When Lyle learned that his brother had sexually abused all through these years, he was committed to protecting his brother. There were nuances to how they got there. When the killings occurred, I think the fairest way to describe it is that they were in a state of great fear, panic and hopelessness. They were brought up in a way they were told-and managed repeatedly-to mistrust their own judgment, to rely on their father. Probably at the center of it, they shared the central motive. Watch: In Part One of two videos, Alison Becker talks about the early lives of Lyle and Erik Menendez and the circumstances of their parents’ murder.ĭo you think Lyle and Erik had the same motive for killing their parents? Hart spoke with A&E True Crime about that case, and what he thinks ultimately drove the brothers to pull their triggers. In 1996 Lyle and Erik Menendez were each sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, but even today Hart views the homicides as a reaction to gross parental misconduct, rather than the work of cold, calculating killers.ĭr. After he began working on the case, Hart came to agree with the defense-when he took the stand, he argued strongly for the child-abuse defense.
The defense said the prime motive was sexual abuse the young men suffered at their father’s hands. In that case, the prosecution argued that the brothers had been motivated by greed, pointing to the lavish shopping they did after the killings. At the time, Lyle was 21 and Erik was 18. He also served as an expert defense witness in the trials of brothers Lyle and Erik Menendez, for the 1989 shotgun murders of their parents Jose and Kitty Menendez at their Beverly Hills home. Stuart Hart is an educational child psychologist and a professor emeritus at Indiana University, where he taught for 30 years.
Was Sexual Abuse Behind the Menendez Brothers' Murders? Article Details: Was Sexual Abuse Behind the Menendez Brothers' Murders?
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