The Menendez murders

[gsdx]

Additionally, Erik's threats of violence against his psychologist that led to the arrests also earn no pity.

According to the movie, Erik checked with Dr. Oziel to make sure that the doctor/client confidentiality rule was in place before he confessed. Oziel assured him it was. After the confession, Oziel called Lyle and told him he should come to the office, which Lyle did. When he heard about the confession, Lyle and the doctor got into a heated argument during which Lyle threatened to kill him. This was confirmed by a quick Google search.

This argument was overheard by the doctor's secretary who then called the police even after being warned by the doctor not to tell anyone. She was under no confidentiality restrictions.

What wasn't mentioned in the movie was that the brothers had already confessed to Erik's best friend.

 

[gsdx]

Not only do I believe them..I believe their cousin. She didn't get any money..or spend any....

We've mentioned before that nobody is denying the abuse. What I'm denying is that the movie glossed over their inheritance and focused on the abuse. I don't think it's been mentioned, but the father had written a new will, drastically reducing the boys' inheritance and gifting the vast majority of the multi-million dollar estate (somewhere around $15 million) to his wife. The new inheritance meant that the brothers would actually have to 'get a job'.

With the mother dead, too, the money went to them.

Again, I believe there was abuse, but it wasn't the main reason for the murders despite what the movie implied. That was their supposed ticket to freedom. Once the abuse was minimised in the retrials, the focus fell on the inheritance and the wild spending sprees which followed the murders. It was more than enough motive to convict them. Remember, not enough jurors in the first trials believed the abuse to convict.

 

[NotHardUp1]

The online article I read cited Dr. Oziel's mistress as the source (perhaps the secretary WAS his mistress.) At the time, Oziel had told her apparently, after being threatened, to triangulate so someone would know if something befell him. Then, he decided to go back to his wife and is spurned mistress blew up and reported the murder in spite, which then resulted in the arrests.

The complications of the doctor client privilege resulted in an almost two year delay (if I remember the article right) before the prosecutor could press the case, once the courts decided what was admissible. The recording of Erik's actual confession was apparently not admissible.

Sources: 1990 http://articles.latimes.com/1990-10-11/local/me-2958_1_high-court-orders


http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/menendez-brothers-everything-you-need-to-know-w442897

http://abcnews.go.com/US/lyle-erik-menendezs-cousin-testified-sexual-abuse-speaks/story?id=44420173

Sadly, a modern Lizzie Borden story is not that unique, but the boys being photogenic and rich is the only reason why the story blew up.

 

[NotHardUp1]

Remember, not enough jurors in the first trials believed the abuse to convict.

The article I read stated that the juries divided along gender lines. No men voted to acquit.

 

[gsdx]

The online article I read cited Dr. Oziel's mistress as the source (perhaps the secretary WAS his mistress.) At the time, Oziel had told her apparently, after being threatened, to triangulate so someone would know if something befell him. Then, he decided to go back to his wife and is spurned mistress blew up and reported the murder in spite, which then resulted in the arrests.

The movie was vague about that. She was in another room when she heard the yelling and stepped out into the hall. I don't recall her identifying herself. She may have been his mistress, but the movie made it appear that she was his secretary. She may have been both. There was no timeline, either. It appeared that she phoned shortly after the confrontation.

That's what I was talking about in the movie. It was very unclear whether or not events happened as shown. As I said somewhere above, the movie was through Erik's eyes, and his mental capacities and hallucinations were a huge part of the movie. His mother appeared throughout the movie.

In the end, I expected that they would focus on the abuse instead of the money and I was right. Talking about the new will and altered inheritances would have given viewers more options instead of being force-fed the abuse defence.

 

[NotHardUp1]

Upon re-read, his mistress taped the interviews/sessions from the adjacent waiting room where she "listened in." It sounded like she may have accessed an intercom or phone system. Dunno.

There was also talk of the boys competing to sleep in their mother's bed anytime the father was gone. This was when they were young adolescents. Erik later testified that he touched her "everywhere" when those nights happened. That sounds depraved. I remember when I was about 6-8, Mother seemed eager for us to see her, and sometimes her and her boyfriend, naked. I think she believed it was somehow modern or liberated. It made me repulsed by the female form.

There is psychological theory that it can affect sexual development. That is old theory, but I know I was traumatized by it on some level and from another family situation I don't care to recite.

If I were to form an opinion from these limited versions and accounts, I'd guess I believe abuse occurred, depravity resulted, and it was a factor in the breakdown of family and respect. That said, the boys seemed merely depraved by the time they plotted and executed the plan to kill their parents and get inheritance.

We'll likely never know. I do feel sorry for the boys in their upbringing, and sorry for the parents at the massacre. I don't think I would have wanted to know any of them.

 

[gsdx]

Upon re-read, his mistress taped the interviews/sessions from the adjacent waiting room where she "listened in." It sounded like she may have accessed an intercom or phone system. Dunno.

In the movie, she was standing in an open doorway just down the hall from the confrontation. She was in a red dress. She was in the same red dress when she phoned the police. That's why it appeared that she phoned right after she was warned not to say anything to anyone by Oziel.

 

[NotHardUp1]

In this case, character cost the defense dearly.

IF Kyle M. had not threatened his brother's psychologist, then the judge stated the evidence would have been inadmissible. The threat was the key point that enabled the confessions recorded to even be considered, as it nullified the normal privilege restriction.

 

[bankside]

I don't understand the basis for ciriticizing someone who enjoys spending his rapist's money.

I don't see that as essentially an act of selfishness.

 

[gsdx]

^ it's a matter of murdering them in order to do it... if the stories of abuse are true. After being virtually cut out of the will, they had to do something to get it.

 

[bankside]

^ it's a matter of murdering them in order to do it... if the stories of abuse are true. After being virtually cut out of the will, they had to do something to get it.

Ahh. Okay well I think someone who uses their own child for sex is eligible for death.

I think it's also irrelevant whether they leave a big will or whether they're a pauper.

If they could show a court that they were victims of parental sexual abuse, I wouldn't think they should be convicted of murder; I don't think it's murder. If they could show me personally that this was the case, as their cousin judges them to be credible, I wouldn't hold it against them. Regardless of what a court said about it.

I don't think courts should impose the death sentence on a rapist because cases can be bad, and courts and judicial processes can be wrong, and all of us are entitled to a justice system that can make up for any chaos it causes. Reparations don't matter when your dead.

And I would recommend against victims imposing a death sentence on their own initiative because then they will have to explain themselves to a court, and that can be difficult. I see that as a pragmatic hurdle rather than an ethical one; the person who rapes their own kid remains eligible to die. So what that boils down to is, the justice system can't kill an incestuous pedophile. And a victim is recommended to not. But if they do, there are any number of defences I would recognize as legitimate, even years after the fact. Escaping at the time is only the first of those. To be honest if someone says "This destroyed my life and haunted me every day and I've been close to suicide 5 times, and it took me 25 years to work up the courage to shoot him even though I haven't seen him in ten, and now I slept in peace for the first time in all those years" I don't really think they should spend even one night in jail. For a court to make it work out that way though, they're going to need proof. If the father's pedo incest diary shows up in court, I don't think a murder occurred, just the conclusion of someone's victimization.

 

[NotHardUp1]

I don't understand the basis for criticizing someone who enjoys spending his rapist's money.

I don't see that as essentially an act of selfishness.

The rule of law, that is the basis.

The murders are murders because they were not enacted in self-defense. The law provides for those who kill in defense of bodily harm, and little else.

Vigilanteeism isn't justice, but the opposite. We do not get to arbitrarily decide as individuals what justice is in our society. We do not get to individually draw up death penalty offenses and have them differ from our neighbors. You might approve it at the level of child sexual abuse. I might do it at the level of the bastard who cut me off in traffic. Both were wrong, neither of guilt to the penalty of death according to our laws.

The murder of the Menendez couple appears to have been only about selfishness, and materialism at that. A jury found it to be so, and I accept their verdict. Laziness and greed make an ugly pair, and it does not matter if the boys were abuse victims if their motives for murder were inheritance and self-determination. Those motives and the reality of being sexual abuse victims are not some kind of mutually exclusive sets. They can and apparently were in both.

 

[gsdx]

The murder of the Menendez couple appears to have been only about selfishness, and materialism at that. A jury found it to be so, and I accept their verdict. Laziness and greed make an ugly pair, and it does not matter if the boys were abuse victims if their motives for murder were inheritance and self-determination. Those motives and the reality of being sexual abuse victims are not some kind of mutually exclusive sets. They can and apparently were in both.

Indeed, especially when you take into consideration that the mother had not died in the first assault. She had tried to crawl away when Lyle and Erik left the room to reload their shotguns. She was the last link to their inheritance.

There's no denying that the abuse might have occurred. In the movie, it was all 'oral', and there was no indication of any activity with the mother. It was only after Lyle learned of the new will that he began to convince Erik that both parents were planning to kill them and that they had to kill them first.

Oh, and there were the allegations of mob connections.

 

[NotHardUp1]

Indeed, especially when you take into consideration that the mother had not died in the first assault. She had tried to crawl away when Lyle and Erik left the room to reload their shotguns. She was the last link to their inheritance.

There's no denying that the abuse might have occurred. In the movie, it was all 'oral', and there was no indication of any activity with the mother. It was only after Lyle learned of the new will that he began to convince Erik that both parents were planning to kill them and that they had to kill them first.

To the contrary, the boys admitted that they competed with one another as adolescents to sleep in their mother's bed whenever the father was out of town, and that they touched her everywhere. It speaks to depravity, whether born of the abuse or just a lack of morality.

The movie needed to tell a story that would sell. Depicting the whole family as depraved might have stripped away the interest through sympathy factor if there was no one likable in the cast of characters.

 

[gsdx]

To the contrary, the boys admitted that they competed with one another as adolescents to sleep in their mother's bed whenever the father was out of town, and that they touched her everywhere.

As I mentioned in that post, and as I have been mentioning throughout, this was about the movie, and the movie completely disregarded anything with the mother and almost completely ignored the inheritance factor. The movie made it ALL about the father's abuse of his sons, especially Erik. They even got into Lyle's abuse of Erik. They made the mother out to be a failure in not protecting her sons.

That was the purpose of this thread. So much evidence was left out to make the movie all about the abuse. I don't believe they even gave a reason for killing their mother except that Lyle convinced Erik that 'they' were going to kill them.

 

[NotHardUp1]

https://apnews.com/article/menendez...gs-takeaways-2020fb4a0abfea1eb0dbfc4f0fa76f53

The bastards have been denied parole, at least for 18 mos. Justice is not for sale, at least in this instance, for now.

They were not prisoners. The murdered their parents brutally and were profiting from it before being arrested. They deserved the death penalty but got life. Sexual abuse isn't a justification for murder. Ascribing to vigilanteeism is a speed route to dissolution of civil authority.