only question in this case, is why did these killings occur? there is no issue as to who killed jose and mary louise menendez. why they were killed is what the focus of all of our evidence will be on. >> i didn't buy it at the start at all. i thought it was a total artificial construct, a gambit

by a desperate defense to do something to save these guys from the -- from the death penalty. >> it will become apparent that this murder was unjustified and wholly pre-meditated. and that it was accomplished through a conspiracy into which lyle menendez entered with his brother, and that but for a few mistakes they made, this was almost the perfect murder. i knew that we could prove that the menendez brothers killed their parents. but i also started thinking about, okay, let's say i'm a sleazy defense lawyer and i'm going to make up a defense, what defense would i make up? and i said, i think they're going to fabricate a sexual abuse defense, because i can't think of any other reason why we're going to trial. and guess what? they did. >> erik menendez was the abused son of wealthy parents. >> leslie abramson was one of the most unpleasant people i've ever had to cover, and yet, i admired her, because she was ferocious for her client. not her clients -- it was erik

who was her client. >> he killed his parents because he could no longer endure their abuse and had to stop it. we never argued that child abuse is an excuse for murder. what we argued is child abuse creates a terrible fear. this is not a child abuse trial. this is a murder trial. >> i pretty much knew the trial was going to be a nightmare. her reputationn the legal community was that she was a fighter who would go to the mat for her clients. but in the prosecutor's office, everyone told me, watch out for her. she will lie, cheat, and steal to win. >> the origin of this killing was a lifetime of abuse at the hands of those same parents. >> i think the strongest piece of evidence that we had, and certainly the most compelling for a prosecutor, were the crime scene photos and the way that they killed their parents. this is her before, and this is her after. and the problem for the defendants in this case is, they can't explain adequately killing mom. they just can't do it. and i'd like you to look at those photographs and ask yourself --

i had all the facts on my side. i could prove beyond a reasonable doubt, that they killed their parents in a pre-meditated fashion. >> well, this is what prosecutors always do. they say, oh, i have the evidence right here. here are the photos. the brothers admitted it. >> the prosecutors did a great job of portraying these -- these two brothers who were clearly plotting a pre-meditated murder, and taking apart their story piece by piece. >> i also noticed that there was a large portion of the back of his head was missing. >> it ejects the round of ammunition. >> and did you ask them why they killed their mother? >> they felt that they were putting the mother out of her misery. >> it ripped apart their stories and made them -- made them seem like petty liars covering up an appalling homicide. >> you came home and saw who shot? >> my mom and dad. >> you were crying, correct? >> right. >> and at the same time, you were lying while you were crying, is that correct?

>> right. >> all right, so, you knew when you called the police that you were going to lie to them, correct? >> right. >> and then you continued to lie about your involvement in the case, correct? >> right. >> i think there was a near universal sense that this was going to be a sham defense, and that it was going to be a joke. and then they got on the witness stands. >> what did you think was going to happen? >> i thought they were going ahead with their plan to kill us. >> i was just sitting on the couch with my hands in my head saying, "we're going to die. we're going to die. i can't believe this." >> their story was that they were afraid of their parents -- afraid that their parents were going to kill them. >> i mean, you're familiar with kids saying, "oh, my father's going to kill me, oh, my parents are going to kill me." is that what you're talking about? >> no, no. dad was going to kill us. >> i could not conceive of these strapping young men being in such terror, they had to kill

their parents out of fear, so, i didn't buy it. >> but they definitely needed that piece in order to get the self-defense claim. >> we fired lots, you know, many times. and there were just glass and -- you could hear things breaking and you could hear the ringing noises from the booms and -- it was the smoke from the guns. >> we learned that they went after kitty in the most horrible way. that they reloaded and they came back to finish her off, and that they still shot her. and i -- and joe was shot so much so that he, i learned, he was decapitated. >> now after you entered the den -- >> i was just firing as i went into the room, i just started firing. >> in what direction? >> in front of me. >> what was in front of you? >> my parents. >> erik testified she got up to run, and there was blood on the bottom of her shoe, inside the tread of her keds.

and i think of -- i think of her and i think of -- she got up and ran because her kids came in with shotguns and started shooting. i cannot imagine. i mean, i just can't imagine anything like that. it's just so horrific. >> did you fire at the second figure? did you fire at the first figure? do you know if you fired at both, off to the side? >> i -- i don't know. i don't know. i just walked into the room, i just started firing, and i don't know. i didn't think about these things. i didn't think, "where was this, where was that." i just started firing. >> i remember my dad coming forward, in my direction, so, he was standing. and i remember firing directly at him. i believe he fell back. >> now, what was it that happened after the shooting ended? >> i heard a noise from my mom. >> and what was your reaction to that noise? >> i just ran out of the room. >> and what did you do after you

reloaded? >> i ran around and shot my mom. >> where did you shoot her? >> i just reached over and i shot her close. >> i thought that when lyle mother, that a normal jury would find it reprehensible and convict him. he -- you know, we loved our mother. oh yeah? really? you loved your mother? you blew her up. >> the prosecution was completely focused on the idea that erik and lyle menendez were greedy rich kids that had killed their parents, because they were in a hurry to inherit their money. >> why did you need to buy a rolex watch four days after your parents were killed? >> i didn't need to. >> you wanted to. >> well, what happened that day is that i was -- my uncles had

talked to my brother and i and i think it was mainly my brother needed to get suits for the memorial service in l.a. that was coming up, and also for the one that they were planning around in new jersey. >> so, you just thought a $9,000, 18-karat gold rolex would go nicely with your funeral suit, is that right? >> and i thought that that was a very powerful part of the prosecution's case. it persuaded me, i mean, i didn't think they were in fear for their lives. i didn't. i thought they were trying to get away with murder. why they were murdering is what the question was. >> mr. menendez, you've heard the testimony of your brother that you and he killed your parents on august 20th, 1989. did you not? >> yes, we did. >> trials are storytelling competitions. >> what do you believe was the originating cause of you and your brother ultimately winding up shooting your parents? >> so, whoever tells the better story in a trial, that's anchored in the facts as they come out, that's who is going to persuade the jury --

>> me telling -- >> you telling what? >> me telling lyle that -- >> you telling lyle what? >> and to do that, you don't just say, "this happened, this happened, this happened." you said, "here's this person, this is what their experience was, this is what they did and this is why." >> your honor, can i ask a leading question? >> if you don't ask. >> my dad -- >> just wait one second. >> no, no, he was in the process of answering, so, there's no need to ask it. >> can you answer the question? >> yes. >> okay. it was you telling lyle what? >> that my dad had been molesting me. >> you could hear a pin drop in the courtroom. and that's when i thought -- oh, darn, i'm in trouble.

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>> television removes you from the intimacy of pain. to my dismay, the menendez brothers' trial became a gag on "saturday night live." >> would you please state your

names for the record? >> lyle menendez. >> erik menendez. >> it became a game show because it was on television. >> and can you tell the court who did murder your parents? >> our other two brothers, danny menendez and jose menendez jr. >> and they became cartoons in the public mind, right, with sweaters and the tears and all that stuff. it was easy for people to dismiss what they were claiming as an act. >> the first thing they did is they always dressed in pastels. and they always wore the little crewneck ralph lauren sweaters and the little polo shirts underneath, to make them look like little easter egg candies. >> the way leslie treated them in the courtroom was not as if they were killers but as young, innocent boys. >> and they were referred to all the time as "the boys." not the brothers, not the adults, because they were adults. the boys. >> the boys, the boys, the boys. >> the boys, the boys, the boys. >> and it got to the point where i was saying "the boys" because

it's a shorthand for the dirt bags over ere who killed their parents. >> for 12 years, between the ages of 6 and 18, my client, erik menendez, was sexually molested by his father. >> the sex abuse defense -- the abuse excuse -- was new in the law, relatively, a decade or so, less perhaps at that time. and so, people were very, very skeptical of it. >> sex abuse takes place in private. how can you prove it? who witnesses it? >> the greatest omission that occurred for the menendez brothers, in terms of whether this happened or not, was their failure to tell this to their own psychotherapist. >> when erik menendez was 10 years old, he told his cousin andy cano that he had been sexually molested by his father. >> well, he told me his father was massaging his [ bleep ]. >> he used that word? >> yes, he did. he wanted to know that -- if this happened to every kid. i do remember very specifically

was him asking me to make a promise to him never to reveal that to anybody. >> it's hard to explain that away. and then, when their own testimony came in, it was very, very powerful. >> and between the ages of 6 and 8, did your father have sexual contact with you? >> yes. >> and how did it start? >> we would have these talks, and he would show me, and he would fondle me and he would ask me to do the same with him, and i would touch him, and we would undress. >> when lyle appeared, it was a turning point, because now, you were hearing a whole different side of the story, and details that no one had ever really heard before. >> we would be in the bathroom and it would -- he would put me on my knees and he would guide

me, all my movements, and i would have oral sex with him. >> the days that lyle and erik menendez testified to their claims of sexual abuse are among the most unforgettable days i've ever had as a journalist. to this day, my heart catches when i think about that. >> what else did he do to you? >> he used objects. >> what kind of objects? >> a toothbrush. and some sort of shaving utensil brush. >> and did he try to anally penetrate you with something else? >> he did. >> and what was it?

>> it -- he'd rape me. >> there was a level of detail -- it wasn't just explicit. it was accidental. in other words, there are things that -- that people remember from real life that you almost wouldn't kind of make up. >> did you tell your brother? >> no. >> did you do something to your brother? >> yes. >> what did you do to your brother? >> i took him out to the woods, whenever i felt -- i don't know, i took him out sometimes, and i took a toothbrush, also, and i played with erik in the same way. and i'm sorry.

>> and he says it with such shame. but what is even more convincing -- and i was sitting about ten feet from erik -- is i saw this vein start popping out of his forehead as he hears his brother apologizing, as their own secret horrible sordidness comes out into public on television. that that emotion -- that's what a victim looks like. that's what a victim -- not an actor -- that's what a victim looks like. >> were you scared? >> very. >> did you ask him not to? >> yes. >> how did you ask him not to? >> i just told him, i don't -- i'm sorry. i just told him that i didn't

want to do this and that it hurt me. and he said that he didn't mean to hurt me and he loved me. >> people were crying. people in the audience were crying. press members were crying, were dabbing at their eyes. they hear everything, but they were crying. >> frankly, i think their bad acting when they're trying to convince everybody that they were actually in fear for their lives when they killed their parents shows that they weren't pretending when they were casting themselves back to their experience as little boys and being raped. >> did you have some hope over that summer of 1989 for some improvement in your life? >> yes.

>> and what did you expect? >> i was going to go to college. >> how significant a notion was this? >> it was the most important thing in my life. it was everything in my life. it was all i thought about. >> why was it all you thought about? >> why was it all i thought about? >> yeah. >> because it would end the sex, and that's all i thought about. >> how did you feel, at 18, about the fact that your father was having sex with you? >> i hated it. i hated it. i hated it. >> you slept in bed with your mom a lot, didn't you? even when you were little? >> yes. >> and did you continue to sleep in her bed around this time when you're 11 and 12? >> sometimes. >> and sometimes did you touch your mom? >> yes. >> and where would you touch her? >> everywhere.

>> the idea that erik and lyle were abused by my sister kitty is absolute insanity. >> i thought that was pretty gratuitous and just thrown in as an example of how awful the parents were that, that kitty deserved to die too because she was complicit. because the problem from their point of view was jose was a jerk, but what do you do with the mother? >> it was hard to know what kitty really did, to make them shoot her in such a way. >> if he hadn't killed his mom, and i always think that he might have got away with it. because your mother would have stood by you. she would have stuck up for you to save your life. >> killing your parents is really a violation of the basic bedrock fact of social authority. honor thy mother and father. i actually think that some of the revulsion against them was it's an unnatural act, and it is an act that threatens the very fabric of society.

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>> i don't think children kill their parents willy-nilly. >> i just wanted it to stop. >> this was their tale. it didn't ring true. >> i compare a closing argument in a high-profile case to game seven of the world series. there's an electricity that's literally floating in the air. it is unbelievably exciting. >> the sexual abuse is to portray these people as monsters. so that you will not care that they were dead. >> you heard about some of the things that he liked to do to his little boy. >> this is not a hard case at all. this is what happened. these two people were sitting there, watching television, and they got slaughtered by their sons. >> and one of them was to stick tacks, like this, in his thighs and in his butt. >> at the end of the day, this trial came down to -- did you believe them? >> i remember thinking, he's either the best actor in the

world, or this is a true story. >> these two terrorist parents built two bombs that blew up and killed them. >> it became like a rorschach test. you looked at lyle menendez, erik menendez, you either saw cynical, sinister, vicious killers or you saw victims. >> i mean, this is a jury trial. it's only going to take one juror to hang this up. can we get all 12? >> the court declares a mistrial, and that completes this hearing. >> jurors have told the jury they are unable to reach a verdict. hopelessly deadlocked. >> the seven women, five men panel sat through six months of trial, deliberated for 25 days. >> the general public was screaming on talk radio, they said, "the brothers admitted they did it. what's wrong with those jurors? what's wrong with this judge? why couldn't they get a conviction?" >> we are going to be trying the case a second time.

>> round two, second time around with this case, it was a different ball game for a lot of reasons. number one, the judge banned cameras in the courtroom. and the judge, to some degree, said, certain defense evidence, i'm just not going to allow it. >> so, he reversed all his evidence rulings, and the jurors never heard anything about the family history, and several jurors that i interviewed after the second trial told me, if they had heard that family history, they never would have voted for murder. >> the o.j. simpson trial was going on at the same time as the second menendez trial. and when o.j. simpson was acquitted, to the shock and horror of white los angeles, i think it brought tremendous law and order pressure on jurors right across the spectrum. we can't have another ridiculous verdict. >> there were a lot of people who donated their time and their expertise for free to the retrial in the menendez case, because people were so outraged at the jury hanging. >> at the end of the first trial, the menendez family was broke. >> and in the second trial, both the brothers had their attorneys' fees paid for by the people of the state of

california. >> i knew they were going to get convicted the second time around because of the outrage around the first trial. i thought, look, good luck getting away with it now. >> lyle and erik menendez have been found guilty of murdering their parents. it took a second trial for the two to be convicted of murder in the first degree. >> the brothers barely reacted. both slumped a little. erik looked at a relative to say it will be okay and exchanged looks with his brother. >> we believe that most people in this county, perhaps even in this country, now believe that there was justice in this case. >> i thought that justice had been done in a legal sense, because i do think that they, obviously, they killed their parents, and they failed to prove that they were in fear for their lives and therefore justified in doing so. but i thought that the fact that they'd become laughingstocks around their claim of sexual abuse was an injustice, a more injustice. >> what went through your minds

when you heard that verdict? first-degree murder, guilty. >> that i was going to spend the rest of my life in prison without any possibility of ever getting released. >> it could have been death. did you think that? >> that was the second phase, whether it was going to be life or death, and i was terrified. >> some people might say, "they should be punished as much as possible." what do you say to that? >> we will spend the rest of our life in prison. it can be an extremely cruel existence, or it can be one where you try to find meaning to the things that have happened. but if i'm not -- if i not -- if we're not put in the same prison, there's a good probability i will never see him again. and -- and that -- that i --

there's some things that you cannot take and there's some things that you can endure. with everything taken away, it would be the last thing, you know, it's the last thing you can take, and that would be very, very difficult to live through. ever try something so good, you get hungry just thinking about it? at red lobster's big festival of shrimp, get your perfect pair for just $15.99. choose 2 of 6 new and classic shrimp creations, like bold new firecracker red shrimp. exploding with flavor? yeah they are. or try new creamy shrimp linguini, and new sweet bourbon-brown sugar grilled shrimp. avors like these are big. and for just $15.99, they can't last. so hurry in. i'm here withe. some good news and some bad news. the good news is, if you want to sell your car at carmax, the offer they give you is good for seven days. the bad news -- guacamole is not.

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18 and 21 at the time that they killed their parents, and today they're 48 and 45. at the height of the interest in the trial, both lyle and erik menendez were receiving over a thousand letters a week from people from all over the world. >> erik was able to put me on his visitor's list and i was there on one occasion when his wife was there and they had just been corresponding initially and then, after a period of years, they decided that they wanted to get married, and they had a marriage right there in the

prison. >> why on earth would you change your whole life for erik menendez? >> he's the most sensitive, kind, i mean, he's just, he's always there for me. he worries. you know, i -- i never had that before. >> you realize, with all due respect, that a lot of people think you're nuts? >> oh, yes. i've heard it before many times. >> if i just say to you why, what do you say? >> my answer to that is, i fell in love with him unexpectedly, and it's quite a long journey that led me to there. and now, i'm very happy. >> have you ever had sex with erik? >> no. >> your marriage has never been consummated? >> no. >> when you see erik, are you allow to kiss him? >> we can hug and kiss on the way out and hold hands during the visit. and the holding of the hands during the visit is everything. >> i can't offer her most of the things that another husband can, in terms of being with her

physically and being able to, to hold her in that sense. what i can offer her is, is unconditional and complete devotion and love. she everything to me. >> lyle menendez develed a friendship with a woman named anna erickson. >> i hope that we can get married someday soon. even though it's a very limited relationship because of where we are, the exchange of love and sharing, it keeps you in touch with yourself and softer. you know, otherwise, you can become very hard and cold in here. >> some day it might be possible for you to have children. do you want to? >> i would very much like to have a family. i would feel concern for the pressures that would be on children having me as a father or erik as a father. but an opportunity to live, give differently and give them love

and just sort of, maybe it's a way of trying to correct some of the things that happened to us. i don't know. but it would be something that would be a nice dream. >> the marriage lasted about a year, and then lyle menendez married a second time, to a woman who had been a pen pal, and they have a very close bond. i was just with lyle and his wife a few weeks ago, and they were holding hands and hugging each other, and it was very clear to me that they were in love and that they had a very close relationship. >> one thing i've learned is that your physical comfort is much less important than your connection with the people around you and in your life that are important to you. i've been married 13 years, and i've found i can have a healthy marriage that is complicated and built around conversation and finding creative ways to communicate, sharing without any of the props that are normally there in marriage.

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or a delicious small mocha, latte or hot chocolate for two dollars. wake up and win the day. even after all these years, i still don't understand why a lyle and an erik could have done that. >> something happened during the course of their childhood that turned them into murderers. something happened. >> every mother's day, i think about kitty menendez, because what they did to their mother was horrific. it was pure, unadulterated evil.

>> it was just extremely tragic. >> i have thought since the trial that if the menendez brothers were the menendez sisters, they would be free today. we don't want to think, oh, boys get raped by their father. we don't want to think that that happens. >> i've come to the conclusion that i think that god really wanted me to stay on this earth long enough to be able to resurrect the reputation of one of the most beautiful, classy woman i've ever known, and that's my sister, kitty. >> here we are, 27 years later, and people still come up to me and say, so, how are the boys doing? and i say to them, well, they're not boys anymore, they're men. >> prison is not a relaxed environment, so, it is a level, a high level of stress, but i found that my own childhood prepared me surprisingly well

for the chaos of prison life. you have your periods of depression and sadness and certainly, you know, you feel that loss of freedom deeply, but i feel like there's a lot of purpose, there's still a lot of purpose in life, even in confinement, if you want it. i've pretty much just poured my energies into helping quality of life here, helping people with their rehabilitation goals. >> lyle, like myself, we don't want to be defined by the worst thing we've ever done. and for most of that, that requires us acknowledging what we've done. many people don't want to talk about what they've done, because it's so shameful. but when we can just expose ourselves to that shame, it makes us just a little bit more human. >> i'm more a fully formed adult now. of course, looking back, it's shocking to think about, that that happened and that i could have been involved in taking anyone's life, and my parents' life.

it's still jarringly -- it seems unimaginable, because it seems so far removed from who i am and who i was. i don't know what helps some people survive it better than others. and to a degree, i don't feel like i did. i mean, is there that much difference between a kid who goes through that, commits suicide or kills his parents and ends up doing life in prison? it's still a failed, destructive ending. that's part of the tragedy of it. it could so easily have not happened.

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