Timesuck with Dan Cummins

271 - The Menendez Brothers: Parent Killing Sociopaths? Victims? Both?

Episode Summary

In 1993, the trial of the Menendez brothers for the killing of their parents in 1989 shocked the nation. Were the murders justified because of ongoing sexual abuse? Or are Lyle and Erik just manipulative sociopaths who tried to slander the reputations of the people they'd killed to avoid imprisonment and/or the death penalty?

Episode Notes

I had a lot of fun on this one taking a nostalgic look at US culture in 1989 and 1993. Also found the story of Lyle and Erik Menendez incredibly interesting. Why did two brothers viciously murder their parents with shotguns in the summer of 1989? Erik was about to enroll in UCLA. Lyle was attending Princeton. Their parents spoiled them with money for lavish shopping trips, vacations, fancy cars, condos, and more. They grew up in affluence. Their parents lived in a Beverly Hills mansion that Michael Jackson and Elton John owned at one time. But, their parents had recently gotten frustrated with their continual mistakes - breaking into the homes of neighbors and stealing jewelry, destroying school and country club property, getting suspended from college for plagiarism, and on and on. And they'd threatened to cut them out of their inheritance. Is that why they killed? For money? Or, had they been so traumatized by years and years of sexual abuse that they felt like they has to kill their parents to defend themselves? Find out today on another true crime edition of Timesuck. 

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