younger, i would have better grades. no. well, you did all right, gentlemen, this has been so fun. this is really fun. we can talk about this stuff for hours before we go. and we do have to. i would love it if you guys sent a like it or not question. so we could use it here on the show. just record yourself asking the question. you might see it here. thank you for joining i'm anna garcia, right now on true crime news. the menendez brothers are one step closer to freedom. the stunning decision that could see lyle and erik released from prison. >> i believe that they have paid their debt to society. >> we have the latest, including the rapper who was locked up with the brothers. what he knows. >> i believe that they'll be contributing members of society and they'll never recidivate. >> then her high school sweetheart developed a fatal obsession. >> he was constantly, i love you, you're beautiful.

>> woken up to a violent assault and attack. she should have never survived. >> i was grabbing the blade of the knife and he just kept twisting it. >> the dark secrets she uncovered. >> i was literally the last person to know. >> and how she lived to tell her harrowing story. your daily source for true crime starts right now. thanks for joining us. we start with the menendez brothers officially granted a second chance at going free. so what happens next? are they ready to reenter the world? they left behind? 35 years ago, the los angeles county district attorney filing the promised motion requesting resentencing for the menendez brothers. a day after facing dozens of cameras in downtown los angeles with their families standing behind him, we're going to recommend to the court that the life without the possibility of parole be removed. l.a. county district attorney george gascon, making

good on his bombshell announcement, requesting that lyle and erik menendez be resentenced for the murder conviction of their parents that has kept them behind bars for 35 years without the possibility of parole under the law, since they were under 26 years of age at the time that these crimes occurred. >> there will be eligible for parole immediately. >> the action could pave the way for the brothers to walk free. more than three decades after lyle and erik menendez shot and killed jose and kitty menendez in their beverly hills mansion. >> what's the problem? what's the problem? i'm sorry to tell my parents. pardon me. so, truchon at the time, the 21 and 18 year old brothers said that they found their parents when they arrived home. >> they would later admit that they were behind the trigger shooting them while they watched

television at home. >> they raped me. >> did you cry? >> yes. >> 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. >> during their first trials, the brothers said allegations of sexual abuse by their father were what led them to kill, which resulted in two hung juries. a new trial where those claims were largely limited by a judge, ended with a guilty verdict and a life sentence without parole. >> they have been in prison for nearly 35 years. i believe that they have paid their debt to society. >> if this is approved by a judge, the next step would be that they would have a parole hearing and it would be up to the california parole board. >> former assistant l.a.

district attorney josh ritter says gascon was under a lot of pressure to make today's decision, and says he has a lot of opposition from inside the da's office. >> this was a case that meant a lot to the office at the time. in between the two trials of the menendez brothers, we had the arrest and the trial and the acquittal of o.j. simpson. so to get a conviction in a case of this high profile for the l.a. da's office was a very significant thing then and then. now, i think some people are looking at that being undone by a different administration. some 30 years later, there are people who believe that even the allegations of sexual abuse by their father is entirely made up, that it was an advantage that they were trying to invent. >> but doctor anne burgess, a psychiatrist who was hired by the defense, refutes that, saying the court limiting their claims didn't allow the jury to hear the full scope of their defense as they got more fearfu,

they felt they had to have a plan. >> and their plan was to have something that would protect them. and i don't think that's unusual that people get guns to protect them. >> lyle and erik were failed by the very people who should have protected them by their parents, by the system, by society at large. >> but one brother of kitty menendez, opposes the release of his nephew, saying gascon is trying to rewrite history and says the d.a. has left him in the dark about what he was thinking. still, the district attorney has been getting pressure from the majority of the family to release the brothers and joined him at the news conference. >> the da's decision reflects the truth that was hidden for so long, and i am grateful for his leadership in making this choic. this is about truth, justice and healing. >> it is time for lyle and eric to come home. >> the controversial case caught fire on social media and recent

documentaries, which gascon said inundated his staff with calls to review the case. >> frankly, our office got flooded with requests for information and even though this case was already scheduled to be heard in late november, i decided to move this forward because quite frankly, we did not have enough resources to handle all the requests. >> it may have been a perfect storm of situations where you've got the family really pushing for it. and then i got to say, you've got a da who's in an election year, and we're hearing this announcement in october before a november election. and it's hard not to say that that doesn't play some role despite all of his protesting against that, the l.a. county district attorney pushed back that this has anything to do with politics and has pointed to a newly discovered letter written from eric menendez to his cousin months before the murders,

talking about the sex abuse from his father, saying, i've been trying to avoid dad. >> it's still happening as well as sex abuse allegations by menudo band member roy rossello against jose menendez when he was a record company executive. >> even though they didn't think that they would ever be left fr, they engaged in a different journey, a journey of redemption and a journey of rehabilitation. >> gascon saying he also weighed how they lived their life behind bars in his decision between the two of them, i almost had. >> i had two big brothers, rapper x rated saying he spent time with both brothers behind bars and credits lyle for turning him around when he was in prison. he was one of the first ones to teach me to utilize my influence in a way that would allow me to have positive outcomes for myself and others. >> the final decision will be

made by the judge. court has to agree with my conclusion that they deserve to be resentenced. it is very possible that they may be members of this office that will be present in court opposing the resentencing. >> the menendez family together, hoping to see the brothers return to a world they left over 35 years ago. >> we have a robust reentry plan that we have already previewed with the district attorney, which went into their calculation as to recommending resentencing. >> we stand united in our hope and gratitude. together, we can make sure that eric and lyle receive the justice they deserve and finally come home. >> now we want to hear from you. do you think eric and lyle menendez should be paroled? vote now on true crime news.com, and we will reveal the results on an upcoming show. up next. she woke

up to a nightmare, viciously attacked by a jealous ex and left for dead. her inc dible story f su. when we come back. >> my name is brayden. i was five years old when i came to saint jude. i'll try and shorten down the story. so i've been having these headaches that wouldn't go away. my mom, she was just crying. what? they said your son has brain cancer. >> it was your worst fear coming to life. >> watching your child grow up is the dream of every parent. you can join the battle to save the lives of kids like brayden by supporting saint jude children's research hospital. families never receive a bill from saint jude for treatment. travel, housing or food so they can focus on helping their child live. >> what they have done for me,

my son, my family. sorry. yeah. >> life is a gift, especially for a child battling cancer. call or go online and help save the lives of children like brayden. >> now i'm 11 years old. we were actually doing the checkup for my brain, and they they saw something in my throat. it's thyroid cancer. >> it was heartbreaking to find out that he has cancer again, but we knew who we had behind us. it just gives me hope. >> you can make a difference. join with your credit or debit card for only $19 a month and we'll send you this saint jude t-shirt. >> without saint jude or its donors, we would have been in a bad place. >> these kids, they've done nothing wrong in the world. finding a cure for childhood cancer. it means everything.

>> help saint jude give kids with cancer a chance. >> on the next true crime news, college girl hops in a rideshare and

♪ is someone trying to steal your butterfinger this halloween? call the bfi. ♪ no one lays a finger on your butterfinger. now, a survivor's story for domestic violence awareness month. karen wits was asleep in her bed when she was brutally

assaulted and left for dead by an ex-boyfriend. it was a miracle that she lived to tell about it, and even helped establish a law to help protect survivors of sexual crimes. a word of warning. some of the details are very graphic. karen wits should not be talking. >> he was like strangling me so hard. >> she should not be walking. >> he just punched me with his closed fist. i literally saw stars. >> in fact, after the horrors she faced, she shouldn't even be alive. >> i was grabbing the blade of the knife and he just kept twisting it. >> but miraculously, karen lived to recount the gruesome attack by someone who had once professed his love for her. >> he asked me if i believed in god, and then he began strangling me again. >> it all started when, at 13 years old, karen struck up a young romance with 17 year old

leonard tilton. >> he was constantly, i love you, you're beautiful. >> but karen's mom, betty, says early on she felt there was something odd about her daughter's boyfriend. >> he just didn't seem like blidh for him material to me. >> and after two years together, when karen was 15, the teens broke up. >> anytime that i would mention hanging out with a friend from school, getting a new girlfriend, he exploded. >> karen says despite his controlling ways, leonard eventually seemed to be okay with the breakup. she soon began dating another guy and thought leonard had moved on as well. >> every so often he would call me, though, and just touch base. hey, how are you doing? and, you know, it was like he wanted to still remain friends. he didn't seem jealous at all. everything seemed fine on the surface. >> but things were far from fine under that seemingly smooth surface. deep trouble was brewing. >> it was around that time that i started receiving hang up

calls, nuisance crank calls quickly escalated. there was one time that i had an early dismissal from school. nobody knew i was getting out early, and as soon as i got in the house, i shut the door. that quick, somebody knocked on my door. it was him. and i asked him right away. you know, why are you here? oh, i was just in the neighborhood and he lived about 45 minutes away from my house. >> then the creepy crank phone calls got worse. karen's mom, betty, changed their family phone number with no way to contact karen, leonard resorted to writing letters. >> he told me he met a girl named karen who was the same exact height as me. the same exact weight as me about how she was now pregnant and he was going to be a daddy. it had been a year and four months at the time that we had been broken up, and i had moved on. i had this new boyfriend. life was great. i figured life was great for him and karen agreed to resume her friendship with leonard. >> karen recalls, a few days passed, and then she got a

strange call from leonard, telling her he dyed his hair black and she had to see it. >> he took the bus down to my house to show me his dyed black hair, and i couldn't believe it. and i just thought it was the craziest thing i he he looked evil. and as i walked him to the door, he just looked at me straight faced and said, i could kill you because nobody knows that i'm here. and i shut the door. i locked the door. my gut instinct took over. i knew he was going to kill me. >> it was a bone chilling feeling that karen tried to desperately shake. >> i said to myself, you're being stupid. no he's not. i knew better, but i chose to ignore it. >> that would be a near fatal mistake. just a few days later on an early morning in june, karen hears leonard throwing rocks at her window. he motions to let him in, and she did. >> i said, you're not supposed

to be here. he was just like, yeah, you know, just give me a few minutes. i'll leave. >> you know, whatever she tried to remain calm. asking him again to leave. >> i looked at him and i said, are you ready to go? and he said, yes. can i strangle you? as he was putting his hands around my neck, karen passed out. >> when she regained consciousness, she noticed leonard had removed her clothes and put her in a dress, but now her chest was covered in blood. >> when i looked over at him, he was kneeling on the floor beside me, and he raised a 14 inch serrated butcher knife over his head and jammed it into my ches. it was like he was praying my ribs open and he was hissing and making awful grunting sounds. i remember thinking, i'm never going to see the sun again. my mom was at work and i just wanted to see my mom before i died. and then he got down on

the floor next to me, and he kissed me on my lips and told me that he loved me. he covered me up with sheets and shoved me underneath of my sister's old bed. and then he left the room. >> karen was literally left for dead with my right hand over my chest. >> i kind of squeezed my way out from underneath the bed, and then i staggered into my bedroom and i called 911, dispatcher answered. and i said, i'm being murdered. >> up next. karen's fighting for her life, and she learns a devastating new detail about her attack. >> it's like it's almost like he he thinks he's above the law. all right. >> sandworms out of the basement and the furnace has been exorcized another progressive home and auto bundle. fully protected from the unexpected. >> beetlejuice caused quite a ruckus. >> jamie, don't say his name. >> beetlejuice saying his name.

three times is how you summon him, right? >> what if i say other words in between? does that restart it? >> don't overthink it. >> or what if i broke it up into two parts? like someone said, what's your favorite bug? beetle? what's your favorite morning beverage? >> djuse. >> you're welcome. >> beetlejuice. beetlejuice in theaters now look at this one under-eye bag. >> it's gone. >> they are some of the hottest videos on social media. those videos claiming to instantly get rid of bags under your eyes. it's called plexaderm, and lifestyle expert annette figueroa is here to tell us why. she says this one is for real. >> this one is for real and i'm so excited. and not only does it work on the bags, it works on the appearance of crow's feet, fine lines and wrinkles and are $14.95 price. >> your solution is at plexaderm trial.com. >> if there's a true crime, you think we should know about, call the

closed captioning and other considerations for true crime news provided by. >> i think that we are all happy and healthy. >> what are you gonna say? >> i'm gonna say, grandma, i'm thankful for this family. >> i'm thankful for my grandma. >> i'm thankful for grandma's crescent rolls. >> with kids still at home and a full time job taking care of, mom was becoming a real challenge. >> i was so grateful to discover visiting angel's mom's visiting angel helps her shower and dress, and she keeps an eye on mom's alzheimer's and our care manager gives me regular updates. best of all, mom has a trusted companion who cares about her visiting angels. >> america's choice in-home car. >> karen watts was beaten, stabbed, and left for dead by an obsessed ex. but somehow karen

had the strength to survive. later, she would find even more strength, taking up the fight to protect other victims of domestic violence and sexual crimes. once she was left for dead, karen would is somehow found the strength to drag her bloody and half naked body out of her house and over to her grandparents home. a few doors away. >> my grandfather grabbed me and he i collapsed in his arms. >> police officer jim goodchild lived across the street. >> she was able to give me a good description of why i was on the phone with police. >> karen told cops they could find leonard at a nearby bridge, where he told her he was heading to kill himself. >> he was, in fact, on the tacony-palmyra bridge, about to jump. >> cops nabbed leonard before he can jump. meanwhile, karen is rushed to the hospital. >> they made an incision and they inserted a chest tube. because i had a collapsed lung. >> doctors had little hope that she would make it through the night.

>> once they had me stabilized, they allowed my family to come in to basically say goodbye to me. the police were just basically waiting around the hospital, waiting for the time of death. >> amazingly, karen lived only to learn something horrific. leonard had also sexually assaulted her. >> everybody knew that i was raped, but me. i was literally the last person to know, district attorney deborah nash remembers the moment the case came across her desk. >> i have actually prosecuted and seen homicide cases where the injuries were much less than what karen sustained. >> but tilton was not charged with attempted murder. instead, he faced charges of rape, aggravated assault and possession of a weapon. he was released on bail as soon as he was released. >> he wrote me a letter, and he went on to tell me that i was the only girl that he ever loved. it's like it's almost like he. he thinks he's above the law. >> tilton first skipped his bail

hearing, but eventually pled guilty to felony charges, including aggravated assault and rape. >> he stabbed me multiple times. he strangled me multiple times. he beat me in the face until i was unconscious. over and over again, telling me to die. >> that's murder at the time, tilton's plea deal led to a sentence of 15 to 40 years in prison with eligibility for parole. but karen, who had endured so much at his hands, was not about to let him out easily. in the years following his sentence, karen attended close to 11 parole hearings. >> my attacker was still able to apply for parole every single year, forcing me to have to go back and be revictimized over and over again. >> then the survivor in her grew fighting mad, pushing to get new legislation passed in pennsylvania. and not surprisingly, it's called karen's law. the state law limits parole eligibility for those considered sexual predators.

>> when everything started with the parole process and i was being, you know, i felt like i was revictimized and traumatized over and over again. that was what made me come back into advocating. >> not only is karen's law working for this miraculous karen, it will help many other victims of assault. >> this is just my way of paying it forward by turning something so horrific into something so positive that is now helping other survivors. a small victory for a woman who nearly lost it all. >> look at this one under-eye bag. >> it's gone. there's this side and this side. >> just look at these results. >> 50 and haven't slept in weeks. 35 and fresh from a vacation. >> they are some of the hottest videos on social media. those videos claiming to instantly get rid of bags under your eyes. it's called plexaderm and lifestyle expert annette figueroa is here to tell us why she says this one is for real.

>> this one is for real and i'm so excited. and i did this to my father. we were at home. i had the timer on and we were screaming for minutes, 34 seconds, completely gone. and not only does it work on the bags, it works on the appearance of crow's feet, fine lines and wrinkles and are $14.95 price. >> it's the best way to try plexaderm and see it work. after your first application. your solution is at

>> on the next true crime news, college girl hops in a rideshare. >> it is a black sedan. what she's looking for never to be seen again. >> did she know the driver? or was it a predator searching for prey? >> he goes through the parking lot. he then jumps the curb to get to her really quickly. >> and when her body is found stabbed multiple times, the coroner said that they stopped counting after 120 times. it sends cops racing to track down her killer before he strikes

again on the next true crime news. for the latest breaking crime news, go to true crime news.com. to watch more exclusive content on our youtube channel, listen to our podcast and follow us at my true crime news. that's it for today's true crime news. i'm anna garcia. see you next time, eve one. (suspenseful music) (flames roaring) - she said, "oh, my god, the bar is burning, and i think she's inside." (window shatters) - initially had no idea what the cause of the fire was. - what did the medical examiner find that was so shocking? - they found out that she had died from being stabbed in the neck five times. they found lisa's body in the basement underneath some of the wreckage. - see, they couldn't believe that a monster like that could be in their town, in their community. (siren wailing) - now the hunt's on, it's like, "i'm going to find you, however long it takes." (suspenseful music) a lot of times, especially with arson cases, they'll come back to watch the fire.