The prosecutor who lead the case against the Menendez brothers has slammed calls to release them 35 years after they brutally shot their parents to death with a shotgun in their Beverly Hills mansion.
Lyle and Erik Menendez were convicted of the murder of their parents, Jose and Kitty, in 1996 after their first trial was declared a mistrial. The brothers never denied killing their parents by shooting them 14 times with 12-gauge shotguns in their million-dollar Beverly Hills home in August 1989 when they were just 18 and 21.
Lyle and Erik, now aged 53 and 56, claimed they acted in self-defense. They said they were lifelong victims of sexual abuse at their hands of their father, a high-flying businessman who worked across several industries.
Pamela Bozanich, the lead prosecutor of the first trial, told a Channel 5 documentary, titled Murder in Beverley Hills: The Menendez Brothers, that she doesn’t buy what they have said.
‘The idea that these delicate flowers did this thoughtless act of killing mummy and daddy, it’s nauseating’, the seasoned prosecutor told the show, which aired in the UK on Monday.
She added: ‘They lied and lied and lied. They’ve always been liars. And they planned the murder out meticulously. And they planned out the defense meticulously.
Pamela Bozanich told a documentary that she doesn’t buy their claims that the killing was in self-defense
Lyle and Erik Menendez were convicted of the murder of their parents, Jose and Kitty, in 1996 after their first trial was declared a mistrial
Chilling crime scene photos showing the blood-soaked couch where Jose Menendez was shot
Jose and Kitty (pictured) were shot 14 times with 12-gauge shotguns in their million-dollar Beverly Hills home in August 1989
‘I don’t think they thought about the cruelty of what they were doing. I think it was just a means to an end.
‘And the tragedy is that there are people out there who don’t get that.’
Instead, she believes the brothers, who have been behind bars for over 30 years, meticulously planned to kill their parents.
‘I was a sex crimes prosecutor. I knew that this was such a great defense because a child molester is the lowest form of life. The way that they constructed the defense, it was in order to get a manslaughter conviction’, she said.
‘Manslaughter is an unreasonable but strong belief in the necessity of self-defense.
‘So what they were trying to do is set up a scenario, which was the night of the murders, where they were in imminent danger. They ran out to the car and got the guns and blew up mum and dad.’
She previously said she accepts that the Menendez brothers’ father was a ‘horrible man.’
She said during the course of the investigation she ‘couldn’t find anyone to say anything nice about Jose Menendez except for his secretary.’
‘Everyone else had these awful stories about him and what a monster he is.
‘The loss of Jose Menendez, in my opinion, was an actual plus for mankind. Jose Menendez was a really awful man.’
The two men were convicted of first-degree murder and were sentenced to life without parole in 1996 after a retrial
The duo, then just 18 and 21, killed their parents Jose and Mary Louise ‘Kitty’ Menendez inside their million-dollar Beverly Hills home in August 1989
But she said, ultimately, that ‘awful man’ went on to ‘raise two sons capable of murder, so there you go.’
‘I had no reaction to the Menendez brothers. There was no visceral reaction. I didn’t feel like I was in the presence of pure evil.
‘They were like potted plants to me. Poisonous potted plants, but there was nothing about them I found fascinating. They were just these dumb jock killers.
‘The only reason I’m doing this after 33 years is because that poor woman that gave birth to both of them was treated like a doormat by both her husband and her sons and she was slaughtered like a wild animal inside of her own home.’
However, she believes the brothers killed their parents to inherit their money.
‘The reason they didn’t leave was because they wanted the money’, she says. ‘They wanted basically what is called an Italian divorce.
‘You get the money, and your partner is gone. And that’s what they did.’
They made a frantic call to police claiming they returned home from the theatre to find their parents had been slaughtered, prompting fears within one of America’s wealthiest communities that a murderer was on the run
The brothers stood to inherit $14million from their parents, and set about spending it shortly after their parents’ deaths
They were sentenced to life in prison in 1996, the two had not seen each other since
The Menendez brothers enjoyed materially privileged childhoods but they say that the reality was that their parents were abusing them
While Pamela, who took over the case from original lead prosecutor Elliott Alhadeff, and her team, pushed for the death penalty, they were given life in prison without the possibility of parole during their second trial in 1996, after the first was declared a mistrial.
She said she was ‘disappointed’ in the result, but ‘knew it was going to happen.’
‘For most human beings, the most important decisions they make in their lives generally are who to marry and maybe what house to buy.
‘When you’re a juror, you’re deciding, in this case, life and death. That’s a huge responsibility and having a bunch of people in America watching you do that, that’s too much pressure.
‘It’s easy to acquit. It’s much harder to convict when everyone is looking at you.’
It comes after new evidence in the form of a damning letter was revealed in the shocking Menendez brothers murder case ahead of a review that could lead to a potential resentencing of the siblings.
Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón publicly posted a screenshot to Instagram of the letter written by Erik Menendez to his cousin, Andy Cano, in which he alludes to serious, and long-term, abuse at the hands of his father Jose.
The letter, written eight months before the shocking murder, reads: I’ve been trying to avoid dad. It’s still happening Andy but it’s worse for me now. I can’t explain it. He’s so overweight that I just can’t stand to see him. I never know when it’s going to happen and it’s driving me crazy.
‘Every night I stay up thinking he might come in. I need to put it out of my mind. I know what you said before but I’m afraid. You just don’t know dad like I do. He’s crazy!
‘He’s warned me a hundred times about telling anyone. Especially Lyle. Am I a serious whimpus? I don’t know I’ll make it through this. I can handle it, Andy. I need to stop thinking about it.’
Erik Menendez wrote a letter to his cousin, Andy Cano, in which he alludes to serious, and long-term, abuse at the hands of his father Jose
This was the scene outside the Menendez family’s Beverly Hills mansion when police arrived on August 20, 1989
The siblings fatally shot their mom Kitty, a socialite and dad Jose Menendez, a Cuban immigrant who went to land an executive role in the entertainment business
The brothers claimed they suffered years of emotional and sexual abuse at the hands of their father, and that he forced them to perform sex acts on their mother
Menendez family members and celebrity speakers are set to gather at a press conference to display ‘a powerful show of unity’ for the Menendez brothers today.
A press conference will be held in Los Angeles on 1pm where around two dozen family members of Erik and Lyle, as well as actress Rosie O’Donnell who is organized to speak, will gather at Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center in Downtown LA.
A Los Angeles DA spokesperson told DailyMail.com: ‘The planned news conference tomorrow is being hosted by the lawyers and family of the Menendez brothers. The DA’s Office will not attend nor make any announcements at their news conference.
‘A decision regarding the Menendez case has not been made. Once DA Gascón has made a decision, the family members of the victims and the public will be notified.’
