Whitewashing The Menéndez Brothers (1)

In August 1989, the Menéndez brothers murdered their parents in a gruesome, premeditated shotgun massacre. They were arrested the following March but legal proceedings were delayed until finally they were convicted in March 1996 after a retrial.

Now, more than three decades after this vile act, miscreants and gullibles claim there is new evidence, not that  the brothers didn’t kill their parents – that fact wasn’t denied at either trial. No, the new evidence is that José and Kitty Menéndez deserved it. 

In support of this obscene contention, the world is being told that José sexually abused his sons from a young age, and that their mother was complicit in this abuse. The coverage includes long articles from Mail Online and the New York Post, and an hour plus live hangout on a YouTube channel called Surviving The Survivor. 

Unsurprisingly, the brothers and their crime have a number of entries in the Internet Movie Database, and much footage can be found on various websites, including of course the video hub of the world. (Heck, would you believe I am the only person ever to have used that phrase to describe YouTube?). On a more serious note, the videos include dramatisations and actual trial footage.

What then is this so-called new evidence? Unsurprisingly, it isn’t new, rather this is an old try-on that many killers, some as odious as the brothers, have attempted. Erik is supposed to have written a letter about his father’s sexual abuse; Lyle is supposed to have told a cousin in 1976 that his father was sexually abusing him; and much more recently, a former member of a boy band called Menudo has claimed he was raped by corporate executive José. None of these claims should be considered credible, although the participants in the Surviving The Survivor hangout seem to think they are. One of these is Ann Burgess who testified at the first trial as an expert witness. She was introduced here as “the legend” and as “an internationally recognised…pioneer in the assessment of victims of trauma and abuse”.

Really? No! Ann Burgess is a clown. In 1974, she and her collaborator published the first paper on rape trauma syndrome, an imaginary condition used by other so-called trauma experts to affirm any allegation of rape or lesser sexual offence regardless of the evidence or lack thereof, or however ludicrous.

In the United States, rape trauma syndrome fails both the Frye test and the much later Daubert test, so is not admissible in American courtrooms. Even so, prosecutors are able to sneak it in at times, indeed it was this nonsense that convicted Bill Cosby and was at least partially responsible for convicting Harvey Weinstein.

At the 1993 trial, Burgess claimed the killings were not planned and that the crime scene was “essentially disorganised”. This is an incredible statement. 

The brothers’ conviction has already been appealed more than once. Here is what we learn from the 2005 judgment, which isn’t in dispute by any jurist of reason.

“Erik and Lyle armed themselves on August 18, 1989, two days before they would kill their parents. On that day, Lyle and Erik, then ages 21 and 18, respectively, tried to purchase guns at several different stores, the first in Los Angeles. After learning that handguns could not be purchased immediately, they drove from Los Angeles to San Diego, where the second store asked for identification”.

Not planned?

At a third store “they bought two shotguns using false identification and providing non-existent addresses ”.

Not planned?

“After making their secret purchase, Erik and Lyle drove back to Los Angeles, where they decided to practice firing their newly-purchased shotguns”.

Not planned?

After the gruesome act “While their parents lay dead on the floor…Lyle and Erik began extensive cover-up efforts. First, they collected the expended shotgun shells, concerned that their fingerprints might be on them, and they left the house. Then, to support the story Lyle previously told Perry Berman, the brothers drove to the movie theater and purchased alibi tickets for ‘Batman.’ The brothers had to discard the tickets after noticing that the tickets were time-stamped and would not provide an adequate alibi”. 

How much more not planned can things get?

They told the police their parents were probably killed by Mafia hitmen. In Beverly Hills? But the police appeared to have believed it. They came undone only because unlike his older brother, Erik wasn’t a total psychopath and confided in a therapist. The truth would eventually come out when said therapist broke up with his mistress, who was also his business associate.

To Part 2.